Storm the Castle

There’s a Rare Card Game in Castle

Castle is a strategic card game for 2 to 5 players. Even though it’s hard to find these days, you should try to find someone with a copy and give this fun game a try. Castle is one of our favorite games; we’ve played it nearly 100 times to date.

Castle cards are large squares, rather than the usual rectangles, that you place mostly in the courtyard or on the walls of the playing area. The walls (ramparts) themselves are rather thin cardboard, but they’re satisfactory for what they do. I recall being unsure about their sturdiness when we first got Castle, but they’ve held up surprisingly well over time.

You start Castle with a hand of cards and what we like to call a foot of cards; that is, a face down draw pile. The number of cards in your hand and foot varies depending on the number of players. There will always be some cards left over that will go face up into the Exchange.

Castle cards each show a character: King, Queen, Soldier, Captain, Dragon, Fairy, Assassin, Alchemist, and many more. Each card has restrictions on where, and sometimes when, it can be played. Each time you play a card, you place one of you circular wooden tokens on it to indicate ownership.

On your turn, you have 2 actions. You can draw a card from your foot, play a card to the board, or swap a card from your hand with one in the Exchange.

There is a fair amount of interaction between the cards which accounts for the fun in Castle. Your goal is to play all of your cards before your opponents. The trick is that very often your opponents can send card you own on the board back into your hand, forcing you to play them again.

Castle is really a tile placement board game. The tiles just happen to be cards in this case. Hive is also a tile placement board game, but instead of square cards, you place hexagonal insect blocks.

Check the price of Castle on Amazon.