The Court of the dead calls. You and your fellow shepherds of souls are constantly finding yourselves in a tug-of-war with each other for those very souls and power in the Court. Will you be able to shepherd the most souls safely to be the overall winner? Let’s find out!
Court of the Dead Dark Harvest is designed by Ben Kepner with illustration by Abigail Larson and Ivan Koritarev. It is published by Skybound Games and is designed to be played with 3-6 players.
Setup
Each player starts with a privacy screen, Faction tokens and Influence tokens. The game play area is set up with the different Stacks for each of the Court types-Flesh, Spirit and Bone with one United card shuffled into each stack. The Harvest deck is set up with 5 random cards and one final random Harvest also.
In Court of the Dead, players will move through three phases of gameplay: an Income phase, Court phase and Harvest phase. These continue each round until the end of the game where the player with the most Souls will win!
Gameplay
Court of the Dead: Dark Harvest is played in multiple rounds with three phases repeated each round. They are as follows:
1-Income Phase. In the Income phase players will receive Souls and Influence to spend. Souls are gained as tokens dependent on the amount of players. Each player will have 5 Influence and can gain 1 each round.
2-Court Phase. In this phase, players will reveal the top cards of each of the three Court decks. Players decide which to bid on and then take a number of Influence tokens and the faction they want to bid on and reveal all at the same time. The player with the most bid for each faction wins it and the effects are resolved. After resolving the card the player takes the Faction favor for that faction.
3-Harvest Phase. Finally in this phase, you reveal the top card of the Harvest deck. The number on the card represents the number of souls that all players together must offer to the Celestials. Each player takes a number of Souls in secret and places them in their hand and reveals. Success is when the Souls are equal to or above the demands of the Celestials.
When it succeeds, the player who contributed the most gains a bonus Influence. If the group fails, they receive a Failure token and the one that contributed the least must resolve the Fail effect. After 2 fails, players with the least contributions begin to be eliminated.
Faction Favors allow you to break the game rules in small ways hen the player possesses them. Gameplay occurs until the final Harvest is resolved. Once the final Harvest occurs the player with the most Souls is the winner.
Impressions
Court of the Dead: Dark Harvest is a fun bidding game that takes a great theme in Court of the Dead and plants it on a game that really matches the overall feel. The bidding and secret hand knowledge is a fun mechanic that works really well with a group of people who get excited and enjoy bidding games. This is a game that will get you engaged from the beginning and keep you there round to round.
Bidding games and especially take-that games like this can be hard a little difficult for younger players so tread lightly if you have kids who get emotional or struggle with that in gameplay. Older kids and adults alike should be good with this, and if you have a group that really enjoy going back and forth with each other then it should be a fun, combative experience.
Overall I recommend this game to anyone looking for a fun time around the table bidding and bluffing each other as you fight to safely shepherd the most souls. Fans of The Court of the Dead will love how well it ties in to the IP and gamers alike will enjoy the experience. Make sure to check this one out and get it to the table soon!
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