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My personal board for El Grande with soft color (more playable)

Mila, 4 days old, just fitting in the El Grande box, but we soon will need the Planet Steam box ;-)

I took a mould of my king. Now I can cast a quickly copy for my friend too.

Inside joke: The prisoners on the bonus cards are taken from the El Grande box cover art (see GeekList 35957 for more)

El Grande (1995)

Players

2–5

Best: 5

Playing time

60–120 min

Age

12+

7.77

Average rating

33,547

Ratings

2.93/5

Weight

#101

BGG rank

Top 1,000

Alternate names:エルグランデ +3 more

Designer:Wolfgang Kramer, Richard Ulrich

Artist:Doris Matthäus, Stefan Sonnberger, Franz-Georg Stämmele

Publisher:Rio Grande Games +15 more

Average rating, ratings count, weight and rank are sourced from BoardGameGeek (BGG).

Game DNA

Strategy7.0

Luck4.0

Interaction10.0

Complexity5.9

Theme5.0

This game's strategy, luck, interaction, complexity and theme.

MedievalAuction / BiddingSimultaneous Action SelectionHand ManagementOpen DraftingArea Majority / InfluenceTake ThatTurn Order: AuctionAction DraftingSelection Order Bid

Overview

In this award-winning game, players take on the roles of Grandes in medieval Spain. The king's power is flagging, and these powerful lords are vying for control of the various regions. To that end, you draft caballeros (knights) into your court and subsequently move them onto the board to help seize control of regions. After every third round, the regions are scored, and after the ninth round, the player with the most points is the winner.

In each of the nine rounds, you select one of your 13 power cards to determine turn order as well as the number of caballeros you get to move from the provinces (general supply) into your court (personal supply).

A turn then consists of selecting one of five action cards which allow variations to the rules and additional scoring opportunities in addition to determining how many caballeros to move from your court to one or more of the regions on the board (or into the castillo - a secretive tower). Normally, you may only place your caballeros into regions adjacent to the one containing the king. The one hard and fast rule in El Grande is that nothing may move into or out of the king's region. One of the five action cards that is always available each round allows you to move the king to a new region. The other four action cards vary from round to round.

The goal is to have a caballero majority in as many regions (and the castillo) as possible during a scoring round. Following the scoring of the castillo, you place any cubes you had there into the region you secretly indicated on your region dial. Each region is then scored individually according to a table printed in that region. Two-point bonuses are awarded for having sole majority in the region containing your Grande and in the region containing the king.