Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King Review

Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King is an Auction, Tile Placement game.

Title: Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King

Year Published: 2015

Designer: Andreas Pelikan, Alexander Pfister

Publisher: Mayfair Games

Players: 2-5

Game Time: ~30-50 mins

Set-up Time: ~2 min

Ages: 8+

Theme: Ancient Scotland

Mechanic: Auction, Set Collection, Tile Placement

How to win: Score the most points by building the best Kingdom.

Game Description

Isle of Skye is one of the most beautiful places in the world, with soft sand beaches, gently sloping hills, and impressive mountains. The landscape of Isle of Skye is breathtaking and fascinates everyone.

Set-Up

Put the main player board in the middle of the table, it’s double-sided for 2-4 players on one side and 5 players on the so pick the right side now. Put a random scoring tile on the 4 spaces A, B, C, and D… Any tile can go in any space. Put the round marker on the first round space.

Each player takes a Screen, Starting Landscape tile with Castle, score token and discard marker.

Put the other landscape tiles in a bag and shuffle it and give the start player token to the youngest player.

Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King Game Play

So there are 6 phases in a round, 5 of which are done simultaneously.

1 – Income

You gain 5 Gold for your Castle and 1 per Barrel of Whiskey connected to the Castle via roads.

From round 3 onward, you also gain gold for each player ahead of you on the score track.

2 – Draw Prices, Set Prices

Draw 3 tiles and place them face up in front of your player screen. Assign the discard marker to 1 tile and assign at least 1 Gold to the remaining 2 tiles behind your screen.

Once done, players remove their screens

3 – Discard a Tile

Players put the discarded tiles back in the bag and shuffle it again.

4 – Buy a Tile

Starting with the start player and going clockwise, you may buy ONE tile from another player, or pass. You pay them the amount in Gold equal to the price they set for that tile. That player also takes back the Gold they used to set the price of that tile.

Then you keep the tiles you have remaining in front of your screen and pay the Gold you set for those tiles to the bank.

Any tiles a player buys are kept hidden until the next phase which ends once everyone has taken a turn buying or passing.

5 – Build

Place your tiles into your Clan Territory to expand your Kingdom. Tiles must share an edge with a tile already in your Kingdom, the terrain must match but Roads do not need to continue.

If you cannot place a tile legally, it is returned to the bag and any money you spent on it is gone.

6 – End of Round and Scoring

At the end of each round you score depending on the scoring tile which also depends on the round…

There are 16 scoring tiles in the base game and you only play with 4 so make sure everyone understands them!

Pass the start player token clockwise and move the round marker.

Game End

After the 5th round, the game ends and you score.

Some tiles have scrolls on them that may be worth points, score these now… If the area the scroll is in is a completed area, double the victory points.

You also get 1 victory point per 5 Gold you have

Whoever has the most points wins, with the tiebreaker being the player with the most Gold.

Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King Round-Up

I always say I enjoy games that are simple to play, but will always reward the player that plays best. Two reasons…

1 – If you don’t win, you achieved something, you’ve built an Isle and scored some points…

2 – The best player SHOULD win…

The trick to this is valuing a tile… You know what will score in the game so you look at your tiles and work out a value. A low-value tile can be discarded or offered out for a nominal amount…

But a useful tile… How useful is it? How much do you want it? Do you have enough? Can you price people out of getting it? What if you set the price too high and have to pay for it yourself? What if you price it too low and lose out on it? Where am I in turn order? How many times will this tile score?

So much to consider and we haven’t even placed a tile yet!

I still like Carcassonne but this is a good option.

Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King Rating

A very VERY nice game…

I give it 8/10

Isle of Skye First Impressions February 2016

Placing tiles to become King of the Isle of Skye. Don’t forget to deliver that Whiskey!

Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King is a very nice simple game but it’s frustrating at times as someone buys your tile! The game is one of those where you try and distract people from it without looking like you’re distracting people from it. It’s straightforward in a way but good play is rewarded with points.

I look forward to playing it with some of the different scoring options too.

Also, it looks nice on the table even though the tiles can’t possibly look as good as the real thing…

Jesta ThaRogue