Boardgame Review: Raise Your Goblets!

Have you ever had the urge to poison one of your friends? Ofcourse, you don't! BUT this game will make you change your mind. Raise your Goblets is a 2-12 player game for ages 8+ (it is actually a 2-6 player game but you can combine another set to make it to a 12-player game) and it comes with a unique twist of components that will make you appreciate the game even more.

It comes with a set of goblets and color-coded goblet rings that you will attach to the bottom of your goblet. It also comes with a set of color-coded stones that represent liquids:

Red Stones = Wine

Black Stones = Poison

White Stones = Antidote

Special Stones:

Blue Stone = Unicorn Antidote 

Green Stone =  Ogre Poison 

It also comes with different noble cards that gives the player a special action/ability during the course of the game. These noble cards can be replaced every round.

The story (game) is set on a gathering and Nobles are invited to a banquet. Sadly, each of them has a personal vendetta against the other nobles and would do anything to poison them. The game is started as each player receives a TARGET CARD on who you must poison to score a point in one round, everybody will know who each other's target is thus making the game really challenging.

The round starts with the players having:

- 3 wine tokens

- 2 poison tokens

- 2 antidote tokens

1 Noble card + 1 Target Card

1 Goblet + 1 Color-Coded Ring (coaster)

On each of the player's turn they can perform 2 actions from these choices:

- Secretly put 1 token into a goblet

- Peek at their goblet

- Swap a goblet with another player

- Rotate all the goblets (to the left or to the right) 

Once an action is done, the next player performs another series of actions. Now, whoever gets to pour all his red tokens/wine tokens first shall declare a toast.

A toast is made once 1 player pours out all his wine tokens into a goblet, once the toast has been made only 1 rotation is left for all the players to perform their last actions before everybody drinks from the goblet in front of them. Ofcourse, you are not literally drinking those stones, rather everyone will check the goblet to see if they die or live.

1 poison token (black token) can be cured by 1 antidote token (white token)
red tokens count as regular wine and is not harmful. If a player gets more black tokens than red or white ones, he dies.

Scoring:

The scores are made by the following conditions:
1. You kill your target = you score 1 point
2. You live = you score 1 point
3. If you live and kill your target = you score another bonus of 1 point making you score a total of 3 points in 1 round.
4. If 1 player has the most wine tokens in his goblet, he also scores 1 point

If you die in 1 round you get to have a new noble card and begin another round with a new character. The game concludes in 3 rounds and whoever scores the most points wins the game! This is a game of survival and tactics. We played this game with our playgroup a couple of times and we find it really entertaining! It's best played on party nights so it matches the theme of the game.

We give this game a 6.5/10

Happy Playing Everyone! 

(Credits to the owner of the photo)