Dubious Alliance Fantasy Card Trading Game (2013)

About this game

Dubious Alliance featuring A Band of Orcs is a Fantasy Bluffing Card Game where you are an Orc racing to gather weapons, loot magic items, fight monsters, avoid traps, gain treasure and the prestige to take control of your tribe before someone in your band gets killed. The game is for 3 - 7 players and takes less than an hour to play. Dubious Alliance is best described as a 'cooperative backstabber'. Players work together to survive the Orc realm of Hirntodia. To win, a Player must 'lie, cheat and steal' to negotiate favorable cards (magic, treasure, victory) and gain the highest Prestige value in trading cards by trading away negative cards (Traps, Monsters and more). However, because you are a band, you can't out right kill your competition. If an Orc player dies, the game ends and everyone loses! So on the one hand, you are working together to survive and on the other, you need to keep your competition weak so you can win... truly a Dubious Alliance.

Does it fit your group?

• Group size. Works with 3 to 7.
• Rules load. At 1.9/5 this is a light game — explain it in a few minutes, good for a table that has not played much.
• Age. The publisher suggests 12 and up. That rates the rules rather than the artwork, so judge the box yourself for younger players.