Hidden Leaders

The emperor is dead. Long live the ... Wait a minute: after all, the succession to the throne is far from over! In the card game Hidden Leaders, two to six emperors' children are at each other's royal throats to decide once and for all which of them will follow in their father's footsteps.

The game is set on the fictional island of Oshra. There are four factions that you can ally with as players to take more and more power and to finally claim the throne. Those four populations are: the Imperialists, the Mountain Dwellers, the Water People and the Undead.

Uhm... Undead, you said? Yes, sorry, we forgot to say that: on Oshra, the deceased sometimes tend to come back. Above, the statement 'the emperor is dead' was made, but for the sake of completeness it should have been added: 'for as long as it lasts...'.

Anyway, there is a fierce internal power struggle going on at Oshra. With a lot of tug-of-war, as it is called. And in this case that should be taken literally, because in Hidden Leaders the necessary tension is created because the game mechanism 'Tug of War' is used). This usually means that a token or a pawn is moved forward or backward from a neutral position, for example towards the Dark or towards the Light, as in Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game.

In the game Hidden Leaders, however, there are no fewer than two pawns, one red and one green, which start at the same place on a development track and are moved one or more places to the left or right by playing cards. At the end of the game, the position of the two pawns determines which faction has gained the upper hand and which player has won. If there is a winner, actually, but more about that later. First, some more details about the gameplay.

We start by shuffling the six Emperor's Children Cards. In addition to the image and name of a son or daughter of the emperor and some background information, such a Character Card also contains the symbols and colours of two of the four Oshra factions with which this character could be aligned. Cyra the Just, for example, resembles her father and, as a general, strives to restore order and peace to the island. The factions she prefers to work with for that reason are the Imperial Army (red) and the Water People (blue).

The players secretly draw their Character Card, take a good look at it and place it face down in front of them, turning the Pretender to the Throne for the opponents into a Hidden Leader. After that, the special card of the Deceased Emperor is placed on the discard pile near the Cemetery to the right of the game board. Next, the Hero Cards are shuffled properly (red, green, blue, and black; each faction has its own renowned champions) and placed in a face-down draw pile near the Harbour on the left. Three of the Hero Cards are placed face up at the three Inns at the bottom of the game board and thus form a Market that can also be chosen from when collecting a Hero Team. Finally, each player is dealt five Hero Cards, one of which is placed face down next to the Hidden Leader Card and one is placed face down on the discard pile at the Wilderness at the top of the game board. So, you are left with three hand cards and voilà: now the battle can really begin.

During gameplay, players have the option to add a Hero Card to their team from their hand. This will also activate the Action mentioned on that card. Usually, such an Action involves moving the red and/or green pawn on the Tug of War Track. But there are also Special Promotions where, for example, you can land an opponent's card in the Graveyard. Instead of playing a Hero Card, you can also choose to discard one, two, or three hand cards in the Wilderness and then replenish your hand from the Inns or from the Harbour. Then you can play up to four cards, but at the end of your turn you always discard one more, so that in principle you always play with three cards.

The game ends when a player has a certain number of Heroes open in front of them. For example, for two players, there are eight face-up Hero Cards, and for six players, there are five. Then it is checked where the red and green pawn are exactly on the Development Track of the game board after all the wrangling. Are they both in Darkness (i.e. in zones 9, 10, 11 or 12)? Then the faction of the Undead wins. Is the red pawn at least two zones ahead of the green pawn? Then the Imperialists win. Is it the other way around? Then the Hill Tribes win. Are the red and green pawns together in the same zone, or are they directly next to each other in adjacent zones (and not in the dark)? Then the Water People win.

If none of the Hidden Leaders has colluded with the winning faction, then there is no winner of the game. If several players have allied with the victorious group, it will be determined who has the most Heroes of that faction in his or her team. And so there are a number of ways to break a possible tie and ultimately determine a winner.

Hidden Leaders is a very successful Fantasy war game with a lot of humor and a fun 'Eat-That' aspect. The cartoonish drawings by artist Satoshi Matsuura and the use of colour are extremely appealing. The publisher Gam'inBIZ has produced an awesome Dutch edition with an excellently translated rulebook and, what is most commendable, very good, funny and alliterative translations of the Hero Cards. Language lovers can only rejoice in ingenious inventions such as Schichtig Skelet ('Skittish Skeleton') and Maaiende Maniak ('Mowing Maniac'). Lots of compliments!

The game is set up in no time and plays smoothly. A point of criticism could be that you quickly realize which factions your opponent(s) is/are colluding with. But beware: there might be some strategic play and bluffing going on. After all, each player is able to bet his cards on two of the four factions and can therefore change tactics/colour at some point.

All things considered, we are very much pleased with this fun card game and the excellent Dutch production. We certainly can't agree with the paltry score we find on BoardGameGeek. 6.9. Tsk... No, the beautiful version of Gam'inBIZ certainly scores higher as far as we are concerned. Hidden Leaders in Dutch gets a well-deserved 8.5 and we are very much looking forward to playing (and reviewing) the expansion Forgotten Legends, since the game is going to be on the table here quite a few more times.