Gnaughty Gnomes and The Six of VIII Preview

boardgamequest.com:

If you haven’t heard, we are in the thick of a trick taking renaissance. While every few years it feels like there is a new darling type of game I’m especially fond of this one as I grew up playing endless rounds of euchre at the dining room table. But these days we are seeing more unique twists on mechanisms and themes to give rise to the dozens of options added to the category.

One publisher who has been leading that charge is New Mill Industries. They’ve signed and reprinted some hard-to-acquire Japanese titles as well as published some new designs. Often they’ve launched games on Kickstarter but today we are looking at their two newest games which New Mill has made available for preorder directly on their website until the end of February. So if you like what you see below head over to their website and get your order in.

The Six of VIII

The Six of VIII is certainly the more traditional trick-taker of the games today. Players are partnered with the across-table companion and will pass them two cards before the hand. You play cards into a trick, are required to follow suit, and the highest card of the lead suit wins unless a trump is played. But there is a lot that makes The Six of VIII unique.

The game is themed around the six wives of Henry the VIII. Each suit represents a wife and not every suit is even, some have more cards than others, based on the length of their marriage. The trump suit also changes throughout the hand as Henry moves on from wife to wife. You’ll generally be trying to win as many tricks as possible, as they are each worth a point. But some cards are worth more points to the winner of the trick. This gives a lot of options for throwing the point-heavy cards into tricks you believe your partner has locked up.

There is an advanced variant that adds some special cards which can be played as red or black suits depending on the situation and the King himself that beats all other cards. They are an easy inclusion into most games if you are