Haggis

3. Haggis

by Sean Ross


Players: 2 - 3
Ages: 13+
Time: 45 mins
Type of game: Card, Trick taking
Reccomended?: Yes

About once a week, I'll head into my local game shop, Mondo Comico, where confused philanthropic billionaire (only one of these words is true) David Q. Smith, Esquire hosts game session.

There'll be a game or two going on and, if you're lucky, there'll be a game about to end or a few people milling about so you can jump into a game quickly. Occasionally, there'll just be 1 other person around and you get the chance to play a 2 player game. It's rare these will come out at a games night as people generally want to play with larger groups.

This past Tuesday though I arrived whilst a game of Robber Knights (coming soon to The List!) was halfway through. Thankfully, there was one other unattached gamer there so we were able to break out another game.

Which was Haggis. I'm going to play this again soon as we spent most of the game getting to grips with the rules.

Haggis is a trick-taking game and, if you want to play with 2 and don't mind either defacing a deck of cards or referring to a list of notes, one you can try out now.

You will need:
1 friend
1 deck of playing cards
1 pen (if you're going to deface the cards)

Pull out the aces and 2 sets of royalty leaving you with 4 suits of cards 2-10 and 2 sets of Jack, Queen, King (suits are irrelevant). Write 1 on each 3, 5, 7, 9, 2 on your Jacks, 3 on your Queens and 5 on your Kings. These are the point values of the cards when you add them up at the end.

Put a set of royalty in front of each of you and shuffle up the rest of the cards dealing 14 to each leaving 8 in a pile on the table (this is the Haggis).

Look at your hand and decide how likely it is that you will be the first player to get rid of your cards and bet either 0, 15 or 30 points on this. At the end of the game you or your opponent will win this depending on whether you were successful or not.

The player to the left of the dealer starts (or the right of the dealer as there's only 2 of you anyway). You lay a trick and then the other player either plays a higher trick of the same type and number or passes. When the other player passes you collect the cards.

The tricks are mostly sets (singles, pairs, three - 6 of a kind) and sequences (run of 3 or more cards of the same suit or runs of sets (2 or more)). Along with these are bombs which beat anything. These add a massive dose of strategy to the game as, while they beat anything (apart from higher level bombs), the cards won go to your opponent adding to their score but giving you control of the next round. I'm not going to tell you what they are. You'll have to buy the game if you want them.

The round is over when one person gets rid of all their cards. You then score thusly:

0, 15 or 30 points for clearing your hand
5 points for each card in your opponents hand (including any of the royalty on the table)
Both players collect up the cards they won (the person who emptied their hand gets the Haggis and the remainders of their opponents hand ) and score the points on the cards

The game can continue until one player reaches a certain point value. 250 points is suggested for a shorter game, 350 for a longer one.

This isn't the kind of game I'd normally go for, being relatively themeless as it is. I got it as part of a Kickstarter deal along for Flashpoint: Fire Rescue (coming soon the The List!) for a few quid extra and have been pleasantly surprised. It feels like a traditional game and certainly draws inspiration from old card games. Whilst the box says 13+ I wouldn't hesitate in introducing this to a much younger audience and it being a success. That is, of course, assuming you're willing to dumb down your play a little.

Buy it at your local game shop (most will order in for you) or: