Courtisans review — Backstab your way to success

Ahh yes, royal intrigue. Families vying for power, alliances built, alliances destroyed. I love games that encourage players to do this, and Courtisans creates this experience beautifully and I highly recommend this game. Let’s dig in.

To start, Courtisans, developed by Romaric Galonnier and Anthony Perone, with beautiful illustrations by Noemie Chevalier is a card game that focuses on a tableau building mechanic, in which all players play cards on their turn to help create influence on a “Queens Table”, their opponent, and their own hands.

The core point of the game is to gain more points than the other players when the cards run out, and you do this by creating positive or negative influence. At the start of the game, players draw 3 Courtier Cards, 2 Secret Mission cards, which are kept as secret until their turn. On their turn, they play all 3 Courtier cards, by placing one card in each area, either the Queen’s table, another player’s domain, or your own domain.  As turns go on, players will try to create influence with the Queen by playing cards either on top of the “table” or on the bottom, in the corresponding family slot.  At the end of the game, this helps dictate score.

However, players can alter this placement with the usage of Special Role cards. The Noble (counts as 2 cards), the Spy (played face down and revealed at end of game), the Assassin (can remove another Courtier), and the Guard (can never die) help create strategies in any of the domains, and helps create and destroy alliances, which were a part that I found to be a blast.

This, plus secret missions (like ensuring one family has 5 cards in their domain, or not having a specific family in your domain) really crank up the depth and moves by players in the game. 

The game is packaged in a standard small box, making it ideal for travel or storage. Inside, you’ll find beautifully illustrated cards with a gold foil treatment, which makes them feel extra special. The “Queens Table” is just a cloth covering, which is the only downside to this game. The material feels extra cheap, is wrinkly, and the illustrations on the cloth suffer because of this. If the mat was made from mousepad material, it would’ve been a better choice.

Each card is illustrated with a character, color, and animal companion, which helps separate the families, and makes it easy to identify them for your secret missions. I love the illustrations, but I do wish there was more variety in the families, to give them all some more flavor. I’m definitely team Toad.

Gameplay is a blast. As the turns went on, we found ourselves having to change our tactics during the game, some players choosing to forge temporary alliances, and some remaining silent, stacking up spies. The Special Role cards create some real fun moments that force players to change it up on the fly, and leads to a ton of replayability.

This game is really simple to learn, and once mastered, the complexity and strategies a player can employ are endless. You’ll find yourself peeking at other player’s domains, in an attempt to figure out their strategy, and how it’ll affect you. And this game rewards you for taking action, especially encouraging mean or risky behaviors. Sometimes, you have to give a card to a friend to knock down their score, or use an assassin to take out their favorite family. Luckily, the charm of the game keeps the tone from being too mean. Gameplay lasted around 45 minutes for our first time, then a solid 25 for the second, making this a perfect game to slide into a game night or between larger games. I look forward to taking this game on the road and playing it with friends and colleagues.

Courtisans is available now through Pandasaurus Games in the US and at many local game stores or online around $25.