Ah, the lazy days of summer!

Time to sit outside and enjoy the fresh air.

Or time to play some lawn games with your family like cornhole, bocce ball, ladder toss, horseshoes, or spikeball to name a few.

Well, now there’s a new lawn game on the scene that brings in some board game type fun to the mix – Kingdoms Lawn Game!

Kingdom Lawn Game, by ET Games, is a fantasy themed lawn game for the entire family.

Individuals or teams join mystical factions bent on taking down their enemies. Players throw balls (armies) underhand at their opponents lawn pawns (castles). The last player/team with a castle standing, wins!!!

 

How to play Kingdoms Lawn Game

Setup:

First pick a large area to play on called the “Realm”. Shoot for roughly 30 feet by 30 feet or as large as you can get.

Mark out the Realm by outlining the area with the included stakes. The Realm can include some obstacles but we’ve found it best if it’s mostly open space.

Players (or teams) then choose a Faction to play with. There are 4 factions included in each Kingdom Pack and there are 3 Kingdom packs available.

Players collect their 4 faction castles and 4 “armies” (aka the balls) and place them behind the Battle Line. This is a line on the edge of the Realm where players will be throwing from. Each player will be equally spaced along the Battle Line and must remain in that position throughout the game.

Once players have their castles and armies collected, the starting player will throw one of their castles into the Realm followed by the next team and so on. Once all players have thrown out their first castle, they then throw out their second castle and so on until all the castles have been put in play.

If a castle lands outside the Realm, that castle is disqualified and removed from play. If any portion touches the border, it remains in play. If a castle rests against an obstacle that would keep it from being knocked down, it’s moved 5.5” away from that obstacle.

Players are now ready to play.

Gameplay:

Players take turns throwing (underhand) one of their armies (balls) at their opponents castles — trying to knock them over.

They can knock over one or more castles with each throw (including their own castle). This continues until all players have thrown all of their armies.

Once all the armies have been thrown, players retrieve their 4 armies and return to the Battle Line. Players leave knocked over castles on the battlefield as obstacles. If no castles were knocked over, the Battle Line is moved forward 3 stake lengths.

This continues until only 1 faction has a castle or multiple castles standing.

Variants:

There are a few different variations to Kingdoms Lawn Game which include:

• “Lighting” – Players race out to retrieve their armies — collecting up to 5 armies instead of the standard 4. This means that a player/team can be left with fewer than 4 armies to throw next round.
• “Mercenary” – Teams that are knocked out of the game (ie. all their castles have been knocked over), can continue throwing armies at their opponent’s castles.
• “Supremacy” – When a team is knocked out, the team who knocked them out gets to use their armies.
• “Ghost Castles” – Factions not controlled by any teams will still have their castles in play. When a team knocks over a “ghost” castle, they receive a ghost army to use for the rest of the game. Note: Ghost castles must be thrown to the back half of the Realm during setup.
• “Special Abilities” – Each faction also has a unique ability which changes up the game. Players can choose to play with these abilities or not. I won’t go through all of these in this review but some abilities include throwing overhand, moving one step closer, immunity for a round, etc… I’ll let you discover the others on your own.

What we like about Kingdoms Lawn Game

My family loves lawn games and we play all types throughout the Spring and Summer. (I personally got started way back in the day with horseshoes.)

The gameplay from Kingdoms Lawn Game is very similar to my favorite lawn game, Kubb. Players try to be the first to knock over the lawn pawns. The main difference with Kingdoms Lawn Game is the fact that you’re knocking down your opponents pawns (not yours) and you only have to do it once. Whereas in Kubb you have to knock down the pawns twice.

Also, in Kingdoms Lawn Game, players are allowed to create alliances to take down their foes. This adds a whole new layer of complexity especially when the kids decide to gang up on Dad.

All the components are made from wood — which is fairly typical for a lawn game. However our balls have already starting to crack. And just like other wooden lawn games, the wood dents and dings as the components are tossed around the yard.

How does Kingdoms Lawn Game score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

With all of the different play variants, my kids have asked to play this game a lot. They love trying the different abilities and game play modes to find the one they like best.

The fact that you can literally play this game anywhere makes it very accessible and it’s easy enough for the whole family to play.

Not only does Kingdoms Lawn Game score high on our “let’s play again” meter, we’ve played this game many many times already.

 

About the Author

Dane is an Advertising and Layout Manager for a national magazine by day and a husband, father of four, and board gamer by night (and mornings). He has a passion for board games and believes board games help bring families closer together while providing kids a unique way to learn many diverse skills. And he thinks they’re downright fun!!!

We’d like to thank ET Games for a review copy of Kingdoms Lawn Game.