Eleven: Football Manager Board Game

Product Information

In writing, the rulebook dedicates five of its 30 pages to tell players how to successfully score matches. The game is very much an economic game by mechanism; and knowledge of actual football tactics and strategy will likely not help you win more matches in the game. Thanks to skillful management you will carry out further transfers, train players, hire new employees, acquire sponsors and expand your own stadium. You now compare five areas to see who wins the matches (left wing, right wing, and the three central areas).

Eleven is a strategic game by Thomas Jansen (Club Stories, Tavern, Streetpainball) set in the world of football.Better yet, perhaps one of your star players is creating a ruckus and you have the option to loan them out to another club. If you fall somewhere in between, I hope this review gave you enough insight to see if this game will work for you. The game was similar to the Franchise mode in the Madden franchise of video games, where players could focus more on how a team plays each game than the playing of the sport itself.

Not only do the scenarios remind me of Robinson Crusoe – the way they change up the game and how you can win – but also the way you want to do a lot in this game, but you can’t do everything. While I generally was okay with this, especially at times where decisions got crunchy, I felt the theme suffered; no longer was I a football manager, but a gamer pushing cubes instead. Contract a Sponsor – you can add sponsors for your shirt logo or onto the adboards in your stadium (assuming you have empty adboards). The game finished a very successful Kickstarter campaign last year, and there are already a number of expansions that are available – made due to the response of the KS campaign.The author is also very active on BGG, and he is pretty quick to answer questions posted there; so if you get stuck on something, the question has likely already been asked by someone and already answered by the designer… But, after that, the rules are easily grokked and you’ll move smoothly through the different steps. Eleven was a huge success during the crowdfunding campaign, gaining nearly 4,000 backers on Gamefound.

Yes, it boasts a poor rulebook, another common characteristic attributed to the publisher, but it manages to come through on the self-professed identity in a way that I haven’t seen since Robinson Crusoe. At this point, you can assign the Players you have transferred to specific Jersey markers, which will allow you to use their special effects. Additionally, while the player mats representing your stadium, the pitch, and the managerial offices are nice, it would have been nicer if they were made out of cardboard rather than thin plastic sheets. I don’t know how it feels to run a club, but I suppose does Eleven decent job at what that would look like. In addition to raw money, you must juggle several other resources which are used to re-roll dice, accomplish additional daily actions, and suit players up for matchday.

Many professional and national players have emerged from our Italian neighborhood known as The Hill. The theme is so well applied to the game, and the engine-building is very clear and simple in practice. In all honesty, it could very easily be re-skinned into almost any other team sport, and the only tweaks would come in the match section. Firstly, there are two decks of players – Youngsters and Regular players – with their Untrained side up.

In my opinion, this game took the original Club Stories game and added a lot of elements that made Robinson Crusoe such a memorable experience. Next to the Transfer Area, there are facedown decks of Board Meeting cards, Tactics, Objectives, and 4 decks of Opponents (divided into Leagues) that you will face every Friday during the Match. Eleven: Football Manager Board Game (to be referred to henceforth simply as Eleven) is a 1-4 player, economic action selection, open drafting game with a fair spot of luck involved The game will run you between 1-4 hours, heavily dependant on player count.Just those player boards and all the components for each player is nearly too much to put on my large Game Topper. This involves a die roll, and depending on the makeup of your board and how they are inclined to vote, it may lead to good results or a big inconvenience that your club has to contend with for this week.