Oriflamme - First Play!

25th July 2023

Tuesday is here again and we're at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club and it's time for some card-based entertainment.

According to Wikipedia: ​

'The Oriflamme (from Latin aurea flamma, "golden flame"), a pointed, blood-red banner flown from a gilded lance, was the sacred battle standard of the King of France.'

So it would seem Medieval France can be a interesting place; especially when The King dies without a heir. With a power vacuum left in his passing, various factions will now look to expand and fill that vacuum.

If you think that this sounds like good fodder for a game - then you'd be right!
Oriflamme is a hidden role card game about sticking it to your opponents.

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What's in a game?
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Cards: There is a set of 10 oversized unique cards in each player colour and each set features the same set of identical cards.
The cards fall into 1 of 2 categories; characters and intrigues, each depicts either a personality or situation, along with a scroll (in player colour) containing text which describes that card's action.
Actions might include acquiring influence tokens or eliminating other cards and so on.
Finally, the back of each set depicts its own in icon in its player colour.

Sample of green player's cards.

Influence tokens: There are 70 of these circular card tokens. Each point of influence  a represent victory point (VP).

The larger token on the right is the 1st player token.

Resolution direction tile: This tile depicts a bloody spear! It is used to indicate the direction of play.

Play would proceed from left-to-right from this facing.

Component quality is at the standard you'd expect from a modern game nowadays. The  tokens are suitably sturdy and the cards look fine. Nothing bad to write about here.

Painted artwork features throughout the cards, it's good looking art and each of the 10 individual card types has its own illustration. The art direction is relatively dark and moody, it fits the game's theme of betrayal and assassination quite well.

Iconography is kept to a minimum in Oriflamme with only a coupe of symbols to content with and most game information is relayed via text. This shouldn't pose any problems for players

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Player aid.

Reverse of player aid.

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How's it play?
Setup

• Players: Give each player a 10 card deck in their player colour.
  Now players should shuffle their cards and discard 3 face-down, other players should not see which cards their opponents have discarded. The remaining 7 cards constitutes each players' (now asymmetrical) hand.
  Each player should take 1 influence token.
• First player: Determine a starting player.
• Direction tile: This tile should be placed in the central playing area and will indicate the direction of play when placing cards and during the resolution phase.

On to play
The objective in Oriflamme is to acquire the most influence tokens over 6 rounds.
Each round is played over 2 phases and importantly, some extra rules will come into player after the 1st round
In the 1st phase players will be collectively creating a row of cards called the 'influence queue' along the direction tile and this is done in a traditional turn order.
During the 2nd phase, the cards will potentially be revealed in 'resolution' order which will likely be different to the turn order from the previous phase. When a card is revealed, its action is immediately resolved.

• ​Placement phase: In turn order and starting the first player, each player will choose and play 1 card face-down into the influence queue.
  First card: The first card played into the queue can be played 'anywhere'.
  Subsequent cards: All cards that follow must be placed to the left or the right of cards currently in the queue; that is at either the start or the end.
  Once all players have placed a card, the next phase occurs.
• Resolution phase: This phase is resolved in resolution order, that is the order the cards have been placed in the queue and thus starts with the 1st card in the queue whose player becomes the active player.
  Active player: When it comes to resolving their card, each player must choose from 1 of 2 options.
  • Add influence: Add 1 influence token from the supply to the card and move on to the next card.
  • Reveal card: The player must flip their card and resolve it, this will trigger one of several effects. Effects must be carried out in full if possible, even if it is detrimental to the active player and might include the following:
    Earn influence tokens: An action may allow the active player to gain influence.
    Steal influence: This allows the active player to take an influence token from a player's personal supply not from on a face-down card.
    Eliminate a card: When any card is eliminated, it is discarded from the queue and the active player earns 1 influence.
    Discard: A card that is either discarded for any reason or action, or eliminated follows the same rules.
    A discarded card is removed from the queue and returned to its owner, the queue is then 'closed up' to fill the gap. If the discarded card was face-down, it is revealed and any influence tokens that were on it are also discarded.
    ​Discarded/eliminated cards always remain face-up for all players to view.
• Next round: When a round ends, it is possible that all, none or some cards to be revealed and for some or none of the cards to be discarded/eliminated: Regardless of this, once all cards have been addressed, it is time for the next round.

Subsequent rounds: After the 1st round has been played out, all following rounds have a couple of extra rules/options.

• Placement phase: As well as putting a card at the start or end of the queue during this phase, players also have the option to put the card face-down on top of one of their own cards, creating a 'stack'.
  Only the top card in a stack is considered in play, everything beneath it is not. If the top card on stack is discarded, then whatever was beneath it is now considered back in play.
• Resolution phase: The following rules now apply during this phase.
  • Add influence: If a card is face-down, the active player may add a further influence token from the supply to the card. Thus, if a card from a previous round was not revealed, another token may added to it and they can continue to accumulate so long as the card remains face-down.
    Influence cannot be added to a face-up card.
  • Reveal card: The active player can reveal their card as normal, if there were any influence tokens on the revealed card are acquired by the active player and the card's action is resolved as normal.
    It should be noted that any actions that target other cards, only ever targets the top card in a stack.
  • Face-up card: If a card was face-up from a previous round, when it's turn comes up in queue, it's action must be resolved as usual, even if it is detrimental to the active player.

Endgame
Play progresses until the 6th round has been completed.
All players calculate the totalled value of their influence tokens.

Point are tallied, highest score wins,

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Overall
Oriflamme is a game of power grabbing, hidden motives, ambush and assassination which feels like it's set in a brutal world, a world where the wealthy and influential battle it out and vie to rise to power. In other words, a reasonable facsimile of medieval Europe.
While the game is somewhat abstract, it does feel quite appropriate and fit its theme.

​Mechanically, Oriflamme is pretty straightforward, it might get a touch fiddly when managing stacks but otherwise is easy to learn.

The rules aren't really that important here, this is not about playing the game. It's all about playing the players.
The complexity comes in how the cards interact with each other and their relative position to each other in the queue.
Players will need to watch their opponents, try and gauge their tactics and respond appropriately. They'll also need to watch which cards get revealed and discarded.
Oriflamme does a neat trick here though; by getting players to discard cards randomly it creates asymmetrical hands. Card counters won't be able to know exactly what cards other players can use. This imperfect knowledge means that there always a degree of risk to actions.
Depending on the type of people playing, there may well be some bluffing going on which is entire on par for the game.

With only 6 rounds, Oriflamme has a fairly quick play time, although that is with the caveat of not having players who suffer from analysis paralysis.
It's also a game of 'take that', direct interaction, conflict between players and will likely lead to some boisterous gameplay.
For me, it's something I don't mind in limited quantity but for some people this is can be off-putting and Oriflamme probably isn't for them.

I found Oriflamme to be an enjoyable and engaging game (Albeit with some stress!) that blends a bit of logic and strategy with a dash of luck to create meaningful and interesting decisions that might possibly lead to unpredictable outcomes. This makes it a good game in my opinion.