Looking for a board game with beautiful artwork that’s perfect for this spooky season? Check out Court of the Dead: Mourners Call!
Court of the Dead: Mourners Call is a two to five player game designed by Patrick Marino and published by Project Raygun. The court of the dead universe is based on the lore and characters from Sideshow collectibles and writer Tom Gilliland. A typical game will play in roughly ninety minutes with more or less added due to player count.
Court of the Dead: Mourners Call: $99.99
Get It For Less At Miniature Market
Everyone is already dead in the Underworld. It’s time to join the factions of Bone, Flesh, and Spirit as they work to achieve the goal of the Underworld: to gather enough forces to take on the celestials of Heaven and Hell to end their ceaseless war. If the players work diplomatically in Court of the Dead: Mourners Call to maintain a balance, they can ensure the Underworld survives long enough for them to also complete their collective and hidden individual objectives. The player who best contributes to these goals will earn Death’s favor and a place among the elite of the Underworld.
You are a Mourner – an allegiant of Death – dedicated to realizing his noble ambition to end the celestial war and restore balance to the universe. However, Death’s purpose includes your own ulterior motives. You and your fellow Mourners must unite and rise, or fall together. But only one Mourner will achieve their particular vision of the Underworld united. Your task will not be easy. While the Underworld is united in its purpose, it is divided in its strategy to achieve that aim. There are three factions in the Land of the Dead: Bone, Flesh, and Spirit. Each is a unique path to rise up against Heaven and Hell.
You will need to strategically manipulate your influence within these factions, their strongholds and guilds, and within the Court of the Dead if you wish to achieve your ends. But beware: The power within mortal souls – known as Etherea – is a perilous substance. Use it carelessly, and you risk invoking the Dreadsgrip – a destructive force within every Mourner that consumes all it touches, including its former master. Failing to satiate the celestials’ war need, or triggering the Dreadsgrip, has dire consequences for all Mourners. Are you strong enough to achieve your own ambitions and be the champion for the uniting force for which all Mourners Call?
Ages: 14+
Players: 2-5
Game Length: 90 minutes
Great Art & Minis Make Mourners Call One of The Best
Court of the Dead combines many fun mechanisms. It has elements of Area control, card drafting, take that and some worker placement as well. These all combine into some really stellar gameplay.
Each player is a recently deceased character known as a mourner. Heaven and Hell are constantly fighting and you are charged with supplying their war machine with Etherea. Well, Death has had it and wants to end the war and restore the cosmic balance of the universe. You are all working together to keep the underworld safe while achieving your ulterior motive and standing with Death. There are three factions you can ally with to help further your cause. The factions of Bone, Flesh, and Spirit can be joined by each player with different methods of victory.
The first player is given the Death the alltaker miniature. This goes to the oldest player, therefore, the one who is closest to death. Each player will be dealt one each of three ulterior motive cards the choice of which declares your faction allegiance. This card will determine how you score victory points in addition to the normal faction influence points. Then based on your faction you will be given a choice of mourner card. Mourner cards give you a unique ability as well as one of two guild figures based on faction
After factions are chosen and the game is setup the first player rolls dice to see how much Etherea is to be distributed. Each player ending with the first player will pick a pile and the leftover will go into the Dirth Forge as part of the tithe. Then each player will draw a Wallows card which is a goal card for the round. These can vary from artifacts, locations, or even a deadly Raker, which is a lost soul of sorts or a feral undead who has fallen to the Dreadsgrip.
The next phase is to draft court cards. These represent the leaders and heroes of the main factions as well as Death himself. These each have two abilities that can gain mourners, influence or sometimes a temporary powerful main character ally.
The action phase allows players to move figures, recruit new mourners, or play court cards. The idea for moving into various locations is to have area majority to gain rewards. Any players who tie for control are both denied rewards. The player with the Death figure may break any one tie a round so this is one such opportunity.
The next phase is the tithe phase. Basically all players take up their Etherea and blind bid to together satisfy the minimum requirement based on player count plus the celestial suspicion. As you do different actions to further your goals, the celestial suspicion meter may increase making it harder to meet the tithe minimum. If the tithe is met then everyone who contributed Etherea gains a unity token. The player who contributed the most gains three of these tokens. Unity tokens are worth points so they are very valuable.
Finally, we check for area majority at the map locations. Each location grants a different type of reward to the player with the most presence. Of course, we need to also mind the dreadsgrip rating. As players recruit guild figures the dreadsgrip increases reducing the number of figures that can safely be in the same location. Any location that exceeds the dreadsgrip must have each player roll a dice for each of their individual units. A roll of two returns the figure to your crypt to recover while a roll of one causes the figure to become a raker and is destroyed.
After locations are rewarded the players check for guild figure majority. You get rewards for each type of guild figure as well. Again ties gain nothing unless broken with the Death figure.
Gameplay continues like this until all the unity tokens are acquired in a round. Players then reveal their ulterior motives and score them. They add up any unity tokens and the scores for the three faction’s influence ranking as well. The player with the most points is the winner and stands with Death.
I have played this game several times at different player counts and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I like how it’s area control but not overly focused on that. It definitely feels more like worker placement and I love that. The production on Court of the Dead is just insane. Probably the best I’ve seen as far as component quality.
The figure sculpts are pretty good, but might not be up to standard considering this is a Sideshow Collectibles IP. Honestly, the figures look serviceable to me and the gameplay is solid and that’s what matters most to me. The artwork is simply gorgeous each of the cards has this hand-drawn penciled look to them.
I definitely recommend you give this game a try. It’s sure to be a hit at your next game night.
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About the Author: Christopher Guyton
When not driving forklifts for a living Chris can be found pushing cubes and chucking dice at Gamer’s Guild in Spring Lake, NC
