Tara
Tara, developed by Murray Heasman and distributed by Tailten Games, is an abstract strategy game inspired by the Book of Kells. Players place red and blue “ring forts” onto the board, and link them together with bridges. By the end of any given game, the board looks more like a piece of Celtic knotwork art than a game. Tara is for two players, ages 8 and up, and runs about half an hour.
My biggest complaint with Tara is really no fault of the game: I just don’t have many opportunities to play two-player games. That disappoints me quite a bit, because Tara holds a lot of promise. The components are well made, the gameplay is compelling, and there are enough variants included to keep the game interesting. I wouldn’t exactly call the rules “intuitive,” but once you wrap your head around them, they’re easy to hold on to. Given the opportunity, I could see playing quite a bit of Tara.
I will admit to being at a disadvantage as I try to write this review. I’ve never reviewed an abstract strategy game before; I’ve never even thought of reviewing an abstract strategy game before. The version of Tara I have is a review copy, sent to me several months ago. In addition to trying to shoehorn games into my schedule, it’s taken me quite a while to figure out how to write this.
As such, let’s start off easy and say that that Tara’s playing pieces are attractive and well made. The board is fairly basic, made of thick cardboard, with cutouts for the ring fort pieces to fit into. The ring forts are octagons that have a colored, rounded square running around a central square divot, which acts as a placeholder for the king pieces, and the piece’s insertion point on the board. The bridge pieces are of the same color and fit snugly into the ring forts, extending the lines across all the linked pieces. When the board is full at the end of a game, it looks like a piece of Celtic knotwork, and every game creates a different piece of art. The king pieces are royal, crowned busts that have a surprising amount of detail for their small size, and all the pieces are made of a solid, sturdy plastic.
I guess that’s really it, as far as the “easy part” goes. Writing about the game mechanics intimidates me a bit, not least of the reasons being that Tara includes four different rules variations, two scoring options, and two “levels” of rules for each of the game variants. It’s a lot to take in when you first start flipping through the book.
Each of the variants, though, works on a central theme: expand your territory by placing ring forts or capturing your opponent’s ring forts, and protect the territory you have by linking ring forts together. When the board is full and all the forts have been linked, the player with the fewest number of kingdoms (or the fewest number of knots) is the winner.
I hesitate to go too deeply into the rules, as they are kind of confusing even when the board is sitting in front of you. Without the game around, I’m afraid they’ll just be gobbledygook. That said, once you actually start playing the game, the mechanics come easily enough, and the rules never really get in the way of enjoying the strategy of the game.
Each of the game variants stands on its own quite well, and they range from simple to fairly complex. On the simple end, you and your opponent take turns placing ring forts (but not linking them) until the board is full; then, you take turns switching out opposing pieces and placing one bridge to link one set of forts. It’s probably the easiest variant to learn and play, but it still has a lot of depth and strategy, as you’re given a way to break links your opponent has made.
On the complex end of the scale is a variant where you’re placing and capturing ring forts, building kingdoms and trying to manage your three king pieces who have their own movement and capturing rules. In the couple of games I had the opportunity to play, I felt like I hadn’t even scratched the surface of that variant game.
Unfortunately, that last sentence really sums up my entire experience with Tara. I like the artwork, I like the depth, I like the variability, but I just don’t have the opportunity to play two-player games like this. I’m glad that this game is in my collection, because I would like, at some point, to coerce someone to play this with me on a regular basis. If you’ve got better luck than me, and have someone to play two-player abstract-strategy games with, definitely pick up Tara.