Rowdy Partners

• Designers: Jason Hager and Darren Reckner
• Publisher: Capstone Games
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 14+
• Time: 30-45 mins
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4oWN8JF
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Howdy, partners! In the sun-baked dust of Dusty Gulch, where shadows stretch long and strange, disagreements find resolution not with a six-shooter, but in the Rowdy Ring. Here, common sense yields to the thrill of a wrestling match, proving that in this corner of the Wild West, might makes right — one suplex at a time.  Rowdy Partners is a team trick-taking game played over a series of rounds, with each round being composed of eight tricks. Work with your partner to beat the other players by draining their health through calculated strikes and sneaky counters. Swap wrestlers mid-match, unleash signature moves, and collect Pop to gain the upper hand. The team that first pins one of their opponents wins!

To set up the 4p game, put the play board and the Rowdy Ring on the table. Each player chooses a wrestler and takes the board, token and signature move token for their choice.  Each player starts at maximum health.  The character tokens are placed on the Rowdy Ring board – showing one team on 1-4 and the other on 2-3; in terms of the wrassling match about to happen, the characters on spots 1 and 2 are the ones in the ring.  Spots 3 and 4 are their partners, waiting to be tagged in.

Partners sit next to each other in this game (unlike most team trick taking games) – and the players combine their boards together to form the Pop track, with a marker placed at the bottom most space.

Rowdy Partners will be played over a number of hands, each comprised of eight tricks.  Play continues until one of the wrestlers is out of health and is pinned.

The deck is shuffled and each player is dealt 8 cards.  The four remaining cards remain unseen for the duration of this hand.  The player currently in the #1 position leads a card, and a must follow trick is played. If a wild card is lead, a lead suit must be declared.  Following players are not obligated to play a wild card to follow.  There is no trump.  If two cards of the same value are in the trick, they are both flipped over and now ignored.  This could change the lead suit as the earliest remaining card now becomes the lead card and thus determines the lead suit. 

Tokens can be used to modify the cards.  Pop tokens are gained as you play cards with Pop icons on them.  Each pop icon allows you to move your team’s Pop marker up a space, and if you reach/pass an icon, you get the corresponding token. These tokens can be played with cards from your hand.

• Tag – played before your team plays a card; this switches the order of your wrestlers
• Coins – modify the value of the card you played
• Cheats – these can modify the values or the suits of your cards
• Damage – causes additional damage if you card wins the trick

Some wrestlers also come with Signature move tokens that are unlocked as you move over the matching icon on the Pop track.

The lowest card wins the trick, and immediately, the losing team’s wrestler that is in the ring takes damage equal to the strength of the card that won the trick.  As you get to 0, you will note three stop signs before being pinned.  You can only move past one stop sign per trick.   The number in the yellow arrow between Stop signs tells you how much damage is required to move to the next stop sign.

Now, the character that won the trick must be in the ring and must be in the #1 position.  This may require partners on the winning trick to switch places; this may also require the teams to flip flop their positions.

Continue play until the hands are played out. When the hand is complete, shuffle the deck, re-deal and continue playing.  The game is won by the team who is finally able to pin one of their opponents.

My thoughts on the game

Rowdy Partners is riding the tidal wave of trick taking games that has hit our hobby in the past few years.  It’s amazing that I can play so many different card games that still feel fresh and different.  Here, the wrestling theme is definitely different, and the whole team interactions also feel different from most other games that I’ve played.

I like the variety of wrestlers in the game, and each has a little bit of a different feel given their Signature moves and the icons on their Pop track.  It doesn’t change things a whole bunch, but it’s also fun to act out as different wrestlers as you play.

The card play is interesting enough, but the Raj cancellation mechanism does lead to some interesting results at times.  Given the special actions as well as the Pop tokens – there seems to always be a chance to be surprised with identical values in a trick.

The damage system in the game is a fun thing to work with, and the three stop signs at the end of the track act as a natural catch-up mechanism as each of those final three steps takes a separate trick (and you must overcome the damage threshold to cause movement on the track).  

It’s interesting to see how the wrestlers enter the ring whenever they win a trick or someone plays a tag token.  The mechanism on the ring board works just fine, but I’ll admit that we had plenty of misplays as we learned the game as our brains are so ingrained to play clockwise from the leader as in most trick taking games.  Additionally, it is fairly hard to see the smallish icons on the ring board – it would have been much better to have chits with play order numbers on them to put in front of each player.

Using the low card to win a trick is a nice change; and it makes sense when taking the damage mechanism into account.  The challenge here is – win with the highest low card possible in order to do the most damage.  Some of the tokens can add damage to your card which helps, and there are always a few tricks where a timely elimination of cards leads to a big wallop – we’ve once had a trick where a 7 won!

The game also offers rules for 2 and 3 player games, but I’ll admit that I haven’t tried them.  The game is sold as a tag team wrestling trick taking game, and we’ve only played with the full complement of four players.   You get to use new wrestlers in this format, and they can pair with three different managers to give you different Pop tracks.  

If you’re looking for a light trick taking game with a heavy dose of theme, this one is as good as a suplex into a ringside cafeteria table just after you’ve been hit over the head by a metal folding chair.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

I love it! Erik Arneson

I like it. Dale Y

Neutral. 

Not for me…