Eleven: Football Manager Board Game

Product Information

Two-player is good fun, but I think four would drag it out, and the disparity in luck could see one player wipe the floor with the others. You toss dice to simulate their sloshy whims, the outcome of a single roll translating to votes based on a director’s individual approach. This is a worthy objective – weaving together Euro-style concepts with expressive narrative to create memorable sessions. Some staff cards offer the ability to get more tactics cards, but if those cards don’t come out, it can be quite difficult to play an appropriate formation against another team, and you may not have the advantage of being able to play a second tactics card for its unique power. The AI teams are tiered into different levels of difficulty, and this gives all the human players a level field each week as they will always be playing teams of equal difficulty; this could not be said if the humans had to play each other.

Additionally, the difficulty level of the game is chosen, and each player gets six opponents; one to play each week. Before I start explaining the game, I think it is important to start out by saying that while the game is very thematic, no previous knowledge of soccer/football is required to play or enjoy the game. During the six weeks of competition, you will be racing against other players on the League Table board .

This expansion comes with 14 extra scenarios and also provides an overarching campaign where you can link all of them together. All the upgraded cards have to be placed in the section of the field that is their specialty (forward, midfielder, defense). Eleven does just this, providing engaging stories full of flourishes such as struggling for sponsors, developing players, and witnessing the development and evolution of a football club under your influence, even if there’s a large cloud of chaos looming over each decision. Diluting the core game to facilitate more players was, in my opinion, not a move of belief but one of compromise. You know which team you’re playing, and how their strategy is, but you only reveal their exact line-up when you’re at the kick-off.

Thanks to skillful management you will carry out further transfers, train players, hire new employees, acquire sponsors and expand your own stadium.This can be really confusing at times as the wooden disc used to represent the resource is a round token. I enjoyed deciding if I wanted to bring a diaper company on as my sponsor, and whether I should put their logo on my jerseys for a bigger payout or just give them a billboard instead. Speaking of Trickerion, I actually found a few similarities between the two games worth mentioning, other than their similar lengths.