Knizia Game Round-up: Traveling the Silk Road into Bavaria and on to Doomsday

Würfel Poker plays similarly to Knizia's Schotten Totten, except that players are making mini-poker hands based on die rolls instead of played cards.

Each player has nine dice and three fields in which to place three dice, with those fields facing off against the opponent's fields. On a turn, a player rolls three dice, then commits one of those dice to one of their three fields; once a field has three dice in it, that field is full.

Once all nine dice have played by both players, they compare the strengths of their die combinations in opposing fields. The best combination is a three-of-a-kind, with three 6s beating three 5s, which beats three 4s, and so on. The next best combination is a straight, followed by a pair, followed by a single die, with higher numbers beating low ones in each of these combinations, e.g, a combination of 5-5-2 beats 4-4-6.

Whichever player wins two or three fields wins the game!

In Merchants of Silk Road (之絲路商人), players lay out all of the tiles in a single, snaking line, with the tiles being 1-6 squares large (in various sizes from 1x1 to 2x3). Each player has an individual game board with 24 empty squares on it in a 4x6 grid.

On a turn, the player whose camel is at the back of the line rolls a die. This player either accepts this result, moves their camel forward this many spaces on the path, and takes the tile their camel would land on and places it in their grid OR passes; if the player passes, then the player whose camel is next to last can take this die roll instead, with the original player rolling the die again.

Whoever first fills their grid wins!