At UK Games Expo, Surprised Stare Games will be launching our new solo expansion for the Cousins' War. This expansion, designed by David J Mortimer and illustrated by Klemens Franz, enables players to fight the Cousins' War against an automated opponent, called BoT.

The opponent, BoT, is named after John Wenlock, 1st Baron Wenlock, a notorious turncoat, therefore here Baron of Turncoats or BoT.

The Solo expansion consists of a small Decision Deck, a Play Aid and the rules. Expected retail price is £8.00. The game is packaged in a pre-printed envelope that will fit neatly into the Cousins' War second edition box, or with the envelope folded, into the smaller first edition format.

For a first look at the prototype, see this post from GrahamS Games.

Summary of play
The player plays their side of the game using the normal base game rules. The BoT has its own Decision Deck that describes its potential Actions on its turn, replacing the base game's Actions. Each BoT turn, its Decision card (see example below) and the roll of dice show what Actions BoT will do, while the strength of the Actions is determined by the Command Points on BoT's base game Action card. For higher difficulty levels, BoT uses more dice and carries out correspondingly more Actions from its Decision card. Straightforward instructions govern the details of how BoT places and moves cubes, as well as BoT's performance in each battle; bearing in mind that BoT cannot bluff... but it can very much feel like it actually is.

Immense thanks to our playtesters, who have been unstinting in their time, effort, and comments: Graham Silvanus (GrahamS Games), Mike Elliott, Oliver MacDonald, Peter Piggott, Phil McDowell, Ricky Royal (Box of Delights)