The revolutionary card game where you win by getting a head. This irreverent and humorous card game takes place during the French Revolution. Players represent rival guillotine operators vying for the best collection of noble heads over three rounds. Each round twelve nobles are lined up for the guillotine. The nobles are worth varying points depending on their notoriety. During your turn you play action cards to change the order of the line so you can collect the best nobles. The platter with the most points at the end of the game wins. Will you be skillful enough to bribe the guards to collect Marie Antoinette? Or will you lose points for beheading the Hero of the People? Heads are going to roll.
BoardGameGeek Rating: 6.5
MSRP: $14.01
Players: 2–5
Ages: 12+
Playtime: 30 Min
Publishers: Wizards of the Coast
Designers: Paul Peterson
Year: 1998
Concept
In Guillotine, players take turns playing cards to rearrange the order of the 12 nobles, of varying points, in a line on the table. Once the player has played a card (if they even could) and resolved its effects on the noble order, they get the card at the front of the line. This is the “beheading”. The game is played over 3 rounds of 12 nobles. The player with most points wins.
Quality
Nothing to write home about. Guillotine comes with your standard glossy deck of playing cards. It game includes a cardboard guillotine which isn’t very good and doesn’t seem to stay standing up.
Artwork
Simple cartoon drawings of a bunch of French nobles. Again, nothing to write home about, but the theme its works well.
Difficulty
Very easy.
Replayability
— Moderate
However, it is a game you will probably play multiple times in an evening, just not every evening.
Our Reviews
My rating: 7.5
by Aaron KlaserPersonally, I think this game is a lot of fun. It is definitely a small group party game, played best with 4–5 people. It’s easy to learn, easy to play, it’s even easy to strategize. People can have a conversation while playing because there is so little thought required to play. And, it has a short enough play time to get in a few games in a row without feeling fatigued.
My one complaint is that I wish they would have used the smaller half size playing cards for the noble deck. Once you line out 12 noble cards the game starts to take up a lot of real estate on your table.
But overall, I think Guillotine is an underrated game and while it’s not something you’re going to want to pull out every game night, it’s still great fun when you do.
My rating:
by Beth KlaserGuillotine is a simple game about executing French Nobles. It even has a simple objective- collect the most points — and I like that. It’s also not very time consuming, which makes playing it multiple times fun.
Players start with five action cards that allow them to change the line up of 12 Nobles, take extra actions, and really just add to the fun of the game. Players then take turns choosing action cards or re-arranging cards to execute the nobles with the most points. The player with the most points at the end of three days wins. I will agree with Aaron, Guillotine, is played best in a group of 4 to 5 players.
But what does it all mean? Find out how we review the games we play!
