The currency of Long Live The Queen are three different prestige tokens. They indicate how much each princess is feared by her rivals (red); how rich each princess is perceived (yellow); and how wise each princess appears (blue). A player must guide his or her gang to victory, either by accumulating three prestige tokens of each type or by causing the opposing princess to be turned face down.

Now let´s shift attention to the main mechanics of the game: Basically, Long Live The Queen is a dice rolling game. The result of a player’s dice roll (2 D6) effects both cards next to the corresponding number the number bar. These cards are either flipped face-up to their active side or - in case they are already active - their ability can be used by the respective players.

What a mess, I was thinking more than once, I should have better kept in mind which characters lies at which position. But never mind. The primary function of the characters is to gain prestige tokens. This is always a good strategy to win the game. Because three tokens of each colour wins the game. However, if at any time a player has received all 6 prestige tokens of one colour, his or her machination becomes too obvious, and all 6 tokens must be returned to the supply immediately, to avoid the attention of the police. And this occurs more frequently than you might think. So, it is also good to to know more about the individual abilities of the characters. Some characters effect opponent’s character tiles to be turned face down, others prevent adjacent tiles to be faced down. Another ability is to change the line-up of the gang by swapping adjacent character tiles. But what's that for? Well, on the one hand it is always good to have a lot of characters active, because only then you can use their functions. On the other hand, if you prevent the characters of your opponent to be active, he can not do much do with his characters. And if you even can bring the opponent's queen in the position where she can be forced to be flipped, victory is near to you.

But how does that work? How can you influence the roll of the dice? Isn't the whole game pure luck-dependent? I must confess that when I played the game for the first time, I couldn't imagine how the fight between the two gangs would move into gear. And expectantly, in the first 2-3 there were no really thrilling moments. All that happened was that character tiles that were faced down were flipped through the result of the dice roll. But round by round the situation changed. Now, both players were able to activate already revealed characters. By using their abilities, the running battle became thrilling because a player had the chance to turn an opposite gang member face down or gain prestige tokens. The course of the game became richer in variety. The better I got to know my gang members and their powers, the more I was able to react to the formation of my opponent by swapping, guarding and recruiting the characters in order to defeat the other princess. Keep in mind that some results of a 2D6 dice roll are more frequent than others. So, by moving your characters along the number bar, you can also influence which characters are activated more often than others.

In my opinion Long Live The Queen is a great two-player game which combines dice rolling and tile placement elements in a combative dieselpunk way. Players will need a few rounds to get used to the abilities of the characters, but the rules are easy to learn. The game has a good mixture of luck and strategy, while the strategy takes effect when the game develops. The material and the design of this small game is really excellent. I tested the dieselpunk edition. The standard version of the game only differs in design not in gameplay. I can suggest this short game for example to bridge the time until a third player arrives for a board game party, as it is short, easy and fun. So, lets call together the illustrious round, a sniper, a schemer,…