Best Eleven Preview
Advert: this game was gifted by Ship Happens Games, this has not affected our preview in any way.
Those that are aware of my physique will be unsurprised to hear that I was never much of a footballer. I think my earliest memory of the sport (which American’s know as soccer) was collecting Panini stickers in primary school. My first completed team was Southampton and for some reason I still remember that today. It wasn’t until my teen years that my interest switched from watching wrestling to watching footy. Since then I have always enjoyed watching the sport, live and on the telly, but I reach fever pitch during International tournaments!
The beautiful game seems to struggle to translate to board games, but with my eldest son’s interest in following Spurs, I have been keen to give some a whirl to see for myself. So when Best Eleven came along looking a little different, I jumped at the chance to trial it out.
As a prototype, artwork, components and aspects of the game are likely to change, just bear that in mind when looking at the images!
Best Eleven Market Board and Round Marker
Best Eleven Hand of Cards and Player Screen
More about the game
Best Eleven is a set collection game utilising hand-management, with an auction element. You start the game with a hand of cards and a player board. Over seven rounds (representing a week) you are trying to entice players to your team and sign them ahead of your competition. Obtain the most points through numbers on cards, set collection and end game bonuses to be crowned the best manager.
Each round players will put up a single footballer from their hand to auction. This will be joined by other players’ cards and a random card from the deck, shuffled together and displayed. Behind their screens each player will then set a card down in the position of their card in the market as a marker. They will then use a combination of cards and/or money to bid on any player up for sale.
Once everyone has assigned their blind bids the auction is resolved. If you bid successfully on another player’s offering they get the money, ditto if they bid on yours you get their bid. Any footballers used as money can immediately join your team, although any signing-on bonuses are not activated. However, if you bid on your own card the money or cards goes to the bank, as does any money or cards used to bid on the random card from the deck.
Best Eleven Team Board
Best Eleven Hand of Cards
Any cards you win go on your manager’s board in public view. You will be looking to sign players for each of the positions on this board. This will be a mix of Defenders, Midfielders and Forwards. Each board has highlighted places and when these are filled you can also add a goalkeeper from the common supply, filling these places quicker ensures a better pick. You can always chop and change your team by discarding players or moving them to a different position if they are versatile and play in more than one position.
You will be looking for footballers that have similar attributes represented by icons on the cards, and those that help your end game bonuses. Some cards also have immediate signing-on bonuses that can be used for a one-off benefit to consider. After each round players draw back up to five footballer cards and get any extra money they deserve.
Now you know the goal of the game. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Best Eleven First Player Marker
A Selection of Best Eleven Cards
Final thoughts on Best Eleven
Before you cry “but I don’t like football”, stop and think how many games have themes you are not so sure on, but still reside in your collection! I really believe that you don’t have to like football to like the game. My wife enjoying it is testament to that! Sure those that follow the sport will get more out of the caricatures and their in-jokes, but those are nice to haves rather than essentials for the game. I appreciate them though and enjoyed working out who was who.
I really like the auction mechanic and deciding what card to offer, it’s tempting to play a card you want, but equally handy to raise some funds by offering a card your opponent really wants.
The artwork is fun and there is no AI as eight artists were used to create it. The player boards and screens are zingy and different. I like that, and also like that it comes with a ref’s whistle as a first player marker!
Interestingly the game has a neat catch up mechanic too, as end of round money is on a decreasing scale depending on how many players you have already signed. This enables those with less player’s to have more bidding options available to them.
The end of game bonus cards felt quite luck dependent but you can swap them out with others you acquire with signing-on bonuses which did address this quite nicely. The asymmetric manager powers seemed fairly equal too, but I would like to see more of these added into the game.It worked well at two to four players with downtime at a minimum.
I have really enjoyed building my squads and competing for hot signings against my eldest son. Best Eleven is one to cheer on during its Kickstarter campaign!
Bids Behind a Screen
