Tabletop Scotland 2025

The second playtest of Clan Feud at Tabletop Scotland 2025

On Saturday 6th September I went along to Tabletop Scotland - the biggest and best board game convention in Scotland! It was the first time I had attended, and it definitely exceeded my expectations. I had a great time! Tonnes of stalls, loads of food options, sprawling tables for gaming and certainly too much to do for just one day! I took along Clan Feud to try and get some playtest games in. And I was not disappointed: two fantastic full sessions, with lots and lots of really in-depth feedback. Exactly what I was looking for from the event, and everything I could have hoped for when attending!

I was too slow to book an official slot in the playtest area - they had all been booked up by the time I submitted my application to test Clan Feud. I had wanted to get the game more polished and in as good a state as possible before submitting, which was the wrong call in hindsight. But it didn't matter in the end, because I set the prototype up next to the official playtest area and carried out some impromptu playtests anyway!

To start the day I did head into the playtest zone, and tried out Happy Valley - shout out to Andrea, who has come up with an honestly great card game with a nature theme. We learned the game and played a 4 player session, and right away were playing plants and insects into our and our neighbour's valleys to bag the most victory points. The strategy was about looking at what cards were in the other player's valleys and playing cards into our own valley to synergise with them, whilst avoiding a few cards that could make you lose points. The seasons changed as the game progressed, triggering different effects (the change to bees in spring cost me!) I played a bit of a swarming strategy, with 20 low-cost cards in my valley - and promptly finished dead last!! (Apparently around 14 cards is the sweet spot.) But it was still a very close game and definitely offered a deeper level of strategy upon repeat plays, when you could fully understand the different card interactions from the start and play a more tactical game throughout.

Back to my main focus: the playtests of Clan Feud. We started with a fun four player game that probably ended one turn too soon, with the rival clans congregating their armies around the centre of the board, about to play a game of pass-the-king on the final turn. We had a bit of combat building up beforehand, but up until then it had been a cagey affair with a lot of posturing but not much interaction - that next turn was really gearing up to get the blood lust flowing and the blood feuds kindled! 

There were some great reactions to the game mechanics from the players, and we had a long discussion afterwards with invaluable feedback - more than I expected to get, and all of it great to hear! I always make general notes during playtests for minor quality of life tweaks - ways to modify the wording of certain rules, or add an extra sentence to clarify things (from questions the players ask during play or generic comments they make). But the main brunt of the feedback after the game revolved around the automata English armies, and other ways to incentivise players to interact. Right now the main focus of player interaction in the base game is the King James VI pawn - with the intent being that he can be captured through combat, thus driving conflict between players. But alternative victory conditions was a great suggestion - perhaps the "King James Comes of Age" card could actually be a small deck, which is shuffled at the start of the game, giving a different overall objective each time you play?

A similar suggestion was made about the English: they could be given a specific objective to aim for too, instead of plodding after the closest Scottish army. Quite often players ask why the English don't always just go after the King as quickly as possible. The feedback suggested the English seemed too ponderous and weren't actually very threatening in the end - I will need to go back and review the event cards, and look into tweaking some of the movement speed values to really give the Scots something to worry about!

The second game went quite unusually - a distinctly friendly, four player economic affair until the very last turn. I played in the game myself, and had decided to try a pacifist, income-action-focused play style beforehand, to see if I could translate gaining lots of Scots pounds into lots of end-game victory points. But unbeknownst to me, my fellow players had decided to go for similar approaches! So it was more a game of courtly intrigue and taxing our clan's subjects than staining the heather with our rival's blood. Until the last turn that is, when the green player came over and bashed my poor yellow's door down and captured my city and castles. He said he would stop in Loch Ness so I didn't recruit more troops... I should have known the fickle clan green are never to be trusted! Clan yellow will not forget this blood feud!

The last turn's combat was mixed up between three players, meaning the blue player was left unmolested, and promptly strolled to a comfortable victory. Despite starting in the most southerly location they had been lucky with English spawning (concentrated in the North), meaning they managed to go the entire game without entering a battle. Although there is an argument to be made about incentivising players to interact or maybe restricting a runaway winner, at the end of the day the name of the game is Clan Feud - my feeling is that you are meant to be recreating generational, bitter rivalries! So runaway winners can be curtailed and policed by the players themselves ganging up on them - 3 v 1 if that is what it takes! It didn't work in this example, because I went a while without a single troop on the board as part of an intentionally pacifist strategy, and the greens and blues had declared a very early alliance and agreed never to attack one another. One of the main bits of feedback from this session was on my Scottish geography and territory naming, which I admit needs tidying up on the game board. I also need to create a clear and concise player aid sheet, since a very valid bit of feedback was that some rules are not immediately obvious and clear.

So a really fun and satisfying day with plenty of gaming - I would highly recommend Tabletop Scotland to any board game enthusiast for next year! But more importantly Clan Feud was well received by the playtesters, and there was lots of interest from passers by as we were playing. Which has given me a great confidence boost to keep working on the game, developing it further, and try to drive it ever closer to eventual publication!