Kings of Israel
BGG rank
BGG #4,758
BGG rating
7.2

Kings of Israel

2014

Rules assistance for Kings of Israel

Plain-language explanations of turns, card effects and disputed situations, with official source references and saved question history.

  • 2–4 players
  • 45 min
  • 14+
  • Complexity 2.3/5

For 2 players

Rules assistant for Kings of Israel

What would you like to know?

Answers come from the official rulebook, with the page to check.

Kings of Israel is a board game released in 2014 for 2–4 players, 45 minutes per game, and ages 14 and up. It was designed by Lance Hill and its main mechanics are Variable Player Powers, Hand Management, and Set Collection.

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About the game

Kings of Israel is a board game taking place in Israel (the Northern Kingdom) during the reign of its kings up until Israel's destruction by Assyria. Players are on a team, with each person representing a line of prophets that are trying to remove evil and idols from Israel, while building altars to help guide Israel in the upcoming difficult years. If the players are able to build enough altars before the game ends, they win. If the game ends by either the team running out of sin cubes or idols, or by Assyria destroying Israel, the prophets lose. A typical round has four phases: 1. King's Godliness Phase: During this phase, if a bad king is reigning over Israel, the players must draw a Sin & Punishment card, which means bad things occur in Israel because of evil or in response to evil. If during the reign of a good king, the starting player receives a Blessing card. 2. Sin Increases Phase: Location cards are drawn and sin increases at each revealed location. This can possibly cause idols to appear or sin to spread further if sin increases at a location with an idol. 3. Prophets Work Phase: In this phase each prophet gets to use four actions to accomplish their goals. They may use their actions to move, remove sin or idols, draw resource cards, build an altar, make a sacrifice at an altar, or to give resources to another player. A prophets may also play Blessing cards at this time if they have them. In expert mode, after all the prophets take their turn, the false prophet takes his turn. 4. End of Round Phase: The starting player changes to the next player and the timeline token moves down to the next king chronologically. In easy mode, any player who had made a sacrifice that turn then draws a single Blessing card. The family version of Kings of Israel is available on the game's website. This version eliminates the King's Godliness phase, Abilities, and the Blessing cards, which makes for an easier, quicker, and more simplified game.

Questions and answers

Kings of Israel supports 2–4 players according to the catalogue. This range comes from the publisher’s listed player count, so the game can be set up for any group size within it. Some setups, rules and scoring details may still vary by player count, so check your edition’s rulebook for the exact configuration.