About Village Pillage
Village Pillage is a card game of simultaneous play (everyone chooses in secret, then all cards flip at once) for 2 to 5 players, designed by Tom Lang and Peter C. Hayward with art by Tania Walker, published by Jellybean Games. Each village starts with four identical cards: Farmer, Wall, Raider and Merchant. Farmers grow turnips, Walls protect and bank them, Raiders steal from Farmers and Merchants, and Merchants buy better cards from the market or trade turnips for a royal relic. Three relics make you a kingdom and win the game.
Because you play one card to each neighbour, every round is two small rock-paper-scissors guesses, and with four or five players you also have to watch what the people you cannot reach are doing to each other. Games take 10 to 15 minutes and the box age is 10+. The print-and-play includes the full base game, the Surf & Turf expansion cards and the Cannoneer promo; the publisher’s files are free for personal use, so the download button goes to jellybean.games.
How to play in one minute
- Each player takes the four starting cards and a bank card, with a few turnips in their stockpile and bank as the rulebook shows. Shuffle the market cards and reveal four as the market; the rest of the turnips and the relics form the supply.
- Plan: everyone chooses two cards and places one face down towards each neighbour (in a two-player game, cards are queued one round ahead).
- Resolve: flip all cards. They resolve in the order printed on the bank card (Farmers, Walls, Raiders, Merchants), and a card only affects the neighbour it was played against. A Raider steals from a Farmer but does nothing against a Wall.
- Merchants either buy a market card into your hand or, if you can afford it, buy your next relic; each relic costs more than the last. Banked turnips cannot be stolen, but the bank is small.
- Refresh: pick up your cards (exhausted cards sit out one round) and play again. The first player to hold three relics wins.
What’s in the PDF
- Rulebook: 16 pages in colour with card effects, two-player rules and tiebreakers.
- Base game: 6 Letter sheets in full art with the starting cards, market cards and bank cards. Surf & Turf: 4 Letter sheets of expansion cards, plus the corrected Cannoneer promo card on its own page.
- Print on card stock and cut; add counters for turnips and relics. The rulebook’s tiebreaker is “flip a chicken”, so a coin will do.
In the PDF
- Rulebook (16 pages)
- All base-game cards with full art (6 pages, Letter): starting cards, market cards and bank cards
- Surf & Turf expansion cards (4 pages, Letter) and the Cannoneer promo card