Advert: This game was gifted in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are ours.

Ready to have some fun with flags? Time to check out our newest lane battler, Muster: Raise the Banners!

👥 2 players
⌛ 10 to 20 minutes
🧠 8+ years

Gameplay overview:

Muster: Raise the Banners (which we’ll call Muster from now on!) is a 2-player battle for castle domination! You’ll play a matching-coloured card from your hand on your side of one of the 5 different coloured castles to build up your factions. At the end of the game, players seize control of the castles where they have the strongest forces, and the player who seizes the most castles wins!

Each faction has cards with a ‘strength’ of 1 to 5. You can (usually!) only play cards under a castle that have the matching colour/banner symbol. AND you can only play cards that are either the same or 1 strength greater than the card you are playing it on top of.  So, if you had a card under a castle with a strength of 2, you can only play a card of strength 2 or 3 on top of it.

There are exceptions to the placement rules, thanks to the help of our amazing magical rainbow friends! You can play Rainbow Castles on top of any castle space to make that Castle ‘wild’, so any coloured faction can be played under it. Use a Rainbow Bridge as the next card in any sequence, letting you skip a strength level (so, if there’s a card with strength of 2 in play you can place a bridge card and then a faction card with a strength of 4 straight away!). Or play a Rainbow Wizard under any castle, which ignores the sequence rules and gives you a super mega strength of 6! You can also spend a turn to move your Rainbow Wizard between castles, or swap a card from your hand with a Rainbow Wizard or Bridge on either players’ side of the board! (The card you swap in needs to follow the usual sequencing rules).

If you don’t want to play a card under a castle, you can play it on the castle itself. This card covers any other cards at that castle, including Rainbow Castles (stopping the wild effect). And when drawing back up, a player can choose to pick up a card at one of the castles – and this also includes being able to pick up Rainbow Castles!

The game ends instantly when a player draws the last card in the deck, and the winner is declared.

Variants

There are some variations in the rulebook. To make it easier when learning the game or playing with younger players:

• The strength rule is relaxed – you can play any card equal or higher (not just 1 strength higher).
• You leave out Rainbow Bridges.

There are also a couple of rule variants that add more twists:

• Only being able to start with a 1 strength card under each castle (in the normal rules you can start with a card of any strength).
• A player can play multiple bridges together as one action, as long as you end with a card with the right strength (e.g. if you have a card with a strength of 2 under a castle, you can play 2 bridges and a card with strength 5 from your hand).

Our thoughts:

The first thing you’ll probably notice is Muster’s bright and whimsical designs (we hope the photos do it justice!). Each coloured faction has a unique character for each strength level – from knights to archers to fantastical beasts. I believe this is Pedro R. M. Andreo’s artistic debut in board games, and his artwork definitely feels unique and fun. We also appreciated that each faction had a distinct banner symbol so you don’t have to depend on using the colours.

This is a lane battler game, i.e. a type of area control game where (usually 2) player place cards in ‘lanes’ to win control of different areas. We enjoy a lane battler – we own a few, and they’re all different in their own way. Muster is probably the simplest and by far the most fast paced – if we’re really on a roll we can finish a game in under 10 minutes easily.

That doesn’t mean Muster isn’t without its tactical choices. You can only take one action each turn, whether that’s playing under a castle or trying to gain an advantage with a Rainbow Castle/Bridge/Wizard. And the Rainbow Wizard/Bridge are on the same multi-use card, so you have to make a choice on how best to use them. If you are playing under a castle, do you reinforce a castle where you’re already winning, or tussle your opponent for another? The sequence rule adds a fair bit of challenge, too. 

And of course it’s very satisfying if you block a Rainbow Castle your opponent is exploiting, or manage to swipe a Rainbow Wizard from their side to tilt a castle in your favour. It’s enough player interaction to keep things interesting without feeling too mean.

What we like:

• Bright and colourful artwork with unique characters.

• Each faction has its own distinct symbol, so you don’t need to rely on the colours.

• Smooth fast-paced gameplay that’s simple to grasp with some tense tactical choices.

• There is some player interaction without being too mean (a lot of lane battlers feel more aggressive!).

• A great introduction to lane battling, with rules you can modify for younger players.

• It’s portable and can play under 10 minutes – perfect to fit in anytime, anywhere! (You will need a bit of table for the Castle board).

Considerations:

• Nothing really! There is luck-of-the-draw, but this is the norm for lane battlers.

Final verdict:

Muster: Raise the Banners is a fast-paced back-and-forth parry for victory that is sure to entertain at all ages!

Muster: Raise the Banners is a fast-paced back-and-forth parry for victory that is sure to entertain at all ages! It’s a great introduction to lane battling for younger gamers and families, while having enough tactical bite to appeal to more experienced gamers looking for a smooth but tense 10 minute game. And the games are so quick that if you are having bad luck with the cards, it doesn’t drag out (games are so quick we would play best of three anyway).

And there’s still time to grab Muster for Christmas (it would make a great stocking filler!).