Nottingham is a new set-collecting game by Uwe Rosenburg and is a nice addition to his collection.

Everyone acts as a deputy to the Sheriff of Nottingham and is seeking to collect cards to trade in for victory points. A set of three or more cards will yield between 7 and 13 VPs or a larger combination can be used to satisfy one of four different assignments (such as 5 items of a kind or 4 different pairs). On his turn, the player will reveal a new card which he can either take into his hand or utilise its special action. This second option basically allows the player to steal or swap a card or cards with another player in exchange for the revealed card. I quite liked this aspect as even when you might deprive an opponent of a card you would like, he gets a card in compensation and all cards are useful for something.

The other interesting aspect is that every time someone scores VPs, every player with fewer than a set number of cards (which varies as the game progresses) gets a free card. the game ends once an eighth assignment is completed or 23 scorings have taken place. The player with the highest score wins.

We all enjoyed this one and there is a tension in trying to keep up with the leader while trying to secure a good scoring assignment. Mark G managed to grab a couple of these and took the win, while I was regretting not trading in a set on what proved to be my last turn in the hope of achieving a remaining assignment. Sod's law meant that Mark K ended the game immediately before my next turn, meaning I ended up a poor third. Good fun though.