Catapult Feud

So Jack(7) had a playdate and unfortunately during Jack’s playdates Toby(4) likes to get overly involved and a bit in the way (bless him) so, therefore, it made sense that I took Toby out for a fun day of ice cream and games at Daddy’s work

As it turns out the corridor between the history and economic departments is pretty good for playing “Catapult Feud” an action dexterity game by Vesuvius Media.

In its most basic form, this is that game we all used to play when we were kids where we would line up armies and roll marbles or throw coins to knock the other teams’ stuff over.

Each player starts with a mat, a set of building blocks and some soldiers and places them out using surprisingly complex rules where by soldiers either have to be standing on a block if on the floor must be at least 1 block thickness away from a block (if that makes sense).

1.5 m away from each other (you do need a fair amount of space for this) you can then use the elastic band-powered catapults in order to take turns in firing rubber balls at each other’s castle trying to knock over the 5 knights. A turn consists of the ability to use an action card (that gives you extra abilities such as building blocks, moving soldiers or using the opponent’s catapult) and then fire 4 boulders.

This continues until someone wins the game.

Ok firstly let’s get it out of the way… we absolutely loved playing this and probably spent a good 2 hours on the floor. One of the massive reasons why we liked it though is we were playing in an empty corridor where retrieving the balls was super easy and we had loads of space (you have to be 1,5m apart or the range of the catapults doesn’t really work. We have got space to play this at home but I feel the balls going under sofas and such will tire quickly and playing in the hallway is gonna piss mummy off… a lot…

Component quality is outstanding and the boulders are made of hard rubber that seems like they would but don’t hurt if they get flung into your knee. The catapults are also really well made making flicking the boulder suprisingly predictably and they are easy to operate for young kids.

You can pick it up for about £30 and there are lots of expansions (although many were exclusive to Kickstarter and are hard to get now).

You will know if this appeals and if you have the space to play it (you need at least 2m of space) and ideally somewhere without lots of places for the boulders to go missing then I would 100% recommend this.