G@mebox author Ralf Togler writes about the game:

The game Iliad by the French publisher AMODÉE editions from 2006 was recently relaunched in an U.S. version with translated rules and cards. So now I have a game before me with English rules, and although I am keeping hard effort to use some French words now and then, I am quite happy about this. The English version also will give more people a chance in a lot of countries to buy and understand the game and - to give an outlook to the end of this review- this is really a win for the gamer's community.

Iliad puts the players into the battle and siege of Troy in the old days of Greece. The siege is awell known part of Homer's epic "Ilias", in which the Greek fighters besiege the old and mighty city. It is the time of the well known heroes like Achilles, Ulysses, Hector and many others, too. In the game each player embodies a hero, trying to free the beautiful Helen with the help of the hero's army. As soon as the city of Troy seems to be weakened enough, a strong competition among the heroes begins and only the one with the mightiest army can win the hand of Helen. This is the starting point of the game.

The game consists of several successive sieges, in which each player forms a new army by placing cards from his hand in front of him. At the end of a round, the player with the most powerful army wins the siege and takes a victory card. The end of a siege is determined by a special oracle card that is drawn at the beginning of each new round. In case of a Thanatos oracle, the siege ends when all players have passed, with a Gorgon oracle however, the siege ends when a player at the beginning of his turn possesses the most powerful army. So a round with a Gorgon oracle can result in a very fast siege, if no other player is interested in interrupting the leading player.

In a turn the player can either place a card from his hand on the table, attack another player or pass. To form an army, the players have cards with mighty Chariots, Elephants, Ballistas, Catapults and Harrows. Hoplite cards can be stacked to form a phalanx and thus strengthen the force of these minor cards enormously. While all of these cards are normally placed face up, cards that are put in the special card ´Trojan horse´ are not revealed until the end of a siege, which gives the players possibilities to bluff. Both the phalanx and the Trojan Horse are a very interesting tactical possibility to form an army and hide and improve its strength in the game. It's not only about placing the cards one by one and just adding their value to the army's force, but one always should have the next turn and even the next siege in mind, since the supply of new troop cards is very limited in the game. While the players start the game with 12 cards on hand, only three new cards are taken by every player at the end of a siege. However, all cards on the table from the last siege are discarded.

In an attack the attacking player chooses one card from his army and one of his opponents. There are complex rules about which kind of army card eliminates another. So for an example a chariot card eliminates an opposing Archer or Hoplite but can not harm any other. It takes some time to get really used to these rules of elimination, so in the first games it can be a little bit tricky to fully understand the possibilities of the different kind of armies. The player whose victory points reach 12 first finally wins the game. And this can come easier than it might to seem in this review. It is possible to get up to four victory points in a siege, because the victory cards affect the awarding of special Athena and Poseidon tiles, too (of course these awards also guarantee victory points).

Iliad comes in a surprisingly small box, but the game is truly worth its money. The design of the cards and the rules is marvellous and amazing and perfectly fits the historical background of the game. The rules are a little bit tricky at the beginning, but after some rounds the game is really a fun. Although the game is declared for children 10 and up, I would recommend the game especially to older children and adults.