Lawyer Up: Senior Partner Pledge Bundle (Kickstarter Special) Rock Manor Games

Board Game Geek Rating: 0.00
Board Game Geek Avg Player Rating: 8.00
Players: 2 to 2
Published: 2021
Content Notes: Kickstarter Senior Partner Pledge for Lawyer Up Board Game by Rock Manor Games. Includes core game, Witch Trial Expansion, Godfather Expansion, and all unlocked stretch goals. Please note: unless otherwise stated paid add ons from the Kickstarter Campaign are not included.

Lawyer Up funded on Day 1 in less than two hours! We have fully stretched the game to perfection unlocking 15 Stretch Goals along the way that have upgraded all of the components, added some additional backstory cards, some mini expansions, a solo mode and expanded the Art Forgery case into a deeper experience.  We are looking forward to supporting Lawyer Up with a bunch of new case expansions down the line!

Meticulously designed and developed by Samuel W. Bailey (Forbidden Stars, Talisman: Cataclysm) and Mike Gnade (Maximum Apocalypse, the Few and Cursed) over the last 4 years, Lawyer Up is an asymmetrical two-player courtroom drama card game where one player is the noble prosecution and the other the steadfast defense. Each game begins with the Discovery phase, where players draft vital evidence to support their case and bury evidence that might help their opponent. Next comes the Trial phase, where players call witnesses and play powerful arguments along with the evidence they drafted into their examination pools. To form a coherent line of questioning, players will need to chain together their cards by matching bias symbols. The player who can best examine the Witness by generating the most influence will spend the difference to sway the Jury to their side. Every game is different, but the lawyer with the best case and most convincing arguments will be sure to get the verdict they are after!

The core game includes the base decks for both the prosecution and defense along with all the other components (jurors, bias tokens, etc) you need to play any case of Lawyer Up.  The core set also features two unique cases to play: The Art Forgery Case and the Murder Case.

The Art Forgery Case is a shorter case (6 Witnesses instead of 9) that focuses on learning the arguments and procedures in the base Prosecution and Defense decks.  It is all about drafting the paintings from famous Dutch painters and using the right evidence to replay them from discard piles.

The Murder Case is your modern Law and Order murder trial.  Jessica Fairmount was found standing over her father, covered in his blood, but insists that she was only trying to save him. The wealthy socialite has a lot to gain with her father’s murder, but did she do it? This case features major asymmetry between the Prosecution (who can lock jurors to their side) and the Defense. The Prosecution must get all the Jurors to believe she is guilty while the Defense only needs one Juror to believe in her innocence for reasonable doubt.  

Lawyer Up is divided into two phases, the discovery and trial phases.  The discovery phase is a drafting phase representing both attorneys working back at their offices going through all the evidence of the case. During this phase, players simultaneously draw 3 cards and add one card to their deck, one card to their opponents deck and bury the last card.  This means that every time that you play a case, your deck will be unique.

Players will not only draft unique decks, they will also select their legal strategies and Witnesses.  The trial phase of the game is typically made up of 9 rounds of witness examinations. During this phase, players take turns calling witnesses and chaining together legal arguments fighting to win the witness and influence the jury.

You can only play cards from your hand that share at least 1 symbol with the card previously in your Examination.  You can’t jump from legal argument to an emotional one, because that would confuse the jury.

Between February 1692 and May 1693 more than two hundred people were accused of being witches in colonial Massachusetts. This case takes a look at this infamous time in America’s history, where mass hysteria is taking hold of the judicial system.

The Witch trial features over 80 unique illustrations by Abigail Larson whose art beautifully captures the time period.  The Witch Trial does away with the jury and is instead lead by an angry mob who is ready to hang anybody they believe is a witch. The goal of the Prosecution is to hang 3 witnesses as witches before they run out of cards.  The defense is scrambling to keep the mob under control and prevent a full blown witch hunt!

This case transports you back to Atlantic City in the 1920s where Carmine Monacelli is put on trial for conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act.  Carmine is accused of operating a network of criminals involved in bootlegging, murder, gambling and more – but he’s a powerful man in AC so it’s going to take more than some Federal Prohibition Agents to take down this Godfather. 

The Godfather expansion features over 80 unique illustrations by Nabetse Zitro and introduces a Dossier deck. As players win witnesses, they are able to reveal or discard the top card of the Dossier deck.  The prosecution needs to prove Carmine’s Mafia connections by revealing these Dossier cards while avoiding the powerful criminal activities such as “Jury Tampering” and “Swim with the Fishes” that the defense has shuffled into the deck.  

While these expansions are planned for retail release, we plan on spreading out their release over a few months.  Kickstarter backers will get everything first! well before any of it enters retail and distribution.

In Lawyer Up, a two-player asymmetrical card game, players take on the roles of attorneys facing off against each other in a courtroom case. One player takes on the role of the prosecution and the other takes on the role of defense. Each case has its own unique mechanisms and story from Murder to Racketeering.

Lawyer Up is a game of arguments, influence and strategies. Players start with Discovery, where they will go through all the evidence of the case and draft what they think is important for them to win. Then Players will take turns calling and questioning witnesses – building arguments by chaining together cards with the same symbols and earning influence. Attorneys then spend their influence to sway the biases of the jury to their side of the argument.

—description from the designer

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