Tabletop Tuesday - Cover Your Assets

Welcome to another edition of Tabletop Tuesday - Your exploration into games of dice, cards, luck and more of the Tabletop world.

Shuffling into the mix of clever card games - The game of stacking cash under the mattress in Cover Your Assets.

Players: 4-6*
Time: 30-60 minutes*
Genre: Casual Card / Family Game




At a glance, this may look to be a game entirely conceived upon a horrible dad-quality pun, to which it is certainly guilty of being.  But there is a surprising amount of fun to be found in Grandpa Beck's Cover Your Assets.  Depending on the number of players, each player is dealt a starting hand of 4 to 5 cards, with the remaining deck placed in the middle and one card flipped over for the discard pile.  Each card represents a different asset type, from playing cards to fancy auto mobiles, each with a different value associated with them.  There are also silver and gold cards, worth considerably more value and act as Wild cards, able to act as any asset type.  Players take turns either laying down pairs of assets from their hand, taking the top card of the discard pile to make a pair from their hand, or attempting to steal other's assets using matching cards from their hand to challenge their assets (all players drawing back to their starting hand size at the end of the turn).  When challenged, the defending player can refute with a matching card of their own from their hand, to which both players can go back and forth until one runs out of options, the winner claiming the assets and all cards used in the challenge being added to those assets.  But this just makes those assets all the more valuable and thus a bigger target.  The only way to protect those assets is to put another pair on top of them, or another way of saying, cover your assets!

The goal of the game is to be the first player to acquire the coveted total of one million dollars, of which will likely take 3 or more rounds to complete.  Each round takes about 10 minutes of players taking turns playing or stealing assets until the deck runs out and there are no more plays to be had.  There is a chaotic sort of joy to be found in the juggling and growth of assets slipping from each player's grasps, and an eagerness to play again, trying new strategies and deciding when and how to play those wild cards.  For those with less playtime on hand, the game also lends itself well for just one quick round, in which whoever collects the most wins.  And although the game is best recommended for 4-6 players, there's nothing really stopping you from adjusting that player count (just consider adjusting the starting hand size accordingly).  I recommend this game for those who enjoy lighthearted strategy and general shenanigans.

If you have any questions about Cover Your Assets, let me know in the comments below.  Otherwise, stay tuned to Hughes3D for more tabletop covers.  And happy gaming!