Lorenzo il Magnifico was illustrated by the inexplicably prolific Klemens Franz, who was also responsible for Agricola and Oh My Goods! and Orléans and seemingly every other board game in the known universe. This one’s published by CMON, who are known for their miniatures-stuffed boxes. No minis here, though, as i discover when i unbox it. Spoiler alert.

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Hi! It’s Ryan from Nights Around a Table, and this is Lorenzo il Magnifico, a game that i’m gonna unbox for you very very quickly. i know nothing about it, so i can’t say anything, except that it is illustrated by the immensely untalented, but inexplicably popular, Kemens Franz! (comically repulsed noise) And this is… i just noticed it’s by CMON. i think this is the only CMON game i own in my entire collection, and i am under the impression that they’re known for their Zombicide game…? And when i think CMON, i think miniatures. i don’t know if there are any miniatures even in this box. What i do know about it, though, is my friend Jay, who i play with maybe every Tuesday, says that it’s great! He loves it! It’s one of his top games. We were meant to play it. We weren’t able to. So Cheryl just went out and got it for me for Christmas! Hooray! Let’s open it find out what the big deal is. The back of the box promises, or suggests, or hints, that perhaps this is a dice worker placement game. Aaand if you know anything about me or my tastes, i looove dice worker placement games! i’m also excited because Lorenzo il Magnifico… Lorenzo de’Medici… Lorenzo de’Medici… that’s hard to say, but fun to say. Lorenzo de’Medici… the rest of the video will be me saying Lorenzo de’Medici. Lorenzo de’Medici wears THAT HAT, and i have that hat in my hat collection for making… sorry, i wasn’t even listening. Box Fart-O-Meter: i’m gonna give that a 1. i heard a little “bloop” at the very end. Uh… super exciting. (No, it’s not.) Right off the top, the rulebook. How thick is the rulebook? Not too terrible, actually. Lots of full-color examples of the things that go on in the game. Pretty. Nice. A good deal of text, but it doesn’t look like anything too daunting. i’d sit and drink tea to that, except i don’t like tea, cuz it tastes like tree bark. That is 11 pages all told. 11-12 pages. Great! Rulebook. And explaining to you what all the different – i assume… leaderss do? i don’t know! A bunch of card to punch out. By now, very familiar with Klemens Franz’s work, so this looks like every other game in my collection by now, illustrated by Klemens Franz. And some board… oh, that’s interesting: there’s some boards to punch out. i don’t know why you even punch them out? Oh – maybe to give it a rounded… rounded edge? That’s kind of interesting. That’s really weird that they would go and pay for a die just to punch out the edge of that board, so that the boards are… have a rounded ed… Strange! That’s a really strange decision.i’m surprised that the publisher spent money on that. CMON! Whatchoo doin’? Come on. You got… family to feed over here. But look at this! This is pretty! This is really, really nice. Looks gorgeous on the back of the board, anyway. Let’s open up the board and see what it actually looks like when you get it onnnnnn… Lovely, lovely, lovely! Right! i was gonna say earlier: i’m really excited about this game because eventually i’ll do a How to Play and i get to wear that hat in my collection! Did i already say that? i don’t know. i don’t even know what day it is today. Pretty and lovely and ooh! Stuff happens here, and things happen here, and i bet you put cards in the tower up here, i’m guessing! i dunno! Cool! Nice-looking board, but i’d almost rather play on the BACK of the board. That paisley pattern looks really, really gorgeous. It’s the same thing that you find on the front of the box. The wood who’s going to get unceremoniously dumped on the table. Dah-ha ha ha ha… woo! There it all is. We’ve seen pieces like these before, these little meeples. They’re a little bit more anatomically correct, but not so much that the little ones can’t play with you. (laughs at own joke) Oh, look at these! These are cool. You get little little purple Pac-Mans! What do they represent? Cheese wheels? i don’t know! Huh! Little purple Pac-Mans. And this is, like, a little grey… it’s probably… ore, but i like to think of it as, like, a little car that you’re driving. (puttery vroom noise) Doesn’t that look like a little Yugo or something? i dunno. If *i* made the game, it’d be a Yugo. Mmm-hrrr. And look: big… big Pac… Men? Pac-Mans? i’m not too sure. And little yellow cubes. Fun. Fun stuff. i think these get stickers on them, these little dowels? And a couple of dice. So i’m wrong: it can’t be a dice worker placement game if you only have three dice in the game. So foo on that. It’s a something-else kind of game. i don’t even know. And a deck of cards. If i were to estimate, probably approximately 50,000. It’s also very sharp, the corner of these cards. Nuh! There we go. These are lovely. And i want to see if my theory bears out: so i’ve opened these cards. The backs of them say “three” in Roman numerals, or in Spanish, ¡Ay yi yi! Awful joke. (laughs at own awful joke) Okay! That’s why we here, folks. And then the fronts of the cards, they’re all in different colours and different Roman numerals… and the fronts of the cards depict… things! Bits of castles, and buildings, and icons that i don’t understand yet. Lovely! And do they fit like i theorized they would in these towers? (humming) Let’s see… Oh, look: beautiful! Like a glove! So that has… that has to be what happened… oh, and there – oh my gosh! Look! The mystery unravels. They are the same colours on the backs as these towers. There’s a yellow card, and there’s gonna be a blue card in there. Ho, my gosh! i can almost teach this game to myself without reading any rules. One day i’d like to do that, you know? i’d like to buy a game and just do a video of me trying to play it having never read the rules. Wouldn’t that be entertaining? For me. And nobody else. Cool! What else is in the box? The last remaining bits. We’ve got this well-style non-insert where you just dump all your stuff. There are the stickers that i mentioned that go on top of the dowels that we looked at… maybe there’s multiple sheets of stickers? In fact, there are! Blap blap blap. There they are. Presumably in four player colours? Maaaaybe? Maaaybe. And… last thing: another deck of likely 50,000 cards with the Lorenzo’s image on it. Lorenzo de’Medici, if you don’t know… i was going to look him up on Wikipedia so i could sound smart telling you all about him. i know very little about him, except that he was a famous patron of the arts, and that i confuse him with… i’m getting old. i forget things. Who’s the guy whose name started with an M, who’s bad? Machiavelli! i confused Lorenzo de’Medici with Machiavelli. Two different guys. Different… i’m assuming noble people, or artists that you can claim, taht give you stuff, including: mmm a dowel! And a card! And some dee-chays. That’s how you say “dice” in Italian. (inaudible denial of own spurious claim) Neat! That’s what you get in the box. i’m excited to learn it and play it. If you’ve played this, let me know what you think about it! Maybe it’s the worst game of all time? Or maybe you love it so, so much! i hope it’s the latter. i will come back at you with a How to Play later on. Thanks for watching this one! Did you just watch that whole thing? Oh – hey! To 100% this video, click the badge to subscribe, and then click the bell to get notifications when i’ve got new stuff [Music – Board Game Boogie by Ryan Henson Creighton]

 

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