Review: Cobra Paw!!!

As a mature boardgame enthusiast there’s nothing I like more than getting out hundreds of pieces, assembling miniatures and generally putting together something that takes up an entire dining room table. But sometimes you need something quick and simple to get people around the table having fun, especially if you’re playing with younger players who don’t have the patience for something big and complex. One of our newest go-to games for having quick-paced, easy to set-up fun is Cobra Paw!

Asmodee sent us their hexagon-encased game of dice and tiles and we swiftly got it out to see what the big deal was.

Cobra Paw is a game where players roll ‘Catnippon’ dice to match symbols on the Clawfuku stones spread out on the table. The combination of symbols on the two dice relate to a specific tile on the table and it’s up to players to be quick on the draw and grab that tile as quickly as possible. Obviously the stones soon start to disappear meaning that dice combinations relate to Clawfuku stones in a player’s possession rather than in the selection out on the table. If this happens, players are just as able to grab the tiles from in front of other players too!

For our playthrough we chose to avoid nabbing tiles from in front of each other as we have a young player with a rather fiery temperament who would probably have stormed off as soon as someone took one of her tiles. It is a great mechanic though and it helps keep play going when the tiles are in shorter supply.

Cobra Paw is a great simple game that reminds me a lot of Grabolo in that it’s a simple game that you can get straight into by matching dice rolls to a random selection of objects. As well as being great for the kids, we grown ups have also had just as much fun with Cobra Paw, especially as we get really competitive as the tiles start flying!

The game pieces themselves are of really high quality. They’re nice and solid with a good weight to them so you feel they’ll stand a good chance of putting up with a bit of rough treatment when things get a bit hairy.  The box is also a neat little design, if not particularly easy to organise alongside all your other non-hexagonal boxes. Inside the box the pieces are all contained in neat recesses to stop them toppling about when the box is on the shelf or being moved around.

Overall we all thought Cobra Paw was great and it’s an ideal addition to any collection of games that you can rely upon when you need something quick and easy to keep the energy up on a game night or something to occupy younger players amongst themselves.

Cobra Paw is available from 365 Games. To see more games by Amodee, check out their site here.

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Disclosure: We were sent this game free of charge in return for an unbiased review. No financial agreements were entered into and our opinions are 100% our own. This post contains affiliate links.