How's your spelling? Can you come up with words using only a certain amount of letters? Are you good at guessing? If so, you'll be good at Letter Jam, a new card game available from CGE. In it, player
How's your spelling? Can you come up with words using only a certain amount of letters? Are you good at guessing? If so, you'll be good at Letter Jam, a new card game available from CGE. In it, players are given a set of letters they must spell words from, but they can't see their own letter, only those of the other players. Spell words and guess which letter you have before time runs now.
From the website:
Letter Jam is a cooperative game for 2 to 6 players. In each round, every player has a letter that everyone else can see. But no one can see their own letter!
Players try to find words that can be made with the letters they see. The player with the best clue spells it by marking the letters with numbered tokens. Your letter’s position in the clue helps you guess what it might be. Then you can move on to a new one! Guess them all before clues run out, and unscramble your hidden word.
A new expansion is coming for Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization from CGE. It's called Leaders & Wonders and, as you would expect, it adds leaders that you can recruit as you build up y
A new expansion is coming for Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization from CGE. It's called Leaders & Wonders and, as you would expect, it adds leaders that you can recruit as you build up your civilization, as well as amazing wonders that they can construct. Of course, war is a major player in all things world history, and there's new cards for that as well.
From the website:
This is your chance to make history! Throughout time there have been courageous women and imaginative men who changed history, and whose legacy we carry with us to this day. Some of those men and women, along with some of their most wondrous creations, are now joining the new and long awaited Through the Ages expansion.
The New Leaders & Wonders expansion brings exciting new content to the base game, adding leaders, wonders, and military cards so you can change the flow of history and build even greater civilizations!
Ah, Saturday. The start of the weekend. For many of us here in the states, though, it's an hour shorter. To be honest, I already went ahead and moved my clocks ahead an hour. It's not like I've got an
Ah, Saturday. The start of the weekend. For many of us here in the states, though, it's an hour shorter. To be honest, I already went ahead and moved my clocks ahead an hour. It's not like I've got anything other than this scheduled for the day. I mean, It's Saturday! But I also need to get you these reviews.
Today we have: Dead Throne, Draconis Invasion, 7 Ghosts, Robin Hood and the Merry Men, Secret Unknown Stuff: Escape from Dulce, Flip and Find’s Diner, Welcome to Centerville, Master of Orion: Conquest, Codenames: Duet, Portal of Heroes, Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time, and Felicity.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at DEAD THRONE a new game from Sharkee Games and coming to us through kickstarter. This game is a fantasy adventure game at heart but offers a very cool PvP and questing component that makes it a strong entry for me. you will traverse the board looking for items, questing and hunting down medallion and region stones. Can you be the first player to reach the castle with either all the region stones (heroes) or all the medallion pieces (Saladar) for the win? Or would you rather defeat the mighty dragon and win the "Crown of the King"? Its up to you in this open world adventure game! This one is a fun title and I am impressed with the simple mechanics but high player interaction you generally do not see in an adventure game.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Draconis Invasion a new deck builder from Passport Games and recently Kenji Inc. This is your standard deck builder but offers two very nice mechanics I like and will keep you wanting to keep coming back for another round (watch the video for these as I think they make this title a fun and enjoyable experience). I definitly recommend playing this title with a group of friends although it offers a solo play experience as well. The solo experience is good but I think this game really stands well as a group experience. Great artwork and excellent packaging design.
Flip and Find’s Diner is a 1-4 player game (I am a little unsure how much fun this would be 1 player though) based on memory and tactics. The guys at Spontaneous Combustible Games have been putting their heads together to come up with something very different from their last release of Pests, and this time they have aimed it at a family audience. This is the perfect gatrway game to get your little ones into tabletop gaming, it is colourful, fast, fun and most important of all there will be a winner!
Welcome to Centerville is played over three rounds, with scoring happening after each round is complete. You will track scores for both wealth and prestige, but your final score is the lower of the two. Being the most prestigious person in Centerville isn’t worth much if you are penniless.
The actions you can take each round are determined by a Yahtzee-like dice rolling system. You can roll (and re-roll, and re-roll) your dice each turn. Once you are happy with the result—or out of rolls—the dice are spent to carry out actions.
Master of Orion: Conquest is a two-player card game that simulates the planet for planet battles that occur in the PC game of the same name. Each player takes a starter deck and builds in cards from their own card row. The ultimate aim is to destroy the opponent’s homeworld in about 30 minutes to an hour.
Confession time. I’m not a very big fan of Codenames. I think it’s a fine game, but I just never got the hype for it. People who play it constantly, or said it changed the dynamic of their game group are on another planet than me. It was always one of those games where I’d play it if someone asked, and then quickly move on. It was fine but forgettable.
But I have an open mind, so I figured I’d give Codenames: Duet a chance when publisher Czech Games Edition was kind enough to send one over for review. Thankfully this wasn’t just another rethemed version of Codenames, but a whole new way to play it, cooperatively! Could this be the spark that was always missing in Codenames for me? Let’s find out.
In Portal of Heroes, your goal is to be the first to score 12 or more points through the activation of character cards. Each player begins with a small sheet representing their portal, which can hold two character cards. Once character cards are activated, they are removed from the portal and the player gains any abilities and victory points on the card.
The game’s bridge-sized cards come in two decks: one deck of pearl cards used as currency and the other deck of character cards used for special abilities and victory points.
The goal of PEatCoT is to unlock and recover four treasures before Professor Evil locks away four of his own in a secret vault.
On your turn, you get to do three actions plus resolve one of two action cards drawn from your character-specific action deck. Things you can do include moving from room to room, unlocking doors, deactivating switches, and recovering treasures.
Felicity, the Cat in the Sack is a hand-management, auction, and bluffing game for three to five players. Players contribute animals to nine communal sacks and bid on the contents of those sacks. The player with the most points wins.
Hello, Saturday. How are you? I'm alright. Still a little sick. Bit of a lingering cough, but I'm working through it. So no gaming will be had by me today (I'm actually just contemplating a nap). But
Hello, Saturday. How are you? I'm alright. Still a little sick. Bit of a lingering cough, but I'm working through it. So no gaming will be had by me today (I'm actually just contemplating a nap). But I hope that your Saturday is a bit more exciting than what I've got going on. At the very least, though, before I take another shot of medicine and go lay down, I gotta make sure you get those reviews you so desperately desire.
This week we have: Museum Heist, Race for the Galaxy iOS Expansions, Battle for Rokugan, Yogi, The Pursuit of Happiness: Community Expansion, Bubblee Pop, XCOM: Evolution Expansion, Dicetopia, Hot Shots, NewSpeak, Dragonfire, Codenames: Duet, Outpost Siberia, and Mage Wars Academy Warlord and Forcemaster Expansions.
Museum Heist isn’t a game about trying to get past security. Instead, it is about outsmarting the other players. Each round, players will decide which of the seven thieves they are going to pick to try to be one to land on the artwork token. Players will have only a few options each turn.
Last year we reviewed the utterly fantastic Race of the Galaxy mobile app. Temple Games took a much loved card game and polished it up to a shine with their digital version. Since then, they’ve released three expansions for the app, which we are going to take a quick look at today and see if the are worth the in-app purchase.
However, as we rarely review iOS board game expansion, I’m going to keep this one to a general overview and quick thoughts. If you want in-depth analysis on any of the expansions, they’ve all been around for a very long time, so there are plenty of articles with that focus.
Starting a game is similar to the beginning of a game of RISK. Players will take control of territories on the board and if they manage to gain all of a particular color group, they gain a power card that provides a one-time bonus. Additionally, players are provided with 27 combat tokens in their player color including a single bluff token. Finally, players receive a couple of action cards and have choose from two objective cards.
In Yogi, there are two types of cards. Green cards provide players directions to follow, such as having a finger touching their nose, the right thumb up, one arm up in the air, and so on. Orange cards have a placement – such as the card touching a left eyebrow, right ear, or other body parts.
Each turn, a player draws a card, reads it, and immediately begins following the directions of the card, while continuing to obey previously drawn cards, changing positions and twisting their body as needed. If a player stops following a card’s instructions, even for a moment, they are eliminated from the game. The last person to remain in the game is declared the winner.
The first thing to note is that the expansion comes with some more cards that can be added to the base game without even invoking the new “Community” aspects. You get more life goals, projects, items/activities, jobs and partners. These are simply shuffled into their respective base game decks and play as normal.
Bubblee Pop is a puzzle/match-3 game for two players. Players try to align rows or columns of three or more matching-color bubblees to score and unlock special abilities. The player with the highest score wins.
XCOM: Evolution is an expansion to XCOM: The Board Game. If you aren’t familiar with the cardboard version of XCOM, check out my review, but in brief: aliens are invading the world. During a digital-app-assisted timed phase, you’ll watch as UFOs circle the globe and aliens mob your base, and then assign ships and soldiers to defend your planet and attempt missions to fight off the alien threat. You only have so much budget to work with, and a press-your-luck mechanism with dice will resolve all your interactions.
XCOM: Evolution adds a whole slew of new challenges to the game, and a few new advantages.
In this video I will teach you how to play including: Setup, player turn,fire cards, and end game conditions I will also give you my thoughts and opinions on the game, and would love to hear yours.
Dragonfire is a cooperative deck building game with a Dungeons and Dragons theme. Your party of adventurers must defeat encounters to win and gain XP and level up.
And we've made it to another weekend. I'm sure a lot of you are up at the LGS, trying out 8th Edition 40k. But between those games and talking about all the stuff you're going to do with your army, he
And we've made it to another weekend. I'm sure a lot of you are up at the LGS, trying out 8th Edition 40k. But between those games and talking about all the stuff you're going to do with your army, here's the regular grouping of reviews that I know you all love so much.
Today we have: Small World, Galactic Warlord Battle For Dominion, Dice Hospital, Shahrazad, Dark Souls, Bushido, Dungeon Crawler The Thorn Expansion, Star Trek: Ascendancy, VS 2PCG Legacy Expansion, Alchemists The King’s Golem Expansion, Super Dungeon Explore Arena, Terra Mystica App, Tomb Trader, Jaipur App, Bio-Logic, Dragon Tower, Gnomi, and Zombie Tower 3D.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Shahrazad, a new board game from Osprey Games. In this quick solo and 2-player experience you will lay tiles to build the best story for the King as possible. Be careful as if you place the tiles in the wrong location - it will be a weak story-line for you.
In this video I will teach you how to play including: component breakdown, player and board setup, encounter setup, enemy turn, player turn, boss setup, boss movement and combat, secondary setup. I will also give you my thoughts and opinions on the game.
I’m standing here, what feels like a katana in my chest, the bodies of my soldiers piled around me. I’m standing here defeated and absolutely delighted, a big grin on my face, trying to figure out what it’s doing there.
That was the end of my second play of Bushido by GCT Games – the actual impaling being only metaphorical, if you’re the queasy sort, but the defeat and delight being real. From my first encounter, what intrigued me about Bushido was that I found it immensely pleasurable even when I lost horribly. Let me try to explain why.
If the name and picture don’t make it apparent, Bushido is a tabletop skirmish game set in a world inspired by Japanese folklore, or at least a western, Tolkein-filtered riff on Japanese folklore. Elves and Dwarves are replaced by Tengu and Oni, the heroes include snake-people and warrior pandas, and the outfits look like the result of a raid on a Kurosawa film’s prop closet. All in the best possible way.
The King’s Golem expansion adds a few different modules to the Alchemists board game. You can choose which to add to your game depending how much you want to change the base game.
In Tomb Trader, you play as an adventurer on the hunt for treasure. Over a series of rounds, you’ll engage in intense negotiations with the other players in order to split the treasure cards amongst yourselves. If you can gather the most valuable treasure by the end of the game, you’ll emerge victorious.
Jaipur is a trading card game for two players. “Trading for two? How does that make sense?” You say. Not an unfounded question.
It works by putting a set of 5 cards in the center of the table – that’s the Market. Technically, you trade with the market, not the other player. However, anything you put on the market naturally becomes available to the other player.
Players in Bio-Logic are one of six foreign bodies invading a human: Amoeba, Virus, Parasite, Bacteria, Prion or ASP (Autonomous Strike Personnel – nanobots). Whose body it is doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that the player who improves the strength, resilience, and infection power of their invader enough will be able to survive a final battle against other invaders. The player whose infector wins the battle, wins the game.
In Dragon Tower, players must work together to rescue the princess from her prison tower. The game is actually played in two parts, with the first part having players build up a scaffolding alongside the tower. Once that is built, they must then quickly, and carefully, retrieve the princess before the dragon destroys all their hard work. If they can get the princess back to her carriage before the tower collapses, they’ll enjoy a shared victory.
Gnomi revolves around players controlling what appears to be a family of gnomes harvesting a specific group of mushrooms. Players use their mushrooms and gnome powers to steal mushrooms from one another. Once only one player remains with cards that can be activated, that player wins.
In Zombie Tower 3D, you’re trapped in a building filled with zombies and you’ll be trying to save survivors, find various items, and, of course, escape. To make matters worse, the building is collapsing and limiting where characters can go. Players are not able to see the other characters are but you can talk and pass item cards through small gaps in the rubble. If all players are able to meet the escape conditions, then they all escape and have survived. The real winner though is the player with the highest VP from survivors and the Minor Objective Cards.
Hey kids. It's Saturday! If you're like me, you're at the LGS, hanging out and talking/playing games. I hope you're doing that, anyway. I mean, it's what Saturday's for!It's also for reviews. So let's
Hey kids. It's Saturday! If you're like me, you're at the LGS, hanging out and talking/playing games. I hope you're doing that, anyway. I mean, it's what Saturday's for! It's also for reviews. So let's get to it.
This week we have: Heldentaufe, Monster Trap, Galaxy of Train: New Order, Lords of Hellas, Bestiary 6, New York Slice, Orphan Black, Sailing Towards Osiris, Perdition's Mouth: Abyssal Rift, Moons, Adrenaline, and Terraforming Mars.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Lords of Hellas a brand new game from Awaken Realms. This is a prototype version of the game but very special in many ways! Custom painted resin miniatures and a super limited special made box (watch the video for what "special" magic this box does).
The Kickstarter is coming to us end of May/early June and will feature new game play additions, extra miniatures, solo game play rules and much more. This is your chance to get your hands on the game super early before it comes out! So subscribe and have a chance to win my copy of the prototype version with special resin miniatures and epic custom box!
The quality on this one is off the charts and I cant wait to see what all they do with this game in the upcoming Kickstarter.
It’s not clear who the players’ roles are in New York Slice, but what is clear is that players will be dividing up and selecting slices of pizza from a random pie. Majority scoring occurs for the number of slices each player has acquired, with the number of points matching the number of slices available in the game. Chalkboard tiles grant special abilities for an additional variety of scoring opportunities.
In Orphan Black, players are assigned a faction and three specific clone targets. They play influence cards to try to move clones to their faction without tipping off everyone to their loyalties. After all 9 clones have been resolved, players score bonus points for their targets and any correct accusations they made. The player with the most points wins.
Sailing Towards Osiris is a game that simulates the building of monuments and tributes to win an election… sort of like in the United States, except in Egypt.
The Pharaoh has died and he has no heirs. Governors (the players) have four rounds to build the greatest tribute to Osiris in honor of the recently deceased Pharaoh, with the wining governor becoming the Pharaoh’s successor.
In Perdition’s Mouth, player’s are delving into the depths of a cultist stronghold to embark on a series of missions. The game can be played as one-off sessions, or as a linked campaign.
During the game, each player choose a unique hero to command and must work together if they hope to make it out of the rift alive. The gameplay embraces the eurogamer style of play, eschewing dice rolling and hacking-and-slashing for a more unique rondel based action system. Players definitely need to employ solid teamwork and tactics if they hope to survive.
As a trick-taking card game Moons orbits the genre fairly closely, but also adds some twists to rocket up the fun. It is a plain trick-taking game with no trumps. That is, instead of capturing cards worth points, winning a trick allows you to take a moon token that is worth a point at the end of the game – more if part of a set.
Adrenaline is an action game all about blasting your friends into tiny bits with the biggest, coolest guns.
On your turn, you can move, shoot, or pick up items (guns or ammo). After 2 actions you can reload your guns, then score any kills you made during your turn before play passes onward to the next player!
The weapons are where the heart of this game dwells. Each weapon (in addition to having a cool name and FPS-style design) has an effect that typically deals out damage based on your target’s proximity. Most guns have multiple possible effects, and some allow you to spend ammunition when you put the gun into play to increase its effectiveness. For example, one gun lets you choose to deal a lot of damage to one player, or spread out the damage to multiple players in the same space. There are guns that shoot through walls, guns that suck your target towards you, guns that let you run up, smash someone for damage, and then run away.
You’ll need ammo to power your guns, so you’ll pick up tiles that let you collect ammo cubes and someimtes item cards that grant additional powered abilities.
Terraforming Mars is a resource-management engine-building game for one to five players. Players represent corporations who are working to make Mars inhabitable. The game ends when the three global parameter minimums–oxygen, temperature, and oceans–have been met. The player who contributes the most to the terraforming effort is the winner.
Hello Saturday! How are you? Is everything going well? Of course it is! It's Saturday!So, let's not wait around. Let's get right to the reviews so we can get back to it being Saturday. Personally, I'm
Hello Saturday! How are you? Is everything going well? Of course it is! It's Saturday!
So, let's not wait around. Let's get right to the reviews so we can get back to it being Saturday. Personally, I'm thinking of watching a movie and questioning Netflix's algorithms in what "more like this" really means...
Today we have: The Pirate Republic, Kingdomino, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Board Game - Shadows of the Past, Adrenaline, Ave Roma, Hero Realms, Food Truck Champion, Sorcerers' Skirmish, Carcassonne: Amazonas, Oceanos, The Flow of History, Citadels, Broken Legions, Haspelknecht, and GKR: Heavy Hitters.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Board Game - Shadows of the Past from IDW Publishing and Kevin Wilson. Man Kevin really made a fun game here and how could you go wrong with the TMNT theme! When I first heard this was coming and Kevin was the designer, I was instantly "in". This is the EPIC Works edition and is packed to the brim with everything you could want. I cant wait to see what they add to this system. I also have the new April O'Neil Hero pack coming out soon to retail.
this is the first in a two part series to unbox this massive game and then play through a few turns. So strap in and get ready to open up this epic game with Part I: The Opening!
Adrenaline is a first-person shooter in board game form. It is action-packed but requires good area control and resource management to win.
Adrenaline does a good job of mixing theme with tactics. On the surface it might look like a random shoot-em-up, but it has a solid Eurogame foundation.
I received Ave Roma in 2016 following the successful Kickstarter campaign and straight away I was impressed. It arrived promptly and looks great straight out of the box. Due to the Kickstarter, it includes a bunch of expansions which really do make the game very good value. A few nice touches to make the workers pillars instead of discs all adds to the appearance. But this is all so much finery – but very much keeping with the theme. Ave Roma is a victory points game based on a complex worker placement mechanism. Euro games have weights, and I’m not going to lie, Ave Roma is so heavy it could well have its own gravitational pull. There are upsides and downsides to this – the upside is that there’s lots of ways to win so it’s never too clear who’s in the best position at any one time. The downside is that learning the game is an absolute bitch.
Each player starts the game with an identical 10 card deck (unless you are playing with the hero packs) and share an 80 card market deck. During a player’s turn, they will be playing cards from their hand to either attack their opponent or purchase cards from the central market. If you’ve ever played a deck building game before (and especially if you’ve played Star Realms), the mechanics will be quite familiar. The goal in Hero Realms is to reduce your opponent’s life to zero.
In Food Truck Champion, each player is the owner of a food truck out to make a name for themselves. As the owner, you will be hiring staff, taking orders and preparing meals… all with the goal of earning awards and increasing your popularity.
As you complete orders, you will earn the right to expand different areas of your food truck, giving you much more flexibility. At the end of the game, the truck owner with the most popularity is the winner.
In Sorcerers’ Skirmish, players will take turns drawing, declaring, casting and resolving spell cards. Each sorcerer’s deck has identical elemental spells but how each player uses their deck is key. Aside from their spells, players should also use any other means to win. Players can count cards, bluff, use logic and hopefully have some luck on their side to be crowned the winner!
A boat race along a pre-Columbian Amazon is the setting for this version of Carcassonne. As players place tiles and use meeples to claim locations, they will also be moving a boat down the great Amazon river with the aim of scoring enough points from villages, tributaries, jungles with animals, and maintaining a lead in a river race.
In Oceanos, you’ll play as a submarine captain rushing out to explore the ocean for fun and profit.
You start with a basic submarine – a single periscope to find your way, a small aquarium to store fish specimens, a diver for treasure collection, and a little extra fuel.
The Flow of History is a card based game that has players guiding their respective civilizations from the agrarian age to the modern. Whoever has accumulated the most culture by game’s end will be the winner. But before learning how the game plays, it’s important to know a couple of things about the cards themselves.
There are six types of cards categorized by color. Whenever you gain a card you will add it to a stack in front of you arranged by type/color. Each card will have at least one production symbol on it as well as an effect written out in the middle. When a new card is placed over an existing one, it will overwrite the previous effect, but leave the production symbols showing.
Every player starts with a single card in their civilization and 4 resource tokens. The rest of the cards are placed in a deck arranged by ages. Cards are drawn off the deck and placed in the middle of the table to comprise the market. Players take turns taking a single action until the deck is depleted. Whoever has accumulated the most culture at this time will be the winner.
Citadels is ostensibly a city-building game because you earn points by building city districts, represented by cards. The goal is to have the most points when you or someone else builds eight districts (seven with 4-8 players in the new edition), triggering the last round of the game. You start with four of these and a couple gold. Each turn you either take two gold or draw two district cards, adding one of them to your hand. Normally, you may build one district each turn by paying the cost indicated on the card, which is also its point value. You can nab bonus points by building the maximum number of districts, owning at least one of the five different kinds of districts (noble, religious, trade, military and unique) and finally with certain unique district cards.
Broken Legions is a ‘warband’ style of skirmish game, so players will each need a warband of between 7 and 12 models a side. Since the game is set in a mythical Ancient Rome timeline, warbands consist of miniatures from the armies of the time: Imperial Rome, Gladiators, Barbarians, Dacians, Parthians, Argonauts (Greeks) and Cult of Set (Egyptians). Most of these miniatures you will find in any 28mm Ancient army that you may have to hand, or maybe one that has been lying in a corner unloved since its days of playing WAB?
It's another beautiful day here in Atlanta. The clouds are out. It's raining. There was dense fog this morning.What? You don't think that's beautiful weather?You know what they call a place that has n
It's another beautiful day here in Atlanta. The clouds are out. It's raining. There was dense fog this morning. What? You don't think that's beautiful weather? You know what they call a place that has nothing but "beautiful, sunny days"? The desert. Relatively few things live there. You know what they call a place that has rain all the time? The rain forest, some of the most bio-diverse and bio-dense areas of the planet! So there! Ok... that got weirdly antagonistic for no reason. Maybe I should just go check out some game reviews. Yeah. That's a good idea.
Today we have: Everzone, Portal, The Captain Is Dead, Triumvirate of the Imperium - Inquisitor Greyfax, Triumvirate of the Imperium - Belisarius Cawl, Raise Your Goblets, The Three Little Pigs, Concordia, Adrenaline, Hands in the Sea, Neuroshima Hex iPad Edition, 7 Wonders: Duel, Klask, Rise of Mafia, and Cavern Tavern.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at EVERZONE the card game from WinterLair and designed by Marco Mingozzi. I really do like this game in comparison to other combat games in the genre. It makes use of some standard mechanics very well and adds a layer of "this feels different" very well. It offer many different game play setups as 1v1 2v2 3v3 and 1v1v1 which makes it very robust and adaptable. So choose your force Numan, Slurrs, or Uthrons and go to battle in this very strategic battle card game!
Cryptozoic and Valve team up to make a sweet game of cake! No really this game is about cake and portal guns...how much better could you get really! Basically you are running through this track like board game incinerating others cake while protecting yours for the win.
The components are fantastic, simple but just right for the theme. Again, you have to remember this was based off a computer game developed by Valve Software, an extremely well done video game at that. I think it translates nicely into this simple yet super fun game I cant get enough of.
Designed by J.T. at The Game Crafter, The Captain Is Dead is a sci-fi themed, cooperative, frantic, and satisfying kick in the ass. In fact, it’s thematic nirvana. You not only get to be the crew member of a starship, your actions during your turn are intuitive and often best suited to your expertise.
Since saturday 14th, the Triumvirate of the Imperium is available, a combined heroes set with 5 miniatures in total, the Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl, the Inquisitor Greyfax as well as St. Celestine, with her entourage of Eleanor and Genevieve.
In The Three Little Pigs you and your porcine competitors must build houses of straw, sticks, brick or a combination of them all while hoping to withstand the big bad wolf’s mighty lungs. Before you can build your abodes of varying structural integrity, you must gather the material. And you’ll do that by rolling dice.
Concordia is a hand and resource management game for two to five players. Players are merchant family leaders in ancient Rome trying to establish trade connections throughout the Roman world and find favor with the gods. The player with the most points is the winner.
Your goal in Adrenaline is simple. Shoot your opponents and try to score as many points as possible. Each round players will be moving around the board, picking up weapons and ammo, and trying to shoot as many other players as possible.
And as with any good FPS game, the action doesn’t stop when someone dies. They dust themselves off and respawn right away, ready to dish out (and take) more punishment. Players earn points for shooting their opponents, and can earn bonus points for getting first blood or the kill shot. At the end of the game, the shooter with the most points wins.
Punic Wars. What are they good for? Board games. I’ll say it again.
The players represent the conflicting forces of Carthage and Rome fighting throughout the Tyrrhenian Sea for control of Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia. Players can win outright by a variety of means, but if a game end condition is met, victory is adjudicated by victory points.
Each turn, a player draws three tiles from their stack, discards one and may then play the other two onto the game board. Tiles come in the form of units (both ranged and melee), Modules (boosts other units), or Instants (one time use tiles). Once someone plays a battle tile (or the board fills up), units will attack in descending initiative order. The games combat system is delightfully simple and easy to understand. Be the last player with an HQ still on the board (or have the most points left when players run out of tiles) and you win!
A civilization game need not be a long, drawn-out affair. 7 Wonders: Duel, like its older brother, is a civilization building game where players draft cards that represent economic, cultural, scientific, and military achievements. As players collect cards, they increase in power through three Ages. The game can end in a scientific or military victory, but if this doesn’t happen, each player’s civilization is compared through victory points.
The KLASK game board is shaped like a ball field with two deep holes functioning as goals in each end of the field. In the middle of the field, three white magnetic pieces serve as “obstacles” – do NOT attract them to your own gaming piece! Your gaming piece is a black magnet. You control it by holding a large magnet under the board. This magnet is connected to a small magnet placed on the field. The purpose of the game is to push the small, red ball around on the field with your magnet/gaming piece, shoot the ball past the obstacles and your opponent and into the goal hole (Klask). It’s so much fun when your opponent suddenly is covered in white obstacles or you drop your gaming piece into the goal – something which might happen if you get a little too eager!
Cavern Tavern is a worker (dice) placement and resource management game that is set in a fantasy world. Each player assumes the role of a worker in the tavern. Your job is to serve drinks, work in the kitchen, do chores, and on top of that try to keep every guest happy, including the nasty and greedy barkeep.
It's Saturday. That means it's the weekend. That means I'm happy. Went grocery shopping this morning to get ingredients to make turkey soup as well as this year's fruitcake. Still need to get one last
It's Saturday. That means it's the weekend. That means I'm happy. Went grocery shopping this morning to get ingredients to make turkey soup as well as this year's fruitcake. Still need to get one last thing (that has its own theme song for the activity of getting it). That'll start getting ready today, while the final assembly will be tomorrow. What to do in the meantime? Maybe put together some Kingdom Death and play some Guild Ball. Also, give you the reviews you so desperately desire.
Today we have: Terraforming Mars, Adrenaline, Rubicon Models Panzer III, Star Wars Dobble (AKA - Spot It), Lord of the Rings The Card Game, Captain Sonar, Planet Rush, Fight for Olympus, Rollet, and A Game of Thrones: Hand of the King.
Star Wars has some pretty iconic imagery. X-Wings, TIE Fighters, AT-ATs and men in their pyjamas waving glowing swords are all distinctive images that when you see you immediately know you are in a Galaxy far far away.
But do you know your X-Wing from your Y-Wing? Can you spot the difference between Count Dooku and Anakin Skywalker? And, more importantly, can you do this before anyone else?
Dobble (also known as Spot it!) is a really simple game of matching pairs. Each card is a circular disc about the size of a beer mat covered with different imagery. Between any two cards there is one, and only one, item that appears on both cards and your goal is to spot those matching items as quickly as possible.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game was originally released by Fantasy Flight Games in 2011, and upon release very quickly became one of my favourite games.
I and my son Josh are big Lord of the Rings fans, and so we played this game a lot over the next couple of years. Then with one thing and another, we didn’t play for a while, and then the game got packed away, and hasn’t seen the light of day, as it turns out for several years. (Lets be honest here. I have a lot of expansions for this game already. It’s a big, heavy box and takes up a lot of room.)
Captain Sonar is a team versus team game of submarine warfare. Each player fills the role of a crewmember aboard a sub, and the goal is to find and destroy your opponent.
The game can be played turn by turn or in real time, but we’ll focus on the real time version here. That’s really the intended style of gameplay, anyway.
Each submarine has four roles: Captain, First Mate, Engineer, and Radio Operator.
Planet Rush is a semicooperative negotiation and area-majority game for three to five players. Players are corporations seeking to colonize Zenobia. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.
Fight for Olympus is a two player, card-driven battle where players are managing hands of cards representing heroes and soldiers. You’re adding equipment to better your forces, resolving attacks, and deploying special abilities, all in an effort to win a spot on Mount Olympus.
The rules are simple. To begin the game, twenty random cards are removed from the deck and players are dealt hands of six cards from those that remain. The rest form a draw pile. Players take turns playing cards to the central board and then attacking their opponents’ units. (The board is divided into three areas: Olympus, Delphi, and Troy and there are spaces in each area where cards must be played. The areas of the board become more important during the attack phase of a turn, when area bonuses may be available.)
In Rollet, 2-4 players are trying to score points by knocking a wooden ball into their opponent’s goal. Players accomplish this by dropping a metal ball down a chute. If their aim is true, they’ll score a point when they knock the wooden ball into the goal. Score 5 points and your team wins!
Varys, the Spider, is a character in the novels who moves behind the scenes manipulating plots and the fortunes of other characters. In A Game of Thrones: Hand of the King, players are moving the Varys card throughout a grid of characters from various houses in an attempt to capture the most characters from each house.
It's Saturday.It's also October.I mean, seriously, can it really get that much better than this? Oh, yeah, *puts on some Type O Negative while working on the post* There we go.Anyway, you want 'em, so
It's Saturday. It's also October. I mean, seriously, can it really get that much better than this? Oh, yeah, *puts on some Type O Negative while working on the post* There we go. Anyway, you want 'em, so here's your reviews for the week.
Today we have: Patchwork, Epic Roll: Eclipse, Arcadia Quest, Tutti Frutti, True Messiah, Eclipse, Trickerion: Legends of Illusion, Dodge Dice, Grifters, Codenames: Pictures, and Agamemnon.
theMCGuiRE review takes a preview look at Epic Roll: Eclipse the brand new Epic Roll game from Summon Entertainment! Its currently on Kickstarter! This game follows a similar game play style as the first Epic Roll with some fun new mechanics and the twist of being the villains instead of the heroes. Just a fantastic dice based board game that never disappoints!
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Arcadia Quest from Spaghetti Western Games and CoolMiniorNot (CMON). This is one of my favorite games at this point and cant wait for the Pets and other expansions to come out! You really have it all in this system (PvP, PvE, Campaigning, Questing, single play sessions, great artwork, fun game play, and more).
Tutti Frutti is a speed matching/recognition game for two to six players. Players try to collect matches to the fruits on either end of their fruit stack. The player with the tallest stack at the end of the game wins.
Central to True Messiah is the concept of belief, it's the power needed to fuel your miracles and the majority of your game will be spent carefully managing this important resource. Belief can only be generated by your faithful followers praying on a holy site. The problem with praying is all that kneeling and closing of eyes leaves you rather open to attack and so while they may be generating your God-fuel, they become a complete push over in combat – they can take a hit, but aren’t going to be dishing one out.
Whilst not the freshest game to be covered by our beady eyes here at Polyhedron Collider, Eclipse stands out for me as a very good example of a 4X game manifested in tabletop form. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, 4X stands for “eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate” and that tells you pretty much what you need to know about the premise of Eclipse. If any of you have played Sins of a Solar Empire or Civilisation on the PC, you’ll have a fair idea of what’s involved. Start with a small patch of space, blindly stumble around trying to find stuff, start a fight or two then crush your enemies with superior firepower. Or play nice and see how far that gets you.
In each game of Trickerion, players are trying to earn the most victory points (called Fame in the game). Each round, they will be visiting the games different area to hire assistants, earn money, learn tricks, and buy resources. Eventually they will put on a performance constituting of one or more tricks. Perfuming on the stage will earn players money, trickerion shards and, of course, Fame points. At the end of the game, the player with the most fame wins.
In Dodge Dice, you need luck on your side as you roll a set of dice hoping to avoid earning any points. A round will end when a player either rolls a stop icon on the action die or all the dodge dice are removed from the round. Players are not alone in this fight, armed with skip chips that can allow them to skip their turn or ignore a result on a roll. When this happens a player will be awarded the points and a new round begins. This will continue until a player has reached 100 points and ends the game. The person with the fewest points wins the game, with tied players continuing to play until a winner is determined.
One of the hit games of the past several months has been CGE's Codenames. Well, now a new version of the game, designed with a more adult player base is coming to Gen Con and then exclusively to Targe
One of the hit games of the past several months has been CGE's Codenames. Well, now a new version of the game, designed with a more adult player base is coming to Gen Con and then exclusively to Target stores.
While the original Codenames won the award for Best Family Game (among others) at Origins, Deep Undercover adds in new words, "by-standers," and artwork. The core mechanics remain the same, as the spymaster is looking to pass along a key card, using a one-word clue and a number so their fellow spies can figure out what actual card they mean. But there's a bit more of a mature twist on things.
“We anticipate a strong reception for Codenames: Deep Undercover. This is a colorful twist on a great game.” Joshua Githens, Czech Game Editions North American Sales Director.
As I mentioned, the game will debut at Gen Con and will later be sold exclusively at Target stores as well as on Target's website.
Saaaatuuuuuuurrrdaaaaaaaaaay!Saturday of a long weekend, too. All. The. Bonus!But that doesn't mean I'm going to shirk my duties. You want your review articles, and I'm here to give them to you.So I p
Saaaatuuuuuuurrrdaaaaaaaaaay! Saturday of a long weekend, too. All. The. Bonus!
But that doesn't mean I'm going to shirk my duties. You want your review articles, and I'm here to give them to you.
So I present to you: Who Knew, Everdawn, Flick 'Em Up, Night of Man, Ra, Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization, Tyrants of the Underdark, VIII Corps: The Somme 1916, Wombat Rescue, Nefarious, Apotheca: The Secret Potion Society, Back to the Future: An Adventure Through Time, Dungeon Time, Bear Valley, and Millennium Blades.
We take a look at the dexterity game, Flick'em Up, by Gaëtan Beaujannot and Jean Yves Monpertuis. Distributed by Pretzel Games. Flick'em Up is for 2-10 players, age 8+ and takes about 45 minutes per game.
Do you think the future looks dark? I’m not talking about the presumed candidates for the U.S. presidency. I’m talking about the year 2034. That’s a short 18 years away, and do you know what happens? For one, that’s when dogs and cats start living together. What I really mean is aliens attack and wipe out billions of people. Don’t worry, there’s always a silver lining. It’s a wargame called Night of Man from Flying Pig Games, and everything is starting to look a little brighter.
Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization is the latest edition of this civ-building board game. It brings changes to both the aesthetics and mechanics of this highly rated game.
VIII Corps: The Somme 1916 is the first in a series of games written by Neal Reid and published by Vexillia Limited.
VIII Corps is a card game, currently available in PDF ‘print and play’ format, which is designed to give the players some appreciation of the difficulties faced by VIII Corps on the first day of the Battle of the Somme as the British 4th, 29th and 31st Divisions attacked the villages of Beaumont Hamel, Serre and the Heidenkopf Redoubt.
The game consists of 77 cards, which are divided into 9 Terrain cards, 39 British & 29 German Cards.
You are a mama wombat and the mean dingo has come along and scared your babies! They’ve run away from the burrow and are hiding somewhere in the environment. You’re going to have to eat, digest your food, and then poop cubes in order to create smell areas so you can navigate to find your babies and bring them home. The player who plans and poops most efficiently will win the game. Non-poopy translation: It’s a pick up and deliver game with some route building tossed in about getting your baby wombats back to the burrow using cubes as route markers.
The goal is simple: take over the world. In game terms this means getting 20 points. You will have 4 actions available to you in order to accomplish that goal. Every round begins with all players secretly choosing an action card that corresponds to the action they’d like to take. Once everyone has selected their card, they are all revealed simultaneously. Before any of the actions are resolved, players receive income if they have spies on the actions chosen by their neighbors. If you have a spy on the espionage action, for example, and your neighbor revealed an espionage action card, you will receive $1. After all players receive their income the actions are carried out in the following order: Espionage, Invent, Research, and Work.
In Apotheca players are apprentices trying to impress master apothecaries at the market’s testing grounds. Using a Match-3 style mechanism – albeit sans cascading explosions – and action selection, your goal is to arrange three or more same-colored potion tiles in a linear or special pattern. You can enlist the help of legendary tradecrafters to employ special abilities that aid your concoctions – or mess with your opponents! Complete three matches to win the game and earn your mortar and pestle. We previewed the game during its Kickstarter campaign so you can reference that article for the game’s specific rules.
In Back to the Future, players will be moving the DeLorean throughout three timelines (1955, 1985, 2015) from the movies. Each turn, players will be selecting roles, playing character cards to their timeline, and resolving ripple effects. As players place the right characters at the right moments in time, they will earn victory points for completing events before the other players can. After enough events have been completed, the victory points are calculated and the player with the most points is the winner.
Dungeon Time is played over two phases. In the first half of the game, players are working together to play missions and item cards into a communal stack. Players have exactly 5 minutes to complete as many missions as possible.
Once the time expires, players move on to the resolution phase, where they see how they did. Hopefully they played their cards correctly and were able to complete enough missions to win!
It's Saturday. Those of you that are at KingdomCon, be sure to selfie responsibly. #RossFaceFor me, it's the weekend before CMON Expo, so I'm super-busy getting things put together for the show. Lots
It's Saturday. Those of you that are at KingdomCon, be sure to selfie responsibly. #RossFace For me, it's the weekend before CMON Expo, so I'm super-busy getting things put together for the show. Lots to do, both work-related and just other things I need to get done.
In the meantime, though, I'm taking a break from baking German Chocolate Cake Cookies to bring you your regularly-scheduled Review Roundup.
Today we have: Blood Rage, Gempacked Cards, Star Realms, Polyversal, Scathach Games M.T.S Shipping Containers, Tash-Kalar Everfrost Expansion, VS 2PCG Defenders Expansion, Twilight Struggle Digital, Onimata, Warfighter, Stronghold 2nd Ed., Adventure Land, Thunder & Lightning, Celestia, Greedy Greedy Goblins, Splendor iOS, Feed the Shoggoth, Kingdom Death: Monster, and Res Publica 2230AD.
The thing that makes Polyversal stand out from the crowd is its being designed as a toolkit game, i.e. players can create army lists themselves and can take any miniature they own and use them in the game, but they are also planning on releasing the starter set of the rules with miniatures from different manufacturers to show players what’s being produced these days and also allow players to get a game going quickly whilst they start designing their own armies.
Join us as we check out the M.T.S Shipping Containers and accessories from Scathach Games, a UK based company specialising in laser-cut terrain for games like Warhammer 40k, Necromunda, and Infinity. Scathach Games contacted us a while ago asking if we’d review some of their terrain, and kindly sent over the products below. First we’ll have a look at the parts included in the various kits, and then what we can build out of them. As you can see below, they’ll definitely be handy for modern and sci-fi skirmish and wargames.
What follows is a thematic story “review” based on my recent solitaire session of Warfighter by DVG. Warfighter is a card-based tactical game of modern warfare, focusing on smaller groups of soldiers who are undertaking missions through enemy territory.
Stronghold is an asymmetrical two-player game. One player is the Defender, attempting to defend his medieval fortress. The other player is the Invader. Her horde of goblins, orcs, and trolls are trying to take the fortress from the Defender. Stronghold is a long and involved game, so I will not even attempt to list and explain every rule, action, and phase. Instead, let me just give you an overview of what the game feels like.
Adventure Land brings players to a medieval fantasy realm filled with swords, magical herbs, and deadly monsters. Players send their team of adventurers across the land, using strategy and smarts to score points by collecting valuable items, defending cities, and defeating evil.
In Thunder & Lightning, you’re playing in a grid made up of columns and rows. At the beginning of the game, Thor and Loki each draw nine cards from their draw deck.
It's time once again for you to place your evening in our large, spindly hands. Following on from Arboretum and Pasta With Trees, why not invite your friends over for a game of Celestia and a fluffy frittata?
Lovely push-your-luck mechanics? Check! Little cardboard boat? Check! Vegetables? Check!
We're not sure who'd have a checklist like that, but if you do, we should hang out. Get in touch!
Here’s how Greedy Greedy Goblins works: 2-4 players all want to be the first to reach 100 gold coins. Between these players are a circle of mineshafts. Between the shafts is a giant pile of tiles. Running your hand across these tiles makes a sound like a wave pouring over a pebble beach, but don’t start daydreaming! Daydreams are for winners.
When it comes to great family games, one doesn’t have to look much farther than Splendor to find an award-winning example. A gem of a game (pun intended) from publisher Space Cowboys, Splendor sucked people in with its very accessible rules and entertaining engine building mechanics. We actually reviewed Splendor a while ago, and have played it quite a bit since then. Today, we are going to take a look at the tablet version of this popular board game and see how this gateway game translates to the digital realm.
Feed the Shoggoth! is a fast paced card game where you play a cult faction leader trying to earn victory points by sacrificing minions to the hungry Shoggoth. Sounds easy right? Wrong!
Red Publica 2230AD is all about set collection and trading. The game works by building an increasingly complex tableau of cards in front of you that give extra options and more importantly victory points. To build these cards you need to collect sets from one of two decks, races and sciences. You'll gain new cards at the end of every turn but to get the cards you need you're going to have to trade with other players.
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