Emperor Qin Shi Huang has united all of China and enacted many reforms for the people. Those underneath him are also looking to make their mark on the country, engaging in their own power struggles in
Emperor Qin Shi Huang has united all of China and enacted many reforms for the people. Those underneath him are also looking to make their mark on the country, engaging in their own power struggles in the court. But each must beware, lest the Emperor's favor falter on them.
That's the story behind Emperor's Choice (not an ad for Folger's Coffee). Tasty Minstrel Games is running a Kickstarter campain for a deluxe version of the game. You can check it out now.
From the campaign:
It is 221 BC, and Emperor Qin has done the impossible - he has achieved a united China. While he was in power for a relatively short period of time, he managed to enact policies, reforms, and projects that remained impactful for centuries. In Hisashi Hayashi’s Emperor’s Choice, 2-5 players will seek to spread their own personal power and influence, while making sure that their status in the eyes of Qin Shi Huang does not falter in the process.
Over the course of 6 turns, players will use a unique bidding system to claim Qin Dynasty tiles that will be drawn randomly every turn. They will also recruit new followers, claim tributes and Imperial Treasures, add soldiers to their armies, and if they are lucky enough to have the favor of the Emperor, get to choose the Imperial Decree for the turn, which will be scored by every player.
Emperor’s Choice is a deep strategy game, filled with different paths to victory for the players to utilize. Strategies used in previous sessions will not necessarily be available for players in subsequent plays, keeping everyone engaged with the flow of the game, and making the game a challenge each and every time it hits the table.
The game's around 90% of the way to its funding goal (or more by the time you read this), with 22 days left to go.
In which I totally mess up the date for when this was supposed to post and then go back and fix it. :PLook, these things happen sometime!Anyway, here's the regular grouping of review articles I know y
In which I totally mess up the date for when this was supposed to post and then go back and fix it. :P Look, these things happen sometime! Anyway, here's the regular grouping of review articles I know you all so desperately desire.
This week we have: Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, Rush in the Forest: Three Little Pigs, Torres, Exoudus Fleet, Steepseers, Super Hack Override, This War of Mine, Assembly, Noria, Get Off My Land, and Monster Card BLVD.
In this Flip Through join Matt as he becomes one of Bigby’s students as we study Mordenkainen’s view on different rivalries over the years and the monsters involved in those campaigns.
Torres takes place over 3 phases (known as years), with each year divided into a number of rounds. At the beginning of each year, players are given tower pieces in stacks, with the number of stacks equal to the number of rounds during that year.
Each player in Exodus Fleet is allied with a certain Faction at the beginning of the game. This gives the player a starting command ship and a starting exploration card. This also determines the player’s starting income of money.
Rounds of play in Exodus Fleet give each player a chance to choose an action. Once chosen, all players will get to bid money on turn order for taking the action. Usually this results in a more advantageous action result, but in all cases, the player choosing the action, the “Admiral”, gets a bonus.
To Teenaged Alex, a ‘cup of tea’ meant a Lipton or Bigelow bag dunked in some hot water for an indeterminate amount of time, with a healthy dose of sweetener. As I grew older, a little more well-rounded, and married, I realized that teas came in a wide variety of flavors, varieties, and colors. Walking with my wife into the tea store (yes, tea store!), I was shocked at just how many different varieties were available, with combinations I would not even dream of. Jasmine pearls, red teas, white teas, all with different herb and fruit varieties – positively overwhelming. I’ll just take a nice cup of tea, Earl Grey, hot, thank you very much.
Steepseers, the upcoming title from KinSoul Studios, puts you in the role of an oracle who can use various brews of tea to trigger visions of the future. By collecting different combinations of ingredients and allying with various mystical spirits, you can make the population believe in the power of foresight through the haze of brewing tea.
Steepseers is a set collection and memory game for 2-4 players. Steepseers plays well at any player count.
Super Hack Override is a quick filler game where players will attempt to earn the respect and adoration of their fellow hackers without drawing too much attention to themselves. Take down too many government systems and you’ll be put in hacker jail for sure.
It’s designed to be played with just a deck of cards and plays 2-6 players in about 15 minutes.
In November 2014, This War of Mine (TWoM) was released on PC, Mac and Linux. The game focused on the survival of citizens during the siege of a fictional city, although the creators of TWoM cited the Siege of Sarajevo as the influence of their setting.
The game was well received, spawned ports to multiple console and Android/iOS and was eventually licensed as a board game that successfully funded on Kickstarter in May 2016.
I really looked forward to playing This War of Mine because of its unique theme of being focused on the survivors instead of the soldiers during wartime.
Having neither played the computer game nor backed the board game, my review will focus on the retail board game only. In addition, my review will contain no spoilers outside of referencing general gameplay mechanics and the phases of the game.
Personal log: “I don’t know for certain what happened. there was a meteor shower; fiercer than we anticipated. It was carrying some kind of virus that somehow breached the station and killed the crew. Well, almost. There’s just two of us left. We have to get off, the computer is shutting everything down, including life support, we don’t have much time to do what this station was designed for; build a ship and then get back to Earth.”
Part of me is tempted to write this entire review for Assembly in the style of the game, mainly because the setting for this little 2 player game is both wonderfully simple and rich. But, I fear that would get old very fast, so I shall just wax lyrical in my typical rambling fashion.
Noria is a “wheel-building” action selection and stock manipulation game for two to four players. Players are industrialists in the booming fantasy world of Noria competing for prestige by contributing to the four great projects of Norian society. The player with the most points wins.
Get Off My Land is a game of building and expanding your farm, sometimes legally, but sometimes in ever so slightly illegal ways. Like “accidentally” breaking a fence so your neighbor’s pigs eat all their corn, or “appropriating” your neighbor’s property to expand your own farm. The goal is to have the most money at the end of the game.
There are a lot of nit-picky rules to the game, but in keeping with the theme here, we don’t need no stinkin’ rules. Or at least not all of them. So I’m just going to give you a high level overview of the game.
Monster Card Blvd. is an epic 90 card, illustrated strategic card game. No two cards are alike. It is easy to learn, but hard to master. Each card is unique, featuring a silly, seductive or scary monster with a clever name to go with that specific monster’s theme. The game has been completed (aside from the two backer reward cards) and tested, and is extremely addicting!
Saturdaaaaaay! It's the best day of the week (in my opinion). What cannot be accomplished with a day like today? Well, I know what can, going to do some gaming. I put together some Guild Ball minis fo
Saturdaaaaaay! It's the best day of the week (in my opinion). What cannot be accomplished with a day like today? Well, I know what can, going to do some gaming. I put together some Guild Ball minis for my friend last night. Today I'll go hang out and play some board games up at the library. But before I can head out there, I need to get you your reviews I know you so desperately desire.
Today we've got: I Am the Fourth Wall, Gravity Warfare, Gruff: Stuff of Nightmares, The Faceless, Lanterns: The Harvest Festival iOS, Vengeance, Clans of Caledonia, Harvest, Flamme Rouge: Peloton, Sakura, Fairy Tile, Pocket Mars, Lords of Hellas, Fog of Love, and Sarissa Precision 28mm Japan MDF Terrain.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at I Am The Fourth Wall by Slinky Gibbons Games. This card game follows a traditional Lovecraft theme and feel but offers a great player experience with technically 4 ways to play the game (I see them as grouped into 2 game play modes). 1: you can play co-op/solo - where all the investigators are working together to close all the gates and defeat an AI controlled "Wall" 2: 1 vs. all or Wall player vs all the other investigators (regardless if its one other person or many). Both game modes offer a rich intense experience of game play. Play is quick and enjoyable. I really do like this title and highly suggest it if you are a fan of the Lovecraft theme.
Gameplay in Lanterns: The Harvest Festival is very easy to pick up. Each turn will have you placing lantern tiles into the lake, earning matching color lanterns for you and your opponents (depending on which color is facing you). You can use these lanterns on future turns to trade them in for victory points (in sets). There are a few other wrinkles, like gaining extra lanterns for matching colors or getting honor tokens from platform tiles. But that’s the main crux of the game. Place tiles, collect lanterns, trade for points.
There is a lot to cover with Vengeance so we’re going to do a high-level overview, but the actual rules are here if readers want them: Vengeance rules.
It’s important to note that Vengeance is made up of Acts much like a revenge movie. The Wronging occurs first, followed by Acts 1-3 which consist of Montages and Combat Rounds until the End for final scoring.
At the beginning of the game, each player drafts a clan, each with their own particular special power. These include being able to sell milk, aged whiskey in barrels to sell for more money, expand over sea spaces, and so on.
During a game round, each player performs their choice of an action, in player order, until all players pass.
In Harvest, players are trying to plant, tend, and harvest vegetables from their fantasy inspired gardens. There are nine different characters to play all with a different ability and starting resources. Each round you get to place two farmers on the town board or the action cards which change each round.
Throughout the game, you will acquire seeds, water, fertilizer, and magical elixirs. You can plant your seeds with fertilizer to turn them into crops. Once in your field, you can tend to your crops with water to grow additional crops of the same type. Each field can only contain one type of crop, so you will have to harvest your crops at some point to clear the way to repeat the process.
Let’s assume you’re familiar with Flamme Rouge, and you’re here to see if the expansion is worth adding to the mix. If not, I’d start here with my review of the base game.
Peloton adds a slew of new tracks, riders, and variant rules, but as there are no significant gameplay changes I’m going to forgo the usual rules rundown and jump right in.
Sakura is a simultaneous action selection/hand management game for two to six players. Players are painters who want to be close to the emperor when he smells the cherry blossoms but not so close as to cause their own disgrace. The player with the most points after the emperor stops three times is the winner.
In Fairy Tile, players act out the scenes of a tale upon the tabletop by moving its characters to various locations around the realm – and forging the kingdom’s borders along the way.
The story begins with three land tiles. These are double-sided and consist of three hexes randomly representing plains, forests and mountains with rivers running through some and a castle dotting the landscape every now and then. These start tiles designate where to place the princess, prince and dragon, respectively. Players are then evenly dealt a hand from a deck of thirty-six pages (cards). These are stacked and everyone draws their first page. Cards have very lovely artwork, a task, a number and flavor text.
The objective of the game is to complete all of your pages of the story by individually meeting the required tasks on each card. These adventures generally stipulate maneuvering one or more characters to a specific location. Or sometimes you only need position an actor so that he or she sees (as in a straight line of hexes) some designated feature. In the case of the dragon or princess, simply flying over a castle or visiting one might be enough to move the plot along.
“Mars is there, waiting to be reached.” - Buzz Aldrin
Mars. The Red Planet. The Roman God of War has hung in the night sky capturing the imagination of man, and drawing the creative mind to it like gravity since it was first gazed upon. In the last few years, the fiction was left behind as science began to catch up, and we now know more about this baron and hostile planet than ever before. Yet, the more we know, it seems the more our imagination runs rampant and so the notion of the colonisation of Mars seeps into our consciousness, filling our screens, bookshelves and of course, our board games. It is in this vein that we explore Pocket Mars.
Lords of Hellas is, thankfully, more than just "Dudes on a Map"; one of the major concerns that existed during the campaign. If you've played Kemet or Game of Thrones, this will seem familiar, but in my not-so-humble opinion it's better than both. Different to both too, but superior. Game of Thrones has more politics and Kemet has a base of operations. Neither are present in Lords of Hellas. Despite the heft of the minis (and the Statues are very hefty), the game mechanics are thankfully very light and turns rattle on quite quickly, so there's little downtime.
Sarissa Precision Ltd are a company that produce high quality MDF terrain in various scales at a mid-range price. This review is looking at their Japan range of buildings, which are useful for playing games in the Sengoku period – especially rules such as Test of Honour
I have a number of Sarrissa’s buildings in my collection – they actually make up the majority of my scenery that I use for Test of Honour and other games.
It's Saturday. And not just any type of Saturday, but Saturday of a 3-day weekend. I can't think of a much better sort of Saturday... Well, maybe Saturday of Gen Con. But that's a pretty damn busy Sat
It's Saturday. And not just any type of Saturday, but Saturday of a 3-day weekend. I can't think of a much better sort of Saturday... Well, maybe Saturday of Gen Con. But that's a pretty damn busy Saturday. But for "above average" Saturdays, I'd say that 3-day weekend Saturday is a pretty good Saturday. Do you think I've typed the word "Saturday" enough by now? Well, I don't know what you've got going on today, but I'm going to be delivering games to a friend, and then possibly having minis delivered to me. Because it's an awesome Saturday. I'm also here to show off some reviews for you.
This week we have: Nemesis, Everdell, Fox in the Forest, Hamsterrolle, Codenames: Disney, Escape Room in a Box: The Werewolf Project, 878: Vikings, Kepler-3042, Okey Dokey, Santorini, Finished!, Ex Libris, and Hunger: The Show.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at the BRAND NEW and STILL IN PROTOTYPE Nemesis by Awaken Realms and rebel. what is even more awesome about this is the fact theMCGuiRE review is GIVING AWAY THIS LIMITED PROTOTYPE to one lucky subscriber.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Everdell a brand new game from Starling Games and Game Salute. We are doing yet another prototype giveaway on this title. The game is awesome and follows a traditional worker placement game and mechanic. you have to be very decisive as you can only take one action on your turn (place worker, play a card or activate the season). Artwork is amazing and the game drips with theme and visuals. You will want to play this game just on how its looks and feels - game-play is very fun and end game design is perfect with this genre.
Thanks to some holiday get-togethers, I had plenty of gaming time with the family last month. And I’m sure I’m not alone in that one, as board games make any holiday party that much better.
As you know, in Parental Guidance, I introduce new games to my parents outside of the usual gateway games. The goal is to help you find new and interesting games to play with your family and non-gamer friends. While we all love the old standbys, variety is the spice of life.
As usual, I’ll start by giving you a quick summary of the game I chose, followed by my thoughts on why I thought it would be a good fit for a pair of non-gamers. Then my mother will close things out by letting you know how good she thought my selection was.
This game takes the same format as your standard escape room: you have 60 minutes to complete your mission by finding clues and solving puzzles. This game puts you in the role of having to find the cure for a werewolf virus.
When you to start the clock, you unpack the Escape Room in a Box to find a bevy of materials, papers, locked boxes and the like, all which provide clues to be used in solving a series of puzzles in some manner in order to proceed further into the game. Along the way, hints become available at specific time intervals if you get stuck on a specific puzzle. In the end, solving the culminating puzzle allows you to discover the cure to the lycanthropy and win the game. If time runs out, or if you use too many clues (and are honorable gamers) then the game defeats you and you turn into a werewolf.
The game begins with the English faction player(s) setting up the unsuspecting forces of England by placing plastic army figures throughout the map. Cities and towns have garrisons of units, but much of the countryside shires are barren of military force. The Viking player(s) will populate their first army led by the leader(s) represented through cards. Units are placed directly on the card if they are part of the leader’s army.
Kepler-3042 is played over 16 rounds in which players will compete to explore, colonize, and terraform various planets in the galaxy. The board is divided into three zones, with only the planets in the zone closest to Earth initially visible. The planets are spread around the board randomly, adding to the replay value of the game.
Each turn you can perform one of nine actions, optionally up to 2 bonus actions, and then move your ships. Available actions include building spaceships, generating resources, colonizing planets you have landed on, and terraforming planets you have colonized. You also have a technology board which to spend actions on, allowing you to upgrade your proficiency with various technologies, effectively powering up future actions. Progress on the technology track becomes crucial to unlock your ability to travel faster, exchange goods between planets, and produce on and terraform your colonies.
The animals have gathered for a music festival to all play their part in this special event. In the deck, there are five suits of different colors numbered 1-8. The main idea of the game is to try to play all the musicians to complete a grid of 5 rows and 10 columns with each row making up one of the colors in the deck. Seems like a simple task, but the restrictions on how those cards can be played is where the game begins.
Santorini is primarily a 2-player game, pitting players in a contest of skill to see whose workers can build a tower and ascend to the top of it. Variant rules for 3 and 4 players are included.
Finished! is a solitaire hand-management/deck-sorting puzzle game. The goal is to sort the deck in ascending order from 1-48 before you run out of coffee.
Ex Libris is a worker placement/set collection hybrid that also manages to include a spatial element in the gameplay. You’d think that this might be one mechanism too many, but it all works well together.
In Ex Libris, you are trying to win the coveted position of Grand Librarian. This position is awarded to the person with the best library. To win the job, you’ll have to send yourself and your assistants out into the world to source the finest books. Once you’ve got them, you have to shelve them in order, create strong bookshelves to hold them, and make sure you feature prominent works and avoid banned books. Plus, you want a variety of books to cater to all readers!
A casting call has gone out for the reality show “HUNGER”! Are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime? Do you have the wits to survive, with other participants, on a deserted tropical island? Or simply want to win $1,000,000? If so, HUNGER is searching for self-reliant contestants to attempt this bold adventure.
HUNGER: The Show is a fast paced family game with rich player interaction. To win, you have to predict your opponent’s actions. On the island, you can gather fruit and catch chickens to get more food. But to win, you also have to collect raft pieces. It’s a good thing that no one would ever think of stealing food and raft parts from other participants…
It's feeling a lot like Saturday 2: Sat Harder (editor's note: rework that title before publishing) here. Yesterday I spent much of the day at home, hanging out and working on my friend's Guild Ball m
It's feeling a lot like Saturday 2: Sat Harder (editor's note: rework that title before publishing) here. Yesterday I spent much of the day at home, hanging out and working on my friend's Guild Ball minis. He moved recently and a bunch of his stuff got jumbled and busted up. Plus, there were some new kits he'd gotten in that he wasn't sure when he would be able to assemble them. Putting figures together is arguably my favorite part of the whole hobby, so I've offered to fix his busted minis, assemble his new ones, and even move some of his other figures over to sculpted bases he'd gotten. There's ~35 minis that are getting some kind of work on them, from assembly, to those bases, to fixes, to green-stuffing the slots. It's been a fun project. Certainly kept me busy. Plus, next time I see them on the other side of the pitch, I don't have to see a bunch of half-assembled and busted figures. :P But I'm currently taking a break (my hand's cramping from using a pin vice all morning) to bring you those reviews I know you all so desperately desire.
This week we have: Storm Hollow, The Mysterious Forest, Pandemic Legacy Season 2, Vengeance, Gloom of Kilforth, Spoils of War, Santorini, Kerala, Mini Rails, Armageddon, By Order of the Queen, NMBR 9, Coded: Card-Time Strategy, Legend of the Five Rings, Woo-Hoo!, AquaSphere, and Cities of Splendor.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Storm Hollow the adventure Storyboard game. There is a ton of content in this system and I am impressed with its smooth mechanics, simple game play, and high level of quality components. It really is a fantastic gaming system for the family and I highly recommend this if you are a RPG'er or have considered getting into something like this with the family. All fairy-tails and stories from this realm are a reality in Storm Hollow. You will go on awesome magical adventures both fun to tell, as the game master, or experience as a player. The introduction is quick for the game master and players will be ready to play and start quickly. It also features a co-op board game experience as well - so if you simply want to set the adventure story mode aside and play a board game like experience, you can do that as well.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at The Mysterious Forest from iello games. This is a great kids game which offers memory, group collaboration and tactical execution skill building. Its got a great theme, super high quality components and a low price point. Its a definite recommend from me for the kids and family gaming experiences.
Step into the shoes of a hero that has been bashed and tortured by one or more of the four gangs in the game. You win by building up your hero, scouting gang dens to find the baddies who wronged you, then taking bloody revenge through action-packed fight sequences made up of dice based puzzles.
The land of Kilforth is a perilous domain filled with nefarious monsters, mysterious Strangers and treacherous Locations, and dominated at its centre by The Sprawl, a huge city where intrepid Heroes begin their journey to fame and fortune. Throughout the land various factions vie for power over each other, such as the supposedly noble Order of the Rose or the terrifying Doom Guard. And presiding over the world outside Kilforth is the ever-present Overlord, Masklaw. Over the coming month, a deadly Gloom will descend upon Kilforth,which the Heroes must Battle through to prove their worth, defeat an Ancient evil, and save the land from darkness. Gloom of Kilforth is a card game of high fantasy with a Gothic edge, playable in 1-3 hours, where 1-4 players, working individually or together, must take their humble adventurers on a journey through a dark world of magic and peril. They will visit strange places, stranger people and overcome powerful enemies in their mission to discover mysterious artefacts and mystical Spells. Players follow their Hero’s tale from modest beginnings through an epic story to an exciting climactic battle for the fate of the world. Gloom of Kilforth takes about 45 minutes per player to play.
The raid is over, and the victorious Vikings gather in the chieftain’s tent to divide the spoils of war! Piled high on a massive oak table are the best treasures taken during the raid: gleaming gems, shiny swords, fine armor, and magical artifacts! Once strong allies, the Vikings are taken by greed, and soon a heated debate ensues — who will get which spoils? Fists pound the table, insults are made, and tempers rise!
Spoils of War is a fast-paced and exciting game of bidding and wagering for 3-5 players. Each round, players roll their dice, then cleverly bluff and bet to outwit their fellow Vikings. The winners of each round get to claim fantastic treasures to add to their collection! With lots of twists and surprises, no one knows who will win until the last treasure is claimed and the spoils are counted!
Santorini is a re-imagining of the purely abstract 2004 edition. Since its original inception over 30 years ago, Santorini has been continually developed, enhanced and refined by designer Gordon Hamilton.
Welcome to the elephant festival in the Indian province of Kerala! Colorfully decorated elephants roam everywhere, and naturally players want to participate and make the most magnificent fairground with as many elephants as possible.
In Kerala, each player wants to take at least one tile of each color, and all tiles of one color should be joined together, but of course the players are constantly getting in the way of one another and grabbing the tiles that someone else wants.
Mini Rails distills the essence of the stock-buying and track-laying game genre into a tight experience that can be finished under an hour.
The game includes only two types of actions — “Buy Shares” and “Build Tracks” — and you must carefully decide how to best use them. You must do each action exactly once per round, and which company you choose affects the turn order on the next round.
In a post-apocalyptic world, players try to rebuild society. Using the debris, they build new towns for the remaining survivors to live in — but these friendly folks aren’t the only ones still out there. Marauders want to pillage your town and see it burn. Scavenge what you can and build new structures to help you defend against the marauder threat. While you can get more things done in town when you house more survivors there, they all have to have a space to sleep or they might turn against you and join the marauders.
Armageddon is a strategy game that offers many tactical choices and different strategies to claim victory.
By Order of the Queen is a cooperative 2–4 player game with a fantasy role-playing game theme. Players take on the role of one of the Guilds of Tessandor, working together to dispatch Heroes to important quests, to combat monsters and to complete the Queen’s Orders themselves.
By Order of the Queen is designed to give players a full fantasy campaign in one 90-120 minute game, by giving players just the highlights of a role-playing adventure.
Players must work together to keep the kingdom from falling apart while trying to complete three Queen’s Orders to win the game.
In NMBR 9, players are trying to earn the most points by stacking different numbers. The game comes with twenty cards numbered 0-9 (twice) and enough tiles for 4 players.
Each round, the top number card is drawn and each player collects the matching number from the tray, placing it on the table. After the first round, each newly placed number must touch a previously played number. Players can also build up to higher levels, as long as it is fully supported by at least two numbers below it.
In Codex: CTS, each player starts the game with a set of heroes (one to three), a starting deck, and a binder… err… Codex… of 24 cards per hero. Each turn, a player’s workers generate a certain amount of gold that can be spent to build up a player’s draw deck with the cards from their Codex.
Players construct a deck using cards from one of seven clans, splashing in cards from another clan and generic cards. Each player has four provinces that serve as the staging area for cards coming into play, and are the target for attack by their opponent. Cards on provinces can either be characters, attachments that enhance characters in play, or attachments that enhance the province they are on. Each player also has a stronghold province that provides players with fate tokens each turn and is more difficult to defeat.
Woo-Hoo has two modes of play to choose from to cater to the kids you are playing with, but both share a fairly similar structure. Players will take turns rolling a die and moving the appropriate numbers of steps up of the elephant slide. Once your pawn reaches the top, you can slide down into the sand box. Yelling Woo-Hoo at this point is optional, but encouraged.
Then in the easy version, you will choose one toy from the box and place it in front of you. If you play with the slightly advanced setup you will roll a different die to determine how many toys, between 1-3, that you will collect.
There are 20 toys, five each of four different colors. The game ends when all of the toys have been collected. If you are playing with the basic rules, you can choose the number of toys to include to shorten the game if you’d like. In the advanced game you can also win by collecting all 5 toys of the same color.
Aquasphere is a point-salad Euro game for two to four players. Players use their engineer and scientist to program and use robots aboard an underwater station. The player with the most knowledge points after four rounds wins.
I was a latecomer to the Splendor love train. When it came out, I looked at it and thought, “That’s it?” Bear in mind, I was in a place in my life where I had time and energy for heavy games and something as light as Splendor was easily dismissed. But life changes. Not long after, everything did a 180 and I found myself with far less time and energy for gaming. I began seeking out lighter games which still possessed some depth, and that search led me back to Splendor.
I fell in love (or at least heavy like) with the base game, yet when I saw there was an expansion on the way, I thought, “Is it a good idea to mess with the simplicity of the original game? Isn’t the simplicity what made it great?” So with some trepidation, I took the plunge into expansion-land. So the question is, did Cities make things better or worse?
Hey everyone. We've made it around to another weekend. I said I was going to probably be doing some baking. Well, I've got some magic cookie bars cooling right now. I love these things... probably too
Hey everyone. We've made it around to another weekend. I said I was going to probably be doing some baking. Well, I've got some magic cookie bars cooling right now. I love these things... probably too much... *looks at my stomach* ... definitely too much. But issues with my waistline aside, I hope you're having a good weekend so far. I'm sure many of you are out gaming, which is awesome. But if you're stopping by here, I know it's because you want to check out those gaming reviews I know you all so desperately desire.
So, as I sip on a Pineapple Crush and wait for these bars to finish cooling, today we have: The Walking Dead: All Out War, Exit the Game, Legendary: X-Men Expansion, Orleans, Quantum, Race for the Galaxy App, First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet, Serengeti, Stone Age, Maze Racers, Purrrlock Holmes: Furriarty's Trail, Memoarrr!, The Goonies Adventure Card Game, Photosynthesis, Incantris, Hafid's Grand Bazaar, Ascension X: War of Shadows, Fate of the Elder Gods, and The Champion of the Wild.
The Walking Dead: All Out War is a skirmish game that pits your survivors against your opponent’s and you both must deal with hordes of zombies. It can be played as a cooperative or solo board game too.
X-Men is a big box expansion for Marvel Legendary the Deckbuilding Game. It features heroes and villains from the X-Men comics and adds some new mechanics to the Marvel Legendary series.
Orleans is a bag-building and worker placement board game. You must increase your followers to take more actions, get board position and gain more VPs.
Frankly, this section is almost unnecessary for Maze Racers. You can probably figure out what you need to do by looking at the back of the box, which is one reason why Maze Racers works so well. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
A starting block is placed in one agreed upon quadrant of the board, while the goal is placed in another. Say go and each player tries to build a maze as quickly and creatively as possible. The walls are rigid foam with a magnet on the bottom. As everyone should be familiar with what a maze is, teaching the game takes seconds. The only rule is that the maze has to be possible to complete. A spacer stick is included for checking your work.
In Purrrlock Holmes, each player will have a suspect card in front of them that displays the suspect and time of the crime they are trying to solve. You cannot see your own suspect card and must perform investigation actions to solve the crime.
When you investigate, you play one of the 4 suspect cards in your hand. Other players will tell you if it is a lead or a dead end. If the suspect on the card matches your suspect, it is always a lead. Alternately, if the time on the card is within an hour of the time your crime was committed it is also a lead. Everything else is a dead end.
Players are tasked with moving the three potion ingredients necessary to the bubbling cauldron at the center of the circular game board. The issue is that you don’t know which ingredient is in each of the potion bottles at the start of the game. Each turn, players will roll the set action dice to determine what they will do on their turn.
Players may be able to move one of the potion bottles closer to the center, move the Wizard looking to block your path or send bottles back, place a path blocker on one of the six paths, or roll the magic dice.
Being a family weight game, Memoarrr! is about as easy to learn as you might expect. The deck of cards in Memoarrr! is comprised of 25 cards, each card containing one of 5 different backgrounds and one of 5 different characters. The 25 cards are randomly laid out in a face down grid, and the center card is replaced with the scoring cards.
Each player gets to look at 3 cards before the game begins. The first player then randomly flips over a card. The next player clockwise must then flip over a card that matches either the background or the character on the card the first player flipped.
As The Goonies is a family weight game, learning to play is fairly easy. Each player will control one of the famous Goonies characters, each of which has 2 special abilities.
Incantris is a wizard dueling/skirmish game that uses dice to settle the score. Unlike some games of this type, you are not required to build a deck or otherwise create your army/team in order to play. Simply choose your team of three wizards from the pre-made teams and start attacking each other! Each team has their own unique abilities and things they do “best,” so each one plays a little differently.
Merchants enter Hafid’s Grand Bazaar hoping to emerge from their commercial haggling the wealthiest trader. And a grand bazaar indeed it is. With five unique goods each in five different commodity types – from cut gems to goats to ore to carpets to olive oil – it’s a veritable medieval Wal-Mart! You accumulate goods through bidding for caravan loads, negotiating with your competitors and with just a little outright luck. Okay, maybe more than a little.
In Ascension X, like previous games, you can play your entire hand without limitation, buying cards and fighting monsters in any order. Runes are used to buy cards, Strength to fight monsters, and you accrue Honor tokens to score points. A pool of 6 cards in the center of the table contains the monsters you’ll be fighting along with the heroes and constructs you’ll be adding to your deck.
In Fate of the Elder Gods, players take on the ever-maddening role of cults trying to summon ancient evil and herald the fall of mankind! Each cult is in competition to be first to summon their god, but they all must also repel intrepid investigators working to seal off the gate to beyond with Elder signs. Gather arcane artifacts, cast powerful spells, embrace the Dark Gift of your Elder God, and be first to hasten doom…before it’s too late!
It's a board game review cliché to say "if you like this kind of game, you'll like this game". It's a tired and lazy get-out clause for a reviewer, they can thoroughly dislike a game and then issue this kind of statement completely admonishing any form of reviewer responsibility while remaining pretty, positive and ever so cuddly. It is a phrase I detest, but trying to write a review of The Champion of the Wild while avoiding this statement is turning into the literal equivalent of a daytime charge across the minefield.
Saturday!Saturday!Saturday!Umm... read that like Elton John.Anyway, it's Saturday (if you hadn't noticed), so that means it's time to hang out and play some games. But it's also time for some reviews.
Saturday! Saturday! Saturday! Umm... read that like Elton John. Anyway, it's Saturday (if you hadn't noticed), so that means it's time to hang out and play some games. But it's also time for some reviews.
Today we have: Unearth, Zooscape, Moonquake Escape, Balloon Pop, Purrrlock Holmes, Neuroshima Hex: Death Breath, Deadline, The Butterfly Garden, Sagrada, Mow Money, Century: Spice Road, Slide Blast, Power Play, Monopoly Gamer, and Gang Rush: Breakout.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Zooscape a game from TMG that offers fun for a larger group and fantastic artwork!! If you like animals or the zoo - I'm sure you will love this title.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at MoonQuake Escape a game from Breaking Games and designer Jeff Johnston. We are doing another giveaway on this title and you definitely want to get in on this one! With this giveaway you are getting the game, 8 buttons, and the promo pack!
So hide your alien and keep them under cover so you can make your way to the landing base and be the first to escape in the only rocket there is. This is a great family and game night title - pick it up, its fun!
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Balloon Pop, a game from TMG. In this title you are simply rolling up to 5 dice and trying not to pop your balloon first - thus giving yourself a chance for the highest score in three rounds. This is a very quick 10 min game / filler and a fun recommendation.
The Death Breath army has a unique feel compared to the existing armies as there are quite a few new mechanisms added. Most importantly, when any of your units are killed, they go into a zombie pool. Your HQ has the ability to return units from your zombie pool to the battlefield after a battle. Many of your units have additional strength of initiative highlighted in green that activate only when they are returned in zombie form.
Additionally, some units have a charge ability that allows them to move into the space occupied by an opposing unit they defeat. This is extremely useful for units that activate in multiple initiatives as they can wipe out a whole line of enemies if things go your way.
Once a case is chosen and each player has their detective card, they are ready to begin.
After reading the case description (usually a murder that needs to be solved), a number of clue cards will be accessible to the players. The current “chief detective” then chooses a clue card to begin the round. Each clue card will contain a number of symbols that must be matched to successfully reveal the backside of the clue.
Each round of a game, players will be looking at a hand of Butterfly cards, more Butterfly cards on the table, and Garden cards. At the start of the round, each player selects a Butterfly card from their hand to play. These cards indicate the turn order using a large number in the upper left of the card. They also show the number and type of butterflies the player will gain in their jar.
Sagrada is played over ten rounds, with each round made up of the following three steps:
The first player randomly draws dice from a dice bag and rolls them to establish the draft pool (two dice for each player plus one) Starting with the first player, players may perform each of the following actions in any order (NOTE: Turn order is in a snake draft pattern): Draft a die from the draft pool and place the die in his window Use a tool card which allows the use of special abilities, but for a price (favor tokens) After the first player has taken their second turn, the round is over
The next round starts with the next player clockwise. After ten rounds, the game is over and the final scores are calculated based on:
Public objectives Private objective Favor tokens remaining Negative points for each open space in their window
At the start of the game, players will first set up the neighborhoods and contract cards. Players will then get all of their starting bits and lawn mower. Once they draw five basic bid cards and collect their three bluff cards the game can begin.
Century: Spice Road is an engine-building resource-conversion game for two to five players. Players are spice merchants along the spice road, seeking to produce and trade the spices necessary to fulfill contracts. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.
The object of Slide Blast is to build the longest waterslide for your meeple to slide down. Or, in game terms, to build a slide that covers the most tiles and thus earns you the most victory points.
You’ll build your slide by placing tiles and connecting flumes. This is easy-peasy. You will begin the game with one tile in hand. When it’s your turn, draw a tile from one of the tile decks so that you have two tiles in hand to choose from. Place your chosen tile so that it extends your slide and then move your meeple to the end of your slide. Now it’s the next person’s turn.
Power Play is a unique narrative game that combines the freedom of an RPG with the simplified rules, structures, and goals of a board game. It also happens to be competitive.
I’ve been mulling over this game for a long time, trying to figure out what to say about it. It’s not necessary a bad game; it’s playable, and definitely possible to have fun with. I just wonder that it might be stuck between two worlds, unable to find a real audience except for a small niche.
When the members of the underworld start to cross the bridge that leads to their headquarters, nobody knows who will reach the other side. Dash, crash, and cash in Gang Rush Breakout — whoever meets the Godfather with the most loot wins!
Well, it's Saturday. My day was looking like it might be a bit dull, but then a friend was like, "Hey, let's have everyone come over and game." and I was like, "done and done. I just need to type up a
Well, it's Saturday. My day was looking like it might be a bit dull, but then a friend was like, "Hey, let's have everyone come over and game." and I was like, "done and done. I just need to type up a post first." So, that's the sacrifice I'm making for you all. I could be on my way to gaming, but I know how much you need to get your review articles. Such is my dedication to this site and its readers. :P ;) The Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Sr., and Roy Acuff are helping, too.
Today we have: Dairyman, Bottlecap Vikings, Cult Following, Game of Trains, Yamatai, The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Balloon Pop, Unearth, Shahrazad, Rhein: River Trader, Dresden Files, Riff Raff, BarenPark, Jaipur, and Sentient.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Dairyman, a new one from TMG for 2017. This is a great little game and one of my favorites from them this year. I don't know why, but I love the concept and game play. Its just fun! In this title you are trying to ensure your milk orders do not spoil and you can produce milk each time its your turn. Otherwise, you are stuck with a back order, which can help you out unless you have the most of them.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Bottlecap Vikings, another TMG title that offers the roundel mechanic and a nice technology skill tree aspect that's always fun to build up. Its a quick and simple game, that I find builds memory and tactics.
Cult Following is a creative storycrafting card game. Each round two or three players are selected to be cultists. All the other players are designated as recruits. Cultists choose three ideas from a hand of five cards and creatively bind them together into a ridiculous cult. Recruits draw cards with questions and choose one to ask the cultists to help them figure out which cult to join. Each cultist takes a turn to answer. The recruit then picks their favorite answer and gives that cultist their question card, which represents a new follower that has joined that cult. The first cultist to reach two followers wins the round.
Alanis Morissette would call it ironic that I am writing a review about Game of Trains while sitting on a train. It’s not ironic, it's just where I seem to spend most of my time these days, squirming on London Midlands putrid green seats that where no doubt designed to eradicate slouching on public transport by 2019. The good thing is Game of Trains is a damn sight more fun than sitting uncomfortably on a morning commuter train, in fact I would go so far as to say that it has been the best game I have played so far in 2017.
The premise of Game of Trains is really simple, you will start the game with seven carriages numbered in descending order with any number from 1 to 88. The first person to arrange their carriages into ascending order is the winner.
Yamatai is a pattern recognition/building resource management Euro game for two to four players. Players are builders trying to beautify the Yamatai archipelago and be named Queen Himiko’s chief builder. The player with the most prestige at the end of the game wins.
Baron Munchausen is a game of telling outlandish tales to impress your friends.
You begin by giving yourself a name and noble title (“character creation”) to be referred by during the course of the game. Whoever is the starting player is given a prompt by the player to their left – this can be completely made up, or from the included list of prompts in the game book. An example prompt might look like this:
“Tell us, Great Duke of Carrotsberry, of the day you saved the moon from falling from the sky.”
The Great Duke of Carrotsberry then proceeds to weave their tale, making sure to present themself as outlandishly heroic, equipped with sheer ingenuity and strength in all forms. The story shouldn’t drag on; only a few minutes should do it, lest the Duke be deemed long-winded. (A player can be cut short with a toast if someone goes on too long).
In Balloon Pop, players start with 3 dice and can choose to reroll some or all, but if you do, you add a die to the next roll. Once a player re-rolls twice or is satisfied with their roll, they record the results on their scoring sheet by circling the numbers listed. The dice are then passed to the next player.
When scoring, it’s important to note that players will only score when a player circles the last red number under the balloon. This signifies a “Break.” If there is a Break during the round, all players continue to take their turn until reaching the starting player. All players then score points equal to the circled numbers in each column. If there are multiple breaks in a round, only one scoring takes place.
After three Breaks, players will total their scores from all 3 Breaks and the player with the highest points is the winner.
In Shahrazad, one or two players cooperatively attempt to place story tiles to make the most successful story to impress the king. To make a great story, the tiles must ascend from left to right and attempt to group colors together as much as possible.
After all tiles are played through two rounds, players take their total score and get a brief review from the king.
Rhein: River Trade is FedEx: The Game. Players take on the role of shipping companies aiming to fulfill contracts that require a certain amount of goods to be delivered to locations out of Basel, Germany within a certain amount of time. The player who manages this task to the achievement of the most profit wins.
Each game of the Dresden Files is broken out into one of the many Dresden Files books. And once you have tackled all of those, there is a stack of “side jobs” you can play for added variety.
Once you’ve selected a book for the game and each player chooses a character from the Dresden Files universe. Case cards are then dealt out into two, face up rows on the game board. Starting with the player controlling Harry Dresden (of course), each player takes one action on their turn.
We are back with another installment of Parental Guidance, where I chose games to play with my parents, and my mother chimes in with her thoughts on the games I brought. The goal of this article series is to help you choose new games that you can pull out with your family and other non-gamers. Ideally, these will be something different from the Ticket to Rides and Catan games you’ve played 1,000 times. If you missed the first installment of Parental Guidance, be sure to give it a read as there are some good options in there. As always, I’ll start with a summary of the game, why I chose it, and my mother’s thoughts. On to the games!
It's Saturday.But it's not just any Saturday.It's the Saturday of a 3-day weekend.Hopefully, you're out, enjoying yourselves somewhere. Be it gaming, out at the lake, a camping weekend, or whatever. B
It's Saturday. But it's not just any Saturday. It's the Saturday of a 3-day weekend. Hopefully, you're out, enjoying yourselves somewhere. Be it gaming, out at the lake, a camping weekend, or whatever. But if you're stopping by here, I know it's because you still crave those gaming reviews. So let's get to them.
Today we have: Knot Dice Deluxe, Arcadia Quest: Pets, Hoyuk, Masmorra: Dungeons of Arcadia, Realm Master, Frostgrave: Ulterior Motives, Anansi and the Book of Stories, 3 to 4 Headed Monster, Histrio, Draconis Invasion, Green Deal, Difference, Terra Mystica iOS, Scum of the Earth, and The Campaign for Kharkov: October 1941.
In this video I will teach you how to play including: components, player and board setup, hero turn and dungeon master phase, special rules and winning conditions.
Realm Master is a game that’s going to feel familiar to many gamers; because there's a lot here you've probably seen before. In Realm Master you'll roll dice Yahtzee style to collect gold, heal wounds, collect banners and attack the other players. The aim of the game is to either be the last man/woman standing, or to collect 10 banners. Banners can be collected by rolling the dice but the most efficient way is to become the Realm Master; by rolling at least one sword you can pay the entry fee and enter one of the four realms. Once in the realm you can collect resources and generally swank about like you own the place. However, you'll raise the ire of every other player, and from this point all attacks from all other players are targeted at you. Of course you can bail out whenever you want but you won't be able to collect those juicy coins, hearts and banners.
If you’re unfamiliar with trick taking games may I suggest reading a short primer on the subject? Now that you’re an expert, we can dive a little deeper in what makes Anansi it’s own game.
Anansi is played over a series of five rounds, after which players add up their points and whoever has the most is the winner. To begin each round, players are dealt a hand of cards and a number of role cards are placed on the table for players to select in order. These role cards have a number and an ability on them. The number is the amount of points you will score this round for every trick you manage to win and the ability will give you a unique power available for you to use.
3 to 4 Headed Monster is a social deduction game for three to four players. Players represent one head of an indecisive monster–one head is a pacifist and the rest want to rampage. The pacifist wins if he or she can control the monster enough times to direct it toward peace or go undetected. The rampaging heads win if they rampage each round or if they discover the pacifist.
Histrio is a simultaneous action selection card game that has players managing troupes of actors as they travel throughout the kingdom in an effort to impress the king by putting on shows that match his mood. Those who do will earn the most money (ecus, in game terms) and win the game.
Histrio is played over two theatrical seasons. Each season consists of a series of turns which continue until the deck of encounter cards is empty. When the encounter deck is empty, a second season is set up and played just like the first.
Hordes of invaders have appeared on the eastern borders of the kingdom and the King has charged the players with recruiting troops to repel them. In game play terms, players will be using their starting deck of gold and defender cards to try and build up an army of increasingly powerful cards. Players will be purchasing action cards, new defenders, and more lucrative forms of income. Eventually players will be fighting the invaders, earning them valuable glory points in the process. Once the invasion has been repelled, the player with the most glory will be crowned the King’s champion.
Globally and energy conscious corporations (stop laughing) are vying to impress the public and gain recognition for their efforts to be “the best employer, the most innovative, social or ecological company.” Players will do this by starting projects around the globe, but they must bid for turn order to do so. The various projects and their placements, as well as the PR impressions, gain victory points on various scales. The corporation with the most victory points from these activities wins.
In Difference, you are trying to get through the stack of cards that are given to you at the start of the game. In order to do this, you must spot the two differences between your card and the one on the table. If you are the first to do so, your card then becomes the reference card for the next round. This will continue until one player is out of cards and the game is over.
Terra Mystica is a territory building and economic game for 2-5 players. The main goal of the game is to expand out your unique civilization by changing the land into your race’s preferred terrain type. This is accomplished through a careful management of the games resources, and by building and upgrading structures. To be honest, there is a lot going on in Terra Mystica, so if you want to know more about the game before we dive into the digital app, check out our full Terra Mystica review here.
The game, somewhat intentionally, has no hard and fast scale – the authors ask the players to have the mindset of a TV director attempting to film an epic battle on a very limited budget: Bring the camera in close and hope that goes some way to make 30 men look like 300 or more. (You have seen Sharpe’s Waterloo, haven’t you? It’s a bit like that).
You can play the game on a 2? x 2? or 3? x 3? table. You can play the game with as little as 20 or 30 figures a side – Infantry units are made up of 6 models, whilst cavalry units have 3 models. Artillery are made up of a gun and 2 crew.
This 48 page book, available as a PDF or an e-book, is a campaign supplement written by Chris Stoesen for the Chain of Command World War II Platoon level rules from Too Fat Lardies. It is worth noting that this supplement is not a complete game in itself, and you will need both a copy of the main Chain of Command Rules and the At The Sharp End campaign rules in order to play, along with a copy of the Big Chain of Command rules.
Well, it's almost like the week is getting back on schedule, even though it's Saturday. I woke up. I got groceries. I'm now typing up the Review Roundup in my living room while listening to music and
Well, it's almost like the week is getting back on schedule, even though it's Saturday. I woke up. I got groceries. I'm now typing up the Review Roundup in my living room while listening to music and contemplating the rest of my day. Sort of nice to get things back to how they should be. What can I say? I'm a creature of habit. Anyway, as it's Saturday, it's time to get you those review articles I know you all so desperately desire. So let's get to it.
Today we have: Knot Dice Deluxe, Via Nebula, Lords of Hellas, 12 Realms: Dungeonland, 1754 Conquest: The French and Indian War, Star Realms: Colony Wars and United Expansions, Tournament of Towers, Manhattan Project: Energy Empire, Tesla vs. Edison: Duel, Balloon Pop, Terra Mystica App, Star Trek Panic, Sagrada, Yokohama, Ravage: Dungeons of Plunder, and EXIT: The Game - The Secret Lab.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Lords of Hellas from Awaken Realms. This is the second video in a 2 part series looking at the game play and mechanics. The first video was an overview of the miniatures and components. So if you want to see everything up close - please watch the component overview video.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at the new kickstarter 12 Realms: Dungeonland from Mage Company. This is based in the 12 Realms universe with all your favorite characters! The difference in this game vs 12 Realms is this is a fantastic dungeon crawler that is very satisfying as you customize your characters with skill tree's available to each character in the game.
Every now and then a game system comes along that delivers a refreshing jolt to all that’s come before it. It’s often something that makes you ask, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
1754 Conquest: The French & Indian War, the latest in Academy Games’ Birth of America Series, manages to bring the familiar game play of its predecessors, but with enough differences to make purchasing this historical gem worthwhile.
Star Realms Colony Wars stand alone expansion and the United expansion attempt to expand the success of releases with new ships and mechanics. Since I am covering several Star Realms in this review, I’ve broken them up more specifically below.
While there are a few different variants on play (family mode, mulligans, etc), the basic game play in Tournament of Towers has players stacking oddly shaped pieces with the goal of creating the tallest tower worth the most points. Using a system of piece values and card drafting, players must make it through two rounds of stacking if they hope to win the tournament.
Players sit in the roles of countries trying to develop industry and energy production over a period of time roughly from the end of World War II to the present day. Throughout the game, players will construct buildings, power plants as dice, and manage the pollution in their environment with the aim of scoring the most points.
Players in Tesla vs Edison: Duel take on the role of rival inventors trying to spread the gospel of alternating or direct current. In the game, each player plays projects and takes control of companies via a shared collection across three regions of the United States. What develops is card play with area control where the player with greater area strength claims the spoils. Players can win instantly or by accumulating points after three rounds.
In Balloon Pop! players try to score the most points by coming close to, but not reaching, the top of the scoring columns on their score sheets. Like Icarus, you want to fly as high as you can without getting too close to the sun. Each score sheet is composed of six columns of numbers, with a column for each side of the dice: the colors yellow, blue, and red, and the symbols star, moon, and diamond.
Terra Mystica (the board game and the app) is an engine- and network-building/resource conversion game for one to five players. Players control fantasy races in the land of Terra Mystica, trying to shape the land into habitable quarters and advance in the elemental religions. The player with the most victory points is the winner.
In many ways Ravage: Dungeons of Plunder is a typical dungeon crawler and in its basic premise I have to say that there isn't a huge amount of original ideas in the game. You'll venture into dark depths, kill monsters, grab loot, level up and hopefully last long enough to take on the story's goal. But Ravage puts a few interesting tweaks into the age old formula and wraps it up in a package of beautiful artwork and striking graphic design.
You may have noticed a surge in the number or Escape Room style board games appearing over the last few months. Fresh on the heels of cooperative puzzle games like TIME Stories comes a whole range of one-time puzzles based on the escape room phenomenon that is gripping the world. If you are like me, and live at the arse end of nowheresville you will most likely not have had an opportunity to visit one of these experiences.
Thankfully system like Unlock, Escape the Room and EXIT allow you to experience these cooperative puzzle sessions at home. We were lucky to receive a copy of EXIT The Secret Lab from Kosmos and so the opportunity of a bank holiday weekend meant I was able to lock ourselves into the dining room after a Sunday roast and see if the Tudor family was clever enough to escape a devious laboratory.
Hey everyone! As you're reading this, I'm enjoying Day 2 of the CMON Expo. If you're in the Atlanta area, head down and check it out. It's a great time had by all. Can't make it? Be sure to check out
Hey everyone! As you're reading this, I'm enjoying Day 2 of the CMON Expo. If you're in the Atlanta area, head down and check it out. It's a great time had by all. Can't make it? Be sure to check out the TGN Facebook Page for updates about all the stuff going on here throughout the day. As for here and now, it's time for those game reviews I know you all love so much.
Today we have: Zombie Tsunami, Arctic Scavengers, Dastardly Dirigibles, Ivion, Darkrock Ventures, Battle for Greyport, Phalanxx, V-Commandos, Mangaka, Onirim iOS, Twenty One, 3 to 4 Headed Monsters, Neroshima Hex: Mephisto, Veggie Garden, Barcelona: The Rose of Fire, Dragoon, Path of Light and Shadow, Watson & Holmes, Steam Works, and Gyrating Hamsters.
Professor Phineas Edmund Hornswoggle, known for building the highest quality airships, has announced his retirement. As one of the greatest airship engineers in the kingdom, you have gathered at the Hornswoggle factory in a competition to build the best airships you can and become the successor to the Hornswoggle empire.
In Dastardly Dirigibles, you will build your airship from different parts of 9 beautiful suits. Each airship is made of 7 cards, each representing a different part of the airship, such as the nose cone or lift engine. Whenever you add a part to your airship, ALL players MUST add the SAME part, even if it means replacing an existing part.
Use Special cards to your advantage or to thwart your opponents. The round ends when the first airship is complete. But you score only the suit used most in your airship. The player with the highest score after 3 rounds wins!
Ivion combines the intensity of a fighting game with the strategy of deck-building card games to create an experience unlike any other. In Ivion, your deck IS your character.
Build your deck from a variety of Classes and Specializations, ranging from the brutal Giant to the occult Ebon Mage. Each character type has numerous cards to choose from, and wildly different play-styles. Mix and match them to create your own, unique character to fight with!
Upon the field of battle, crush your opponent with various strikes, stabs, slashes, spells and other mayhem at your disposal. Be careful, though–they have numerous ways to block, dodge, parry, fizzle and disrupt your assault.
Only one can be the victor, and the battle will be bloody.
Zombie Tsunami is a party game for 3 to 6 players that plays in under 30 minutes.
In the game, every player leads a horde of zombies storming the city. The winner is the one with the most zombies at the end of a 3 round game. But beware, humans are everywhere and they won’t let you win without a fight.
Players will have to collaborate, bluff, and sometimes betray one another in order to win the game!
Darkrock Ventures is a worker placement game about mining and exporting in a hostile outer space. Players will be controlling a mining company working in harsh conditions to acquire the most credits.
You and your adventuring companions are just returning to the bustling city of Greyport after your latest adventure. You are all looking forward to relaxing and spending some of your hard-earned loot at The Red Dragon Inn. The party will have to wait, though, because the city is under attack by evil monsters! Battle for Greyport is a cooperative deck-building game based on the characters and world of The Red Dragon Inn. You will travel to important locations around the city, fighting epic battles and recruiting whatever heroes and items you can along the way. Each encounter presents more opportunities to improve your deck, but also brings more dire foes for you to face! With five playable characters, seven different scenarios, and an assortment of variants, you can have a new game every time, adjusting the game’s difficulty as you improve. Will you defend the city from the monsters and defeat their nefarious boss, or will the city (and the tavern!) be overrun? The Red Dragon Inn: Battle for Greyport also contains two items for use with any of the standalone The Red Dragon Inn titles: Chronos the Time Mage character deck and Drog’s Special Reserve drink card.
Alexander the Great has conquered a vast empire, but his power is now waning and the time is ripe to compete for his inheritance.
Each player in Phalanxx leads one of four competing factions that are ready to rule that vast empire. To do this, you must become the most powerful faction by reinforcing your troops, ensuring sufficient supplies, and occupying the most important cities and oases.
Check out the unique dice drafting and dice management mechanism.
V-Commandos is a WW2 commandos co-operative board game. Players can either select a pre-generated mission or create their own by combining objective cards, then they assemble a team from famous Allied corps: U.S. Raiders, British SAS., Devil’s Brigade, SOE, etc. During play, you hide in darkness, wear enemy uniforms, and sneak up on your targets. Get spotted? Open fire with emblematic allied weapons and try to turn the enemy’s weapons against them! If you can, get back to cover and turn off the alarms as the enemy has more available troops than you. Thus, you need to focus on completing the mission, then leaving the area as quickly as you can
Mangaka: The Fast & Furious Game of Drawing Comics is a creative fast-paced card game in which players draw comic stories over four rounds combining Themes & an ever-growing number of Trends.
Players start by drawing three Theme Cards (such as “Kaiju/Giant Monsters”, “Robots and Androids,” or “Desire to be a Parent”) to determine the subject matter of their comic. (These three Themes stick with the player throughout the game. Many but not all of the Themes have a manga/anime/Japanese flavor.) Then each player chooses a title and “pen name.”
In Onirim, players are “Dreamwalkers” in a labyrinth. In order to escape, they must discover “oneiric” doors. There are 4 colors of doors and 2 of each color. As players play consecutive cards of the appropriate color and symbol, they unlock the doors. If a player manages to unlock all 8 doors, they win the game.
For a full reading of the rules to understand how complex the card manipulation can get, check out the rules on Z-Man Games’ website.
In Twenty One, players will roll six different colored dice and, depending on the result, write scores onto their sheet. Each sheet contains 6 rows and each player can only write a number the top-most incomplete row.
Players represent different heads of a monster rampaging through a city who must decide to be peaceful or dangerous. Through the course of the game, either the peaceful role player will win subtly or the dangerous players will win by deducing which player is peaceful. As players choose who will control the legs of the monster, they’re also determining the outcome of the game in a way similar to how The Resistance is played.
Neuroshima Hex: Mephisto comes in the standard Neuroshima Hex small-sized expansion box that you’ll immediately toss out once you open it. Like all Neuroshima Hex expansions, the main attraction here is the new army tiles.
Veggie Garden is a game about growing, well, a vegetable garden. Duh. The idea here, though, is that this is a community garden and while you’re trying to make it flourish for everyone, you want to have the richest personal harvest.
As the decision maker in an influential family, it is your goal to grow your wealth by constructing buildings while balancing the social unrest of the new immigrant population. The game is divided into five phases in which players take turns playing action cards and constructing buildings. There are three scoring periods in the game in which players will gain victory based on the type of buildings they’ve constructed. Whoever can collect the most points by game’s end is the victor.
In Dragoon, you take on the role of a dragon forced to deal with the arrival of humans. You’ll need to burn their cities to the ground, or at least subjugate them and take their gold. The first dragony player to reach 50 gold wins the game.
Picture the scene: you’re at a large convention at a popular UK site and you see through the crowd a man wearing a metallic owl on his shoulder, together in Victorian getup and an extendable spyglass fixed to the side of his head. On the streets, this kind of behaviour would usually result in a swift recapture followed by a series of injections and perhaps a straightjacket. In the safe and womb-like environment of the UK Games Expo however, it’s worthy of perhaps a gently raised eyebrow before being distracted by another miniatures vendor. Unless you’re me of course, where Steampunk holds a particular fascination ever since I donned the light gem and began a career as a thief in the PC game… er… Thief.
Here we have a fantastic card game for 2-4 players, it’s quick and easy to learn, 20 minutes play time and the most fun you’ll have with hamsters legally!
Gyrating Hamsters is bought to you by a team composed of Alex & Rebekah Host and Andrew & Allison Gerbsch, all hailing from Tenessee U.S.A.
And we've come to another Saturday. Ah, the possibilities for today. I'm sure a lot of you are spending it at Adepticon. Me? I've picked up a bunch of snacks and some drinks and am going to watch some
And we've come to another Saturday. Ah, the possibilities for today. I'm sure a lot of you are spending it at Adepticon. Me? I've picked up a bunch of snacks and some drinks and am going to watch some MST3K on Netflix. Because I'm cool like that. ;) Anyway, I know what you're all here for isn't my choice of fizzy beverage, but for reviews. So let's get to it.
Today we have: Realm-Master, Unlock, WizKids Unpainted Miniatures, Arkham Horror The Card Game, Bushi No Yume, Ronin, Element, Guns & Steel: Renaissance, Bloc by Bloc, The Oracle of Delphi, Dragoon: The Rogue and Barbarian Expansion, RPG Coasters, Kingsport Festival: The Card Game, Running With the Bulls, Magic Maze, Faith: A Garden in Hell, and Moons.
If you follow us on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or Instagram, you’ll know that we acquire a lot of miniatures at Nerds on Earth HQ. In fact, some folks would say I have a problem, but I can stop getting more miniatures any time I want. I promise.
Well, Wizkids came out with a new line of unpainted minis and I just had to have them.
Arkham Horror The Card Game certainly isn’t the first Lovecraft-inspired game in recent years. In fact, it’s one in a long line of games that uses your chosen character’s health and sanity as the counterweight to success and failure. Lose either of them, and you could become gravely wounded and die, or you might descend into madness. Remain “healthy,” and you keep hope alive, which is often more difficult than not.
Bushi No Yume (BNY) is a set of skirmish rules for fighting in ancient Japan, using either a historical of fantasy setting. They were written in 2010 by our friend Rich Jones.
BNY uses the same basic rules engine as Rich’s other set of rules, ‘Flying Lead’, so if you are a fan of any of those rules you will find much that is familiar.
To play Bushi No Yume, you will need several six-sided dice, a set of measuring sticks (size dependent upon miniature scale) 5-10 miniatures and area of play around 3? x 3? with some suitable scenery. You will also optionally need a set of Karma Cards. These cards can be found in the back of the rules – they will need to be removed, cut and placed in card prtocestors.
Ronin is a set of skirmish rules set in the Age of the Samurai, written by Craig Woodfield and published by Osprey Publishing as part of their Osprey Wargames series in 2013.
Each player has a warband, known as a Buntai, of between 4 and 20 models. A game usually takes place on a battlefield between 24? x 24? and 36? x 36?.
In Element players are wise sages with the power to control not only earth, wind and fire, but also water. Each will summon these forces in an epic battle – or fraternal hazing ritual – attempting to entrap their foes within a prison of nature.
Guns & Steel: Renaissance is a hand-building and hand-management civilization card game for two to four players. Players seek to steer their civilizations through several ages, adding civil, tactic, and military cards to their tableaus and collecting culture points. The player with the most culture wins.
Bloc by Bloc can be played fully or semi cooperatively. I’ve only played the semi cooperative version as it seemed to add more interesting elements to the game and I’m generally not a fan of fully cooperative games. As such, every player will be dealt a secret agenda card which will define how each player can achieve victory. Each agenda card has two separate win conditions. Every round, players check to see whether or not they’ve met one of the conditions to determine a winner. Over the course of the game, you’ll be manipulating the board state through your actions in order to meet your agenda conditions and hopefully win the game.
Players, acting as ancient mythological Greek heroes, are racing against each other to complete twelve tasks. They roll dice to take actions hoping to be the most efficient at combining tasks in nearby locations. The player to complete all twelve first and return home wins.
The aptly named Dragoon: The Rogue and Barbarian expansion adds two new roles to the game. Want to take a guess as to what they are?
All joking aside, this new expansion takes Dragoon from a completely symmetric game, where everyone plays the same role of a dragon, into the asymmetrical realm by giving players something new to try out.
RPG Coasters sent Board Game Quest a set of coasters with a nice wood stand that allows for the display of the coasters on a nearby human-sized shelf. The designs for this batch were of me and various nemeses that have tried to thwart me over the years. Tony says humans also like to roleplay that they are fighting the ancient ones in games of acting. It took me 15 human minutes to stop laughing. Apparently these designs reinforce human memory so they only need to look at the coaster to remember who they are. Sounds about right for humans.
In Kingsport Festival: The Card Game, players once again take on the role of cultists seeking to invoke the elder gods. Each round, players will be rolling dice and using the result to recruit elder god cards. These, in turn, will increase their action potential of the player on later turns.
In the game, players use handfuls of dice as runners, starting them at the top of the game board and playing cards to reroll those runners or influence opposing runners, with your goal for each of the three days being to get your runners to the fancy destinations (which are worth differing amounts of points) at the bottom of the board while avoiding the bulls that are chasing you.
Magic Maze is a real-time, cooperative game. Each player can control any hero in order to make that hero perform a very specific action, to which the other players do not have access: Move north, explore a new area, ride an escalator… All this requires rigorous cooperation between the players in order to succeed at moving the heroes prudently. However, you are allowed to communicate only for short periods during the game; the rest of the time, you must play without giving any visual or audio cues to each other. If all of the heroes succeed in leaving the shopping mall in the limited time allotted for the game, each having stolen a very specific item, then everyone wins together.
FAITH is set far into the future. Mankind has been conquered and become part of the Coalition, a uneasy truce between a number of alien races brought together to fight the Ravager, a genetically engineered hive like race kind of like a cross between Warhammer 40,000's Tyranids and Gears of War's Locusts, so hardly the kind of person you're going to invite over for afternoon tea.
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?
First part of the weekend is already a success. The pizza last night was pretty much everything I could've hoped for. It's nice when a week-long cooking project turns out good (ok, the pizza doesn't r
First part of the weekend is already a success. The pizza last night was pretty much everything I could've hoped for. It's nice when a week-long cooking project turns out good (ok, the pizza doesn't really take a week to make, but parts I was able to do ahead of time like render the bacon and such was done along the way, instead of doing it all last night). Today it's all about the Board Game Day at the Milton Library. If you're in the Atlanta area, stop on by.
But that's for later (well, later to me now as I'm typing this, not later from the time you read this, since I'm typing this at 6am and will be gaming at 2pm when it posts).
Right now we've got reviews of: London, Colosseum, Ophidian 2360, Ore-Some, Critter Combat, Gloomhaven, Runebound: The Gilded Blade Expansion, Mage Wars: Arena Paladin vs Siren Expansion, Conquest of Speros, Castles of Burgundy, Flamme Rouge, and Ponzi Scheme.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at the new Critter Combat from Rare Mind Games. This is currently on Kickstarter with a super low funding goal. Please go out there an check this out as it is really a great little card game for kids and adults.
The mechanics are simple but the game still offers a good level of strategic thought process as you decide how to use 1 of your 3 available actions on your turn.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Gloomhaven! This is the game play review featuring game mechanics, my thoughts on quicker startup, layout and all the goodness that makes Gloomhaven. I will have to say, it will not be surprising to see this game make best game of 2017 as it is fantastic and the more you play the more you want to play and build out your board. It really offers a full RPG experience in a traditional board game setting.
So get out there and pick up a copy when it hits retail as this is a gamer's paradise!
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at The Gilded Blade a Runebound 3rd edition expansion featuring a new miniature, items, abilities and adventure cards. So as the festival takes place, buy sell and loot all you can - but watch out for thieves because they are everywhere in this one.
In Conquest of Speros, each player will take control of one of four different factions and battle for various locations. Location types and resources from those locations translate into points at the end of the game, with the player having the most points being crowned the winner.
Based on The Castles of Burgundy, the card game of the same name has players as lords of lands in renaissance France. Their goal is the expanding of their estates through the construction of buildings, creating farms, mining, shipping goods, and constructing castles. This is accomplished through the playing of cards to form sets and using cards with dice symbols as virtual dice. The player who earns the most points from this variety of activities wins.
There’s a fundamental question that every race-themed board game has to ask and answer, and that is this: what makes the track any more than a simple scoreboard? Or, in other words, what makes the race a race?
Ponzi Scheme is an economic trading game for three to five players. Players are fraudsters luring investors with impossible promises, trying to build the most profitable shell companies. The player with the most points in industries (without going bankrupt) wins.
The holiday season is well and truly upon us. It's the last weekend before Christmas and all through the house, my D&D group had to cancel because everyone had last-minute stuff come up due to the hol
The holiday season is well and truly upon us. It's the last weekend before Christmas and all through the house, my D&D group had to cancel because everyone had last-minute stuff come up due to the holiday and the end of the year :/ ... But waddyagonnado? Me? I'm gonna probably bake some cookies and just chill, watching some Christmas movies, including MST3K's Manos, the Hand of Fate. Why is that a Christmas movie? Because it's in the same 2-disk box with Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. But that's me.
As for the exact moment, it's time to get you a bunch of reviews.
Today we have: Mythos Tales, BattleGoats, Murder at Blood Mansion, Timeline: British History, The Refuge, Ice Cool, You Gotta Be Kitten Me, Colony, CVlizations, Star Wars: Destiny, Pocket Madness, The King's Armory, La Granja: No Siesta, Escape Room: the Game, Ponzi Scheme, Doom: The Board Game, Deathwatch: Overkill, and Blood Bowl (2016 Edition).
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Mythos Tales from 8th Summit. This is a story driven game with a horror feel straight from the H.P. Lovecraft's universe! You will work as a team or alone to solve the crimes one by one trying to outwit Professor Henry Armitage and get the best most efficient score possible. The game is super fun and travels well if you are on the go. So if you are looking for an adventure and you don't mind chasing down monsters from the deep, look no further than Mythos Tales!
Timeline is ridiculously simple to play. Each card in the game beautifully depicts an event in history. The front side is merely the artwork and title but on the rear of the card is the year in which this event took place. The aim of the game is simply to empty your hand of cards by slotting a card in between the right events. Flip over the card to see if you're correct, if so the card stays in place, wrong and the card gets discarded and you are forced to draw another card from the deck.
The Refuge was very quickly funded on kickstarter recently, and lucky old me, I’ve just received mine through the post! The game itself is a mixture of deck building and a race to the finish line, all while trying to outsmart zombies and the other survivors, there is only room for one person at the finish line!
School’s in session but the penguin students have only one thing on their minds: fish. The winner of Ice Cool is the player who can collect the most.
On your turn, you will flick your penguin pawn a single time. Certain doorways around the school will have fish tokens in your color attached to them. If you flick your penguin through one of these doorways, you remove the fish token and draw a fish card. It’s an easy enough goal, but it’s complicated by the presence of the hall monitor.
Colony is an engine building and resource manipulation game with dice for one to four players. Players are leaders of postapocalyptic colonies using their scant resources to build up their infrastructure. The first player to reach a certain point threshold is the winner.
Players take on the roles of unseen hands guiding a tribe through the ages. As they do so, they will engage in resource gathering activities with the aim of acquiring knowledge and tools in the form of idea cards. Each card awards happiness points at the end of the game and/or a special ability to gain advantage over opponents.
In Star Wars: Destiny, each player constructs (or uses a pre-made starter deck) of 30 cards. The goal of the game is to reduce the life of your opponent’s heroes to zero. This is accomplished by playing cards from your hand and rolling dice to gain attack power, resources or other special abilities. Turns will be played back and forth between players until one player is out of life.
Pocket Madness (which sounds like a disease received from visiting Yuggoth) is a game about researching the Ancient Old Ones as recorded by the human Howard Phillips Lovecraft. By playing cards, the human players imagine themselves to be opening portals, publishing research and gaining “madness” (more like sanity if you ask me). The human player who is able to have the least “madness” at the end of the game wins.
Luckily for the kingdom, scouts have noticed an impending army of monsters hoping to break through the castle defenses and take the treasures within. This advanced warning has allowed for the necessary preparation for the upcoming battle. This allows the players to set up defensive towers and hire troops to defend the castle. Players will choose from traditional fantasy hero archetypes to command during the game.
It's officially the holiday shopping season. Gamers all over the world will be getting and giving gifts. But what games should you buy? You don't want to chance your money on something you won't end u
It's officially the holiday shopping season. Gamers all over the world will be getting and giving gifts. But what games should you buy? You don't want to chance your money on something you won't end up playing. As such, Reviews are a great way to save money, letting you know how a game works so you can only get the ones you want. So let's save you some money.
Today we have: True Crime Legends, Dream Home, Medici, Dragon Punch, 4 Gods, Garbage Day, A Feast for Odin, Amun-Re, Jorvik, and Santorini.
Dream Home is a lightweight set collection and card drafting game that has players striving to create their dream home. “Dream” being defined as the home that scores the most points, not the one that looks the coolest.
The third edition of Medici plays the same as the second edition, with one difference: an included two-player mode.
To play with two players, each player adds the two-player supplemental mats to the end of their ship mat, increasing the size of their ships’ holds to seven (from five). Before each round, remove eighteen cards from the deck (as you would for a three-player game). The scoring scheme is different for both most-valuable ship and for the commodity tracks. Otherwise, the game plays using the same rules as with more players.
Over the course of several turns, players will select cards that represent fighting moves. If a player lands a hit, the opponent takes damage. Once a player takes enough damage, they lose the game. Multiple games can be played for a match.
In 4 Gods, players assume the roles of gods who are trying to create a new world by placing tiles that represent the landscape. They are also competing to have the most influence by assigning their prophets to different areas of the new world. The unique aspect of this game (in its normal mode) is that it plays out in real time, with all players taking their turns simultaneously. When the game ends, the new world is evaluated and points are earned in several ways. The player with the most victory points is the winner.
In True Crime Legends, players will build and run a criminal organization. Players will buy assets, recruit new members, earn, smuggle, and other dirty deeds to gain money to grow their underworld empires. Your rivals will attempt to murder your members and your boss, steal from you, and even firebomb your assets to stop your growth. The first player to reach $1 million Bills with an active Boss wins the game.
In Garbage Day, players will be placing trash cards onto a trash can, which also doubles as the game “box”. There are no victory points to be earned here, the name of the game survival. You’ll be placing cards into your room, opponent’s room, or onto the can itself. Careful must be taken though, for if you knock too many cards off of the pile, you’re out of the game! Last one left is the winner.
Well, my previous plans for the day sort of fell through. No worries, though. The day will not be ruined.I might just see if my N64, that I brought back from my parent's place last time I visited, sti
Well, my previous plans for the day sort of fell through. No worries, though. The day will not be ruined. I might just see if my N64, that I brought back from my parent's place last time I visited, still works or not. If so, hello Ocarina of Time! But in the meantime, let's get you some reviews, shall we?
Today we have: Tides of Madness, Smiths of Winterforge, 3 Wishes, Garden Adventures, Top That, Happy Salmon, Kenjin, The Oracle of Delphi, Retreat to Darkmoor, Arkham Horror: The Card Game, Escape From Colditz, and Onitama.
In Tides of Madness, players draft and play cards representing elder ones and places from the Lovecraftian mythos. This is in an attempt to combine suited cards and abilities, with the goal of accumulating the most victory points at the end of three rounds.
Players have to be careful as the more rewarding cards can cost players their sanity. Too much madness and players lose immediately. The player with the most victory points at the end of three rounds wins.
Players will move their agents to and from the precincts of Winterforge and attempt to complete contracts, recruit guild members, buy components, forge wondrous items, and ideally, be debt-free to gain the most reputation points (REP). The player with the most REP at game’s end wins.
In 3 Wishes, you and your friends have stumbled upon a lamp and decided to check if it was magical. Surprisingly, a genie popped out and offered to grant the owner three wishes. However, all of you are laying claim to this magical lamp. So to sort it out, the genie will only grant the wishes of the player with the most balanced set of wishes.
During the game, players will be trying to accrue one of each of the three types of wishes: a super power, a benefit for the world and a gift for yourself. However, since the cards are face down, you won’t always know what you are wishing for. During your turn, you’ll be peeking, swapping and even shuffling your cards. Once a player had decided that they have their three cards required to win the genie’s attention, they can call for the end of the game.
The game centers around the weather and managing of the garden tiles. Each turn, a player will roll a die to determine the weather for the round. Players will need the right amount of sun and rain to allow their garden to fully grow and attract the animals they need to win the game. The game will continue until a player has reached the necessary victory points to win the game.
Top That is a speed stacking game for two to four players. Each round players rush to arrange their pieces in a stack. The first to complete a predetermined number of arrangements first wins.
Each player receives a black top hat, a large red thimble, an orange tube, a green coin, and a white rabbit and lays out the pieces in front of them. Each round a card is flipped up.
Every player has a deck of cards in their chosen color. Your goal is to get rid of all of your cards before everyone else. The game is played in real time with all players acting simultaneously. You will take your deck in the palm of your hand and call out the action of the topmost card of your deck. If someone else calls out a matching action, you can perform the stated action together after which both players will discard that card and move on to the next. You can, at any time, take the topmost card and move it to the back of the deck in order to reveal the next card.
In Kenjin you take on the role of a feuding warlord in medieval Japan, marshalling your troops to control key battlefields like ports, bridges, camps and rice fields. Hey, gotta keep your army fed! The design is a standard “easy to learn, not-so-straightforward to play” card game in which cards represent units in your army of varying types, strength and abilities that interact wildly different with each other. When all the cardstock and blood settles, victory is determined by securing points at various locations through simple area control that, again, proves not so simple after all.
theMCGuiRE review takes a look at Escape From Colditz a brand new board game out of Osprey Games. Man these guys are killing it right now with all their new games to the market. I have been so impressed with their ability to continue and deliver solid titles with very high quality components. this game features a World War II theme and allied POW forces trying day and night to escape from the infamous Castle Colditz, the inescapable German POW war prison.
This game is based on real life events and designed in partnership by one of a hand full of people to actually escape the prison Major Pat Reid! Unbelievable story and history all wrapped up in one tabletop experience. So start thinking and planning your every move to even try and escape Castle Colditz!!
I love microcosms. Take the classic WWII German submarine movie, Das Boot. There is an inescapable immersion generated by the cramped quarters, the interplay among the submariners, and the life and death struggles that demand excellence and cohesion in crisis after crisis. Since prisons practically define microcosms, I’ve had my eyes on Escape from Colditz by Osprey Games since the reprint was announced last year. (The original game was published in 1973.)
Escape from Colditz allows players to immerse themselves in the historic escape attempts by the multi-national groups of POW’s secured inside the walls of Colditz Castle during WWII.
While not as internationally known as, say, Tokyo, Yokohama is easily just as important in Japan's history. It was the city that was first opened up to foreign trade (forcibly, but still...) after a l
While not as internationally known as, say, Tokyo, Yokohama is easily just as important in Japan's history. It was the city that was first opened up to foreign trade (forcibly, but still...) after a long period of isolation for the island nation. As various traders made their way to the city, they brought various goods that they would sell to merchants headed all across the globe. Each trader wanted to be the most influential. And that's where the board game Yokohama comes in. The deluxe edition of which is up on Kickstarter now.
In the game, players take on the role of Meiji-period traders in the city. Your job is to build a successful business (as you'd expect). You do this by building a store, having the various goods that buyers want, getting knowledge of various techniques, and expanding your market.
This deluxe version is all about upgrading various tokens and counters to either wood or metal (depending on the piece in question).
It's pretty popular too. They've blown past their funding goal. And even 2x their funding goal. They're currently 2.5x funded and working towards 3x with still 23 days to go.
Hey everyone and welcome to Saturday. How's yours been? Mine's been busy as f... err... it's been busy. Since this morning I've made homemade caramel sauce, strawberry-lime sauce, peanut-butter-carame
Hey everyone and welcome to Saturday. How's yours been? Mine's been busy as f... err... it's been busy. Since this morning I've made homemade caramel sauce, strawberry-lime sauce, peanut-butter-caramel-pretzel-chocolate-bar-things (though having just cut them, "mess" is a good way to describe them), and a batch of dark chocolate chunk cookies. What's all that for? Well, Ray (the CMON Convention Organizer) has his birthday coming up and we're throwing a party.
But while I wait for the batch of cookies to cool down enough so I can put them into a tin for transport, let's get you some gaming reviews.
Today we have: Myths at War, Creature College, Deadzone Second Edition, Legends of the American Frontier, Perfect Crime, HOPE, Steam Time, Guilds of London, Stockpile, Slaughterball, Knuckling Knights, Ice Cool, Maze Racers, Odd World, and Bring Your Own Book.
Anyone who backed Legends of the American Frontier on Kickstarter waited a long time for their game to arrive, which in a way is apropos. Receiving a game in the Wild West from across the country or from the other side of the world was like barkin’ at a knot. Perhaps the anticipation was worth the wait? Let’s find out.
At its core, Legends (that’s how the cool kids refer to it) is about creating your personal story in the Wild West before — presumably — dying of dysentery, typhoid, diphtheria, or at the hands of a dentist or doctor administering drugs laced with alcohol or opium. Follow the link to read the full review!
In Perfect Crime one player takes on the role of the bank and must fend off the remaining players who are bank robbers attempting to break into the bank, open the vault and get out with as much swag as possible.
What do you say when an excitable, well dressed French chap grabs your attention and invites you to take a look at a new board game with a novel twist? You say “yes” of course. Such was the situation I was in at the recent UK Games Expo when introduced to the upcoming Kickstarter game: HOPE.
On first inspection, it’s a very vibrant, hex-based board game with a lot of swirls, blobs and most notably, a space-theme. Colour me interested. The premise is reminiscent of Mass Effect - In the future, there is a force (the Regression) moving through the universe obliterating galaxies as it goes and it’s up to you to stop it. HOPE is a cooperative game where you all work to deposit Pioneers on planets in each galaxy to stop the Regression from taking them. There’s a race going on – colonise enough galaxies with sufficient Pioneers in time and you win, take too long and the Regression beats you.
It’s the year 1899, and strange phenomena are being observed in places like Stonehenge and the pyramids of Egypt. Time goes crazy, and newly discovered crystals have exhibited strange properties that allow for the creation of fantastic apparatuses.
In a race to exploit these discoveries, the rapidly industrializing nations have used them to construct gigantic steam-driven airships to travel through time and space. In Steam Time, the race is on for long-lost knowledge, vanished cultures, and hidden treasures. Travel to past ages, search for crystals, and use your crystals wisely to stay ahead of your competitors.
To win the coveted Creature College Cup, you must collect more victory points than your opponents. Victory points (VPs) can be won by collecting creatures, completing missions, building your research lab, and smacking down your enemies! Creature College is played in three university terms: Spring, Autumn and Winter. Each term consists of three bidding rounds and one battle round. At the end of twelve rounds the game ends and the player with the most VPs wins.
In Slaughterball, each player (from here on referred to as “coach” to avoid confusion) controls a team of futuristic players in a grueling match of combat and scoring. During the game, coaches can activate up to 3 different players on their turn, who can take 2 actions each. The coach’s main goal will be to score points, which can be accomplished by either throwing the ball into the goal or knocking down and hurting other players. Once six periods have been completed, the game ends and the team with the most points is the winner.
Throughout the countryside, people are talking about the greatest knights’ tournament of all time going on at King Benjamin’s castle. Today, the knight’s task is to find the secret door hidden in the castle. Players will roll the die to determine if they will add knights to the rumble or find the elusive door. When the door is pulled, the knights will cascade onto the board hoping to avoid the pitfalls on the castle lawn. If knights manage to survive the scrum, they will go back to fight another day. The player with the most knights left at the end of the round will earn a gold coin, with two needed to win the game.
Maze Racers is a maze building dexterity game for two (or more) players. Players simultaneously design mazes and then race through the opponent’s maze. The first player to complete the maze is the winner.
Odd World is a quick-playing, set collection card game with a very simple, yet compellingly clever push-your-luck mechanism. More importantly it justly returns Pluto to its honored cosmic status.
The goal in this dwarf game (see how insulting that sounds, IAU…?!?!) is to collect sets of planets – including but not limited to Pluto. The catch is that only sets comprising an odd number are worth points. Any set of even numbers is worthless. Each card back illustrates two of the nine possible planets in our solar system. And one of those two will be represented on its front face, as well. So you have a 50/50 idea of what planet is on a given card.
Bring Your Own Book is a party game for three to eight players. Players find phrases in books that respond to the card prompts, and players are given cards for good answers. The first player to reach a certain number of cards wins.
Each player brings to the game a book–any book. On each turn, a new player draws the top card from the stack and reads the prompt. Players then search their books for a good answer to the prompt. The first player to find an answer shouts, “Got it!” and turns over the timer. The remaining players have until the timer runs out to find an answer. Players read their answers to the prompt, and then players vote on which answer was the best. (Ties are broken by the player who drew the card.) The player who gave the best answer receives the card with the prompt on it, and it is the next player’s turn.
It's another Saturday and that means another Review Roundup.Hopefully you're having a good one. I'm working on putting together some Guild Ball minis.Anyway, let's get right into the reviews.Today we
It's another Saturday and that means another Review Roundup. Hopefully you're having a good one. I'm working on putting together some Guild Ball minis.
Anyway, let's get right into the reviews.
Today we have: Parade, Incan Gold, X-Wing's Eighth Wave of Expansions, Booze Barons, Kakerlaken Poker Royal, Tsuro digital app, Pingo Pingo, Raptor, Hue, Battlecruisers, Celesta, Colt Express: Horses and Stagecoach Expansion, Super11, Quadropolis, Ominoes, Curse of Strahd, and Imperial Settlers: Why Can't We Be Friends Expansion.
ou know double-yolk eggs? Those rarest of treasures that whisper “It’s all going to be ok” up from the pan? Well, today you get a double-review! Enclosed within the brittle shell of this article are not one, but TWO of the greatest card games we’ve ever played, full of fatty fun and caloric goodness.
Please ensure your credit card is secured in your official SU&SD fast-draw holster before continuing. We're serious. These games are very, very good.
As of March, the latest round of expansions for Fantasy Flight's enormously popular spaceship miniatures game, X-Wing, is finally and fully here. The first - er - wave of Wave 8 arrived in December, so a few of these ships and cards have had longer to bed in than others. Even so, it's time to round the lot of them up and force them to answer hard questions, like: WHAT DO YOU BRING TO THE GAME? WHY ARE YOU NICE? WHY DO I FEEL COMPELLED TO OWN YOU? And: IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE FOR THE SAME WAVE TO ARRIVE TWICE? WOULD THAT NOT MAKE IT TWO SEPARATE WAVES, LIKE, IN BOTH A MARITIME AND A PHILOSOPHICAL SENSE?
The answer to that last one is evidently 'yes', by the way. Haha! Eat it, Heraclitus!
Booze Barons is a quick, team-based hidden identity and deduction game set during U.S. Prohibition where you are bootlegging a particular type of booze and secretly delivering it to speakeasies all over the city. Each time you make a delivery, you get a coin, but also reveal information about the type of booze you are bootlegging. Expose bootleggers of opposing mobs and help those who are in your mob since the mob with the most coins at the end wins!
Kakerlaken Poker Royal is the European successor to the popular bluffing game, Kakerlaken or Cockroach Poker. It’s designed by Jacques Zeimet and published by Drei Magier Spiele. It can expose the cracked relationships of between 2 and 6 people, in just under half an hour.
Lay out the big blind, adjust your mirrored shades and outright lie to your friends to get into the mood for our review.
The first thing you notice upon opening the Tsuro app is the slick 3D animation. Great care has been made to replicate the tactile experience of the physical version and give the visuals some gravitas. There is no immediate menu, no list of options. You literally open the game box to get things going. The board smoothly flies out and unfolds, the tiles float into a neat stack, and the dragon tokens slide into view. You can even see the creases in the board from the fold. There’s a solid attention to detail here.
Pingo Pingo is a slapjack variant. Yes, a slapjack variant. As in if slapjack was actually fun and on steroids. Sure I could label it a real-time, dexterity game if some OCD gamer insisted upon categorizing such things. But essentially you’ll be slapping cards, shooting up the room with darts, running around, laughing, screaming, moaning, cursing and generally belittling each other for fifteen minutes. Categorize that! Simply put, you don’t play many board games like this. Or if you do, then I want to hang out with you!
The best word I can find to describe Celestia is ‘delightful’; maybe even 'whimsical', how about delightfully whimsical. Celestia, a reprint of Cloud 9 with a slight re-theme and much better art, is a game of pushing your luck while navigating floating islands and searching for treasure.
But it's a dangerous journey, and you'll have to fend off pirates and murderous flocks of birds as well as the machinations of the fellow crew.
Recently I reviewed one of my favorite action programming games, Colt Express. Set in the Old West, Colt Express pits players against each other as they try and rob a passenger train. As with any action programming game, Colt Express is filled with a good amount of excitement and plenty of chaos.
Recently, the designer of Colt Express decided to head back to the locomotive and bring us an expansion. Enter Colt Express: Horses and Stagecoach. As you might have guessed, this expansion brings horses and a stagecoach to your Colt Express game. How does it work well with the base game? Time to find out!
Curse of Strahd is Ravenloft for 5th Edition Dungeon and Dragons. This module revisits this classic adventure and gives you ways to add more horror to your current campaign.
Gaming is going through quite a renaissance (just ask Ross "The Legend" Thompson). But we only got to where we are now via the games of the past. Unfortunately, a lot of those old games are out of pri
Gaming is going through quite a renaissance (just ask Ross "The Legend" Thompson). But we only got to where we are now via the games of the past. Unfortunately, a lot of those old games are out of print and hard to find. Fortunately, that can be remedied by a new printing. That's just what Tasty Minstrel Games is doing for Colosseum. Their Emperor's Edition of the game is up on Kickstarter now.
In the game, players are Roman magistrates who must host a series of shows at the Colosseum in the hopes of winning over the populace. Also, the Emperor might show up. So you gotta watch out for that. As you put on successful shows, you can grow and upgrade your venue, and get even better shows to put people in the seats. Put on the best show in the 5 rounds of play and be the winner!
The campaign has already more than doubled their funding goal with still 35 days left to go.
Hey everyone. I hope those of you that celebrated it had a good Christmas. If you don't celebrate Christmas, I still hope you had a kick-ass Friday. As for today, I hope you're having a great Feast of
Hey everyone. I hope those of you that celebrated it had a good Christmas. If you don't celebrate Christmas, I still hope you had a kick-ass Friday. As for today, I hope you're having a great Feast of St. Stephen. Or, again, if you don't celebrate such, I hope you're having a kick-ass Saturday. Being Saturday, it's time to get you some reviews.
Today's offerings include: Food Chain Magnate, Fleet Wharfside, Tumult Royal, Tail Feathers, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, New York 1901, Mission: Red Planet, Orleans, Flick 'em Up, The Bloody Inn, Tide of Iron: Stalingrad, VS System 2PCG, and Le Havre - The Inland Port.
Your goal is to become the most successful developer in all of New York. You want to build the most buildings and largest skyscrapers which will earn you victory points. You will do this by placing your building tiles on vacant lots and then demolishing and upgrading those buildings as the game progresses. You begin with a single starter property. Everything else you must earn on your own.
In Mission: Red Planet you head up a mining company exploiting the fourth rock from the sun. Given its colorful nickname, and the year 1888, you’d think the main ore in demand would be iron. Alas, not so! Instead, scientists have discovered two new resources – sylvanite and celerium – and of course these minerals will revolutionize our own world. As if using steam power to reach Mars wasn’t amazing enough! Of course, this is no altruistic endeavor for the good of humanity, but one of venture capitalism for the profit of your investors. And if you’re going to beat your competitors to these valuable resources, you’ll need to move boldly and employ some dastardly cunning.
Orleans was published in 2014 by dlp games. The game was designed by Reiner Stockhausen and illustrated by Klemens Franz, famous for his illustrations in such games as Agricola and Le Havre.
Flick ’em Up! was published in 2015 by Pretzel Games. It was designed by Gaëtan Beaujannot and Jean Yves Monpertuis. Illustrations in the game were done by Marie-Elaine Bérubé, Philippe Guérin, and Chris Quilliams.
That’s the rather unique theme to The Bloody Inn, a new card game designed by Nicholas Robert. In The Bloody Inn, players take on the role of the proprietors of the inn, trying to earn some Francs through any means necessary. Does this rather dark theme make for an entertaining game? Time to find out!
The Bloody Inn is an economic and hand management card game for 2-4 players that takes about 45 minutes to play. In our experience, The Bloody Inn plays best with 4 players.
When I reviewed the new version of Tide of Iron from 1A games, I found the game to have great components, unique scenarios, and solid mechanics that blended well together to create a memorable tactical war game experience.
It isn’t a game for the general gaming audience, rather a game that is best enjoyed over and over again with the same people. Even though there are plenty of scenarios in the box and online, players could eventually grow tired of playing as American and German forces across northwestern Europe.
Fear not! There are four expansions you can purchase that add new locations and Soviet and British troops to your arsenal. Today, we will be looking at one of those expansions, Tide of Iron: Stalingrad. This expansion allows players to battle as either Soviet or German troops in urban warfare. Let’s get into what this expansion brings to see if it is worthy of adding to your war gaming experience with Tide of Iron.
The Inland Port is a shorter, two-player version of La Havre. The Inland Port App lets you play against the AI, online with friends or a pass and play game.
Hello there, all you gaming friends out there in gamer-land! Seems for the moment that it's actually going to be a bit winter-like here in Atlanta. At least for a couple days. No, it's not like the wi
Hello there, all you gaming friends out there in gamer-land! Seems for the moment that it's actually going to be a bit winter-like here in Atlanta. At least for a couple days. No, it's not like the winters I remember in Chicago, but if we had a winter like that down here, this place would never dig out of that. The whole state would shut down until June. It would be a nightmare.
However, a blizzard's-worth of reviews here today is just fine. (Because transitions!)
Today we've got articles on: X-Wing Miniatures Game, Star Wars Armada, Imperial Assault, Conflict of Heroes - The Eastern Front Solo Expansion, Queen's Necklace, Terrakami Games Sci-Fi Containers, Crusader A15 by Rubicon Models, Bountytown, Between Two Cities, Bad Beets, Ultimate Warriorz, Jamaica, The Gallerist, Mombasa, Ninja Camp, Shakespeare, Cthulhu Realms, Eternal Dynasty, Outer Earth, Fool's Gold, and Dark Age Z.
This week Ars Cardboard dives into miniatures wargaming—but forget stereotypes of tiny Napoleonic soldiers walking across home-crafted terrain. We’re talking about Star Wars miniatures here, from capital ships to TIE fighters to Darth Vader himself. If you’ve ever wanted to command a squad of X-Wings, take control of an Imperial Star Destroyer, or experience a shootout with stormtroopers, the current trio of licensed Star Wars miniatures games from Fantasy Flight have you covered. And with the Force Awakens mere days away, there's never been a better time to dive in.
Conflict of Heroes is a war game, the Eastern Front expansion lets you play it solo. It changes the flow of the game and adds a formidable AI opponent.
Queen’s Necklace is a card game in which you take on the role of a jeweler in Paris before the French Revolution. You want to buy gems that are in fashion for as little as possible and make a big profit when it comes time to sell. The person with the most pounds wins the game.
Welcome to the beginning of a multiple part review of the laser cut terrain available from Terrakami, a company specialising in laser-cut MDF and acrylic accessories for tabletop wargames. In this review we’re going to be building a selection of Terakami’s Sci-Fi 28mm Containers, and then moving onto to some of their larger kits including their Container Crane in the near future. We picked these up with the plan of using them in our games of Warhammer 40k and Infinity, but they’ll work equally well in any game using a sci-fi setting.
In Bountytown you’re a bounty hunter shooting (literally) to clean up the boisterous frontier town so that the railroad can come through and, with it, a little respectability. Of course, you’re not the only gun-for-hire aiming to bag some crooks. While you might think more equals better, that just means some other quick draw artists are crowding in on your reward money. A duel or two to steal a bounty from some other gun just might prove the old adage that this town ain’t big enough…
Between Two Cities is a tile-drafting/city-building game for three to seven players (playable with one or two players with variants). Each player works with the player on the right and the player on the left to craft two cities that are a perfect 4×4 grid. At the end of the game, the player whose lower-scoring city is highest on the scoretrack wins.
In Bad Beets, players attempts to get rid of all of the beet tokens in front of them. This may involve feeding them to the dog, sharing them with another player, or eating them (ewww!). The main mechanic will be familiar to anyone who has played Coup, you can take any action, even if you don’t have the card that allows you to take that action. However, other players can call you out and you are penalized if you were bluffing.
Ultimate Warriorz is a reimplementation of 2009’s Mad Arena. The object of the game is to be the last warrior standing. If more than one warrior is alive after seven rounds, then the warrior with the most popularity will be declared the winner.
Captain Henry Morgan becomes the Governor of Jamaica with order to take out the Caribbean pirates and buccaneers! Though, he hires all of his former crew to join him in his quest to enjoy the fruits of the piracy without being punished!
Jamaica was published in 2007 by Asmodee and designed by Malcolm Braff, Bruno Cathala and Sébastien Pauchon who are well-known for such projects as Mr. Jack Extension, Shadows over Camelot, Corto and etc.
The main artist is Mathieu Leyssenne. He took part in such colorful games like Animalia, Bonbons and many others.
In the near future, both rapid space exploration and terraforming technology have opened a new science field allowing mankind to explore, discover and terraform planets for habitation.
Players manage a planetary development company and compete in the planet auction market for the developing rights of these newly explored planets.
Fool’s Gold takes place during the gold rush of 1849. Players are investors who send prospectors on a quest to find gold at various locations — in the mountains, in a forest, at a river, etc. — with each location having perils, gems, quantities of gold and bountiful supplies of silt. As players remove valuable gold cards from the location decks, silt becomes more prominent and gold harder to find.
Dark Age Z is a strategic board game for 2 to 5 players. You are one of the kings in the Dark Age. All players strive to gain as many victory points (VP) as possible by killing the zombies that attack the Frontiers of the Kingdom Cities. At the end of the game, the player with the highest VPs wins the game.
Saturday.Just let that sink in.Saturday.So wonderful.Anyway, being Saturday, we've got our Review Roundup.Today we've got articles on: Frontier Stations, Breaker Blocks, City Hall, Above and Below, WW
Saturday. Just let that sink in. Saturday. So wonderful.
Anyway, being Saturday, we've got our Review Roundup.
Today we've got articles on: Frontier Stations, Breaker Blocks, City Hall, Above and Below, WWE Superstar Showdown, Raid & Trade, Firefly Kalidasa Expansion, Betrayal at Calth, and a Flammpanzerwagen for Bolt Action.
Frontier Stations is a cooperative resource management game that pits between 3 and 6 space stations with the worst day they could possibly imagine. Players work together to face threats, build out their stations, and destroy enemies, all the while watching as the ranks of hostile forces arrayed against them gather more strength each round.
Captaining a space station is hard, they say. They don’t know the half of it.
Ever played a game that feels like another, a game that has completely different mechanics and theme yet somehow manages to evoke the same emotional response? Because Breaker Blocks make me think of Housing Crisis, a Kickstarter game I reviewed last year that I still don't think made the light of day. The two games are completely different, but evoke the same, and I think that's a good thing.
The first thing you notice about Breaker Blocks is the components. Breaker blocks isn't made from your typical punched cardboard, all the components are laser cut from acrylic. It's a simple change that makes a big difference. The game would work just as well if it were made from more traditional materials, but there's something to be said for the tactile quality of a game. It's the reason why the chips is Splendour add to the game in a way that's hard to quantify.
City Hall is a role-selection/auction game for two to four players. Players vie for control of the various offices in city hall in order to gain votes to be elected mayor of New York. The player with the most votes at the end of the game is the mayor.
Above and Below plays out over seven rounds with the winner being the player that manages to attain the most victory points by the end. Victory points can be earned in three primary ways: constructing buildings, the advancements track, and reputation.
The wizards of licensed games, Gale Force 9, have brought us WWE Superstar Showdown. Does the sport(?) of wrestling make for a good tabletop game? Time to find out!
WWE Superstar Showdown is a team based, hand management board game for 2-6 players that takes about 20 minutes to play. WWE Superstar Showdown plays best with 2 players.
Raid and Trade takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting. You need to gain access to the Golden City. And though there are a few ways to do this you must do so before your opponents.
Kalidasa is the second rim expansion for Firefly the game. It adds more space, a new captain and additional contacts as well as the Alliance’s Corvette.
Welcome once again to Saturday. It's been quite a morning over here. Rather busy for a Saturday. Biggest thing I've been working on is my decision to magnetize my Betrayal at Calth set (yes, this mean
Welcome once again to Saturday. It's been quite a morning over here. Rather busy for a Saturday. Biggest thing I've been working on is my decision to magnetize my Betrayal at Calth set (yes, this means it's not 100% assembled yet. The games I've been playing of it have been using stand-in figs for much of it. It happens). The only problem comes from maneuvering small, fiddly pieces that, very literally, will move on their own. As such, I have glue all over my fingers. Thankfully, though, on at least one occasion, that's helped me when my drill bit slipped and instead of giving me a scrape, it just gouged the glue that'd built up there. So, an asset hidden in a liability.
But that's a story for when I post the review later today. At the moment, we've got other reviews/previews to deal with.
In this batch we have: Late French Napoleonic Infantry from Perry Miniatures and Warlord Games, Dark Moon, Clockwork Kingdom, Queen of the Hill, Dice Masters: The Amazing Spider-Man, Conquest at Kismet, Barony, Star Wars Armada Wave 2 Ships, Tides of Time, Pentoggle, Mars Attacks Miniatures Game, Risk: Star Wars Edition, Space Cadets: Away Missions, Bomb Squad, Escape the Nightmare, and T.I.M.E Stories.
In this latest Review Battle Brush Studios' Sigur is taking a close look at Warlord Games' Late French Line Infantry and Perry Miniatures' French Napoleonic Infantry 1812-1815. Seeking out differences between the two sets and comparing the two sets by categories.
Dark Moon, which if you trace its origins far enough, is a game inspired by a game, inspired by a game, inspired by a television show, inspired by an earlier television show.
In hopefully clearer terms, Dark Moon by Evan Derrick is a re-skin of a game called BSG Express, a once downloadable and free, quicker playing version of Battlestar Galactica the Board Game, which was inspired by the series, which was of course inspired by the original television series long before that.
I love Battlestar Galactica the board game, and by extension, I loved BSG Express and now Dark Moon. Like its predecessor BSG Express, Dark Moon successfully distills Fantasy Flight's popular game down to its gooey, duplicitous center. Gone are the locations around Galactica, and the space battles. But don't fret, this isn't a game about humanity's struggle against the skin jobs and the search for a new home. Dark Moon exists in that sci-fi sweet spot, the microcosm -- a small band of people trapped by circumstance in an inhospitable place.
Follow the link to read the full blog post or stream the podcast episode!...
Clockwork Kingdom is a game in which each player takes the role of a lord attempting to claim the throne in the wake of the king’s death. To start the game, each player has a small army of loyal steam-powered automatons to do their bidding. Each player must choose where to send his servants, whether to get supplies from the market, build useful contraptions in the workshop, or even attempt to acquire powerful alchemy stones, all the while warring with opponents in a number of battlefields in an attempt to control the kingdom by force.
However, players have more at their disposal than simple automatons. Throughout the course of the game, players can also recruit Alchemists, Professors, and Artificers to their cadre of loyal vassals, each with their own unique abilities. To claim the Clockwork Throne, players must make difficult decisions to outwit their opponents in an attempt to gather resources, obtain workers, manufacture contraptions, and dominate battlefields.
The extremely addicting and fun thing about games that push your luck is that one moment where you tell yourself this is the last card you will be taking… then you survive and you change your mind that you will be drawing just one more… and you still survive! And you promise that this next one would really be your last – and you survive yet again! Nothing beats that moment of suspense as you push your luck to the extreme, only to be rewarded by glorious victory for your bravery.
In the light and casual game Queen of the Hill, players are queens vying for control of a celestial hill. Taking turns, they attempt to Summon, Draft and Recruit the strongest female warriors from different worlds and eras to join their army. However, this is a very dangerous act, and they cannot always control what they Summon. At the end of every round, players compare their total warrior scores Drafted and the highest score wrests control of the hill. Control the hill twice and a player wins the game! Watch out though, the Dark One (also the only male in the game) might accidentally be Summoned and he will prey upon all the ladies. If you push your luck too hard, you might end up drawing him, and he will clear all your points and force you to end your recruitment. How lucky are you feeling today? How far do you dare to push your luck? The more you push your luck without drawing the Dark One, the more likely the next opponent will attract him. And the more you push your luck, the more your foes are forced to push theirs if they are to beat you! The pressure is ON!
The Amazing Spider-Man is the fourth Marvel Dice Masters set. As you’ve certainly deduced from the name, it revolves around the famously sarcastic web-slinger, his allies and notorious enemies – including new team affiliation Sinister Six. Other traditionally indie Marvel characters who have worked in some capacity on and off with the teen superhero receive the Spidey team group like Daredevil, Luke Cage and Ghost Rider. Although their abilities largely remain general in scope. The series also includes a smattering of popular unrelated extras, like Wolverine, Black Widow and Drax the Destroyer. The general mechanics and game play remain the same as with other sets and IPs across the system.
Conquest at Kismet is an asymmetrical two player card game. Each player controls one race, either Storm or Trice, and attempts to win the game by destroying the other player’s mothership. At the beginning of the game, each player is given the complete deck of blue or red cards and the corresponding mothership card. Players then alternate taking turns as the Attacker and Defender, playing cards and resolving combat, until one mothership is destroyed.
Barony is a strategy game for two to four players. Players strive to earn resources to purchase titles of nobility. The player with the most victory points when one player earns the title of duke wins the game and is crowned the new king.
Quinns I am so sorry that I blew up your space ship. I know you liked that space ship and you wanted to try out that space ship as part of Armada’s Second Wave of Expansions, so I apologise for shooting it until it exploded. It was only a small space ship and it did not take much shooting before the exploding happened, so you cannot accuse me of excess.
However, I hope this won’t colour your experience or your impressions of Wave 2, even though I, a completely inexperienced Armada player, blew up your space ship. And also a lot of your TIE fighters. Obviously I didn’t do great, being new to the game and a little overwhelmed, yet I still seem to have shot a lot of things. How do you feel?
In 2012, Love Letter rocketed into the gaming scene and introduced gamers to the micro game; a low-cost, quick playing game with minimal components. Once the industry saw the success of this juggernaut, there were no shortage of micro games to hit our tables.
To be honest, I got burned out on the micro game genre fairly quickly and said I was done with it. That was before I found out about Tides of Time. As any regular reader of this site knows, I’m a bit of a card drafting addict. Easily one of my favorite mechanics in gaming, Tides of Time brought us a two player only card drafting game that plays in about 10 minutes. Was Tides of Time enough to bring my out of my micro game stupor? Let’s find out.
Tides of Time is a card drafting and set collection game for two players that takes about 10 minutes to play.
The object of the game is to match either five of the same number tile (numbered one through five), all of a different color (red, orange, yellow, blue and green), or match five of the same color, all numbered one through five. Players earn points by placing tiles and completing rows of tiles. The player with the most points is deemed the best Pentoggler ever, at least until the next game is played.
Mars Attacks the Miniatures Game puts you in the shoes of the human resistance or invading aliens for the fate of the planet. Everything you need is in the box and ready to play including miniatures and terrain.
How in the name of all that's unholy do you review a game like Escape the Nightmare? It's completely unlike any other game I've played and as such its really difficult to suggest a point of reference. It's less a game and more a group stress test, where your heart is pumping and your brain is confused, because Escape the Nightmare is a game that purposefully messes with your head.
As hinted at by the title, the aim of Escape the Nightmare is to abscond from a dimension of hellish dreams and horrors. In order to escape you will need to collect 4 nightmares of the same type, and to get hold of these cards you merely agree to swap with another player. Of course this doesn't sound much like a nightmare. To make this game more hellish two simple rules are in effect; take the action listed on any card you are given, and you have thirty seconds to collect the set.
When reviewing a game, I generally play the game enough times till you feel like you know it. It’s important to have seen everything the game can offer before committing your thoughts to the internet. But in the case of TIME Stories I'm writing this review after just one play through because I now can't play this game again until I buy the first expansion. It results in what could be the most controversial game of 2015, but could also be one of the best games of 2015.
In TIME Stories you play as a TIME agent, and you have to travel back in time to fix temporal anomalies. Something is buggering with the natural order of the events, so it's your job to police the past. You'll do this by leaping into the bodies of people at the period and location of the event and then will then have a limited amount of actions to solve the mystery before the run ends and you are forced back to the start.
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