Unboxed: The Board Game Blog

Board Game News 13: FFG Return to the Drawing Board on Star Wars plus more…

2012-02-18T23:44:00.001Z

It’s been a while since I did the news so this one will be a little epic.

Fantasy Flight Games

The latest news out of Fantasy Flight includes a slew of new releases, including reprints Wiz War, Nexus Ops and Rex, along with an expansion for Deathwatch and the Collectors edition of Black Crusade.

It was also announced recently that faction specific packs will be released as print on demand for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Starting with spells for Sigmar priests the series will allow players to buy specific action cards to suit their characters without having to purchase full expansions. Of course, if you want everything ever printed the POD supplements will make it more expensive, but for players looking to upgrade a single character type these are very affordable indeed. And with news that FFG has finally fixed their international shipping option, they’re also a bit cheaper!

In other FFG news the much anticipated 5th Living Card Game based in the Star Wars universe has been taken back to the drawing board for a complete reboot. At this stage we’re not really sure what this means for the game or what the reasons behind the change are. I do hope however that the game will still release with the hand drawn artwork that was previewed rather than screen shots from the movies.

Finally, FFG announced this week that their World Championships will be held in November and that the games will include all current LCG’s, with the exception of LOTR, but it will also include both Dust Tactics and Dust Warfare as well as X-Wing, suggesting that the game will release on time.

Chaotic Connections

Family game night is a great way for families to spend quality time together, get away from electronics, enjoy each others company and make memories and traditions that will be passed down from generation from generation. It’s like a mini vacation where families can just get away from the chaos of life – that is, unless they are playing Chaotic Connections.

Chaotic Connections is a brand new board game on the market filled with strategy and chance. The game takes players on a cross-country road trip. Each player is dealt four cities at random and must attempt to build roads to connect the four cities in order to win.

However, anyone who has ever been on a cross-country road trip knows it’s not always a straight shot to get from one city to the next. The situation is no different in Chaotic Connections. Players will be dealt Curve Cards, Road Blocks, Detours and extra cities from other players while attempting to connect their cities. Now the chaos really begins!

Chaotic Connections is packed with fun for families and is the perfect way for families to connect over a game night. The basic rules are simple, making it easy for parents and kids to play, but there are many strategic variations to master. For the more experienced player, more strategy comes into the game, but the game easily adjusts to the level of the player, making it easy for kids ages 9 and up to enjoy the game.

Gryphon/Eagle Games

Eagle & Gryphon have 17 of the Ender's "50 Great New Games You Should Know About"

Longtime BoardGameGeek.com reviewer, Ender Wiggins, has posted his list of "50 Great New Games You Should Know About" for 2011. Eagle and Gryphon Games have claimed 17 of the 50 slots! The list divides the games into ten different categories with Eagle and Gryphon getting nods in all but one.

The categories are: Strategy Games, Family Games (Pastiche & Pergamon), Two Player Games (Mirror, Mirror), Card Games (Botswana & Musketeers), Word Games (What's My Word?, BuyWord, & Montage), Party Games (Reverse Charades, Caveman Curling & Why Did the Chicken...), Children's Games (Worm Up!), Themeless Games (Can't Stop, Blockers, & Number Please!), Unique Games (Pizza Theory) and Old favorites (Railways of the World/Railways Through Time). If you'd like to see the full list and read about each game, and we hope you do, just CLICK HERE!

Zong Shi and Pizza Theory are Available for Pre-Order

The Kickstarter projects for Zong Shi and Pizza Theory have ended, and both games were successfully funded! If you missed your chance to back either game you can still pre-order both games on Eaglegames.net.

Limited Stock of Ferti Games

PitchCar, PitchCar Mini, Siam, Table Hockey and More!

The much loved and highly rated (7.24 on BoardGameGeek.com) dexterity game, PitchCar, is in stock. This fantastic game from Ferti Games has been a favourite of gamers and non-gamers alike for over 15 years. In addition to PitchCar, we also have PitchCar Mini, a more compact version of the original game, as well as most of the expansions for both versions. Click here to see all the PitchCar games available!

Also available is Siam, a beautiful 2-player game in which players take the role of either the Elephants or Rhinocerouses and try to be the first who pushes a rock out of the board. An animal can push a rock, but beware, if you want to push an animal which faces you, you have to be superior in numbers, e.g. two animals oriented to the right direction can push two rocks and three animals oriented to the right direction can push three rocks.

Table Hockey provides all the fun of air hockey, without the electric bill! Tabletop Hockey comes with a wooden frame that surrounds the playing area and has two openings for the goals. Players each have a padded circular 'stick" (similar to the ones used in air hockey) they use to send the puck on its way to the opponents goal. This game was a big hit at Essen, and sure to please fans of PitchCar and other dexterity games.

Caveman Curling Review

Caveman Curling has gotten a rave review from longtime BoardGameGeek.com review, Ender Wiggins.

"Caveman Curling is the kind of game that will have a broad appeal, and can be enjoyed by gamers and non-gamers alike."

Read the full review here.

If you haven't backed this project yet what are you waiting for? Time is running out!

Click Here to View the Caveman Curling Project on Kickstarter.com

Announcing Defenders of the Realm: Battlefields!

Defenders of the Realm: Battlefields is a competitive fantasy battle game for 2 to 4 players. In the game, one side takes the role of the Dark Lord's invading army and minions while the other side represents the heroes and forces defending the Realm. The battles are fast and furious as players place minions and heroes onto the battlefields and attack their opponents using a variety of abilities and special skills. The first side that is victorious on 3 battlefields of the same colour or 5 total battlefields is the winner.

Look for Defenders of the Realm: Battlefields on Kickstarter.com next month!

Wingmen Needed!

Eagle & Gryphon Games are looking for a few good gamers. Do you enjoy playing our games? Do you want to teach others to play as well? Do you like getting swag and free games? Do you think you have "the right stuff"? Become a Wingman!

WINGMAN members teach others how to play our games at their friendly neighborhood game stores, book stores, local game groups, and gaming conventions. These events are determined by you, and provide an opportunity to recruit new players to Eagle and Gryphon Games.

To apply, send us an email and you will be contacted shortly about the possibility of becoming a WINGMAN (or WINGWOMAN).

Responsibilities of a Wingman:

Organize events for Eagle & Gryphon Games.
Schedule and organize demos & tournaments in game groups, game stores, book stores, libraries, and game conventions.
Hand out cool stuff to participants of your demos/tournaments.
Create a fun and pleasant atmosphere for all players.

Benefits for being a Wingman:

A cool WINGMAN T-Shirt.
Free admission to gaming conventions.
Receive advance prototypes for play testing and development.
Free games and other cool swag!
Get advance notice of our upcoming releases.

More information will be sent to you about the program after you contact us. So what are you waiting for? We need you to be part of a select group of gamers. A WINGMAN.

Two Trick Pony

The guys over at Two Trick Pony have put together an amusing video in which a designer attempts to pitch his new game to Milton and Bradley.

Check it out here and check out their site here.

Zoneplex

Kickstarter project Zoneplex is looking for backers.

Zoneplex is a game that combines a tile-laying/exploration mechanism, a collaborative battle system and a zone control system to create an intriguing adventure deep within an alien pyramid.

The visual and back story mythology is influenced by space-opera imagery akin to the epic novels of Iain M. Banks and Frank Herbert plus Ancient Alien Theories and even Daft Punk. We tossed all this in a simmering cauldron with Alejandro Jodorowsky's L'Incal and H.P. Lovecraft’s images of otherworldly abominations to create an expansive universe that the game resides in.

Cartoona

Pop artist Robert Burke, known for creating a wacky stream of unusual cartoon characters, is readying a Kickstarter campaign for his flagship board game Cartoona.

Cartoona is a tile-laying, creature-building game of strategy and chance featuring the whimsical pop art creatures of Robert Burke. The game encourages creativity, strategic thinking and social interaction. Players compete by building colourful, and sometimes hilarious, cartoon creatures from different body part tiles and can be played with from 1 to 8 players, ages 3 to adult.

There are three versions of the game that will come in the box, and they can be played in a player vs. player mode, a team mode, or even in a solitaire mode.

Early backers of the game (MSRP $34.99) can get a copy for just $15 with free shipping in the United States.

A preview of the project can be seen here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/478379924/372354745?token=3d22201b

Conventions

Gemma Cole would like London based gamers to know about their month game nights at the Ritzy.

Strategy games, skill games, family games, party games.

If you love games, this is the place to be.

And if you're not so sure, that's because you've never been to an event like this before! Yeah, Monopoly's OK, but there's a whole new generation of games out there that are so much more exciting, more challenging, and downright more fun -- and we can't wait to show them to you.

Bring your own or ask for a recommendation from the many games on offer.

Pander to your playful side; go on, I dare you...

It’s called BOARD GAMES AND BEYOND.

It’s the second Monday of every month, from 6.30pm @Upstairs at the Ritzy.

Hosted by Charlie Fish

Website:and Facebook

And Chris Geggus would like all Cheshire based gamers to know about his convention Swan Con at the Swan Hotel in Knutsford 9th – 11th March.

Organised by The Weekend Gaming Group (WGG). Has been running at The Swan in Knutsford for over 18 years. Open to all (small fee charged to cover cost of room). Gaming from Friday lunchtime until Sunday afternoon (all night if you're desperate). Multi-player Euros generally with some wargames and other games as desired. No game refused. Numbers are c. 20 - 30 during the weekend - some stay at the hotel, whilst others will drop in whenever. Contact: Chris Geggus (Ahiksking) on geggus@sky.com

And Finally, This Week’s Release

Once again our friends over at Board Game Guru have put together a list of all the best games coming out this week, take it away Paul.

Fantasy Flight has reached into the back catalogue for sumptuous new editions of 'Wiz War', 'Nexus Ops' and 'Kingdoms'

Two new Living card packs are also released; 'Shadow of the Monolith' for Call of Cthulhu and 'City of Winter' for Warhammer Invasion

'‘Til Death us do Part' is a new scenario for Mansions of Madness and the 'Tyranid enemy pack' can be used a replacement for the genestealers in Death Angel

The ‘NL’ and ‘World Championship ‘decks provide even more occupations and minor improvements for Agricola

‘The Coldest War’, is a standalone expansion for Nightfall, with the Vampire and Werewolf action shifting to Eastern Europe

‘Wiraqocha’ is a steam punk adventure game, originally released at Essen 2011

‘Rattus Africanus' gets is also on general UK release so will be back in stock on Tuesday

I also will have two new command units for Dust Tactics

Happy gaming

Paul

Plastic Paradise?

2012-02-18T00:02:00.001Z

Every year, dozens of new board games release that are choc full of plastic. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, I can hardly claim to avoid the stuff as an avid mini gamer and dungeon crawl fan I own more plastic than some toy manufacturers but today I'm going ask the question, why?

Why is that board game publishers choose to produce plastic miniatures?

At first plastic may appear to be a cheap alternative to other available products. The price point per miniature drops to an extremely low figure when they are produced in volume. However, the initial outlay costs are not small, the cost of the moulds for plastics can be extremely high. Happily, plastic moulds last much longer than metal and plastic is lighter to ship than metal or wood.

However to make this manufacturing process viable the publisher either needs to raise the price of the game or to produce, and more importantly, sell, a vast quantity of the games. This is why companies like Hasbro can produce plastic heavy games at a very low price point, while a company like Fantasy Flight or Days of Wonder has to charge significantly more.

However, many games that use plastic do not use high quality sculpts. This seems like an odd business decision. The sculpting fee is considerably smaller than the moulding process, it would seem that if you plan on producing a quality product you should invest at little more on the sculpts to ensure a quality end product. The truth of this can be seen in the success of Super Dungeon Explore.

However, it's not just the sculpts that tend to be low quality, but the material itself. There are two kinds of plastics, the hard brittle kind, such as you may find in Risk and the soft rubbery kind such as that found in Descent.

Both such materials present problems. The hard plastic can easily break during shipping, which for companies like FFG, who will replace broken parts, could mean a large second outlay on replacement pieces and shipping costs. However hard plastic holds it's shape and details better, which is why companies like Games Workshop have used it for years. The soft rubbery plastic neatly combats the shipping issue and the fact that the pieces will be handled by players who may not necessarily know how you should handle delicate miniatures!!! However, this method often results in warped miniatures with a substantial lack of detail.

When you consider that plastic in games increases the price point, not only through manufacturing costs but also through the additional weight and increased size of the box for shipping, it begs the question, why bother? What are the alternatives?

I'm glad you asked. The alternatives are many.

Metal - Metal components would combat the issue of quality, however not of weight or the manufacturing costs.

Resin - Resin production is still a developing process. Resin allows for much higher quality miniatures than plastic, with even less weight and a cheaper overall production process. However, they are also less durable and are susceptible to casting issues with air bubbles. Eventually however I believe resin will become the material of choice, although a more durable kind than is currently on the market.

Wood - Wood is often used in games. It creates a different atmosphere to plastic, giving a feeling of abstraction. With laser cutting complex shapes are not difficult to produce relatively cheaply. Although wood is not as cheap as plastic the initial outlay is lower making it a viable alternative for smaller print runs. However wood is heavier still than plastic.

Cardboard - Cardboard is an alternative that is very affordable. It offers a similar function to plastic miniatures without the associated risks. It also removes the end users need to build and/or paint anything.

But, none of this really answers the question, why do we use plastic?

We know that plastic makes our games more expensive, we know it's never going to be as detailed as wargames miniatures, we know it will need assembling and painting, we know it breaks and bends and yet we still continue to use it... But why?

Because it looks impressive. Because it feels tactile.

Short of miniature gaming there is nothing quite as imposing as a table covered with 3D cardboard layouts with plastic miniatures fighting it out for control. While cardboard or wood may allow you to see what is going on the table, it's just not the same as a fully 3D gaming piece, painted lovingly to look like your favourite in game character.

For me, there is a line between board gaming and miniature gaming. I feel like I've reached a stage in my gaming career that I like my games to be complete, in the box, that I can open them and start playing, never having to pick up a paint brush (and paint substandard miniatures) For me, I’d really enjoy the option of purchasing my mini-heavy games “plastic free”, an option where you instead receive the game without miniatures for a moderate reduction. This way I can could substitute in minis from my own collection, which I currently do anyway, without having to pay for mini’s I wont use.

But what about you guys? What do you think of plastic heavy games? What is it that makes you like or dislike them? And what do you think the future of plastic is in gaming?

Until next week, have fun gaming

Chris

King of Tokyo

2012-02-08T15:26:00.001Z

Unlike most gamers I’ve never really played “Richard Garfield’s other game”, Magic: The Gathering. Although I did own a starter set of the game I found that it was practically impossible to enjoy the game with the decks included. So, despite the huge popularity of M:tg, I never got into it, despite my love of card games in general. So when I heard that Richard Garfield would be releasing a new game I figured “Big Whoop” and ignored it.

… But then Christmas rolled around and I’d begun to hear good things about the game… really good things. As usual I was hunting for new games to play with my little brother and one game kept cropping up, King of Tokyo. Of course it was sold out everywhere in the UK, but luckily Board Game Guru managed to get some copies in just in time for the holidays and I bit the bullet and picked it up.

But what did I think of it? I guess you’ll just have to wait and see…

Theme

Tokyo is under siege, six terrifyingly huge monsters are fighting to gain control of the city, and the yummy human shaped treats contained therein. A giant lizard, a humongous monkey, a mech warrior controlled by a super intelligent bunny, a leviathan sized sea monster, a mechanical dragon and an interstellar alien have all turned out to battle over who will dine on humankind!

Unboxed

What do you get?

1 Tokyo Board
66 Cards
28 Counters
6 Black Dice, 2 Green Dice
6 Monster Boards
6 Monster Standees
50 Energy cubes
Rulebook

First off, I can’t decide if it is a good thing or a bad thing, but when you open the box everything is prepunched and sorted into sections and bags in the box so you’re ready to play straight away… but you don’t get the fun of punching and bagging everything… It’s a confusing state of affairs!

The components themselves are very good, the artwork is superb, if you like the cartoon style that is. The tokens and boards are all nice and thick and the energy cubes look cool. The dice are now etched as opposed to the initial print run which used painted dice which rubbed off easier, however they’re still not as good as the custom dice that appear in FFG games like WFRP3 or Elder Sign for example, but they are still pretty nice and the size and contrasting colours will work well even with players who may have a difficult time seeing.

Overall I’m very happy with the components and the visual style of the game, it looks great both on the table and on the shelf!

Playing the Game

To set up King of Tokyo, place the board in the centre of the table and deal out three cards from the deck face up. Each player takes a monster and a monster board and you’re ready to begin.

First player is determined by all players rolling the 6 black dice and which ever player rolls the most attack symbols goes first.

On your turn you will roll the six black dice and use the results to gain victory points, gain energy, heal your monster or attack other monsters. The game is played until only one monster remains or until one monster achieves 20 victory points.

Each turn the players will roll the dice 3 times, keeping any dice results they want and re-rolling the other dice. the possible results are as follows.

1, 2 or 3 – These results indicate victory points. If you score three 1’s you score 1 vp, three 2’s is 2 vp and three 3’s is 3vp. Each additional matching number is an additional point, so four 2’s is 3vp for example.

Heart – This heals your monster 1 point of damage. You cannot heal if you are in Tokyo however.

Claw – For each attacking symbol you roll you do 1 point of damage to every monster not in the same area as you. There are two areas, in Tokyo and not in Tokyo.

Lightening – Energy symbols allow you to take energy cubes which can be spent to buy cards or power effects on cards.

Much of the game revolves around controlling Tokyo. The first player to use an attack symbol takes control of Tokyo, after that players can only take control of Tokyo if another player yields or through a card effect.

Taking control of Tokyo earns you 1 victory point, starting your turn in Tokyo earns you 2 victory points. As noted above all attacks generated by players not in Tokyo target the player in Tokyo (and vice versa) and you cannot heal while in Tokyo.

A player may only yield Tokyo when he is attacked by another player, if he chooses to yield the attacking player is placed in Tokyo and gains the victory point for taking control. Because you can choose when to yield (mostly) you can push your luck to gain additional victory points or yield to a weak player in the hopes of them being killed by the other players.

The final way to gain victory points is through purchasing cards. The cards give you all manner of different abilities, some give you an extra dice or additional rerolls, others simply give victory points or deal damage.

When only one player remains or one player scores their 20th victory point the game ends.

Thoughts

My little brother opened King of Tokyo on Christmas morning, and despite being initially disappointed that it wasn’t all 3 seasons of Ben 10 Alien Force (although he got that too!), we had already opened and played the game three times through before lunch was served.

The game went on to be a popular choice all throughout the holidays. The fast playing time and colourful nature of the game makes this great filler and a perfect family game.

There is a certain element of “take that” in the game, however because who your attack is arbitrarily defined by the game and not really by your choice, it doesn’t feel like you’re being picked on even though the victory conditions are last man standing.

As I’ve already said the artwork is fantastic and really helps to capture the feeling of those giant monster versus the city style films that dominated early cinema. Even having played the game over a dozen times I’ve yet to get through all the cards in the deck (I've never even used any of the tokens supplied with the game yet) so replayability is huge.

I guess if I have to find a negative point to the game, it would be player elimination. It is possible to be eliminated early in this game, especially in higher player count games, which could leave you out of the action for 20 minutes or so until the game is over. That said there is always the “It had a Baby” card which would allow you to respawn with full hits and 0vp. But the game is so fast and fun that even when I’m eliminated I don’t mind watching the rest of the game play out.

Final Thoughts

This games major strength is in it’s simplicity and it’s weight. The simplistic, yahtzee style nature of the game makes it easy to play with any group, even non-gamers and families. The lightweight nature of the game certainly lessens, if not removes entirely, the possibility of feeling victimised by the other players actions. And the vast number of combinations with the card effects keeps the game fresh and interesting every time, despite the simplicity, making it fun to play over and over again.

King of tokyo is a great game and can be enjoyed as a filler game between heavier ones, or a great way to start off or wind down an evening of play. I highly recommend you check it out.

Until next week, have fun gaming!

Thunderstone Heart of Doom

2012-01-25T02:09:00.000Z

It’s been almost a year since I started playing Thunderstone with my review of Dragonspire. Since then I’ve bought and played every expansion and promo with the sole exception of the 2nd promo (‘Cause it’s outta stock). Heart of Doom will close out the series and with a little creative re-jigging of my Dragonspire box, it will also fill my box with only enough room for a couple more promos.

When AEG very kindly sent me my copy of Heart of Doom I declared myself done with Thunderstone, my set complete, my box full… but then I saw the previews for Thunderstone Advance… But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s pull this back and look at Heart of Doom.

Theme

With seven Thunderstones in hand it is time for the heroes to go in search of the eighth and finale stone, the Heart of Doom itself. Not only is Doom a Thunderstone but he is a villain so powerful that nothing in this world can defeat him, our Heroes only hope is to use the stones gathered this far to banish him forever from this mortal realm.

Unboxed

What do you get in the box? Erm… Cards… Lots of them.

84 Hero Cards (7 Different Heroes)
104 Village Cards (13 Different types)
6 Treasure Cards
70 Monster Cards (7 Different Monster Types)
3 Guardians
3 Settings
1 Thunderstone
Dividers and Randomisers
Rulebook

Firstly I must applaud the selection of card types here. This set includes more monster groups than any of the previous small box expansions, along with 3 new guardians and 3 new settings offering more variety and ways to play, but it doesn’t do this at the cost of Hero and Village cards either. Overall HOD is the best value small box expansion to date.

A special note must be made about the rulebook. It’s been a learning process for AEG with rulebooks but this one finally does what all the others do not, it lists every card in the set, so now it’s very easy to tell if you are missing a card.

What’s New

Not much, it has to be said. Buying Heart of Doom will not introduce anything you haven’t seen before, which is unusual as each expansion has brought something new, either card types such as Traps, Treasures and Settings or new mechanics like Raid and Stalk.

What Heart of Doom does do is provide variety and a sense of closure in the form of a “Boss Fight”. While the game was advertised as including a “scenario” it is not the same as for example Rune Age. The included scenario is a combination of the Rite of Banishing setting and the Heart of Doom Guardian card, but it is essentially the same game, just a bit more climatic.

Essentially Doom is a 25 Health Guardian who ends the game if he moves into rank 1. In addition he has a global effect that destroys all monsters in the hands of players visiting the Dungeon and finally if you fail to defeat him you are eliminated from the game.

Finally each Thunderstone in your hand gives you a +6 attack bonus against him. The Rites of Banishing Setting shuffles upto 7 Thunderstones into the monster deck which can be claimed by defeating the monster in front of the stone.

Once Doom enters play the players will cease going to the Dungeon, instead, they will begin parsing their deck for their strongest heroes and items and preparing for the final battle. Instead of this feeling slow Doom’s presence instead generates an atmosphere of fear and that feeling that you are preparing for the biggest and baddest fight of your lives.

The Cards

So, other than Doom and the Rites of Banishing, what other treasures lie in wait inside the Heart of Doom?

Heroes

Bluefire – The Bluefire Cleric is weak and barely better than a militia but he does give you experience points just for going to the dungeon. At higher levels he allows you to level up Heroes while in the dungeon, making him a great utility hero, without being a good fighter.

Canon – The Canon starts out pretty standard for a Cleric, small attack, can destroy diseases. However, then she turns vengeful, allowing you to place diseases into other players discard piles or under monsters in the dungeon.

Dark – At low levels the Dark hero allows you to strip your deck of useless militia and villages in exchange for magic attack, at higher levels she powers up off the experience points of monsters in your hand. This makes her useful throughout the game, rather than simply just a way to get rid of unwanted militia.

Highland – This fighter/thief starts out as a brigand who can steal other players treasure cards, however when she levels up her charisma allows her to purchase heroes while in the dungeon and even have them join her in battle if she attains 3rd level.

Isri – The Isri is an Archer who specialises in throwing weapons. She can destroy weapons to gain bonus attack, at later levels she can destroy weapons in the village to gain a bonus equal to their weight.

Jondul – This cleric gets bonuses against undead, ignoring light penalties against them in rank 2 or higher.

Nyth – Another archer, bringing this sets total to 3, the Nith gets a bonus equal to it’s level for each rank of the target and additional light for having a bow equipped.

The Village

Bag of Holding – A classic item from D&D this card allows you to destroy a weapon or item to draw 2 cards. This is a great way of getting rid of items that are no longer helpful.

Belzur’s Blessing – A cheap spell that allows you to draw 2 cards and everyone else draws 1, plus it gives you a light.

Chalice Mace – The +3 Attack chalice mace is another weapon that offers Victory points. In addition it counts as a weight 3 weapon for Clerics (instead of 6) and gives them a light bonus.

Dredging Net – Draw 3 cards, destroy one, discard one, keep one. The net is a good card to get early on as it allows you some additional card draw as well as allowing you to get rid of unwanted cards.

Grognard – The Grognard gives you 2 xp when purchased and he gives you a victory point at the end of the game. He also allows you to redirect traps affecting you to another player.

Jondul Bow – This bow gives a +4 bonus in rank 2 or higher and allows you to swap the positions of two monsters in the hall. Useful if you can’t beat the monsters in their current ranks.

Magma Hammer – This is an expensive but versatile weapon offering +1 Attack and +1 Magic Attack, meaning you should always be able to hit something. It also generates light.

Ritual of Cleansing – This spell causes 1 player to discard 5 cards from the top of their deck and destroy 2 of them. Like the Stalking Spell, it is destroyed when used on a player other than yourself.

Short Spear – The short spear makes militia useful, it costs 3 gives militia a +3 Attack and allows you to draw another card. Very powerful.

Soulfire – This spell can turn upto 5xp into Magic Attack. It also gives light. Useful in those games with high xp monsters but no hero upgrades left.

Swamp Provisions – A food item that gives strength bonuses or if destroyed it gives a +3 Attack bonus but all players get a disease.

Village Thief – One of my favourite cards in the set, this is a Hero but he counts as a Village card. He allows you to purchase Village Cards while in the dungeon. At 2nd level he allows you to steal a lower cost village card than the one you bought.

War Hero – Another way to make Militia useful. The War Hero gives a Hero or Mercenary +3 Attack but they are destroyed at the end of battle. In the village he allows you to draw a card.

Monsters

Abyssal Darkspwan – These monsters present a challenge by increasing the light penalties the closer they are to start of the Dungeon.

Basilisk - These beasties are generally quite easy to defeat unless you happen to have the wrong cards at the wrong time. Some of them power up based on the gold revealed, while one gets +2 health for each card in your hand.

Dopplegangers – These are Anti-Villagers and Anti-Mercenaries. Each one is unique and has a global effect that is basically the opposite of the ability of the Mercenary or Villager they are impersonating.

Dryad – Each Dryad adds an additional rank to the dungeon. In addition some of these are very difficult to remove. I found them rather tedious to deal with, but they do each give a light to help combat the ever expanding dungeon hall.

Lizard Folk – These are all quite high health monsters, but they each display a weakness, such as militia or daggers gaining bonus attack.

Spiders – The spiders work on denying heroes the ability to attack or destroying them entirely.

Undead Spectral – This monster group are reasonably tough to beat, but in addition to middling to high health they require you to destroy specific items, heroes or weapons in order to even attack.

Guardians

The Last Doomknight – This 15 Health beast gives off global –1 light –1 strength and +1 health to all other monsters.

Mournwater Witch – With 14 health this evil witch increases the cost of all Heroes in the village by 2 gold.

Settings

Last Refuge – The village holds 2 more stacks and 1 fewer Hero stacks. This allows for more variety and choice in your deck, but it will also lead to a dash for the “best heroes”

Mournwater Swamp – Traps and Treasures are triggered when they reach rank 1 rather than as they are revealed. This allows you to plan ahead for traps and gives a sense of reward for killing monsters to gain treasures.

Treasures

Gems – These allow you to purchase heroes or village cards or level up whilst in the dungeon. Not only are they very useful they are potentially very powerful.

Thoughts

Heart of Doom does what all Thunderstone expansions do well, it gives you more to play with. It doesn’t add complicated rules, or token or new types of cards, it just expands what is already there, which is great.

Although this is technically the end of a saga, the lack of real story up to this point means you probably wont feel like you’ve been playing a campaign that culminates in the defeat of the Heart of Doom. Of course, there is nothing stopping you setting up a campaign to allow players to win all 7 Thunderstones and then fight their way through to Doom in a final climatic battle, so it gives you options.

I like the new settings, especially the one which changes the way traps and treasures work, something that many fans have disliked and house ruled for years.

I like the continued synergies between the new cards and the basic cards. Many of the cards and monsters either give you ways to strip out the basic cards or to use them for great advantages, or in some cases both.

I like that the set begins to play with the basic concepts of the game, such as shopping while in the dungeon or recruiting and levelling heroes while battling for your life.

I also suspect that in more ways than one this expansion is paving the way for Thunderstone Advance. Not only does Heart of Doom represent the final expansion for Thunderstone as we know it, it also introduces some concepts that have been spoken about in previews for the upcoming next step, Thunderstone Advance

Thunderstone Advance

TA will introduce more story driven game play, if the previews are to be believed, will it take the form of the scenario presented in Heart of Doom or will it be more integral? Will it present a campaign feel or will it remain a one shot deck builder?

TA also aims to make the basic items more useful, in Heart of Doom Militia can be used to power many Hero and Village Cards, can be sacrificed to monsters or possibly even provide additional bonuses against them. The drive to make your starting hand more useful (like it is in Nightfall for example) has been a theme of the last two Thunderstone expansions and it sounds like it will be even more important in Thunderstone Advance.

TA will change rules that have have met with player disapproval, I suspect that the way Traps and Treasures work will be high on that list, especially given that Traps appeared in neither of the last two expansions and one of the settings in HOD specifically targeted them and changed the way they function.

So, despite my initial decision to skip any more Thunderstone expansion, I have to admit that Advance is looking to be an even better game, refined from 3 years of trial and error. So, while Thunderstone may be done and Doom may be vanquished, it will return and it’ll be better than ever. Don’t believe me? Then check out the new board!! Gorgeous!

Final Thoughts

So, is the final foray into the world of Thunderstone really worth your hard earned cash? Yes, definitely yes. This expansion is probably the best with the exception of Dragonspire. It’s not too complicated, but it still manages to be new and refreshing despite being the fifth expansion for the game. Go get it and see if you can banish Doom and advance to the next stage of your adventure.

4 Flavours of Monopoly

2012-01-09T22:34:00.000Z

For many of us Monopoly is the reason we got into hobby board games, not because it’s a great gateway game, but almost the exact opposite. While Monopoly has some elements of good design, it has some fatal flaws that just wont fly in today’s games market, like player elimination, or the massive elements of luck in what properties you land on and purchase.

To combat these issues, most of us turn to hobby games, like Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne and while these new designs were setting the standard for board games the world over, Hasbro simply continued to retheme monopoly over and over again. However, in recent times Hasbro has begun to change its ways, introducing new ways to play their old classic.

In this weeks guest post, Dan from Fire Spin wanted to let you know about 4 new ways to play monopoly that might just solve some of the problems that gamers have noted over the years.

4 Monopoly Versions for 2012

Who could have predicted the enduring popularity of Monopoly? Part of the secret of its continuing success is the ability of the game to constantly update itself to attract new players. Of course there will always be fans of the original and unaltered version of the game, but here are four new versions that may reignite your interest in this classic board game:

1. Monopoly Here and Now

This version is all about updating the original by imagining what the game could be like were it invented now instead of the 1930's. The biggest change is inflation, with costs of the famous monopoly properties soaring into more real world prices like hundreds of thousands of dollars. The scale is also expanded beyond just Atlantic City to include the entire United States. Names of properties are also updated to names of real landmarks like Texas Stadium and JFK airport. Even the game pieces have been changed to include a cell phone and a hybrid car. The game rules are the same, although now the winner ends up as a billionaire instead of just a lowly millionaire.

2. Monopoly City

This is a more radical remake of the game, where the players act less like tycoons and more like property developers. The goal is to build profitable residential housing culminating in the ownership of the prestigious Monopoly Tower. Dirty deeds are useful in attempts to lower your competitor's property values, with enhanced opportunities for the kind of wheeling and dealing that has always made this game so popular.

3. Monopoly Tropical Tycoon

Leave the urban Wall Street environment behind as you invest, develop and ruthlessly compete for real estate dominance in the tropics! Everything is altered to reflect a tropical theme, with beach front property at a premium. New tokens added include a parrot and a sail boat, and an accompanying DVD enhances the story line. The perfect Monopoly game version for Jimmy Buffett fans!

4. Monopoly Electronic Banking

Among the most innovative of the new versions is this Monopoly Electronic Banking adaptation. The biggest change is that it includes an electronic banking device that makes the traditional Monopoly money unnecessary. This eliminates some of the hassles for the less mathematically skilled while at the same time reducing the opportunities for cheating. It also makes it less of a chore when the game ends and it is time to clean up. Otherwise the Electronic Banking edition is not significantly different from the the original, making this the perfect version for those who want to update the game while still preserving its traditional elements.

With these and future updates we can be sure that Monopoly will continue to endure for generations to come.

Best Picks, plus News and New Releases

2012-01-07T18:25:00.000Z

Last year, readers may remember that I ran a public vote on the Unboxed Awards, this year however I was simply too busy and so I never got round to organising it. However, I’ll still give my best buys of 2011 and they are as follows:

Best Two Player Game – Rivals for Catan. There are a lot of games I enjoyed 2 player this year, but my favourite of the 2 player only games was Rivals for Catan.

Best Card Game – Nightfall. Nightfall was a really nice surprise this year and it makes a great 2 player game too and I look forward to many more bouts in 2012.

Best Euro – Aquaretto. I haven’t played many new Euros this year but Aquaretto is just meatier enough than Zooloretto to keep my interest without being too heavy.

Best Ameritrash Game – Thunderstone. As the proud owner of everything AEG have published for their first deck builder how can Thunderstone not be my favourite American Game of the year?

Best Small Box Game – Rune Age. I love me some small box games, they fit into smaller spaces, they can be thrown in a back pack and they can generally be played quickly. I’ve loved some great small games this year, such as Mag.Blast and Saboteur but Rune Age has hit the table more and that clinches it.

Best Family Game – King of Tokyo. Making the list by only 7 days, King of Tokyo has been a massive hit already, with lovely components and loads of replay value, this will easily be a family favourite throughout 2012.

Most Innovative Game – Descent: Road to Legend. Technically not a game in it’s own right, RTOL is a very innovative, taking a system that was never intended to be a campaign and making it one, really very successfully. Yes, it fails in some regards but the scope of what this expansions tries to do is so large that it is still one of the most impressive games I’ve played this year.

Best Party Game – Identik. I’ve not played many party games this year, but Identik provided plenty of laughs and easy to play with new and old gamers alike.

Best Components – A La Carte. Yes, I love the bits in many of my games but the components in A La Carte are not only fun but functional.

Best Artwork – Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. There is some astonishingly beautiful pics in this game, so many great pieces of art that really evoke the world that J.R.R. Tolkien worked so hard to create.

Most Disappointing Game – Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. While I do enjoy this game and it does hit the table a lot, it has still never met the standards that I hoped for upon it’s announcement.

Game of the Year – Battlestar Galactica. If this award should go to the game that I enjoyed the most this year, then BSG has to win. Yes, I only played it once but that game is etched in my brain forever.

And now the News

Patrick from Quantuum Magic would like you to know that Existenz: On the Ruins of Chaos is finally ready for release. I already have my copy and it does look lovely! Here’s what Patrick has to say about the game.

What's Existenz: On the Ruins of Chaos?

Existenz: On the Ruins of Chaos is a living card and board game in which you control a brave band of survivors seeking refuge from the dangers of Mount Vargah. You achieve this by making your way towards the relative safety of a victory point, or by destroying your opponent in direct combat. Play your cards in order to gather resources, summon powerful allies, and cast dangerous fluxes or catalysts. However, you will suffer defeat if you run out of cards, so make sure you either defeat your opponents or reach the victory point before that happens.

What's in the box?

Four ready-to-play decks
Four sets of playing pieces
The book of rules
Quick reference rules sheet
A laminated game board presenting a map of the world to track your adventures.

The 4 different card decks

Each deck represents a different faction in the world of X610Z and has its own unique corresponding playing style:

Arnunnian Alliance: masters of magic striking with lightning speed.
Undead Legion: zombie overlords threatening to overwhelm all.
Pirate Confederacy: cunning thieves looking for opportunity.
Red Barbarian Brotherhood: brutal and unrelenting force.

New decks in the future

Existenz: On the Ruins of Chaos can be played by 2 to 4 players in various challenging ways. Look for future themed expansions decks adding even more ways to play.

And Finally, this week’s releases from our friends over at Board Game Guru.

Hi,

Happy New Year

The first games released in 2012 are, I hope, an auger for another fine year of gaming. My first pick is a expansion that was designed about three years ago but has taken a long time to reach shop shelves – ‘Glen Drover’s Empires : Builders Expansion’ is an expansion for ‘Age of empires III : Age of discovery’ – its adds 20 new capital buildings and a new specialist class – the builder. Age of Empires is one of my favourite games from 2007 and I can’t to try the game with this expansion.

‘Flash Point Fire rescue’, from Indy board and bits, is a co-operative game of fire fighters trying to clear a burning building of potential victems before the inferno gets out of control or the building collapses.

‘Takenoko’, has got to be an early contender for cutest and wackiest theme of 2012:- you play members of the Japanese Imperial court, trying to grow different strains of bamboo in the Imperial gardens to feed the Panda given by the Chinese court as an act of friendship.

For Grid Iron fans, ‘1^st & Goal ’is a dice and card based American Football game. A glowing review can be read here

Gryphon games continue to republish shorter classics with Sid Sackson’s 1967 ‘Bazaar’ their latest offering

There are two new Living Card Game Packs, ‘On Dangerous Grounds’ for a A game of Thrones and ‘Into Tartarus’ for Call of Cthulhu. The six chapter packs of the ‘Defenders of the North’ expansion for A Game of Thrones LCG have been reprinted in the 60 card pack format.

‘Operation Hinanasho’ adds new maps and a new campaign to ‘Tannhauser’

‘Aquileia’, from Zoch games, is an original (and highly interactive) looking worker placement game in that players not only trade and build but must compete against each other in the arena and stadium to gain victory points or resources.

Happy gaming

Paul

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T10:00:00.001Z

So, another year is over but a new one is just beginning. What will 2012 have in store for us? I’m personally looking forward to the release of Descent 2nd Edition and Star Wars: The Card Game. I’m also hoping to pick up Panic Station, more Lord of the Rings expansions. I have my fingers crossed for a King of Tokyo expansion and more cards for Sentinels of the Multiverse.

But enough looking forward, lets look back. Here is a list of the top ten played games by me for the last year and a list from 2010.

Top Ten Played Games for The Duke BGG from 1 Jan 2011 through 1 Jan 2012

Top Ten Played Games for The Duke BGG from 1 Jan 2010 through 1 Jan 2011

Very interesting. Only 2 games made both lists, Pandemic and Warhammer Invasion. A major reason why some games have seen a lot of plays is reviewing. I’ve reviewed 3 Thunderstone expansions this year and I like to play a game about 10 times before reviewing it. Also, shorter games tend to see more plays and/or repeated plays in an evening. Co-op games see a higher number of plays in my lists because there tends to be a drive to keep trying until you win.

It’s interesting that the top two games of last year dropped right out of the list. In fact, there are no Euro games at all in this this years list, which surprised me somewhat. I, like many gamers, feel the draw of the “Cult of the New” so old favourites sometimes get shelved in favour of new games. Also, my collection has grown considerably this year so the total number of games played is spread out over a larger number of games. In total this year I played 434 which is only slightly less than the 443 played last year.

So, while I may no be playing some games as often, I still do go back and play old favourites and there are some games that I wish hit the table more often than they do, like Citadels for example.

Will the list for 2012 change much? I can almost guarantee it, but we’ll have to wait and see. Until then, have a great new year.

Chris

Coming in 2012

2011-12-21T01:41:00.000Z

It’s that time of year again when presents are exchanged between Friends and Families and for me that generally means new games, so I thought I’d give you a glimpse into what games I might be reviewing next year.

Merchants and Marauders

This is the biggest of my boxed games for this year (last year it was Descent!!!) but ever since this game was described to me as being like Elite but on the High Seas, I was interested. Listening to the D6Generations review of the game did not help to cool my enthusiasm and the components are just lovely, so it was inevitable that this game would end up in my collection.

And, pretty much like I did in Elite, I will go pirate because being the villain is always more fun!

Sentinels of the Multiverse

I’ve heard good things about this little game and having scanned through everything I’ve got to say I’m pretty siked about playing it. Not only is it a superhero game, which is a rarity amongst board games but it has some excellent artwork.

Blood Bowl Team Manager

As soon as this game was announced I wanted to buy it. I’ve had a love hate relationship with Blood Bowl for as long as I can remember. I love the concept and the miniatures, but I find the game stilted and boring instead of fast paced and chaotic. I’m really hoping that Team Manager will fix this for me, allowing me to play a fun game in this universe.

Thunderstone Heart of Doom

Technically this is a review copy but I was made to wrap it up and put it under the tree. When I get Heart of Doom it will complete my collection and finally fill my Dragonspire box, a fitting end to the Thunderstone saga. Looking forward to trying this game out especially the climatic final battle against the Heart of Doom itself.

Race for the Galaxy

RFTG represents another step in my attempt to retrace the history of modern gaming through the classics. I’m not sure how easy it will be to teach as my players can sometimes struggle with complexity and Race’s reliance on iconography could prove problematic, but I’m still looking forward to sampling this gaming staple.

Dwarf King

The new trick taking game from Bruno Faidutti has me intrigued. I’m a fan of short games like this and I like Bruno’s style (I’m a big citadels fan) so I’m hoping to squeeze in some rounds of this between bigger meatier games.

Braggart

This is a silly little filler game from Spiral Galaxy that has some charming artwork. It’s simple, it’s short and it can produce some good laughs. Quite often Christmas is filled with party style games and I think braggart will please along side last years favourites like Wits and Wagers, Indentik and Saboteur.

And the games my little brother is getting

As many of you know my little brother has learning difficulties but he loves games so I’m always on the lookout for games he can enjoy, but that aren’t so simple or repetitive that the adults get bored of them.

King of Tokyo

Big colourful monsters beating ten bells out of each other with dice. This is a game Andrew will absolutely love but that I’ve heard is a joy to play with all ages.

Forbidden Island

A couple of months ago Andrew sat down to play Pandemic with us and while he enjoyed it, it wasn’t really visual enough for him to stay engaged with the gameplay, so I decided to pick up Forbidden Island which is slightly simpler and a lot more tactile and colourful but essentially identical to Pandemic.

So that’s what I’ll be playing over the holidays. If you want to share what you’ll be playing, why not head over to the UK Gaming Media Network Guild and let us know in our Christmas Gaming Geeklist.

Boxed Up Fun: Ticket to Ride

2011-12-19T23:25:00.001Z

It’s Monday so it’s time for another guest review.

That’s right, the excellent video reviews from those guys over at Boxed Up Fun are back. This week it’s a video of a game I’ve always meant to play but never gotten round to, Ticket to Ride.

Excellent and informative as always guys. If you want to see more from Boxed Up Fun check out their website, or their channel on Youtube and don’t forget to leave them a comment.

Thanks again guys, keep up the good work.

Chris

Out This Week

2011-12-17T23:49:00.000Z

The Weekly Newsletter from our friends over at Board Game Guru…

On to the games

‘Eclipse‘ will arrive on Tuesday and should ship to those who have pre-ordered and paid for their copy. I understand that the next print run will be available in April 2012.

‘War of the Ring 2^nd edition ‘will be here on Tuesday. This edition has taken the design improvements from the Collector’s Edition to make a new superbly playable version of the game. There is an upgrade kit available for owners of the 2004 nexus edition, and a box for organising the many cards in the game. If you are recent and passionate convert to the hobby let me eulogise War of the Ring – it's simply one of the best games I have played, it captures the tension and epic scope of Tolkien’s work like no other Middle Earth Game and the new edition is a lot easier to pick up and play than the first.

‘Memoir ’44 : Campaign Book Volume 2’ adds 46 scenarios and advance campaign rules

‘The Age of Darkness’ is a 90 card expansion for ‘The Rivals for Catan’

‘Catan Scenarios: Oil Springs’ adds the black stuff to Sheep, Wood et al.

‘Hibernia’ and ‘Cambria’, from Nerd Closet games, are simple Wargame/Euro hybrids.

A few Essen stragglers have arrived or are shortly due to they include ‘Mil 1049’, ‘The Village’ and ‘Space Bastards’

Restocks

7 Wonders, Dungeon Petz, Star Trek Fleet Captains, A Few Acres of Snow,

This is the last newsletter of 2011 and I’d like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

Happy gaming

Paul

Board Game News 12: Fortress America, Army vs. Aliens plus a boatload of Eagle Games…

2011-12-17T00:12:00.000Z

Fantasy Flight

The big news this week is that Fantasy Flight Games is reprinting Fortress America. However, that really means nothing to me, I’ve heard the game talked about but never played it or even read anything about it. And really, it’s no surprise that Fantasy Flight are reprinting it. Every game from my childhood seems to be being reprinted by them, it’s like they have a monopoly on nostalgia gaming.

Of course, I love FFG so that’s no bad thing :). Anyway, if you want to know more about the reprint check out the description page.

In other news FFG has announced a new standalone card game, like many of their other small box games Rockband Manager is a face paced filler game. It’s too early to tell much but from the description it sounds like it’s a simple game with a “take-that” (no pun intended) feeling to it. Check out this page for more info.

Wiggles 3D

The guys over at Wiggles 3D would like you all to know about their latest release Army vs. Aliens. It’s a compact dice game for 2 players for ages 8 and up.

The game includes 18 custom dice—9 for each team. The handy guide helps players plan their battle moves. The game also features two dice cups that snap together to double as a carrying case for portability and play anywhere fun! You get to choose whether you want to fight off alien forces as the army or if you want to be the aliens trying to conquer Earth. Army vs. Aliens tests your gaming skills in fast-paced dice combat. By combining strategy, cunning and a little luck, players outsmart their opponents to win!

Army vs. Aliens will be available soon from Wiggles 3D’s website

Eagle/Gryphon Games

I can’t move in my inbox any more because it is literally full of information that the guys at Eagle Games want you to know about.

The Birth of America Series

This is the latest series of games coming from Academy Games and will start with 1812 - the Invasion of Canada.

The Birth of America Series from Academy Games provides an outstanding experience for people new to conflict games as well as those interested in the history of the United States. Every game in the series will include historical information about the conflict that is explored in that game, providing players with an educational experience as well as a historical context of the events leading up to the conflict.

1812 - The Invasion of Canada is a tremendous starting point for the Birth of America series and is one of those rare games that allows players to dive into the game quickly yet be rewarded with dynamic and strategic gameplay that will keep players coming back for more!

1812 - The Invasion of Canada features fast, intuitive and fun gameplay that involves teamwork and strategic planning in a historic and educational setting. This is THE GAME for people who want an enjoyable and manageable introduction to historic/conflict based games.

Players: 2-5 | Ages: 12+ | 60-120 minutes MSRP: $64.99

New Arrivals from Gryphon Games

Bazaar, Pastiche International Edition and Empires: Builder Expansion Have Arrived

The Sid Sackson classic, Bazaar, has arrived. Through skilful trading each player attempts to gain the right combination of coloured stones from the bank to purchase the wares displayed in the Bazaar. Values of the various wares are determined by the number of stones the purchaser holds following his transaction. When all the wares from two of the stalls have been sold, the Bazaar is closed, the game ends and the player with the highest score wins! Click Here to order Bazaar!

The international edition of Pastiche adds 8 wooden easels to hold player's commission cards. It also replaces 15 commission cards from the 1st edition, and now features some of the best-known paintings found in U.S. art museums including works by Georges Seurat, Mary Cassatt, Winslow Homer, Auguste Renoir, Jan Vermeer and more! Click Here to order Pastiche International Edition!

The first ever expansion to Glenn Drover's hit game, Empires: Age of Discovery (formerly Age of Empires III). The Builder Expansion adds a new specialist, The Builder, as well as 20 new capital buildings. The expansion also increases the number of players from 5 to 6 with the addition of a full set of purple colonists. Click here to order Empires: Builder Expansion!

Caveman Curling Launches on Kickstarter.com

In Caveman Curling each team attempts to "throw" or flick their rocks, one at a time, down the frozen lake. Special objects such as hammers, which allow the rocks to be moved after the throw, and totems, which protect a thrown rock from being moved, add an extra layer of strategy to the game. Play consists of rounds, at the end of which each team or player scores a point for each of their rocks closer to the centre of the cave than any of their opponent's rocks. The first team or player to six points wins!

Click Here to View the Caveman Curling Project on Kickstarter.com

Eagle Games Announces New Stand-Alone Defenders of the Realm Game

The yet unnamed game is a stand-alone card and dice game set in the world of Defenders of the Realm and designed by Richard Launius (Defenders of the Realm, Dragon Rampage Arkham Horror). As with the original Defenders of the Realm and its expansions, the new game will feature the art of the legendary Larry Elmore. The game is expected be released in the second quarter of 2012. More information to come!

Dragon Rampage Arrives Next Week!

Only 200 Available!

The long anticipated fantasy dice and board game, Dragon Rampage, will be arriving in our warehouse next week. We had 200 copies air shipped over so they'd be available before the holidays. So if you'd like to be one of the first people to own this great game, now is your chance! Preorder now and receive 6 (Defenders of the Realm) pre-painted figures to use instead of the tokens for your character!

Designed by Richard Launius (Defenders of the Realm, Arkham Horror) and featuring the art of Cyril van der Haegen (Zong Shi, Call of Cthulhu The Card Game, Magic The Gathering), Dragon Rampage is a strategic dice game for 3 to 5 players. Each player takes the role of one of the adventurers (all with different abilities) and the goal is to score the most points at the end of the game by fighting against, or running from (or some combination of the two) the dragon you just woke up, and tallying up the treasure and gold you obtain in the dungeon. Players roll 7 specially designed dice, Read on...

New Arrivals From Gryphon, Portal & Academy Games

Santiago de Cuba, Pret-a-Porter, Strike of the Eagle and The New Era

Welcome to Santiago, the second largest city in Cuba, home of legendary rum and birthplace of the revolution! The chaotic streets hum with the sounds of bustling crowds and busy commerce. Cargo ships constantly arrive and depart from the port. Demand is continuous, if unpredictable, for a supply of local products such as exotic fruits, sugar, rum, tobacco, and cigars.

In Santiago de Cuba, your business card says "broker", but in reality you're a shady wheeler-dealer who arranges deals with the locals and with corruptible officials to move goods and meet the demand of those ever-present cargo ships - and your ability to procure these goods is only as reliable as your "connections". Click Here to order Santiago de Cuba!

Pret-a-Porter is an economic strategy game set in the world of fashion. Players run clothing companies and fight for dominance during fashion shows. It is - perhaps - one of the most cruel and ruthless of all Portal games. Money can be a dangerous weapon.

Pret-a-Porter was Game of the Year 2011 nominee in Poland and has an average rating of 7.61 on Boardgamegeek.com.

Strike of the Eagle is a strategy block game that simulates the tenseness of the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 and is the first game in the new Fog of War series. A unique and new double blind game system in which players not only keep their units hidden, but also place concealed orders!
The heart of Strike of the Eagle lies in players placing secret orders on the map during each turn to bluff, mislead, misdirect and outplay their opponents! This novel new system uses no dice and plays quickly with 2 to 4 players. Click here to order Strike of the Eagle!

Four factions have grown and their boundaries widened. The conflict is not to be averted. Blood will soon be shed. The Mutants' Union is the power that made rocks roll and attack, and the other factions responded quickly. The New Era begins, the era of war...

The New Era, a standalone expansion for 51st State, contains more than 80 new cards and a new, fifth faction - The Hegemony, a violent band of criminals. New rules for direct interaction allow players to invade and sign deals with opponents' locations. New options and decisions have opened for players. The game is aggressive and even more engaging than 51st State.

The New Era has an average rating of 8.3 on Boardgamegeek.com.

In Conclusion

I told you didn’t I? More Eagle Games news than you can shake a stick at. It’s very nearly Christmas time so I probably won’t find time for a review this Wednesday. There will however be a new guest post this Monday and I’ll probably post a little something about what games I’m looking forward to on Wednesday. After that however Unboxed will be on Hiatus until the new year.

So from all of us here I wish you all a merry holiday season and a happy and prosperous new year.

LOTR LCG: Hills of Emyn Muil

2011-12-14T01:17:00.000Z

How can we forget the fabled Hills of Emyn Muil where Sam and Frodo spent most of a book wandering aimlessly lost until that “sneak” Gollum found them and brought them to the Black Gate.

This scenario however is not about that encounter, but instead we find our heroes searching this barren land for the creature Gollum, to capture him before he can do any harm.

But before we get to that, lets take a look at the player cards that can be found inside The Hills of Emyn Muil.

The Hero

Brand Son of Bain, famed archer of the waterside village of Dale joins our merry band of heroes in this Adventure Pack. Brand represents the second Hero with the ranged keyword and notably both of them are from the tactics sphere.

As Brand’s power, to choose and ready another player’s Hero after he defeats an enemy engaged with that player, is predicated on there being a second player, makes Brand a useless solo Hero. However, in a two or more player game Brand is actually very good for his cost of 10. His attack is easily equal to any of the other heroes for the same cost, while his will and defence are also high. His weakest asset is his low health, but that can be solved through the addition of Citadel Plate.

Player Cards

Leadership

Keen Eyed Took – Initially this card seems a little expensive for what it offers, 1 willpower. However it’s ability to let you know what card is coming up in your next hand can be useful, especially when you really need a specific card.

Rear Guard – Rear Guard continues the sacrifice theme of the Leadership deck. Discarding 1 Leadership ally to give all heroes committed to the quest +1 Will Power. If used with a cheap ally like Snowbourn Scout this can be a really useful card. Especially when you consider you can use it to trigger other cards like Valiant Sacrifice or even Prince Imrahil’s ability.

Tactics

Descendant of Thorondor – While DOT’s stats are not that impressive his ability to inflict 2 damage to one enemy in the staging area when he enters or leaves play can be helpful, especially against enemies like Hummerhorns. That said I tend to run high threat decks so the chances of anything being in the staging area combined with DOT’s high cost means that I tend not to make much use of this card.

Meneldor's Flight – This event card allows you to return an Eagle to your hand. I tend not to use it but if combined with Descendant of Thorondor or other cards that are triggered by Allies leaving play it could be handy. Also it can be a good way of keeping precious allies from ending up in the discard pile.

Spirit

The Riddermark's Finest – This card is the first creature card not to be part of the tactics sphere, giving Radagast a place in a mixed Spirit/Tactics deck. For 2 resources this is an ok Ally or a good way to rid yourself of some unwanted locations as it can be exhausted and discarded to place 2 progress on any location. Because this is an action you can use it after encounter cards are revealed to prevent you failing to quest.

Ride to Ruin – Discard a Rohan Ally to place 3 progress on any location. Again, this is a good combination with Snowbourn Scout as for 2 resources you can place 4 progress on any location.

Lore

Gildor Inglorion – Gildor is the most expensive Lore ally to date, however his three quest and defence and 2 attack are worth the price. His ability to exhaust to allow you to look at the top three cards of your deck, swap one card with a card in your hand and return the other cards is pretty cool and can help out in a tight spot, especially if you have a copy of Ever Vigilant to hand.

Gildor’s Council – This card, at a cost of 3, is expensive and useless in solo play, but it allows you to reveal one less card from the encounter deck. It can be useful but I feel it’s too expensive for me to ever really bother with unless I’m desperate.

Neutral

Song of Travel – This song allows the attached hero to spend resources as if they had a spirit icon.

The Hills of Emyn Muil

The hunt for Gollum has led you to the south, and you are now approaching Rauros Falls and the nearby hills of Emyn Muil...
You are certain that Gollum has fled into this area, and you must explore until you find the fresh trail.

Hills is a unique scenario in that it features only a single quest card. To win the scenario the players must collect 20 Victory Points and have no Emyn Muil cards in play.

Play begins with two Emyn Muil locations in the staging area Amon Lhaw and Amon Hen, both of which have 5 VPs, meaning you need only find 10 more to complete the quest.

Unfortunately the two starting locations have X threat where X is equal to twice the number of players.

In addition most of the new locations impact the players negatively while they are being explored. Although the scenario is mostly about eliminating locations there are some new enemies too.

The Orc Horse Thieves’s attack powers up off the number of locations in the staging area and their defence of 2 and 6 hp could mean they’ll stick around for a while. However, if there are enough locations in the staging area to make them a serious combat threat then you may already be in serious trouble.

Thoughts

The Hills of Emyn Muil is probably my least favourite of the adventures in the first cycle. The single quest card meant that the scenario never changed, it was just a case of completing locations as quickly as possible.

I think the scenario would have been more challenging with the Wilderness set instead of the Dol Guldor orcs, plus Trolls and Wolves would have felt more appropriate in the rocky wilderness.

Brand is a good new hero, unless you play mostly solo and while all the player cards have their uses, with the exception of the two spirit cards, most of them are not finding homes in my current deck builds.

Final Thoughts

So, although this pack has some cool artwork and a nice concept it just falls flat for me overall. The scenario was not only easy but just a little dull too. Will things pick up in the next adventure? Well you’ll just have to keep checking back to find out!

Scenario reviews are made possibly by our friends over at Board Game Guru, check them out for Adventure Packs and more!

The Gamer’s Atlas: Guillotine

2011-12-12T01:16:00.000Z

Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s Monday and that means it’s time to welcome another guest reviewer. From the video series The Gamer’s Atlas please welcome Paul Latza with his review of Guillotine.

If you enjoyed Paul’s review why not check out his blog or go and comment on his channel on youtube. Hopefully Paul will be back here with another review from the big wide world of gaming soon!

And I’ll see you all back here on Wednesday for another review from me, until then, happy gaming.

Chris

Rune Age

2011-12-07T01:01:00.000Z

Fans of this blog will know that I’m reasonably invested in the fantasy realm of Terrinoth, created by the guys over at Fantasy Flight, which is the setting for a large number of their Fantasy Games including Runebound, Descent, Rune Age, Rune Wars and Dungeonquest.

Fantasy Flight however was late coming to the Deck Building party. First there was Dominion, then others followed suit Arctic Scavengers, Thunderstone, Puzzle Strike among others. But what set Rune Age apart from the myriad of other Deck Builders was that Rune Age was offering scenario based play. So, does Rune Age really bring something different to the table or is it just another clone?

Theme

Rune Age is a competitive deck building adventure which pits you against a series of increasingly difficult dragons, with the player who can defeat the biggest baddest dragon earning the respect that he rightly deserves.

- or -

Rune Age is a cooperative game that unites the players together against a strong series of enemies, but allows for the weakest player to change allegiance and win the game alone, if they think they can!

- or -

Rune Age is an economic race game which forces players to balance their need for defence against their need to draw gold into their hands in order to build their monument.

- or -

Rune Age is a war game, in which the players will draft units to attack each other in a race for global domination over the land of Terrinoth.

Unboxed

So, what’s in the box?

Rulebook
252 Cards
- 92 Faction Cards (23 per faction, 4 factions)
- 4 Home Realms
- 12 Strongholds
- 32 One-cost Units
- 16 Two-cost Units
- 16 Three-cost Units
- 12 Five-cost Units
- 104 Scenario-specific Cards
- 50 Neutral Cards (10 Types – 5 of each)
- 4 Objective Cards
- 40 Event Cards (10 per scenario)
- 6 Dragon Rune Cards
- 4 Monument Cards
- 48 Gold Cards (24 – “1,” 14 – “2,” 10 – “3”)
- 8 City Cards
38 Cardboard Damage Tokens
1 Six-sided Attrition Die

So basically, lots of cards but nowhere near as many as your standard deck builder, like Dominion or Thunderstone. Admittedly Rune Age is cheaper but there are a lot of cards that repeat (such as gold) and even the unique cards feature artwork from previous games.

That said the quality of the game is as high as I’ve come to expect from FFG and the rulebook is well laid out and simple to follow. Although the game is a “deck builder” the set up and game play differ quite wildly from most other games in this genre, so without further ado, lets get to it. ..

Playing the Game

To set up the game first you must choose one of the four included scenarios. This will determine which Neutral cards will be used for the game. Then consult the chart in the front of the rulebook to see how many neutral cards are used for the number of people playing. Make stacks in the middle of the table of the three neutral cards, 1, 2, & 3 gold cards, a number of Neutral Cities equal the to the number of players plus 1 and the Event Deck and Objective Card for the scenario.

Each player then chooses a faction and places the home realm for that faction face up in front of them. If this card ever takes 20 damage it is destroyed and that player is eliminated.

Players separate the rest of their cards into purchase stacks, each faction has four unit types and three Strongholds. Players then make a deck using five 1 gold cards and three strength 1 units. Each player draws a hand of five cards. The game can now begin with the youngest player going first.

On their turn each player can take one of four actions:

A Combat Action – Either against an Event Card, an Objective Card, a Stronghold, a City or a Player
A Gold Action – Spending Gold to claim cards from their own purchase stacks
An Influence Action – Spending Influence to buy Neutral units or Gold Cards from the central area.
Perform an Action on a card in their hand.

In general players can take these actions as many times and in any order as they like. However they must fully resolve an action before starting another one and they cannot attack the same target twice in the same turn.

At the end of each players turn everyone draws their hand back up to 5 cards, which stops players being penalised for being attacked during another players turn. At the start of the first players turn an event card is turned over and resolved, if necessary players will draw up again before the first player takes his turn.

Purchasing Cards

Purchasing cards in Rune Age is pretty simple, if they cost Gold, discard a number of gold cards from your hand to pay for them. Newly purchased cards go into your discard pile with the exception of Cities and Strongholds which go in front of you refreshed and ready to use.

If a card has a cost in Influence you must tap/exhaust cards in front of you that generate influence, such as Strongholds and Cities. Thus influence acts like a constant currency that can be depended on from turn to turn rather than gold which has to come up in your hand.

Finally some cards can be purchased with strength such as Cities and Strongholds. In this case you must play cards from your hand with a Strength of equal to or higher than the cost of the card you’re attacking. If so it is placed in your play area.

Attacking

When a player wishes to attack an Enemy or when he is attacked by am Instant, both of which are types of Event Cards, the procedure for attacking is simple. He plays as many units as he likes and activates any when played abilities. He will then usually roll the attrition die. This die has either a blank, 1 skull or 2 skulls on it. If a skull side is rolled the player must destroy (return to it’s purchase stack) one of his attacking units per rolled skull. After the dice is rolled all resolution abilities are activated, if the player has enough strength to beat the enemy it is defeated.

In the case of attacking another player, both players play cards one at a time, making the order in which you play your cards vital to the outcome. For example some cards will allow you to destroy an opposing unit, this ability is far more effective against a strength 6 Dragon than a strength 1 Footman. Timing is everything in player vs player combat. If the attacker wins he inflicts 1 damage for every point of strength he beat the defender by.

Winning the Game

The first player to achieve the objective wins. This depends on the scenario. And that’s it, really simple and straight forward really, but not like any other deck builder out there.

Thoughts

I like Rune Age. I like the simplicity of it. Unlike Thunderstone with 12 new cards plus 3 new monster types per game Rune Age offers players only three neutral units per game and 4 faction units which are the same game after game.

Because of the consistency from game to game Rune Age allows you to play strategically to your factions strength. It feels more like a real-time strategy game than a deck building game. You conquer Cities and Strongholds to generate gold or to give you access to special units. While you hand pick which units will form the core of your army. Rune Age definitely feels more like a wargame than an economic engine game.

Although the “Runewars” scenario pits the players against each other, Rune Age can be played co-operatively or semi-multiplayer-solitaire, which sets it apart from Nightfall, easily the most player conflict driven deck builder I’ve played.

Is Rune Age a little pricey? With an RRP of £27.99 yes it is, in fact it costs as much as any of the LCG starter boxes but there is less original art and fewer components. However, it’s a solid game and its a good quick filler that has a little something for everyone. It’s easy to learn and because each faction is the same every game it only gets easier with repeated plays.

One thing that I have to wonder is, how much of this game was repurposed. Originally Corey Konieczka was working on a deck builder based on Blood Bowl, eventually that game came out with Jay Little as the designer which leads me to believe that Corey’s design probably ended up as Rune Age. Either way I think everything came out great! Can’t wait to get Blood Bowl to the table too!

Final Thoughts

Overall I like the game a lot. I think the rules and mechanics are solid. I like that you have a reliable resource, “Influence” rather than having to trust to the luck of the draw.

I like the fact that it feels like a war-game, while still managing to have an engine building mechanic tucked away in there.

I do think that it feels a bit like the “politically correct” deck builder, it tries to be a little bit of everything, offering solo, co-op, player vs. player, economic and adventure modes. Whether it succeeds at everything is something time will tell.

As for the complaints about variety and the need for an expansion that I’ve heard being banded about. I think I disagree, while I would welcome an expansion, especially new scenarios, I think it is the fixed nature of Rune Age that gives the players the ability to make tactical and strategic decisions in the game. While Thunderstone may be about discovering new ways to win with new combos, Rune Age is about working with what you have in hand to beat the scenario.

A Question of Balance

2011-11-30T03:28:00.000Z

I’m stuck at work this week, literally watching paint dry so instead of a review I thought I’d post up some thoughts on the idea of game balance.

There is a theory that states that the universe and everything in it is seeking a state of equilibrium, a state where everything is balanced and in order. But is that what we want in our board games?

Games can be balanced in two ways, either the game is inherently balanced or the player’s actions provide balanced.

For example, in Chess you each have the same pieces that can perform the same moves and it is the skill of the player that unbalances the game creating a winner. Because there is no luck in chess it is possible to analyse all possible moves without needing to account for something unforeseen, this is in essence the most balanced a game can get.

Now, lets look at a game like Settlers of Catan. All players begin the game with the same number of pieces on the board and the same number of victory points. However the game is not balanced. Each player will receive resources on different numbers and even if all players receive resources every turn they would receive different resources, which will effect their possible strategies.

Then we should take into account the dice. Even though probability theory tells us that on average five 6’s and 8’s will be rolled when 2d6 is rolled 36 times, but we all know this is not the case, sometimes three 2’s are rolled in a round and sometimes 2 doesn’t come up all game. Even the Event Cards which attempt to even out the randomness add their own brand of randomness to the game.

So, what does Settlers of Catan use as an equaliser? The Robber. This is a piece that stops one hex on the board producing resources. The Robber can only be moved when a 7 is rolled or a Knight card is used. Because the chances of a non-winning player rolling a 7 is higher than the chances of a winning player doing so the Robber helps give an edge to the losing players. Because this penalty is not a fixed one against a single player it can be altered as the balance of power shifts between players.

A counter example of this would be games where the players can levy a permanent penalty against a specific player that continues to hamper them even if they are no longer in the lead. Although vindictive players can use the Robber to achieve this affect, see my article on the ABC Rule for more about that!

So, some games use the players ability to know who is winning as a way to balance the game, while others have formalised this process, such as Power Grid, which levies a high penalty on the winning player, forcing him to go last in both the resource and building phases.

Any game which uses cards or dice becomes difficult to balance due to luck, however as a general rule cards are easier to balance than dice. For example, a game like Thunderstone, or any other Deck Builder, has a randomness to it in the cards you draw for your hand. The first way that this is balanced is that you will only shuffle your deck once all cards have been drawn, meaning you will eventually draw all your cards. Secondly after the game starts you have a large amount of control over what you put in your deck meaning you can change the odds of drawing a particular card by purchasing more of it or by buying cards that allow you to draw additional cards.

Other card games balance themselves by playing multiple hands to increase the odds of all players getting a set of “good cards”.

Dice are less easy to deal with in terms of balance, although generally if you are dealing with numbers, multiple dice are better than a single die. This is because two or more dice create a curve of results between the minimum and the maximum, while a single dice has equal odds. For example, in Runebound, originally the game used a 20 sided die, the switch to two 10-sided dice created a more even spread of numbers. The problem with multiple dice is that it creates a higher probability of rolling a middling number. In the Runebound example, the chance of rolling a 20 on the d20 was 1 in 20. The chance of rolling it on 2d10 is 1 in 100, five times less likely.

Some games offer multiple winning conditions. This is different than paths to victory. I would consider Settlers to have multiple paths to victory, building roads, buying cards, building cities or combinations of all three, but it has only one winning condition, first to 10 points. When you have a game that allows players to win in one of many ways it becomes difficult to balance those conditions so that one is not any better or worse than the others.

If one victory condition is easier to complete than the others players may ignore whole sections of the game. Or it is possible that all players will compete for that condition making the non-contested path the easier condition for victory. A problem with multiple victory conditions can be that players need to decide their path early in the game meaning they cannot shift condition even if they are later blocked out by another player. Thus the game needs to be balanced to a point where all players need to achieve some progress in all victory conditions as part of the game, allowing the players to choose their path at a later stage or switch without being to heavily penalised by a run of bad luck.

In some games which offer multiple paths to victory the actual conditions are hidden from the other players, for example Ankh-Morpork or Risk. In this case the game balances these conditions through the players knowledge of the game itself. Being able to read the board and know what your opponents goal is is an important skill in these games that comes through repeated play. However clever players will attempt to bluff, either appearing weaker than they are or making a deliberate play for a different victory condition to trick their opponents into dropping their guard at a vital moment.

Other games like Collectable Card Games or Living Card Games are inherently unbalanced. Even when the players have an identical set of cards to draw from the choices the player makes when constructing their deck will ultimately determine how well balanced the matchup will be. The same can be said about most miniature games with multiple armies and any game which gives you options about what you will chose to bring to the table. However it is this element that makes this games such a cerebral exercise and creates the tactical and strategic depth that the players are looking for.

A final set of games that flies in the face of all I’ve said here is cooperative games. A game like Pandemic for example is purposefully balanced against the players because the fun and challenge lies in beating the game. If you always win then the game becomes boring, while if you always lose the game becomes tedious and frustrating. So, in this case the balance comes in creating a game that, while difficult, is in fact beatable. An addendum to that would state that the game should be beatable by skill, not by luck, victory derived solely from fortunate circumstance is just as hollow as defeat.

So, do games need to be balanced to be fun? No, not really, like everything else in the universe they have a way of balancing themselves. Generally the players will balance the game, as long as they are given ways to do so. Even games that are so random and so unbalanced as for example, Munchkin are balanced by the fact that everyone gangs up on the winner.

Often games are about finding the right balance for you. Do you hang back, remain invisible and then strike, ninja-like, from the shadows when victory is in your grasp? Or do you brazenly run at the forefront of the pack, using a fistful of high powered cards and amazing dice rolls? Or, and this really is the best equaliser of them all, do you flip the board and refuse to play the stupid game ever again?

It’s all just a question of balance…

Until next week…

Chris

Out This Week

2011-11-26T03:00:00.000Z

This week’s releases from our friends over at Board Game Guru

Hi,

Lots of exciting stuff this week – both Imports and UK general releases

In stock now we have

‘Trajan’ is Stefen Feld’s ‘Mancala’ inspired strategy game. Herr Feld’s other 2011 release ‘Die Burgen Von Burgen’ is back in stock

‘Santiago de Cuba’ is another middle weight Euro set in the ‘Cuba’ game world from EggertSpiel. I quite like this game; it’s fast paced and has a lot of tactical but not too taxing decisions. It reminds me a little of both ‘Cuba’ and ‘World without End’. Recommended- and this is the English edition

‘Firenze’ has, at last, an English language release. This tower building game is about the same game length (60 minutes) and weight as ‘Santiago de Cuba’ and is another recommendation

‘Ab in Die Tonne’ is a family game from Cwali is which players are trying to dispose of rubbish as efficiently as possible, it is a light dexterity game.

One of the highlights of Tuesdays releases is ‘Banners of War’, the first expansion for RuneWars. It adds new units, upgrades for existing units and faction specific abilities.

Another is a new edition of Philip Kayaert’s (Small World, Olympos) ‘Evo’ , with some small rule tweaks it’s great to see this game of Dinosaur evolution back in print

‘Return to Mirkwood’ is the sixth adventure pack in the ‘Shadows of Mirkwood’ cycle for Lord of the Rings the Card Game.

'Never Night' is the fourth Asylum Pack in the Ancient Relics cycle for Call o f Cthulhu Living card game

‘The Iron Rock’ is the third Battle Pack in The Capital cycle for Warhammer: Invasion

‘Castle Panic : The Wizards tower’ adds magic and upgraded monsters to the family co-operative game

‘Bulflrog Goldfield’ is a stock game about the last great Gold rush with players developing and investing in the infrastructure supporting the rush for gold. I have not played it but I have heard glowing reports from fans of hard core economic games.

‘Mundus Novus’ is a card game which uses the trading mechanism from ‘Mare Nostrum’ as its core mechanic

From Victory Point games in stock now

‘High and Tight’ is a two player baseball strategy game

‘TC Tennis : World Class Women’ and ‘Paul Koenig’s Operation Market Garden : Arnhem’

Cranio Games have now found a UK distributor and some of their 2010 releases will be back in stock on Tuesday. In addition to ‘Escape from the Aliens in Outta Space’ I will have the limited White Edition in stock for the first time. ‘Horse Fever’ and ‘Monkey see Monkey Do’ will also be back in stock

Alan Emrich is, in an industry full of nice people, one of the nicest I have worked with (he is the president of Victory Point games). His vast ‘Axis Empires – Totaler Krieg’ is now in a third edition with new rules and the ability to be hooked up with his new Pacific campaign game; ‘Axis Empires – Dai Senso!’. I have put both games together into a special deal.

'Strategy and Tactics 271' includes a low complexity game about the second battle for Kharkov.

Restocks include ‘King of Tokyo’, ‘Airlines Europe’ ,’ Troyes’ and ‘Caylus

‘Mage Knight’, ‘Eclipse’and ‘Ora et Labora’ have been pushed back to a December release

Happy gaming

Paul

Thanks Paul, I’m personally really excited about the reprint of Evo as I was looking for a copy for my little brother to fuel his love of dinosaurs and gaming. Also great news about the restock of King of Tokyo, a must have for Christmas me thinks!

I’ll be back on Wednesday with another game review, until then, have fun gaming.

Chris

LOTR LCG: A Journey to Rhosgobel

2011-11-23T00:49:00.000Z

The Third adventure pack in the Mirkwood cycle brings us a new, challenging adventure along with a selection of new cards to help us survive it.

The Hero

Prince Imrahil has long been a fan favourite. The Prince of Dol Amroth who rode out with the Swan Knights into combat at the battle of Minas Tirith was remarkably left out of the (overlong-and-not-as-good-as-the-other-two) film of Return of the King, but he has not been left out of FFG’s card game, making his appearance in record time.

And that’s what Imrahil’s special ability will allow him to do, come to your aid when you need him most. After an Ally leaves play Imrahil can ready, allowing him to attack or defend in times of crisis. This means that you can sacrifice small units like Snowbourn Scout in defence allowing Imrahil to ready and attack. In addition Sneak Attack allows you to bring in an ally for 1 phase and when it leaves it would allow Imrahil to ready, giving the Sneak Attack + Gandalf strategy even more power.

Imrahil’s 11 threat makes him a little cheaper than Aragorn too, although he can take less damage and can’t sentinel, he can potentially defend and attack more often. Overall Imrahil is a strong hero, especially in a deck with cheap allies that can be easily sacrificed for the greater good.

Player Cards

Leadership

Dunedain Quest – With a cost of 2 this card is identical to the Spirit Sphere card Favor of the Lady in that it gives the attached Hero +1 Will Power. Dunedain Quest however, like the other Dunedain cards in this cycle can be moved from hero to hero by paying a resource making it ultimately the better choice.

Parting Gifts – This is an interesting card with 0 cost. It allows a player to move any number of Leadership resources to any other hero. Combined with Steward of Gondor this can be a great way to get high cost cards in other players hands into play at the right moment.

Tactics

Landroval – Initially Landroval seems expensive at a cost of 5, but the fact that he has attack 3 and 4 health plus the sentinel ability means he’s pretty handy in a fight. However, his special ability to return a killed Hero to play is the icing on the cake. Still, unless you’re running an all tactics deck or making use of Radagast in your deck this card may be too expensive to take.

To the Eyrie – This card has always seemed too expensive for me to make use of. A cost of 2 and exhaust an eagle to return a destroyed ally to your hand. A cheaper alternative is Stand and Fight, not only can this card be used at any time, instead of just after the ally is destroyed, but it puts the ally into play not into your hand.

Spirit

Escort from Edoras – This card was more useful when I thought his ability lasted until you completed the current quest card. That said, 2 resources for 4 willpower in questing is still a bargain, especially when you consider that other characters can benefit from him leaving play, such as Imrahil or events could be triggered like Valiant Sacrifice or attachments like The Horn of Gondor.

Ancient Mathom – This is a no brainer when it comes to what cards to take. Attached to a location this card gives the first player 3 cards when the location is fully explored.

Lore

Haldir of Lorien – Haldir is one of the best all-rounders in the game so far. 2 Will, Strength and Defence plus 3 health, Sentinel and Ranged. The only thing that makes him a little prohibitive is the cost of 4 resources.

Infighting – For one resource you can move any amount of damage from one enemy to another. While this seems very useful I’ve yet to actually make use of it successfully.

Neutral

Radagast – The Brown Wizard costs as much as Gandalf and he sticks around longer. His stats are ok, but he is really only of use in a deck with plenty of creatures. Radagast generates resources like heroes do, but he can only spend them to buy or heal creature cards.

A Journey to Rhosgobel

After a fierce conflict with a group of Trolls, you come across a fallen Eagle, grievously wounded and on the verge of death...
The Eagle's wounds cannot be tended in the wilderness, so you attempt to bring the creature to Rhosgobel, where the wisdom of Radagast the Brown may be its only hope.

So, this quest has three stages and is rated a 6 for difficulty. Personally I found it a lot easier than Conflict at the Carrock or Escape from Dol Guldor which are both rated 7.

There are a couple of important rules that need to be stated about this quest. Firstly, the wounded Eagle Wilyador is passed to the first player each turn.

Secondly, in stage 2b, whenever a card ability is used to heal Wilyador that card is discarded from play and out of the game i.e. not placed in the discard pile. This includes action abilities on Radagast and Glorfindel so be careful about when you distribute healing.

The Wounded Eagle – 8 Progress

Setup: Search the encounter deck for Rhosgobel and Wilyandor, and add them to the staging area with 2 damage tokens on Wilyador. Then, shuffle the encounter deck.

This means in turn 1 you will have Rhosgobel in the staging area, which has a threat of X where X is the number of players. In addition you can only travel to Rhosgobel by completing stage 1 and while Rhosgobel is in the staging area Wilyador cannot be healed.

Needles to say completing this stage quickly is imperative. Each turn Wilyador will take another 2 damage that cannot be cancelled.

Radagast's Request – 12 Progress

Once stage 1 is complete the players have found Ragagast in Rhosgobel. They can now travel to Rhosgobel and get it out of the staging area, which will also allow them to start healing Wilyador. In addition they will need to find at least some of the 4 Athelas plants that are lurking in the deck in order to survive stage 3 of the quest.

To do this Stage 2 offers a handy option.

Response: After the quest phase begins, the first player may place X damage tokens on Wilyador to look at the top 3 cards of the encounter deck. Reveal and add 1 of these cards to the staging area, and discard the other 2. X is the number of players in the game.

Each copy of Athelas will heal Wilyador of 5 wounds at the start of stage 3, if he is not fully healed the players will lose.

This means you need to balance the need to quest (to achieve the 12 progress needed) with the need to find the Athelas. If you progress to the next stage early you will not have enough healing to save Wily, if you take too long he will succumb to his wounds.

Return to Rhosgobel

When Revealed: Heal 5 wounds from Wilydor for each Athelas objective card the players control. If Wilyador is completely healed when this effect resolves, Wilyador survives and the players have won the game. Otherwise, the players have lost the game.

Thoughts

Journey to Rhosgobel poses some interesting challenges. Firstly you have to make progress fast through stage 1, easily achieved with cards like Eowyn and Escort from Edoras. However after that the focus switches to the ability to heal, a purview belonging solely to the Lore Sphere. The fact that your healing cards are gone for good after use makes things even trickier. Also, it’s worth remembering that Wilyador is not a Hero meaning that Daughter of the Nimrodel is useless, as is Self Preservation as Wilyador cannot have attachments..

Although Healing is clearly important, the ability to cancel treachery cards or at least mitigate their effects is crucial. Exhaustion deals 2 damage to each exhausted character, Swarming Insects deals damage to characters without attachments and Festering Wounds deals 2 damage to each damaged character.

Finally, the keyword Ranged becomes very important as all the new enemies can only be damaged or defended against by Ranged characters or Eagles.

Up to this point only Legolas has the ranged trait, making him a vital hero. And if you don’t take at least some eagle allies you may find yourself needing to use Wilyador to attack or defend against incoming attacks.

In addition, returning villains such as Chieftain Uftak and the Ungoliant’s Spawn will force you to choose a fellowship that is not only capable of questing and healing but also defending and attacking. This quest will test your ability to build a good all-round force as well as your ability to balance exactly how much you need to quest each turn to stave off the threat increase without activating the end game conditions.

Final Thoughts

Rhosgobel is an interesting expansion. Imrahil is a good Hero, especially if played in a deck with lots of cheap units. Some of the player cards are a bit weak though such as To The Eyrie and Dunedain Quest which basically duplicates and replaces the core set’s Favor of the Lady. While others like Landroval and Haldir have yet to see lots of play due to their high cost.

The quest itself is interesting and it gives you the feeling of searching as you parse the deck for those elusive Athelas cards. In single player mode I found it difficult to take a broad enough range of cards to deal with all aspects of this quest successfully, however, the quest plays very nicely with 2 as you can focus your deck on half of what is required for the scenario.

Well that’s about it, once again scenario reviews are made possible by our good friends over at board game guru so make sure to go check ‘em out and I’ll see you all back here soon.

Chris

Out This Week

2011-11-22T01:16:00.000Z

The new releases this week from our friends over at Board Game Guru… Take it away Paul.

Hi,

The new releases this week include:-

‘1830 : Railways and Robber Barons’, Francis Tresham’s masterpiece has been released in a new edition which includes playing variants.

‘German Railways’ is a spruced up edition of Winsome’s Preußische Ostbahn, and the game could be described as distant descendent of ‘1830’.

‘Sparta’ is a two player game of conflict in ancient Greece between the Achaeans and the Spartans

‘Puerto Rico 10^th Anniversary Edition’ is a rather special commemorative edition of the quintessential Euro. I saw a copy at Essen and it looks wonderful

‘Show Manager’ is a new edition of Dirk Henn’s 1996 classic.

'Ninja : Legend of the Scorpion Clan' is a 2 player battle between Ninjas and Samurai

'Strike of the Eagle', from Academy games, is a 2- 4 player game based on Poland's involvement in the Russian Civil war

‘Kingdom Builder’, from the designer of ‘Dominion’, is a family game that has been compared to ‘Through the Desert’. It has been very popular at my games club, and its one I am looking forward to playing

‘Ticket to Ride Map collection one’ includes a map of Asia and two ways to play, a team game for up to three teams of two players and a game with emphasis on the difficulty of building in mountain ranges

‘A Game of Thrones 2^nd edition’ replaces the 2004 game (and its two expansions it includes elements of all three games). It also has all new art work and revised rules

‘Coney Island’, from Michael Schact, is an Essen release, with players competing to build the best attractions at the amusement park

Other news

I have had a restock of ‘Dust Tactics Core Set Revised’, ‘Spielbox 5/2011’, ‘Victory Point' and Cwali games

I am hoping ‘Trajan’ and ‘Santiago de Cuba’ (a recent favourite) will arrive this week along with ‘Tuarag’, the English edition of ‘Firenze’ and a restock of ‘Troyes’.

Happy gaming

Paul

Puzzling it Out

2011-11-21T01:03:00.000Z

It’s Monday and that means it’s time for another Guest Post. This week’s guest poster is All Jigsaw Puzzles with an article about different ways to solve your Jigsaw Puzzles. Enjoy!

How to put a jigsaw puzzle together (they are more ways than you think)

How frustrating it is to trying to do a jigsaw puzzle when you've been having a go at one for hours. There are handy tips regular puzzlers use to make assembling a jigsaw feel less of a chore.

The most popular way is where edge pieces are put together first but the danger there is simply boredom. You could initially spend time assembling blues skies and green grasses, and with little reward.

86 year-old Mrs Jean Mitchell moved into a residential home in Hertfordshire recently. She was determined to carry on doing jigsaw puzzles. She had often enjoyed doing them to pass the time when she lived on her own following her husband’s death over 10 years ago.

As her eye sight has gotten slowly worse she has found she is not able to do the 1000 piece jigsaws like she used to but has managed to persuade others in her new home to take part. Rather than doing the edges first, as she always has done, she divides the pieces by colours. It works and even others with poor eye sight in the home are able to distinguish colours whilst still enjoying the challenge of assembling a jigsaw puzzle.

It means, as Mrs Mitchell, has found that people of all abilities or dexterity can be part of the “jigsaw puzzle team”.

Other techniques

Another successful way is choosing parts of the jigsaw puzzle to assemble. Like with large tasks it's often preferable to break them up into smaller areas. By doing little areas you get instant rewards. To begin with pick out colours and other distinctive parts such as landmarks- use the box lid as a guide if that helps.

When 34 year old Christopher Turner set a challenge for his family that would appeal to all ages nobody could quite believe their eyes. He borrowed a 36 piece Disney puzzle from his six-year-old daughter. The challenge was to complete the puzzle as quickly as possible in timed conditions. Easy. Whilst most members of the family went for the traditional technique of doing edges first, Christopher went to the middle and assembled pieces outwards.

Explaining his success - he beat everyone else by a least one minute - Christopher said he was simply matching up recognizable sections of the puzzle and then linking them up afterwards. He demonstrated this technique worked when he improved on his time for further rounds. Later, in between his daughter wanting her puzzle back, others’ times also became quicker but crucially it made the jigsaw puzzle far more enjoyable to do.

As Mrs. Jean Mitchell and Christopher Turner have found, jigsaws can be enjoyed by any ages. With so many modern day distractions, doing jigsaws for many offers a chance to focus on one task. This in turns leads to greater concentration and wellbeing.

Take into account jigsaws helping improve manual dexterity and communication, and you’re on to a winner however you wish to assemble your jigsaw puzzles. As we are HUGE proponents of Jigsaws Puzzles not only for their health benefits, but for the simple pleasure they bring to enthusiasts. Please check out our website for our huge selection of rare and hard to find Jigsaw Puzzles and Jigsaw Accessories to make your jigsaw experience easier.

This post was submitted by Alan MacLachlan of All Jigsaw Puzzles. The links found throughout this document are intended to bring value to those who are enthusiasts. For more information on Alan, check out the Jigsaw Puzzles Site.

Open Mic Monday

Don’t forget if you would like to be a part of open mic monday don’t hesitate to contact me. See you all soon for more reviews and opinions, until then, have fun gaming.

Nightfall: Martial Law

2011-11-16T00:44:00.000Z

Ok, so it’s about time to review this expansion for the excellent Nightfall. However, I wont be reviewing it as an expansion, I’ll be looking at it as a standalone set because I’ve yet to try the two mixed together.

Theme

In Nightfall: Martial Law you play the leader of an army of vampires, werewolves, hunters and the undead in a free-for-all, take-all-comers, battle-royal that is fought to the last man standing.

Despite the images on the cards that show the ever popular Vamps and Werewolves, Nightfall: Martial Law, like it’s predecessor doesn’t really feel like a card game about vampires fighting werewolves for supremacy, it’s simply a very good, attack driven, deckbuilder. If you were looking for Martial Law to bring more “theme” to the base game, it doesn’t.

Unboxed

So, what’s in the box?

60 Starting Minions (5 Players)
84 Minions
84 Actions
60 Wounds
24 Draft Cards
31 Dividers
3 Promo Dividers
1 Rulebook

Everything is presented nicely, there are some printing errors on the Draft cards in the original print run, however it doesn’t affect any of the actual gameplay so I wouldn’t let this worry you. One thing that I would have liked to see were different starting minions, rather than the same ones found in the original game. This would have given us more options for how to play the game and made for different game experiences.

Playing the Game

I’m not going to recap the game here, as it essentially plays exactly like the base game, so check out my review here for a full rules summary.

In Nightfall: Martial Law however, we find a couple of new rules and mechanics.

Feed

The Feed Mechanic allows a player to repeat an effect as many times as he can pay the “feed cost”, in most cases this is to discard a number of cards.

For example “Sweep and Clear” allows you to Draw 1 Card, however you can discard 2 cards to feed it and draw again. You can continue to Feed as long as you can meet the cost on the card.

Another type of card that makes use of the Feed mechanic are the new wounds which are used when attacking to boost a minions Strength for each wound discarded.

However, as in the base game, you can only use one Wound Effect per turn, meaning that you can’t do this multiple times in the same turn, or use the Clean Up Phase effect found in the original set.

Stays In Play

The second mechanic that really dominates this set is not actually new and that is the “Stays in Play” mechanic. In the base set this was found only a few cards like Bad Smoke. In Martial Law however many Minions stick around after attacking instead of being sent to the discard pile. This makes cards like Chang Jiang that force specific minions to block; or cards like Headshot that target specific minions, invaluable.

Luckily there are plenty of both Stays in Play and Target Minion effects in this set.

Thoughts

Do I like Nightfall: Martial Law? Yes, without a doubt, it’s an excellent implementation of the system found in the base game. Due to the fact that more minions stick around and more cards allow you to target minions the game feels more tactical and less about the luck of the draw.

The Stays in Play Mechanic allows you to use cards like Brynna and Taylor to build up an engine like in other Deck Builders, without taking away the all-out attacking nature of the game that the original offered.

While other Stays in Play cards offer a high attack value that will force your opponent to either deal with them or suffer the consequences.

I also enjoy the new feed mechanic, particularly on cards like Bleak Resurrection which can allow all your powerful minions in your discard pile a new lease of life, very very cheaply.

Finally, the new mix of colours and how they chain together is a welcome change that I’m hoping will allow for more kickers to be activated when mixed with the base game.

Final Thoughts

But, is Nightfall: Martial Law a good base set? Yes, it plays well as a base set, but I think I would recommend Nightfall to new players first. Because Martial Law has additional mechanics like Feed it’s a tiny little bit more complicated and because Nightfall is radically different to most other games out there, even other Deck Building games, the less complex it is the better when dealing with new players.

In additional Nightfall Martial Law has a higher focus on combat than Nightfall, everything from the new wounds to cards like Headshot and Silver Stake that destroy minions outright make for an even more take-that style of gameplay than the original.

I honestly love this expansion and I can’t wait to try it with the base set (once I’ve explored all the new cards thoroughly on their own) but if you’re not a fan of direct confrontation or of the original base game then this is not the game for you. Otherwise give it a spin and if you already own Nightfall there really is no reason not to try out Martial Law.

Thank you to the wonderful people over at AEG for providing Unboxed with a review copy of this game. I’ll be back soon with more reviews and opinions, but until then, have fun gaming.

Board Game News 11–Kickstarter, Dragonmeet and more…

2011-11-12T17:18:00.001Z

What’s in the neuuuuuuuuuws?

First up a couple of Kickstarter projects from Status Games and Eagle/Gryphon Games. Kickstarter is becoming increasing popular among mainstream publishers as a way to ensure that a game achieves the minimum number of buyers to make the initial print run economically viable. Lets take a look at what these two companies are offering:

Pizza Theory – Gryphon/Eagle Games

On October 31^st Gryphon games launched Pizza Theory on Kickstarter.com, the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world. Pizza Theory is a game designed by Brian and Greg Powers for 2-3 players that mixes strategic decisions with everyone’s favorite food…PIZZA! Playable by ages six and up, at its core Pizza Theory is a short (10-15 minutes) yet focused strategy game in which players try to outwit their opponents to gain control of the pizza. The art for Pizza Theory was done by the very talented Charlie Bink (Railways Through Time, Botswana, Charon, SWAT).

The Kickstarter project offers a number of exciting rewards including free shipping and a playtesters’ advance copy of the Pizza Theory Anchovy Expansion.

In Pizza Theory each player controls one of three colors of pizza toppings (red, green, and white) and attempts to get all of their color toppings on the board before the other players. The number of toppings they have increases by gaining the majority in any slice. Slices are created by each player simultaneously “cutting” the pizza, thus dividing the pizza into six sections. Play continues until one player wins by getting all 16 of their toppings on the board!

The Anchovy Expansion adds a twist by introducing the anchovy topping. The anchovy topping acts like another player. Players will not only have to battle each other, but they also need to work together to prevent the pizza from being taken over by anchovies!

DiceAFARI – Stratus Games

DiceAFARI (dice + safari) takes players on a photo safari adventure that not only has an endearing theme, but is also strategic, interactive, and lots of fun. The mechanics are a unique combination of dice-rolling, two types of area control, and set collection.

In DiceAFARI, players create animal-shaped maps using Safari Tiles, which represent various African terrains. On each turn, the current player rolls custom dice to select a route to visit during the safari, then takes a photo of one of the exotic animals found in the area. After all of the areas on the map have been visited, points are scored for the best sets of photographs taken and the areas most recently visited.

DiceAFARI should be up on Kickstarter this week and as always with Stratus Games keep a keen eye on their website for excellent preview and how to play videos.

Dragonmeet 26th November

The UK Gaming Media Network, led by Paco from G*M*S Magazine and Michael from the Little Metal Dog Show, will be attending Dragonmeet in London on the 26th of this month, Also in attendance will be the UKGMN’s own Rob Harris from Playtest who will be there with his dedicated group of play testers to try out new games from far and wide.

More information about the con can be found at the Dragonmeet Website. I’m so jealous that I wont get to be there! If you’re going, have fun and let us know what you thought of the convention in the UK Gaming Media Network Guild.

Hide and Seek – The Show Must Go On on iOS

I don’t normally plug iOS games as I dont have an iPhone, but Hide and Seek contacted me about this new title a while ago and as it is about putting on a theatre show, (my day job being a theatre technician), it got me intrigued.

So, why not check out their website and give the game a try, if you have one of these new fangled iPhone thingies.

Eyeknow iOS Game from Wiggles 3D

The guys at Wiggles were very excited to tell us about their latest outing on the iPad.

Our Eye Know game now has an iPad app. It’s free, was launched Oct. 1 and is now available at the iPad App Store. What’s interesting about the application is its dynamic computer animations.

We also released an Eye Know 100-card Booster Pack this Fall, which includes 100 new images and 300 new questions!

The new app is a companion product to the Mensa Select-winning Eye Know board game. This free application features over 150 new images in eight different animations. The app presents players with blurred, scrambled and swirled pictures that slowly shift into crisp images of many different subjects including people, animals, symbols and more. The quicker you guess the correct image, the more points you receive!

The original Eye Know board game is a visual trivia betting game. It combines a vast array of images from abacus to zebras, the Grand Canyon to Princess Diana and trivia questions in a game that is fun and engaging by allowing players to select images they know. The app adds extra turns for each player—five turns from the printed question cards and two turns from the iPad.

The free application can be downloaded at the App Store on iPads.

Out This Week

And finally a word from our friends over at Board Game Guru, take it away Paul.

Hi,

More Essen releases are arriving today and some restocks

From Stronghold games we have ‘Core Worlds’, another deck builder, this follows ‘Eminent Domain’ into space but this time players are barbarian races conquering worlds as the progress to the Core Worlds of the empire which they are destroying

‘Outpost’ is a lavish reproduction of the 1991 classic.

‘Sake and Samurai’ is a light hearted game of attempting to become the most drunk Samurai whilst avoiding the inevitable pitfalls of drinking to excess

‘The Forgotten Planet’ is a mining race game set in a science fiction setting

Arriving tomorrow are (most of) the Zman Essen releases

‘Palenque’ is an area majority game set in central America.

‘Dark Minions’ is a dice rolling game where players can indulge their dark side by plundering and looting humanities creations

‘Quest : A time of heroes’ gets and English language release – its a gentle roll playing game that’s been popular on the continent

‘Undermining’ is a pick up and deliver game in a science fiction setting

‘Lifeboats’ is a a negotiation game, originally published in 1993

My pick of the week is ‘Fame and Fortune’ – the first expansion for ‘Civilization : The board game’ – I was lucky enough to pick up a copy at Essen and this adds some chromatic wonderfulness to one of my favourite games of 2010. There are four new civilizations, parts for a fifth player, new tech and culture cards, new ways to spend coins and now individual great people.

‘Super Dungeon Explore’ is a dungeon crawler set in a Japenese console world

‘Penny Arcade’ is a deck building game

The King’s Landing expansion for ‘A Game of Thrones Living card game’ of six Chapter packs has been reprinted in the 60 card fomat – these include ‘A time of Trials’ ‘The Battle of Blackwater bay’, ‘City of Secrets’ , ‘Secrets and Spies’. ‘Tales of the Red keep’ and ‘The Tower of the Hand’

Two new Fantasy Flight Print and play expansions arrive tomorrow

‘The Silver tablet’ is a new scenario for Mansions of Madness and there is a new scenario,’ The massing at Osgiliath’ for ‘Lord of the Rings The Card game’

‘Ant Assault’ is filler from Mongoose publishing

Restocks arriving today include ‘Quarriors’ , ‘Last will’ , ‘City Tycoon, ‘Pret a Porter,’ and ‘Upon a Salty Ocean’

A lot of gamers have asked about a release date for ‘Eclipse’ – I believe its late November and I will make it available for pre-order as soon as I have a price and confirmed date. I have now played the game four times and its my favourite game of 2011.

Happy gaming

Paul

Editorial

2011-11-02T22:38:00.001Z

Hey Guys,

I just wanted to put out a post explaining why Unboxed and Duke of the Blood Keep have been stagnant for the last couple of months. Primarily the reason is work, I have a casual job which means I have to take the work when it’s available and I know that there is a long dry spell over Christmas so I’ve needed to work as much as possible the last two months. The upshot has been that I’ve had less than a handful of days off in the last two months.

However, it’s not just that. I’ve been feeling a little burnt out lately and both Unboxed and Duke of the Blood Keep have started to feel like work, rather than fun and both game playing and painting have started to be less enjoyable because of that.

All that said I plan to come back soon, I’ve started playing games again and painting again and work is beginning to lighten up as we wind down into December. So here’s a little taste of what is coming up:

Duke of the Blood Keep

In the next week or so I’ll finish my commission meaning that I’ll be able to get back to doing my How Not To Paint articles. The next one I have planned is a tutorial on creating convincing looking single colour minis using washes. I also have my Beholder primed and ready to paint and I have ton of other minis just waiting for the touch of my brush.

Unboxed

In the next couple of weeks I intended to return with some excellent reviews. I have Nightfall Martial Law and Thunderstone from AEG, two more LOTR LCG Scenario reviews from FFG, plus a couple more games from Right Games in Russia.

Unboxed will also see a return from regular contributors Board Game Guru and Boxed Up Fun.

Thanks for sticking with me guys, both sites are in need of some TLC and I hope to spend my downtime from work improving and updating both.

I’ll be back soon… I promise, until then, have fun gaming!

Out This Week

2011-10-15T14:35:00.000+01:00

This week’s releases courtesy of Paul from Board Game Guru:

Hi,

Arriving on Tuesday

‘The Legend of Drrizt’ is the third Dungeon and Dragons boardgame for which I have high hopes as I am a fan of 'Castle Ravenloft' and a bigger fan of 'Ashardalon'.

‘Ninjato’, Adam West’s second design (the first being ‘Galactic Emperor’) is a strategy game set in 12^th century Japan

‘The Ares project’, is a debut design from Geoff Engelstein (the really brainy bloke on ‘The Dice Tower’ podcast) is a close to a video RTS (‘real time strategy’ game) as you can find in a boardgame.

‘Nippon Rails’ from Mayfair games is a new version of the 1991’ Empire builder’ game

And new in the Essen section?

'The DGT Pyramid' is a four sided chess timer that shares the same functionality as the DGT cube.

'Pret-a-Porter', designed by Ignancy Trzewiczek (Sronghold, 51^st State) is a economic management game with the (unusual for a boardgame) theme being the world of high fashion

‘The New Era’ (also from Ignancy Trzewiczek ), is a new ‘51st State’ game which can be played stand alone or integrated with 51^st State

‘City Tycoon’ looks a little like a board game Sim City, and I am looking forward to seeing how this matches up to Urban Sprawl (arriving in November)

‘K2 Broad Peak’ is an expansion for my favourite family game of 2010. This adds a double sided map of ‘Broadpeak’ (formerly known as’K3’)

‘Drako’ is an asymmetrical battle between ‘Dwarven Dragon Hunters’ and their prey

Happy gaming

Paul

Out This Week…

2011-10-08T17:47:00.001+01:00

This weeks releases courtesy of our friends at Board Game Guru.

Hi,

Following on from this week barnstorming releases there are some interesting games arriving on Tuesday

‘The Hills of Emyn Mul’ is the fourth adventure pack for 'Lord of the Rings the Card Game'

For Summoner Wars fans its a bumper week ; the master set includes six new play able factions and there are a couple of reinforcement packs (Goodwin’s blade and Hawk’s Strike) to help tailor your decks

‘Sentinels of the Multiverse‘ is a co-operative card game set in a tongue in cheek Comic super hero world.

‘The Scrolls’ is the 7^th Module for Fresco. Originally a promotional item at last year’s Essen it has received a lot of praise for adding a strategic twist to the base game.

‘Arcana’ was one of the first Dominion clones to hit the market, Fantasy Flight have released a revised edition with added factions

More games have been added to the Essen section including ‘Dungeon Petz’ , ‘Last Will’ (these two are in my top five ‘must haves’), ‘Champions 2020’ and ‘Meltdown 2020’ from Cwali. These should all be in store on Monday 24th October

Happy gaming

Paul

In Other News

Thanks Paul. The more observant of you may well have noticed that this week Unboxed moved to a brand new address (which is why the site was down, apparently capital letters can break everything!!) however all links remain intact and there should be no further interruption in service. The site will be receiving a facelift soon too, but who knows when.

With regards to reviews I haven’t had time to actually play any games for the last month so it may well be a while until there are some new reviews up I’m afraid.

The ABC Rule

2011-09-21T23:06:00.000+01:00

As I didn’t get chance to play enough games to write a review this week I thought I do a little ruminating on a little known rule that exists in most games.

The ABC rule simply stands for Anyone But Chris. This rule states that it doesn’t matter who wins, as long as I don't win. In some games this rule does not really apply. For example, Agricola or Thunderstone where they player interaction is generally minimal and rarely targets a specific player. Also in all 2 player games where there is no other player to target. However, in most other games the ABC rule can come into play.

What does this do to the balance of the game? The ABC rule can already have a built in balance mechanic. For example, Munchkin assumes that the other players will attempt to bring you down if you are about to win and gives you plenty of ways to ensure that you can overcome them.

In a lot of cases players who are targeted by the ABC rule are conceived to be the best or most experienced player at the table. If this is true then having the other players team up to take you down is only natural. In which case you will play the game accordingly, you are forced to adopt a strong strategy that will allow you to weather the damage the other players will throw your way.

This could mean that you will need to horde cards that cancel nasty effects, or that will help you recover in some way. Or perhaps you will use the early stages of the game to build up a good defence, or an excellent goods engine that will help you cope better when the other players decide to gun for you.

It is possible to try and overcome the disadvantage of the ABC using logic or playing openly. For example, in Settlers of Catan, if you choose not to buy Development cards then all of your points can be clearly seen on the table, this, in theory, will prove to the other players that you are not in fact a danger and they should target the robber at another players land. An unfortunate side effect of the ABC rule is that any advice you give is automatically suspect and so players will assume that they are playing to fulfil your agenda if they follow your advice.

In some games the ABC rule is simply a death sentence, sometime literally. Games that include traitors, for example Werewolf, Saboteur and Battlestar can begin with you being lynched, sabotaged or brigged “just to make sure”. And with the addition of the Pegasus expansion you could even be airlocked! In games that require negation or trading, such as Cosmic Encounter, you could easily find that players will refuse to ally with you, because it helps you win, even if there are clear advantages to doing so.

But finally, possibly the worst thing that can happen is the “I’m only playing for second” caveat. For example, in a recent three player game of Nightfall, one player was behind by a long way, I was pretty bad off too and the other player had at most 4 wounds. This information was not hidden, the losing player knew everything and yet the player chose to attack me, instead of the winner because she might still get second.

Of course, as we all know second counts for nothing!

Are there games that people refuse to play with you because of your perceived advantages? Have your potential victories been cruelly dismantled because, by luck, you won the first ever game and then bragged about how awesome you are? If so, then you’ve probably been a victim of the ABC rule too!

What experiences have you guys had with this most heinous of house rules?

Play Test Meet Up This Sunday

2011-09-20T00:51:00.001+01:00

Playtest (London) group's next meetup will be this Sunday 25th September.

This will be the last meetup before Essen Spiel in October.

We are being kindly hosted by London on Board at the Old Star pub, opposite St. James' Park tube station. (See map)

Games to be playtested (more to be confirmed):
London Game (W/T) - Card game for 2-4 players (Rob Harris)
Zombie Game (W/T) - new prototype of a Zombie game for 2-5 players (Rob Harris)
Hung out to Dry - prototype of children's card game for 2-4 players (Jonathan Warren & Rebekah Bissell)

Please feel free to contact me if you would like to playtest your prototype at this event.
(contact'at'playtest.co.uk: please replace 'at' with the appropriate symbol).

Rob Harris

Boxed Up Fun: Dominion

2011-09-19T23:30:00.001+01:00

Yes, it’s Monday again and that means its time for another guest spot. Once again we’re joined by Jesse from Boxed Up Fun to talk about Dominion, a game that I’ve still never played. Is it worth playing? Let’s find out:

Dominion–Boxed Up Fun

So, while there may be a wide choice of deck building games out there now, Dominion is the grand daddy that started it all. While I’m happy playing Thunderstone and Nightfall and looking forward to the new deck builder Rune Age (which is sitting in pile of Birthday/Christmas presents) Dominion, at least the base game, is still a game I want to try at least once… How about you guys?

If you liked this video check out their site or their channel on Youtube and why not leave them a comment and encourage them to do more great videos?

Until next time, have fun gaming…

Out This Week

2011-09-17T00:05:00.000+01:00

This week and last weeks releases courtesy of Paul from Board Game Guru…

First up lets deal with the games that have recently arrived.

My pick is ‘The Gnomes of Zavandor’ – this game arrived so far under the radar as to be unnoticeable. What sparked my interest was the designer’s pedigree; Torsten Langdsvodt also designed ‘Before the Wind’ , one of my favourite games from 2007. ‘The Gnomes’ is a worthy part of the Zavandor series, its a tough market manipulation and goods conversion game, plays in about 75 minutes and is one of the better economic games i have played this year. Recommended!

‘Elder sign’ the dice throwing/Arkham lite game has been and gone, its sold out at the distribution level and I hope to see a restock in less than a month

‘Lord of the Rings : The journey to Rhosgobel’ is the third adventure pack for the Lord of the Rings Card Game. It’s become quite clear that Fantasy flight have underestimated demand for the LOTR adventure packs, they are being reprinted and there are a limited number of the this pack available at the present – I have some stock but I doubt it will last very long.

‘The Dwarf King’ is a trick taking game with rotating goals by Bruno Faidutti

‘Dust Tactics Upgrade Cards’ upgrade Dust units (pre Operation Seelowe) to the revised rules

‘Uluru’ is a German game (I will provide an English rules summary) , described as ‘logical puzzle filler’ this caused a stir at The Gathering of Friends.

‘Extra!’ is both a game and a dice tower. The game is an old Sid Sackson dice roller.

Next Week’s new releases

GMT fans are in for a treat with no less than four new games arriving on Tuesday

‘Space Empires : 4x’ is a game that does what it says on the box (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate), the design though is model of elegant simplicity and the gameplay is intended to have the feel of the classic all space empire classics but play in a fraction of the time. This review has convinced me to open a copy.

‘No Retreat: The Russian Front’ is a deluxe edition of Victory Games 2008 release (which I also stock). The design has received much acclaim as a most playable and pared down simulation of the Eastern Front.

‘Sekigahara’ is a block game about the battle that unified Japan under the Tokugawa family

‘Sun of York’ is a deluxe version of the Relative Range 2005 War of the Rose’s card game

For Talisman fans there is a new large ‘Dragon Expansion’

I have had a lot of emails about release dates so though I would give an estimate of some notable releases.

Early October

Star Trek Fleet Captains

The Walking Dead

Mid to late October

Thunderstone: Heart of Doom

Nightfall: Bloody Country

Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan

Ticket To Ride Asia: Map Collection Vol. 1

Blood Bowl Team Manager

Kingdom Builder

The Legend of Drizzt Boardgame

Star Trek Expeditions Expansion

November

Twilight Imperium: Rex

A Game of Thrones 2^nd Edition

Mage Knight

These are subject to change.

Happy gaming

Paul

LOTR LCG: Conflict at the Carrock

2011-09-14T00:36:00.000+01:00

Ok, so I’m two weeks late but I’m here now so lets get down to business. Conflict at the Carrock picks up where The Hunt for Gollum left off. But before we get to the adventure lets take a look at the player cards that come in this set.

The Hero

Frodo Baggins, an unusual choice of hero to come so soon into the game. Frodo was largely inactive during the period in which Lotr LCG is set so making him a player character was an odd decision. Of course with the addition of Frodo it brings us one step closer to being able to create scenarios from the original trilogy.

Frodo’s low threat value is representative of his rather meagre statline, however his ability, which makes him nigh on impervious to damage coupled with his 2 will power and 2 defence makes him a good choice for quester/defender.

His ability reads: After Frodo Baggins is damaged, cancel the damage and instead raise your threat by the amount of damage he would have been dealt. (Limit once per phase) This is particularly useful against the Muck Adder that also appears in this expansions as Frodo never takes damage and so is immune to the Adder’s ability.

Player Cards

Lore

Longbeard Map-Maker – This 3 cost ally has a reasonably respectable 3 health and is can give a 1 point boost in willpower, fight or defence. His ability also allows players to spend Lore resources to boost his will power. Using the Song of Wisdom, also found in this set, generating Lore Resources shouldn’t be a problem.

Burning Brand – For 2 resources this attachment card allows the attached Lore Hero to ignore the shadow effects of enemies attacking him. This is ideal for attaching to Denethor and can work well in concert with Dark Knowledge.

Spirit

Nor am I a Stranger – For 1 resource this card simply bestows the Rohan trait onto the attached character. A card that will doubtlessly become more useful in later expansions.

Eomund – One obvious use for it is Eomund’s ability which Readies all Rohan Characters when Eomund leaves play. In addition Eomund sports a handy 2 willpower.

Tactics

Born Aloft (Borne Aloft) – This attachment allows you to return the attached character to your hand. Obviously this can be a good way of healing damaged characters, activating event cards such as Valiant Sacrifice or simply saving characters from the discard pile that would normally be lost such as Beorn and Gandalf.

Beorning Beekeepers – This four cost ally is quite expensive. It has 2 fight and 1 will and defence, with 3 wounds. It’s most useful ability though is that it can be discarded to inflict 1 damage on each enemy in the staging area. However that’s a lot to pay and it only really seems to help if you can also count on being able to attack into the staging area, with the help of Dunhere.

Leadership

Second Breakfast – This event card is very useful for pulling attachments, like Forest Snare, for example, back out of your discard pile.

Dunedain Warning – Just like Dunedain Mark in the last set this card gives a +1 Defence bonus that can be transferred from one hero to another by paying a resource from the attached hero’s pool.

Neutral

Song of Wisdom – Like the Song of Kings this card attaches to a hero and turns them into a dual-sphere hero, providing them with a Lore Resource Icon.

Conflict at the Carrock

Conflict at the Carrock is my favourite Lord of the Rings scenario to date, although it provides a difficult quest, rated 7, it has proved to be a good solo scenario. The scenario requires you to tread a fine line between questing too much too soon or possibly dawdling too long and letting too many locations stack up in the staging area.

The Story So Far…

While searching for Gollum in the Anduin Valley, you receive word that a group of Trolls have come to the Carrock.

As this area is under the watch of the Beornings, you seek out their leader, Grimbeorn the Old, and discover he has already set out in a rage. You follow, hoping to find him before he confronts the Trolls.

Stage 1 – Grimbeorn’s Quest

To set up this scenario put the four unique trolls to one side, try not to be too scared by them, they are very very scary. Then remove all five Sacked cards and 1 +the number of players back into the deck. Finally add the Carrock location to the staging area.

The Carrock cannot be optionally travelled to and is completely immune to player card effects. For all intents and purposes this means you’ll always have 2 Threat in the staging area during stage one. You will not be able to quickly reduce the amount of questing needed using Lorien Guides or Northern Trackers, or swap out the location using Strider’s Path.

However, Grimbeorn’s quest simply requires 7 progress to pass, even with 2 threat in the staging area on turn one, with the right selection of Heroes this can be easily achieved on turn 1. However doing so would be foolish as this would place the Trolls into play.

This means you have to carefully try and work out what to quest in order to make enough progress not to take threat damage but also not make too much progress as to complete the quest.

There are some cards that can help with this, for example The Misty Mountains Goblins which remove progress tokens when they attack or when they are dealt as Shadow Cards. Also Despair which removes 4 progress.

However there are also some really nasty cards in the set. A Frightened Beast for example forces everyone's threat up by the amount of threat in the staging area unless a creature is discarded. With only the eagles in the tactics deck having the keyword creature this card is very nasty indeed, especially in the late game.

The Two Hill Trolls that appeared in the Journey Down the Anduin scenario make a reappearance here too, although with the new cards players are better equipped to deal with them. Finally, the Muck Adder, this blighter is seriously bad news, if it inflicts damage it kills the character it hits.

Certainly 2 damage doesn’t look much but with at least 2 shadow cards that lower defence or remove it entirely this is one nasty little creature and should be dealt with with extreme prejudice.

Stage 2 – Against the Trolls

When you reach stage 2 you will move the Carrock to the active location and add all the Trolls to the staging area. It is imperative that you are below 34 threat when this happens or you will be facing 4 attacks of 6 each of which raises your threat by 3!

Each Troll powers up the others as long as he is engaged, keeping them in staging area and dealing with them one at a time is extremely important. In addition being able to quest enough o make progress and remove the Carrock (which is also giving all trolls +1 Fight and +1 Defence) is extremely important.

Getting Grimbeorn into play can be a huge advantage in this scenario.

Grimbeorn the Old does not have to exhaust to defend against a troll attack. Combine this with healing magic from the Lore deck and self preservation and Grimbeorn is a troll killing powerhouse. However, even Grimbeorn wont last long if you let all the Trolls attack at once.

Getting Grimbeorn into play is easy in theory, using the Bee Pastures location to reveal him and the Oak-Wood Grove location to help pay his 8 resource cost. However, this becomes really difficult once the Carrock is active.

Even if you can keep your threat low enough to deal with the Trolls one at a time there is still the problem of the high threat in the staging area. Each troll is providing 2 threat and if you’re unlucky enough to get the River Langford location then it adds +1 Threat for each troll plus 2 for itself.

Worse still there are two copies of the Brown Lands which add 5 threat each!

The players complete the quest if they defeat all troll enemies in play and place at least 1 progress token on the quest.

Sacked and Roasted

A real danger in this scenario are the sacked cards. Similar to the Caught in the Web cards from A Passage Through Mirkwood, they basically nullify a hero. A sacked hero has no abilities, cannot exhaust in any phase and generates no resources. So far, only the Miner of the Iron Hills can remove this card and it cannot be cancelled in any other way.

Worst still is the Roasted Slowly card which instantly kills any sacked Heroes.

Luckily Roasted Slowly can be cancelled by player cards, but it’s still a pretty hideous combination!!!

Conclusions

I like it. I like Frodo, he works well in this scenario, plus if you beef him up with Dunedain Warnings and Protector of Lorien he becomes an excellent defender who is nigh on impossible to kill.

The Trolls, while difficult are not impossible to deal with and more often than not I’ve been killed by excess threat, either through River Langford or a Frightened Beast, rather than by Troll attacks. I’ve yet to complete this scenario successfully, I did finish it but my Threat Dial was on 51. With more players the scenario becomes harder as it’s difficult to start with a low enough threat and the threat reduction cards are being split multiple ways.

Still it’s a fun but exceptionally challenging scenario, however, the fact that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel keeps me wanting to come back at it and try to beat it, again and again and again.

Lord of the Rings scenario reviews are made possibly by our friends over at Board Game Guru, check ‘em out.

Until next time, have fun gaming.

Boxed Up Fun: Power Grid

2011-09-12T22:48:00.001+01:00

Starting this week Boxed Up Fun and Unboxed have formed an unholy alliance to bring you awesome Video content. Here on Unboxed, Monday is Open Mic Monday, a day when guest contributors will able to submit posts to be displayed right here on the site.

If you would like to be a guest contributor make sure to contact me and send me a sample of your material and you could be the Guest next Monday.

Boxed Up Fun, run by Jesse, is a great site focusing on producing high quality introductory videos. They also have a board game data base which features information on a large number of popular games and allows for user reviews of the games too.

But that’s enough jibber-jabber lets get to this week’s video: Power Grid

Boxed Up Fun: Power Grid

If you liked this video check out their site or their channel on Youtube and why not leave them a comment and encourage them to do more great videos?

Well, I certainly enjoyed that, Power Grid is one of those games that I’ve gotten to the table only once and I’m really jonesing to get it out and play it again.

That’s it for now, check back soon for a review of Conflict at the Carrock.

Board Games News 10: Stratus News, OG Tournament plus The Making of Takenoko

2011-09-10T17:21:00.001+01:00

Hey guys, it’s Saturday and that means it’s time for news…

OG Games Warhammer Fantasy Battles Tournament

First up, the online store OG Games will be holding a WFB tournament on the 25th/26th Sept to celebrate the 10 month anniversary of their London games club. If you are in the area and fancy a singles or doubles tournament then check out this link and go sign up. Lists need to be submitted by the 19th September and places are limited so marshal your forces and march to war.

Stratus Games

The guys over at Stratus, the producers of the fun new game Eruption, along with Launch Pad and Gold Mine, would like you to know…

Eruption was featured in TDmonthly Magazine’s staff picks for September as one of the “most promising, interesting, and innovative new toys”.
Stratus Games is hosting the first ever Eruption giveaway contest! The contest ends on September 23, 2011. To enter, answer the contest survey containing 10 easy trivia questions about Eruption. Each correct answer will earn an entry in the contest and additional entries can be earned by referring friends and interacting on Facebook and Twitter. The winner will be selected randomly from all of the valid entries.
There is still limited space available for last-minute signups for Eruption Preview Nights.
The Eruption preorder program will end on September 30, 2011.

The Making of Takenoko

Finally the guys over at Les Editions du Matagot thought you might enjoy an insight into the design of their upcoming release Takenoko.

Takenoko’s making of, by Antoine Bauza !

Now, let’s discover the story of Takenoko’s creation. Antoine Bauza, the author of Takenoko, returns on the development of his game, and on the origin of his inspiration, a travel in Japan.

Takenoko is one of the first games I worked on. It has experienced many versions and its evolution has been so chaotic that I have difficulties to remember exactly the whole story. The idea of the game came to me back from my first travel in Japan, in december 2003. During my visit of Tokyo zoo, I’ve been photographed at the parc entrance in front of a funny sculpture of two chinese pandas, a big one and a little one, cercling by bambous. Seeing this photography back to France has been the declic which put the project up. The only thing which never changed was the name Takenoko, litterally « bamboo shoot ». So, it was a normal photography during a touristic travel which gave birth to this game. The first prototype versions included two pandas, but the little one disappeared during the development. Nature is sometimes crual…

Takenoko’s development, long and tumultuous, has kept an immutable direction : I wanted players to have the feeling that bambous were really growing in front of them. To offer such experience, it’s was imperative that the material was good. Hazgaard and Matagot perfectly understood that, and of course respect my will. They found an elegant solution to give life to bambous. It took quiet a long time, but I think that the result really worth it. I thank them for their investment and perseverance.

We tried to make a great familial game with beautiful visuals and materials and based on an original topic. I hope you will like it!

Parting Words

So, I’ve been a little behind lately but I absolutely promise to post a review this Wednesday. Also, I’m hoping to get a game of the beta version of Fantasy Quest in this Sunday! That’s about it for this week, see you back here on Wednesday.

Out This Week

2011-09-03T02:14:00.000+01:00

This week’s UK releases courtesy of Paul at Board Game Guru:

Tuesday’s new releases present me with a difficult decision – which to play first? It’s almost impossible to decide which of ‘Gears of War’ and ‘Fortune and Glory : The Cliff Hanger game'‘ will get to the table afore the other. Both can be played solitaire and co-operatively, though ‘Fortune and Glory’ has a competitive mode as well. Both games are soaked with theme; ‘Gears’ from the video game license and ‘Fortune and Glory’ with its Indiana Jones inspired 1930’s pulp style. I think it’s probably going to be 'Fortune and Glory', and this video of the game from Gencon tipped the balance.

It is a strange week when a new Martin Wallace game is third choice for table time, however that is no reflection on the quality of ‘ Discworld : Ankh Morpork’ – I have heard great reports from play testers and those lucky enough to get a game at UK game conventions.

Other titles released on Tuesday include:-

An expansion for Modern Naval Battles Global Edition, it includes 110 new cards. The base game is back in stock

Two expansions for Dust tactics, ‘Axis Zombies’ and ‘Tank Busters’

‘Fiery Dawn’ Battle Pack for Warhammer invasion

‘Kingsport Dreams’ Asylum pack for Call of Cthulhu Living Card Game

The following Tuesday sees the release of ‘Elder Sign’ , the Lovecraftian dice game, from the Arkham Horror design team.

Essen pre-orders

I have added all of the QWG Essen offerings to the shop. They all will come with Essen promotional expansions (except ‘Dragons Gold’) they also all include English rules as standard.

The games include:-

‘Singapore’ from Peer Sylvester is goods conversion game set in the time of Raffles. I have got quite excited about this game from a rules read through which reminded me a little of ‘Glen More’ – however players share one board and there appears a lot of opportunity for interaction

‘Revolver’ – Mark Chaplin’s print and play space game has been rethemed and given a lavish production. This is a two player game with asymmetrical goals and decks. This is in the top five of my Essen wish list

‘Rattus :Africanus’ the second expansion for the plague themed anti –area majority game sees the disease spread across the Mediterranean, it also adds caravans, diplomats regional cards and new roles.

‘Panic Station’ is a traitor style co-op. The game is inspired by Carpenter’s all time greatest movie ‘The Thing’. A designer preview can be read here.

‘Lost Temple’ is a light, ‘Citadels’ style game where players are competing to be the first to find the temple

‘Dragon’s Gold’ is a remake of Bruno Faidutti’s 2001 classic

An Apology

Thanks for that Paul. I’m sorry guys that I didn’t manage to get a review up this week, it’s been hectic around here lately. Hopefully next Wednesday will yield more results, until then, have fun gaming.

Chris

Evolution

2011-08-24T16:51:00.001+01:00

Evolution is a English translation of a Russian Card Game from Right Games, which they were kind enough to send to me.

Lets take a look inside…

Theme

You are a creator, a giver of life, you have a divine plan for your own band of creatures to dominate the world, living in harmony with each other, mostly, while snacking on the creations of your fellow almighty beings.

You will take your creatures from the simplest of organisms and transform them in goliaths that will stride amidst the other beast, kings of all they survey. Of course, even the mightiest beast can be slain by a parasite, or starve to death without a sustainable food source.

There can only be one winner, so evolve carefully, only the fittest will survive…

Unboxed

In the box you’ll find:

84 cards;
25 tokens;
2 dice;
Rules

Now, the quality of the game is not as high as you might like, especially given the $30 USD price point. The cards are ok, but they won’t stand up to mistreatment. The tokens are serviceable, but there aren’t enough of them really and the box is simply a card board box in a sleeve.

The artwork is cute and design of the cards works well. I like the fact that most of the cards are dual purpose, so although there are only 84 cards in the deck there are many more options, not including playing the card as a new animal.

Sometimes the translation is a little wonky, but it’s certainly better than my Russian so I have no real complaints there. Overall the game gives you what you need to play, just don’t be expecting Fantasy Flight quality components.

Playing the Game

Each player is dealt 6 cards at the start of the game, then the first player is determined randomly.

In turn order each player can either play a card or pass, but once you pass you can no longer play any more cards that round.

Cards can be played face down as a new animal or face up as a trait. Most cards have two traits so you always have lots of options on your turn.

Each card you play will add a new trait to an existing animal or create an entirely new one. Cards that show +1 or +2 on them increase that animal’s food requirements but they also increase the points the animal is worth at the end of the game.

Once all players are done playing cards its time to feed your animals. Depending on the number of players a random amount of food tokens are placed in the centre of the table. In player order each player may take one food from the pile or activate one of his Carnivorous animals.

If a player chooses to take food he may also activate any number of trait cards. If a player chooses to use a Carnivorous animal he turns the trait sideways, to show it has been used and attacks any animal on the table, including his own.

The defending player may activate traits such as Running or Tail Loss to prevent the attack, if the attack is successful the player takes two blue food tokens from the surplus and places them on his animal, if it is unsuccessful the player gets nothing and must find other ways of feeding his animal.

Once all the food is gone and all the players have activated all the traits they want to use it is time for the Extinction Phase. Each animal that hasn’t got enough food (1 food plus the number of +1 or +2 traits on them) becomes extinct and is removed from the game.

The next player clockwise then becomes the first player and deals a number of cards to each player equal to the number of animals they have in front of them +1.

The game continues until there are no cards left in the deck. The last round is played out and then the game is scored. For each surviving animal the players score 2 points, plus 1 for each trait and +1 or +2 for traits that had increased that animals food requirements (such as Parasite and Carnivorous.) The player with the most points wins.

Final Thoughts

I enjoyed it. The game is fun because most of the traits have a counter, for example, adding Swimming to your animal means that it can only be eaten by a Carnivorous Swimming Animal. Looking for ways to score great combos and feed multiple animals at once is good fun. For example, having a Carnivorous animal with Co-operation means that when you eat an opposing animal two of your animals are fed, if you have a third with the scavenging trait he would be fed too.

The different ways to combine the traits to create different combos are probably endless. The game is pretty cutthroat though as players will be constantly trying to eat your animals, or giving them parasites to up their food requirements to an unrealistically high amount that you will be unable to achieve.

So, it’s fast and fun, it’s a filler game with a nice competitive edge, but it’s also expensive when you consider it’s rivals in the same price bracket. That said I look forward to playing it again and trying out new and interesting combos.

Right Games will be demoing this and other titles in Essen in October, they will be in HALL №7 at booth 7-05. You can check out more from at them at their website, including the expansion for Evolution, here.

Next week: Conflict at the Carrock

First Impressions: Eruption

2011-08-22T01:03:00.000+01:00

Last week I mentioned that the folks over at Stratus Games had sent over a print ‘n’ play version of their new game Eruption for me to try out, so I did. Sadly, my printer did the artwork no justice whatsoever but I can still talk about how the game plays and whether or not it’s a good game.

Eruption is a family orientated tile laying game, featuring constructive thinking, adaptive decision making and direct conflict. In Eruption you control a village that is under threat of destruction by a volcano. On your turn you will attempt to direct the flow of lava away from your village and towards your opponents. Skilful play will reward you with both cards and resources.

Eruption features several mechanics that ensure all players will remain fully in the game. Losing players are given bonuses as the adrenaline drives their villagers to work harder. In addition as one player enters a new danger zone, he gets to start a new eruption location that heats up everyone else's villages to bring them more into line with the loser.

As well as directing lava in the game you can also build walls to help stem the flow and protect your village. You also have the option of playing cards to build walls, change the lava flow or simply cool your village down.

When the first village burns the game is over all the players have one final turn, the player with the lowest Heat score is the winner.

Pros

It’s Fast and Fun
It Looks Beautiful
Multipurpose Cards give you lots of options on your turn
It’s simple yet there is enough depth to keep adults entertained
The Rulebook offers three alternate play methods including teams, last man standing and a variant which allows you to choose your lava tile from 3 face up stacks.

Cons

There is an element of direct conflict with the other players. I don’t mind this but if you do this might not be the game for you.
The game lacks any variability other than the decisions made by the players so it could start to feel repetitive after a lot of plays.

Neutral

The cards are very important to the strategy, which I like, however it can sometimes be difficult to get them in the mid game which can leave you feeling a little hamstrung.
I haven’t seen the final version yet so I can’t comment on the production quality. That said what I have seen looks great.
I’d like to see some more variants, maybe a co-op version or a version where the players play from a hand of Lava tiles.

So there you have it. Eruption is a fun family game, which does require you to conflict with the other players in order to earn extra cards and resources. It’s simple to learn and teach but it allows for tactical and strategic decisions to be made by players. Hopefully the nice people at Stratus will send me a lovely review copy to replace my poorly printed one…

Does it sound like something your family would enjoy, then check out more at Status Games today.

Board Game News 9: Thunderstone Goes Digital, Descent Reboots and Cyclades gets a Sequel

2011-08-20T00:27:00.000+01:00

And now, a little later than advertised, THE NEWS…

AEG News

Our friends over at AEG have announced another expansion for Thunderstone, will it be the last one? Heart of Doom will reveal the 8th and final Thunderstone as well as offering a special scenario end game variant to the game, which has me personally very excited.

However, this is possibly more exciting. As someone who recently purchased an android tablet AEG announcing the release of Thunderstone for Android, Facebook and iOS is really awesome.

The base game will be free to play with additional content being unlocked for cash. There will also be a campaign variant which has me very interested, as well as multiplayer options too.

FFG News

Descent is getting a second edition. This news is being met with a lot of mixed feelings, even from me. I love the base game of Descent and I love the campaign variants. However, even in the best of games there is always room for improvement. However, when the original designer doesn’t seem to be involved in the reboot is it time to worry?

The FFG press release explains how the system will be streamlined and simplified, that the playtime will be shortened and the campaign system will be built in from the start. But the question is, will the simplification take the game too far away from the tactical miniatures game we love?

Also, the campaign system is a very different idea to the way that Descent was originally meant to be played. Descent was originally intended to be a whole dungeon crawl in one evening, a Zero to Hero experience. Through popular demand it turned into a D&D lite system with campaign expansions. This new set seems to be aimed at the D&D lite market, rather than Descent’s original audience.

That said, I’d prefer that. In fact I was going to write my own D&D lite system based on the Descent rules, but now I’m going to hold off and see where FFG are going with it.

Good news for Descent fans however is that nothing you have will be made obsolete as all the heroes and monsters will be updated in a Conversion Kit.

Either way, check out the new description page, the new tiles and art look fantastic and I’m really interest to see where this one will go.

Matagot Editions News

Matagot Editions would like you to know about two new titles they will be releasing at Essen this year.

The first is Takenoko, a game about building a bamboo garden to appease the Sacred Panda.

From 2 to 4 players, the participants will have to cultivate the land plot, irrigate them and grow one of the three species of bamboo (green, yellow and pink) with the help of the Imperial gardener. The best player will be congratulated by the Japanese Emperor himself.

The second release is for the very popular Cyclades, which will see it’s first expansion at the fair this coming autumn.

This expansion is composed of four modules which require the original game to play. Each module can be integrated one by one. For the most fun, all modules are combined and provide almost endless new strategies. 2 to 5 players will join and discover new Gods, Heroes and dark mythological creatures from Hades' empire

And this weeks releases courtesy of Board Game Guru

The highlight of next week’s new releases is, probably, Hasbro’s ‘Battleship Galaxies: The Saturn Offensive’, this is a new space combat game using miniatures.

Mayfair’s first official Map expansion set for ‘Steam: Rails to Riches’ (including three maps) will be here on Tuesday as will the 270^th issue of Strategy and Tactics (containing a two player game of the The American Revolution)

I have had a restock from Victory Point Games; including two new titles ‘For the Crown’ and ‘Keep up the Fire’

Later this week I am hoping to have Spielbox 4 and Eggertspiel’s ‘Principatio’ – I will make them available to order when they arrive.

Happy gaming

Paul

Parting Shot

Thanks Paul and check back tomorrow for my First Impressions on Stratus Games’ Eruption.

Chris

LOTR LCG: The Hunt For Gollum

2011-08-17T18:12:00.001+01:00

It’s been a long time coming but the first adventure pack for Lord of the Rings the Living Card Game has finally arrived on the shores of the United Kingdom, but is it any good??? Lets find out…

Hero

Each Adventure pack contains a selection of cards and a new quest so I will be begin by looking in detail at the new Hero and the new player cards.

Bilbo is a great hero, yes his threat is pretty high for his fairly meagre stats but his ability is very helpful indeed. That extra card draw can be a very helpful thing, as it not only increases your chances of drawing the cards you need but it can also help powerup abilities like the Protector of Lorien where the ability to discard cards can be crucial.

Lore Cards

Rivendell Minstrel is a pretty good quester with 2 will power, but like most high quest Allies she suffers from a lack of hit points. Her when revealed ability however can be very useful and will continue to get more useful as the game develops. She allows you to search your deck for a song card, currently there is only 1 but another appears in the Conflict at the Carrock expansion and no doubt more will appear throughout the current cycle.

Strider's Path is an event that allows you to immediately travel to a location as it is revealed ignoring its Travel Text. This is useful for immediately reducing the threat in the staging area as well as bypassing some of the nastier effects on Location Cards.

Spirit Cards

Westfold Horse-Breaker is a Rohan Ally with a 2 resource cost, which is a bit high for 1 Will Power and 1 Defence, however his special ability “Discard to Ready a Hero” is much more useful.

Mustering The Rohirrim is an event that allows you to search the top 10 cards of your deck for a Rohan Ally and add it to your hand. In a pure spirit deck this probably isn’t much use yet, but as the game goes on this could be a handy card that will allow you to manipulate your deck more successfully.

Leadership Cards

Dunedain Mark costs 1 resource but adds +1 attack to the attached hero. In addition the attached hero can pay 1 resource from his pool to move the card to another Hero. Additional attack is always welcome and the ability to move it different heroes can really help in a pinch.

Campfire Tales costs 1 resource and allows all players to draw a card, this introduces some versatility into the Leadership deck which had previously been too resource heavy with nothing to spend it on.

Tactics Cards

Winged Guardian is one of my favourite new cards. This 2 cost ally has a defence of 4 and the sentinel ability meaning it can defend attacks against any player. Each time the eagle defends however you must pay a tactics resource or it is discarded. Still, this is worthwhile if it keeps your heroes in play and able to attack.

The Eagles are Coming is another card that will increase in usefulness as the Adventure packs are released. This one allows you to search the top 5 cards of your deck for an eagle ally and put it into your hand. Considering how powerful the current eagles that have been released or spoiled are this card can potentially be a big boost considering it costs nothing to play.

Neutral Cards

Song of Kings is the first of many songs, this one costs 1 resource and is attached to a hero, that hero can now spend resources as if he were a Leadership hero. This effectively makes one hero in your party a dual sphere hero and it is the first time when a three-sphere deck is truly playable.

The Hunt for Gollum

This months quest sees the start of the six-pack cycle of adventures where you set out together to seek out and capture the miserable creature Gollum before he can cause too much trouble.

This first adventure is a level 4 adventure, although it is considerably less difficult than Journey Down the Anduin which is also Level 4.

The Story So Far

Gandalf has requested your assistance in the search for the elusive creature known as Gollum. Your search begins in the Anduin Valley between Mirkwood Forest and the Misty Mountains.
You make your way along the bank of the Anduin River, a likely place for Gollum to find food.

The Hunt Begins

To setup the quest simply add 1 card per player to the staging area. The highest threat card in the encounter is a 3, however there are a few cards with the keyword surge so it is possible to start with a high threat or no threat at all in the staging area.

After the Heroes successfully quest the first player draws three cards from the top of the deck and adds 1 of them to staging area discarding the other two. Because this happens after the quest phase but before Travel and Combat you have a lot of options here.

For example the game revolves around clue cards, in order to complete the game you must have at least 1 clue card.

So putting a clue card into play may be a good idea, unfortunately it also contains the keyword Guarded which will add another card to the staging area. This step also allows you the option of dealing with or avoiding the nastiest enemies in the set depending on your current situation.

The Hunters from Mordor get hideously powerful when there are multiple clues in play. Their 2 Threat and 2 Attack are multiplied by the number of clues, this is devastating in both the Quest and Attack phases. Choosing to put them into play early on so that they can be dispatched could be a good plan, but it’s almost always better to just discard them. They really are thoroughly unpleasant and with 5 in the deck you’ll be very luck if you can avoid them for a full game.

With a high quest party the 8 progress points needed to clear this stage should come with relative ease. The only thing that could slow you down would be an excess of locations in the staging area.

A New Terror Abroad

To complete the second stage of the quest you will need 10 progress and at least 1 clue, failing to have a clue in stage 3 will result in you returning to this stage and having to complete it all over again.

It is worth noting here that Clues are lost when the Hero they are attached to is damaged. Other than combat there is only one way this can happen; Evil Storm is an event card that damages all characters controlled by a player with a threat of 35 or higher so keeping at least 1 player under the 35 threshold could be a good plan. Failing that having Eleanor on hand to cancel cards is a good alternative.

The 10 progress required to complete this section of the quest will accumulate much more slowly than the previous stage, this is due to the quest text.

“Forced: At the beginning of the quest phase, the first player looks at the top 2 cards of the encounter deck. Reveals and add 1 of those cards to the staging area, and discards the other.”

This means that you will always get an additional card in the staging area each turn. In addition to that there are still quite a few cards with surge which generate more cards in the staging area and the clues have the guarded key word which will also generate cards.

If that wasn’t enough the scenario also includes a few cards to remove progress from the quest, including the Misty Mountain Goblins and the Flooding cards.

On The Trail

Once you do finally make it to stage 3 you’re home and dry, throw as much Will Power as you can at the quest, avoid damage on your clue bearing heroes and rack up the 8 progress you need as quickly as possible.

Players without Clue Cards cannot quest in this stage and if at any time you have no clues between you, you must return to the start of stage 2.

The most dangerous cards you will face in this phase are the Hunters From Mordor. If possible just get your heads down and run for the exit as quickly as possible, hanging back in this section of the quest could lead to a serious delay.

Thoughts

Most you probably know that I was beginning to get disillusioned with the game, having read my review a few weeks ago. So what about Hunt For Gollum then? It certainly doesn’t fix every problem I had with the game but it does address a few of them.

Firstly the increased card choices are great, more variety is always good in a game like this. Sure some of them are future proofing themselves and aren’t that useful right now, but there are some great cards in here, in particular Dunedain Mark and Winged Guardian.

In addition, Bilbo makes a great hero. His high threat and low hit points may exclude him from some quests but for use in the Hunt For Gollum quest he’s pretty good.

The quest itself? I enjoyed it, it’s not so hard as to be impossible but it also presents a challenge. The only seriously nasty card in the set is the Hunter from Mordor but because the quest gives you ways stop them entering play they don’t feel too bad. Of course, they can spell doom quickly once they’re in play.

However, one of my favourite things about this pack is the single Neutral Card that it introduces, the Song of Kings.

This card opens up the real possibility of playing a 3 sphere deck and it makes taking Sneak Attack and Steward of Gondor a no brainer in almost any deck. Does it violate the purity of the spheres? Maybe a little but it’s makes deckbuilding so much more interesting!

Final Thoughts

Was The Hunt For Gollum worth the wait, for me it was. The options that this set offers in deck construction will be a boon to any player struggling to complete the quests from the baseset. The variety that the expansion introduces will help spice up the game for the those who were getting bored with it and the quest itself is fun and interesting even if it’s not that innovative.

Overall Hunt for Gollum is a good expansion and a good quest, which if nothing else, adds to the variety and replayability of the baseset.

Lord of the Rings Scenario Reviews are made possible by our friends at Board Game Guru.

Board Game News 8: Dice Tower Awards, Gen Con, FFG Star Wars and More

2011-08-13T00:11:00.000+01:00

There’s plenty of news about at the moment after Gen Con and Origins but I’m just going to cover the things that are personally interesting me or that I’ve been asked very nicely to talk about. Right then, lets get to it…

Gen Con

Superfly Pete, a member of the late Associated Gamers group and owner of the Superfly Circus has put together a fantastic magazine covering all the new goober that was on show at Gen Con Indy.

Check it out here.

Dice Tower Gaming Awards 2010

The master of game reviews Tom Vasel has asked me to let you guys know that the DT Gaming Awards are up on the site along with the accompanying podcast. If you don’t normally listen to the dice tower it might be worth tuning in for this episode as these awards are voted on by a large committee of gamers that aren’t concerned with keeping the publishers sweet.

This years winners do get a little repetitive after a while though, but still some great games were nominated and some great games won so check out the list of the winners even if you don’t want to listen to the episode.

Russia invades the UK

RussianBoardGames.com is home to Right Games, they have recently started publishing games in English and have sent me a selection to try, which I hope to be reviewing here in the next couple of months. If you want to learn more check out their site.

Stratus Erupts onto the Scene

Stratus Games is a company that focuses on making family games, but games that are fun and easy to teach. Myself and a few other bloggers have been sent a preview copy of their latest game Eruption and I can say I’m certainly interested to play it, check out the video below.

The art is wonderful, no? Anyway, keep an eye on the blog for more info on this title and if you like what you’ve already seen the preorders are up now!

It’s a Trap

Star Wars, it’s freaking Star Wars and FFG, that’s like a match made in heaven. FFG now owns every single property license that I love, Warhammer, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. I’ve made no secret of my love of FFG on this blog, even if they don’t send me free games *sad face* and the fact that they have snagged this IP is music to my ears.

What I do find kind of interesting is that they don’t seem to have a license to produce board games set in the Star Wars universe, this seems odd given that FFG is known more for that than they are for their miniatures games. It’s a shame too because I would have loved to have seen a conquest game in the Star Wars universe from FFG, that would have been immense.

Regardless, they are still going to do great things starting with a miniature game called X-Wing, which will most likely fill the void left by the loss of Wings of War last month. Secondly they have announced a new co-op card game, which will be an LCG but designed jointly by Corey Konieczka and Nate French.

This is an interesting pairing as Nate French is already responsible for most the LCG lines at FFG but he was also lead designer on The Lord of the Rings LCG. Corey was the lead designer on Death Angel, another co-op game which shares some features with LOTR LCG. Putting these two together could produce a better game than either could do separately as both DA and LOTR have problems, so I’ll certainly be interested to check it out.

One concern that has been raised on various forums is that this will be simply be a clone of the LOTR LCG, however, simply reading the description page shows that this is not the case. I’m certainly going to pick up the base set but we’ll see where things go from there.

It’s also worth noting that FFG has assured us that this is just the tip of the iceberg and that other games and even a Roleplaying game is in the works, so Star Wars fans keep your eyes peeled for more goodies in the future.

New Games

Finally, this weeks new game releases in the UK, these come courtesy of our friends over at Board Game Guru.

'Dixit : Odyssey' – A stand alone game with new beguiling artwork and new ways to play the 2010 SDJ winner

‘Conflict at the Carrock’ is the second adventure pack for Lord of the Rings The Card Game

‘The Shifting Sands’ is rhe first Asylum pack in the Ancient Rituals expansion for Call of Cthulhu LCG

‘Mask of the Archmaestar’ is the fifth Chapter pack in the ‘Secrets of Oldtown ‘ expansion for A Game of thrones LCG

‘Signs in the Stars’ and the ‘Eclipse of Hope’ are the fourth and fifth battle packs in the Morrslieb Cycle expansion for Warhammer Invasion.

‘A Few Acres of Snow’ – Martin Wallace’s 2 player game about the French and British struggle for supremacy in Canada is my favourite 2 player game of 2011. Its uses the ‘Dominion’ build a deck mechanic to make a challenging and asymmetrical wargame. Highly recommended

‘Field Commander: Napoleon’ is the third and most ambitious of DVG’s solitaire war games, allowing you to play individual battles of combine them into a campaign.

‘Proud Monster Deluxe’ is a huge wargame that covers the whole of the Eastern front.

‘Guderian’s Blitzkrieg II’ is a reprint of the eight game in the Operational Combat series from MMP, it can be combined with Case Blue to make a truly huge wargame

‘Victoria Cross II’ is an updated version of Worthington Games first ever release, in which players re fight the battles of the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879

‘Boots on the Ground’ , from the same publisher, is a tactical squad level game of modern combat

‘Lock and Load : Heroes of the Gap’ is a stand alone module about the first days of a hypothetical World War three

‘C3I Issue 25’ has a whole host of scenarios and variants for GMT games and includes Frank Chadwick's (Victory Pont games) ‘Battle for Moscow’ as a bonus

That’s it from me for this week, check back on Wednesday when I’ll be talking about the latest adventure pack for the Lord of he Rings LCG.

Nightfall

2011-08-10T00:23:00.000+01:00

A couple of months ago at the UK Games Expo I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Mark Wootton from AEG. Afterwards he gave us all some games, my co-conspirator Mark Rivera from Board Games in Blighty quickly snaffooed War of Honor, leaving me with Nightfall.

Although I’m not going to say no to free games Nightfall did not appeal to me. I am not a huge fan of the theme, despite being a big fan of Buffy, Angel and Supernatural. In addition, what I knew of the mechanics of the game led me to think that my primary play group would struggle to grasp the game.

So, I took it home and put in on a shelf, every now and then I’d throw it in my backpack and take it to my game night only to never take it out. Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I gave in and my friend and I sat down to learn the game, what did we think of it? You’ll have to wait and see…

Theme

Night has fallen and the world has descended into chaos. Vampires and werewolves roam the streets, locked in mortal combat with one another, backed up by hordes of undead. Hunters have joined forces to hold back the night but it is too little too late…

Unboxed

In the box for Nightfall you will find:

228 Order Cards
- 60 starting minions
- 84 additional minions
- 84 actions
60 Wound Cards
24 Draft Cards
31 Card Dividers (to help organize the cards)
3 Extra Card Dividers (for promotional cards)
1 Rulebook

Once again the quality of the game is what I’ve come to hope for from AEG. AEG continue to learn from past mistakes and improve their games with each new release. Nightfall comes packaged in a box similar to the thunderstone expansions and includes dividers for all the cards plus the promos. The rule book is nicely set out, well written and easy to understand.

There is some great art in the game, initially I wasn’t a fan of it but the more I look at it the more I grow to appreciate it.

Overall Nightfall is well packaged and well presented and a good deal for the price.

Playing the Game

Each player starts the game with 12 identical cards, 2 copies of each of the 6 basic cards which are one of the 6 different colours in the game (Red, White, Blue, Yellow, Purple and Green)

The each player is dealt 4 Draft Cards. They choose one of these cards and place it face down in front of themselves and pass the rest to the next player. They then choose another card from the cards passed to them and place that face down and pass the rest on. This time the players will choose a card from the cards they were passed to be placed face up in the public area. The last Draft card is then thrown away.

Finally enough draft cards are dealt to bring the number in the public area upto 8. Then each draft card is replaced with the stack that matches it. The ones that were chosen by the players become their own “private archives” and only they may purchase cards from these stacks.

Players then act in player order completing all the stages of their turn before play passes to the next player. A Player’s turn is as follows:

Attack
Chain
Purchase
Cleanup

Attack

Here the player attacks with all the minions he has in front of him.He attacks with each minion one at a time and can direct minions to attack different players or all at the same player. Defending players can choose to block minion attacks, multiple minions can block the same attack but each minion may only block once per turn. If a minion blocks it is rotated to show the number of health it has lost. If the attack caused more damage than the minion had health then the player draws wound cards for each excess wound caused.

Once a minion has attacked it is discarded. Note that when a starting minion would be discarded it is exiled instead, removing it from play.

Chain

Next the player has the option of starting a chain. To start a chain the player can play any card face up on the table. They can then connect any cards from their hand to that card as long as the large moon on their card matches with at least one of the small moons on the card played. They can continue to play cards until they no longer want to or can no longer chain.

Once they are done all the other players in player order have the opportunity to chain from the last card the active player played. After each player either plays or passes the chain is resolved with the last card played resolving first.

Although this sounds complicated it isn’t really. In essence it is a more formalised version of a the way cards are played in a Collectable Card Game.

The chain is the only way to get cards into play.

One very important thing to note is that you must resolve all possible card text, even if it is not to your advantage.

On the bottom of each card is a Kicker, this is a bonus ability which is triggered by playing the card on top of a card that has a large moon the same colour as the kicker. This can be difficult to do but is generally worth the effort.

Purchase

Next you can spend influence to buy new cards. Each turn you start with 2 influence to spend. Effects in the chain may also add to your influence and cards from your hand may be discarded to give you 1 influence for each discarded card. Influence may be spent to acquire any number of cards, including duplicates of the same card. The cost to purchase is shown in yellow on the card. You may also buy cards from your own private archives, but never from an opponent’s unless a card effect allows it.

Cleanup

Finally you refill your hand to 5 cards. If you have a wound card you may perform the text on that card. You may only trigger one wound card per turn. In the base set there is only one type of wound effect which reads “Discard all wounds from your hand and Draw 2 Cards for each wound discarded” In this way Wounds make you more powerful

Ending the Game

The game is timed by a stack of wound cards which is equal to 10 times the number of players. When the wound stack runs out the current attack or chain is completed, with additional wounds from the unused stack being used if necessary. Then all the players add up all the wounds in their decks and the player with the least number of wounds is the winner.

Thoughts

I like it… And I was very surprised by that. What I initially thought would be a barrier is the theme, but the theme takes a back seat to the mechanics. When you play Big Ghost you’re not thinking about him being a werewolf, you’re just looking at the 5 damage he is going to meat out on your turn.

I like that unlike a lot of deckbuilding games your starting cards are not useless. Unlike Militia in Thunderstone which are generally best used as sacrificial lambs most of the starting cards in Nightfall have great special abilities. +2 Influence on Yuri for example is just as good as Mesmeric Presence.

The fact that these starting cards are one use only makes them feel special too. You’re not just going to throw them down without thinking about it because once they’re gone you can’t get them back.

I also like the fact that wounds make you more powerful, meaning that players who are behind can still stay in the game and cause havoc. Being able to draw more cards because you’re wounded gives you greater options on your turn. In addition, because you can discard cards to gain influence it also gives you a greater buying power.

Because in Nightfall you must carry out all actions and kickers in a chain if possible you have to think carefully about what you play and when. For example, playing Flank Attack which nullifies an order lower down in the chain, on your own turn is a bad plan. This is a skill that takes a long time to master, but it is where the skill of the game lies. It’s not just enough to match the colours on your cards, you have to think about how those cards will affect the state of play. If your card tells you to destroy a minion and you’re the only player with minions in play, well it’s goodnight minion.

On my first few plays through I wasn’t sure if the game wasn’t just pure luck as new players were just as likely to win as people who already had a few games under their belt, but once you begin to understand the complexities of the chain and how to manipulate it, the game really does become a game of skill.

Nightfall plays quickly, or at least it does with low player counts and I like that. It feels meater than a filler game but it plays just as quickly. In fact, the direct conflict element of the game makes it feel more like a CCG, but one where you can build your deck as you go. It is certainly very different to any other deck builders I’ve played and that’s definitely a good thing.

Does it have any problems? Maybe. I’m not sold on the whole draft setup mechanic, it takes a long time for what it is, but perhaps that will change as players become more familiar with the game. Because of the random nature of the setup it is sometimes possible that some cards become useless due to the lack of colours in the game. Although this can be frustrating it immediately becomes part of the strategy of the game too.

One of the biggest problems however is that a player can choose not to start a chain. It can be very advantageous to play minions on another players turn as they are more likely to be in play at the start of your turn. The fact that if the other player chooses to not start a chain you can’t play any cards either means they can deny you this opportunity. In theory everyone could continue to pass and play no cards forever. In this way strong players in a good position can pass their own turn and use the other players turns to devastate their opponents. This problem is probably only an issue in the two player game.

Final Thoughts

I really like it. I’ve only played the game two and three player so far but it works really well at this level.

I like how fast it plays, I like the CCG style feel of the game. I would like more climatic ending to the game but overall Nightfall is a really enjoyable game. If the theme has been bothering you I wouldn’t let it, it honestly melts away when you start playing. That said, if you’re not a fan of direct conflict then this game probably isn’t for you.

Nightfall is a new favourite of mine and I look forward to picking up some expansions and to trying out the game with a higher player count.

Thunderstone Wrath of the Elements

2011-08-03T03:40:00.000+01:00

Eight months on and Thunderstone is still one of the most highly requested games in my house. However, when you play a game that many times its essential that you change it up as often as you can and so that brings me to another Thunderstone Expansion, Wrath of the Elements.

Wrath was actually the first expansion I bought for Thunderstone after Dragonspire but what did I think of it… lets find out.

Unboxed

In the box for WOTE you will find:

Card Dividers for both WOTE and the Original Base Set
30 Militia to replace the ones found in the base set
12 additional disease cards
51 Monster cards
84 Hero cards
112 Village cards
1 Thunderstone Card
33 Randomiser Cards
5 Reference Cards

One of the big things about this expansion was the box control. Obviously if your coming in from Dragonspire, like I was this wasn’t such a big deal but at the time it was a huge improvement over the base game. WOTE included dividers for every card in both the expansion and the base set along with a box layout to help sort the cards for you.

The great thing about this for me is that I can stick all the cards into my Dragonspire box and use the WOTE box to store other card games, I’m currently using it for WFRP 3.

The 30 reprinted Militia cards were for players who bought the original print run of Thunderstone which omitted the word Hero on the Militia Cards. As a side note that has been corrected in later printings.

Everything else in the box is up to the standard I’ve come to expect from AEG, the rulebook helps clear up most of the ambiguity on the cards and the AEG team over on BGG do the rest.

Playing the Game

So, what new elements does WOTE add? Well, if you’re coming at the game from Dragonspire, nothing. However if you only own the base set of Thunderstone then WOTE introduces 2 new card types and a couple of new mechanics.

Traps

WOTE introduces Death Traps and Dire Traps. These cards are Dungeon Features (like Treasures, Guardians and Settings in later sets) and can be added randomly to your dungeon setup at the start of the game.

If you are using traps they are shuffled into the dungeon deck in addition to the three normal sets of monster cards. If a trap card comes up when you refill the hall it triggers and generally does nasty things to you. For example the Rolling Boulder causes players to flip over cards, destroying the first 3 heroes that show up. This can be particularly nasty if you reveal high level heroes while your opponent only revealed militia.

Guardians

The second new element in WOTE are Guardians, the set comes with only one of these, the Dark Champion. This is a big boss at the end of the dungeon, a rather thematic ending that isn’t too overpowered in game terms.

When setting up the game, after shuffling the monster cards but before placing the thunderstone in the deck count ten cards off the top of the deck and shuffle the Guardian into those ten cards and place them at the bottom of the deck. Then place the Thunderstone normally.

The guardian acts exactly like a normal monster except that when it reaches Rank 1 it immediately moves into a new Rank called Rank 0 allowing there to be 4 monsters in the hall.

Thoughts

What do I think of these two mechanics? Personally I’m not a fan of Traps, they are a bit too random, they can be very detrimental to your strategy, but most of all they are a bit of a faff and they slow the game down.

Guardians however I do like, they aren’t so much of a power house that they cause you too much of a problem, but they do add a nice thematic element, the Big Boss. I’d love to see a big Dragon Guardian card, that would be cool!

New Cards

Obviously, in a deckbuilding game, the reason you buy an expansion is for the new cards so lets take a quick look at some of the stuff in the box.

New Monsters

There are 4 new monsters included with WOTE these are:

Elemental Nature – This is an odd collection of monsters that have no real unifying theme. For example the Earth Wrath requires Magic Attack, while the Fire Wrath is immune to spells and unequipped heroes and the Thunderwrath cannot be attacked if spells or weapons are used.

This diverse nature makes these Elements quite challenging as you have to build your deck to face a multitude of challenges.

Elemental Pain – These monsters all have a breach effect which triggers if they move into rank 1, usually they will destroy a certain kind of hero from the top 5 cards of your deck. A couple of the Torments can be difficult to clear, especially the Magic Attack only ones.

Golem – The Golems focus on strength, meaning that Heroes with strength less than X cannot attack. In the most extreme case heroes with less than 8 strength cannot attack! Luckily the expansion introduces ways to boost your strength.

The Horde – The Horde comes with a set of place holder cards that are replaced with the actual horde card when they come up. Each Horde card gets increasingly harder to kill (1 additional Hit Point). They start out easy at 3hp but rise to a difficult 12hp! Each Horde in your deck is worth 1 Victory Point x The Number of Hiorde in your Deck. It is worth noting that the FAQ in the book states that this is capped at a maximum of 5 Victory Points per Horde card, a clarification that really should be noted on the card itself.

New Heroes

Blind – The Blind monks are a really cool set of heroes that focus on Light. In their early incarnations they can destroy light items (repeatedly) to score additional MAGIC ATTACK, while the Level 3 version powers up by having no light present at all.

Diin – This is an interesting Hero that powers up using Militia. At level 2 he transforms Militia into an exact copy of other Heroes in your hand, at Level 3 he can discard a militia to take the top hero from any stack and have it join you until the end of battle. This strategy would work really well when combined with the Highland Officer from Thornwood Siege.

Divine – The Divine is a selection of clerics which powerup off diseases and a monster cards. In his level 3 form he can be hugely powerful allowing you to destroy a disease to draw 2 cards and to draw 2 cards for each monster in your hand.

Gangland – An interesting group of heroes that allow you to generate gold in the village for each hero card in your hand. This turns these normally worthless cards into a gold mine for you meaning you might be able to afford items you previously couldn’t. They are also capable fighters, with the level 3 version getting an attack of 7 if you reveal 5 gold or more.

Gohlen – These fighters allow you to get an ATTACK bonus for monster cards in your hand, turning potentially useless cards into additional power. At level 3 he gains the power to potentially poach victory points from other players.

Runespawn – The Runespawn is a capable Wizard Thief who not only gets MAGIC ATTACK but also grants strength bonuses to her fellow heroes.

Toryn – The Toryn can be a potential machine of infinite damage. The Toryn can carry any number of weapons, turning a potentially useless hand of 5 weapons and 1 hero into massive damage. His attack of 2 and strength of 7 in his basic form is awesome, rising to a massive ATTACK 4 Strength 9 at level 3.

New Village Items

Ambrosia – This is a great card, not only does it give you 2 Victory points but it also grants all heroes +2 Strength and +1 ATTACK, great for dealing with Golems and for carrying heavy weapons.

Amulet of Power – This grants all heroes +3 strength and gives off 2 light, a nice multipurpose item.

Blacksmith – This handy fellow allows you to draw an extra card in the village and he allows you to make an additional purchase if you buy a weapon. Very handy if you have lots of Toryns!

Claymore – IF you can find a hero to wield it this is an awesome weapon that meats out 5 damage and allows you to claim 1 additional monster worth 1 or 2 Victory Points from the hall.

Creeping Death – This is one of the most expensive Village cards out there with a cost of 9. The card reduces the HP of all monsters in the dungeon by 2 allowing you to take them if it would kill them. It also gives all other players a disease!

Cursed Mace - +6 ATTACK but you gain a disease, perfect for use with the Divine or other clerics that powerup off destroying diseases. Downside is that it generates no gold.

Foresight Elixir – This is a nice card for reorganising the top of the dungeon deck, but it also allows you to draw 2 cards and reveal it to ignore the effects of a trap.

Illusory Blade – Take a weapon from the village for a turn but destroy it at the end of battle. Very helpful in a tight spot but it can also be very destructive.

Magi Staff - +1 MAGIC ATTACK but also destroy the card to remove monsters from the hall. It’s a good way to not have to waste a turn to get rid of a monster you can’t defeat, or one that has a battle effect you’d rather not deal with.

Magic Missile – An awesome early game spell that deals +4 MAGIC ATTACK but only against rank one. Very helpful for dealing with Magic Only creatures like the Smoke Torment.

Sage – This villager allows you to destroy non-Hero cards for XP. i.e. you can destroy diseases to gain experience! He can also be destroyed to gain 1 gold per hero in your hand. This is an ability that rarely seems worthwhile given that he costs 4 to purchases.

Shortbow – Another bow that is effective in rank 2 and 3 with a bonus if equipped to an archer.

Tavern Brawl – This card is all about messing with other players hands or decks, neither of which I care to do very often.

Tax Collector – This card generates 1 gold for each player in the game, making it less useful in two player games. It can also be destroyed to force all other players to discard a card with a gold value and you gain that much gold, however with many cards having a 0 Gold Value on them you can’t guarantee this will be a helpful move.

Final Thoughts

Wrath of the Elements does a lot of things very well. Firstly it corrects a lot of mistakes made in the original game. The organisation of the game is a lot better, the rules are clearer, more diseases were added to stop you running out and reprints were included to make the game work better.

There are still occasional cards that could be clearer, usually these are fully explained in the glossary but in some cases the card is lacking information it needn't have.

WOTE adds new monsters that force you to think differently and new heroes that allow for deckbuilding along a theme. It adds some great new village items and quite a few multipurpose items that collate multiple abilities into a single card.

What it adds that I don't like are ways to mess with the other players decks and hands. If you include a lot of the cards from Wrath of the Elements in a single game your deck and hand can end up being decimated, either by monsters, traps or other players. While I can see that there is strategy in destroying another players hand or deck it doesn’t feel particularly heroic to me. However, when this effect is diluted down with other expansions it doesn’t bother me as much.

Overall I really enjoyed Wrath and I think that the new cards offer great new ways to build your decks. Each of the Heroes is very focused but they also work well in concert. Some of the village cards are not as useful or appealing as I’d like but in general this is a great expansion that adds a little of everything!

Lord of the Rings: Living Card Game

2011-07-27T00:56:00.000+01:00

I’ve been putting off writing this review, partly because I wanted to actually beat the third scenario first, but most because I really wanted to like the game but I’m not sure I do.

The Lord of the Rings has always had a special place in my heart, not so much the books themselves, but the stories and the world that has developed from them. Having a chance to play in that world is exciting for me.

With Fantasy Flight’s previous LCG, Warhammer Invasion, still ranking as one of my favourite, if not my favourite game, I had high hopes for this new game. But before I talk about why I’m not as keen as I had hoped, lets take a look at the game.

Theme

You control a party of mighty heroes, Middle Earth’s elite defenders. Together you will venture into danger and hopefully emerge victorious on the other side. Men, Dwarves and Elves will form an alliance to vanquish the evil forces of Sauron from Middle Earth, together they will battle Spiders, Orcs and Wild Wargs. They will face terrible foes such as the spawn of the great spider Ungoliant.

Through strength of will and strength of arms our heroes will, eventually, bring peace to Middle Earth, but the road is long and if you do not keep your feet there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.

Unboxed

Big box for two decks of cards no?

12 Hero Cards
4 Prebuilt Faction Decks
7 Encounter Decks
3 sets of Scenario Cards
1 First Player Token
2 Threat Dials
40 Damage Tokens
26 Progress Tokens
30 Resource Tokens
1 Rulebook.

Ok, so that’s 226 cards plus some punchboard sheets and a box big enough to store all the expansions in. Of course, what FFG do need to do is build into their boxes some kind of organising system, ala Thunderstone, as it is you are left to devise your own.

The cards and the punchboard are all good quality and the rulebook is well written with plenty of examples. The art in the game is simply stunning, I’m so glad that FFG didn’t decide to just rehash old artwork or worse, movie stills.

The graphic design is nice and clean and reasonably user friendly. It’s not always easy to tell the Neutral grey cards from the Leadership purple at a glance but that is really only a minor quibble.

I think FFG were being a tad stingy by not including 4 threat dials with the game, yes, you could just use two ten sided dice but it would have been nice to have 4 dials for the 4 decks in the starting box.

Other than this and the lack of a storage solution I feel that the production quality is top notch (although did anyone else notice that the box doesn’t have a nice linen finish like most FFG games?) and well worth the price of the game, if just for the art alone!

Playing the Game

The Lord of the Rings LCG is a co-operative game where the players compete against an event deck using cards from their own custom deck and 1 to 3 heroes.

Each player starts the game with 1 to 3 heroes in play, each hero has a Threat Value in the top corner, the player adds together all of the Threat Values and sets his Threat Dial to that number. If your threat ever exceeds 50 you are eliminated from the game.

The players then decide which quest to play. There are 3 quests included in the base game. The initial quest card, labelled 1a, tells the players which cards will be included in the encounter deck, along with any rules for set up.

Once the game is set up the players each draw 6 cards, and they are allowed to mulligan if they so wish. The first player is randomly determined and the game can begin.

The turn follows seven simple steps.

1. Resource Phase

In this phase each player draws 1 card and adds 1 resource to each of his Hero’s resource pools. It is worth noting that each hero has his own supply of resources, these can only be used to pay for cards that match that hero’s sphere of influence (colour). It is also worth noting that if your deck runs out you no longer draw cards but you are not eliminated from the game.

2. Planning Phase

In this phase each player, starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise, is allowed to spend resources to play Allies, Attachments and Events using his resources to buy them. Allies and Attachments are played to the table, Allies can only be played into your play area, whereas Attachments can be played on your heroes/allies or on another players.

3. Quest Phase

In the Quest Phase the players commit characters to the quest. A committed character is exhausted so will be unable to act later in the round. Once all the players have chosen to commit to the quest a card is revealed from the Encounter Deck for each player. All when revealed effects on the card are carried out, any events are discarded, any enemies or locations are added to the staging area. Then the players adds up their total Will Power and compare the total to the total Threat in the Staging Area. If the total will power is greater the player add progress tokens to the quest equal to the difference. If the threat is higher they raise their Threat Dials by the difference.

If the players place Progress Tokens equal to the number required to pass that stage of the quest (the yellow number on the quest card) they immediately move onto the next stage, excess progress is lost.

4. Travel Phase

If there is no active location the players may choose to travel to any of the locations in the staging area, making that location Active. Active Locations act as a buffer for the current quest, meaning that progress made during the Quest Phase must first be applied to the active location. Making a location Active removes it from the staging area meaning that it no longer contributes threat during the Quest Phase.

5. Encounter Phase

In this Phase each player has the option to engage one enemy in the staging area. Doing so removes that enemy from the staging area and it becomes engaged with the player, thus it no longer contributes it’s threat during the quest phase.

After each player has chosen to engage an enemy or not it is time to check for engagements. In turn each player looks to see if there is any enemy with an Engagement Cost (Top yellow number) of less than or equal to his Threat Level (the number on his dial). If there is the enemy with the largest Engagement Cost engages him. Players continue to check until only enemies with higher engagement costs than their Threat Level remain in the staging area.

6. Combat Phase

In this phase engaged enemies attack. Each engaged enemy is dealt a facedown card encounter card known as a shadow card. The enemies then attack in order from highest Engagement Cost to lowest.

When an enemy attacks, the player has the option to declare one of his characters as a defender, exhausting that character. The enemy then flips over its shadow card, performing any actions that are listed as “Shadow” on the card. It then attacks, the enemy’s attack value is subtracted from the defenders Defence value and any left over attack is converted to wounds. If an attack was undefended the player must apply the attacker’s full attack value to a single hero he controls (not an ally) and he cannot apply his defence.

After all the enemies have attacked it is the players turns to attack back. A player may declare only 1 attack against each enemy per turn. Exhausted characters cannot attack. Each attack may have multiple characters, which are exhausted in order to attack, they pool their attack value and subtract the enemies defence applying the rest as wounds.

Any defeated enemies or characters are discarded. Defeated enemies with the keyword Victory are placed to one side not in the discard pile.

7. Refresh Phase

In this phase the players ready all exhausted characters, raise their threat by 1 and pass the first player token to the next player clockwise.

This continues until the players complete the victory conditions on the last Quest Card, or until they are defeated which happens by all players being eliminated by either having a threat in excess of 50 or having no remaining Heroes.

Thoughts

So, why don’t I like it? I guess it is for the same reason that most co-operative games fall flat for me. I’ve never been a fan of games that are too hard, even computer games, when it gets to a point where the game wins 99% of the time I just want to give up. For me a game is about fun and while I like a challenge, I don’t like being pummelled about the head.

The problem with LOTR LCG is that the game doesn’t have much of a narrative arc, it doesn’t start easy and work up to the hard stuff because the Encounter deck is random. If luck throws the three hardest beasties in the deck at you on turn one you aren’t going to survive for very long.

Because it is seemingly random luck that can spell your doom it makes me feel that victory is achieved by luck too and that cheapens the victory for me. When you end a game and say “well it was a good job such and such didn’t come up” it makes me think that the game may have very little to do with player skill.

Now, I believe that the problems I am having are based on inherent problems within the core set. These are that the base decks are simply not strong enough, the variety of cards is less than it should be, for example the decks aren’t even tournament legal sized (i.e. 50 card decks). Secondly I believe it was a mistake to include 1 easy, 1 medium and 1 hard quest. I would have preferred to see more quests than three but definitely more easier quests. If the first quest is a level 1 quest, why is the next quest level 4 and then level 7. Going from a relatively easy first quest to the rather hideously brutal second quest is not an easy transition. A lot of people bought into this new game as their first exposure to collectable card games and this quest structure is simply prohibitive to learning the game.

In addition, if you do find that you can’t complete a quest because it is simply too hard that means that you are losing a third of the replayability of the set.

Ok Enough Bashing of the Game

Ok, so, I may have sounded more negative than I wanted to there because I do enjoy aspects of the game, if I didn’t I wouldn’t have racked up 30 plays of it. I like the way that the different spheres have different strengths and weaknesses. One thing this does, as well as providing a theme to each deck, is it makes you think about how to fix what is lacking in your deck. For example if you like playing the Leadership deck, which generates a lot of resources but has poor card draw you may want to mix it with Lore to fix that problem.

I like the way that questing works and how thematic the “staging area” is. I like the idea of locations and in principle I like the idea of shadow cards although I find that many of them make the game very difficult indeed to beat.

One thing I don’t like is dead cards. In Warhammer Invasion, a game by the same company that I enjoy immensely, you always have options of how to use cards from your hand that aren’t worth playing. With a few exceptions (certain cards that allow you to discard for effects) useless cards simply sit in your hand doing nothing. If, for example, you lose the only hero you have that can play green cards, every green card in your hand is now useless, in addition because you only draw one card per turn you could be potentially drawing a useless card.

Thematically I like Gandalf, the way he turns up briefly to help when you most need it is very thematic, but it also adds to the “luck” issue I mentioned above. When you find yourself hoping that your next card draw will reveal the grey wizard you know you’re in trouble.

Final Thoughts

I know I’ve been pretty negative about this game (which is why I wanted to hold off writing the review) but it does have some good solid mechanics and it does feel like an epic adventure at times and I love the production quality and the art work.

However I feel that the base set is too restrictive in card choices to complete the included quests. I also feel that there simply isn’t enough replayability in the base set because there are only 3 included quests. In a CCG this wouldn’t be a problem, but in an LCG I feel like the base set should be all you need to buy to play casually.

The RRP for LOTR LCG is £30, when compared to a deckbuilding card game like Thunderstone or Dominion (£35) the replayability of the game is simply nowhere near as strong. In fact, for the same money Warhammer Invasion has tons more replayability out of the box.

Overall LOTR LCG feels incomplete, that you will need expansions in order to keep the game interesting and while I realise that is the point I’m not sure it should be counted as a positive in the games favour.

All of this said, I will be buying the first six expansions and reviewing them and discussing how they change the game and if they make the game more like the game I want it to be. I will also be playing and reviewing Ninjadorg’s homebrewed scenarios which can be found here., adding some much needed replayability to the game.

Board Game News 7– Shuuro, Scene-it and More…

2011-07-23T19:03:00.001+01:00

Welcome one and all, lots of news this week so lets get right into it…

Shuuro Wrath of the Elements

A couple of weeks ago I reviewed the fun chess game Shuuro, but designer Alessio Cavatore did let me know at the UK Games Expo that the game was due to release soon in electronic format on Facebook. That day has now arrived! So, go and check out the Shuuro Beta and challenge your friends to earn new units!

Scene It Daily

For fans of the DVD Board Game Scene it, the developers Sceenlife would like you to know about their new daily app which offers daily quizzes for Music, Film, TV and Celebrities. The app is available:

On the web: http://daily.sceneit.com
On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sceneitdaily
On iPhone: http://bit.ly/dailyiphone
On Android: http://bit.ly/dailyandroid

At least on Android you are allowed to do 2 quizzes a day and obviously more can be unlocked if you don’t want to just play for free.

It’s a nice way to test your movie/tv trivia brain for free so check it out.

Kings Cribbage and The Mind Sports Olympiad

The guys over at Kings Cribbage UK wrote to me to let me know that they will be demoing Kings Cribbage at the Mind Sports Olympiad this year on the 26th August from 2.30pm onwards. They are looking to increase the UK awareness of this game so if you fancy trying the game out it may be worth going along.

Also, the Mind Sports Olympiad is an interesting event that I had not heard of before. The event is a series of tournaments in various classic card and board games such as Chess, Draughts and Monopoly, but also other Designer Board Games such as Lost Cities, Blokus, Acquire and more.

If anyone will be attending the event I would be very interested in getting a report on what it was like and the events that were run. If you are going and would like to do a write up for Unboxed please contact me.

Family and Party Games

Finally FamilyandPartyGames.com would like you to know about 2 new releases they’ve got this month which are Awkward Family Photos and The Greatest Day Ever.

And that about concludes the news, check out the sites, play some games and I’ll see you all back here on Wednesday for another review!

Chris

Carcassonne–The Entourage

2011-07-20T23:52:00.001+01:00

Just a quick review this week as I look at the latest small box expansion for Carcassonne.

Theme

Your name is now legend across the ever-changing land of Carcassonne, and with prestige and fame comes followers. Now when you claim new lands for your own, you can command your entourage to help out and claim surrounding features too!

Unboxed

The Entourage, otherwise known as the Phantom, comes in a small plastic meeple shaped box. Inside the box are 6 translucent meeples, one of each player colour and the worlds tiniest rulebook.

The pieces look pretty nice, the box is rather extraneous though and the rules really are too small. I would have preferred the meeples to at least be as thick as the standard wooden ones, but as it is they are a few millimetres thinner.

How To Play

Each player receives a Phantom in their colour. When you play a tile you may deploy your Phantom in addition to a standard meeple on a separate feature on the same time. If you wish a Phantom can also be deployed as a standard meeple.

Thoughts

In general the Phantom is useful because it gives you an extra meeple, this will naturally lead to higher end game scores. I don’t think it’s as big a game changer as the Builder or even the Mega Meeple though.

To make the best use of the Phantom you want to deploy it in easy to complete features, such as Roads or Small Cities, deploying in a Cloister could leave it stranded for a long time. If used effectively the Phantom could be a really useful piece, of course, if it stays on the board for too long other players could seek ways to trap it and render it useless. In addition because it can be used as a standard Meeple I guess that it can be effected by Dragons and Towers too.

Final Thoughts

Overall this is not an essential expansion, it can add some interesting strategy to the game, but it feels quite over priced for what it is. I think that unless you really want cool looking Meeples your money would be better spent on Cult and Siege or The River/River II or save up for a big box expansion.

Shuuro

2011-07-13T01:00:00.000+01:00

Last month I had the pleasure of meeting Alessio Cavatore, the man who literally wrote every game I played in my late teens and early twenties.

For those who don’t know Alessio was the man behind the Lord of the Rings system, a system that remains largely unchanged even to this day and has formed the basis of several other historical games. He was also responsible for 7th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles and 5th Warhammer 40,000.

But what’s my point? Well it’s this, Alessio also designed a board game and it’s called Shuuro…

Theme

You are a mighty leader, although your advancing age has limited your mobility somewhat. Luckily you married a young, virile warrior princess, perhaps the greatest in the land. Standing steadfast by your side is the ever vigilant clergy, ready to rain down holy hell and smite any that stand in your way. Beside them your trusty Knights, mounted on their courageous steeds and last but not least your castle walls themselves, bastions of defence, imposing and deadly all at the same time…

Oh yeah and there is some peasant rabble too…

Unboxed

What comes in the Shuuro box then?

1 double sided board
8 plastic Blocks
43 Red Pieces
43 Blue Pieces
2 Dice
1 Rulebook

Ok, so if you don’t know what Shuuro is, it’s a chess variant. The game is played on a 12 by 12 grid and it uses 8 plastic blocks to form a new layout every time.

The board is pretty nice, there is a little bit of artwork to make it less bland than a standard chessboard without being over powering. The plastic blocks are moulded plastic, they could be better but they serve their purpose. The pieces are nice enough for me, solid plastic, with a felt base and, most importantly, they make a nice noise when you knock over the other player’s pieces with them.

For me, this is enough, I’m not super excited about Chess and have never felt the need to go out and spend a lot of money on a set made of gold or crystal, however, if you really are a chess lover the pieces will not blow you away.

The rulebook is well written and it has some tongue in cheek humour in the rules, which I appreciated. It also comes with a bunch of optional rules and variants in the back, as well as a full explanation of how to play Chess.

So, as I said, I think the production quality is nice enough for most people and for the price point and the fact that the board is double sided and can be used as a standard chess set is a great idea.

Setting Up the Game

The way that Shuuro differs from Chess is mainly in the set up of the game. Each player is given 800 points to spend on their “army”. The point costs are as follows:

King – Free – Mandatory
0-4 Queens – 110pts
0-6 Rooks – 70pts
0-8 Bishops 40pts
0-8 Knights 40pts
0-16 Pawns 10pts

Each player may have at most 32 pieces in their Army.

Once the players have chosen their army it is time to set up the battlefield. For each quadrant of the board the players roll 2 dice, one die is the y axis, the other is the x axis. For example a 3 and 6 would mean the 6th space in the third column. Each player does this twice for each quadrant on their side of the board, placing a plastic block in the square indicated by the die roll. It would have been nice if there had been two different coloured dice included so players could roll both together, but that’s just nit-picking.

The plastic blocks perform a simple function, they stop movement, the only exception to this is Knights which can leap over or even on top of the blocks. A piece on top of a block can only be taken by another Knight.

Once the board is set up each player rolls a die to determine who goes first. The first player then deploys their king somewhere in the central 6 spaces of the back row on their side of the board. The other player does the same.

Then in turn each player deploys his one of his nobles (i.e. not Pawns) until all have been placed. The player must deploy nobles into the back row until it is full. Once all the nobles are deployed the pawns are placed in the second row. If there are too many pawns to fit in the second row they can be deployed in the third row, but such pawns would not be entitled to take a double move on their first turn.

Playing the Game

Shuuro plays exactly like Chess but with the differences as noted above. The first player to checkmate the other players king wins.

Thoughts

Shuuro is an interesting way to play chess, but that is what it is, Chess. If you don’t like Chess Shuuro won’t change that. However, if you would like a different challenge, or a way to play chess that is not as repetitive then Shuuro can help here.

Being able to change up your army each time opens up new and interesting tactical decisions. Also, using the point system allows you to give the better player a handicap, making the game more fun for the player who is not a chess wizard.

The changeable set up is also interesting as it forces you to think differently about how you move pieces and even about how you deploy pieces. While the terrain can be a great way to protect your pieces, it can also become a death trap if you’re not careful.

Half Sized Shuuro

One of the variants I’ve played with Shuuro is to simply fold the board in half, this gives you a 12 by 6 grid to play on. Using 400 points instead of 800 and 4 blocks instead of 8. Half Sized Shuuro offers a very different challenge, especially for Queens and Bishops. It becomes a lot easier to defend your half of the board as the blocks often cause bottlenecks around the centre.

Mini Shuuro

Mini Shuuro is simply played on a 6 by 6 board using just 200 points. This leads to a very fast and simple game, although the better player will almost definitely triumph in this format. It’s certainly a good way to play Shuuro quickly and it offers a very different strategic feel than the big game.

Expansions

In my talks with Alessio we discussed three expansions for Shuuro.

Turanga – This expansion adds a 3rd and 4th player and turns Shuuro into a team game.
Yuddah – This upcoming expansion will add an optional dice combat system
Loka – This upcoming expansion will bring new terrain to the game including forests, lakes, swamps and elemental loci

Final Thoughts

So, do I like Shuuro, yes. What I like about Shuuro is that it is simple, it takes a ruleset that most people know and simply changes it up just a little. The variable set up and army selection, coupled with the variable board sizes means that no two games of Shuuro need to be the same.

Do the changes make me any better at the game? Quite frankly, no. Unfortunately Chess is not a game that holds enough interest for me to even attempt to master it. I don't mind the odd game here and there but there are a lot of other games I’d rather be playing.

However Shuuro has the benefit of being able to be played quickly, using mini or half sized Shuuro making it a great, thoughtful filler game for two people.

Because I’m not great at Chess I am personally looking forward to the dice expansion which will hopefully allow me to leverage luck to my advantage, while the terrain expansion offers even more ways to change the game and breathe fresh life into the old game of chess.

So my final thoughts are that I like it as it is, but I’m even more excited to see where it goes next!

--- A Copy of Shuuro was provided to me for Review from River Horse Games---

Thunderstone Thornwood Siege

2011-07-05T01:32:00.001+01:00

Anyone who has been following the Twitter Stream should know that very few games get played in my house as often as Thunderstone. In fact it is my Mum’s current favourite, which is odd as previous to that it was Valdora and Stone Age, but it takes all kinds right?

Anyway, as soon as review copies became available I shot off an email and was rewarded with my very own copy of Thornwood Siege. In the following review I will be concretizing solely on how the expansion works, so for a full overview of the game check out my Dragonspire Review.

Theme

You are a hero, using gold you have drawn further Heroes to your side. You’ve bought magical blades, sinister spells and honourable mercenaries. Together you forge deep into the heart of Thornwood, looking for the fabled Stone of Blight. While you were gone however the village came under attack by brigands, they left none alive, they stole, raped and pillaged, reducing your stores, using up precious resources and slaying potential allies, making it that much harder for you to complete your quest and find the stone!

Unboxed

Thornwood Siege contains:

1 Thunderstone
90 Hero Cards (7 Sets)
112 Village Cards (14 Sets)
50 Monster Cards (5 Sets)
1 Guardian
30 Randomisers
27 Dividers
18 Tokens

The first thing that struck me about the contents of the box was the lack of types of cards. There were no traps, no treasures and no settings. I had expected at least one of each, perhaps Forest Snares for traps, or at least a Thornwood Settings card.

That said, I’m not that disappointed, overall I dislike the extra faff that settings, traps and treasure add, I just found it interesting that this expansion did not expand existing elements from previous expansions.

The second thing to note about the components is that there is a printing error on the Stalk tokens. This is nothing major, just that the text on two of the tokens is wrong based on the image on the token. They are still perfectly usable but AEG has released a corrected version that can be printed out if you desire.

Other than that the components are pretty standard, although I think the printing may be the crispest yet, the layout on the cards stands out really well and looks beautiful. Again, great art across the set and a lot of variety included in the box.

Playing the Game

Thornwood Siege introduces two new elements to the game. These are Stalk and Raid.

However, Raid is not really “new” it’s just a shorter keyword than “When Revealed” and it only affects the Village. Basically if a card with the Raid Keyword is turned over from the dungeon deck the active player will remove a certain number of cards from the village.

Making Raid it’s own Keyword seems a little pointless in my own personal opinion, unless of course they introduce anti-Raid cards. “When Revealed” works just as well.

The second effect introduced in Thornwood Siege is Stalk. When a monster with Stalk is revealed from the deck you take the appropriate Stalk Token and place it in front of you, this token will take affect at the start of your next turn, regardless of whether or not the monster that was staking you is still in the dungeon

The stalk effects are pretty simple, affecting either your hand, your gold or forcing you to go to the dungeon. While these are interesting effects, they’re not really debilitating. I can see the Stalk Effect being really cool if used with a Demonic or Undead monster set in a later expansion.

Thoughts

Overall these two effects are not ground breaking. Raid reduces the options in the village drastically, targeting the best and cheapest items equally. As there is no effective way of cancelling the effect I find it less fun to play with.

It’s also less thematic, the title of the expansion is Thornwood Siege, but it doesn’t really feel like a siege because you can’t stop the village being destroyed. Even if you use the Scout or some other method of searching the dungeon deck and moving cards around they will still come up eventually.

Overall “Breach”, for me, works better for simulating a Siege.

As I said, Stalk is an interesting mechanic, but the “bad stuff” is generally not too bad to make a noticeable difference. Also, despite the cool Centaur Artwork, I felt the effect would have worked better on perhaps a set of Ethereal Undead.

Other Cards

Thornwood Siege brings the focus of the game back onto some of the core elements of the base game. For example the Militia are the focal point of many of the new cards and 2 of the 5 monster sets also focus heavily on giving disease.

Monsters

I’ve already talked about the Raiders and the Centaurs, but what about the other 3 sets.

Siege – Most of the Siege Engines have global effects that targets the village, usually triggered by a player buying something or simply going to the village. If they come out early in the game they can be pretty destructive, although they are relatively easy to take out later in the game as they don’t require special attacks etc.

Verminfolk – As you may expect Verminfolk concentrate on giving out diseases. They also tend to target Militia, either giving you diseases for each militia or simply preventing them from attacking. There is some pretty nice artwork in this set too, I think there are my favourite of the new monsters.

Abyssal Malformed – These weird and wonderful beasts concentrate on card destruction. Each one destroys a different type of card, some of them are not too bad, destroying food items, others destroy monsters in your hand. Worst still these monsters give you diseases for each card they destroyed, making them really unpleasant to deal with, but a fun challenge.

Guardian of Virulence – The only guardian included with this set, she has the Global effect of giving anyone who goes to the village a disease. With a 14 health she is not a weak opponent, but she shouldn’t be too much trouble. Once again this Guardian follows the rules of this set which is about making heroes choose to fight rather than buy.

New Heroes

Krell – Krell is another Hero that can achieve level 4, however he is only at his most powerful when surrounded by militia. If combined with the Highland Officer and Elite Militia this guy could be a seriously great hero, but if it was a choice between him a level 4 Veteran I know which I would take.

Lurker – The Lurker is an inexpensive thief with a light and a gold, very comparable to the Chulian in Dragonspire. As he levels up he causes players to discard items and at the highest levels he can use one of the discarded items. The Thieves Blade included in this expansion can give this hero a great attacking boost.

Magehunter – This Hero is very powerful if you are focusing solely on ATTACK as opposed to MAGIC ATTACK. He’s reasonably strong and has a max attack of 7 at Level 3 as long as no MAGIC ATTACK is revealed.

Nightblade – Again another cheap Thief, this time one that encourages you to buy low weight weapons such as the Dagger. As I said earlier this set really brings the focus back on the basics as you see ways of using your cheaper starter items to powerup your heroes.

Thornwood – The Thornwood Archer is a pretty powerful hero, if nothing else his +1 ATTACK per rank cuts light penalties in half. Another archer is a great addition for the Short Bow from Wrath of the Elements. At higher levels he rewards you for killing Rank 3 monsters as well as giving +2 attack per rank.

Veris – The Veris felt almost broken in the game I played with it. If bought early they are exceptionally useful. They confer a +1 light bonus on all equipped Heroes. Now that handful of militias with daggers has enough light to see into rank 2 and enough attack to kill stuff. As it levels up the Veris becomes a machine. At level 3 each equipped hero gets +2 ATTACK and +2 Light and the Veris gets MAGIC ATTACK equal to the amount of light!

Because his special ability grants ATTACK to heroes, not MAGIC ATTACK he is reasonably useful regardless of what you are fighting.

Woodfolk – These are one of my favourite new Heroes. Relatively cheap Clerics that give you a +3 MAGIC ATTACK against disease giving monsters. At level 3 you can use them to destroy diseases to gain +4 MAGIC ATTACK and a card – And it’s a repeat effect!

Village

I’m not going to cover all the village cards in detail because that would take ages, however this set does have some great synergies, a lot of the time these are with basic items.

Some of my favourites include:

Time Bend – This card allows you to draw a card and then save any one of the cards from your hand for your next turn. Like the scout and other cards this is great for fighting the luck element inherent in Thunderstone.

Highland Officer, Elite Militia and Drill Sergeant – The Elite Militia count as Militia for all purposes, but they have an ATTACK +2 and a strength of 4, plus you can destroy a militia and buy another card the turn you buy an Elite Militia. The Highland Officer allows you to draw an extra card in the village and you can buy a militia in addition to your normal buy. In addition in the dungeon you can draw a card for each revealed militia. The Drill Sergeant allows you to destroy Militia in the dungeon to draw 2 cards and gain an experience point.

All of these cards allow you to manipulate the Militia in your starting deck in interesting ways. In addition they are cheap to buy meaning you can start using them really early in the game.

Power Word: Kill – This is a seriously powerful spell that can take out Monsters worth up to 5 Victory points. If another player is using these and you aren’t you’re probably going to lose. To make the most effective use of the card you will need high level wizards or clerics though.

Thieves Blade – With two Thieves included with this set this is a great addition to the game. It’s light and can give upto a +4 ATTACK bonus in the right hands.

Stalking Spell – This is just a fun card, it costs 3 but it allows you to draw 2 cards and forces everyone into the Dungeon on their next turn.

Final Thoughts

So, my final thoughts on Thornwood Siege… Overall I think it’s an Ok expansion, but it’s not the best. The “new” things it includes are not that exciting and it doesn’t expand old ideas at all. I find that many of the new effects like Stalk and Raid, along with new cards like Guiding Light and the Global Effects on the Siege Engines are pretty fiddly to keep track of.

That said there are some great village cards and the focus on basic, always available, items is a good thing. Many of the new cards force you to consider using a totally new strategy, like keeping Militia alive.

There may be a little bit of power creep in the heroes, particularly the Veris, Thornwood and Woodfolk, but overall the new heroes add to the base set rather than detract from it.

Once again the components are great and the artwork is very nice to look at. I don’t think that Thornwood is an essential expansion in any way but it does include a lot of good stuff and lots of variety.

So, that was Thornwood Siege and until next time, have fun gaming!

Musings on Medieval Mastery

2011-07-02T03:55:00.001+01:00

Mark Rivera from Board Games in Blighty could not have been more impressed if he had tried when he met Miles Ratcliffe from Chaos Publishing. At the tender age of 18 Miles had no only designed his own game, but funded and published it himself too. Check out what Mark and Miles had to say in our final video for today…

Don’t forget that all these videos were produced in conjunction with the UK Gaming Media Network. We had a great time at the expo and we had a great time putting all this together. If you would like to be involved with next years projects we have even bigger plans so check out our guild and get in touch!

See y’all soon, Chris

Magnetic Mice, Love It!

2011-07-02T03:49:00.001+01:00

Cubiko is great little company that produces games from wood with that hand crafted look and Cheese Factory is no different as Mark Rivera from Board Games in Blighty discovered when he sat down to play:

The theme is great and the variety of components really adds to the dexterity challenges in this game. Let us know what you think.

Demoing Conflicting Kingdoms

2011-07-02T03:44:00.001+01:00

So, cards and miniatures, two of my favourite things and Conflicting Kingdoms, well it combines the two! In this video Michael Fox from the Little Metal Dog Show gets to sit down with the guys from Deck Void Games and chat about their new game, check it out:

Come back soon for more…

Mayfair Games talks with the UKGMN

2011-06-28T19:53:00.001+01:00

So, while we were at the UK Games Expo the organisers very kindly offered to introduce us to Larry Roznai, president of Mayfair Games. How do you say no to that?

Anyway, that’s enough chat from me, check out Mark Rivera from Board Games in Blighty as he and Larry talk about everything Mayfair related.

Wasn’t that great? Seriously Larry was such a nice guy to chat with. There will be more from the expo soon, but now it’s pub quiz time!

Catch you on the flip side!

Chris

Perigon is Almost Here

2011-06-28T02:28:00.001+01:00

A couple of months ago I passed on some news from Clarendon Games about their exciting new abstract game Perigon. Although sadly I didnt get chance to try the game out over the weekend, luckily Mark Rivera from Board Games in Blighty did get chance for a sit down with Will and here’s what they had to say:

Check back again tomorrow for more videos and don’t forget I will be reviewing Thunderstone Thornwood Siege this Wednesday.

Coiled Spring Bounce in for Round 2

2011-06-28T02:23:00.001+01:00

The very nice guys over at Coiled Spring were good enough to demo two games for us. Their second game was Flip Out from Gamewright Games a new abstract game for all the family. Mark Rivera from Board Games in Blighty got a chance to see the game in action.

Check it out:

Stay tuned for more from the Expo.

It’s like 3-Player 3-D Noughts and Crosses!!

2011-06-25T23:56:00.001+01:00

One of the most mind bending games I played at the convention was Cubulus. A game of “connect 4” using a squishy cube with snooker-ball style pieces in three dimensions. Simply keeping track of your pieces on all 6 sides of the cube is hard enough, without tracking the moves of the other two players as well!

Seriously, it’s so much harder than it looks… Check out Mark Rivera from Board Games in Blighty talking with Stephen from Coiled Spring games.

That’s it for today, check back on Monday for more!

Guards, Guards

2011-06-25T16:23:00.001+01:00

Little Metal Dog Show’s Michael Fox got the chance to sit down with the guys from Backspindle Games to talk about their new game (ten years in development) Guards, Guards, based in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. Check it out:

There will be more from the expo later today.