Unboxed the Board Game Blog

Created by Jerry Hawthorne, the designer of Stuffed Fables and Mice and Mystics, Aftermath is the latest addition to the Adventure Book Game line. In a world where all humans have mysteriously vanished, take on the role of a heroic rodent working to protect and provide for their colony. Complete a wide variety of exciting actions while completing missions using dynamic card play. Move quickly for the ruins of humankind are full of predators and calamity may arise at any moment!

Prepare for a DeLorean-fueled race against time to prevent Marty McFly’s future from fading away! Players take on the roles of major characters from the blockbuster movie that launched the time traveling trilogy and helped define the 1980s. Players work together to defeat Biff and his trouble-making gang while ensuring Marty’s parents fall in love and the DeLorean accelerates to 88 mph in time to blast Back to the Future. Filled with cinematic touchstones and fun strategic choices, this is the game fans have been waiting for!

Running off IDW Games' miniatures-driven "Adventures Universal Game System" (AUGS) engine, Batman: The Animated Series Adventures – Shadow of the Bat allows players to take the role of any hero in their roster in the game's 24 unique missions, which areall inspired by fan-favorite episodes. Even villains can be swapped out in every mission to change up the threats that players will face. In Shadow of the Bat, 1-4 players take to the streets as Batman, Batgirl, Robin, Commissioner Gordon, and Catwoman, each with their own unique character abilities, skills, and custom dice. They have to work together to take down the likes of Two-Face, The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, The Riddler, Scarecrow, Man-Bat, The Joker, and Harley Quinn. As with other AUGS games, villains can be controlled by the game itself for full co-op play or by a fifth player. AUGS' modularity means that players can even create their own dream scenarios and teams, including bringing in elements from other AUGS products.

Blood Bowl is a game of Fantasy Football. The basic game features a match between two teams drawn from a number of fantasy archetypes, playing a warped version of American Football. The Blood Bowl boxed game contains two teams: Humans, an all-round team who are flexible enough to adapt to any style of play, or Orcs, who make up in brute force what they lack in finesse. The teams are represented by coloured plastic miniatures, and push-fit assembly is required before use. The game is expandable, and additional rules and teams will be made available through expansion sets and supplements. Actions in the game are resolved through the use of dice. Regular six-sided dice are used to make tests in a number of cases, such as when a player attempts to pick up the ball, pass it, catch it or dodge past an enemy player. Custom dice are used when one player wishes to Block another, using graphics to represent each of the different (but all violent) potential outcomes.

Ragnarök has come, and it’s the end of the world! It’s the Vikings’ last chance to go down in a blaze of glory and secure their place in Valhalla at Odin’s side! Blood Rage is a Viking board game created by acclaimed game designer Eric M. Lang. In this fast-paced yet highly strategic game, players take control of Viking clans, with their own warriors, leader and ship. Invading, pillaging and battling in a quest to gain as much glory as possible before Ragnarök finally consumes the land! Here comes the ultimate Viking saga. The game's striking visuals are a combination of Adrian Smith’s highly evocative artwork, and Mike McVey’s amazingly detailed miniatures for this mythological game.

Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition is a board game in which one player takes on the role of the treacherous overlord, and up to four other players take on the roles of courageous heroes. During each game, the heroes embark on quests and venture into dangerous caves, ancient ruins, dark dungeons, and cursed forests to battle monsters, earn riches, and attempt to stop the overlord from carrying out his vile plot. Featuring double-sided modular board pieces, countless hero and skill combinations, and an immersive story-driven campaign, Descent: Journeys in the Dark Second Edition transports heroes to a vibrant fantasy realm where they must stand together against an ancient evil.

Descent: Journeys in the Dark is a "one vs. many" game in which up to four players will choose characters with a wide assortment of skills and innate abilities to be the heroes who will explore dungeons in search of treasure and adventure, while one player will take on the role of the Overlord and will control the dungeon's many traps, puzzles, and monsters. The heroes' goal will be to cooperatively conquer the dungeon, seize its many treasures, and achieve other objectives as set by the scenario. If the heroes cooperate and achieve their goals, they will all win. The Overlord's objective is simply to use all the means at their disposal - from deadly traps to ferocious monsters - to kill the heroes. Each hero has a certain Conquest Point value to the party and if too many Conquest Points are lost through hero death, the party loses and the Overlord wins.

The game is similar to a dungeon crawl from the game D&D, although there is no role-playing involved. Player characters are pre-generated and there are no non-weapon proficiencies. While the quests are pre-determined in a booklet, an empty map framework is included, allowing users to make their own.

Flames of War (abbreviated as FoW) is a World War II tabletop miniatures wargame produced by the New Zealand company Battlefront Miniatures Ltd.[1] The 1st Edition set of rules was published in 2002. Flames of War allows players to wargame company level battles from the European, Pacific and North African Theatres of World War II, using 1/100 scale miniatures (15 mm figure scale) and miniature armor. In the 1st Edition rulebook basic army lists were provided for the mid-war period (1942–1943), while Battlefront published early (1939–1941) and late war (1944–1945) army lists on their website (subsequently these early and late war lists were removed). The 2nd Edition of the rulebook was published in 2006. The 3rd Edition of the rules was released on March 10, 2012. The 4th Edition rules were released in March 2017.

ISS Vanguard is a new major board game from Awaken Realms. It features a 1-4 player co-operative gameplay that immerses you in an amazing adventure among the stars, as you lead the first human galactic exploration effort.

In Mice & Mystics, take on the roles of loyal, adventuring mice and embark on a quest to warn the king and save your imperiled kingdom! Work together in this cooperative, story-driven adventure game as you face countless dangers throughout the humongous castle, including rats, cockroaches, spiders, and of course, the housecat Brodie. The Cheese System allows you to use the crumbs of precious cheese you find to bolster your mice with grandiose new abilities and overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.

Space Crusade is a cooperative effort between Milton Bradley UK and Games Workshop. It takes the role-playing elements from Milton Bradley's Heroquest and merges them with Game Workshop's dark vision of the future. From the manual.... "One player must control the aliens. This player is called the Alien Player. The other players control the three Commanders and their Space Marines. The players are called the Marine Players. Each game is a mission. The missions are detailed in the Mission Manual. The game starts with the Alien Player reading out one of the missions. A map in the Mission Manual then shows the Alien player how to setup the game boards and Docking boards. The Mission Manual also tell the Alien player how many, and which, Blip tokens he should take, as well as which Reinforcement tokens he may use."