Tabletop

Welcome. Take a seat. We have a lot to get through. Portal Games have just announced a couple of new expansions, CMON have Night of the Living Dead and there is a sequel to Champions of Midgard! Let’s go!

Stronghold: Undead

Ah. Stronghold. The classic 2 player game of sieges. This new expansion is not actually new per se. You see, Stronghold: Undead is a re-balancing of the original Stronghold: Undead expansion for the second edition of Stronghold that can also be played as a standalone game. The expansion includes a new board with new paths to siege the castle, undead mechanisms, and more ways for both sides to secure their victory!

Portal Games had this to say about the expansion:

The Necromancer leads an undead army toward the stronghold walls. A powerful artefact lies within the stronghold. A magical item imbued with immense energy. The Necromancer’s powers are weakening, and his magical essence is fading with each passing moment. He will regain his powers if he manages to take the castle by storm and claim the artefact. Thus, if the undead army succeeds in breaching the stronghold within eight turns, it will capture the artefact and attain victory. If not…well, if not, the Necromancer’s powers will fade completely and the undead army will turn to dust.

We are looking forward to this as Stronghold is a great 2 player game in its own right, albeit with some finicky and problematic rules but hey we can get through that. The only other downer is..the theme. Undead. Really? You had nothing else?

Detective: L.A Crimes

The first expansion to Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game will go back in time and head to the wonderful world of the 80’s. L.A 80’s. Oh yeah! The expansion must be played to this:

The expansion contains 3 brand new cases to be solved along with 5 new playable characters. Once again, let’s see what Portal Games had to say:

Travel to sunny California, and delve deep into the drug-filled Los Angeles of the 1980s. Experience being an L.A. detective, and realize that sometimes, like detective Foley from Beverly Hills Cop, you may need to stretch the laws a bit to suit your needs. Try some controversial methods to solve your case, all the while battling with the red tape of bureaucracy. Use all-new mechanisms of stakeout and observation to learn more about your suspects. The choices are yours, but are you willing to cross the line?

We tried Detective. We even bought it. We didn’t like. It just wasn’t that fun or that involving. But for those who did like it then this is a must buy and the new location and time period is actually pretty damn good!

Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage

For those who love the D&D series of cooperative boardgames then you are in luck. The follow up to Tomb of Annihilation has been announced. We are currently playing through Tomb of Annihilation and while it’s all very samey in terms of what you can explore and encounter, it’s a lot of fun! Would we get this? Probably not. But anything to do with Waterdeep and we are intrigued…

In the city of Waterdeep rests a tavern called the Yawning Portal, named after the gaping pit in its common room. At the bottom of this crumbling shaft is a labyrinth dungeon known as Undermountain, the domain of the mad wizard Halaster Blackcloak, who has seeded his lair with monsters, traps, and mysteries.

As an adventurer in Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, you plan to explore Undermountain in search for treasure while navigating numerous traps and ominous monsters.

Following in the path of the other critically-acclaimed D&D board games, Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage features multiple scenarios, challenging quests, and gameplay designed for a single player or a cooperative group of 2-5 players. The game features new environment and bane/boon cards, as well as the trap and spell decks that premiered in Tomb of Annihilation.

Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage can also be combined with the other D&D Adventure System co-operative play board games, including Tomb of Annihilation, Temple of Elemental Evil, The Legend of Drizzt, Castle Ravenloft, and Wrath of Ashardalon.

Night of the Living Dead

Yes! A board game based on the classic George A. Romero film. Who wouldn’t want that!? Well, we are a little disappointed as it should have been Dawn on the Dead instead. But maybe they will get around to it after this one. Anyway, CMON will be releasing this in 2019. Nothing much is known on how it will play, but with the subtitle ‘A Zombicide Game’ we are pretty sure on what to expect. Let’s just hope they use Zombicide: The Black Plague as the basis.

Spirit Island: Jagged Earth

The second expansion for Spirit Island is due towards the end of 2019. We love Spirit Island here and to be honest we haven’t played enough of it. Criminal! We don;y have a lot of details but it seems to be more of the same which is not a bad thing! Content listing for the publisher:

• New Scenarios
• 8 New Spirits
• 2 New Adversaries
• 2 New Island Boards
• 30+ New Event Cards
• New Fear and Blight Cards
• 50+ New Major and Minor Power Cards
• Optional aspects (innate powers) for the 4 core game spirits
• Badland tokens, a new way to fight invaders!
• More plastic, wooden, and cardboard tokens play up to 6 players)
• New play options: combining adversaries, playing with an Archipelago (split island), and more.

Reavers of Midgard

This weeks Kickstarter spotlight is the sequel to one of our favourite games ever, Champions of Midgard. Yes, Reavers of Midgard is on Kickstarter right now. It’s already fully funded so need to worry. If you want to go pledge you can do so right here.

From the Kickstarter:

Reavers of Midgard is a single worker placement game with elements of set collection, dice combat and engine building set in the Champions of Midgard universe.

In Champions of Midgard, your quest was to become Jarl. You battled back the trolls, draugr and some of the epic monsters that once threatened the sanctity of your humble port town. Now it’s time to go on the offensive.

In Reavers of Midgard, you’ll be looking to gain glory by raiding nearby villages for their riches, sacking well-fortified castles and battling both man and monster on the open seas. You’ll not only need to take your rowdy crew of Vikings and the food needed to keep them happy along for the ride but you’ll also have to recruit a crew of elite warriors – the Reavers.

Reavers can be used in three different ways. They can be made your ship’s leader, earning you a one-time bonus and enabling your warriors to be more versatile in combat. They can also be used to rally more warriors to your cause, filling your ship to the brim with the right fighters for the right situations. Finally, they can also be used to help your crew specialize, earning you a bonus every time your crew sails into battle.

Whoever can earn the most glory after six rounds will be the winner.

We absolutely cannot wait for this. June 2019. Come quicker please!

Until next week! Have a great weekend!

GameStart was a blast this year! Thanks to all those who came by and played some great games with us. We had great fun teaching Lords of Hellas, Who Goes There? and many more! Now it’s back to business. The business of new boardgames.

SPIEL is happening next week (25th to 28th) and there is a ton of great games being released or previewed. Let’s take a look at some of the ones that caught our eye.

Tang Garden

This game is just beautiful. Look at it. Once setup it deserves never to be placed back in the box. So what do we do in this game apart from marvel at its beauty? Well, Tang Garden is a Zen-like game that will take you to the first golden age of China, where players will progressively build a garden by creating the landscape, placing the scenery and projecting their vision through vertical panoramas. During the construction, noblemen will visit the garden to admire the surroundings and the way the natural elements coexist in the most breathtaking scenery humankind has ever laid their eyes upon.

How does it play though? By the looks of it fairly easily. From the publisher:

Players will take turns by playing one of the two actions available in the game:

1) Placing tiles and matching the elements to increase their personal nature balance and unlock more character miniatures.

By balancing the nature elements on the player boards, players will attract new characters into the garden. On each player turn, if the elements are balanced, the player will have to choose one miniature from the ones available and finally decide which one of the characters will be placed in the garden, orienting them towards their favorite background, while keeping the other with you to keep exploiting its ability.

2) Draw decoration cards and place one on the board to get prestige by completing collections.

Players will draw a number of cards based on the board situation and choose one to keep. Players will then have to place the chosen decoration in one of the available spots in the garden, creating a unique and seamless scenario that will never be the same.

During the game, by placing tiles on special parts of the board, you will be able to place a panorama tile, a new element that adds a never-ending perspective for the visitors. Both small and big panoramas will be placed perpendicularly to the board by attaching it to the board insert by creating a seamless look on the four sides of the board. The Panoramas will interact with the characters at the end of the game by giving prestige points based on what your visitor sees and likes.

At the end of the game, the player with the most prestige will be the winner.

Sounds fun!

The Estates

We got to play this at GenCon and would have bought it then and there if it was available. Alas, it wasn’t. Published through Capstone Games new Simply Complex imprint, The Estates is a simple but complex (hence the name!) game of bidding and building. The players take on the role of investors seeking to make the most money by developing buildings in the urban redevelopment area – The Estates. Players will bid for the various building pieces and place them in The Estates to their benefit. All buildings in completed rows score positive points, while all buildings in incomplete rows score negative points.

The zoning map for The Estates calls for two rows of four buildings each, located between the River and Main Street. The meadows on the other side of the River are to remain a recreational area for the City. But, with hopes of larger profits, investors and building tycoons entirely ignore the City Council’s demands and begin developing three rows of buildings instead. The Mayor catches wind of the potential for profit and begins planning a new mansion in The Estates, which would double the value of one of the building rows! With some sketchy building permits, investors begin developing buildings on the other side of the River, beyond the designated building zone. However, the City Council takes rigorous steps to put an end to the racketeering with an ultimatum: As soon as the first two rows are completed, the buildings in the uncompleted row will be torn down, resulting in a huge loss for all who invested there. At the end of the day, the investor with the highest-valued buildings will come out on top.

This is a fantastic game that clocks in at around 45 mins. This game could easily end friendships with the amount of backstabbing and dodgy dealings going on. We love it! We need to get a copy ASAP!

Monolith Arena

Portal Games latest looks at first glance like a simple reskin of Neuroshima HEX. Trust us. It’s not. But even if it was, that’s not a bad thing right?

Monolith Arena is a fantasy battleground board game built around the base engine of the aforementioned Neuroshima Hex, which is also from designer Michał Oracz. The game includes four factions, with unique abilities and units! Each player has a monolith that serves as their headquarters, and each player seeds their monolith with three tokens that provide special abilities. When an opponent damages your monolith, you remove the top layer to expose the first token, gaining its special ability, so being attacked can actually make you stronger — albeit while still moving you towards defeat…

If you already own Neuroshima HEX then we suggest you try Monolith Arena before you buy. You might find the games too similar to really enjoy it. However, if you never owned Neuroshima HEX but always wanted to, then this is a must get. Fingers crossed that there won’t be a million and one expansions for it…Ya. We know. Who are we kidding? :/

UBOOT: The Board Game

We’ve had an eye on this for a while even though we are not great fans of real-time tabletop games. We just can’t take the pressure! This is basically Captain Sonar gone to the next level. Several levels in fact. So what do we do in this game apart from trying not to drown?

U-BOOT: The Board Game is a fully cooperative, real-time tabletop game of WW2 submarine warfare. It allows 1 to 4 players to assume the roles of the Captain, the First Officer, the Navigator, and the Chief Engineer on board a VIIC U-boat. The game is driven by a companion app, allowing for an unprecedented level of realism, as well as a challenging enemy A.I. which will push your skills to the limit. The action unfolds both on the strategic and the tactical scale, always demanding teamwork, efficient crew management, and quick situation assessment.

Not for our gaming group then. We would crash and burn in the dock before we could do anything worthwhile. More from the publisher:

Each of the four roles requires unique responsibilities, encouraging the players to develop an efficient communication scheme and use genuine navy terminology. The Captain oversees the completion of mission objectives, supervises action point costs, and is responsible for the crew’s morale. The First Officer operates the companion app, manages the flow of information, and takes care of the crew’s health. The Navigator steers the submarine by setting its course and depth but also updates all the essential information on the strategic, and the tactical map. Last, but not least, is the Chief Engineer, who is responsible for the engines, repairs, as well as other mechanical implements on board of the U-boat (such as the ballast tanks, weapon systems, etc.). At the same time, each of the four officers commands his own group of crew members by issuing orders within a worker placement system.

The idea behind the companion app is to deliver a real-time, realistic gameplay experience. To that end, the app features the most essential instruments of the u-boat (such as the periscope, the hydrophone, and the Enigma, among others). Rest assured, however, that the vast majority of gameplay traditionally takes place on the game board, with the instruments revealing otherwise hidden information, and the app requiring only certain data (such as the U-boat’s course, speed, etc.) in order to generate an adequate A.I. response of the enemy force. It is also responsible for all the ambient sound effects, thus immersing the players even deeper into the claustrophobic interiors of the type VII C. But fear not! With open & play being a design priority, you will be launching torpedoes in no time, thanks to streamlined rules, video tutorials, and variable difficulty levels for each player.

Fun? Maybe. Stressful? Yes. Very much yes.

Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra

Azul just about won every award going over the past year. It’s simple and beautiful design capturing the minds of gamers around the world. So what next for Azul? Expansions? Nah, let’s go straight to a sequel.

Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra challenges players to carefully select glass panes to complete their windows while being careful not to damage or waste supplies in the process. The window panels are double-sided, providing players with a dynamic player board that affords nearly infinite variability!

Players can expect to discover new unique art and components in Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra, including translucent window pane pieces, a tower to hold discarded glass panes, and double-sided player boards and window pane panels, in addition to many other beautiful components!

This looks good but we can’t help think of Sagrada when we see this. It also looks a little…cheap. Not a patch on the look of the original Azul. Mmmmm those lovely tiles. You could just eat those up. Here it’s just a board and some bland plastic window pieces. We shall see.

Pipeline

Capstone Games constantly delivers complex but highly enjoyable games. Wildcatters and Arkwright are two of our favourite ‘heavy’ games that are easy to learn but hard to master. When Capstone announces a new game, we all get a bit giddy here. Well, they have announced a new game. Pipeline. We are intrigued. And giddy.

Just look at this image. We want this game now!

Capstone Games describes the game as follows:

The refinement of oil has long been part of the government-controlled energy sector. Amassed with an incredibly complex and inefficient system of refineries, the government has felt the severe pressures of worldwide demand and the ever-increasing global standards for refinement. Unable to keep up with demand, the government has only one option: privatizing the oil industry.

This is where you come in. Seeking to capitalize on this new opportunity, in Pipeline you start a company in the oil business. You will focus on building a much more efficient pipeline network in your refinery, hiring experts that provide valuable benefits over your competitors, and managing the logistics of purchasing and selling your refined oil in the various markets. You will need more than strong economic skills – carefully crafting an interweaving network of pipelines just might ensure your victory!

We want this now! Demos at SPIEL only. Sad. When can we buy it?! Hopefully this year. *holds breath*

See you all next week!

Hello there Tabletop lovers! Today we have so much juicy board game news that we just want to break down and weep for our wallets. Let’s go!

Blackout: Hong Kong

Whenever there is a blackout situation in a TV show or a movie, the whole area goes to crap. Looting, rioting and the likes. Well here in Blackout: Hong Kong you have the chance to avert the danger that looms just around the nearest, dark and dangerous corner. From the publisher:

Hong Kong has been struck by a large scale unexpected blackout. As the government struggles to maintain control, you decide to take matters into your own hands and try to bring back some kind of societal order! Daily life as you were used to it has quickly dissolved. Even the most mundane tasks have become incredibly challenging without electric power. Whoever best manages this situation and restores the semblance of order will surely claim a position of power in post-blackout Hong Kong! You have to manage ever-changing resources and a network of various specialists to keep Hong Kong from descending into chaos while also staying ahead of your rivals.

We like the look of this very much. We love David Pfister stuff here. Great Western Trail is an amazing game and Isle of Skye is up there too! No idea on how it plays but it seems to be a resource management with threat negation type of thing. Add in some area control and deck building and you have on paper what looks like a fantastic game. The release is supposedly 2018. We await with bated breath.

Ragusa

Capstone Games. The purveyor of heavy, strategic games. Wildcatters. Awesome. Arkwright. Brilliant. Now we have Ragusa.

Set in the legendary city of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik), Ragusa charges players with the task of building the city in the 15th century, constructing its great towers, boosting trade with the East, and finding their fortunes.

Players build houses on the spaces between three hexes, gaining access to resources (on rural spaces) and actions (in the city), which means that a house effectively functions as a worker being placed, but triggering three spots at a time. Players use resources gained in the countryside to build buildings, trade, and craft valuable commodities — the value of which varies as ships come and go from the harbor.

In the city, players gain access to actions, with each spot representing the three actions that surround it. This simple worker placement gives way to a deep engine-building mechanism as not only will building around production spaces utilize the houses you’ve already built in the countryside, but building near other player’s houses will re-activate them, giving other players valuable opportunities outside of their turns. The game ends once players have placed all their houses. The player with the most points from all sources wins.

City builders. Can’t get enough of them. If you read the above and immediately thought Concordia, then you are not alone. But knowing Capstone Games, this is going to be a much more complex and robust game than Concordia. We are not hating on Concordia. We love Concordia. Speaking of…

Concordia: Venus

Weapon Wars

This weeks Kickstarter is funded already with 29 days still to go. We are loving the art and concept of the game. From the designer:

Challenge your friend or friends to a duel. Launch nuclear missiles, use legendary swords and ripple the rules of the universe in a card game like no other. Will you be the last player standing? Or will you be the weakest Cosplayer of all? Yes! It’s a Cosplay themed card game. Much win.

The art is a massive draw for us and so is the theme. Go check out their Kickstarter page here. Funded. So you know you’re going to get it. It’s now a matter how many stretch goals are going to get unlocked. It’s in your hands now.

That’s it for it this week. GameStart is next weekend! The Tabletop crew will be there. Come by and say hi and play some games with us! More news on how you can do that will be up on Monday. Keep your eyes peeled. See you then!

Welcome people. Come on in. Take a seat. Have a drink or a snack. It’s news time again. We have Assassins, Pandoria and er…Donald Trump.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice

We are surprised that this took so long. An Assassin’s Creed tabletop experience. If you ever played V-Commandos, an excellent WW2 co-operative game, then you will be right at home here. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice re-implements the core design of that game and brings it into the Assassin’s Creed world. A good fit for sure. We have a description from the publisher:

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice is a co-operative tactical board game of infiltration and assassination. Set in Renaissance Venice at a time when the Brotherhood of Assassins expands in Italy, the game gives 1 to 4 players control of never seen before assassins in a campaign to develop their headquarters and advance the Brotherhood’s agenda against the Templars.

Players must find the right balance between stealth and combat to progress through a mission-based campaign, developing their own abilities as well as their new headquarters.

Excited yet? This is due to hit at the end of 2019. So you will need to wait a little while.

There is no picture of the board or anything yet. Just a lonely miniature. Take a look.

The Boldest

More fantastic art this week with The Boldest, the new game from Sophia Wagner and artist Max Prentis. What do we know?

The forgotten creatures of the forest awoke from their slumber and nobody knows for sure what is lurking in the Iron Valley. You followed the call of your king. Now it is time for heroic deeds in The Boldest!

Defeat mechanical monsters, retrieve enigmatic artefacts, use helpful items, and lead your faction to glory. Can you read your opponents well enough and forestall them? Are you worthy of the title “The Boldest”?

Max Prentis passionately created and illustrated the world of The Boldest. His love for details can be found on every card. The more than one hundred unique illustrations let you delve into this rich world. Get ready to explore!

This sounds pretty good but it’s the art that has really caught our attention. Other than that we know it’s a 2 to 5 player game that plays in and around 90 minutes. On the watch list. But as we all know, great art doesn’t turn a bad game into a good one.

Pandoria

In Pandoria, players discover this new land by placing tiles, and they claim its territory and resources by placing their people. When a type of terrain is completely surrounded by another terrain, every worker on the borders of that terrain gains its resources. Although more than one civilization will usually benefit, each player tries to gain more than the others. Mining gold gives you income to buy cards that have two options: buildings and spells. Acquiring wood allows you to build that side of the card for permanent advantages, while mining crystals give you the power to use the card for its one-time spell instead. Excess resources can be converted into prestige Points, and some buildings can generate more. When the new land has been fully explored (all tiles have been placed), the player with the most prestige is declared the most powerful nation of Pandoria and wins the game!

This sounds like our type of game. A scrumptious game of resource and land grabbing. Arguments and ganging up will ensue. Fantastic. There are two modes of play in the box. Beginner (pffft) and the expanded ‘full’ game experience where players will gain asymmetrical powers. Oh yeah. We like that.

#Potus: Battle Inside the Trump White House

From the depths of Kickstarter this week sees a game that hooked us purely by the description. Here goes:

Can you survive the chaos in the Oval Office and take control of The President’s Twitter feed?

Well, we’d sure like to give it a go. From the Kickstarter:

#POTUS is set in 2017, during President Trump’s first year in office. Each player leads a faction inside the White House working to fulfil their own agenda while supporting or opposing the President.

The four factions are the Establishment GOP, the Nativist Nationalists, the Globalist Plutocrats, and the #Resistance. Each faction has a unique deck of cards — based on the actual historical figures — that will help them spin the President’s tweets to their advantage.

Between Trump’s tweetstorms, you’ll also vote on Congressional bills, make big business deals, and enlist powerful allies like Robert Mueller or Vladimir Putin. Your Hidden Agenda could be the key to winning big. But watch out! Mueller’s investigation could end in impeachment – and ruin all your plans!

This looks and sounds like a game to play when your whole gaming group has had a bit too much to drink. We’ll keep any on this one. You can back the project here.

That’s all for this week. Lookout for GameStart Tabletop announcements coming early next week!

Greetings from the world of cardboard tokens, card decks, plastic miniatures and wooden meeples. We have Pandemic news! Pull up your face masks and get ready to fight off the infections again in Pandemic Legacy: Season 3!

Oh dear. No. Sorry, it isn’t that. Very sorry. Let’s take a look.

Pandemic: Fall of Rome

Ah! The sub series of Pandemic. We’ve had Reign of Cthulhu, Iberia and Rising Tide so far. All featuring very different mechanics and goals but all wrapped up in the classic Pandemic style of game play. Rising Tide saw you battling floods rather than diseases and now Fall of Rome sees you protecting Rome from all sorts of invaders.

From the back of the box:

At the height of its power, the Roman Empire held more than two million square miles of territory containing over a hundred million people. Throughout the centuries of its existence, the Empire brought major advancements in engineering, architecture, science, art, and literature. By the beginning of the 5th Century, decades of political corruption, economic crisis, and an overburdened military had exacted a severe toll on the stability of the Empire. This paved the way for severe incursions from aggressive barbarian tribes, leading to a decline from which Rome would not recover. Now citizens, soldiers, and allies of Rome must unite to protect the Empire.

Combining the cooperative gameplay of Pandemic with innovative new mechanisms, Pandemic: Fall of Rome takes players back in history to the time of the world’s greatest empire: Rome. A weakened military has left the borders open to invasion from countless tribes such as the Anglo-Saxons, Goths, Vandals, and Huns. As you march through the Roman Empire, you must recruit armies, fortify cities, forge alliances, and face off against the invading hordes in battle.

Simply defending Rome is not enough; players must find a way to stop the incursions and find peace with their neighboring peoples. Players collect sets of matching-colored cards to forge an alliance with the different tribes. In doing so, they gain the ability to use cards matching the tribe to convert other members of that tribe into Roman soldiers, furthering their ability to hold the line against other invaders.

Take on unique roles with special abilities to improve your team’s chances to protect against the invaders. Work together, use your skills wisely, and stop the fall of Rome!

Pandemic: Fall of Rome includes a solitaire mode in which the player takes on the burden of being the Emperor and commands three different roles to try to protect the city from the invading hordes. Players who want a more difficult game can try the “Roma Caput Mundi” challenge by adding more Revolt cards to the deck; they must also respect the law in Rome that Roman legions are not allowed in the city.

Out of all the sub series, this looks the most interesting. But let’s be all honest here. We’re just waiting for Season 3. Are we right or what?

Stone Age: 10th Anniversary

Stone Age. The grandfather of the worker placement game. If you got introduced to the worker placement genre of games then it’s most likely that Stone Age was the one that gently comforted you into this world of back stabbing and space blocking….

Gameplay looks to have stayed the same but a few things have changed. It now features a double-sided game board (winter and summer), decorative player pieces, a revised rulebook, two mini-expansions (“The Igloos” and “The Wild Animals”), and a “Winter Is Hard!” variant. Worth upgrading if you already own the game? Not sure. Worth getting if you don’t have it? Definitely! Wait! What do you mean you don’t already own it? Get to the back of the class!

Tiny Epic Mechs

Ooooh! We love Gamelyn stuff here. The Tiny Epic series packs a big punch in such a small box and Tiny Epic Quest is one of our favourites until we saw Tiny Epic Mechs! Aw. So cute the Mechs! We wish we had a picture to show you just how cute they are. But we don’t. They are really cute though. We just want to eat them all up. We have a picture of the box though and the game overview.

From the back of the box. We are surprised that the text could fit on such a tiny box. Speaking of tiny, did we tell you how cute the Mechs are…

Tiny Epic Mechs is an arena-style player-vs-player action-programming game. It features ITEMeeples with plastic molded power armors and a Mech suit that the ITEMeeples actually go inside of.

In Tiny Epic Mechs, players take on the roles of highly skilled and athletic Mech pilots. They compete in a free-for-all battle royale over the span of six rounds. In each round, players select four of eight available actions to program. These actions keep you moving around the arena while allowing you to deploy high-scoring defensive turrets, plant explosive land mines with hidden values, collect resources, purchase weaponry, and power up into your Power Armor or eventually the highly-sought-after Mech Suit. While each player has their own Power Armor, there is only one Mech Suit, reserved for the king of the hill.

Your programmed actions are played out one at a time around the table until all players have executed their four actions. When you cross paths with another player, combat ensues. During combat, players exchange fire until one player is out of ammo and must retreat, or they are defeated and forced to reset.

This sounds like a lot of fun and the Tiny Epic series usually are. This is coming out sometime next year. Keep your eyes peeled! The mechs are cute if we hadn’t mentioned that before..

Everdell: Pearlbrook

The Kickstarter this week is an expansion to a game we hold dear, Everdell. A luscious tableau builder that’s wonderful to play and beautiful to look at. You can check out the review here. Anyway, the first expansion is up on Kickstarter and you can back it here. With this expansion you will be able to explore a new underwater society in Pearlbrook.

Pearlbrook introduces a new side board, the river board, where you’ll send your frog ambassador to gather a new resource: pearls. You’ll also encounter new aquatic critters and constructions! Collect enough pearls and you can construct fabulous wonders and adornments, to make your city the pride of Everdell! We can’t wait for this. Quite a while though. Not due until September 2019!

Well, that’s it for this week! A brief update but a very juicy one. What else do we have for you?

Nothing!

Be on your way!

The Mech?

The tiny cute one?

We don’t have a picture!

Leave us alone!

STOP!

SO CUTE. DAMN IT!

We’ll be back next week. Same time. Same place.

It’s the end of the week. Time to stretch those legs, grab a drink and take a minute to see what’s happening in the world of tabletop gaming.

Bargain Quest

Great news for this lovely game from Jonathan Ying. After selling out and heading to Kickstarter for a second run, they have been picked up by  a major publisher. Renegade Games will release this to mass market in January 2019. Bargain Quest turns the usual adventure game type on its head as it see players being the shopkeepers rather than the mighty heroes. Players will draft items and then secretly choose which items to place in their windows to attract wealthy heroes to their shops. Capitalism at its best!

Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig

Now this is interesting. Take Between Two Cities from Stonemaier Games and The Castles of Mad King Ludwig from Bezier Games and throw them into a pot. Cook on low to medium heat for a few minutes and stir well. The outcome? Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig.

The game is a competitive tile-drafting game in which each tile is a room in a castle. You work together with the player on your left to design one castle, and with the player on your right on another castle. On each turn you select two tiles from your hand, reveal them, then work with your partners to place them. To win, you have to share your attention and your devotion between two castles and make sure you are not helping another player win! Sounds interesting. Plays 3 to 7 people.

Solenia

The box art for this game is beautiful. But you can never judge a game by its cover right?

Several millennia ago, the tiny planet Solenia lost its day-and-night cycle: Its northern hemisphere is forever plunged into darkness, and its southern hemisphere is eternally bathed in sunlight. Your mission is to carry on your ancestors’ honorable task of traveling the world to deliver essential goods to the inhabitants of both hemispheres. While the Day people want you to deliver the rarest gems and stones, the Night people sorely need wood and wheat to survive. Be efficient and outpace your opponents to collect the most gold stars by the end of the game!

How does it play? Straight from the mouth of the designer:

“A game of Solenia plays out over 16 rounds, and in each round, each player plays one card from their hand onto an empty space of the 5×5 game board. You can play the card on either:

• A floating production island, to gain as many resources as the value of the card you played of the type corresponding to this space
• A floating city, to fulfill a delivery tile by delivering the resources depicted on it.

You must play your card adjacent to the airship in the center of the playing area or adjacent to another card of yours already played. When someone plays a 0 card, the airship advances one space, then at the end of your turn, you remove the back edge of the board, give players resources based on the cards they have on this strip of the playing area, flip the strip over (turning night to day or dawn to dusk or vice versa), and place it on the other side of the game board.

The game ends when each player has played all 16 of their cards. The player with the most gold stars wins!”

Horizon: Zero Dawn – The Board Game

This weeks Kickstarter is from Steamforged Games. The studio that takes great IP’s and turns them into mediocre board games. Hopefully they will do right by this one. From the Kickstarter page:

Assigned a dangerous quarry by the Hunter’s Lodge, players choose a tribe and class for their hunter and embark on an adventure through the wilds. A variety of machines and unexpected events lurk along the way, and awaiting them at the end of the trail is a lethal boss fight.

Combining innovative and dynamic game mechanics with strategic deck building, Horizon Zero Dawn™: The Board Game offers players a unique experience on each playthrough. Hunters can develop along several skill paths and purchase a wide variety of ammunition and equipment from merchants, as well as facing entirely different encounters each time.

It looks nice. It looks expensive. It is expensive! If money is no object then you can get your pledge in here. Only a few hours to go. Expected delivery. 2020.

That’s all for this week. See you all at the next one.