Author: T3d-1978

Xenoshyft Onslaught

| T3d-1978
Xenoshyft Onslaught

Xenoshyft Onslaught

In XenoShyft: Onslaught, a strategic base defense deck-builder, players take on the role of the NorTec Military, charged with defending their base against the onslaught of the alien “Hive”.

XenoShyft: Onslaught combines classic deck-building and resource management with fast-paced combat and unique “base defense” elements. As the game progresses, each player builds up their deck of Troop, Equipment, and Item cards, which they will in turn use to defend the base against incoming enemies in deadly combat.

It is up to the players to work together in order to outlast the horrors awaiting them by coordinating strategy, utilizing the strengths of their unique divisions (Med Bay, Weapons Research, Science Lab, and Armory), and organizing defense tactics to ensure no player is caught off-guard by surprise attacks.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deck Building
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.65

The World of SMOG: Rise of Moloch

| T3d-1978
The World of SMOG: Rise of Moloch

The World of SMOG: Rise of Moloch

The World of SMOG: Rise of Moloch is a Victorian adventure board game, for 2 to 5 players, set in an alternate England, where magic and technology have taken an extraordinary turn. Playable as a campaign or individual adventures, Rise of Moloch puts one player in the position of the Nemesis, against the intrepid Gentlemen controlled by the other players trying to save the Crown. Secretly activate the order of your characters through different scenarios, enjoy your steam power weapons, and save your special actions for the most opportune moments – you surely don’t want to make your opponent stronger!

Rise of Moloch is a campaign driven adventure, played over a series of missions, each telling part of the overall story of Moloch’s rise to power (or defeat at the hands of the fearless Gentlemen!). Each mission features a unique board setup and goals for both the Nemesis player and Gentlemen players to complete. More so, subsequent missions will be impacted by the outcome of the one before it, weaving the overall story and game-play together to make each campaign unique.

Players will each control one or more of the intrepid Gentlemen or, in the case of the Nemesis player, cunning Agents and Minions, all with unique powers and upgrades they will utilize to complete the various goals of each mission.

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Dice Rolling
  • Grid Movement
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.93

Wonderlands War

| T3d-1978
Wonderlands War

Wonderlands War

The Looking Glass has shattered, madness is being drained from the inhabitants, and war has come to Wonderland. Alice, Mad Hatter, Red Queen, Jabberwock, and Cheshire Cat must gather all that they can while playing nice at the Hatter’s Tea Party before going to battle!

In Wonderland’s War, 2-5 players take the role as a faction leader who has been invited to the Hatter’s tea party. Drink tea and eat cake as you move around the table drafting cards to gather your forces, build your towers, upgrade your leader, and recruit Wonderlandians to your cause — but one must be careful as shards of the Looking Glass are spread throughout Wonderland. Once all the plates are empty, the Tea Party is over and war begins. Use the forces you gathered to battle your enemies in familiar locations, but make sure not to draw your Madness chips or your supporters will abandon your cause and you will be out of the fight. Can you muster enough strength to win the battle, or will you just try to complete Quests instead by meeting the right conditions such as gaining region bonuses and set collection throughout the game?

After all the battles have been fought, a truce is called and everyone meets back at the tea party to plot their moves for the next fight. After three rounds, the faction with the most points will be crowned as the new leader of Wonderland!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Deck Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting
  • Push Your Luck

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 45 – 125 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.84

The Wolves

| T3d-1978
The Wolves

The Wolves

The Wolves is a pack-building strategy game for 2-5 players. It’s survival of the fittest as you compete to build the largest, most dominant pack by claiming territory, recruiting lone wolves, and hunting prey. But be careful not to expand too recklessly into terrain where your rivals thrive – they may lure members of your pack away.

A clever action-selection mechanism drives your choices. Each action requires you to flip terrain tiles matching the terrain where you wish to take your action. These double-sided tiles mean the actions you take this round will set up which terrain types you can act on in the next round. As you take actions to expand your pack’s control of each region, you also upgrade your pack’s attributes, allowing you to take more aggressive actions as the game goes on.

In three mid-game scoring phases, power is calculated in each region. At the end of the game, players tally points based on VP tokens earned in these scoring phases and the highest VP number revealed in each of the six tracks on your player board. The player with the most VP wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Grid Movement
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~75 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.80

Witchstone

| T3d-1978
Witchstone

Witchstone

As established representatives of your guild, you gather around an ancient sacred stone, the significance and magical powers of which are known to adepts only. Each player occupies one of the four towers around the Witchstone and starts from there. Create your magic spells with the help of your cauldron, and put a network of magic energy around the stone. Send out your witches, scoop the magic crystals out of the cauldron, make use of the pentagram and the magic wand, and keep an eye on the prophecy scrolls in order to ensure victory.

Not all options are always available to you. Only if you cleverly make the most of your opportunities will you have the chance of accumulating the most victory points over the eleven rounds and thereby win Witchstone.

Each player in the game has a personal cauldron that bears seven crystals and six pre-printed magic icons, and they share a larger game board that features a crystal ball that shows the entire landscape. Each player has a set of fifteen domino tiles, with each half of the domino being a hexagon; each domino depicts two different magic icons from the six used in the game.

On a turn, you place one of the five face-up dominos in your reserve onto your cauldron, then you take the action associated with each icon depicted on that domino; if the icon is adjacent to other dominos showing the same icon (or the matching pre-printed icon), then you can take that action as many times as the number of icons in that cluster. You must complete the first type of action completely before taking the second action. With these actions, you can:

  • Use energy to connect your starting tower to other locations on the game board, scoring 1, 3 or 6 points depending on the length of the connection.
  • Place witches next to your starting tower on the game board or move them across your energy network to other locations. As you do this, you gain points and possibly additional actions to use the same turn.
  • Move your token around a pentagram to collect points and to acquire bonus hex tiles; you can use these tiles immediately for actions or place them in your cauldron to make future tile placement more valuable.
  • Move the crystals in your cauldron, whether to make room for future tile placement or to gain bonus actions by ejecting the crystal completely.
  • Advance on a magic wand to gain points and take additional actions, with the actions being doubled should you currently be the most advanced player on the wand.
  • Claim scroll cards that boost future actions or earn you bonus points at game’s end depending on how well you’ve completed the prophecy depicted.

After each player has completed eleven turns — which could equal 40-60 actions depending on how well you’ve used your cauldron — the game ends and players tally their points from prophecies and other collected scoring markers to see who has the highest score.

Game Mechanics:

  • Network Building
  • Open Drafting
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.71

Winter Kingdom

| T3d-1978
Winter Kingdom

Winter Kingdom

Winter Kingdom features seven, double-sided hexagonal map tiles that are randomly arranged into the playing area. After that, three scoring conditions, one economy card (showing how players earn money), and one twist card are dealt, giving the unique features of the game. Each player is dealt five ability cards and one terrain card.

On your turn, you must place three houses in the terrain depicted on your terrain card. If possible, you must place the houses next to previously placed houses. (If not possible, they may be placed anywhere that matches the terrain on the card.) You also start the game with a limited number of forts, which can replace any house and which count as two pieces.

After placing houses, you may use your gold to make one purchase, either paying the cost to put one ability card into play or paying an additional cost on a previously placed ability to upgrade it. Once purchased, the ability may be used once per turn for the rest of the game. You start the game with a little gold to buy abilities and can earn more gold based on the economy card in play for that game.

The game ends once one player is out of both houses and forts. Players score based on the criteria of the scoring cards for that game; in addition, whoever has the most houses next to each castle scores 3 additional points. The player with the most points wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Network Building

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.63

Whistle Mountain

| T3d-1978
Whistle Mountain

Whistle Mountain

Whistle Stop designer Scott Caputo has teamed up with Luke Laurie (Manhattan Project: Energy Empire) to create a new worker-placement strategy title. Whistle Mountain gives a nod to Whistle Stop, but in this standalone game, you leave the train tracks behind and head to the sky with blimps, dreadnoughts, and hot air balloons!

In Whistle Mountain, take your company’s massive profits from all of that railroading and invest them in new technologies, deep in the Rocky Mountains where there is an abundance of resources. Your workers build crazy arrays of scaffolds and machines, upgrading your abilities and collecting resources. As you build with the help of your airship fleet, the mountain’s melting snow causes the water below to rise higher and higher, putting workers in danger and increasing the tension on the dynamically-changing board.

Because the resources you gather are determined by what players build, each game evolves differently, resulting in endless replayability. You have to choose between acquiring new abilities and enhancements for your airships and workers or building all sorts of contraptions as quickly as possible in order to achieve victory on Whistle Mountain.

Game Mechanics:

  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.95

Western Legends: Blood Money

| T3d-1978
Western Legends: Blood Money

Western Legends: Blood Money

To become a legend, it takes grit, cunning, and a little luck. Problem is, you ain’t the only one looking to make a reputation for yourself. So you have to be willing to risk it all, every hard-earned dollar, every drop of blood, to write your name across the face of history.

Blood Money is the second large expansion for Western Legends, introducing a number of modules to tailor every game. The risk module uses a die that improves a number of actions… at the risk of injury. The legendary story module incorporates the story track and high-reward adventures for players to pursue. Players may now purchase deeds to locations and legendary items from the traveling trader. And of course, there is a bevy of new characters and items to explore!

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Movement
  • Bluffing
  • Hand Management
  • Pick-Up and Deliver
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.00

Western Legends

| T3d-1978
Western Legends

Western Legends

Historic characters from the American Wild West face off and write new legends across the face of history! Gather your gun, your mount, and your grit as you forge your path into the history books.

Western Legends is an open-world sandbox tabletop adventure for 2-6 players set in the American Wild West. Players assume the roles of historical figures of the era, earning their legendary status in a variety of ways: gamble, drive cattle, prospect for gold, rob the bank, fight bandits, pursue stories, become an outlaw, keep the peace. The possibilities are darn near endless.

Each player’s turn starts with drawing poker cards and/or gaining cash. Then they choose three actions. Possible actions include: move on the map (how far depends on whether they have a mount), doing a location-specific action (such as mine for gold if they are at a gold mine, gamble if they’re in a saloon, etc.), fight other players at the same location (either duel them, rob them, or arrest them if they’re wanted), play poker cards that have action abilities, etc. Legendary Points (LPs) are earned based on the outcomes of many of these actions, and the winner is whoever has the most LPs at the end of the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Movement
  • Bluffing
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Pick-Up and Deliver
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.81

West Kingdom Saga: Architects of the West Kingdom

| T3d-1978
West Kingdom Saga: Architects of the West Kingdom

West Kingdom Saga: Architects of the West Kingdom

Architects of the West Kingdom is set at the end of the Carolingian Empire, circa 850 AD. As royal architects, players compete to impress their King and maintain their noble status by constructing various landmarks throughout his newly appointed domain. Players need to collect raw materials, hire apprentices, and keep a watchful eye on their workforce. These are treacherous times, and rival architects will stop at nothing to slow your progress. Will you remain virtuous, or be found in the company of thieves and black marketeers?

The aim of Architects of the West Kingdom is to be the player with the most victory points (VP) at game’s end. Points are gained by constructing various buildings and advancing work on the Archbishop’s cathedral. Throughout the game, players need to make a lot of moral decisions. However, only at game’s end will their virtue be judged. A few underhand deals here and there might not seem like much, but fall too far and you will be punished. The game ends once a set number of constructions have been completed.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Open Drafting
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 80 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.76