Category: General Games

Best of the West

| T3d-1978

Best of the West is an open-world game set in the Wild West! It features asymmetrical gameplay where you can go it alone as a Pioneer or join up with the co-op Bandit Gang. Since the game is heavily player vs player, it requires both Pioneers and Bandits in similar numbers. A single Round consists of the Pioneer turns (rotating player order) and then Bandit Gang’s turn (any order). Either the Bandit Gang team or the Pioneer with the highest Reputation at the end of 25 Rounds wins the game.

For Pioneers, Reputation is mostly earned by doing a job (Panning or Mining for Gold, Herding Livestock, Trapping for Furs). For Bandits, Reputation is primarily gained by robbing the Pioneers. Additional cash and Reputation can be earned by robbing the Train, Saloon, and Bank or by performing a Jailbreak. Cash allows you to load up with Weapons, Items, and Pets. Power Cards that grant extra abilities, upgrades, and utility bonuses can be collected around the map at the Indian Village, Saloon, and Ghost Town.

Pioneers move using Movement Cards and can also ride the Train that travels around the map every Round. Bandits move either by using Movement Cards or Ambush Cards. Ambush Cards allow a Bandit to secretly hide on a space on the board. Battling is primarily dice-based, but also includes Power Cards and character abilities.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bribery
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hidden Movement
  • Team Based
  • Variable Player Powers

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 120 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.00

Barrage

| T3d-1978

In the dystopic 1930s, the industrial revolution pushed the exploitation of fossil-based resources to the limit, and now the only thing powerful enough to quench the thirst for power of the massive machines and of the unstoppable engineering progress is the unlimited hydroelectric energy provided by the rivers.

Barrage is a resource management strategic game in which players compete to build their majestic dams, raise them to increase their storing capacity, and deliver all the potential power through pressure tunnels connected to the energy turbines of their powerhouses.

Each player represents one of the four international companies who are gathering machinery, innovative patents and brilliant engineers to claim the best locations to collect and exploit the water of a contested Alpine region crossed by rivers.

Barrage includes two innovative and challenging mechanisms. First, the players must carefully plan their actions and handle their machinery, since both their action tokens and resources are stored on a Construction Wheel and will only be available after a full turn of the wheel. The better you manage your wheel, the earlier your resources and actions come back to you.

Second, the water flow on the rivers depicted on the board is a shared and contested resource. Players have to intercept and store as much of the water as they can, build dams (upstream dams are expensive but can block part of the water before it reaches the downstream dams), raise the dams to increase their capacity, and build long tunnels to channel the water to their powerhouses. Water is never consumed — its flow is just used to produce energy —, it is instead released back to the rivers, so you have to strategically place your dams to recover the water diverted by you and the other players.

Over five rounds, the players must fulfill power requirements represented by a common competitive power track and meet specific requests of personal contracts. At the same time, by placing a limited number of engineers, they attempt to enhance their machinery to acquire new and more efficient construction actions and to build and activate special unique-effect buildings to forward their own developing strategy.

Game Mechanics:

  • Economic
  • Network Building
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.12

Agricola 🟠

| T3d-1978

In Agricola, you’re a farmer in a wooden shack with your spouse and little else. On a turn, you get to take only two actions, one for you and one for the spouse, from all the possibilities you’ll find on a farm: collecting clay, wood, or stone; building fences; and so on. You might think about having kids in order to get more work accomplished, but first you need to expand your house. And what are you going to feed all the little rugrats?

The game supports many levels of complexity, mainly through the use (or non-use) of two of its main types of cards, Minor Improvements and Occupations. In the beginner’s version (called the Family Variant in the U.S. release), these cards are not used at all. For advanced play, the U.S. release includes three levels of both types of cards; Basic (E-deck), Interactive (I-deck), and Complex (K-deck), and the rulebook encourages players to experiment with the various decks and mixtures thereof. Aftermarket decks such as the Z-Deck and the L-Deck also exist.

Agricola is a turn-based game. There are 14 game rounds occurring in 6 stages, with a Harvest at the end of each stage (after Rounds 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14).
Each player starts with two playing tokens (farmer and spouse) and thus can take two turns, or actions, per round. There are multiple options, and while the game progresses, you’ll have more and more: first thing in a round, a new action card is flipped over.
Problem: Each action can be taken by only one player each round, so it’s important to do some things with high preference.
Each player also starts with a hand of 7 Occupation cards (of more than 160 total) and 7 Minor Improvement cards (of more than 140 total) that he/she may use during the game if they fit in his/her strategy. Speaking of which, there are countless strategies, some depending on your card hand. Sometimes it’s a good choice to stay on course, and sometimes it is better to react to your opponents’ actions…

Game Mechanics:

  • Closed Drafting
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Tableau Building
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • 30 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.64

A Game of Thrones 🟠

| T3d-1978

King Robert Baratheon is dead, and the lands of Westeros brace for battle.

In the second edition of A Game of Thrones: The Board Game, three to six players take on the roles of the great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, as they vie for control of the Iron Throne through the use of diplomacy and warfare. Based on the best-selling A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones is an epic board game in which it will take more than military might to win. Will you take power through force, use honeyed words to coerce your way onto the throne, or rally the townsfolk to your side? Through strategic planning, masterful diplomacy, and clever card play, spread your influence over Westeros!

To begin the game, each player receives an army of Footman, Knight, Siege Engine, and Ship units, as well as a set of Order tokens and other necessary components. Each player also receives a deck of unique House Cards, which are used as leaders in battles against rival Houses.

Each round in the game is made up of three phases: the Westeros Phase, the Planning Phase, and the Action Phase. The Westeros Phase represents special events and day-to-day activities in Westeros. There are three different Westeros Decks, and each denotes a different global action, potentially affecting all players.

The Planning Phase is perhaps the most important. Here you secretly assign orders to all of your units by placing one order token face down on each area you control that contains at least one unit (Knight, Footman, Ship, or Siege Engine). This portion of the game emphasizes diplomacy and deduction. Can you trust the alliance that you made? Will you betray your ally and march upon him? Players may make promises to each other (for aid or peace, for example), but these promises are never binding. The result is tense and compelling negotiations, often ending in backstabbing worthy of Westeros!

During the Action Phase, the orders are resolved and battle is entered! When armies meet in combat, they secretly choose one of their House cards to add strength to the battle. Finally, the Houses can consolidate their power in the areas they control and use that power in future turns to influence their position in the court of the Iron Throne and to stand against the wildling Hordes.

In addition to featuring updated graphics and a clarified ruleset, this second edition of A Game of Thrones includes elements from the A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords expansions, including ports, garrisons, Wildling cards, and Siege engines, while introducing welcome new innovations like player screens and Tides of Battle cards.

Tides of Battle cards are an optional mechanism that brings an element of unpredictability to combat, representing erratic shifts in the momentum of war due to factors such as weather, morale, and tactical opportunity. During each combat, both players draw one Tides of Battle card from a communal deck, and its value modifies the strength of his chosen House card. What’s more, such a card may also contain icons that can affect the outcome of the battle…all of which delivers a new level of intensity to your military engagements.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Auction/Bidding
  • Bluffing
  • Hand Management
  • Negotiation
  • Racing
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 6 Players
  • 120 – 240 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.72

A Feast for Odin 🟠

| T3d-1978

A Feast for Odin is a saga in the form of a board game. You are reliving the cultural achievements, mercantile expeditions, and pillages of those tribes we know as Viking today — a term that was used quite differently towards the end of the first millennium.

When the northerners went out for a raid, they used to say they headed out for a viking. Their Scandinavian ancestors, however, were much more than just pirates. They were explorers and founders of states. Leif Eriksson is said to be the first European in America, long before Columbus.
In what is known today as Normandy, the intruders were not called Vikings but Normans. One of them is the famous William the Conqueror who invaded England in 1066. He managed to do what the king of Norway failed to do only a few years prior: conquer the Throne of England. The reason why the people of these times became such strong seafarers is due to their unfortunate agricultural situation. Crop shortfalls caused great distress.

In this game, you will raid and explore new territories. You will also experience their day-to-day activities: collecting goods to achieve a financially secure position in society. In the end, the player whose possessions bear the greatest value will be declared the winner.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Grid Coverage
  • Push Your Luck
  • Puzzle
  • Tableau Building
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.85

51st State: Master Set 🟠

| T3d-1978

The world you know no longer exists. There is no government. No army. No civilization. The United States has collapsed, and now thirty years after the war started, new powers finally try to take control over the ruined country, try to establish a new order, try to control others and create a new country, a new state: the 51st State.

51st State is a card game in which players control one of four powers trying to build a new country. Players put new locations into play, hire leaders, and send people to work in buildings to gain resources and new skills. To do this, every card in 51st State can be used in three different ways:

  • Raze a location to gain many resources once.
  • Deal with this location to gain one resource every turn.
  • Build the location so that you can use its skill each turn.

51st State: Master Set marks the rebirth of the 51st State line, with this set containing 88 cards from the original base game, and 50 cards each from both the New Era and Winter expansions; one of these expansions can be mixed with the cards of the base game, but not both at the same time. The entire set has been rebalanced to offer a cohesive experience no matter which expansion you choose to use.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Tableau Building
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.90

1848: Australia 🟠

| T3d-1978

1848 Australia, is a semi-historical railroad game from the 18xx set, and to which the designers credit some of this games’ systems to the originator of the series – Francis Tresham.

The game consists of two separate series of actions repeated until the game ends, these are stock rounds and operating rounds. During stock rounds, shares in the various railroading companies are bought & sold by players and are tracked on the stock market mat. During operating rounds, the player/directors of those railroading companies are allowed to build track & place station markers on the map, and then may buy trains from which to earn capital from running those trains along routes on the map. The capital earned may be paid out as dividends to shareholders or retained by the company for future expansion.

The game ends at a pre-determined point, whereupon the player with the most worth,(cash on hand & share certificate value) wins.

As with many games in this series, there are similarities within the rules, but many feature slight differences, and it is these that give each individual 18xx game its character.

1848 features an interesting array of differences described above. These include how private companies are purchased, the inclusion of The Bank Of England as a public company that extends loans and administers railroads that are in receivership, dealing with different track gauges between states and ‘The Ghan’ special train.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Economic
  • Network Building
  • Stock Holding
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 6 Players
  • 180 – 240 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.82

Dune Imperium

| T3d-1978

Dune: Imperium is a game that finds inspiration in elements and characters from the Dune legacy, both the new film from Legendary Pictures and the seminal literary series from Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, and Kevin J. Anderson.

As a leader of one of the Great Houses of the Landsraad, raise your banner and marshal your forces and spies. War is coming, and at the center of the conflict is Arrakis – Dune, the desert planet.

Dune: Imperium uses deck-building to add a hidden-information angle to traditional worker placement.

You start with a unique leader card, as well as a deck identical to those of your opponents. As you acquire cards and build your deck, your choices will define your strengths and weaknesses. Cards allow you to send your Agents to certain spaces on the game board, so how your deck evolves affects your strategy. You might become more powerful militarily, able to deploy more troops than your opponents. Or you might acquire cards that give you an edge with the four political factions represented in the game: the Emperor, the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit, and the Fremen.

Unlike many deck-building games, you don’t play your entire hand in one turn. Instead, you draw a hand of cards at the start of every round and alternate with other players, taking one Agent turn at a time (playing one card to send one of your Agents to the game board). When it’s your turn and you have no more Agents to place, you’ll take a Reveal turn, revealing the rest of your cards, which will provide Persuasion and Swords. Persuasion is used to acquire more cards, and Swords help your troops fight for the current round’s rewards as shown on the revealed Conflict card.

Defeat your rivals in combat, shrewdly navigate the political factions, and acquire precious cards. The Spice must flow to lead your House to victory!

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Open Drafting
  • Take That
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.00

Distilled

| T3d-1978

Distilled is a highly thematic strategy card game about crafting spirits in a distillery, with resource management and push-your-luck elements. In the game, you have inherited a distillery and are hoping to someday achieve the title of master distiller through purchasing goods, building up your distillery, and creating the world’s most renowned spirits.

Use cards to purchase new ingredients and invest in upgrades to your distillery, all while eventually distilling the spirit and sending it to the warehouse. Once in the warehouse, age your spirit to enhance its flavor and bottle it to sell it for major profits!

Achieve the title of Master Distiller by having the most victory points at the end of the game. Points are obtained by distilling and selling spirits.

Game Mechanics:

  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Push Your Luck
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.89

Dinosaur World

| T3d-1978

The triumph of science that led to dinosaurs returning to the world once more has become public knowledge. New parks spring up regularly, often beginning operations even before everything has been finalized. There is no shortage of patrons eager to be entertained by these returned species in new and exciting ways. However, as with any form of entertainment, elements of triumph are often accompanied by elements of tragedy. This means it is of the utmost importance that you take every precaution by ensuring each visitor signs the safety waiver before enjoying the wonders of Dinosaur World!

Each round in Dinosaur World, you draft a new résumé card to acquire new workers; spend workers to take public actions building your park and acquiring DNA; spend further workers to take private actions improving that park; then drive your jeep around experiencing the wonder and excitement of what you have built! Throughout the game you acquire victory points through a variety of means — and possibly a few visitor deaths as a natural consequence of overly enthusiastic dinosaur encounters. At the end of the game, you lose points if you accumulated too many deaths, then the player with the most points wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • City Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.32