Category: Ω Board Games

Orleans Invasion / Trade & Intrigue

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Orleans Invasion / Trade & Intrigue

Orleans Invasion / Trade & Intrigue

Orléans: Trade & Intrigue is the second large expansion for the award-winning game Orléans.

This expansion adds new place tiles and four new modules:

  • Orders: a new set of cards, each depicting goods and a city – collect the goods and turn them in at the city for victory points
  • New Events: a completely new set of 34 Hour Glass Tiles from which 18 are semi-randomly chosen for each game
  • New Beneficial Deeds: a replacement Beneficial Deeds board providing completely new rewards for sending away your Followers
  • Intrigue: a replacement Beneficial Deeds board allowing you to attack and hinder your opponents or even steal from them

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Pick-Up and Deliver
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.39

Orleans

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Orleans

Orleans

During the medieval goings-on around Orléans, you must assemble a following of farmers, merchants, knights, monks, etc. to gain supremacy through trade, construction and science in medieval France.

In Orléans, you will recruit followers and put them to work to make use of their abilities. Farmers and Boatmen supply you with money and goods; Knights expand your scope of action and secure your mercantile expeditions; Craftsmen build trading stations and tools to facilitate work; Scholars make progress in science; Traders open up new locations for you to use your followers; and last but not least, it cannot hurt to get active in monasteries since with Monks on your side you are much less likely to fall prey to fate.

You will always want to take more actions than possible, and there are many paths to victory. The challenge is to combine all elements as best as possible with regard to your strategy.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.04

Of War and Men WWII

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Of War and Men WWII

Of War and Men WWII

Of War and Men is a WWII based, squad-level card game that introduces the individual heart of a soldier into the framework and strategies of war. Build effective fireteams and create or discover the land as you cross the war torn map and try to outflank, outmaneuver, and out gun the enemy. As any good leader, you must consider the individual strengths and weaknesses of your soldiers to make sure your Mission is a success.
In one Mission, you must rescue or capture the Resistance soldier who has recovered secret plans and get them safely back to your camp. In another, you must parachute into the landing zone and capture the bridge in order to win the day. This 2-4 person game can be played within an hour, or track your soldiers across an entire campaign, awarding medals for courage and valor, while determining the ability of green troops coming in to replace lost heroes. Replay-ability is high since each encounter will vary based on Mission, fireteams, map builds, and general unpredictability of war.

But these aren’t just pieces on a board. You aren’t just sending in soldier #2, but rather, you are sending in Corporal “Pokey” Johnston. His bio informs you that he’s a down home roots kind of guy from Colorado. He hasn’t been able to hit the broadside of a barn on this mission. However, you’ve been saving that “Act of Valor” card and you decide to play it with Corporal Johnston and he turns the tide of battle. These aren’t just names on a roster. These aren’t just numbers on a map. These are your men. These are your brothers in arms.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Campaign
  • Hand Management
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.00

Northgard

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Northgard: Uncharted Lands

Northgard: Uncharted Lands

Based on the universe of the Northgard video game, Northgard: Uncharted Lands is a game of conquest and exploration set in the age of vikings. Each player controls a Viking clan, looking to achieve victory by reaping glory in various ways or controlling the most prized territories of this new continent.

The game focus is on streamlined rules and mechanisms, allowing for a fast-paced and smooth rhythm of play. Each turn, players alternate their actions to adapt their strategies to their opponents’ moves and the expansion of the board. Fame (i.e., points) can be earned by exploring, fighting, and controlling and developing territories. The various corresponding actions are played through the cards that the players have in hand. At the end of each turn, they have to choose a new card to improve their personal deck as their clans develop new tactics and technologies.

The conquest of Northgard also requires clever management of resources to build new buildings, improve your warriors’ effectiveness, better your hand of cards, and upgrade your clan’s specificities. The winter phase makes this management more difficult as you have to feed your units to keep them healthy and happy.

The pace of the game is set by the players as the game ends after seven turns, but can also be cut short at any time if one of them is in control of three closed territories hosting certain types of buildings.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Campaign
  • Deck Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.73

No Honor Among Thieves

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No Honor Among Thieves

No Honor Among Thieves

No Honor Among Thieves is a competitive/cooperative game for three to six players, in which each player assembles a crew of thieves and sets out to see who can steal the most from the rich and powerful of the kingdom.

Each player is the head of their own crew, which consists of different character cards recruited from an array of thieves available for hire. These characters are then sent on heists to try and overcome defense cards in front of objectives, using their different sets of skills to bypass guards, traps and walls to get to the filthy lucre that they’re after. Players not involved in the heist will, of course, try and stop the thieves in their tracks by playing Scheme cards, which represent the quirks of fate which might cause a heist to fail–unexpectedly alert guards, City Watch patrols, or the simple mistake that leads to disaster.

Staging a heist alone is difficult, but working together with other players leaves you open to betrayal by your so-called allies, or gives you the chance to betray them, and take it all for yourself. Once any player has been betrayed, the game changes, and more dangerous abilities on different cards can now be played. The Assassin begins killing other characters, the Pickpocket starts stealing from players, the Fall Guy takes the blame, and the whole table becomes a little more vicious. Thieves like to believe they have a code of honor, but once that illusion is broken, there is no going back.

What will you risk to be the richest and cleverest thief in this city of rogues?

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Bluffing
  • Deck Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Take That
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 6 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.67

Newton

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Newton

Newton

The middle of the 17th century was a period of great changes; with the advent of the scientific method came what we now call the Scientific Revolution. Many great scientists, with their theories and ideas, changed and shaped our perception of the universe: Galileo Galilei, Copernicus, Kepler, Bacon and, above all, Sir Isaac Newton.

In Newton, the players take the role of a young scientist who wants to become one of the great geniuses of this era. To reach their ultimate goal, they travel around Europe, visit universities and cities, study to discover new theories, build new tools and work to earn money.

The game is played over six rounds. Each round, every player plays five cards from their hand, and each played card allows the player to perform one of the many actions of the game. An action can have a variety of effects, which depend on the symbols on the board. At the end of the round, a player can take back all the cards except for one. One card has to remain on the board, which means that you give up one possibility of doing that action, but also that that very action will be carried out with greater strength. Fortunately, you can acquire new cards with additional powers to perform more actions.

After six rounds, you calculate your final score, and the player with the most VP wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Closed Drafting
  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Tableau Building
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.40

Nemo’s War

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Nemo’s War

Nemo’s War

Set in year 1870, you set sail in this amazing electric-powered submarine, assuming the role and motive of Captain Nemo as you travel across the seas on missions of science, exploration, anti-Imperialism, and War!

With this supercharged second edition of Nemo’s War, prepare yourself for the adventure of a lifetime!

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Cooperative
  • Dice Rolling
  • Push Your Luck
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.20

Near and Far

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Near and Far

Near and Far

Four wanderers search for the Last Ruin, a city that legends say contains an artifact that will grant the greatest desires of the heart. A lost love, redemption, acceptance, a family rejoined– these are the fires that fuel the wanderers’ journeys, but can they overcome their own greed and inner demons on the way?

In Near and Far, you and up to three friends explore many different maps in a search for the Last Ruin, recruiting adventurers, hunting for treasure, and competing to be the most storied traveler. You must collect food and equipment at town for long journeys to mysterious locales, making sure not to forget enough weapons to fight off bandits, living statues, and rusty robots! Sometimes in your travels you’ll run into something unique and one of your friends will read what happens to you from a book of stories, giving you a choice of how to react, creating a new and memorable tale each time you play.

Near and Far is a sequel to Above and Below and includes a book of encounters. This time players read over ten game sessions to reach the end of the story. Each chapter is played on a completely new map with unique art and adventures.

Answer the call of the ruins and begin your journey.

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Dice Rolling
  • Narrative Choice
  • Network Building
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Storytelling
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.87

Napoleon Saga: Waterloo

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Napoleon Saga: Waterloo

Napoleon Saga: Waterloo

Napoleon Saga is a strategic card-wargame for two players that lets them play the 1815 Belgium campaign battles opposing the French army to the coalition force.

In this game, each player has two decks of cards that represent his army and his strategic plans. They deploy their starting troops on the board and alternate turns to defeat their opponent in one of two ways:

  • Disbanding the opposing army by emptying their ranks.
  • Reaching at least ten Victory points by defeating enemy units and completing secret objectives.

You can recreate famous historical battles such as Quatre-Bras, Ligny, Waterloo or Wavre with the scenarios included in the two expansions, (the base game contains no scenarios), or you can change history by building your own armies with the deck-building aspect of the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.00

My Father’s Work

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My Father's Work

My Father's Work

The walls were lined with iron shelves, each metal slat overfilled with glass jars containing formaldehyde and grotesque curiosities within. Pristine brass tools and refined metals of a quality I had never before laid eyes upon were strewn across sturdy slabs of rock and wood, their edges sharp with use. However, my eyes were soon drawn to a sturdy writing desk, its mahogany eaves inlaid with thin strips of copper, the center of which contained a well-worn leather-bound book. My father’s journal — passed down to me and representing years of knowledge and countless experiments. And inside that weathered tome, atop the pearly parchment oxidized yellow at its frayed edges, were the deliberate quill marks of a crazed genius outlining the ambitious project he could never complete in one lifetime — his masterwork.

Without realizing it, my hands were shaking as I clutched the book to my chest. At once, I felt an ownership and anxiety for the scientific sketches scrawled so eloquently on those frayed sheets. It was at that moment that I began my obsession: I would restore this laboratory to its former brilliance and dedicate my life to completing my father’s work!

In My Father’s Work, players are competing mad scientists entrusted with a page from their father’s journal and a large estate in which to perform their devious experiments. Players earn points by completing experiments, aiding the town in its endeavors, upgrading their macabre estates, and hopefully completing their father’s masterwork.

But they have to balance study and active experimentation because at the end of each generation, all of their experiments and resources are lost to time until their child begins again with only the “Journaled Knowledge and Estate” they have willed to them — and since the game is played over the course of three generations, it is inevitable that the players will rouse the townsfolk to form angry mobs or spiral into insanity from the ethically dubious works they have created. The player with the most points at the end of three generations wins and becomes the most revered, feared, ingenious scientist the world has ever known!

Game Mechanics:

  • Hand Management
  • Narrative Choice
  • Storytelling
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.20