Tag: Area Control

When playing games with an Area Control aspect, players are typically rewarded for controlling the majority of a particular space.

World’s Fair 1893

| T3d-1978
World’s Fair 1893

World’s Fair 1893

The World’s Fair of 1893 in Chicago was a spectacular international exhibition that showcased many great achievements in science, technology, culture, and entertainment. Acting as organizers of the fair, players work diligently to increase their influence throughout the fair and obtain the grand exhibits that will be put on display. The organizer who has earned the best reputation when the fair begins will emerge the victor.

On each turn of World’s Fair 1893, the active player sends a supporter to one of the five areas and gathers all of the cards in it. New cards are then added to some of the areas, and the next player takes a turn.

The five areas represent sections of exhibits, like Fine Arts and Electricity. Cards may represent exhibit proposals in one of those five areas, influential people who provide bonus supporters, or tickets for attractions and concessions along the Midway.

The game consists of three scoring rounds, each triggered when players collectively gather a certain number of Midway tickets. Players gain reputation points for leading in number of supporters in an area and for gathering the most tickets in each round. The leaders in an area also receive approval for exhibit proposals they have gathered that match the area. Players gain reputation points at the end of the game based on the breadth and diversity of their approved exhibits.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 35 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Wise Guys

| T3d-1978
Wise Guys

Wise Guys

Wise Guys is a quick-to-learn, cutthroat, area-control board game in which you play as one of four rival gangs seeking to strike it rich as “Rum Runners” on the rough streets of Chicago at the height of the roaring 20s.

Each turn, players wheel, deal, talk, and fight to control locations where they buy and sell alcohol, help politicians get elected, and get help in return or double-cross rival gangs. Negotiate, threaten, and ally with rival gangs when it serves your needs, but be wary of the inevitable knife in the back…

Over six rounds, players take turns driving to locations in the city represented by the grid of cards at the center of the board. Different locations provide access to materials, cash, or clout that the player’s gang members can “acquire” through trade, earning profit from property within their territory or by exploiting parts of the city under the control of a rival gang. All players must maintain a certain discretion as selling too much in one round will draw unwanted attention or else saturate the city in liquor — and your fellow mafioso won’t be too happy about lost profits.

The gang with the most cash at the end of the game wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Control
  • Dice Rolling
  • Negotiation
  • Trading
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

WildStyle

| T3d-1978
WildStyle

WildStyle

Welcome to Wildstyle, where the city is your canvas and the streets belong to the people. Rock to the beat of your favorite pirate radio station while you and your crew tag the city. Make sure your rivals know where their turf ends and where yours begins. Watch out for the man though, because not everyone in the city appreciates your artistic endeavors and they might call the fuzz on you!

The goal of the game is to tag locations across the city’s districts with your crew’s color. You’ll do this by collecting sets of cards with matching location icons. Each time you collect a set of 3 cards that all have the same icon, you get to place a tag on a hex with that icon anywhere on the map.

The game is played over 3 rounds and there are no turns! Once a round has started everyone takes their actions at the same time in any order they choose. There are 5 main actions:
– Draw a card: Draw the top card from any draw pile into your hand.
– Add to a set: Play a card from your hand or from the top of the share pile onto a set pile on your crew mat.
– Share a card: Play a card from your hand onto a share pile that is empty or has the matching color or icon on top.
– Complete a set: Clear a set of 3 cards from your crew mat and place a tag on a matching map hex.
– Rush a set: Take a cop car token to clear an incomplete set and place a tag on a matching map hex.

The end of the round is triggered either when all draw piles are empty or once only 1 player has tags remaining on their map. Each player gets 6 crew tags from the supply and another round commences. The game ends after 3 rounds and you’ll score for objectives and for each map hex where you have a tag AND lose points for cop cars and solo tags. The crew with the most points wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

War Chest

| T3d-1978
War Chest

War Chest

War Chest is an all-new bag-building war game! At the start of the game, raise your banner call (drafting) several various units into your army, which you then use to capture key points on the board. To succeed in War Chest, you must successfully manage not only your armies on the battlefield, but those that are waiting to be deployed.

Each round you draw three unit coins from your bag, then take turns using them to perform actions. Each coin shows a military unit on one side and can be used for one of several actions. The game ends when one player — or one team in the case of a four-player game — has placed all of their control markers. That player or team wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Abstract Strategy
  • Area Control
  • Deck Building
  • Grid Movement
  • Hand Management
  • Team Based
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.32

Waggle Dance

| T3d-1978
Waggle Dance

Waggle Dance

Build a beehive, collect nectar, and make honey while also being efficient, being strategic, and outmaneuvering your opponents!

In Waggle Dance, a Euro-style worker-placement dice game for 2-4, players control worker bees to build their hive, produce more bees, collect nectar, return it to the hive and make honey! (What is a “waggle dance” you ask? It’s a series of patterned movements performed by a scouting bee to tell other bees in the colony the direction and distance of a food source or hive site.)

Players need to organize their bees to make as much honey as possible to see the hive through the coming winter. The winner is the first player to successfully create 7 or more honey tokens in their hive. It’s up to you how to achieve this: Do you focus on nectar collection, increasing your bee population, expanding your hive, seeking favor with the queen, or splitting your resources to accomplish all of these? Whatever you choose, the natural world is a competitive environment and you can be sure the other players will be looking to maximize their advantage.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Dice Rolling
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.31

Tyrants of the Underdark

| T3d-1978
Tyrants of the Underdark

Tyrants of the Underdark

Tyrants of the Underdark is a territory control game with a deck-building element.

Each player leads a house of Drow in a section of the Underdark below the Sword Coast. The Drow house is represented by a deck of cards, with each card being a minion in that player’s deck. Each minion belongs to one of five aspects of Drow society, and those aspects correspond to different strategies in the game, e.g., malice minions excel at assassinating opponents’ troops, while ambition minions are best at recruiting additional minions and promoting minions to your “inner circle”, which is a special zone that increases their value at the end of the game.

When you set up the game, you create an 80-card deck by shuffling two 40-card half-decks together, with the half-decks being Drow, Dragons, Demons, and Elementals.

A central marketplace has new minions that can be recruited through influence, one of two resources in the game; purchased cards are placed in your discard pile, then shuffled together with other cards in your deck when needed. The other resource is power, which allows you to place troops on the game board, expand your forces across the map of the Underdark, manipulate happenings in the city, and assassinate enemy troops.

Players gain points by controlling sites, recruiting valuable minions, promoting minions to your inner circle, and assassinating troops, and whoever ends the game with the most points wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Deck Building

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.55

Tidal Blades: Banner Festival

| T3d-1978
Tidal Blades: Banner Festival

Tidal Blades: Banner Festival

Flags of all colors dance in the wind as Navirians converge to Trawl for the long-awaited Banner Festival.

Generate the most profits for your trading house by selling goods, befriending the right suppliers, and making bets at the watercraft race. Opportunities abound in the floating market, but only the keenest trader will prevail!

  • Each turn, aim to play the highest, mid, or lowest Merchandise card to unlock different actions.
  • Utilize multi-use cards in dynamic trick-taking bouts to gain an advantage over your rival merchants.
  • There are numerous paths to victory, but reading your opponents and timing your moves is the key to success!

All set in the glorious world of Tidal Blades created by Mr. Cuddington.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Hand Managment

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Super Fantasy Brawl

| T3d-1978
Super Fantasy Brawl

Super Fantasy Brawl

In the land of Fabulosa, powerful magics have rendered war obsolete. With nothing else to compete for, the bored populace has turned to the Super Brawl for entertainment. These same powerful magics are now used to reach back into the timelines to pluck out the finest warriors from every civilization in order to compete against each other in the greatest entertainment spectacle ever staged.

Super Fantasy Brawl is a fun, fast-paced competitive miniatures board game. Players select a team of three champions and combine their unique action cards to create a synergistic action deck. The game is faction-free, so players have their choice of any combination of champions they wish. Each turn, the players use their hand of action cards to maneuver, attack, displace enemies, and claim objectives to score victory points.

The objectives in Super Fantasy Brawl are only scored at the beginning of a players’ turn, ensuring that you always get a chance to disrupt your enemy’s plans and position your champions to score the objective for yourself. This tactical to-and-fro continues until one player reaches the victory point threshold, declaring themselves the winner and advancing towards victory in the Super Brawl tournament!

Super Fantasy Brawl will also offer a 2v2 mode for 4 players to clash in an all-out melee mashup!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Deck Building
  • Grid Movement
  • Hand Management
  • Team Based
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 40 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.28

Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem

| T3d-1978
Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem

Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem

Based on the hit TV series, in Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem players take the role of rival gangs out to control territory, accumulate contraband and reap the monetary rewards of illegal enterprise.

With each turn gangs must attempt to control a range of sites by assigning gang members and resources to claiming, defending and fighting for money, contraband and guns. However, other players can challenge the right for territory, which will lead to conflict! Negotiate, threaten and ally with rival gangs when it serves your needs, but be wary of the inevitable knife in the back. This game is about making and breaking alliances, and only the gang with the most money at the end of six rounds wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Control
  • Dice Rolling
  • Negotiation
  • Take That
  • Trading
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.56

Sonora

| T3d-1978
Sonora

Sonora

You have entered the Sonoran Desert, a place of vast beauty. Technicolor sunsets pop out over vistas revealing deep canyons, trickling tributaries, and ancient pueblo cliff dwellings. Immerse yourself in the secrets of the desert in a flick-and-write game in which cunning and dexterity meet.

In Sonora, players flick wooden discs onto a game board representative of different vibrant landscapes across the Sonoran sands. Each area encompasses a different unique game, so skillful aim is required to play in the region of a player’s choosing and score points on your dry-erase sheet! But watch out for other players eager to bump discs to score points for themselves.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Control
  • Dexterity
  • Networker Building
  • Paper and Pencil
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.32