Tag: Area Movement

Area Movement is a mechanic in which players move various pieces into and out of areas provided that the areas are properly connected.

Western Legends: Blood Money

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

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

V-Sabotage

V-Sabotage

V-Sabotage

V-Commandos is a WW2 commandos co-operative board game. Players can either select a pre-generated mission or create their own by combining objective cards, then they assemble a team from famous Allied corps: U.S. Raiders, British SAS., Devil’s Brigade, SOE, etc. During play, you hide in darkness, wear enemy uniforms, and sneak up on your targets. Get spotted? Open fire with emblematic allied weapons and try to turn the enemy’s weapons against them! If you can, get back to cover and turn off the alarms as the enemy has more available troops than you. Thus, you need to focus on completing the mission, then leaving the area as quickly as you can.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Movement
  • Campaign
  • Cooperative
  • Dice Rolling
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.71

Unfathomable

Unfathomable

Unfathomable

The year is 1913. The steamship SS Atlantica is two days out from port on its voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Its unsuspecting passengers fully anticipated a calm journey to Boston, Massachusetts, with nothing out of the ordinary to look forward to. However, strange nightmares plague the minds of the people aboard the ship every night; rumors circulate of dark shapes following closely behind the ship just beneath the waves; and tensions rise when a body is discovered in the ship’s chapel, signs of a strange ritual littered around the corpse.

Lurking within the depths of the Atlantic Ocean are a swarm of vicious, unspeakable horrors: the Deep Ones, led by Mother Hydra and Father Dagon. For reasons unknown, they have set their sights on the Atlantica, and their minions, taking the form of human-Deep One hybrids, have infiltrated the steamship to help sink it from within. Each game of Unfathomable has one or more players assuming the role of one of these hybrids, and how well they can secretly sabotage the efforts of the other players might mean the difference between a successful voyage and a sunken ship.

If you’re a human, you need to fend off Deep Ones, prevent the Atlantica from taking too much damage, and carefully manage the ship’s four crucial resources if you want any hope of making it to Boston, all while trying to figure out which of your fellow players are friends and which are foes. Everyone shares the same resource pool, but humans will try to preserve them while traitors will strive to subtly deplete them. Being able to tell when someone is purposefully draining the group’s resources is harder than you think, especially when you take crises into account!

At the end of each player’s turn, that player must draw a mythos card. Each of these cards represents a crisis that the whole group must try to resolve together. Some of these crises, such as “Food Rationing”, call for a choice that could potentially put the ship’s passengers or resources at risk, while others, such as “Hull Leak”, call for a skill test in which failure could have disastrous consequences.

During a skill test, each player contributes skill cards from their hand to a face-down pile shared by the group. Once everyone has contributed (or chosen not to), the cards are shuffled, then revealed. If enough of the correct skills were contributed, then the group passes the test! But if the wrong skills were contributed, they can actually hinder the results, leading to failure. Thus, skill tests are dangerous opportunities for traitors to sabotage the humans’ efforts, so you have to stay on your toes at all times.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Bluffing
  • Deduction
  • Hand Management
  • Hidden Roles
  • Team Based

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 6 Players
  • 120 – 240 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.94

Tungaru

Tungaru

Tungaru

In a time when early sea-faring Polynesians roamed the Pacific they came across the archipelago of Tungaru, today also known as Gilbert Islands. Rich in nutrients and resources they set about colonising these lands and spreading their culture.

Tungaru sets players as early Polynesians in this dice placement and resource conversion, medium-weight euro game. Players will jump from island to island in an effort to recruit Nomads as new tribe members, colonise land, spread their culture and exchange goods. Players use dice as workers, Leader cards which are blind revealed which are then given to your neighbour and custom shaped meeples specific to their tribe. All in an effort to be the most successful tribe!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Civilization
  • Dice Rolling
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.91

Shogun Big Box

Shogun Big Box

Shogun Big Box

Shogun Big Box includes the base game of Shogun and its expansion Shogun: Tenno’s Court, as well as three small modules: SamuraiMilitary Leaders and Chambers, with the latter two unique to this release.

With Samurai, each player receives a stack of cards showing progressively better bonuses. At the beginning of each round, if a player controls provinces in at least four regions, they reveal the next card in their stack and select one of the bonuses depicted on it. These bonuses include war chests, armies placed directly into the tower tray, rice and victory points.

With Military Leaders, every player is given one military leader figure to place on one of their controlled provinces. A player’s leader provides extra benefits for performing actions in their province, such as reducing the cost for buildings or providing extra resources when collecting rice or taxes. At the end of a player’s turn, they move their leader to an adjacent province they control and leave a marker at the old location – if they don’t control any provinces adjacent to where their leader is, they move their leader to any of their controlled provinces without leaving a marker behind. The more markers a player has on the board at the end of the game, the more points will be awarded!

For Chambers, many offices have to be taken in order to rule the land. At the beginning of each round, six chamber markers are revealed and placed on the corresponding spaces on the chamber tableau, representing available offices that can be filled by the players. Whoever controls the most provinces in each region can fill the position by exchanging the chamber marker on the tableau with one of their own player markers. At the end of the game, players are awarded extra points for majorities in horizontal and vertical lines on the chamber tableau.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Auction/Bidding
  • Economic

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 5 Players
  • 120 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.25

Rurik: Dawn of Kiev

Rurik: Dawn of Kiev

Rurik: Dawn of Kiev

Rurik: Dawn of Kiev is a euro-style realm building game set in an 11th century Eastern European Kingdom. It features area control, resource management, and a new game mechanic – “auction programming.”

You play as a potential successor to the throne following the death of your father, Vladimir the Great, in 1015. The people value a well-rounded leader, so you must establish your legacy by building, taxing, fighting, and accomplishing great deeds. Will you win over the hearts of the people to become the next ruler of Kievan Rus?

Rurik brings to life the ancient culture of Kievan Rus with game design by Russian designer Stanislav Kordonskiy and illustrations by Ukrainian artist Yaroslav Radeckyi.

In Rurik, players openly bid for actions with their advisors. Stronger advisors earn greater benefits at the cost of performing their action later than other players. Conversely, weaker advisors earn lesser benefits but perform their action quickly. This planning mechanism (“auction programming”) adds a fun tension to the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Auction/Bidding
  • Civilization
  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.07

Ruination

Ruination

Ruination

The world ended so long ago that none remember its name. From its ashes rose the Khanate, whose citadel guards the last aquifer. The immortal Khan commands that only the most worthy may drink from its waters. Thus the hordes ready themselves for battle. Win, and lead your people onward… Die, and be forgotten!

Ruination is a 2-4 player area control and civilization game set in post-apocalyptic Eurasia. Using an innovative action system, players will gather resources to acquire advantages from the wreckage of the world before, bolster their armies with powerful exiles, and march across The Wasteland to war. Only the strongest and most canny horde will rule beside the Khan in this new world.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.00

Robotech: Attack on the SDF-1

Robotech: Attack on the SDF-1

Robotech: Attack on the SDF-1

In Robotech: Attack on the SDF-1, you play heroic characters of the venerable Super Dimension Fortress One, also known as the SDF-1. Players are thrown on a chaotic path as alien forces, known as the Zentraedi, attack without warning. You must defend the SDF-1 against continuous waves of Zentraedi attacks, unexpected disasters, and treachery. As a hero, you are forced to battle vicious enemies, repair damage, and manage resources. Tough decisions and sacrifices are required for you to reach home safely.

If the Heroes can keep the SDF-1 from being captured by the Zentraedi and make it to the end of the Scenario, they win. Beware as there are many ways to lose, and the Zentraedi will not give up…

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Cooperative

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 120 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.75

Rising Sun

Rising Sun

Rising Sun

The great and forgotten Kami have returned from the underworld, displeased with the affairs of the Empire’s present Shōgun. At the start of spring in the Great New Year, the Kami have gathered their sacred clans with one quest: reclaim the lands of Nippon and return them to their honorable, spiritual traditions. However, each clan is bound by their own proud traditions to a unique vision for this great return and must wage a powerful diplomatic war across eight provinces. Alliances must be forged, betrayal is inevitable, honorable standing rises and falls. Political mandates must be navigated and devastating war must be fought, each won by expert skill and cunning negotiation. And only one may stand victorious at the coming of winter. You, honorable Shōgun, lead one of these great clans. Do you have the strength of honor, virtue, and spirit, as well as the mastery of steel necessary to deliver on this ancient promise?

Rising Sun is a board game for 3 to 5 players set in legendary feudal Japan. Each player chooses a Clan and competes to lead theirs to victory by accumulating Victory Points over the course of the Seasons. Each Clan possesses a unique ability and differs in Seasonal Income, Starting Honor Rank, and Home Province.
Over the course of the game, players will forge and break alliances, choose political actions, worship the gods, customize their clans, and position their figures around Japan. In the process, Honor is a palpable element in Rising Sun: Having high Honor gives several advantages, while having low Honor may grant the allegiance of the darker elements of the world. But above all, Honor settles all disputes: Whenever there is a tie, the tied player with the highest Honor wins.

In Rising Sun, players are encouraged to use diplomacy, negotiation, and even bribery to further their cause. Players can make deals at any point in the game but no deals are truly binding.
Victory Points can be gained in several ways, from winning battles, to harvesting the right provinces, to playing to the Virtues accumulated by your Clan.

The game is played over the course of 4 rounds or Seasons: Spring, Summer, and then Autumn; when Winter comes, the game draws to a close and players calculate bonuses to decide who is the winner.
Each Season is divided into five phases:
1) Seasonal Setup because every Season has a certain Season deck with different cards,
2) Tea Ceremony in which players sit down and negotiate their Alliances for the Season,
3) Political Phase during which players will select Political Mandates to prepare their Clans and position their forces,
4) War Phase, during which players battle over several Provinces, and
5) Seasonal Cleanup.

As already mentioned, the start of the Winter Season signifies the end of the game. Peace falls over the land as it gets covered in white snow, and a new Emperor will rise under the power of the great Kami.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Bluffing
  • Closed Drafting
  • Negotiation
  • Set Collection
  • Take That
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 5 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.29