Archive for the 'Spiel 2013' Category

Like many gamers, I’m always looking for the grail of wargames – an epic-feeling, tactical game with detail, potential for real strategy, limited luck-based elements, and that plays in just a few hours with simple rules.  Admiral’s Order may not tick all those boxes, but the grand scale of it makes me want to find the time to be able to play it.

The part that appeals to me is the tactical play of creating lines of ships, and turning and positioning them to attack the enemy – the sort of thing you see in historical documentaries (and what I was so bad at doing when I played Battlefleet Gothic many years ago).  As you would expect, the wind direction plays an important role in your manoeuvres too.

Players take control of dozens of ships of the line in different naval battles from 1775 – 1815.  The base game contains 74 hand-made ships which do look very cool.  There is a lot of detail in the game including each ship’s status being tracked individually.  The game’s web site says a battle between two frigates may take a couple of hours so playing time seems to be quite long.  The expansion that is available adds a further 60 ships so you can play out the whole Battle of Trafalgar, although it does say that would take an entire weekend!  Totally bonkers, but it’s the kind of crazy I admire.

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Freedom is a co-operative game of freeing slaves in 19th Century America which I think is a great concept.  The board shows the Eastern United States with routes between cities and cubes to represent the slaves.

Each turn is broken into several phases.  First, the slave catchers move along their paths based on a dice roll.  Next, each player chooses which 2 tokens to take and, once all players have selected theirs, they take turns using the tokens.  Some tokens earn income based on where slave cubes are located, some tokens move slave cubes (must be purchased), and the final token type (which also must be purchased) moves the abolitionist movement ahead.  This last token type has game effects plus players must have bought all 8 by the end of the game to fulfil one of the conditions required to win. Read the rest of this entry »

1911 Amundsen vs Scott is a simple 2-player race to the South Pole (and back to the boats if you play the extra advanced variant).  The game is based on the real events where Amundsen beat Scott to the Pole and Scott didn’t return.

Players each have their own path of coloured spaces to move along.  On a player’s turn, they first draw cards which has a nice, simple game mechanic/decision.  There are 3 face-up cards and the player can take the right-most (oldest) 1, 2 or 3 cards, and any remaining cards get moved to the right.  Each cards show one of 4 colours as well as various special actions – some are used when the player draws the card, and some when a player plays the card.

After drawing cards, the player can either (a) play cards to move, or (b) play cards for their special effect (one of which makes the opponent lose their way or move backwards), or (c) play cards to find their route again (due to their opponent making them lose their way).  The first player to move onto the South Pole wins.

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Nosferatu is a group game for 5 to 8 players in the same sort of category as Resistance, Avalon and Werewolf.

One player is Nosferatu’s help Renfield and the other players are vampire hunters.  Well, all apart from one who is actually Nosferatu.  The vampire hunters are trying to kill Nosferatu before the game ends; however, if they stake a legitimate vampire hunter (who is not Nosferatu) then they lose.  So, the vampire hunters have to work out which if them is Nosferatu.

The Renfield player hands out the cards that say who is Nosferatu and who is not so Renfield knows Nosferatu’s identity.  Rather than just leaving it down to talking, the players have cards they must play too.

At the start of a round, each player (except Renfield) draws 2 library cards into their hand.  They then discard 1 from their hand (face-up) and give 1 card from their hand to Renfield (face-down).   Then, they reveal a clock card (the clock deck consists of one night card per player plus one dawn card).  If the clock card is dawn, this phase ends so some players may miss their chance to draw cards. Read the rest of this entry »

Panik is a simple card game that sounds like Ghostbusters in all but name – so that appeals to me straight-away.  Each player starts with a team of 9 ghost hunters and 4 random manor cards.  Players look at their manor cards, choose one to place face-up, and place the other 3 face-down (with one of their tandem ghost hunter cards next to one of the face-down manors).

Players then take turns placing one of their ghost hunters next to any mansion (whether it’s face-up or face-down).  Each manor can have a maximum of 4 ghost hunters next to it.  When a player places a ghost hunter next to one of their own manors, they can also expel any one ghost hunter already placed there (its owner chooses which other manor it is placed next to instead).

Some hunters have special powers like revealing any face-down manor card, or moving a hunter to their location.  Some hunters’ power is that they can not be expelled. Read the rest of this entry »

Francis Drake is a game of sailing, looting and plundering.  So, already, I’m thinking, what’s not to like?  From reading the rules, the game appears to have some very promising gameplay within it too.

Before setting out on to the high seas, players prepare for their journey in the streets of Plymouth by buying/gaining guns, crew, supplies, goods for trading, etc.  The 18 locations that can be used for these preparations are laid out in a long line (street) and the players take turns using a location by placing one of their 10 action discs on the location.  However, players can select an action further down the street from their last action (never backwards).  Also, some locations have limited uses and some of the actions on a location are better than others – so players will want to progress slowly so they can use lots of different locations, but move quickly so they are first to use a location and get the most from it.  This is very similar to Egizia (one of my favourite games) which is a very engaging game mechanic.

Once the players have all finished their preparations, they each set sail.  On the board are various destinations which are comprised of islands (with towns and forts) and galleons which can be attacked, as well as trade ports where players can exchange goods they have brought with them.  Players take turns placing numbered mission discs of their colour next to the destinations they wish to attack (or trade with).  The mission discs are placed face-down so players do not know the numbers that other players have placed, and are revealed when all discs have been placed. Read the rest of this entry »

30 Carats is a game of trading but with an interesting twist.  Each player starts with one of each gem (one colour for each player) and some gold.  The winner is the player with the highest value of gems and gold at the end of the game.

The values of each type of colour gem are determined by cards which range from +30 to -30 each.  However, at the start of the game, each player only knows the value of one of the colours of gems because each player is given one value card each (and that’s the value of the gem colour that matches their player screen).  Gold nuggets are always worth +10 each.

Players takes turns and the game lasts 3 rounds.  On a player’s turn, they will offer a mix of gems and/or gold and the other players will bid some of their gems/gold in return.  If the player accepts one of these offers, the two players swap their offered gems/gold.  However, before the current player makes their offer, they reveal a transaction card which gives them some rules as to what the offer must contain and also whether the other player’s bids will be made simultaneously or sequentially.  The rules are things like using specific gem colours, or mixtures.

If the current player does not want (or is unable) to swap with another player, they can swap their offer with the bank.  The bank is a bag that is filled with some gems and gold at the start of the game.  The player pays a few gold nuggets to do this and draws items blindly from the bag so they receive the same number that they put in.  (In anything other than a 3-player game, a player can also pay gold to look at another player’s value card.) Read the rest of this entry »

Theseus is a sci-fi game set on a space station where the different factions (soldiers, scientists, aliens and greys) are trying to take control.  They do this by either reducing a faction to zero life points, and the scientists and grey can win by collecting 20 data points.

Players take turns moving their units around different locations (sectors) on the space station and playing cards.  Each sector is a separate board piece which are arranged in a circle: one sector for each player’s faction, plus one each for the corridors, control room and tech bay.  Each sector has spaces for cards (that players will be placed during the game) as well as 4 rooms.

On their turn, a player moves one of their units a number of sectors clockwise equal to the number of units currently on their unit’s starting sector (which reminds me of the movement system in Finca – and that’s a good thing).  After their move, a unit is placed in one of the new sector’s 4 rooms (arranged in a 2 x 2 grid).  Some rooms have walls between them which affects combat.  If all 4 rooms are full, the arriving player ejects a unit into space and takes their position.  (Already I can see some humourously nasty screwage of other players.)  If a unit’s move means all the rooms in a sector are now full, combat occurs in that sector and all units attack anyone they can based on who they can see and what combat ability they have.  (Only soldiers have combat ability to start; whereas, other factions’ units need upgrading first.) Read the rest of this entry »

Citrus is a new game by Jeffrey D Allers who has created some great games such as Alea Iacta Est and Sahne (Piece o’Cake), as well as the forthcoming Artifact which is being released this Spiel too.

Citrus is a eurogame where players are growing fruit plantations.  In the middle of the table is the main board showing farming land (grid) with several building sites and fincas.  During the game, players place plantations of different fruits (tiles) onto the board to grow their own groups of matching tiles.

Each turn, a player can either Build or Harvest.  When a player builds, they buy plantation tiles from the market (which is an odd-shaped grid) and pays 1 coin per tile; however, they must buy all the tiles in a single row on the market grid and they must be able to place all the tiles they buy onto the board too.  Players can not hold onto tiles in between turns.

Players can places plantation tiles onto the board to expand a group of matching tiles they already own, or they can start a new group of tiles by placing one next to an available finca.  The four starting points next to each finca must contain a different type of fruit.  Placing tiles on some specific locations gain the player a landscape tile which give extra points or special actions. Read the rest of this entry »

Letnisko (Summer Resort) is a game by the designer of Kolejka (Queue) which is one of my favourite games.  In Letnisko, players are running a summer resort near Warsaw in the 1930’s.

Each player starts with 2 plots of lands and one of these has a cottage on it.  During the game, players will buy new plots and build bigger and more varied accommodations which will attract and suit different types of vacationers.

Each round the train arrives with vacationers.  Vacationer cards are drawn based on the number and type of accommodations that have been built so far, plus an extra amount are drawn based on that round’s weather card.  These are shuffled and dealt out onto the train’s carriages in sequence.  If there are lots of vacationers then there will be more than one vacationer in some carriages.

Next, players take turns taking actions.  A player can either: 1. Go to greet some new vacationers from the train (gain vacationer cards), 2. Receive a package from the train conductor (gain cash), or 3. Invest (build/improve buildings, buy land, etc.) Read the rest of this entry »