New Year, new games 😉
Sentinels of the Multiverse: Wrath of the Cosmos
The far-reaches of space have converged on the earth! In Sentinels of the Multiverse: Wrath of the Cosmos, heroes must join forces to defend the world from threats from beyond our galaxy. This expansion includes two cosmic heroes, four destructive villains, and two far-flung environments.
The Cosmos are leaving their mark on the Multiverse! Do you have what it takes to save the earth from the impending annihilation?
Robot Turtles (Second Edition) is a board game for kids ages 3-8. Kids won’t know it, but while they’re playing, they’re learning the fundamentals of programming.
Every player (“Turtle Master”) takes a turtle and a matching deck of cards. Stack the cards face up on the table in piles, then build a maze for each player out of walls and a jewel. The youngest turtle master goes first, placing his first card down, then moving (or having his parent move) the turtle accordingly. As players progress, they build their program on the table; if they make a mistake, they can shout “Undo!” and debug it.
Before too long, kids figure out the secret of Robot Turtles: It lets the kids control the grown-ups! The little programmers put instruction cards down, driving the turtles through the maze, but the grown-up is the computer, executing commands on the board. At its heart, Robot Turtles is a game about bossing around adults, just like programming is about bossing around computers.
Guardians Chronicles is a superhero-themed miniatures game in which you play as one of the members of the Liberty Patrol or as the group’s archnemesis, Professor Skarov.
One player assumes the role of the Super Villain Pr. Skarov, while the rest of the players assume the role of Superheroes, each with unique Superpowers.
Depending on the scenario, the players must achieve a certain number of objectives to attain victory, while the evil Pr. Skarov attempts to thwart their efforts.
As the players complete (or fail to complete) objectives, the newspapers report on who did what, and the sum of those reports determine who comes out on top.
Legendary: Guardians of the Galaxy, an expansion for Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game, adds five new heroes to the game for players to recruit. Using these heroes, players can create their own powerful combos on the fly, combining their heroes’ awesome abilities to take down nasty Marvel Masterminds like the Kree Supreme Intelligence!
A cooperative game for 1-5 players. You control 3-5 Crewmen of a crashed starship through a desperate battle with the enraged Zothren Captain Jake Comet and the crew of The “Pioneer” need your help! They have crash landed on a planet inhabited by the hostile Zothrens, and must work together to repair the ship or stay alive until the rescue ship arrives. The odds are against them, and time is running out.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Deck-Building Game
In The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Deck-building Game, each player takes on the role of a member of The Company as they set out on the long and treacherous path to Lonely Mountain. Play as Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the Grey, Thorin Oakenshield, or others. Your Hero card will guide your strategy throughout the game, or you can break away with a plan of your own.
Each player starts with his own basic 10-card deck and draws a hand of 5 cards each turn. Power is the currency you will use to buy new, stronger cards to add to your deck. The goal of a deck-building game is to craft your personal deck into a well-oiled machine. There are five different types of cards that can be acquired: Enemies, Allies, Artifacts, Maneuvers, and Locations. A large, central stack of cards supplies a five-card “Path” from which players make their purchases. Each player will always have five face-up cards to choose from each turn, so every turn there are new options and surprises.
When you have amassed enough Power, you can take on an Archenemy! Each Archenemy has Loot cards you can acquire. Defeat a Troll and you might find Sting, Orcrist, or Glamdring! Take on The Goblin King and you might find the maneuvers you need to escape from the Misty Mountains. Azog is the final Archenemy, and he has unfinished business…
In the end, the player who has accumulated the most Victory Points from the cards in his or her deck wins the game.
Artificium is a card-driven development game. Some cards produce resources or transform one type of resources into another and award victory points, while others let you perform actions. Carefully planning the chain of cards that you will play during the game turn is the key to success.
Artificium lasts four turns. At the start of each turn, players have five cards in hand, with six cards being face-up on the table as a card market. During the turn, players first have a chance to exchange some cards from their hands with those in the market, then they play and resolve their cards step by step, performing actions, trading and gathering resources, and most importantly, refining certain resources into other resources to earn victory points. Crystals on the players’ individual resource boards keep track of their resources as they are bought and sold. Crystals placed beside the board represent player’s coins. The final score is determined after the fourth turn, with players selling any remaining resources to score additional victory points (one point per four coins). The player with the most victory points is considered to be the wisest medieval ruler and is declared the winner.
Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy
is a worker placement game in which you take actions to improve the standing and/or wealth of your family. You will expand your family, creating an ever-growing tableau, the family tree. You will need to balance the three ‘currencies’ in the game, Prestige (converts to Honor points at the end of each generation, of which there are three), Income (your income which converts to hard cash at the end of each round, of which there are 9), and Friend cards (which are actual connections/friends, and are the only way to marry into wealthy/famous families, and can only be received through actions, such as marrying a woman who brings some of her social contacts with her).
Prestige, Income and Friend cards can be gained and lost. You can, for example, lose some prestige by marrying someone infamous or lose some Honor points (i.e. reputation) by asking friends for money. There are also numerous actions you can take that will affect one of the three ‘currencies’ detrimentally, such as bribing someone to get a title (for which you need to pay, but also in the loss of friends who felt they deserved that title, and not you), or the maintenance of a beautiful new park you have built for the people (losing you income). Finally, you can also take actions that result in the loss of some of your social contacts (friends), due to jealousy, or people simply no longer wanting to be associated with you.
These currencies are carefully balanced by the male and female friend cards in the game. Generally men will give you income and possibly prestige, but will cost you a dowry/wedding costs. Women, on the other hand, will give you connections (new friends you can choose from the current socialites (cards lying open on the table) and possibly prestige, and will sometimes even earn you a dowry!
The card interactions allow for multiple different paths to success, but you must choose your road strategically, planning out where you want to be headed, else you will be left behind in the dust by those with greater and more successful plans than yours.
Amicale Games Club 