Picked up this new two player wargame from GMT this week. It’s sort of a 18th century version of Twilight Struggle. Pretty!
Jul 122020
Oct 062017
Here’s our box opening video for Operation Mercury from MMP
Apr 252017
Here’s a box opening video for Baptism By Fire from MMP
Oct 072016
Our latest box opening video can be found below. For more of the same visit our channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc0IFzVOMwtatcglGjHVEyA
In the meantime, enjoy, and don’t forget to subscribe!
Apr 132016
I’d been looking forward to SW:R since it was announced. I’m a big Star Wars fan and the game was generating some serious buzz. I’d deliberately not read too much about it as I wanted to find out for myself how it worked so when I opened my copy at the games club last night most of the game was new to me. It comes in a big box, very big, and as usually with FFG stuff there’s an amount of spare room in the box and an insert to help take up that room. There’s minis (of course!), cards, two player sheets, card counters, two rulebooks and a large, two-part map.
Feb 042016
First con of the year for me over at Bucklow Hill, south of Manchester saw me with a game of Prague prearranged, part of the Battles of the Age of Reason (BAR) series from Clash of Arms. I hadn’t played BAR for a while but I’ve always loved the series and having not managed to get much wargaming in over the last few years I was looking forward to a meaty game.
Thursday
By the time I got there Thursday morning I had an absolutely streaming cold but luckily I still felt fairly ok. Although my nose would stop running eventually the cold continued to get worse. How brave am I?
I grabbed the other two that were there, Tom and Richard, and introduced them to a new game, Automobiles. This is a race game, but also a deck building game, without cards. You’re no doubt confused by now but to explain you buy cubes that allow you to move on the track, white grey and black cubes move you on the progressively longer white, grey and black spaces, or take an action of some type, eg remove wear from your discarded cubes, move faster if you’re lower down the track, take wear to move faster etc. The coloured cues actions are shown by cards, and there’s one chosen from a selection for each colour so the game is different each time. Any cubes you don’t use in a turn can be taken as credit towards buying more cubes, hence the deck building aspect. I think this is a very original and exciting variant on the deck building genre. Not only do you have to think about what cubes/cards you wish to put in your bag/deck, but positioning on the track becomes very important. For example in a game I played this week, one of my fellow players ended up stuck when she was only able to reach the white part of the track due to another player blocking her, but she had no white cubes. And this was two spaces before the end of the track on the last lap! Highly recommended.
Mar 052015
Some new boardgames and Pokemon sets in this week.
In Samurai Spirit you and your fellow samurai companions are the only standing obstacle between one frightened village and a full horde of blood-thirsty villains. The fight seems unfair as the seven of you might not seem to measure up to the dozens of enemies who want to slice you to pieces — but this comparison doesn’t take into account your strong combat skills and an efficient team spirit that binds your samurai squad enough to face the threat. Above all else, when everything seems desperate and lost, your enemies will discover that inside each of you lies a true beast, a warrior spirit ready to unleash its full power! 1-7 players, cooperative, £15.99
In the drawing game Loony Quest, players study challenging level cards, then try to replicate the outline to meet targets and avoid obstacles on their tracing sheets. Once finished, players place their sheets on top of the level card to see whether the drawings line up with the targets they meant to hit — or avoid. Largely inspired by video games, Loony Quest players discover various worlds, play with 3D and 2D levels, run into loony monsters — Loonies — and big bosses, trigger special stages, collect bonuses, use penalties on opponents, and gather as many Xperience points as possible to win. 2-5 players, £19.99
One Night Ultimate Werewolf Daybreak is a fast game for 3-7 players in which everyone gets a hidden role, each with a special ability. (No plain “villagers” here!) In the course of a single morning, your village will decide who among them is a werewolf…because all it takes is finding one werewolf to win! Daybreak includes eleven new roles, and it can be played on its own or combined with the original One Night Ultimate Werewolf game; when combined, you can have up to ten players in a single game. 3-7 players, £19.99
In Salerno players take their choice of the Western Allies or the German forces and recreate the operations that took the war to the Italian mainland.
Two medium sized mapsheets containing three areas connected by movement tracks join three operations designed to push the German armies out of Italy. The system uses a chit pull combat method that enhances the challenge of combat. Limited knowledge of exact enemy strength make planning combat an undetermined affair, as it always is, and the job of commander more demanding than ever. 2 player wargame, £36.99
Fleets: The Pleiad Conflict is set in 3400 AD, where mankind has colonized the Pleiad star cluster and mighty corporations vie for control and influence. Each player equips fleets with escort ships and upgrades and uses them to control star systems for VPs. Diplomatic leverage, cunning, and brute force will determine the victor. 2-4 players, £47.99
Two new boxed editions of Pokemon TCG are also available, Groudon and Kyogre, just £9.99 each
Jan 212015
Arriving in store next week from Fantasy Flight Games is XCom: The Board Game. Based on the best selling computer game you and up to three friends assume the roles of the leaders of the elite, international organization known as XCOM. It is your job to defend humanity, quell the rising panic, and turn back the alien invasion.
You must launch Interceptors to shoot down alien UFOs, assign soldiers to key missions, research alien technology, and use that technology to defend your base — all while trying to keep the world from collapsing just long enough that you can coordinate one final mission to repel the invaders for good. One of the more notable aspects of XCOM: The Board Game is the way that it incorporates a free and innovative digital app into the core of its gameplay. This digital companion will be available both as a downloadable app and as an online tool.
It contains dozens of plastic soldiers, interceptors and UFOs, custom dice and hundreds of cards. The game is released on Jan 29th and you can preorder it from us now for £44.99
Nov 262014
Lots of new stuff in over the last week, including Star Realms back in stock, Noble Knights of the Round Table for Yu-Gi-Oh!, The Resistance and Bang! back in stock, Star Wars YT-2400 and VT-49, Small World expansion Royal Bonus, Gloom 2nd Ed and various Fluxx versions. Not forgetting all the new Cardfight sets and trial decks, a pony, cuddly toy, sliding doors etc.
Phew!
And there’s even more tomorrow.
Nov 142014
The new civilisation game, Deus, arrives in shop this week. The game has been on top of the BoardGameGeek hotness charts recently and has already sold out at the distributors, even before it went on sale. We’ve got 4 (well 3 cause I’m having one) and they’re £39.99. More info at http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/162082/deus
I’ve posted another one of my What’s In the Box videos covering Deus