Meople News: Flowery Carnage

Roxley Games

Martin Wallace’s Brass is one of the best economic boardgames ever created, a deeply strategic game to build your industrial empire during the industrial revolution. Now’s a good time to get into it, because the new edition by Roxley Games is on Kickstarter under the new title Brass: Lancashire. The new title was necessary because in the same Kickstarter you can get another Brass game, Brass: Birmingham. The core rules will be similar, but Birmingham is a different city and things work differently there. For instance, you’ll now produce beer and pottery. But different commodities aren’t everything, Birmingham will also set itself apart from Lancashire with a dynamic board setup, new scoring rules for rails and canals, and more. On top of all that, both games look beautiful. Just see the box covers.

Brass: Lancashire and Brass: Birmingham (Roxley)
Brass: Lancashire and Brass: Birmingham (Roxley)

Devil Pig Games

Once more, it’s a time where regular carnage is not enough. It’s time for more Kharnage! Tricks and Mercenaries, the new expansion to Devil Pig Games’ card battle over a strategically meaningless hill, does not throw a new army into the fight. It gives new units to the armies from the base game, and it adds tricks and mercenaries. Both come from a shared deck whence all players can buy cards. Mercenaries join the battle for the nameless hill on your side. Tricks act as event cards to play from your hand to change the flow of battle. So, more fun for everyone instead of a new army only one player can have. Sounds good to me.

Horrible Games

Nothing about game mechanics in the latest preview for Alone, but a good look at the intriguing background, and a peek at the game’s story. Don’t worry, the story peek is well hidden and you can avoid it if you don’t want to spoiler yourself.

Hey, did I sound positive about everything to do with Alone so far? This preview looks at the creatures the hero will encounter. They seem very thematic, and I don’t have any issues with them on a mechanical level, they just seem pretty disgusting. I really have to reconsider if I want anything to do with those things.

Space Cowboys

A nice holiday trip to medieval Spain is fast approaching for T.I.M.E. Stories players. Fabiola de León will be one of the vessels in Lumen Fidei, and to say she deals well with people seems a bit of an understatement.

Artana

Tesla vs. Edison: War of Currents is a great game, but most players agree that it doesn’t work so well in two players. If that is the number of players you have and you still want to fight if AC or DC is the superior form of electricity, then you have a new option now. New on Kickstarter by Artana is Tesla vs. Edison: Duel, a new game with the same subject matter and many of the same mechanics specifically for two players. Stripping the game down to the essential decisions and to two players also reduced the playing time to about thirty minutes, while keeping all the interesting decisions in.

Quined Games

Halloween (Quined Games)
Halloween (Quined Games)

With a title like Halloween, I expected survival horror, possibly of the slasher kind. Looks like I got it backwards, in Quined Games’ coming game you take control of the ghosts, not of their victims. Each player is a demon lord and send their own ghostly troops on the board to go scare the humans – or beat up other ghosts, because when the night is over there can be only one. I’m curious what the unique mechanism to control your many ghosts will be that they’re teasing about, but we’ll probably only find out when the game arrives on Kickstarter.

Fantasy Flight Games

We don’t post about expansions for Living Card Games, as a rule, because there are too many of them. There’s always something new coming.  A new LCG is a different thing, that deserves a mention. And this one doubly so, because Fantasy Flight Games are bringing back Legend of the Five Rings. Back in the 90s, Legend of the Five Rings was a collectible card game, and now the CCG about conflict between the seven clans of Japan-inspired fantasy empire Rokugan is back in this somewhat friendlier format. I never player the CCG, so I can’t tell you how similar the LCG is going to be. I can tell you that you’ll have to engage in military and political conflict, that your honor is the most important thing you have and that the seven clans each have very different strategies to explore. The preview post goes into more detail.

Plaid Hat Games

After art previews for the Meteor Clan and the Skull Clan, there are many names you might expect next on the list of Crystal Clans clans. The Flower Clan is not one of them. Befitting that name, they specialize in peaceful way to victory, and in bringing peace to opponents that probably didn’t want it right then.

In this week’s featured photo you see two of the impressive statues of Nemrut Dag, the mausoleum of Antiochus I. He was king of Commagene, a kingdom founded north of Syria after the empire of Alexander collapsed. Today, Nemrut Dag lies in Adiyaman Province in Turkey. The photo was taken and shared by Sara Yeomans. Thank you, Sara! (DSCN1035, Sara Yeomans, CC-BY)

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