Feudalism and Freedom
I was shocked recently when a report made headlines that claimed curing patients wasn’t a sustainable business model. But that’s not a modern realization, is it? Medieval plague doctors were probably happy for every influential client they could cure – or rather, that miraculously survived while under their care. As a player in 1347 – The Black Plague you’ll certainly be, because that’s exactly your business model. You’ll throw your influence around the unfortunate, infected city in a hidden auction for actions – sort of like worker placement, but only the highest offer gets each action. With your influence you also convince the infected Subjects of your ability to heal them. If you so manage you gain their powerful special ability, but only while you can afford to keep them healthy. A fresh theme, interesting game mechanics and great art. I can’t think of anything I don’t like about this.
OSTIA Spiele
Limited edition boardgames are not a new concept, but with no more than 200 copies of Viroid you better get there early if you want one. In Viroid, a cooperative game, players try to save the world from its biggest threat: Humanity. As a virus they spread and mutate and try to reduce the human population as much as they can. What is this, disease game week?
CMON
It’s time to return to the extra cute heroic guild battles or Arcadia Quest. In Arcadia Quest: Rider the cartoonish fantasy heroes will find new colleagues and a new enemy. Even more remarkable: they will get mounts. Not only will those rideable companions have their own sets of abilities to support you, they also come as extra-large minis that your heroes can really ride on. And they are super adorable!
Wizards of the Coast / Avalon Hill
Is everything better with zombies? No. Are some things better with zombies? Certainly? Will Axis & Allies be better with zombies? Your guess is as good as mine, but I sure as hell want to find out. The new Axis & Allies & Zombies will still be about the fight between the two macro-factions of WW2, only now the undead are on the board and at war with both of them. There’s not a lot of detail yet, but it looks like the zombies will not be player controlled. Shame.
Catalyst Games
In the near future of the RPG Shadowrun magic and and highly advanced technology co-exist. I would say co-exist peacefully, but both things are used to blow people up on a regular basis. Now boardgamers will get another chance to get in on the carnage. Catalyst Games are running a Kickstarter for Shadowrun: Sprawl Ops, a worker placement game set in Seattle of the Shadowrun universe. You control a team of runners, specialists for semi-legal (at best) work contracted to the highest bidder. Each round you’ll send your people all over Seattle to prepare for a mission, then you’ll send them out to actually do the job. This latter part involves a lot of dice being rolled, but with the right equipment you can skew the chances in your favor. Regular Sprawl Ops is a competitive game, but on the Kickstarter you can get a conversion kit for competitive play if that’s more your thing.
Plaid Hat Games
Preview posts for Plaid Hat Games’s Starship Samurai have begun. The first one talks about the basics. Starship Samurai is going to be an area majority game. You’ll command your fleet of spaceships to the different location boards in order to gain the reward for controlling that board. Once a location is full you can’t send more regular ships there – but that doesn’t stop your giant robot samurai. When he arrives somewhere he stomps the weakest ship into a space pancake and takes its place – even if that’s your ship. Look forward to more details soon!
Renegade Game Studios
The adventures of Clank! In! Space! continue. The space spin-off of deck-building game Clank! gets its own expansions now. The title Clank! In! Space! Apocalypse! gives you an idea about the scale. Four exclamation marks! Big things are clearly going to happen! So yeah, apparently the evil Lord Eradikus has some sort of apocalypse planned. Ideally, you’d stop it. But if that’s too much to ask then getting rich and getting out of his way would work, too.
Galakta
In a city beset by snipers and swarming with marauding soldiers you might think that moving around underground will protect you. And it will in This War of Mine: Tales from the Ruined City, but there are other dangers in the Sewers. And not only that, exploring the sewers takes up a whole day phase for the characters involved. The sewers are a maze, and when exploring it the Sewer Cards let you pick your path. Also, many new stories are waiting down there.
This week’s featured photo shows the Gothic cathedral of Burgos, Spain, built between the 13th and 16th century. The photo was taken and kindly shared by Graeme Churchard. Thank you, Graeme! (Views of the Cathedral, Graeme Churchard, CC-BY, resized and cropped)