Board Game News – The Gateway Gazette – 02/06/2016

Every now and again, we’re privileged enough to witness the birth of a new gamer. It’s a special moment, to see the right game and the right time synchronise to just the right frequency, so that a pair of eyes is lit up with a very specific realization – this is so much more than they ever expected it could be.

I was lucky enough to be a part of a moment like this, just this weekend past. A very assertive ‘I don’t want to play boardgames‘ relegated this particular Grinch as an onlooker to a round of No Thanks! It took all of two minutes before the exasperated utterances began. ‘You’re taking the card too soon!’. ‘No, don’t let him take that card!’. Needless to say, he joined in on the second round and several hours of Cash ‘n Guns, Resistance and Dixit later, even he knew it was foolish to pretend he hadn’t loved every second of it.

Why do I mention this? Because one can never be reminded too often just how powerful force for social cohesion our hobby can be, especially in the light of our recent discussion around the impact of boardgaming on a personal level.

New Game Annoucements

Mayfair have a duo of new games hitting the street as early as later this month. Costa Rica has players competing as explorers to reveal tiles, catalogue creatures and engage in a bit of push your luck, while Oh My Goods is a more quintessential Mayfair game about running the most profitable medieval business. The latter comes from designer Alexander Pfister, one of the minds behind Isle of Skye, which CBQ thought was excellent.

From AEG, we can expect to see Fantahzee: Hordes and Heroes arriving around September. It’s another Yahtzee-styled game with a fantasy tower defence theme – activate abilities to defeat monsters and rack up victory points. The tower defense seems to appear in the mechanics as well, in that monsters will destroy parts of your town if you fail to defeat them. Lose your town, lose the game. But that name. Eish.

Bezier are being super cryptic about the new One Night title, with the most intriguing clue thus far that one of the new roles will be a farm animal. Either way, with Ultimate Vampire coming soon, this franchise is not slowing down.

I’m not sure whether it’s possible to do a news roundup with a Lovecraft inspired game, but I can tell you that today is not that day. From Passport Game Studios, Kingsport Festival: The Card Game is out this month which presents a much needed moment of relief from the constant struggle against cultists. Rather, this time you are the cultist summoning as many otherworldly terrors as your fiendish arcane mind can handle. The original Kingsport Festival was released in 2014 to mixed reviews, perhaps this tighter dilution may fare better.

IELLO have mastered the art of the box cover, but I think Kanagawa just might be my favourite yet. Perhaps that’s due to my love for the Playstation game Okami (if you’ve never played it that shame on you). Oh, and it’s designed by Bruno Cathala and Charles Chevallier whom you may recall from the, in CBQ opinion, highly underrated game Abyss.  Not much info on the game as yet, but you’ll be Okami apprentices aspiring to paint the most harmonious panorama.

We’ve mentioned Welcome Back to the Dungeon, the standalone sequel from IELLO, previously on the CBQ News, but a recently released preview video has revealed the four new characters – princess, ninja, minstrel and necromancer. Definitely not as coherent a selection as the original game, but intriguing nonetheless.

Kickstarter

The only news that matters is that Scythe will soon be in my grubby paws, it’s been tough seeing advance copies all over Youtube, but soon my precious, soon. Jamey Stegmaier has never been one to rest on his laurels, and the news of Scythe’s shipping was accompanied by the announcement of an expansion. Invaders from Afar will introduce 2 new factions and will bump the player count up to a rather massive 7 players. And more of that stunning Jakub Rozalski art too!

Xia: Legends of a Drift System was a massive hit in 2014, partly due to its limited print run which made it a highly desirable acquisition. It was only a matter of time before an expansion was announced, and that time is upon us. Embers of a Forsaken Star brings with it more pre-painted miniatures, new missions and new sectors.

A friend of mine owns a copy of Lunch Money, which as you might expect is a game about getting beaten up on the playground for cafeteria funds. It’s a quirky title, but surprisingly fun. Knuckle Sammich seems like it might play similarly, only this time there are kobolds involved. Hungry kobolds. $9 nets you a PnP version plus all digital rewards.

Keeping with humour-infused fantasy settings, you’ve got a week left to back Vikings Gone Wild. Chiefly a deck building game, you’ll also be constructing buildings to provide resources, constructing defenses such as Chicken Towers and Sheep Cannons, all while sending your Pigators and Bone Crushers to destroy your enemy. I’m told this is like Clash of Clans, but without having played it I can neither confirm nor deny this. Great art, great components, this is definitely one to watch.

To serious matters now, with serious components and serious minis, and of course a serious price. League of Ancient Defenders, or LOAD, is a 2-6 player skirmish game which, if the campaign page is to be believed, has loads of EPIC stuff. I don’t think I’ve seen that many instances of the word epic since the last CMON kickstarter…

Miscellaneous

Codenames: Pictures, and we finally have some…er…pictures of the pictures. For many, the base game is already tricky enough, but as a fan of Dixit I personally can’t wait to give this new version a spin. BGG has a round up of some first impressions as well as more photos here. In that same round up, they also have impressions of Sea of Clouds, Karuba, Imhotep and more.

In local news, please go and check out The Colony 2174, by Quinton Delpeche and Gobbo Games. Quinton’s been working on this project for quite some time, loads of playtesting sessions and much blood, sweat and tears. The Colony is a deck building and dice rolling game about settling a new planet, plays from 2-4 and takes between 45 and 60 minutes to play.

Cape Town’s Big Box boardgaming cafe is running a number of anniversary events from today until the 5th of June, including their famous (or infamous depending on how much you love your sleep) Saturday all-nighters. Peruse the deets on their FB page and be sure to come through for prizes and surprises.

The Timeless Board Game Party juggernaut also marches forth again on Saturday and that’s all the press I’m going to give them because I’m tired of missing out and whimpering softly to myself the following Monday as I peruse pics of all that passionate playtime.

Saturday the 11th of June will see the streets of Plumstead awash with the blood of Westeros, as Quantum Gaming hosts the first Game of Thrones LCG tournament of the season. Stuart will be auto-piloting his Lannister deck and I hope to have made up my mind whether to run Starks or Martell, but even if you’ve only been playing Thrones on a casual basis please come join us! It’s a great group of guys and an excellent opportunity to learn more about this fantastic game in a very newbie friendly environment.

And lastly, Stuart will be reviewing Onitama tomorrow. It’s great and you should totally play it, but if you need that extra bit of convincing, tune in tomorrow!