Area Movement

In Factions: Battlegrounds, you take on the role of a general who's leading an army of troops, spellcasters, beasts, and mythological monsters into battle. You and the opposing generals determine the battleground, gather resources, and score points by eliminating enemy units. Whoever first captures 25 points of units wins.

In more detail, to set up choose one of the six factions in the game; each faction has twelve unique units and five "home terrain" cards that work well with your units. Players then take turns building the battleground by placing one terrain card at a time into the 3x3 grid, each terrain card is divided into a 2x2 grid, so the entire grid of play is 6x6. Whoever places terrain first has an advantage since they have more home terrain than other players, while players who go later during set up determine the location of resource centers on the battleground or recruit their starting units last so that they can respond to the choices of opponents. Units cost 1-5 gold, and each player can spend up to 10 gold on starting units, keeping anything unspent.

During a round, all units have the chance to move, with the highest-ranked units moving first and with ties being broken in favor of whoever has the most captains, followed by whoever has the most units. Each unit has a movement, attack, and health value, along with an indication of whether it generates gold or mana and (possibly) a spell that it can cast. After moving a unit, you can attack with it, whether melee or ranged as indicated on the card. If you defeat an enemy unit, you can points equal to its cost in gold, so while expensive units tend to be the most powerful, they also provide an opponent with their biggest target for points.

Prior to activating a unit on your turn, you can pay gold to recruit new units, and those units will slip into rank order for the turn, possibly allowing you to put a high-ranking unit into play directly and giving an opponent someone on the battleground that they didn't expect.

Once all the units have moved, players collect resources for units that gain them automatically and for units located on resource centers. Rounds continue until someone has collected 25 points of captured units, at which point they win immediately.

Factions: Battlegrounds is centered on inclusion and diversity, incorporating mythology from all over the world and representing traditionally European-based fantasy elements with underrepresented cultural elements.

Since time immemorial, the mines of Runedar have supplied gold to generations of dwarves. Today, only a handful of them remain, guarding the fortress surrounding the entrance to the old, depleted mine... or so it was thought. This group of dwarves have been fortunate enough to accidently stumble upon a new vein of the purest gold and have managed to extract a small treasure. Unfortunately, just as they were about to set off to the safety of the nearest stronghold, they discover that the old fortress of Runedar is surrounded by orcs who are willing to do anything to get their hands on the precious metal. Now, the dwarves not only need to defend the fortress, they also must dig a tunnel under the mountain to escape and get their hard-earned gold to safety.

The Siege of Runedar is a co-operative game for 1-4 players who take on the role of dwarves charged with defending the walls of Runedar and the treasure they keep within. They will have to face orcs, goblins, and trolls, fighting in hand-to-hand combat against those who manage to get past the walls and shooting from a distance at those who try to enter. A deck-building system allows players to upgrade their weapons and tools as they must hold off the raiders long enough to build a tunnel to escape the terrible siege they have been subjected to and get the treasure to safety.

—description from the publisher

Inis is a game deeply rooted in Celtic history and lore in which players win by being elected King of the Island (Inis). Players can try to achieve one of three different victory conditions:

Leadership: Be the leader — i.e., have more clan figures than any other player — of territories containing at least six opponents' clans.
Land: Have your clans present in at least six different territories.
Religion: Have your clans present in territories that collectively contain at least six sanctuaries.

Over the course of the game, players also earn deeds, typically chanted by bards or engraved by master crafters, that reduce by one the magic total of six for any condition. While one victory condition is enough to claim the title of King, a game of experienced players usually has a tight balance of power, emphasizing the leadership of the capital of the island.

At the start of each round, players draft a hand of four action cards (with 13 action cards for three players and 17 for four players) during the Assembly. Action cards not played at the end of one season are not held for the next. Players also have access to leader cards for the territories that allow it and where they were elected leader during the assembly. Each Assembly reallocates those cards. Finally, they collect "epic tales" cards that depict the deeds of the ancient Irish gods and heroes, like Cuchulainn, the Dagda, Lugh and many others. These will be kept and used to inspire the clans and achieve extraordinary feats...under the right circumstances. The cards provide a variety of actions: adding clans, moving clans, building/exploring, and special actions.

Careful drafting, hand management, bluffing (especially once players understand the importance of passing their turn), good timing, and a precise understanding of the balance of power are the keys to victory. After a discovery game you'll be ready for a full and epic game, where an undisputed player will be king by the Assembly for his merit and wisdom.

While Inis has "dudes" that are "on a map", it's a beginner's mistake to play this as a battle game because eliminating other clans reduces your chances of scoring a Leadership victory condition. Peace among different clans, with or without a clear territory leader, is the usual outcome of a clan's movement. Battles will occur, of course, as the Celtic clans can be unruly and a good player will listen to his clan's people (i.e., his hand of cards). That battle aspect is reflected in the clan's miniatures representing warriors. Woodsmen, shepherds and traders complete the set of twelve minis for each player; these occupations have no impact on the game, but give it flavor.

"The time of small nations is past, the time of empires begins." — Chamberlain

What if all of world history had unfolded differently?
What if the great empires of our history had never come into being?
What if other forgotten civilizations had passed into posterity in their place?
The defeated could have been the victors, and the colonizers could have been the colonized — after all, empires are won and lost on a roll of the dice!

In First Empires, each player takes control of the fate of an ancient nation through a player board, meeples, and cards. The game lasts a number of rounds depending on the player count, and on a turn you roll dice based on how you've developed your empire board. The six sides of the dice correspond to the five abilities on your board. To expand to new territories or invade opponents, you need to unlock movement ability; to annex a territory, you have to outnumber the current occupant or have a "sword" result on the dice, with the inhabitants then fleeing elsewhere. The dice also allow you develop your player board by using the die face that corresponds to the improvement and controlling an associated territory. You can gain more dice and additional re-rolls, while also unlocking achievement cards.

At game's end, you earn points based on played achievement cards, points unlocked on your personal board, and the sum of cities under your control.

The year is 1913. The steamship SS Atlantica is two days out from port on its voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Its unsuspecting passengers fully anticipated a calm journey to Boston, Massachusetts, with nothing out of the ordinary to look forward to. However, strange nightmares plague the minds of the people aboard the ship every night; rumors circulate of dark shapes following closely behind the ship just beneath the waves; and tensions rise when a body is discovered in the ship's chapel, signs of a strange ritual littered around the corpse.

Lurking within the depths of the Atlantic Ocean are a swarm of vicious, unspeakable horrors: the Deep Ones, led by Mother Hydra and Father Dagon. For reasons unknown, they have set their sights on the Atlantica, and their minions, taking the form of human-Deep One hybrids, have infiltrated the steamship to help sink it from within. Each game of Unfathomable has one or more players assuming the role of one of these hybrids, and how well they can secretly sabotage the efforts of the other players might mean the difference between a successful voyage and a sunken ship.

If you're a human, you need to fend off Deep Ones, prevent the Atlantica from taking too much damage, and carefully manage the ship's four crucial resources if you want any hope of making it to Boston, all while trying to figure out which of your fellow players are friends and which are foes. Everyone shares the same resource pool, but humans will try to preserve them while traitors will strive to subtly deplete them. Being able to tell when someone is purposefully draining the group's resources is harder than you think, especially when you take crises into account!

At the end of each player's turn, that player must draw a mythos card. Each of these cards represents a crisis that the whole group must try to resolve together. Some of these crises, such as "Food Rationing", call for a choice that could potentially put the ship's passengers or resources at risk, while others, such as "Hull Leak", call for a skill test in which failure could have disastrous consequences.

During a skill test, each player contributes skill cards from their hand to a face-down pile shared by the group. Once everyone has contributed (or chosen not to), the cards are shuffled, then revealed. If enough of the correct skills were contributed, then the group passes the test! But if the wrong skills were contributed, they can actually hinder the results, leading to failure. Thus, skill tests are dangerous opportunities for traitors to sabotage the humans' efforts, so you have to stay on your toes at all times.

—description from the publisher