Hand Management

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game – Revised Core Set

Sometimes, in order to truly appreciate a tale, one must first go back to its beginning. Grand adventures and strong fellowships are important and wonderful, but the first step of any journey is just as important as the last. With that in mind, it’s time to return to the beginning of one of the most epic adventures of all…

With increased contents and some quality-of-life improvements, this new version of the classic LCG’s core set is the perfect opportunity for a new player to dive into the game.

The Revised Core Set includes cards to allow Campaign Mode (previous core set was strictly standalone scenarios), entirely new Boon and Burden mechanics that add cards that persist with the players from scenario to scenario, and full support for 4 players in the core box.

-description from publisher

Endogenesis

You and your companions are cosmic spirits in an alien, infant universe. Seeking more, you opened breaches to other realms, setting lose a pandora's box of chaos, knowledge and wonder across your reality. These new experiences confer upon each of you new emotions and varying abilities, blessing you with individualism...while cursing you with differences. Before long, you all turn on each other, descending into a battle royale that will not stop until one finally ascends to godhood.

Endogenesis is a competitive arena-styled card game. Collect skills from the Realm of Knowledge to customize your character with different powers, and upgrade them with shards that you can earn by defeating your enemies. Also joining the fray are vicious monsters from the Realm of Chaos. The most powerful of these are called Legendaries; killing them rewards its slayer with a prism. Be the first to collect three prisms and you win!

—description from the designer

Food Fight

Out of the frying pan, and into the line of fire!

In Food Fight, your favorite foods have gone to war. Draft glorious food warriors into your army and march them onto battlefields from Watermelonloo to Spaghettis-burg! Battle morning, noon, and night across three meals. Food mascots lord over the mealtime chaos, searching for a new champion – but who will reign supreme? The most cunning, the most savage, the most delicious?!

Food Fight uses a new card-drafting mechanism that allows players to build meals that work well together and allows for powerful combo plays.

Nice Buns

Nice Buns is a light strategy game in which players sit together in the "Nice Buns Buffet" and race to fill up their plate with three sets of colorful bao buns. Each round, you roll three dice that let you collect, steal, and trade different buns.

However, there's a twist! Before you do anything, the player on your left will get to decide which dice you can use...and which ones they'll keep for themselves.

—description from the publisher

Zapotec

The Zapotec were a pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca in Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence reveal their culture going back at least 2,500 years. Remnants of the ancient city of Monte Albán in the form of buildings, ball courts, magnificent tombs, and finely worked gold jewelry testify of this once great civilization. Monte Albán was one of the first major cities in Mesoamerica and the center of the Zapotec state that dominated much of the territory that today belongs to the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

In a game of Zapotec, you build temples, cornfields and villages in the three valleys surrounding the capital to generate resources needed for building pyramids, making sacrifices to the gods, and performing rituals.

Each round, players simultaneously pick a card from their hand to determine their turn order and the resources they collect. Players then perform individual turns and spend resources to build new houses, gain access to special abilities, make sacrifices to the gods and build pyramids. The played action card determines three important aspects of each player's turn:

The resource printed at the top of the card determines the row or column to activate on the resource grid to collect income.

The icon in the middle of the card matches one of the nine properties of the building spaces on the map (one of three building types, one of three regions, or one of three terrain types). On their turn, players may build only on spaces that match that icon.

The number at the bottom of the card dictates the turn order for the round when the card is played.

At the end of the round, players draft new cards from the central offer, with the final undrafted card becoming the scoring bonus card for the following round.

After five rounds, players score points for pyramids, for their position on the sacrifice track, and for their ritual cards. The player with the most victory points wins.

—description from publisher