Medieval

Castle Panic

The forest is filled with all sorts of Monsters. They watched and waited as you built your Castle and trained your soldiers, but now they’ve gathered their army and are marching out of the woods.

Can you work with your friends to defend your Castle against the horde, or will the Monsters tear down your Walls and destroy the precious Castle Towers? You will all win or lose together, but in the end only one player will be declared the Master Slayer!

Castle Panic is a cooperative, light strategy game for 1 to 6 players ages 10 and up.

Players must work together to defend their castle, in the center of the board, from monsters that attack out of the forest, at the edges of the board. Players trade cards, hit and slay monsters, and plan strategies together to keep their castle towers intact. The players either win or lose together, but only the player with the most victory points is declared the Master Slayer. Players must balance the survival of the group with their own desire to win.

The game includes:
1 Gameboard
1 Rulebook
49 Castle Cards
49 Monster Tokens ( see Token set )
6 Walls
6 Towers
1 Tar Token
2 Fortify Tokens
6 Order of Play Cards
12 Plastic Stands
1 Die

Sherwood Forest

Sherwood forest is beleaguered by rivalling bands. Everybody wants to be the leader who unifies all the bands and takes over from where Robin Hood left off. But only the one who gathers the most riches to give to the poor can be the leader. Plan your raids by gathering information, recruiting new companions and planning in your hide-outs. Score fame points for robberies with your gang, alone or form alliances to attack heavily guarded gold transports. Try to outwit the other players by talking them into a robbery, while you know this place will be visited by the sheriff!

Clever bargaining and well planned raids will make you the heir of Robin Hood and the new leader of Sherwood Forest.

The game lasts six rounds; each round consisting of two phases: a planning phase where the robbers are placed on the board, and a robbery phase where the loot cards are scored for points that possibly will lead to victory.

Carcassonne: The Discovery

The Discovery is a new stand-alone Carcassonne game.

The inhabitants of Carcassonne have discovered a new region far away from their homeland - one that consists of meadows, mountains and seas. The followers, of which each player only has four (with a fifth for the scoring track) get placed as robbers (in the mountains), seafarers (on the seas) or explorers (on the meadows). On a player's turn, he must place a tile and may then place a follower on it.

As in the original game, tiles may only be placed so that identical landscape types match up. A follower may only be placed when no other follower has been placed there yet. When the follower is removed, however, then the size of the region in which the follower is located brings points - regardless of whether the region has been closed off or not, although closed off regions score considerably more points. There's also an additional rule that lets mountainous regions increase in value, even if they've already been completed.

This is a distinctly simpler version of Carcassonne than the original. This was the goal during the development of the game. It should have simpler rules, but offer greater strategic depth. What is interesting about the game is that regions aren't scored automatically any more (when they are closed off), this is a decision left to the player (the removing of the follower). Since the regions can only get more valuable, this ensures many agonizing decisions.

(From Gamewire and Spielbox)

This game is part of the Carcassonne series.

Conquest of the Fallen Lands

In Conquest of the Fallen Lands, you and your fellow players have a task to free a land invaded by vile hordes of monsters, and win back the treasures they plundered.

The game board is composed of hex tiles representing orc scouting parties, encampments, fortifications, dragons, etc. Each tile has a difficulty level.

Players take turns conquering these tiles by playing troop cards on them. Each conquered tile creates new opportunities to tackle tougher tiles around it, both for you and your opponents (so you have to be careful!).

Conquering a tile gets you a reward equal to its difficulty level. This money is used in the game to purchase assets and abilities, and it is also used to determine who has won this game, once it's over.

A number of magic cards introduce a variety of special effects and abilities that can greatly benefit the players.

The game includes two rule sets, Normal and Advanced, that play very differently:

The Normal game is very accessible; it is a lighter game that plays with little downtime and yet has a lot of strategic depth.
The Advanced rules lead to a more complex game that can sometimes be a bit of a brain burner. It also moves at a much slower pace.

Ys

In remote times, King Gradlon had the magnificent city of Ys erected for his daughter Dahut. Gargantuan sea-walls protected the city from the violent waves. Dahut decided to make Ys the most powerful place in Brittany; thus, she dispatched dragons to seize merchant ships loaded with jewels which sailed on the open sea…

Each turn, ships filled with gems land in the city's ports. The players, embodying merchant-princes of Ys, set their team to work, two at a time, in the 4 neighborhoods of the city; deciding which area of each neighborhood to focus on. Controlling the port to claim special black jewels, the commercial area to gain a financial advantage or the palace to influence characters of influence. However it is the player who dominates the neighborhood as a whole who has the first choice of the precious stones carried in the hold of the ship docked there. Don't overlook the gem market as other players may send their brokers to influence the value of the different types of jewels, making your collection less valuable.

Each player has a team of 11 brokers of varying skill levels. These brokers are placed on the players turn, one face up and one face down. Bluff your opponents on where your intentions lie, misdirection is the key to victory.

At the end of the game, the winner is the player who has accumulated the most gold (represented by victory points).