Medieval

Oriflamme: Ablaze

In Oriflamme and Oriflamme Embrasement, the players find themselves in the middle of a medieval feud over the French royal crown. The King is dead! Long live the King! As heads of influential families, the players strive to come to power with cunning and malice, power and strength, virtue and infamy. Their goal: the king's throne!

In the tactical card game, hidden cards are played in turn. By tactically uncovering and activating their effects, players can outdo or get them out of the way, because all players have the same goal in mind — to collect the most influence points for their family and thus win the game.

In Oriflamme Embrasement (second installment of the award winning game Oriflamme), the incendiary war threatens to bring the kingdom to the ground. But nothing will stop your house to conquer the throne by putting forward every inch of your famous lust for power and vengeance.

Oriflamme Embrasement offers 11 new action cards that can be mixed with Oriflamme or be used as a standalone.

—description from the publisher (translated)

The Court of Miracles

In The Court of Miracles, lead a guild of beggars, plot, use trickery and opportunism to build your renown and take over the old 16th century Paris.

Your goal is to establish your renown in Paris or to be the most influential when the Penniless King would have reached the end of his path...

At your turn, you may play a plot card, you have to place one of your (3) Rogue tokens, face down (secret ability), on any available spot in a neighborhood, and benefit from the effect of your spot (receive coins, draw plot cards or move the Penniless King forward along his path). You may then perform the action of the neighborhood.

When a neighborhood is fully occupied, settle a standoff revealing each player's Rogue(s) token to know which player takes control of the neighborhood.
Controlling a neighborhood will reward you eat time another player perform its action.

You will be allowed to buy a 4th Rogue, cards or move the Penniless King Forward at the Renown Square.

Unless the Penniless King reaches the last space of his path before, the first player to place their 6th Renown token wins. Otherwise, the player with the most Renown tokens placed on the board wins the game.

Viscounts of the West Kingdom

Viscounts of the West Kingdom is set at a time when the King’s reign began to decline, circa 980 AD. Choosing peace over prosperity, our once strong King began offering our enemies gold and land to lay down their axes. But peace is a tenuous affair. As poverty spread, many people lost faith in his ability to lead and sought independence from the crown. Since finding favour in his courts, our future has also become uncertain. As viscounts, we must be wise and decisive. Loyalty is to be upheld, but gaining favour among the people must be our priority, should there be a sudden shift in power.

The aim of Viscounts of the West Kingdom is to be the player with the most victory points (VP) at game's end. Points are gained by constructing buildings, writing manuscripts, working in the castle and acquiring deeds for new land. Players begin with a handful of townsfolk, but should quickly seek out more suitable talents to advance their endeavours. Each turn they will be travelling around the kingdom, looking to increase their influence among the various areas of society. The game ends once the Kingdom reaches poverty or prosperity - or potentially both!

—description from the publisher

Crown of Emara

Good times in the tiny kingdom of Emara: During the reign of King Thedorius the Wise, wars, uprisings, and other inconveniences became a thing of the past. Thedorius always cared more for the well-being of his subjects than for power or riches. Therefore, only the nobleman who is able to care for Emara's citizens as well as Thedorius himself did shall become Thedorius' successor and wear the Crown of Emara.

To test the skills of all aspirants, Thedorius and his counselors issue a challenge of practical use: Whoever can persuade the majority of the newly arrived citizens in the capital to support their claim shall become the future king of Emara. To achieve this, players have to cater to the citizens' needs and — most importantly — offer proper housing for everyone. This means that promoting the building activities in town will be one of the major tasks of the candidates.

Crown of Emara skillfully combines card actions with worker movement actions, allowing players to plan their turns carefully during their downtime. The two counselors available to every player move in two separate roundabouts, requiring players to optimize every move. Additionally, two scoring tracks lead to a multidimensional playstyle as only the lower score counts towards victory and thus both tracks have to be advanced equally.

878 Vikings: Invasions of England

The year is 878. For the past 75 years, Viking raiding parties from Norway and Denmark have been terrorizing the coasts of England with ‘hit and run’ attacks. The treasures and stories gained from these attacks have allowed the Norsemen to raise huge hosts of eager men seeking glory and riches. These armies now stand poised to thunder across England where they will settle and farm the fertile land they conquer. The divided English kingdoms are unprepared for this impending onslaught. The Vikings are coming!

In 878: Vikings – Invasions of England, players control the invading Vikings or the English nobles who are trying to withstand the invasion. Viking players either play as Norsemen Viking freeman or as the fearless Viking shock troops known as Berserkers. The English play as the Housecarl, the Kings’ household troops, or as the Thegns who were regional noble Leaders. The English players will also be able to call up the peasant levies, called the Fyrd, to defend their cities.

Players for each side strategize together in order to coordinate their strategies. Each side attempts to control Cities on the map to win. The English start the game controlling all of England but a Viking Leader will invade from the sea each Turn. The English players raise reinforcements from cities they control, while the Vikings must wait for a new invasion for reinforcements. The game ends when the Treaty of Wedmore is called and the side controlling the most cities wins the game.