New Releases

This week’s new releases courtesy of Board Game Guru, take it away Paul…

Hi,

In stock now

‘Spielbox issue 3’, which includes 2 new monsters for Dungeonpetz.

‘Power Grid : Baden Wurtemburg and Quebec’, these maps were previously only available in either the limited edition ENBW Power grid (a 1,000 copies were made for the German power company, and to my knowledge its the only game from Friedman Friesse which has not come in a green box) and the Canadian version of Power Grid (‘Megawatts’). I have tired of waiting for the Rio Grande edition so have imported some German copies and I will provide a rules translation. These maps are only being printed once.

Arriving next week

‘Milestones’ , designed by Stefan Dorra (‘Pergammon, Kreta’) and Ralf Zur Linde (‘Finca’) and published by EggertSpiel. Is an intriguing looking game where players are collectively building into the countryside but use their own rondel style board to take actions and gather resources. Given EggertSpiel’s recent record of picking winners (‘Village’, ‘Speicherstadt ’ , ‘Santiago da Cuba’ and ‘Pergamon’) I am going to be ripping the cellophane from a copy as soon as it arrives on Wednesday

‘Empire Express’ is a entry level Crayon Train game designed to be played in 90 minutes.

‘The Accursed Dead’ is the third battle pack in the Bloodquest Cycle for Warhammer Invasion LCG.

Ted Alspach’s latest edition of ‘Ultimate Werewolf’ can accommodate up to sixty eight players – one for the end of the evening at a gaming convention.

Specials

Last year I made a strong recommendation that you should look at ‘The Gnomes of Zavendor’, this is a very good market manipulation and goods conversion game. The parts work together very well, with lots of subtle approaches to victory available - the market mechanism is novel and there’s real opportunities to manipulate it for short and long term gains .Its nicely produced with the largest start player marker I have ever seen. Given the mechanics this might have sold better without the fantasy theme (Industrial revolution springs to mind) - however it’s a worthy torch bearer for the Zavendor series. I have picked up a job lot of the German edition (its language independent, i will provide English rules) and am selling it at less than a third of the RRP. Don’t miss this!

Restocks

Biblios, Flash Point Fire Rescue, Tribune, Star Trek Catan, Haggis, Eclipse

Recommendation

I think that half way through the year I can make a safe bet that ‘1989 : Dawn of Freedom’ is going to sweep every 2 player gaming award for 2012. It’s a variant of ‘Twilight Struggle’ set in the year the wall came down. It’s actually a little simpler to play than ‘TS’ , the map is a little more claustrophobic and the scoring is a little more volatile, befitting the rapid swings that took place in the year that the Iron curtain fell. I have played it three times in the last week and it is completely engrossing as the Democrat desperately tries to survive the early attacks of the communist player and then as the Communist tries to cling to power in as many countries as possible

Happy gaming

Paul