Board Game News Brief: July 28th 2016

Posted Saturday, 30-Jul-2016

As gaming spools up for Gen Con, prepare for Cosmic Encounters in Westeros; return to the Mansions of Madness; expand 7 Wonders: Duel; and more in this week’s Board Game News Brief

Contributed by Calvin Wong

Game of Thrones: The Iron Throne rethemes Cosmic Encounter for a new generation

“Chaos is a ladder” proclaims the press release – and perhaps no game is more intrinsically chaotic than Cosmic Encounter: A game where every player is breaking the rules of the game in increasingly mad ways. It seems fitting then that the classic game of deception and asymmetry be ported over to a new theme.

 

 

 

The game adds customized decks for each house as well as character cards – will you be led by Arya or Ned Stark?

The Iron Throne is for three to five players and will be due in Q4.

 

Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition goes full co-op, will be compatible with first edition.

The 1 vs many Cthulu-themed story-based game will be receiving a new edition – only this time with app support in a bid to go fully co-operative – and it releases next week!

 

 

Following in the vein of Road to Legend, the Descent app that automates the Overlord player, Mansions of Madness will have a free app (available for all major platforms, including Mac and PC) that provides randomized maps, monsters, and events each time you play the game.

 

 

Owners of the First Edition will also be able to utilize the game’s conversion kit, which allows you to use the investigators, monsters, and map tiles from the original set, which turns the Second Edition into a pseudo-expansion rather than a replacement for the original game.

 

7 Wonders: Duel gets its first expansion in Pantheon

Build temples to gain divine favor and make offerings to receive powerful boons – this is the central conceit of Pantheon, the expansion to the 2 player drafting game based on the hit civilization building game 7 Wonders.

 

 

The expansion adds gods from 5 different civilizations – from Enki to Minvera – and Grand Temples which will appear in Age III. Apart from adding these new mechanics, Pantheon also includes new mechanics and wonders to mix into your base set of 7 Wonders: Duel

 

 

The game will be available – you guessed it – fourth quarter.

 

Quick Kickstarters

Roots of Mali is an abstract strategy game of battling magical creatures. Best if you have a look at the photo:

 

 

The game is available to demo online, has a print and play available, and is fully compatible with Sun Core Game’s previous release in the same vein: Light of Dragons.

Dreadball! Second Edition! Future football! Minis! Happening every Sunday!

 

 

SPORTS.

Speaking of frantic fast paced action, how about a strategy board game played in real time?

Adapted from the video game, Armored Core is played in 20 minutes and comes with all sorts of nifty toys including LEDs built into the model bases to provide instant line of sight measurement.

 

Go directly to hell: Doom the Board Game

This is not Fantasy Flight’s first flirtation with the fast-paced first person franchise: Doom was originally designed in 2004 by Kevin Wilson and modeled after the then-recently released Doom 3. But the new DOOM reboot by Bethesda and id Software has delivered us this game.

 

 

Patterned after games like Descent and Imperial Assault, Doom is in fact designed by Imperial Assault’s Jonathan Ying and incorporates elements from the Gears of War board game – mainly the hand management – however unlike Gears of War, Doom is not fully co-operative, requiring that 1 of the 5 players control the demonic forces of hell itself.

 

 

Doom is available to demo at Gen Con and will be released in the fourth quarter.

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