Space Hulk Death Angel the Card Game Up and Coming

Cooperative games are all the rage these days. So are card games in a box. And now with the latest Space Hulk board game, and the release of Starcraft II, nothing says loving like a mechanized space marine pumping ravenous aliens full of lead until their primordial goo.

Space Hulk Death Angel looks to be a mix of all these things. The game supports 1-6 players in a difficult ballet of cooperation, and the threat assessment. Players will have to chose between either shooting down hordes of vicious aliens, supporting their allies or moving closer to the final exit of the game. Action cards for these options are selected and placed face down, and the resolved all at once. Choices made on one turn may not be selected for the immediate subsequent around, so choice wisely.

The actual baddies, the Genestealers, are controlled by a deck of cards instead of a player fulfilling the role of the antagonist. While this may make them slightly unguided in some facets, it also allows everyone to be on the same side. If the team loses then there isn't a gloating dork with Brain 1 sitting in the corner; you can only take the anger out on yourself. We like that.

Like the recently released Space Hulk board game the new Death Angel Card Game sounds amazingly simple to play, and from what we've heard, a damn hard experience to win. All this cooperation against the face of adversity is brought to you by designer Corey Konieczka who hammered out one of our favorite cooperative games ever: Batltestar Galactica. The theme, the mechanics, the ability to support up to 6 players, and all for 25 bucks makes this upcoming game shine bright solid gold on our radar. Too many other titles top out at 4 seats these days and for 60 bucks. It's an annoying trend we wish would cease immediately.

For more information about this upcoming release, check out the following FFG preview articles:

And here's the official description:

"Players choose from six different combat teams, each consisting of two Space Marines with different abilities. Each player receives three Action cards for each of his combat teams. After all of the Space Marines have fallen into formation, prepare for the first wave of Genestealers!
Action resolution keeps all players involved while the overwhelming odds inspire them to work together to survive. The Action Resolution Phase consists of each player revealing and carrying out their chosen Action. The lowest number card goes first, which means Attacks are resolved after Supports. Support tokens enable Space Marines to reroll, so make sure to cover your fellow Blood Angels!

The Genestealer Attack Phase happens after all the Actions have been resolved, so hopefully you thinned out the swarms since you have to roll higher than the number of Genestealers in the swarm to successfully defend. Finally, an Event card is drawn to spawn more alien adversaries. Once all the Genestealers have emerged from the darkness, its time to move forward, drawing a new location card. And then it's back into the fight!"

We'll let you know as soon as this puppy starts appearing on shelves.

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Thunderstone Wrath of Elements Expansion is Finally Out

The time is finally here. After delays, delays, delays, the first expansion to the deck building game success Thunderstone has hit shelves. Wrath of the Elements [Amazon, Funagain] adds new cards to every facet of the game, from weapons, heroes, items, and monsters. There's even a replacement to the Thunderstone.. though that aspect of it is slightly underwhelming.

Now, we've said it before and we'll say it again: Dominion remains seated at the throne of the deck building genre. While Thunderstone did some interesting things in it's gameplay formula to take the genre one step further (mainly in the player's dual focus of economy and monster slaying), the original Thunderstone stand alone didn't have enough interesting card combinations in it's implementation to entertain us enough to overthrow the king Dominion.

Now it's time for Wrath of the Elements to prove that Thunderstone has staying power and we're stoked to find out if it can get the series kicking butt and taking names.

Here's the official description:

Thunderstone returns with all new monsters heroes equipment and now? traps! Thunderstone brought dungeon crawling to the deck-building game genre and Wrath of the Elements takes Thunderstone to a new level. With four new heroes six new monsters and many new village cards Wrath of the Elements can be stand alone or mixed in with classic Thunderstone for a larger experience. Wrath of the Elements also introduces Traps. This new card type creates perlious dangers for your adventuring party when revealed from the Dungeon Deck. Can you overcome the new monstrosities and claim the Thunderstone?
Wrath of the Elements also features an attractive and durable card box large enough to hold both Wrath of the Elements and classic Thunderstone and is even more compact and easy to transport! The box also comes with all new labelled card-type dividers for both the new cards and classic Thunderstone cards. Jason Engle returns again with more amazing art as well

Thunderstone: Wrath of the Elements is now shipping from Amazon and Funagain Games.

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Dominon's Prosperity Expansion Reviewed at BGN

Now that the small-ish Alchemy expansion is behind us it's time to move on to bigger things. The next expansion tot the venerable Deck Building Genre King Dominion has hit players' hands at Gen Con, and Board Game News has a full review.

While Dominion has always been about snowball your economic powers, Prosperity will shoot that up with 500cc of strontium 90. The set focuses specifically on turning a meek pittance into a Scrooge McDuck fortune, and it even ships with new money type: Platinum. This baby costs 9 and is worth 5, and you'll need them to buy some of the more expensive cards in the set. After all, what's the point of Prosperity if it doesn't lead you to bigger, better, and more costly things?

Check out the BGN review for more details. This one looks juicy.

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Thunderstone Wrath of Elements Spoilers Posted

We're day away from the first Thunderstone expansion hitting the shelves. If you're jonesin' for the next latest and greatest experience in the deck building genre like we are, then you might want to to peruse this entire list of cards in the set. It details everything from card names, their frequency, to their cost and powers, all in one nice neat location.

If you're looking for the art, too, well then you might just have to wait a few days till your box arrives.

The original Thunderstone left us concerned after a few repeat plays. While the base mechanics were interesting, the content in the cards didn't leave much for fun and interesting combinations. And, to us, that's half the point of any deck building game.

Our first peruse of the Wrath of the Elements set hasn't completely put our mind at ease but the cards read like they have pretty good potential. The Tax Collector and some of the weapons look very interesting, as do some of the heroes like the Diin. It looks like the game is slated to step up the interaction level between players. That's definitely good news. We're still trying to find the clever combos.. maybe this isn't the game for them.

We'll let you know when Wrath of the Elements hits shelves. From what we've heard, the game is shipping from the factory now.

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Ascension - A New Deck Building Card Game on the Horizon

We're quite happy to see a potential triple-A title breaking into the Deck Building Genre, a format of game spearheaded by 2008's Dominion. Ascension is under development by a bunch of ex Magic the Gathering pro players. And by the looks of it, some old school Magic the Gathering artist aficionados, too.

Ascension seems like it's a refined and yet more fleshed-out version of Thunderstone, but where as Thunderstone lacks depth (hopefully resolved in its upcoming expansion), Ascension will ship well structured and complete faction decks with full-bore back stories.

Players will select a themed deck and place face down as a shuffled pool in the middle of the table. The game starts by dealing out a series of cards from the pool. These are placed face up in shared area.

Turns proceed where players either purchase an item (if they can afford it) or attack creatures from this shared pool. One a card is purchased, it goes into the player's discard pile, later to be reshuffled into his deck. At this time another card from the pool be drawn and placed into the shared area play.

The pool seems to differ considerably from the Dominion and Thunderstone system. Where as before every card type was available for purchase at any time, it seems that the Ascension system will keep things interesting by creating a randomly selected subset of cards to choose from. And if you're eyeing something then you better snatch it up quick , because it might not be there by the time your next turn rolls around.

Checkout the Ascenion Official Website for more information about this upcoming title, including and overview of the rules and more information about how each of these themed decks will play. It looks awesome.

We'll keep you posted of more information as its released. Till then, have a good weekend!

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Fictionaire - A 'New' Party Quiz Game Announced

Publisher Days of Wonder describes the upcoming party game Fictionaire (4-7 players) succinctly:

"You may know it as dictionary, fictionary, Balderdash™... or even "Call my Bluff", the classic British TV game show; but it could just as easily be called "the making up lies to fool your friends" game!"

- Days of Wonder

And it makes us wonder a few things. One, if the game has been all these things before, then why do we need another installment? Two: why would Days of Wonder, a maker of such unique, high-quality and well-balanced titles, push what's essentially a re0randing of such a long heritage of incredibly similar games?

We can't quite figure it out. Days of Wonder is quick to note that this title distinguishes itself in a few ways, but they're all related to the production materials and not in the game itself.

For one, each installment will come in a pack of cards the size of a cigarette pack that has been stylized like it's chalk full of ye olde cigarettes. Secondly there will be multiple installments centered around different themes. First up is the 'classic dictionary game', but other installments will be themed Tall Tales, Fool Science with quirky science history, and Naturals which tasks players to crafty zainy definitions of things straight out of the natural world.

But with only 120 cards in each pack, it might not take too long to start iterating over the same questions. And once everyone knows the true definition, or true background of scientific oddities, then it the replay value might not have the staying power.

You can read more information about the title in the official Fictionaire Press Release. Also, Days of Wonder has posted a nice little Preview Website here.

We'll keep you posted about more Fictionaire news as it nears release.

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Thunderstone's Wrath of Elements Expansion in July

We got word today that the upcoming Thunderstone expansion Wrath of the Elements is officially coming out in July. While this isn't that much of a surprise since June is just about done, it's good to know Alderac has at least tacked down a new shipping schedule.

Thunderstone is in second place when it comes to our ranking of games in the deck building genre. The veritable grand dad of all - Dominion - still leads th way. We thought that while the original Thunderstone laid the groundwork to something special, the variety and balance still wasn't the cool cucumber that Dominion was at launch, and continues to be through expansions.

So we have high hopes for Thunderstone to refine the deck building and dungeon romping experience in July with their first expansion Wrath of the Elements. Here are the official details:

"Thunderstone returns with all new monsters, heroes, equipment, and now... traps! Thunderstone brought dungeon crawling to the deck-building game genre, and Wrath of the Elements takes Thunderstone to a new level. With four new heroes, six new monsters, and many new village cards, Wrath of the Elements can be stand alone or mixed in with classic Thunderstone for a larger experience. Wrath of the Elements also introduces Traps. This new card type creates perlious dangers for your adventuring party when revealed from the Dungeon Deck. Can you overcome the new monstrosities and claim the Thunderstone?
Wrath of the Elements also features an attractive and durable card box large enough to hold both Wrath of the Elements and classic Thunderstone, and is even more compact and easy to transport! The box also comes with all new labelled card-type dividers for both the new cards and classic Thunderstone cards. Jason Engle returns again with more amazing art as well.

2-5 Players | 12 and up | 45 minutes"

For more information about Thunderstand and Wrate of the elements, please check our previous stores: Thunderstone: The Next Deckbuilding Game After Dominion, and Thunderstone: Wrath of the Elements Card Montage.

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Smiley Face Family Card Game Announced

In a change of pace publisher FFG has announced a family friendly card game. Smiley Face plays like your normal trump-based game like hearts or spades or Euchre, bu where different suits score a varying about of points.

The suits, in this case, are a series of emotions. While there is no overarching trump emotion itself, each of the emotions is randomly assigned a point level at the start of each round. Say the 'Happy' emotion is assigned the trump position and gets +1 point for each card played, and 'Sad' is assigned the bottom rank and simply doesn't' count for anything.

Players take turns playing cards of the various emotions in an attempt to score as many points in a round as possible.

Various 'mischief' cards will then throw a monkey wrench into the mix. Each of these little guys has printed instructions on an interesting way the card could be used to mix up the round. And because you have it in your hand to start the round you can lie in wait until just the right moment and then --- pounce!The one example mischief card revealed thus far will reorder the scoring ranks of the different suits. Suddenly cards worth points might be worth less points, or even no points at all. Who's smiling now?

Finally, as an interesting twist: if you feel like you're buggered and there's no way for you to win, then you back another player and pass a card to them in the hopes that it helps them win the round. If so, then you score some points.

Overall this seems like it's going to be a very dynamic game. Light on the rules (ages 8+) and high on the dynamics this could be a great title for family game night. You can check out more information on the official Smiley Faces website, or on designer Burno Faidutti's website. Here's the official description:

"SmileyFace is a card game of face-to-face family fun for four to eight players. This clever family game by Bruno Faidutti includes 82 cards featuring dozens of quirky and colorful characters based on popular emoticons. Over the seven short rounds of the game, each player tries to collect the highest total face value of cards of a single type. Each round brings new surprises as the values of cards change and the wacky Mischief cards come into play. Only the player with the highest score for a round (and perhaps the player who lent him a helping hand) will win points! All the other players are out of luck. :(

We'll keep you posted of any more details as their emerge, and we'll let you know when Smiley Faces hits shelves later this year.

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Critical Gamers' Board Game Roundup May 2010

May was a a great month for news and releases. The was the continuing coverage of the upcoming Game of Thrones wargame Battles of Westeros. Talisman expanded again with even more dungeon exploration goodness. Dominion got it's first expansion in quite some time with the much anticipated Dominion Alchemy. Oh and Crytpozoic got their website into gear and started posting some great previews of the Wrathgate expansion.

But there was more than just that, including game reviews and board game announcements. Here's the full list:

Board Games

Card Games

Collectable Card Games

WoW TCG Wrathgate Expansion Previews Begin

Gaming Culture

Gaming News

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Dominion Alchemy Expansion Hits Shelves

Happy day of days. The long awaited 2010 expansion to the best game in years (that is Dominion) has been sighted in stores and is now shipping from online retailers.

Dominion Alchemy [Amazon, Funagain] pushes us into the laboratories of mad scientists as they try to use common potions to plot and scheme the uses of transmutation to create bigger and better things. And after all, isn't that the whole theme of Dominion in the first place?

We should note that this is a half-sized expansion (larger ones to come later this year), and so it requires either Dominion or Dominion: Intrigue to play. But hey, if you don't already have one of those then you have a lot of great gaming to pickup (start with the original Dominion).

Here are the official details about Dominion Alchemy:

There are strange things going on in your basement laboratories. They keep calling up for more barrels of quicksilver, or bits of your hair. Well it's all in the name of progress. They're looking for a way to turn lead into gold, or at least into something better than lead. That lead had just been too good of a bargain to pass up; you didn't think, where will I put all this lead, what am I going to do with this lead anyway. Well that will all be sorted out. They're also looking for a universal solvent. If they manage that one, you will take whatever they use to hold it in and build a castle out of it. A castle that can't be dissolved! Now that's progress.
This is the 3rd addition to Dominion. It adds new Kingdom cards to Dominion. As it is an expansion, you will need Dominion, or Dominion: Intrigue to play the game.

Dominion: Alchemy is an expansion, and can't be played by itself; to play with it, you need Dominion, or a standalone expansion to Dominion (Dominion: Intrigue). Those provide the Basic cards you need to play (Treasure, Victory, and Curse cards), as well as the full rules for setup and gameplay. Dominion: Alchemy can also be combined with any other Dominion expansions you have.

Dominion Alchemy is now shipping from Amazon and Funagain Games. For more information please see our previous coverage: Dominion Alchemy Teasers, Dominion Alchemy Expansion is Nigh and Designer's Breakdown of Dominion Alchemy.

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Designer's Breakdown of Dominion Alchemy Cards

We like 2008's Dominion. Heck, we'd even say we love Dominion. It remains both the breakout game of the deck building genre, and also the leading franchise, too. Approachable, fun, deep, and extraordinarily repayable. And we're now on the eve of the launch of Dominion's third expansion: Dominion Alchemy. We're giddy with delight.

So what better treat than to read a preview of the new set's cards? How about one that's written by the game's designer himself?

And here it is: Donald X. Vaccarino's "The Secret History of the Alchemy Cards" post in the BGG forums.

Now the post goes into the nitty gritty details about the history of the Dominion franchise, including how it came to be, how it was broken into expansions, and why we're starting to see mini expansions instead of full fledged sets (blame some of the game's publishers). If you want to skip all that then just scroll down to where you start seeing the bold card games. Once there you'll get right to the nitty gritty details of what cards to expect, how they'll play with each other, and how they'll fold in mechanics of the existing sets.

We can't wait to get our hands on Dominion Alchemy. Some lucky ducks have found a few copies in their local gaming stores. If you act quick you might even be able to nab one. If not, we expect a full shipment to hit the major stores next month.

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Warhammer LCG Assault on Ulthuan Box Set Hits Stores

Ahh yes, the next chapter of the Warhammer Invasion Living Card Game has hit shelves. The Assault on Ulthuan Expansion [Amazon, Funagain] brings two new capitals to the game that square off against one another: the Dark Elves and the High Elves. Plus, like the original Warhammer Invasion LCG base set, this expansion includes two 40 card decks to kick start your core collection for these new factions factions.

And if you've been playing the LCG over the last half year or so then you're collection of cards will be very applicable here. All of those supporting cards from those two factions will find a home in focused decks with well maintained themes here instead of manning peripheral roles in your current collection.

If you're new to the LCG then you'll still need to pick up the original Warhammer Invasion LCG Core Set. Trust us, you'll be happy with that purchase; it includes the home cities for the Empire, Dwarf, Chaos, and Ork factions, as well as all of the damage tokens you'll need to play.

For the rest of you, here are the details on the new Assault on Ulthuan expansion:

"The Assault on Ulthuan expansion explores the bitter enmity between the Dark Elves and the High Elves. The Dark Elves are a cruel race who excel at taking prisoners, sacrificing them, and inflicting vast amounts of pain on enemy units through hit point reduction. This treacherous faction seeks to enslave the other races of the Warhammer world. The High Elves are a proud, powerful race who rely on card denial, cancellation, healing, and ranged attacks. They work to heal damage to the world and unlock the ancient mysteries of the arcane. Both will raise mighty kingdoms and venture out on perilous quests as they seek the power to stand victorious. Can either faction rise to dominance over the other, or will they both succumb to another foe altogether?"
- "The Assault Begins", FFG

The Warhammer LCG Assault on Ulthuan Box Set is now shipping from Amazon and Funagain.

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Critical Gamers' Board Game Roundup April 2010

Tons of gaming news this month. Tons. We have new announcements from Fantasy Flight Games like the mouthful Constantinopolis, a new Tide of Iron expansion Fury of the Bear, and even more information about the upcoming Song of Ice and Fire wargame system Battles of Westeros. Oh, and how can we forget the epic Warhammer 40k board game Horus Hersey also hit shelves.

We saw the launch of the iPad which already sports board games like Small World, and a new version of Civilization Revolution. Days of Wonder's new murder mystery board game Mystery Express, and for the deck building faithful we started seeing information about both the new Dominion Alchemy expansion, and Thunderstone's first expansion Wrath of the Elements.

Like we said: tons of gaming. And May really shouldn't be any different. Here are our stories for April:

Board Games

Card Games

Cheap Deals & Sales

Gaming News

iPad

iPhone

Blokus Now on your iPad and iPhone

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Thunderstone: Wrath of the Elements Card Montage

We have mixed feelings about Thunderstone [T&T, Funagain]. On the plus side the game takes Dominion to all new levels of awesomeness. By ingeniously incorporating the card buying / deck building, hero progression, and then dungeon crawling themes, the game turns a fun romp in economics into a race to beat up on the most bad guys with the best tools.

Unfortunately the original installment has its issues that surface after repeat play (and thus Dominion remains king of the genre).

For one, there really aren't that many times where you have to carefully weigh a decision regarding one of the major mechanics: deciding on 'going into town' to buy new cards , or attack the cave full of bad guy every turn is pretty much straight forward math. If your hand can deal enough damage to a bad guy then you'll almost certainly let lose on him instead of wasting your turn going into town. Mostly you'll find yourself with only one obvious decision here.

Secondly, and most importantly, the cards that you use don't have nearly as many interesting card combinations, 1-2 punches, and chains as its spiritual forerunner Dominion. After a while we found ourselves getting a tad bored with Thunderstone due to this flatness, where as Dominion remains fun and interesting.

But we love the system. We love the idea of Thunderstone. And we hope that new content from the upcoming expansion will flesh out the erected skeleton of awesomeness, and potentially sprout it into something bigger than anything the deck building genre has seen before.

While there aren't any official previews of Thunderstone: Wrath of The Elements, there is this gallery of cards that has surfaced at Board Game Geek. If your thirsting for more information about where Thunderstone is going then you should definitely check it out. We already see some interesting combos developing.

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Card Games

August 30, 2010

Space Hulk Death Angel the Card Game Up and Coming

August 23, 2010

Thunderstone Wrath of Elements Expansion is Finally Out

August 13, 2010

Dominon's Prosperity Expansion Reviewed at BGN

July 22, 2010

Thunderstone Wrath of Elements Spoilers Posted

July 9, 2010

Ascension - A New Deck Building Card Game on the Horizon

July 6, 2010

Fictionaire - A 'New' Party Quiz Game Announced

June 23, 2010

Thunderstone's Wrath of Elements Expansion in July

June 14, 2010

Smiley Face Family Card Game Announced

June 1, 2010

Critical Gamers' Board Game Roundup May 2010

May 21, 2010

Dominion Alchemy Expansion Hits Shelves

May 10, 2010

Designer's Breakdown of Dominion Alchemy Cards

May 4, 2010

Warhammer LCG Assault on Ulthuan Box Set Hits Stores

May 3, 2010

Critical Gamers' Board Game Roundup April 2010

April 28, 2010

Thunderstone: Wrath of the Elements Card Montage