According to the FFG site Tribes of the Vale the latest expansion for the Battle of Westeros is now on sale. I've never bit the bullet on the whole Westeros system. I spent too much money on Battlelore and Descent and those seldom get played so I was hesitant to get into this series.

For those of you that are apparently you can get it now!

51^st State

Designer: Ignacy Trzewiczek

Publisher: Portal/Toy Vault

2-4 Players, 60-90 Minutes

Think: Post-Apocalypse Empire building with a confusing symbol language similar to Race for the Galaxy

Suggested Soundtrack: Godspeed You! Black Emperor

If there is one theme that seems under-represented in board gaming it would be the post-apocalypse. I personally have quite a weak spot for the genre in movies, I grew up on Mad Max and Logan’s Run. I have been heard to shriek “Soylent Green is made of people!” and have seen other classics like A Boy and His Dog, and Planet of the Apes, more times than I can remember. I see grim flashes of brilliance in 12 Monkeys, Children of Men and The Road. I’ve seen the train wreck messes of the genre like The Postman and I Am Legend more than a few times, and preached the insane gospel of Idiocracy to more than a few people.

And then board games. If you leave out the Zombie Apocalypse sub-genre, then off the top of my head the only two I can think of are Neuroshima Hex and this game, 51^st State. Both set in the same universe, based on a Polish tabletop RPG that honestly sounds pretty interesting, but is sadly unavailable in English.

The Basics

In games of 51^st state each player plays one of four randomly selected factions trying to build a civilization out of the ashes of a post-apocalypse United States. They are the Merchant’s Guild, Appalachian Federation, New York and the Mutants Union, each with their own set of base action cards, one each for Cooperation, Incorporation or Conquer. Each group has clearly different strengths and weaknesses dictated by their starting cards. For example, the Mutants Union can conquer even the most difficult locations in the game with the resource generated every turn by their faction; however, they have a difficult time Incorporating locations as it takes two of a resource that they have no immediate access to.

Turns are divided into the following phases: Lookout, Production, Actions, VP Count, and Clean Up

The Meat

Cards in the deck fall into three basic categories: Leaders, Locations and Contacts.

Most leaders accrue points for your faction based on actions you complete. Thematically amusingly, when a leader outlives their usefulness he can be “Killed” and replaced by expending a weapons token during the action phase.

Locations can be incorporated, conquered or cooperation established, as such each card has red, white and blue sections that correspond to each action.

Contacts provide a one-time use bonus to one of the three before-mentioned location actions. Conveniently, the contact cards color-code the available location actions; red contacts will conquer a region, which attaches the red portion of the card to your base to later use as spoils. Blue contacts are for cooperation, and they thus attach the blue portion of the card to your base and provide a cooperation bonus on every subsequent resource phase. Only the tan-colored incorporation contacts don’t quite match the white section of the cards, just a minor quibble.

Lookout! (Phase)

During the lookout phase players take turns drafting cards from a number of face-up cards dealt out to begin the turn. To keep the selection of cards from evaporating the game provides an odd sequence where after a certain player’s drafts an additional card is added to the table. I honestly thought that this would be overly complicated, but it turned out to be quite manageable and after a turn or two I found myself able to restock the pool correctly without having to recheck the rulebook.

Production

When the production phase occurs each faction collects the resources available to them, at game start this is just the three workers and single resource indicated on the base cards. As the game progresses cooperation cards acquired increase production, as well as many of the locations incorporated. This is the phase in which locations conquered can be discarded for “Spoils” providing their one-time bonuses.

Actions

In addition to the three basic ‘Contact’ actions, players have a number of other actions at their disposal. Incorporated locations can be Redeveloped (read: replaced) for a single building material. This is a fairly critical function, as it provides a relatively easy way to get new buildings into play when older ones have lost their usefulness, as well as providing a bonus redevelop victory point.

Workers can be spent acquiring a resource from the bank, as well as being sent to work locations owned by yourself or an opponent. Outside of the card drafting sequence, and a couple of location abilities worker use is the only part of the game with any player interaction.

Game End

The game ends at the end of any turn when a player acquires 30 or more victory points. Each building and leader is a single point, beyond that, VP tokens are collected for redevelopments and leader executions, as well as leader and location abilities used during the action phase. VP are not constantly increased as earned, but rather counted up at the end of the turn.

The Beginning of the End

On a negative note, I felt the publisher should have included a play aid for the card symbols as well as the available actions. During our first play through we lost track of the ability to discard to draw and send workers to take resources from the bank. As a result Dan spent much of that game passing round after round waiting for the ability to take any actions. Additionally, the rule book could have been a little clearer at times, and many of the smaller rules kind of fall through the cracks due to their inconspicuous placement in the text. Also, the scoring track on the back of the box is functionally flawed. One bump of the table and the player tokens easily slide out of position.

Overall, I enjoy the game play, though games often seem to suffer from the randomness of the card drafting, and I can’t be certain just yet that the factions are well-balanced. I appreciate the quality of the graphic design and enjoy the mostly fresh feeling theme. The same game with a beaten-to-death theme like ancient Egypt or medieval city-building I would not have even bought, and probably would have had a cognitive bias against as well.

So I liked it quite a bit, and I’ll preach it’s gospel to my gaming group for a while, the end of the world is coming soon, after all.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week seems when you return from vacation you're expected to work. I still have 4 unopened games sitting on my table. Anyway on to the news

FFG has posted the rules for the TI Expansion and has also posted a new preview of the upcoming Horned Rat expansion for Chaos in the Old World.

There is a video preview of the upcoming Star Trek Expeditions game over at startrek.com

Want a free copy of the new Lord of the Rings: the Card Game? Well here is your chance and it is very simple.

It's come to my attention that people can't find the tweet from May 3rd so all you need to do now is follow us at @oldboardgamer. If you would be so kind as to tweet a link to this post that would be fantastic.

Anyone who follows us and retweets the message between now and the end of May is eligible. 


On June 1st I'll select one random person who retweeted the message to win the copy of the game.  

This contest is only open to people who live in the continental United States. Only one entry per person.

This caught me off guard but FFG has released a mobile version of this fun game.

Fantasy Flight Games is delighted to announce that the international bestseller Hey, That’s My Fish! is now available for your mobile device! Hey, That's My Fish! is a visually stunning game across all platforms, including a Universal version that runs in full resolution on all iOS devices, plus a native version for your Android devices.

If you're going wait a minute this isn't an FFG game well apparently it is now. The publishers is also releasing a boxed versions "With a new box, new penguin miniatures, and new artwork, the updated Hey, That’s My Fish! will delight fans of the classic board game while engaging newcomers."

As you all know I am a big FFG fan but lately I've become a little disappointed with what they are doing. I'll save that editorial for another time.

Some news for you as I get back into a routine.

FFG has posted a new preview of the upcoming TI expansion. Never  been much of a TI player myself but this expansion looks very good.

You might recall are interview with Richard Berg on the upcoming Godzilla game well it seems he has gotten his pre-release copy and posted some pics over at board game geek.

A product I am keeping an eye on called Battleship Galaxies is slowly releasing the information train. You can find the latest news here.

According to this BGG post Age of empires is getting a name change and an expansion. I'm one of a select few who detests this game for no apparent reason. I should mention the above post doesn't appear to be from an official source.


So I dug into the LOTR Card Game and I have to say I really am enjoying it. As much as I grow tired of the card game genre, being able to play solo or co-operative is very engaging. With only 3 quests included however I see this game becoming a big money pit.  There are already 3 adventure packs announced at $9.99 a pop and I'm sure many more to follow since the game appears to be popular.

Next up is Fighting Formations, I really can't wait to give this a try due to the praise it is getting.

So I'm back from vacation and thanks to Todd for keeping some sort of posting going on here at the OBGB. We'll have to send out a search party for Chris to see where he is.

I arrived home to several new games waiting for me. I'll hopefully get to one of them before Thursdays meet up I just can't decide which. It's between Fighting Formations and the LOTR Card game. I'd much prefer FF over the card game but the chances of that getting played on Thursday are slim. However chances are someone else already has played the LOTR card game saving me the trouble of reading the rules again before play which is always a selling point in my book.

Either way it's good to be home but the trip was well worth it. My parents enjoyed their 50th wedding anniversary party a lot which made all the travel a lot easier.

As you may or may not know, our game club has a great event three times a year named Kitcon.

Dan mentioned this game before he left and our friends at FFG have posted their first glimpse here:

Meant to do this post two weeks ago, but figured I'd toss it out here today.

I was browsing the different sites for some lunchtime topics today and I stumbled upon an upcoming game explained in the z-man games newsletter found here:

Not the highway. . .not the former wrestler/governor (or is it governor wrestler).

I will be away for close to 2 weeks so the traffic might slow a little. Chris and Todd will need to hold down the fort so we'll see how they do when I give them the keys.

Upon my return I expect a lot of game to be waiting at the office to look over and review. Anyway I'm all packed, just need to grab some games for my iPad for the trip.

FFG has announced the 3rd Adventure pack for their (yet to be released) Lord of the Rings Card game called A Journey To Rhosgobel

This is the 3rd expansion in the Shadows or Mirkwood cycle. While some news can be found on this pack here. The most exciting thing about the announcement is confirmation that the base game will be in stores in 2 weeks.


The other announcement for today is a new game called Deadwood which as far as I can tell has no relation to the TV series that used to air on HBO. How dare those co#$suckers use that name. Sorry Deadwood humor, had to be done. While there is a page up at board game geek there is not a single post in the forums. The best info you can get now is the FFG announcement page.

Those of you enjoying the excellent game Wrath of Ashardalon are in store for a few more official adventures thanks to Wizards of the Coast. Three new ones to be exact and they can be found right here.

For those interested FFG has posted a preview of their upcoming expansion for Chaos in the Old World. You can read all about it here.

They have also announced a painting contest which can score you a copy of everything they have released for Battles of Westeros.

Maybe I should enter, what do you think Chris?