A little bit of a slow news week this week but any news is always good news in the world of tabletop!

Vampire: The Masquerade – Blood Feud

Everything Epic. The creators of the hugely disappointing Big Trouble in Little China are back with another licenced game. Hopefully, this hits the spot but it looks like you will need a lot of room!

From the publisher:

Vampire: The Masquerade – Blood Feud is a highly thematic, team-based, strategic game that plays 4-32 players and is run by 1-2 storytellers who also interact and play. You may play as one of the warring vampire clans such as Ventrue, Tremere, Gangrel, or Toreador, or perhaps you’ll choose to become one of the human factions fighting for their own desires, such as City Hall, the Mafia, or the Arcanum, with many more from which to choose.

Additionally, the game integrates the story world of Vampire: The Masquerade by adding storyteller scenarios that add an optional narrative approach to the game. Players also gain disciplines, which give them powerful supernatural abilities unique to their character. Lastly, teams will choose their ambitions, which allow for multiple paths to victory, such as being bloodthirsty, manipulative, greedy, or somewhere in between.

Blood Feud is dubbed a “Mega Board Game” because unlike a traditional board game, it isn’t played at a single table. Blood Feud requires a large room or two separate rooms with 2-4 tables. One game table features the Cityscape and Orders, the map where players move their forces around the city and order them to fight and take control of important territories. The other game table features the Council and Market, where players use their best diplomatic and resource management skills to make sly trades, buy upgrades and player level-ups, and make large political decisions that will shape the destinies of teams to determine whether they win or lose! In order to win the game, teams earn victory points through the completion of legacies, which are secret objectives that can consist of all sorts of tasks and achievements earned through gameplay.

The whole ‘mega game’ aspect of it sounds fun but….gimmicky?

Venice

If the idea of moving gondolas around a board is the ultimate wish come true, then Venice is for you! A worker (boat?) placement game set in the titular city.

From the publisher:

Set in the titular city in the 16th century, Venice lets players take the role of wealthy, influential merchants as they ride their gondolas up and down the city’s canals, train their assistants, complete contracts, and leverage their influence to gain political power. But business is anything but usual. As they broker contracts and flirt with crime, merchants must avoid arousing the suspicion of the Venetian Inquisition, lest they find themselves arrested and their businesses shut down.

In the game, players move their two gondolas around the board. When they move a gondola, they may activate the assistants they have placed previously on any building they pass, but they may train (and improve the capabilities of) only the one on which they end their movement. Assistants allow you to gain resources, trade, make money, and take an array of other actions depending on the buildings to which they are assigned. When resources are made, they are placed in the gondola, and these will be used to fulfill lucrative contracts.

Space is limited on the city’s canals, however, and each time you pass another merchant’s boat, gossip will spread, raising your suspicion level with the Inquisition. Lower your suspicion with visits and donations to the church, or academic institutions — or throw caution to the wind and engage in unsavoury activities for money or information. During the game, being such a well-known merchant can be a boon to your political career, but at game end, the most suspicious player will be made an example of by the Inquisition — blocking your victory even if you have the most points.

On Mars

This is heading to Kickstarter very soon and is one of our most anticipated upcoming releases of 2019 (hopefully!). It’s from one of our favourite designers also! Vital Lacerda.

From the designer:

On Mars is played over several rounds, each consisting of two phases – the Colonization Phase and the Shuttle Phase.

During the Colonization Phase, each player takes a turn during which they take actions. The available actions depend on the side of the board they are on. If you are in orbit, you can take blueprints, buy and develop technologies, and take supplies from the Warehouse. If you are on the surface of the planet, you can construct buildings with your bots, upgrade these buildings using blueprints, take scientists and new contracts, welcome new ships, and explore the planet’s surface with their rover. In the Shuttle Phase, players may travel between the colony and the Space Station in orbit.

All buildings on Mars have a dependency on each other and some are required for the colony to grow. Building shelters for Colonists to live in requires oxygen; generating oxygen requires plants; growing plants require water; extracting water from ice requires power; generating power requires mining minerals, and mining minerals require Colonists. Upgrading the colony’s ability to provide each of these resources is vital. As the colony grows, more shelters are needed so that the Colonists can survive the inhospitable conditions on Mars.

During the game, players are also trying to complete missions. Once a total of three missions have been completed, the game ends. To win the game, players must contribute to the development of the first colony on Mars. This is represented during the game by players gaining Opportunity Points (OP). The player with the most OP at the end of the game is declared the winner.

Sounds fantastic!

Kingdom Rush: A Rift in Time

Tower defence board games of recent time have usually been a bit of a letdown. Kingdom Rush is here to fix that. It’s our Kickstarter pick of the week and you can still back it HERE.

From the designer:

Welcome to Kingdom Rush: Rift in Time, where you and your allies must work together to fend off the furious onslaught of the mysterious Time Mage. Command Heroes and build Towers to defend the realm by placing polyomino pieces to attack your enemies and deploying soldiers to hold back the ever-advancing horde. Be careful, though! The Time Mage’s portals are wreaking havoc, causing all of the Towers to warp in and out of existence! Will you play your Towers to defend the Kingdom, or will you pass them to your compatriots so that the Towers can be upgraded? The decision is yours!

Play through a unique campaign to foil the Time Mage’s plan for total domination of the space-time continuum. Each new scenario in the campaign is more challenging than the one before it, introducing formidable foes, game-changing events, and epic bosses to battle! The only way to stop the Time Mage is to close all of their pesky portals but you’ll have to do so while combating wave after wave of their minions. Fight back with unique Heroes, special abilities, and an awesome arsenal of upgradable Towers. The Time Mage will stop at nothing as they try to take over the Kingdom and neither should you – archers ready!

This is looking pretty hot. We’ve had a few run-ins with other tower defence games that were either too simple or ones that were too complex for their own good. This game lands perfectly down the middle. Go back it while you can!

See you all next week!