Vendor: Rio Grande Games
Type: Board Games
Price: 76.95

ETA Q4 2024

History of the World retells the story of humanity, starting from ancient Sumeria and ending with modern day USA. The map emphasizes those lands where civilizations flourished, with over sixty peoples featured on empire and event cards.

Capitals, cities, monuments, and forts are brought into play and then, just as quickly, are reduced by the armies of rivals. Control of buildings and lands enables players to collect gold. Whosoever has the most gold at game's end wins.

Compared to earlier editions of History of the World, this edition:

• Allows you to play with or without dice rules.
• Has a different distribution of empire cards and event cards
• Features new event cards and gold collection mechanisms
• Allows for a new "area tokens" strategy
• Includes new "honor tokens" that provide benefits
• Has a new player array

In general, the spirit of the game has been left intact, while incorporating elements from the earliest editions of the game as well as later developments. "Catastrophe", for example, has now become an honor, and "Weaponry", which was always too strong an event, has been removed.

—description from the publisher

Vendor: Ragnar Brothers
Type: Board Games
Price: 54.95

Vendor: Ragnar Brothers
Type: Board Games
Price: 79.95

Promised Land: 1250-587 BC is a history of the Promised Land from Joshua through to the Babylonian captivity. Players compete in two teams, out of which just one individual will be crowned the winner. Hebrew units are split between Northern and Southern kingdoms, but Hebrew players will have the opportunity to use both these factions through the game. Similarly there are eleven Heathen kingdoms for the Heathen players to use. Play happens at an individual, human level as well as at the movement of nations level.

Each player has two Farmers, two Merchants and two Priests. A number of these can be placed after conquest into lands occupied by the kingdom just played. Farmers collect two bronze coins for plains and one for hills. Merchants collect two silver coins for ports and one for roads. Priests collect two gold coins for temples and one for cities. Players may have only one of their Patriarchs in any one land. Players may share occupation of a land, but only one type of Patriarch may be in each land.

Players use the coins generated by their Patriarchs to buy artefacts that influence game play but can instead choose to secure objectives on the Kingdom track to highlight the development of the nation and score victory points of course! A variety of strategies are available, and players must make choices throughout the game in order to emerge victorious.

Vendor: Z-Man Games
Type: Board Games
Price: 68.95

Vendor: Ragnar Brothers
Type: Board Games
Price: 39.95

Vendor: Ragnar Brothers
Type: Board Games
Price: 9.95

In Barking Up The Wrong Tree, players must try to collect the most trees, preferably of different types. To do this, they place dogs barking up the trees of their choice, and the most dogs wins the tree. Normally a player can place only one breed of dog per tree, but if a player plays a cat card, then more dogs can join the throng.

The game is played over five lively game rounds, with increasing numbers of dogs, cats and trees available each round.

Deceptively simple, this game works a treat.

Vendor: Ragnar Brothers
Type: Board Games
Price: 78.95

Quantum physics tells us ‘the ability of quantum particles to occupy two states seemingly at once could be explained by both states co-existing in different universes’. So when you wave goodbye to your ship in your universe, someone else waves goodbye to their ship in a different parallel universe. But what would happen if these neighboring universes, separated by the thinnest, gossamer barrier should somehow be breached and my ship sails into your world and searches for gold in competition to your ship? Play the game and find out...

Niña & Pinta is a game of exploration of the New World where the great nations of Spain, England, France and Portugal send ships out to map the unknown and to bring home wealth to the Old World. This is a game where those ships will cross the divide and where no love is lost between Captains no matter which world it is! Explore, settle, fight if need be, and help your nation develop its Culture, Science, Religion and War-craft, to be the best in all worlds!

No dice rolling in this Ragnar game, but plenty of tension as players can launch offensives with their Captains after first using them to flip land tiles thereby exploring each New World. Settlers are placed in explored lands to generate gold revenue. When combinations of terrain are occupied, towns and cities can be built. Meanwhile gold is used in the Old World to buy items to benefit further New World development or to accumulate the victory points generated by Culture, Science, Religion and War which themselves are meshed with what is taking place in the three New Worlds.

This is a tightly knit puzzle that will have players pondering a multiplicity of decisions from start to finish. As much of the play is simultaneous and "single-action", there is little downtime. The game has a good sense of growth worthy of its fascinating theme.

Vendor: Ragnar Brothers
Type: Board Games
Price: 94.95

DRCongo explores a hopeful hypothesis that if enlightened industrialists worked to develop the economy of this mighty country, then it would escape the clutches of a crippling insurgency.

Players build industries and expand a transport network of river, rail and roads. Oil, minerals and crops are produced and if sold via the Atlantic port of Matadi, players reap rich rewards. Players develop their own cities and hydroelectricity can be sold to these.

The game is built in four game layers with layer two introducing insurgents and peacekeepers, layer three the Government, and layer four strategic interventions by other countries.

The game is played on a map showing the eleven provinces of Democratic Republic of Congo and their "capital" towns. Transport routes are shown and include the major rivers and railways and export routes. In a turn a player may carry out one of five actions: build industry, place transport, develop city, produce resources, or sell resources. A neat and tidy economic game is made complicated by the presence of insurgents at game start, and these are suppressed and eliminated by use of players peacekeepers. This is a typical Ragnar Brothers dice combat system — simple but bringing tension and fun to proceedings.

Vendor: IDW Games
Type: Board Games
Price: 69.95

Norse law dictates that every man shall posses a weapon at all times. The need to swiftly wield an axe in the name of battle, honor, or revenge was ever-present. Valhalla will not be filled with the weak.

In Fire & Axe: A Viking Saga, originally released as Viking Fury, you vie for glory across three epic Viking sagas, each one a different journey to raid, trade, and settle territories. Will you choose the path of diplomacy and trade for victory? Or will your longship cast a bloody wake?

Start your journey by gathering crew and goods to outfit your boat. Will your ships be filled with warrior or goods? Settlers or sackers? After your launch from bustling ports into the open sea, you must choose your path to power — but don't get lost in the wind; the sea will gladly devour souls who take her lightly...

The life of a Viking is one of power and glory, or untold sorrow. Which shall be your destiny?

Vendor: Ragnar Brothers
Type: Board Games
Price: 20.95

The year is 1897 and to celebrate sixty years of the reign of Queen Victoria and bring much needed solace to the Country's weary workers, four seaside resorts vie with each other to be the grandest and most opulent, worthy of a Royal visit from Her Majesty herself. The latest in steam technology will be on display to attract and transport visitors to the hotels and guest houses that line the seafronts. Amusements and monuments will be created to edify and delight the visiting holiday-makers. You, as the designer of these developments must complete your resort first and claim your rightful place as Chief Architect, by Royal Appointment! Help is available from enigmatic and mysterious personages: Donkey-boy, Lord Admiral, Princess Royal and Madame Ice-cream. They may prove invaluable but are fickle and may aid your opponents, too!

Steam Donkey is a card game that is fun but has depth to its strategic play. You will make decisions about when to take cards into your hand from the resort and whether to build in the Park, Beach or Town area. You, as the Architect will have to choose which characters will be of most use to you each turn and which projects they will help you construct. All for the glory of having the most magnificent resort in the land!

An unusual mechanism in the game is that the reverse of each card is as important as its front. The reverse shows holiday-makers ("the Visitors") arriving at a railway station complete with suitcases and their mechanical dog. The suitcases are color-coded to show the area of the resort to which the Visitors are destined. This area could be either the Park, the Town or the Beach. After they arrive, these same Visitors may be collected to the player's hand — but at this juncture the fronts of the cards become the focus of play. The players build amusements, lodgings, monuments and transport within the three areas, and this information is shown on the card fronts together with a point value. In order to build, a player discards a prescribed number of cards of the same type as the card being built. Of course, there is a little more to the game than this...

Four Character cards — Madame Ice-cream, Lord Admiral, Princess Royal and Donkey-boy — are swapped between players to enhance card play, and four Kick-on cards in the advanced game — The Castle, Mechanical Dog, The Bank, and Feral Donkey — give the owning player a particular advantage and are retained throughout the game.

Vendor: Ragnar Brothers
Type: Board Games
Price: 34.95

The Ragnar Brothers return to canal-building in this new game set during the Industrial Revolution, which will be produced in an edition of 1,000 copies. Here's a game description from the back of the box:

"For a brief period the Industrial Revolution burned so bright that Britain was known as the 'Workshop of the World.' This Ragnar Brothers' game recreates that dramatic time. Players establish their position on the map-board by investing in ports, heavy industries, textiles, light industries and crafts. Canal networks are built to connect the thriving towns. Expenditure is vast, but capital gains are greater. Next the railways are built and each player seeks to strengthen their industrial base. By game end, towns are linked from London to Wales, Scotland to the Channel ports. Wealth decides the winner."

And here's the game play described in more detail:

• The game lasts two eras – the Canal Era and Railroad Era – with players earning money at the end of each era.

• Before starting an era, players each reveal one of their two demand tokens to show which towns (ports, textile locations, etc.) have special value.

• Each era lasts a number of rounds, and in each round players reveal town cards equal to the number of players, then hold an auction for turn order. Players choose towns in turn order, placing an Industry marker on that location, then optionally building links from that town, ideally forming a network of links that connects their Industries.

• Once the town cards run out, the era ends. Players (may) reveal their second demand token, then they collect money equal to their revenue (earned by connecting Industries with links), the demand value of their Industries, and the value of their largest network of links, with token payment for any remaining links.

• Between eras, the game is reset Amun-Re-style, with revenues being zeroed out and all links being cleared from the board. Players' Industries remain in place, letting them build on their holdings in the second era, which otherwise plays out nearly identical to the first.

Vendor: Ragnar Brothers
Type: Board Games
Price: 34.95

Monastery is a tile laying game in which players construct different parts of a medieval monastery. The work is done by the monks of a player. The monks may move from tile to tile and in addition to building work they can also study, toil or pray. In the ‘icon’ game monks can also make use of the special properties of some of the tiles.

The tiles vary in value ranging from 1 point field and path tiles to 5 point Chapter House and Library. The higher the value of tile the more monks are needed to build it. Players can build independently, but often they are required to work collaboratively.

The game spreads over two days of monastic life, with turns being allocated as time for study and toil or for services in the abbey. At each service a new abbot is elected and apart from going first in the turn the abbot also has some significant powers.

In order to win the game players must collect the letters of the abbey’s motto ‘Libera Nos Quaesumus Ab Omnibus Malis Amen’. The letters become progressively more expensive and players must decide whether to buy letters or recruit extra monks.

Points at game end are also awarded for the ‘blessings’ which players can collect throughout the game.

Vendor: Ragnar Brothers
Type: Board Games
Price: 29.95

Anyways is a fast-paced, interactive word game in which players place one letter at a time from their hand onto the board, while trying to maximize their score. Words score in every direction: horizontally, vertically and diagonally; forwards or backwards. In other words, Anyways! Players choose whether to restock their hand from the consonant bag or the vowel bag, and letters vary in value. There is a unique scoring system for this unique game. The tiles are solid wood and in black with colored letters, making for a stylish display!