Tie Breakers for all games can be found here.
2024 HOT NEW GAME: ROCK HARD 1977
Designer: Jackie Fox
Publisher: Devir
BoardGameGeek info: Rock Hard 1977
GM: John Weber
Number of Players: 3 – 5
DEMO: Thursday at 8:00pm
It’s 1977. You’re an up-and-coming musician, dreaming of making it big with your band. Over the next few months you’ll rehearse, play gigs, write songs, and promote your band. With careful planning and a little luck, you’ll earn the most fame and become the best new artist of the year.
ARCS
Designer: Cole Wehrle
Publisher: Leder Games
BoardGameGeek info: Arcs
GM: Mike Brazinski
Number of Players: 3 – 4
DEMO: Friday 1PM
Arcs is a sharp sci-fi strategy game for 2–4 players, set in a dark yet silly universe. Ready yourself for dramatic twists and turns as you launch into this galactic struggle.
WYRMSPAN
Designer: Connie Vogelmann
Publisher: Stonemaier Games
BoardGameGeek info: Wyrmspan
GM: Game Kastle
Number of Players: 3 – 5
DEMO: Thurs 5 – 7PM (Full Learn & Play game)
You are an amateur dracologist in the world of Wyrmspan, a place where dragons of all shapes, sizes, and colors roam the skies. Excavate a hidden labyrinth you recently unearthed on your land and entice these beautiful creatures to roost in the sanctuary of your caves. Wyrmspan is inspired by the mechanisms of Wingspan, though its unique elements make Wyrmspan a standalone game
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: DUEL FOR MIDDLE-EARTH
Designer: Antoine Bauza, Bruno Cathala
Publisher: Repos Production
BoardGameGeek info: Duel for Middle-earth
GM: Chris Wildes
Number of Players: 2
DEMO:
The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth is a spin off from 7 Wonders – Duel, one player playing the evil forces of Sauron and another the free people of middle earth. A dark rumour rises from Mordor. The Eye turns to Middle-earth. The hour has come. The Fellowship is reunited. The Heroes prepare for battle. In Duel for Middle-earth, you’ll have to choose sides. Play as the Fellowship of the Ring, prevent the Enemy from gaining ground and destroy the One Ring. Or play as Sauron and send your Nazgûl after Sam and Frodo, spreading your hordes over enemy cities. The fate of Middle-earth is in your hands!
PATH OF CIVILIZATION
Designer: Fabien Gridel
Publisher: Captain Games
BoardGameGeek info: Path of Civilization
GM: John Weber
Number of Players: 3-5
DEMO: Thursday at 3:30pm
Take the reins of your Civilization and make the choices that will make it the most prosperous. It doesn’t matter which path you take, as long as it leads your people to glory. Research new technologies to improve your nation’s Science, Military strength, Spirituality, Culture and Industrialization.
TICKET TO RIDE: IBERIA & SOUTH KOREA
Designer: Alan R. Moon
Publisher: Days of Wonder
BoardGameGeek info: TTR: Iberia and South Korea
GM: Game Kastle
Number of Players: 3 – 5
Ticket to Ride Map Collection 8: Iberia & South Korea gives you the chance to set up rail networks on two peninsulas with wildly different settings.
CITIES
Designer: Steve Finn, Phil Walker-Harding
Publisher: Devir
BoardGameGeek info: Cities
GM: Game Kastle
Number of Players: 3 – 4
DEMO: Friday at 6PM
Cities is a city-building game in which you draft the best projects and arrange them in your own playing area. With action and resource draft mechanisms, it will give you the opportunity to visit the cities of Sydney, Venice, New York, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon, Mexico City, and Buenos Aires. Can you design the most magnificent neighborhood?
HARMONIES
Designer: Johan Benvenuto
Publisher: Libellud
BoardGameGeek info: Harmonies
GM: Chris Wildes
Number of Players: 3 – 4
DEMO: Friday at 7:00pm
In Harmonies, build landscapes by placing colored tokens and create habitats for your animals. To earn the most points and win the game, incorporate the habitats in your landscapes wisely and have as many animals as you can settle there.
NOCTURNE
Designer: David Iezzi
Publisher: Flatout Games
BoardGameGeek info: Nocturne
GM: Game Kastle
Number of Players: 3 – 4
DEMO: Thurs. 7 PM
In Nocturne, you play as a fox mystic casting magic spells to collect an assortment of enchanted items. You compete against rival mystics, each of you deciding when to cast the most powerful spells to move through the forest most cunningly to secure the best collection. Each turn you decide which items are most valuable to you and when to hold the other mystics back.
APIARY
Designer: Connie Vogelmann
Publisher: Stonemaier Games
BoardGameGeek info: Apiary
GM: Chris Wildes
Number of Players: 3 – 5
In Apiary, each player controls one of twenty unique factions. Your faction starts the game with a hive, a few resources, and worker bees. A worker-placement, hive-building challenge awaits you: explore planets, gather resources, develop technologies, and create carvings to demonstrate your faction’s strengths (measured in victory points) over one year’s Flow. However, the Dearth quickly approaches, and your workers can take only a few actions before they must hibernate! Can you thrive or merely survive?
EARTH
Designer: Maxime Tardif
Publisher: Inside Up Games
Boardgamegeek Info: Earth
GM: Ann Rudolph
Number of Players: 3 – 5
Earth is an open world engine builder for 1 to 5 players with simple rules but tons of strategic possibilities. With its encyclopedic nature and the enormous number of unique cards and combinations, every single game will allow you to discover new synergies and connections, just as our vast and fascinating world allows us to do!
EXPEDITIONS
Designer: Jamey Stegmaier
Publisher: Stonemaier Games
BoardGameGeek info: Expeditions
GM: Marcy Morelli
Number of Players: 3 – 5
Expeditions is a competitive, card-driven, engine-building game of exploration. Play cards to gain power, guile, and unique worker abilities; move your mech to mysterious locations and gain cards found among the tiles; use workers, items, meteorites, and quests to enhance your mech; and use power and guile to vanquish corruption.
EGIZIA
Designer: Acchittocca
Publisher: Hans im Gluck
BoardGameGeek info: Egizia
GM: Chad Martin
Number of Players 3 – 4
The players are builders in Ancient Egypt, competing to get the most fame building different monuments requested by the Pharaoh (the Sphinx, the Obelisk, the Temple, and the Pyramid).
Rules Changes for Tournament Play
- The 1/10 scoring card will be removed from play.
- If all players agree, redeal the cards on the river the first turn if the +2 sphinx card appears in the first three slots (before the sphinx).
CASCADIA
Designer: Randy Flynn
Publisher: Flatout Games
Boardgamegeek Info: Cascadia
GM: Marcy Morelli
Number of Players: 3 – 4
Cascadia is a puzzly tile-laying and token-drafting game featuring the habitats and wildlife of the Pacific Northwest. In the game, you take turns building out your own terrain area and populating it with wildlife. On a turn you choose a new habitat tile that is paired with a wildlife token, then place that tile next to your other ones and place the wildlife token on an appropriate habitat. Four tiles are on display, with each tile being paired at random with a wildlife token, so you must make the best of what’s available — unless you have a nature token to spend so that you can pick your choice of each item. Ideally you can place habitat tiles to create matching terrain that reduces fragmentation and creates wildlife corridors, mostly because you score for the largest area of each type of habitat at game’s end, with a bonus if your group is larger than each other player’s. At the same time, you want to place wildlife tokens so that you can maximize the number of points scored by them, with the wildlife goals being determined at random by one of the three scoring cards for each type of wildlife.
OBSESSION
Designer: Dan Hallagan
Publisher: Kayenta Games
BoardGameGeek info: Obsession
GM: John Weber
Number of Players: 3 – 5
You are the head of a respected but troubled family estate in mid-19th century Victorian England. After several lean decades, family fortunes are looking up! Your goal is to improve your estate so as to be in better standing with the truly influential families in Derbyshire.
Players should be aware that there are several published variants as well as several “Expert” variants that have been posted on Boardgame Geek. Furthermore, since this game debuted at EuroQuest in 2018, a second edition with a major expansion (Upstairs/Downstairs) has added an additional dimension to the game, along with user-generated content such as additional Gentry cards and improvement tiles. Players should feel free to use any combination of these — since this is the Wild Card event, anything goes, i.e., any variant that all players agree upon is acceptable.
CAN’T STOP
Designer: Sid Sackson
Publisher: Parker Brothers, Franjos Spieleverlag,
BoardGameGeek info: Can’t Stop
GM: Chad Martin
Number of Players: 3 – 4
In this Sid Sackson classic, there is a board with all the possible results of two six-sided dice: two through twelve. The object of the game is to move a little marker to the top of three columns by rolling that result, but you need many more sevens than you need twelves, based on the likelihood of each result. During your turn, you roll the dice and place temporary markers onto the board. You can continue moving these markers until either none of your dice match (your turn is over and all progress you’ve made is gone), or cut your losses and end your turn (placing a permanent marker in your rows). Nice light filler for opening or closing a session.
LOST CITIES
Designer: Reiner Knizia
Publisher: 999 Games, Rio Grande Games
BoardGameGeek info: Lost Cities
GM: Chad Martin
Number of Players: 2
Lost Cities is a card game from the Kosmos two-player series. The object is to mount profitable expeditions to one or more of the five different lost cities. Card play is quite straightforward, with a few agonizing moments sprinkled through what is mostly a fast-moving game. If you start a given expedition, you’d better make some progress in it, or it’ll score you negative points. If you can make a lot of progress, you’ll score quite well. After three rounds, the highest total score takes the day.
Rules Clarification
Three hands must be completed for an official game. As per the rules, highest aggregate score will determine the winner.
VEGAS SHOWDOWN
Designer: Henry Stern
Publisher: Avalon Hill (Hasbro)
BoardGameGeek info: Vegas Showdown
GM: Eugene Yee
Number of Players: 3 – 5
Players compete to build the most famous hotel/casino. Room tiles representing slot machines, lounges, restaurants, and other casino-related places appear on a central board and the players hold auctions to win the rights to have those rooms in their building, garnering them income, population, or fame. Bidding wars escalate, values fluctuate, and designers renovate until finally the hotel/casinos are put to the test to determine whose garners the most fame.
Rules clarifications:
1. There is a confirmed (with the game designer) misprint on one of the Sports Book tiles. There should be two “A” tiles and one “B” tile. Before game play, take one of the “B” Sports Book tiles and shuffle it into the “A” pile. Place the “A” tiles underneath the “B” tiles and draw from the bottom of the stack. After the improperly marked “B” Sports Book is revealed, place the remaining A tiles back on top and draw from the top of the stack going forward.
2. If the Event card “Lower Prices” is pulled when a Prestige tile is at the minimum bid of 3, that tile is to be discarded and a new one
drawn immediately, using a new Event card to determined which stack to pull from.
3. If two Taxes events are drawn, the effect is not stacked. Income for everyone is halved, not quartered.
4. If two Visionary events are drawn, the effects are stacked. (i.e. gain 2 fame per overbid)
5. If two Good Relations events are drawn, the effect is not stacked. The effect is the same as if one was drawn.
Tie-breakers: Follow the tiebreakers in the standard rules and, if still tied, furthest away from start player is the winner.