Kickstart Your Week! Manhattan Quartermaster Sentence
The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire
“Jenkins! Let’s get our supply going already!”
“But sir! The demand is so high and resources are running low.”
“That’s not your concern Jenkins, get this reactor producing!”
“Yessir!”
The dice clatter through the reaction chamber.
“For God’s sake, Jenkins! Stop rolling so poorly, we have a nation to supply!”
No longer looking to blow everyone up, The Manhattan Project has matured, settled down, taken on responsibilities. Now it’s all about managing energy, cultivating commerce and maintaining a stable government in the face of growing crises. But much of it’s old core remains. You still have two types of turn, a Work turn, where you place a worker on the main board, then activate as much of your tableau as you can, and a Generate turn, where you roll the energy dice you’ve accumulated ready to power your structures next turn. Energy Empire is no longer about aggression, and so no space on the board is ever truly blocked, late players just need to spend more energy to use that space.
However, this industrialisation comes with environmental costs. Global Impact cards will harm all players, while the growing pollution of the environment will need to be managed, using science (thank God for science). The Manhattan Project was a very nice worker placement game that offered a unique game play experience. Energy Empire is an evolution of that system, offering a great place to start as well as something new and interesting for fans of the original. Plus, you can add on a copy of Chain Reaction that was our top pick only a couple of months ago.
The Manhattan Project: Energy Empire will be fully industrialised April 7th.
Quartermaster General: Victory or Death
Quartermaster General: Victory or Death is set in the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, giving at least one player the perfect excuse to quote 300 at the top of their lungs (although that is the wrong war). Even better, this is a very cool looking war game that makes full use of Euro game style mechanisms like card driven actions and area control, as well as completely assymetric factions. You have the Athenians with their powerful navy and the Delian League whose city-states are key to gathering victory points. Arrayed against them are the matchless foot soldiers of the Spartans and the multitude of strategies employable by the Corinthians.
This is the sequel to 2014’s Quartermaster General set in WW2, a well regarded light wargame, set apart by its dramatically limited unit numbers, card driven game play, and focus on the importance of supply. Victory or Death continues this approach, with some new twists for owners of the original. Prepare cards offer great scope for tactical choices, but these can also combine together to create great combos. In contrast to the original, you can now play multiple cards in a turn letting you control the pace of your game, for once you run out of cards in your deck your war is over. With your limited troops, bribing the lands around the Mediterranean is essential to keep your forces in fighting condition, and to maintain a long siege, removing an enemies supply lines can be an effective way of destroying the threat they pose.
I really like light war games, and I really like team games, so I am very interested in the Quartermaster General series. The victory point based victory conditions, focus on hand management and card combos, layered on top of a map based war game just sounds right up my street! If you feel anyway similar, you should definitely check this out!
Quartermaster General faces Victory or Death on April 9th.
The Daedalus Sentence
The future looks pretty bleak for humanity. Earth is invaded by the rather unpleasant Loctae, who proceed to wipe out pretty much everyone, and things don’t get much better for the survivors. Held in nightmarish prisons to be used as the basis for genetic experiments, producing monstrous slaves the Loctae use for whatever purposes they desire, such as roaming the halls of the space station as guards. The last remaining survivors have been given a brief chance to escape before they too are turned into little more than genetic mush. Will you make it out in time?
The space station is a nightmarish labyrinth, the gates are sealed, monsters stalk the halls and worse yet, the corridors seem to be shifting. Actually this bit is awesome. The space station board is constructed from 4 rings of rooms, each of which can be independently rotated. This is the game’s central puzzle, as correctly orientating the board allows players to access the outer layers and eventually escape. However, this can open up new pathways for guards too. Their movement can be predicted up to a certain point thanks to their card driven action, letting you see a couple of turns in advance of both the guards, and the inherent motion of the station.
Making matters worse for you, the outer layers start hidden, and must be revealed before you can move into them. This reveal can have positive or negative effects on the station and its inhabitants. Whether you can work together to make it out alive is up to you. But the question remains, with humanity all but gone, where is there to escape to…?
Escape the Daedalus Sentence before April 5th.
Other Great Games
Fired Up! Eternal Moments – This is not just another game of arena combat (though that maybe the theme), instead you are members of the audience, hoping for certain outcomes (secret objectives). By throwing your support behind one or other of the fighters (throw a dice placement mechanic) you can boost or harm a fighters stats, and by doing so boost your chances of achieving your objectives. Ends Apr 5th.
Voodoo – A very silly party game (in a good way!). Uses a Yahtzee type system for collecting ingredients that allow you to cast malicious curses on your opponents, curses such as talking with your tongue out, or hopping on one foot. Casting a curse earns points, but only when the victim fails to perform the action on the curse are the real points earned. Ends Apr 5th.
Tau Ceti: Planetary Crisis – A 4X space game set in star system in decline. This failing economy presents a new challenge for the management of your civilisation. There are a multitude of paths to victory, from exploring the outer reaches of the solar system, to resolving galactic crises, to trading between the worlds of Tau Ceti. This is a big box with a lot of stuff for a very reasonable price. Ends Apr 6th.
Dethroned – A hidden role game combined with a real time combat mechanic, set to add a whole new layer of chaos to the genre. Attack people you think are your enemies; defend those you think are your friends. A fun mix of roles are present, with various people trying to stay alive or not caring, others looking to kill or protect a certain other character. 2 interchangeable decks are available for a mere $15 (+shipping). Ends Apr 7th.
Robots: Battle for the Coal Heart – I normally ignore robot/mech combat games but this one caught my attention with multiple routes to victory (completely build your robot or kill everyone else, naturally) and Puerto Rico style action selection in which everyone gets to perform a weaker form of the action a player choses to take. Ends Apr 7th.
Image credit belongs with Board Game Geek users LL Games, pscgames, Dragoncat, wedgeex, Evithess, maydaygames, zorin_productions, KiteLion, darkdragon220 and the relevant Kickstarter project pages.
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