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Freshly added to BGG, February 23, 2022

New week, new list!


Since I am a bit obsessed with the approaching French elections, the theme of Tallywood Rally seems to me well aligned with the political climate: in this Halfling town, you try to use your workers as best as possible to ensure that you get the most votes and get elected in the end (they don’t say for which position you’re vying, but I guess the essential thing is that you win). It’s even more exciting solo as you’re sure to be crowned at the end. Or are you? I guess there might be a pesky AI to meddle with your plans, but in truth, I know nothing.


And, well, since France is not the whole of the world, War of Conquest is another title which, hem, resonates a bit more than I’d like with the news. At least it’s all about old eighteenth-century conflicts, so there is some escapism in that I guess. That the play time ranges between 240 and 2400 minutes is also somehow numbing. What I can say, old-school wargames…


So, you’re after something with a bit more levity? Maybe I should wait before introducing you to Nightmare Cathedral… The chief purpose of this game is to be a display for Zdzisław Beksiński works of surrealist horror, which you may know already (I was familiar with it, but hadn’t heard the name before). Game-wise, it’s an area control, but the BGG description is quite muddy, so I couldn’t make much sense of it. Nightmares devour units in their path; a Cathedral is built and must be fed; you play Action cards; the usual stuff, as you see. This should hit Gamefound in end March.


Since I apparently can’t get optimistic, I’ll give you the closest thing I could find: Gnomistic. The game actually suffers from a raging controversy because it features leprechauns on the cover, instead of the gnomes mentioned in both the title and the game description: the fey people are very unhappy of this complete disregard for the intricacies of their disparate people and cultures. Anyway, the goal is to get the Gnomes’ gold at all costs, so with this whole Conquistador mindset, it’s not a wonder that you don’t care about whose gold it is for real.


But I’m speaking of war, political turmoil, abominations from the mind’s depths, and spoliation of goods; yet despite all of this, Millenia is here to remind us that civilization and humanity outlast all these pesky fluctuations of history… Unless it’s all about repeating the same patterns at a greater scale. So, with Millenia, you can now compete over centuries, because it’s much more fun that way. This is a card game spanning 8 ages, and in the end, only one will be crowned Winner of the world.


But this is merely true for the greater spheres of societies. For the common people, it’s all abstract, unworthy considerations. Getting a good sip in your favorite Biergarten matters way more in the end. So, get your tiles and build the best one to be ready for the next Oktoberfest!


And art. Art is important, too, don’t you think? Especially modern, abstract, undecipherable one. This is what Mondrian: Color in Motion is all about. You’ll place little colored polyominoes on the board to get points, and in the end, hey, you might even end up with a masterpiece!


Complete shift of topic. Say you capture a mouse in your house, a nasty little thief that was gnawing at your best reserves of wheat. What to do about it? Kill it? Release it in the fiels? That’s a question we like to contemplate here on Solitaire Times. Now we can come up with a whole better answer: let’s build a maze for it! And because you might not get a lot of opportunities to play with your favorite pet in its new and jolly playground, you can train yourself in Mouse Maze and its 30 episodes campaign.


Since I’m so bad at trying to make you enjoy the real world, I’ll rely as usual on Fantasy and gleeful works of fiction, starting with the Wizard of Oz Adventure Book Game. (Yes, I know, BGG News spoke about it first, but it was on my list before that.) Apparently Princess Bride Adventure Book Game sold well enough that they wanted to redo the experience with another filled-with-nostalgia classic.


Another game that surfs on the success of a predecessor: Marvel Eye Found It realized you could score a hit by marketing a Where’s Waldo concept as a board game, and so decided to apply the Marvel IP on it to ensure an even greater success. You’ll have to look for details in the board game in a timely fashion, with a Thanos death track added on top of it.


When games try to milk the same cow as their neighbor, other try to right their wrongs. Mantic Games has taken up the mantle to provide a decent Umbrella Academy board game, soon to be kickstarted. With the utter crap that was the previous attempt for it, they are pretty sure to please the crowd: anything barely functional will already be an appreciated improvement, if I am to believe the word of mouth about it.


And to finish the ride, two expansions. The first one, called Forces of Nature, is for Betwixt & Between, a game I couldn’t explain because I couldn’t get it after watching several videos. Basically, you move around a grid, place tiles on it, and try to collect colored gems to build patterns and activate spells. The expansion adds new spells, new exploration cards for more variety, and variable players powers at the start of the game (artifacts and abilities).


Unlikely Heroes, a triad of games that could be combined like your favorite Power Rangers, is also receiving an expansion, Archaic Beginnings. These games offer a lighter version of the 7th Continent grid exploration, as well as a very peculiar sense of humor that you may or may not appreciate.


And the PnP pick of the day is Ascent: Give Rise to an Empire, a rather complex 4X game with galactic civilizations, tree techs, and an overall sense of SF excitement.



 

All images taken from the respective game's pages on BGG.

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