Abstract Strategy

Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends is a game played by masters of magic. Two to four summoners encounter each other in the Tash-Kalar arena, either in teams or each on his own, and prove their skill and strategy in a short but intense battle. By clever deployment of their minions, they create magic patterns for summoning powerful beings, and then use those to destroy their opponent’s forces or to prepare patterns for the ultimate legendary beings.

The game includes three different factions, each with a unique deck of beings to summon and one deck of legendary creatures. Players take turns placing their common pieces on the board, and if they succeed in creating patterns depicted on one of the cards in hand, they may play it. When played, the card summons a particular being and allows the player to perform an effect described on the card: a giant destroys neighboring pieces, a knight moves through enemy pieces, a warlord orders previously placed pieces to move and fight, an enchantress converts enemy pieces to player's own color, etc. After that, the player discards the card and the summoned being turns into a motionless piece which may be used in patterns for summoning other beings – or even be awakened and moved into combat by the effects of other cards.

Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends offers two game modes. In the standard mode you score points for fulfilling various quests set by the Arena Masters: controlling certain points or areas of the arena, destroying a number of enemy pieces in a single turn, performing a certain combination of summonings, etc.

In melee mode, your only goal is to entertain the crowd. You do that by destroying your opponents and making them beg (i.e., making them use the catch-up mechanisms) and by summoning legendary beings. After all, people want to see a dragon! Both modes can be played as a two-player duel or as a team game with teammates sharing pieces and legendary cards, but with each controlling his own faction. (The game includes a duplicate of one faction in a different color.) The melee mode can also be played as a fierce free-for-all battle, but don't expect alliances; to achieve a good score, you need to destroy all opponents evenly as you track points scored on each opponent separately, and your lowest score is your final score.

The rules of Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends are simple and easy to understand, but as you start to discover the tactics and are able to anticipate the opponent's moves and patterns, it turns into a real clash of wits.

Each of 28 hex tiles displays one of three shapes in one of three colors and one of three sizes. Players take turns placing a tile from their hand next to a previously-placed tile on the board that shares at least one attribute (shape, size, or color)with the new tile. The object is to be the first player to form a row of four adjacent tiles.

Mancala is not just used as the name of a game, but also used as the name for the whole Mancala Family of pit-and-pebble games. The game known as Mancala in the USA is best known in Africa as Wari.

Play involves scooping up pebbles from a pit and sowing the pebbles, one at a time, into the other pits. These games were probably created in Africa hundreds (if not thousands) of years ago.

The board for a "standard" Mancala game is composed of two by six pits, and a larger scoring pit on each side. Two players sit across from each other over the board. The large scoring pit to each player's right is "her" scoring pit.

Ultimate Stratego is an updated version of the original which introduces 3 new gameplay modes. The Lightning Game pits 2 players against each other in fast-paced 1-on-1 combat. The Campaign Game introduces 4 army combat, giving each player control of 2 armies instead of 1. Finally, the Alliances Game is a 4 player partnership battle. Ultimate Stratego features a double sided square combat board and introduces revised rules and new ranks to the original game.

Blokus Trigon is an abstract strategy game from the makers of Blokus. The board pieces have changed from square to triangular. Game play is similar to Blokus, as players try to get rid of all their pieces. The only caveat to placing a piece is that it may not lie adjacent to your other pieces, but instead must be placed touching at least one of your pieces already on the board at a corner.

There is a solitaire version where one player tries to get rid of all the pieces in a single sitting.

Components:
Hexagonal playing board with 486 triangles on the board
4 sets of 22 pieces in red, blue, green and yellow
1 piece made up of one triangle.
1 piece made up of two triangles.
1 piece made up of three triangles.
3 pieces made up of four triangles.
4 pieces made up of five triangles.
12 pieces made up of six triangles.

Set up:
Layout your hexagonal silver board and give each player a set of 22 squares.

Game Play:
Each player begins at one of the marked spaces on the board. The order of play is blue, yellow, red, green colors.
As the play progresses, each new piece is placed on the board. The new piece placed must touch another piece of the same colour and it can only touch at the corners. The constraint is never touch along the sides.

When a player is blocked and cannot place any more pieces on the board, they must drop out of the game. The other players continue until they are blocked or no one is able to place any more pieces on the board.

Scoring:
When all the players are blocked, each player must count the number of triangles that they were unable to place on the trigon board and calculates their score as follows:

Any triangle that is not placed on the board counts towards a negative point.
15 points are awarded as a bonus, if the player has all 22 pieces placed on the board.
This bonus increases to a 20 points if the 22 pieces were placed on the board with the single triangle being placed last.

The winner is the person with the maximum points!

Note: This game is available by request only and requires having a membership to play.
See game associate for details.