Dice Rolling

From the Dark Night Metal comic series, the evil hybrid of Batman and Joker — The Batman Who Laughs — is determined to unleash the Dark Knights and Barbatos on Prime.

In The Batman Who Laughs Rising, a passage from the Dark Multiverse has allowed the most dangerous evildoers to infiltrate Gotham City, and these Dark Knights alongside their menacing leader are eager to do their worst to the city.

Players roll dice and work together to save the multiverse, starting with one of four starting heroes — Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, or Batman — and recruiting allies such as Harley Quinn, The Flash, and Cyborg, whose skills can complete objectives or help recover what is lost to darkness. Take out villainous versions of Batman such as The Merciless, The Dawnbreaker, The Murder Machine, and more before facing off with the psychotic Joker-ized antagonist himself, who's represented by a custom-sculpted, full-color figure who commands a fistful of chained Evil Robins!

Welcome Heroes! Many magnificent contestants have signed up for the tournament but only a handful will be chosen to join the the Tidal Blades, the elite guards of our island realm. To succeed in the Tournament and be chosen as a Tidal Blade, you must compete in Challenges held in the 3 Arenas, rise to the top of the Champion’s Board, and protect the realm from the ever increasing threat of the Monsters from the mysterious Fold.

It has been fifteen years since the Great Battle; 15 years since the Arcanists from the Citadel of Time made their terrible choice and created the Fold; 15 years since the last assemblage of Tidal Blades. The Arcanists folded space and time to stop the onslaught of creatures from the depths, but now new Monsters have appeared, the hard-earned days of peace are coming to a close and the islands need protection. A tournament has been called, the Arenas are ready, the inhabitants of all the islands are gathering, and young heroes from across the realm are showing up to compete to be named a Tidal Blade: Hero of the Reef.

In Tidal Blades: Heroes of the Reef, each player takes the role of a young hero competing to be named a Tidal Blade. The tournament takes place over 5 Days and Nights. By gathering the needed resources, signing up to compete in Challenges and timing your arrival at different islands you can make the most of your Hero’s turns and rise in the ranks of the contestants.

Each day you will send your hero to take actions on the different Locations and to undertake Challenges. Each action will gain you the resource or effect listed on the action space as well as the Location bonus. At the Arenas you may then attempt a Challenge that matches your Location, and at the Fold you may battle a monster. Completing Challenges and fighting monsters will advance your character in the four traits of Focus, Spirit, Resilience and Synergy.

Each Tidal Blade will be judged at the end of the 5 rounds based on the Challenges they have completed, the level of each of their Traits, their standing on the Champions Board, and the monsters they have fought.

Description from the designer:

Nautilion is a dice game in the Oniverse series!

Take the helm of a Nautilion submarine and recruit a heroic crew to vanquish the treacherous Darkhouse that lurks in the oceanic depths. You must get to the Abyss, lair of the Darkhouse, before the Phantom Submarine (his henchman) reaches your homeland, the Happy Isles — but to defeat the Darkhouse, not only must you be faster than the Phantom Submarine, you must also assemble the submarine's crew along the way.

Each turn, you roll three dice and give one to each of these figures: the Nautilion, the Phantom Submarine, and the Darkhouse. The dice of the Nautilion and the Phantom Submarine move those figures along a path formed by Crew tokens: the Nautilion from the Happy Isles towards the Abyss; the Phantom Submarine in the opposite direction. The crew token on which your Nautilion ends its move joins your submarine, the one the Phantom Submarine reaches is lost!

Only four copies exist of each of the nine different tokens, so you have to decide carefully which die you need and which you can leave to your enemies. (The Darkhouse doesn't move, but inflicts damage to you each time he gets a die with a high value.) To win, you need to reach the Abyss with a full crew of nine different tokens.

Five expansions are included with the game, adding new crew members, powers, treacheries and challenges.

In the late 1840s, thousands of pioneers headed out West to seek wealth and opportunity. Many of these brave souls traveled by wagon over the Sierra Nevada mountain range, into what would soon become the Golden State of California. In the game Sierra West, you are an expedition leader who must guide a party of rough-and-ready pioneers—employing a clever mix of strategy and tactics with each step.

Sierra West comes with four sets of special cards and parts, each of which can be combined with the game's basic components to create a unique mode of play. During setup, the players choose a mode, then build a mountain of overlapping cards with the corresponding deck. Each mode adds new thematic content, alternate paths to victory, and interesting twists on the core mechanics.

The four included modules are:

Apple Hill
Gold Rush
Boats & Banjos
Outlaws & Outposts

Overview of Play
At the start of each turn, you will overlap and arrange three cards into your player board—exposing and concealing a selection of the action icons available on them. This will create two unique paths for your pioneers to follow. Next, you will move your pioneers across their paths from left to right, performing a series of small actions. Common actions include: claiming cards from the mountain, building cabins, gaining resources, and advancing your wagon. Additional actions are brought into the game by the chosen mode—such as: harvesting apples, mining for gold, fishing, and fighting outlaws. As your pioneers complete their paths, they will gain access to the action spaces on the upper portions of your cards. On these, you will be able to exchange resources for to advance on the wagon trail and homestead tracks, or activate other special abilities unique to the mode.

As the game continues—and more cards are removed from the mountain—new and exciting things are discovered! Each piece of the mountain is either a card that can be gained to improve your deck, or a special card that is added to a face-up row at the mountain’s base. As this row extends, more of the mode’s opportunities and challenges come into play. For example, in Boats & Banjos mode, the row is a river that offers more fishing and gold panning options as time goes on.

Sierra West can be set up and played in under an hour, often leaving people with the desire to play it again right away—especially to explore the other modes! It is a highly thematic Eurogame that offers a truly novel and satisfying spin on action-programming, worker-placement, and deck-building.

Includes solo mode by Dávid Turczi.

—Description from the publisher

Note: Contained inside the box are 2 promos for other games:
Teotihuacan: City of Gods – Sierra West Promo
Dice Settlers: Sierra West Promo

Aliens have arrived to conquer Earth. Enemy ships fill the skies. Humanity retreats to underground bunkers located below cities across the globe. Stand against the common threat! Fight the invaders city by city. Build a team from around the globe to save your planet and defeat the aliens!

GAMEPLAY

Under Falling Skies is a solo game with a multi-mission campaign. In each mission, you take charge of defending a besieged city.

Your actions are powered by an innovative dice placement mechanic. When you choose an action, you are also choosing which enemy ships will descend. Bigger numbers give better effects, but they also cause ships to descend faster.

Expand your underground base to gain access to more powerful actions, allowing you to shoot down enemy ships or deploy robots to increase your workforce, but don't forget to work on your research and watch your energy supply.

The mothership draws closer every round, ratcheting up the tension.

Can you complete your mission before your base is destroyed?

Official rules: https://czechgames.com/files/rules/under-falling-skies-rules-en.pdf

Under Falling Skies is based on the print & play game that won the 2019 9-card Nanogame P&P Design Contest. Built on the same intriguing mechanics, it now comes with a full-scale campaign providing even more content for hours of intense fun.