Hand Management

Fantastiqa: The Rucksack Edition

Welcome to the wild, weird world of FANTASTIQA!

Fantastiqa is a deck-building board game set in a fantastical landscape of dark forests, mist-shrouded highlands, and frozen wastes. As you and your foes journey around the board, you will subdue strange creatures and fulfill fabulous quests.

Each creature you encounter has both an ability and a vulnerability. By playing card symbols to which a creature is vulnerable, you can subdue it and recruit it as an ally. Each creature you defeat is added to your expanding deck of cards, making its special ability into an ability of your own! A defeated Enchantress will wield her beguiling charms to help you overcome wandering Knights. Knights in turn subdue Dragons, adding their fiery breath to your cause. By combining the powers of different creatures you can fulfill curious quests, for example:

Send forth your Rabbits of Unusual Size to Nibble Through the Violin Strings of the Violent Vampire Volnar!
Deploy a party of web-slinging Spiders to String a Bridge Across the Chasm of Chaos!
Send your Dragons and Vampire Bats together on a mission to Ignite the Whisker-Wick'd Candle Guarded by the Ice Cats of Kituviel!

Some of the creatures you encounter carry precious gems, which you can spend to purchase powerful artifacts or to summon mythical beasts to your aid. You begin with a handful of household items, but you will grow in power as you adventure and gather allies! By completing quests you score victory points and claim other special rewards. The board changes every time you play, so prepare for a new, exciting adventure each time you enter the world of Fantastiqa!

Fantastiqa is easy to learn but challenging to master – a game for families and gamers alike. Additional simplified rules are included for beginners and children.

The components are lavishly illustrated with fine art by Caspar David Friedrich, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Arthur Rackham, John William Waterhouse, John Bauer, Edward Burne-Jones, Francisco Goya, and others.

Andromeda's Edge

Behold, Andromeda's Edge: A dazzling, uncharted region of space on the edge of the Andromeda Galaxy. Littered with the modular debris of the precursor civilization, patrolled by malicious extragalactic raiders, and bordered by dense nebulae, The Edge is a last resort for the brave and foolhardy who seek a new life beyond the oppressive reach of the Lords of Unity.

In this game, you lead a desperate faction seeking to build a new civilization on Andromeda's Edge. You begin with only a space station, a few ships, and a handful of resources. By carefully placing your ships, you will gather resources, claim moons, acquire modules to add to your station, populate planets and build developments on them. You will battle opponents and compete with others to ascend the progress tracks: Science, Industry, Commerce, Civilization and Supremacy.

On your turn, you either launch a starship or return your ships to your station. Launching sends one of your starships to a region of Andromeda, either collecting resources from planetary systems or taking actions at Alliance Bases. If the region is occupied by your opponents or fearsome raiders, face off in a dice battle, with Supremacy on the line but where strategic manipulation can turn a loss into a reward. Returning to your station allows you to activate your engine, using the modules you’ve acquired to generate energy, gain resources and carry out actions.

Throughout the game you will build up your unique faction, building developments (Observatories, Factories, Spaceports, Cities and Obelisks) and gaining station modules which move you up the progress tracks. Advancement on the tracks is rewarded both during mid-game events and at the conclusion, and is the key to victory.

Infiltraitors

Your organization has been infiltrated by moles, nefarious informants from the enemy. As faithful agents, you must work together to uncover and eliminate all the traitors.

Infiltraitors is a challenging deduction card game with twenty missions. Suspect cards are set aside at the start; these are the traitors who must be identified by suit and numbers. Players must manage their hands to give clues on the suspect cards. Clues may match with a traitor by having the same suit or where the number is either a multiple or a factor of the traitor's.

As the clues accumulate, players may deduce the identity of a traitor card, but can you catch them all before the time runs out?

HUANG

Lead an ancient China kingdom dreaming of imperial power, establish new states, build pagodas, strive for influence – and battle to unite the country under your glorious dynasty! HUANG is set in the Warring States period (475-221 BC), a time of endless wars between seven rival states: Qin, Chu, Qi, Yan, Han, Wei, and Zhao.

HUANG is a 2 to 4 player game set in ancient China, during the time of the Warring States. You take control of one of the Warring States, battling to unite the country under your dynasty. Each player has five different leaders: Governor, Soldier, Farmer, Trader, and Artisan.

Clever placement of these leaders and their corresponding tiles on the board is key, allowing you to build pagodas to score points, trigger or avoid wars, and instigate peasant revolts that bring down your enemies. Play is fast and addictive, lasting around 90 minutes, with a very short teaching time reflecting the elegance of the ruleset.

Nemesis

Playing Nemesis will take you into the heart of sci-fi survival horror in all its terror. A soldier fires blindly down a corridor, trying to stop the alien advance. A scientist races to find a solution in his makeshift lab. A traitor steals the last escape pod in the very last moment. Intruders you meet on the ship are not only reacting to the noise you make but also evolve as the time goes by. The longer the game takes, the stronger they become. During the game, you control one of the crew members with a unique set of skills, personal deck of cards, and individual starting equipment. These heroes cover all your basic SF horror needs. For example, the scientist is great with computers and research, but will have a hard time in combat. The soldier, on the other hand...

Nemesis is a semi-cooperative game in which you and your crewmates must survive on a ship infested with hostile organisms. To win the game, you have to complete one of the two objectives dealt to you at the start of the game and get back to Earth in one piece. You will find many obstacles on your way: swarms of Intruders (the name given to the alien organisms by the ship AI), the poor physical condition of the ship, agendas held by your fellow players, and sometimes just cruel fate.

The gameplay of Nemesis is designed to be full of climactic moments which, hopefully, you will find rewarding even when your best plans are ruined and your character meets a terrible fate.