Hand Management

Newest game from the pair that made 1960: The Making of the President. The goal here is to be the founding father with the most renown at the end of the game, which consists of the making of the US constitution.

Each round, an article of the constitution is put up for consideration, which is either a Federalist, Anti-Federalist, Big State, or Small State issue. Players have a hand of three delegate cards that represent their respective states and also have a special ability. Players may use these cards' special abilities, use the cards to vote for or against the issue under consideration, or to try and claim tokens in each of the four types of issues. When a round ends, the issue either passes, or is flipped to its opposite side (Federalist/Anti or Big/Small).

Players score points for having voted with the majority, and also for having tokens matching the issue types that are voted into the constitution.

This text refers to the Queen 2007 reprint. The older edition had players write down their viking orders and was two rounds longer.

In Eketorp, players build Viking strongholds upon the Swedish island of Öland.

The goal of the game is to collect the most valuable blocks to build your own fortress, either by winning battles on the resource spaces or by stealing blocks from other vikings.

Each turn, new resources appear and the players secretly plan their viking movements. After all the placements are revealed, vikings battle each other for blocks (with the losers sent off to the field hospital to recover). The game ends after a set number of rounds, or when one of the players has succeeded in finishing their fortress.

Game description from the publisher:

For a time, the humans of Sera knew peace...then Emergence Day came. The Locust horde arrived without warning, and countless horrors spilled forth from their underground burrows. The Coalition of Organized Governments (COG) struggled to fend off the subterranean threat, but their defenses were quickly crushed. With billions dead, humans turned their weapons of mass destruction on their own cities to deny the enemy control. Now the long struggle against overwhelming odds approaches one final, desperate stand.

Gears of War: The Board Game, designed by Corey Konieczka, is based on the wildly popular third-person shooter by Epic Games. One to four players take on the roles of COG soldiers cooperating to destroy the Locust horde, and must work together to complete missions against an ingeniously challenging and varied game system. In Gears of War: The Board Game, you’ll relive classic moments from Gears of War and Gears of War 2 – Roadie Run into cover, spray your enemy with blind fire, or rip him in half with your Lancer's chainsaw!

In Gears of War: The Board Game you must fulfill one of seven randomly constructed missions and support your fellow COGs as your team engages an unflinching enemy in furious, white-knuckle firefights! Only through teamwork and communication will you gain a tactical advantage, completing your mission and striking a blow for humanity.

You'll need every soldier you can get if you hope to send the Locust horde back to their holes. Leave no man behind!

ERRATA
- In the Roadblocks mission level 3, use tile 12A instead of 3A.

It’s a thin line between good and evil, and you’re going to have to find the right balance and avoid ending up
In Limbo!

Play your cards on either the good or evil side of each of the five colors, as you tip the balance towards good on some colors and bad on others. However, since you only score on the cards left in your hand, you’ll need to carefully weigh the consequences of each of your choices.

With a lot of strategy and a little luck, you can do yourself a world of good even if things heat up for your opponents.

From the publisher, Rio Grande Games:

Players compete in the building of Mall World, scheduled to be the largest indoor shopping mall in the world. In the planning of a mall this size, it is important to get the right shops in the right locations and the player best able to do this will win the game!