Hand Management

Shipwrights of the North Sea is set in the early years of the Viking Age, circa 900 AD. As Viking shipwrights, players compete to build the greatest fleet on the North Sea. Players must collect oak, wool and iron, as well as getting other craftsmen on board to help. Gold is a precious commodity, and must be spent wisely. As you would expect, the township is filled with an array of characters, bad and worse. Better hope they're on your side!

Aim of the Game

The aim of Shipwrights of the North Sea is to be the player with the most Victory Points at the game’s end. Points are gained by constructing various Ships and Buildings. The game ends after the round where 1 or more players constructs their 4th ship.

Gameplay Overview

The game is played over a series of days (rounds). Each day follows the same pattern:

Morning Phase - Planning (Each player receives 3 cards)
Afternoon Phase - Working (Players take actions and play or discard their 3 cards)
Evening Phase - Resting (Players receive Gold and Workers for the next day)

Printed Components

128 Cards - Featuring 46 unique and stunning illustrations
5 Beautifully Illustrated Player Boards
5 Player Reference Boards
1 Illustrated Rulebook
1 Pioneer Token
5 VP Markers

Wooden Components

5 Gold Ships
25 Oak
25 Wool
25 Iron
50 Workers

The excitement in the air is electric as the leaders round the last corner and head for the finish line. Each team has used cunning and skill to position their sprinter for this moment, but only one has done enough to pull off the win!

Will your team lead from the front and risk exhaustion? Should you play it safe in the middle of the pack? Could you surprise everyone by striking from the back? Can you time your move perfectly?

Anyone can race, few become champions!

Flamme Rouge is a fast-paced, tactical bicycle racing game where each player controls a team of two riders: a Rouleur and a Sprinteur. The players’ goal is to be the first to cross the finish line with one of their riders. Players move their riders forward by drawing and playing cards from that riders specific deck, depleting it as they go. Use slipstreams to avoid exhaustion and position your team for a well timed sprint for the win.

This game is the first of a series of games which uses a dreidel in lieu of a d4. Like the traditional game Dreidel, it is themed for the Jewish holiday of Chanuka. Each move taken and cards added to or taken from a common pool for any spin are related to the traditional dreidel game. Movement can be modified by use of cards. That movement is round the six points of a star or magen David, and an action is associated with each space on the board.

The object of the game is to be the first player to fill the eight slots of a menorah with candles. Certain actions can gain a player one or more candles. One can even try to take candles from another player, but if the attempt fails, one may lose candles to the player targeted instead.

Your genius could have been such a boon to humanity. Your death ray had wonderful pest control applications, and your volcano activator was perfect for fighting global warming. But the fools at the institute, they wouldn't listen. They called you mad! You built a monster to rend them limb from limb, which your minions assured you was the very worst way to be rended. When it became clear that the only hope for the world was your own benign leadership, you took control of TV to announce this fact. But your broadcast was interrupted by someone else taking control of TV and announcing his own plan for world domination – and then that broadcast was interrupted by yet another interloper. So. Competition. Well, the world will never be as scared of these upstarts as it will be of you. Archimedes once said, "Give me a long enough lever and a place to stand, and I will move the world." You will be the most terrifying lever the world has ever seen.

Nefarious is a quick-playing game in which the players race to build inventions like a freeze ray, cloaking device, or robotic pet before their opponents can do the same. (Interesting side note: Eighteen different artists contributed to the artwork on the different inventions in the game.)

Nefarious is played over several rounds. In each round the players simultaneously choose and reveal one of their actions that will allow them to allocate one of their Minions to an area on their Lair, obtain money, obtain a blueprint for an invention, or build one of their inventions if they have enough money to do so. The minions that you allocate to your Lair can earn you additional income depending on the actions that your neighbors choose. The first player to build 20 or more points worth of Inventions AND have more points than any other player wins.

There is a twist to the game, though – actually, two twists! At the beginning of the game, you randomly draw two Twist cards, which change the environment so that the game plays differently each time. This means that in order to win, the players will have to revise their strategies each time they play Nefarious.

Patchistory is a strategy board game with cards that symbolize historical heroes and wonders, with the whole game being divided into three eras. During the game, you acquire these cards through auctions and expand your territory by placing cards so that they overlap one another in a 5×5 space in the first era, a 6×6 space in the second era, and a 7×7 space in the third era. When your land—that is, the layout of your cards—is well built, the card functions are activated. You can earn victory points with diplomatic actions, domestic politics, war movement, the actions of production, etc., and at the end of the game, the person with the highest score after the third era wins.

Because you can make combos with lots of features on historical cards and you can score in various ways, Patchistory will give you another new exciting play every time it hits the table.