Hand Management

In this cousin of Saint Petersburg, each player represents a monarch dragon clan, and attempts to assert herself as the Dragon Monarch by game end, by securing the most Royals (victory points). In order to facilitate this process, players will use their Geld (money) to hire Dragon Lairds (aristocrats) and buy Resources (buildings) and Commoners (peasants). You can use precious Royals (your victory points) to acquire Dragon Havocs, which empower you to do anything from getting extra cash, to stealing things from your opponents. The Havocs tend to be one-shot little guys, however, and are always discarded to the bottom of the discard deck, as far out of reach as possible from those cards that pilfer the discard pile.

At the end of each round, you accumulate the Geld and Royals that your acquisitions generate for your clan. At the end of the game, you additionally receive any Finale Royals on cards as end-game victory points.

From the Margaret Weis web site:
Deep in the heart of an island continent, many years ago, was a long forgotten land of ancient Saureans… Dragons of all sizes and shapes, who had, through the generations tamed the foolish races of men, dwarves, and elves that lived among them. Over the centuries, they refined their techniques and now were trying to gain control over all the surrounding dragon countries. There could be only one Dragon Monarch, but who would it be?

At the start of the game, each player is given a dragon clan and chooses to play either the king or queen of that clan. The object is for your clan to score the most points in Royals by the end of the game and thus become the ruling Dragon Monarch.

Mad professors test their experimental racing machines on the lab roof. Each player has a favorite machine, a set of movement cards for the racers and a secret score card. The score card shows the actual result you want to achieve, each player wanting the 4 cars to finish in a different order. The movement cards have 3 functions, showing number of spaces to move, or direction to move in, or 2 vehicles out of the 4 available that you could move. Start order changes each turn, the first player chooses one card of the three available, the next chooses a different type of card, the 3rd player the last type. The final player decides which car moves of the 2 cars that have been chosen as possible cars to move. The board also has random oil patches and hazards.

Cry Havoc is a card-driven, asymmetric, area control war game set in a brutal, science fiction setting. Each player commands one of four unique factions with varying abilities and units. The game includes 54 custom miniatures, a large format board, and over one hundred unique cards, all with stunning new artwork.

In Assyria, players represent tribes living in Mesopotamia, trying to develop on the desert and a limted fertile area located between two rivers that divide the board. In their quest for power (points), players build Ziggurats (permanent outposts), wells, make sacrifices to gods and try to get along with nobles of Assur - the capital of Assyria. The game is a light-weight eurogame, built around the short-term rapid point gains vs long-term investments dilemma. General flow of play is as follows:

Phase 1: Players get resources for expansion and decide on play order

In this phase, players pick cards with resources that enable expansion on the board. In general he/she who gets most food, plays last. First player expands with least food.

Phase 2: Players expand on the board to earn points or money.

Players begin to form strings and/or clusters of huts and pay for placing them with their food cards. Depending on where huts are placed, they either score points or earn camels (money).

Phase 3: Players spend money/camels on various investments.

A player either goes for one-time bonuses from the nobles of Assur, or makes long-term investments by offerings to gods and building Ziggurats.

The game lasts for three eras, made up of 2-3 of such cycles. After each era comes the flood: the board is partially cleaned up, but players also capitalize on their investments from phase 3. Each round, players also score points for huts (those built on fertile land between the two rivers bring more points) and ziggurat tiles.

In comparison to other games from Ystari's series - Assyria is lighter than Caylus, Olympos, Ys or Sylla (in terms of complexity, available choices - represented by numerous tiles, cards, icons, cards etc. that need to be remembered and can be combined during play), but heavier than Yspahan, Mykerinos or Metropolis.

Players engage in outrageous battles featuring the best characters, weapons, and mustaches from the Dr. McNinja universe. Legendary Showdown combines strategy, timing, and wit to create hilarious battles with surprise endings. You will use cards like Chainsaw Nunchucks, Anti-zombie Suit, Mustache of Authority, and Critical Strike to create a battle plan. If you reveal your strategy too early, someone could pre-empt it; however, if you wait too long you might miss your chance. You can add secret bonuses to your characters to raise the stakes or sabotage your opponents' characters with lousy weapons. You can mess with your opponents' lines to give yourself the best advantage. At the end of the round, the player with the most points wins. Surviving characters are placed in the back of the line and a new battle begins. The player with the last character standing wins!