Medieval

Stronghold: Undead (Second Edition)

The Necromancer leads an undead army toward the stronghold walls. A powerful artifact lies within the stronghold. A magical item imbued with immense energy. The Necromancer's powers are weakening, and his magical essence is fading with each passing moment. He will regain his powers if he manages to take the castle by storm and claim the artifact. Thus, if the undead army succeeds in breaching the stronghold within eight turns, it will capture the artifact and attain victory. If not...well, if not, the Necromancer's powers will fade completely and the undead army will turn to dust.

Stronghold: Undead is a re-balancing of the original Stronghold: Undead expansion for the second edition of Stronghold that is now a standalone game. It includes a new board with new paths to siege the castle, undead mechanisms, and more ways for both sides to secure their victory!

—description from the publisher

NOTE: Retail edition doesn't include KS-exclusives. KS edition can be found here: Stronghold: Undead (Second Edition) – Kickstarter Edition

Illumination

Illumination is a game of Mad Medieval Monks and Illuminated Manuscripts.

You and your opponent are monks competing to become the new head of the Scriptorium. You do so by illuminating manuscripts with elaborate religious artwork. But not all is as peaceful as it once was! Possessed with eccentric enthusiasm, one of you has turned from the reverent to the irreverent by scrawling demons instead of angels and by painting fierce dragons instead of noble knights. Who will become the new master of the Scriptorium? Will it be the monk who reverently illuminates the page with monks, dogs, knights and angels; or the irreverent monk who whimsically draws the forces of rabbit, squirrel, dragon and demon? Play Illumination to find out!

OBJECT

Each turn, players create illuminations in three Books by placing one full row or column of tiles of their choice from their Player mat. With careful placement, players collect Coins that allow them to perform special actions or purchase Scriptorium cards. By placing tiles next to others of matching color, players collect Ritual tokens to score points at the Ritual stations in the Monastery when they are occupied by the Abbot.

As tiles are placed in Books, conflicts are set in motion: Angels wrestle with Demons, Knights skirmish with Dragons, Monks contend with Rabbits, and Dogs struggle with Squirrels. These conflicts are resolved only when they are bounded on all sides. Then, the player with more tiles on their side wins the
Bounded Battle, flips the losing side’s tiles facedown, and places their Marker on the matching Battle card.

When the game ends, players score points for the Rituals recorded on the Monastery mat and 1 point for each of their faceup Illumination tiles in each Book. Players also score points for placing more Markers on Battle cards and for defeated factions that match their Crusade card. The player with more points wins!

-description from publisher

Amul

The city of Amul was one of the largest centers of international trade in ancient times and an important transit point on the Great Silk Road. The prosperity of this splendid city of merchants peaked after Arabian conquest in the 10th century and it was destroyed by the Mongols in 1220.

Amul, originally announced as Silk Road, is a card game of bustling bazaars for up to eight aspiring merchants. In Amul, each player is a striving merchant, competing for wealth and success. The creative card drafting mechanism caters to swift and simultaneous gameplay, keeping all players constantly engaged.

Draft cards from the market to collect goods and valuables, hire guards, assemble caravans, and make contracts with traders. Manage your hand effectively as only certain cards can be played to the table for scoring, while others must be in your hand for optimal end game scoring.

Amul features fast and engaging gameplay, as well as beautiful artwork.

—description from the publisher

AWARDS & HONORS
Adult Games of the Year Guldbrikken 2019 Nominee
https://www.guldbrikken.dk/nyheder/nominerede-til-arets-voksenspil

Biblios: Quill and Parchment

A "roll and write" version of the popular Biblios.

The life of a monastic scribe is not easy. Every day you spend long hours in the monastery copying books, praying, and performing tasks. Through hard work and prayer, earn the abbot’s trust and display your dedication to the pious life.

The object of the game is to score the most piety points. The game consists of 8 days (i.e., rounds). In the first 4 days, players simultaneously roll their own dice (that show various book types, abbot influence and travel points) and may do so up to 3 times. After each roll, the players have 3 options: (1) to keep the dice as shown, (2) to reroll exactly one die or (3) to roll all the dice.

Most of the dice are resource dice showing books monks are copying, but there are also abbot influence dice (abbot influences is accrued in the first half, but spent in the second half of the game), and a travel die (allowing a player's novice to go out into towns to do good works and find more books).

In the last 4 rounds, players use their abbot influence to bid for a priority of tasks.

This is a rare (if not unique) "roll + write" game that includes auctions and, unlike many roll + write game; it is highly interactive.

After 8 days, the game ends and the players calculate scores. As in the original Biblios, the relative value of books changes during the game, so players are unsure of which books will be most valuable until the end of the game.

—description from the designer

Kingdom Rush: Rift in Time

Welcome to Kingdom Rush: Rift in Time, where you and your allies must work together to fend off the furious onslaught of the mysterious Time Mage. Command Heroes and build Towers to defend the realm by placing polyomino pieces to attack your enemies and deploying soldiers to hold back the ever-advancing horde. Be careful, though! The Time Mage’s portals are wreaking havoc, causing all of the Towers to warp in and out of existence! Will you play your Towers to defend the Kingdom, or will you pass them to your compatriots so that the Towers can be upgraded? The decision is yours!

Play through a unique campaign to foil the Time Mage’s plan for total domination of the space-time continuum. Each new scenario in the campaign is more challenging than the one before it, introducing formidable foes, game-changing events, and epic bosses to battle! The only way to stop the Time Mage is to close all of their pesky portals but you’ll have to do so while combating wave after wave of their minions. Fight back with unique Heroes, special abilities, and an awesome arsenal of upgradable Towers. The Time Mage will stop at nothing as they try to take over the Kingdom and neither should you - archers ready!