Americana

Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients is a fast-paced, fully cooperative, dungeon-crawl board game set in the Old West, with a heavy dose of unspeakable horror! Players create characters, taking on the role of a classic Western Hero Archetype, such as the Law Man, Gunslinger, or Saloon Girl. Forming an adventuring posse, the Heroes venture down into the dark mines, overrun with all manner of ancient demons and foul creatures from another world. With tactical gameplay, lots of dice, and a robust card-driven exploration system, no two games are ever the same as the heroes explore the mines finding new enemies to fight, new loot to collect, and new dangers to overcome. Players can even find portals to other worlds, stepping through to continue their adventures on the other side!

An exciting campaign system allows the players to visit local frontier towns between adventures, spending their hard-earned loot and building their characters from game to game! As players find fantastic gear and artifacts to equip their heroes, they also gain experience from their adventures. This experience is used to level up, guiding the hero's path through an expansive, class-specific upgrade tree of new skills and abilities, allowing each player to develop their hero to fit their own play style.

In City of the Ancients, players will encounter portals to the otherworld on the Plains of Targa, finding an ancient frozen city whose living inhabitants are nowhere to be found. Instead, great mechanical keepers wander the city going about their duties - until interrupted by the arrival of the players' characters!

So load up yer' six shooter, throw on yer' hat and poncho, and gather the posse as the darkness is coming, and all hell's about to break loose...in the Shadows of Brimstone!

Can be used together with Shadows of Brimstone: Swamps of Death to raise the maximum players to 6.

On the 11th of July, 1899 at 10 a.m., the Union Pacific Express has left Folsom, New Mexico, with 47 passengers on board. After a few minutes, gunfire and hurrying footsteps on the roof can be heard. Heavily armed bandits have come to rob honest citizens of their wallets and jewels. Will they succeed in stealing the suitcase holding the Nice Valley Coal Company's weekly pay, despite it having been placed under the supervision of Marshal Samuel Ford? Will these bandits hinder one another more than the Marshal since only the richest one of them can come out on top?

In Colt Express, you play a bandit robbing a train at the same time as other bandits, and your goal is to become the richest outlaw of the Old West. The game consists of five rounds, and each round has two phases:

Phase 1: Schemin' Each player plays 2-5 action cards on a common pile, with the cards being face up or face down depending on the type of the round. Instead of playing a card, a player can draw three cards from her deck.
Phase 2: Stealin' The action cards are carried out in the order they were played, with a player's best laid plans possibly not panning out due to mistakes and oversights!

The game takes place in a 3D train in which the bandits can move from one car to another, run on the roof, punch the other bandits, shoot them, rob the passengers, or draw the Marshal out of position. The train has as many cars as the number of players, and each car is seeded with gems, bags of loot or suitcases at the start of play.

Each player starts a round with six cards in hand, with each card showing one of these actions. At the start of a round, a round card is revealed, showing how many cards will be played; whether they'll be played face up or face down, or individually or in pairs; and what action will occur at the end of the round (e.g., all bandits on top of the train move to the engine). You can pick up loot, gems or suitcases only by playing a "steal" card when you're in a train car that holds one of these items — but since everyone is planning to get these goods, you'll need to move, punch and shoot to get others out of your way. You can punch someone only in the same car as you, and when you do, the other bandit drops one of the goods he's collected and is knocked into an adjacent car.

Each player's character has a special power, such as starting the round with an extra card, playing your first card face down, or pocketing a bag of loot when you punch someone instead of letting it hit the ground.

You can shoot someone in an adjacent car or (if you're running on top of the train) anyone in sight, and when you do, you give that player one of your six bullet cards; that card gets shuffled in the opponent's deck, possibly giving her a dead card in hand on a future turn and forcing her to draw instead of playing something. If the Marshal ends up in the same car as you, likely due to other bandits luring him through the train, he'll be happy to give you a bullet, too.

At the end of the game, whoever fired the most bullets receives a $1,000 braggart bonus, and whoever bagged the richest haul wins!

User review: Players make money by building a network of railroads to deliver freight and passengers. They may also speculate on the price of precious metals by claiming mines and mills.

To play: Each player chooses a color and takes possession of all the surveyors and prospectors of that color. How much money they begin with, in which city the players start, the number of surveyors and prospectors they begin with depends on the turn order and the number of players in the game.

A game turn is divided into seven phases:
First phase - The turn order cards are shuffled and dealt to the players.
Second phase - Players may place prospectors and surveyors on the game board in turn order.
Third phase - Disputes are resolved between players who placed surveyors in the same box on the game board.
Fourth phase - Players pay for construction and claims made by their prospectors in turn order. Players can collect revenue for passenger cards and deliver and sell freight for up to two claims.
Fifth phase - The dice are rolled to determine price changes for each mine.
Sixth phase - Claims and passenger cards taken by the players are replaced.

At the end of the sixth phase, it is determined whether anyone met the victory condition for the scenario chosen.

Availability : The original Two Wolf version is long-since out of print, but the newer-released Mayfair has a wider distribution. The New Mexico expansion is available for the Two Wolf game, but the Mayfair version has the expansion included with the base game.

Expanded by:

Silverton New Mexico Expansion (Two Wolf version only, Mayfair version includes the expansion)

Walnut Grove is a cross between jigsaw puzzles and worker placement, with the players as farmers who find their plots merging into a single landscape as time passes and their holdings grow. Come fall they must head to the city with their goods as winter will soon return.

Walnut Grove could be described as a light mashup between Carcassonne and Agricola. The goal of the game is to develop your own ranch. The better the ranch, the more points you will score at the end of the game. Players can improve their ranch during the game by adding new land tiles to it, hiring more workers, building improvements, etc

The game play is divided into eight years, and each year is divided into Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter phases. During Spring, players add land tiles to their ranch. During Summer, players place their workers to gather resources from the fields. When Autumn comes, all players get to visit the city. Finally, during the Winter phase, players need to feed their workers and heat their homes.

In the city you can hire workers, trade goods to coins, build improvements, and so on. Each player may do only one action in the city though. The city is a kind of rondel that is divided into halves; each time you cross the midline you have to pay a coin. Therefore it is wise to move as slowly as possible on the rondel, but then again, you have consider what actions you want to take!

The land areas will produce resources when you place the workers there. Also, the tiles do not need to match, but you want them to, as larger areas of the same type will give you greater production.

Spring, Summer and Winter phases can be done simultaneously, providing fast game play. The game also works as a solo game.

In this western themed game, players are looking to drive cattle across the west, establishing towns. If you don't like the way something is going, you can fight other players for control with your cowboys. You can rob the bank, rustle cattle, and shoot those pesky farmers!

Gameplay: To Start each player receives a set of colored player counters, matching turn order token, and two black action tokens and either $20 or $25 depending on number of players. The dice are rolled to determine the start player. Each player in turn order will place one of their cowboy counters in a town box of any of the 5 towns on the map until each player has placed 3 cowboys.

Each turn the players will bid for turn order, take actions and move the turn marker one space. To bid for turn order each player places an amount of money under their turn order token in current player order. Players may either raise or drop out. If a player drops out all money bid so far is paid to the bank and their turn order token is placed in the furthest available spot from start player space on the turn order track. This continues until one player remains and becomes the start player for the round.

During the action phase each player will take 1 action in turn order. After everyone has taken a turn they repeat the procedure. The actions available are limited in number so turn order is important in doing what a player wishes to do. Actions available are: Buy Cattle in a town containing their cowboy(s), Purchase more Cowboys, Move Cowboys to different towns, Move Cattle from one town to another, Purchase Buildings or Transport counters in a town, Take a Farmer(reduces income and victory points from Cattle in the town they are placed), or Gunfight.

There are six different building and transport counters: StageCoach (these earn $1 per cowboy when cowboys are placed in or moved from the town containing the player's StageCoach), Train (this doubles the income gained from all players Cattle in the same town and doubles victory points gained from Cattle at game end), Bank (earns its owner $2 for each building or transport counter in the same town), Store (earns the owner $1 for each Cattle counter belonging to other players in the town and $2 per Farmer counter in town), Hotel (earns $1 for each cowboy belonging to other players in same town), Jail (the sheriff in the Jail acts as an extra cowboy controlled by owner that can be added to Gunfights). Cattle and Farmers also earn money for players during an income round. Each Cattle counter earns its owner $2 UNLESS the town also contains a Farmer (it only earns $1 if this is the case). Oh, the Farmer and Cowmen can't be friends.

Gunfights can be started to take over another players Building or Tranport counter, rustle Cattle, rob a Bank or remove a Farmer or Jail. The player choosing the Gunfight selects the target of the attack. All Cowboys belonging to each player in the town will be involved. The remaining player's Cowboys in the town are not involved. However; the owner of the Jail can choose to help themselves, if they are attacking, or they can add the Sheriff to the defender if wished. Farmers that are attacked defend as a single cowboy. Banks and Trains both have an intrinsic 1 Cowboy defense in addition to those in town of owner's color. The player with the fewest Cowboys fires first and immediately removes casualties. Each 5 or 6 rolled kills a Cowboy. If the number of Cowboys is tied then firing is simultaneous. A player may retreat instead of firing by moving each cowboy involved to a different town (only 1 per town) and loses the engagement. If the attacker wins they take control of the target of the attack and may replace the counter (up to 2 counters if rustling Cattle) with one of their color (except for Banks, Farmers and Jails). A Jail or Farmer is removed from play and a Bank is robbed. The successful robber rolls 3 die 6 and takes that amount of money from the owner of the Bank (the Bank remains under owner's control). If the owner of the Bank cannot pay the full amount (then pays all they have to the robber and the Bank is removed). Each time a player wins a Gunfight they take a Wanted Counter. If none remain they take it from another player their of choice.

Victory: After taking turns 3,6,9 and 12 income is paid to players as delineated above. The game ends after round 12. Victory points are awarded for each Building or Transport counter (1 point per size of town). So a building in a Town with 4 Building or Transport Counters including itself is worth 4 points to the owning player. Each Cattle Counter is worth one victory point for the owner. If a train is in the town each Cattle Counter is worth 2 points. If a Farmer is in the town Cattle are worth 1 victory point less. To illustrate, if a Farmer is in same town Cattle counters are worthless unless a Train is also present in the town. In this case, they would be worth 1 point each. The player with the most Building/Transport counters and Cattle in a town is considered to control the town and scores bonus points equal to the size of the town (Cattle do not affect town size but do affect control). The Player with most money gains 5 victory points (2 each in case of a tie). The Player with the most Wanted counters scores 4 victory points. The player with most Points wins.