Area Control / Area Influence

Pandemic: On the Brink includes new event cards, new role cards, rules for five players, and optional game challenges to increase the difficulty of the Pandemic base game. These new challenges, which can be used individually or combined for even more difficult play, are as follows:

The Virulent Strain challenge makes one disease become particularly deadly in unpredictable ways.

The Mutation challenge adds a fifth (purple) disease that behaves differently than the original four.

The Bio-Terrorist challenge pits one player against the others!

Saving the world just got a little bit harder in Pandemic: State of Emergency, an expansion for Pandemic that offers three new challenges:

The Hinterlands Challenge, in which the diseases spread from animals to humans.
The Emergency Events Challenge, in which unpredictable events have nasty effects on the game.
The Superbug Challenge, in which a fifth disease that cannot be treated threatens the world! To fight off this threat, you must first find its cure, using quarantines to stop the spread of disease in the meantime, then produce vaccine doses. You must eradicate the superbug disease to win. This is NOT for the faint of heart...

Smash Up: Monster Smash consists of four new factions for Smash Up: vampires, mad scientists, werewolves and giant ants. Tremble before the power of the ants!

Vampires gain power as they destroy your opponents' minions
Mad Scientists have released death in the form of powerful creations and can empower various minions
Werewolves have explosive power to beat down opponents
Giant Ants work as a great hive mind, spreading their power around as necessary to ensure their atomic-age victory

Smash Up: Monster Smash can be played on its own as a two-player game or combined with other Smash Up titles to allow for up to four players to compete at the same time.

Integrates with:

Smash Up

War and Peace is a game that allows players to recreate the fight for Europe from 1805 to 1815. The game is designed for play by two players, one player being the French player and the other player is the British. Each player also controls one of the major countries of France, Britain, Austria, Russia, or Spain. Prussia is also in the game but starts neutral. The countries of France, Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Spain are represented by infantry, artillery, cavalry, naval units. The countries of France and Britain are at war throughout the game. The countries of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Spain become neutral, conquered neutrals, French allies, or British allies through the use of diplomatic resources or military conquest.

France starts out strong militarily with the aid of the Spanish navy and a strong French army. Austria and Russia, when united, have strong armies while England rules the waves and buys influence and allies. Victory is determined by the conquest of France or Britain, or causing the isolation of Britain through political and economic means. The fate of Europe rests in your hands...

As legendary warlords meeting in the fabled arena of Ortus to decide who is superior, both players command a band of handpicked warriors, all schooled in one of the prime elements. The Ortus arena is believed to be the origin of all things, the place where the prime elements were fed with the raw energies to shape the world as we know it. How true this is can be debated, but this is the only place where energy still flows freely in its purest form. Players must harvest these energies and channel them to their warriors as fast and unpredictable Wind warriors, clever positioning of supporting Fire warriors, and devastating blows from lethal Water warriors will all be necessary to claim victory.

Ortus takes place on a hexagonal board, with each player starting with eight warriors (two of each element) on the back row (the "Haven") in an order of their choice. Ortus is played in rounds, which each consist of four stages:

Collect energy: Each warrior on an energy well generates energy, which flows into the player's general pool.
Maneuver warriors: Players can spend 1 energy per hex to move warriors to better locations or attack opposing warriors.
Return the fallen: When the active player returns his fallen warriors to his Haven, his turn ends.
Defend: Energy remaining from the maneuver phase can be used to defend warriors against incoming attacks; more specifically, each attack has a certain power, and if the defender is unable or unwilling to pay energy equal to this power, the warrior falls.

When a player occupies five energy wells at the start of his turn or has removed all eight opposing warriors, he wins.

Ortus has a gentle learning curve, starting with the Basic game, which can be taught in around eight minutes. From there, players can introduce the special rules for each of the elemental warriors one at a time to learn the full Advanced game. Each warrior has two unique skills that differentiate it from the others. Being able to move all of your warriors on the board gives an enormous amount of tactical options. The excitement of the game lies in the careful planning of your attacks, knowing when to advance and when to withhold Energy as well as knowing whether to save or sacrifice your warriors.