Area Movement

Templar: The Secret Treasures

Templar: The Secret Treasures is an exciting family game in which the players help the Knights Templar to get their treasures to a secret abbey and hide them inside. Each player can use the different members of the abbey to help them hide the treasures – but every character is different and needs to be used wisely. Whoever hides the most treasures wins!

Each player has a hand of ten character cards and a starting supply of treasure: one book, one chalice, and a handful of signet rings that come in three types. A harbor with six storehouses is stocked with additional treasures, and three characters – Abbot Remigius, Vitus, and Prior Severus – are placed in the 13-room abbey.

For the first round of the game, each player secretly chooses a character card, then they all reveal them simultaneously, with players then carrying out the actions on those cards in player order. Some characters represent monks who help you move through the abbey and hide treasure, others allow you to take treasure from the harbor, open a locked door while closing off another passage, or move treasure that another player has already stashed, among other things. When a player moves Abbot Remigius, the Abbot rewards all players who have stashed treasure in the room in which he ends his movement, with all of the treasure then being marked as scored – other than duplicate signet rings, which can score again should the Abbot return. (Vitus, who isn't controlled by a card, follows the Abbot closely to spy upon him, thus keeping the Abbot from returning to the most recent room he entered.) If the Prior Severus is in a room, though, the Abbot can't do his thing as Severus would then discover the treasure and learn of the Knights' actions.

After the initial round, a player must play a character card that doesn't match the top character card on any player's discard pile – which means that you (and others) play both offense and defense with the same character card, restricting the action of others while ideally making good use of the character yourself. When a player lays down The Bells card, he picks up all of his played cards, then restocks the harbor based on the number of his previously played character card.

When the harbor can no longer be filled properly or when a player has placed at least one treasure in each room, the final round is triggered, then players have a final scoring for their rings still in the abbey and for the number of rooms that hold their treasure. Whoever scores the most points wins!

World War Z: The Game

In World War Z: The Game, a strategy game based on the movie and book of the same name, players work together to stop the spread of the zombie pandemic across the globe. Two to four players begin the game by choosing an ability-granting Role Card and starting in the United States. Players roll a die to initiate the zombie threat, represented by horde tokens of strengths 1 through 4 placed in zones around the board. Special "grey zones" represent lack of intel by featuring face-down tokens with zombie hordes of unknown strengths. Throughout the game, players travel to different zones and battle the zombie hordes in those locations by rolling dice and adding effects of Combat Cards.

The game features a die-based combat system. Humans always roll a six-sided die, while the hordes are represented by either a six-, eight-, ten-, or twelve-sided die depending on their strength. Humans may modify their role or add additional effects by playing Combat Cards, which consist of reusable Weapons (including Lobos, slang for "Lobotomizers") and one-shot Tactics (like Booby Traps or Redeployment). Every time a human wins a battle, the zombie horde strength decreases by one level, while victories for zombies cause players to discard Combat Cards. At the end of each turn, humans draw a Threat Escalation card to reveal how the zombie threat has grown.

Though players start the game working together against the zombies, when a player loses all his Combat cards, he becomes one of the undead. Player-zombies can manipulate the hordes on the board to attack other humans and to escalate the zombie threat.

The game ends after a predetermined number of rounds based on the number of players (six rounds for four players, seven for three, and eight for two). At the end of the game, if more than ten total zombie hordes of strength 3 or 4 still remain on the map, the humans lose (and any zombie players win). If ten or fewer such hordes remain, the humans collectively win.

Walking Dead: The Board Game

The Walking Dead: The Board Game from Z-Man Games transforms the Robert Kirkman comic book series into a board game, giving "fans the opportunity to play Rick, Shane, Andrea, and other favorite The Walking Dead characters as they deal with zombies, collect supplies and pick up the pieces of their lives", according to a press release announcing the game. Encounter and location cards recreate scenes and events from the comic book series.

Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan

A Strategy Game of Hidden Movement

The night is quiet, but somewhere in the darkness shadows are moving. A ninja and a double-crossing samurai sneak into the Lion Clan castle, intent on completing their dastardly tasks. Though alert, the Lion guards are as yet unaware that anything is amiss...

This tense standalone game pits Lion Clan samurai guards against a Scorpion Clan ninja and his traitor ally. As the ninja or the traitor, you will use hidden movement to sneak into the castle, eliminate guards, find your mission objective, and escape. As the guards, you will use your wits and superior numbers to thwart the sinister Scorpion.

In this exciting new game set in the world of Legend of the Five Rings, you must use your limited resources, powers of deduction, and a touch of guile to outthink and outmanoeuvre your opponent. Daring, planning, and a little luck will determine whether you triumph or meet your end on 3 feet of steel.

[Publisher blurb]

Red November

Red November is a cooperative game in a gnomish attack submarine where everything is going wrong. The sub is descending and the water pressure increasing, the nuclear reactor is overheating, the nuclear missile launchers are pre-igniting, fires and water leaks are everywhere, there's a giant Kraken looming nearby and there’s very little oxygen and vodka left. While the storyline feels more and more like a disaster movie, the players must get organized to solve the problems, divide the tasks among themselves to minimize the risks, and sometimes accept to sacrifice themselves for the common cause.

The game is played on the map of the submarine. The conditions in the submarine are represented by three disaster tracks: Asphyxiation, Heat and Pressure. During the game, these conditions get worse, and if anyone of them reaches its maximum value, the submarine is lost. In addition, various emergencies can occur which have to be dealt with swiftly, or they'll also lead to the loss of the submarine.

Each turn, a player can move to a new location, and perform some action there. Such an action can be repairs (which will improve conditions on the sub and/or fix emergencies), removing obstacles (unblocking hatches, removing flooding or extinguishing fires) or stocking up on equipment (which will help with later actions). Each action is paid for with time. The more time a player spends on an action, the greater the chance of success. After each player's turn, a number of events will happen; the more time was spent, the more events will occur. Such events will be the worsening of conditions in the submarine, or the triggering of emergencies.

If the Gnomes can keep alive long enough, rescue will arrive and the game is won.