"Arkham Horror" 2005 is a reimagining of ideas from the original "Arkham Horror" of 1987: different mechanics, better components and more RPG elements. The action of the game takes place in the 1920s. Players take on the roles of ordinary people, each of whom encountered the Lovecraftian mythos in one form or another, learned the terrible truth about the existence of the afterlife and came to the city of Arkham in Massachusetts to investigate. In the course of the investigation, self-proclaimed detectives come across a conspiracy of cultists who want to let one of the Ancients into this world - otherworldly entities of enormous power, who are often mistaken for gods. Portals to other dimensions are opening all over the city, from which strange and scary creatures are coming out. In addition, otherworldly influence is gradually driving the townspeople out of their minds. Players must work together to close the portals and prevent the Ancient One from entering our world, and if that doesn't work, then emerge victorious from the final battle with him.  In the plan, the "Arkham Horror" mechanic is a cross between an RPG and a regular board. While dice play a very important role, thinking ahead is just as important, aided by the ability to move sliders at the start of each turn, increasing one of your parameters at the cost of another. Should you sacrifice stealth to run around the field quickly? Should I increase Will to survive a monster's psychic attack, or Strength to deal more damage to it? These dilemmas, along with a variety of investigator abilities, encourage player planning and cooperation. Each turn, all investigators take certain actions: move around Arkham, engage in battle or hide from monsters roaming its streets, or draw a contact card corresponding to the location they are in and read what happened to them. Events consist of an artistic description of the investigator's adventures, and also require a certain skill to be tested or a choice to..

 Since its inception, the World of Warcraft universe has steadily expanded, introducing new characters, lands, and enemies. But to this day, one of the most popular plots remains the fall of the hero Arthas and his subsequent ascension to the throne of the Lich King. This board game is for those who would like to return to Northrend and storm the Icecrown Citadel once again.  World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - A Pandemic System Board Game is based on the application of the same name to the computer game. It's a co-op tabletop for 1-5 players that brings many features from the popular MMO to the table. There are well-known heroes, special abilities, battles with the Scourge, completing quests - and all this is based on the mechanics of the popular "Pandemic" series. But Wrath of the Lich King is more than just a reskin, as the mechanics have been significantly reworked to fit the feel of Blizzard's popular universe. COMPONENTS  From the moment you open the box, it's clear that the deck's creators have put a lot of thought into WoW lore. The playing field, measuring approximately 50 x 75 cm, features dozens of familiar locations from Azeroth - Naxramas, Dalaran, Ulduar and many others. Also in the box are seven famous characters from Azeroth: Thrall, Jaina Proudmoore, Sylvanas Windwing, Varian Wrynn, Tyrion Fordring, Muradin Bronzebeard and Lady Liadrin. Each of them is represented by a detailed miniature. There is also a specially designed miniature of the Lich King himself, as well as minions of his horde of henchmen: three abominations and dozens of small werewolves. These figures have a lot of very sharp points that are easy to puncture, so be careful with them.  Each character has its own letter with unique special abilities, a health indicator and its short description on the back. Like other cards, they are illustrated with luxurious pictures. Yes, the deck of 63 cards of heroic actions is also illustrated. Moreover, almost..

ABOUT THE GAME In the not-so-distant future, something is found on the dark side of the Moon that provokes the awakening of Sheol, which envelops the Moon in impenetrable darkness. This darkness eventually reaches the Earth and gradually covers it. A new ice age begins, and creepy shadow monsters appear in the dark. Humanity's last frontier is the Citadel: a gigantic tower that houses not only the survivors, but also the remnants of lost technology from the time before the catastrophe. Here, people create the Shining: the only thing that can resist the shadows. You are a scout, one of the few who are ready to go into the darkness and defeat the monsters that live there before they reach the Citadel and destroy it.  Each game you choose a mission that you will go through. Each mission has a set of mission cards. On them are indicated various tasks that you must complete. In addition, you will often encounter optional side tasks - also branched. Sometimes it is enough to get to a certain square on the field for execution, sometimes you need to pass a test (trying to roll a certain combination on the dice). The plot is revealed as through mission cards; each of the areas you reach has its own story, as well as often a personal set of events and a choice of several options, which helps to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the setting.  Basically, the gameplay consists of a journey from the Citadel to the shadow lands and battles with the monsters you encounter. However, for this it is necessary to create a light source with Radiance; without it, it is impossible to travel in the dark. But the reserves of Radiance that you spend to create light are not infinite, and they are also your HP - so you will have to spend them carefully. Each character has their own unique set of cards that give different abilities or discounts on other actions. After all, Radiance is spent not only on creating light, but also on battles. And to highlight the..

 A few years ago I managed to get hold of Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower, which I really enjoyed. Most of the games in the Warhammer Quest series are huge coffins with lots of tiles and sprues. Before starting the game, you will have to spend many hours collecting miniatures. This element of modeling does not appeal to everyone, but the gameplay was fan-friendly. I really enjoyed Space Marine Adventures: Doomsday Countdown. The main complaint about the game is the lack of a campaign. Lost Relics has a campaign - and it's also a Warhammer Quest. Both are pluses for me. GAME PROCESS Each game of Lost Relics features all four heroes (Stormcast Eternal) from the box. There are many nuances here, so I will describe only the main elements of the gameplay. Each move is divided into the following phases: Adventure Phase - Effects vary depending on the rules of the current scenario, but generally enemies will move and attack heroes. Dice phase - each hero rolls 3 six-sided dice. Initiative phase - shuffle the heroes' initiative cards and lay them out in random order. Action phase - activate heroes according to the initiative order; one cube at a time. After each activation, one enemy reacts (see below). Leader Phase - Each leader on the field activates. Refresh phase - if you are near the shelter, then all the disabled heroes return to the game.  The action, surprisingly, takes place in the action phase. However, every action is followed by a reaction, which makes the game resemble Newton's pendulum on a table. You can break out of the "back and forth" cycle with the help of chains of actions. A chain of actions is a situation when you have an active hero with a cube with a value of 1, and you sequentially play the actions of any heroes with values of 2, 3, etc. After the chain ends, only one enemy reacts. Hero cards have numbers indicating which dice values a hero must spend to take an "inspired" action (there are both generic..

Trudvang Legends has become one of my most anticipated games of 2022, as well as one of the longest kickstarter projects. CMON even offered everyone a free two-wave split to deliver the base box to contributors while the rest of the content is still being finalized. As I've written before, the game was changed so significantly after the campaign that many contributors, myself included, doubted whether they would get what they expected. So, was the wait that long? Now let's find out... GAME PROCESS You lay out the game according to the instructions in the saga book, then travel around the map. The game proceeds in phases. You start with phase 2, but I believe that will change at some point in the campaign. Even at the start, you fill your character's rune bag with runes corresponding to his cards. If there is an add. cards, you will receive an add. runes As a general rule, runes earned during a scenario do not carry over to the next scenario. In the game, you mainly have to pass checks and fight. When passing a check, you are shown one of the runes and a number - the number of successes required. After that, you draw 7 runes and see if you managed to pass it. Battles are a bit more difficult. You first draw 4 of your 8 (typically) feat cards, then draw runes - 3 at a time - and place them on those cards. Runes that do not correspond to the symbols on the cards, as well as dark runes, are laid out on the failure track. Keep pulling until 5 dips accumulate or until you decide enough is enough. If you stop drawing runes before you draw 4 failures, you get all the blue tokens from the failure track. The fifth rune means failure: in this case, all red tokens from the track of failure are activated. In addition, additional battle runes push old runes off the cards, which increases the chances of victory and reduces the negative consequences of defeats.  After you stop drawing runes, you activate each ability. Skills and quick attacks are activated first. Then the..

 We were looking forward to Frosthaven. Since the box arrived, we've been going through scenario by scenario almost every day and have already gone through 8 scenarios. In order to avoid spoilers, I will limit myself to the information that you will learn after opening the box and going through the introductory scenario. I played Dark Harbor, Jaws of the Lion, Forgotten Circles, and digital Gloom with a friend. Each controlled two characters. We play on a normal difficulty level and rarely lose scenarios. In my opinion, we are average players. STARTING CLASSES  I started playing Boneshaper and Deathwalker.  Boneshaper is tied to summoning skeletons, and in large quantities. Summoned creatures were difficult to play in Gloomy Harbor because their cards were removed from the game after use, they were uncontrollable, and they had very low HP/damage and didn't scale as they leveled up. Frosthaven fixed things up a bit: Summoned creatures now follow the host with no other purpose, and skeleton prize cards are not removed from play, so they can be used multiple times. As before, they do not increase when gaining new levels, so they are most effective at the early stage of the campaign. Boneshaper goes well with the Bannerspear character; lining up allies in a formation so that her attacks are stronger is not difficult at all. Also, she is perfectly combined with the character Deathwalker - both are able to generate darkness.  Deathwalker is tied to the use of shadows. The problem is that placing shadows on the field is not easy. But once they're placed, it's much easier, as you can generate new shadows when the enemy you're attacking dies. However, the first couple of turns of the battle you have little use for, unless you use cards that are removed from the game to get a couple of shadows. You can move shadows around the field, but by spending cards to do so, you don't move yourself. While you can attack from the shadows, it doesn't help..

 Betrayal at House on the Hill is a semi-cooperative tile-based adventure horror game. The action takes place in a creepy estate full of ghosts and all kinds of horror clichés. In the first act of the game, 3-6 explorers discover new rooms, find items and experience spooky events. Then, at a certain unexpected moment, the main part of the game begins - Hunting. At the beginning of the Hunt, one of the explorers turns out to be a traitor, and the rest of the explorers (now heroes) must work together to defeat the traitor.  In the first stage of the game, you simply "build" a house by exploring room tiles. Each character has his own card with four parameters: speed, strength, intelligence and knowledge. The first two parameters are physical, and the last two are mental. Each character has a starting value of the parameter, as well as the maximum and minimum possible; they will rise and fall as the game progresses. Many rooms have icons that dictate drawing a card from the appropriate deck: events, items, or traits. The event cards have an artistic description and some effect - depending on the result of the dice roll, as a rule. Items are useful items or weapons; especially useful during hunting. Omens are items or companions that can also come in handy at some point, but they also play a more important role: every time you find an omen, you make a check to see if the Hunt has started. On 6 dice, you need to discard a value greater than the total number of trait cards already drawn from the deck. By the way, there are only numbers 0-2 on the faces of the dice, so after finding a few signs it becomes increasingly difficult to avoid the start of the Hunt. If this check fails, the script starts.  There are 2 books in the game: Secrets of Survival for Heroes and Traitor's Book for Traitor. There are 50 scenarios in these books. The choice of scenario depends on which trait card was drawn last and in which room it was found. Afterwards, the..

QUARRIORS BOARD GAME REVIEW Developed by Mike Elliott and Eric Lang and published in the US by WizKids Games, Quarriors is an incredible dice rolling extravaganza. This 2011 Golden Geek nominee and 2013 Origins Award winner will make you wish you could travel back in time to experience this game for the first time all over again.  In Quarriors 2 – 4, players will arm themselves with powerful magical spells and summon legions of cube creatures to battle their opponents. Boldly cover yourself in Glory while protecting your creatures from your opponents, or choose wisely to summon increasingly powerful creatures to dominate your enemies. PREPARATION FOR THE GAME  Quarriors is a dice game based on the same engine as Dominion, released in 2008. The central tableau, consisting of 3 base cards, 7 creature cards, and 3 spell cards, is located in the center of the game area known as The Wilds. 7 creature cards and 3 spell cards are drawn (and replaced if necessary) at random until each stack is unique. Place the corresponding dice on each card within each player's reach.  Finally, all players are given 8 mana dice and 4 helper dice (low power creatures) and the game can begin. GAME PROCESS During his turn, the player takes a certain number of dice from his bag and throws them. The dice, which feature the mystical teardrop symbol for mana, can be used to energize existing creatures or to attract more powerful creatures and spells from the Wildlands.  The faces of the die that do not drop mana will usually be either creatures that can be summoned to battle or special abilities (spell dice). Players who choose to send their creatures into battle must have enough mana available to pay the creature level cost located in the upper left corner of the die. Most dice in the game will have at least one mana face and several other faces, all of which appear at the bottom of the power card for that die.  After the mana cost of any creatures is paid,..

REVIEW In the game, you are the citizens of Squalls End saving the Cat Islands and must save as many cats as possible before the evil Lord Vash arrives. Each cat comes in a unique shape and belongs to a family, you have to find a way to fit them all on your boat while keeping the families together. GAME PROCESS  Isle of Cats: Explore & Draw consists of 7 rounds where you try to save as many cats as possible, learn lessons and collect treasures. At the beginning of the game, a 3x4 grid is formed from cards from the cat deck and cards from the lesson deck according to a predetermined pattern. Once the grid is prepared, all players can make moves at the same time and must choose one of the four columns of cards. Players can reveal their chosen cards in any order. There are two different types of cards in the game: The openings on your boat are drawn as polymino shapes. Cats are always drawn in the specified color and you try to form large groups of cats (families) because they score a lot of points at the end of the game. Oshaks are wild cats and you can choose the color. Finally, there are treasures, they help you fill your boat. Rare treasures are also worth points at the end of the game. Discoveries are always drawn next to each other, and the first discovery you draw can be anywhere. Lesson cards show different scoring conditions. If you choose a lesson card, you can check that specific lesson on your lesson sheet to activate this scoring condition at the end of the game. Each player has a slightly different boat layout with treasure cards and rats. Treasure cards allow you to get treasures if they are covered by a cat of the correct color, and rats score negative points at the end of the game if they are still not covered. You can also activate special abilities as listed on the boat sheet, but only once per round and only 3 in the entire game. After round 7, you tally up your points and the player with the most points is..

REVIEW Life in the forest is a lot of fun, at least while the sun is shining and the leaves are on the trees. However, these days do not last forever, and long before the weather begins to change, the wise animals begin to harvest for the long, cold winter. You will be spending many months huddled in your hole, and you want to make it as cozy as possible. A nice bowl of soup, a comfortable rocking chair, toys and games will help the dark winter days pass quickly. In Creature Comforts, you spend the spring, summer, and fall gathering various goods from the forest and spending them on items that will make your home more inviting while the world outside is covered in a layer of snow. Each round you send family members to different locations to get supplies. If they fall short of their goal, they will learn a lesson and be better prepared next time. The family that created the most comfortable den wins. GAME PROCESS A game of Creature Comforts lasts for 8 rounds (or months) and you go through 3 seasons: Spring, Summer and Fall. At the beginning of the round, a new Traveler opens. You can visit the Traveler by placing one of your workers there to perform a powerful action only available this round. After that, all players roll their dice from two families (of their player's color) and they can send their workers to different locations on the main board. When everyone has finished, the current starting player rolls a family die (4 white dice). Now the players take turns distributing all the dice (4 white dice + 2 family dice) to their workers. Some jobs require certain values or sequences to activate. If they have fully met the requirements for the cube, they can take a work action and return it to their personal tablet. Workers that cannot be activated give you a Lesson Learned token that can be used on your next turn to increase or decrease the value of the die. Worker actions include upgrading buildings, gathering/converting resources,..