For me, Dust Tactics is a case where, after opening the box and playing the game, I got what I expected and even more what I was promised. Easy to learn, fast and dynamic game of soldiers. In DT, you can actually start playing about half an hour after opening the game. While one carefully adjusts cannons, machine guns and searchlights to robot walkers, removes soldiers from personal ziplocs and prepares the playing area, the other carefully reads the rules. The rules are explained in five minutes, and thoroughly fixed in the memory during the first game. In order to make the right decisions, it is important to know the characteristics of all the fighters represented on the field and to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses, as well as special tasks, but this can be learned in one or two fights. In terms of dynamics, perception of what is happening and passion, the game resembles hockey, behind which chess is hidden - with positional struggle, forks, sacrifices and exchange of pieces. In the first round, players take turns placing one figure on the field. For the next 2-3 rounds, the positional struggle and the convergence of troops continue - the players try to increase their chances of victory. Then comes the battle itself, in which everything is decided by the die, but based on the chances with which the players approached it, and regrouping if both sides managed to survive it. Since the basic set involves healing the wounded and the arrival of reinforcements, it is usually over in 5-6 rounds. All battles take 10-60 minutes depending on the scenario and the experience of the players. At the same time, the simplicity of the rules does not interfere with the depth of tactical possibilities provided by the variety of specialized combat units. But even though each figure is unique and the armies are asymmetrical, at least the base DT set is balanced. It's funny to realize, but in this game there is a place for dice. You have to throw..

 Battlestar Galactica is a cooperative game that supports from three to six (optionally expandable to seven) players, in which one or two of them, depending on the number of participants, turn out to be "traitors" and play against their comrades. The average playing time is about 2.5-3 hours. I would immediately like to dispel the myth about the need to watch the series before sitting down at the gaming table. This is completely optional, and you won't lose anything fundamental, since the game is completely self-sufficient. PLOT AND MECHANICS  The task of the human players is to lead the fleet, led by the "Galaxy", to a certain distance without losing either the cruiser itself or any of the key resources - Population, Food, Fuel and Morale. The task of "traitor" players is quite the opposite. The plot of the game, without being sly, repeats the television one. Cylon robots, created by man, revolted, destroyed most of the people, forcing those who remained alive to seek salvation by fleeing. The remnants of humanity on their spaceships, united around the last hope - the cruiser "Galaxy", are trying to break away from the pursuit of the Cylon fleet and find a new home with the prosaic name "Earth". The case of rescue is complicated by the fact that the Cylons have managed to create 12 models of humanoid robots and introduced them into the glorious ranks of the human race. And so "who is who" makes up the lion's share of the intrigue of both the series and the game. At the beginning and in the middle of the game, each participant secretly receives a so-called loyalty card from the others, which determines whether your character is a Cylon or a human. The game has a lot of characters, each of which is endowed with its own special skills, as well as unique positive and negative properties. It is not difficult to guess, it may happen that in the first part of the game, not a single cylon will appear on the field, and in the second phase, the..

 Yesterday we tested the game The Golden City, which arrived at the beginning of the week. Since the parcel was from Germany, I have the game in German - Die Goldene Stadt (published by KOSMOS). The field and game components are completely language-independent, incl. to master it, only the rules in Russian or at least in English are necessary. The original rules take up only 4 pages, in the Russian version that I was able to find on the Internet, there are only 2 of them (there are no pictures, and they are not particularly needed - the rules are very simple).  The field is of good quality, moderately bright, wooden houses without chips and well painted, cardboard components from 3 mm cardboard, playing cards are quite dense, but "Business cards" (the equivalent of victory points) in quality as in the Manager (if someone remembers), that is. cheap paper  Inside the box is an organizer with more compartments than components. Why? Not clear. However, there are 4 slots for cards - enough to spare, because of cards in the game is 88, and the depth of one card slot is 70. Protectors are desirable, because after all, cards are not linen. Protectors from Fantasy Flight Games Mini European 1 11/16 x 2 5/8 (44x68 mm) are perfect, although they are sold in 50 pieces, and the package, on average, costs 150 rubles, but they are dense, unlike CardPro, which are sold in pieces of 100 rubles for 100. According to my own feelings, I like the FFG protectors much more - they fit like a glove, cards do not pop out. Two people played, but the game is for 3-4 players, so I had to play for two at once. Preparation for the game takes no more than 5 minutes. When playing with three, each player gets 18 houses and the hand with which to vote, when playing with four - 16 houses. Each player gets three coins twice, one "Coast" type landscape card. The rest of the landscape cards are shuffled and resounded one card at a time. 8 product cards are shuffled and the top 3..

 "Zooloretto" does not let go. Point. I don't stop liking this unimaginative game at all... On the shelf there are untried "Dracula" and "Shadows of Camelot", recently "Warcraft" came with an add-on, and I want to play "Zooloretto". If anyone doesn't know, Zooloretto is a game about a zoo. In it, players act as managers of their own zoo, buy animals, build stalls and new enclosures, in short, do everything to earn victory points. As one of my friends likes to repeat: "Everything is like in life." "Zooloretto" is not really an original game. The author (the well-known Comrade Shakht) reimagined his most successful brainchild - the game "Coloretto" - in a new way: threw the hell out of abstraction, added money to the game, replaced colored cards with tokens with animals, and voila! We had to come up with a new name... Before us is a game that looks great, with simple rules, high dynamism, low competitiveness. In short, a find for the family. "Professional" boardgamers perceived the game as recycled material, saying that "Coloretto" is pure gameplay, leavened on interesting mechanics, and "Zooloretto" is purely a money-making game. But! This game has one great feature - it is not abstract at all. For me personally, this is the main reason why I prefer to collect animals rather than pieces of colored cardboard. Any action in this game is closely related to the setting and is logical. Money brings a very light economic aspect to the game in addition to the tactical one, and add-ons provide a fan. Appendix one: Tokens of Podlanka. Finally you can make abominations! These are nine tokens of problems that play in the zoos of rivals and close places for animals in enclosures, prohibit the construction of stalls and break the roof of the reserve, forcing to spend on major repairs. I like to make abominations! Appendix Two: Mission Maps. Loudly shouted, of course, about the mission. Simply, at the beginning of the game, each player receives a card on..

 Rune Age is distinguished by a high level of interaction between players and aggression (up to the elimination of the player), asymmetric factions and different game scenarios. The scenario shown on The Realms of Terrinoth reduced the game to an "arms race" in which the goal was to accumulate enough power to destroy the main enemy, the dragon lord card that lies in the center of the table from the start and has a power of 18. The west was mentioned and mentioned. a co-op scenario in which "trouble" is thrown into the deck of events, and players must work together to counter that deck. Scenarios also determine the cards available to players; yes, in the scenario played out at the event, there were only 3 different neutral cards available to players. SCHEDULE The basic set of the game features four factions - the same as in Runewars. Each faction has its own unique set of stacks of cards that a player playing as a faction can buy into their deck, and they are unique. Most of the faction's special cards are troops. In addition, each faction is matched with one card representing the kingdom itself, which has 20 stamina. Also, each faction has its own stack of so-called fortresses - they give players points of influence. Common deck cards can be bought by all players. These include gold cards and neutral cards; the second includes various tactics that can affect the player's turn or battle, as well as neutral troops. The city maps represent the various cities of the Terrinoth universe (Vinevale, Frostgate, etc.). Cities have defense levels at their disposal and can be captured by players. Once a city is captured, it is positioned in front of the player who captured it and can rotate 90° (like resources in collectible card games) to grant them influence points to purchase cards. The Event Deck provides unique instant events and enemy cards that come into play and can be attacked by players. Most of the enemy cards when defeated bring artifacts..

 Many draw parallels between "Cuba" and such games as "Puerto Rico" or "Struggle for the Galaxy". Indeed, the driving force of these games is the choice of character cards (roles, phases - the essence does not change from this). Let me remind you that in the basic "Cuba" players have five characters at their disposal: a worker (extraction of resources and products), trade (buying/selling goods), architect (construction of buildings), foreman (activation of buildings) and mayor (export of goods for victory points ). In each round, each player plays four characters from this list, and the remaining character after 4 rounds goes off to engage in politics, buy votes with the player's money and seek leadership in those same votes to be able to dispose of the four bills and decide which laws will be accepted by the government. , And which are rejected.  Addition "El President" adds one round of moves in each round. In addition to 4 of the 5 characters, each player must sooner or later use one of the available Cuban cards, taking it from the field for himself and performing a unique card action. At the beginning of the round, each Cuban is in a separate place on the field. A certain action of the president is tied to each such place. By taking the Cuban's card, the player crosses out one of the president's possible actions from the list in this way. At the end of the character phase, the presidential car drives along the boulevard and stops near the last card of the Cuban (the others have already been sorted by the players). After that, the president's action is performed, related to the place on the field where the card of the remaining unwanted Cuban is located. Cubans: dancer (player becomes the first player in the next round), musician (player receives 2 coins), day laborer (allows to immediately move the player's products from the yard to the warehouse), port master (replaces ships in the port), lawyer (activates one building per coin), revolutionary..

 Uno is liked by absolutely everyone who played it - a proven fact! The rules are simple and easy to remember, and the games last 15-20 minutes. A deck for playing Uno contains only 108 cards. There are cards with the numbers 0 to 9 of four suits, as well as special cards: 8 "Take Two" cards, 8 "Back Move" cards, 8 "Skip a Move" cards, 4 "Order Color" cards, 4 "Order Color and take four." Each player is dealt 7 cards and the first card is placed for discard. The goal of the game is to be the first to get rid of all the cards in your hand. The winner gets points according to the cards remaining in the hands of the other players.  Each player in Uno discards one card during his turn in such a way that the discarded card matches the color or face value of the card discarded by the previous player. Special cards bring a lot of surprises to the game. For example, with the "Skip Turn" card, you force the next player to… you won't believe it… skip a turn! You can also change the direction of the move with the "Opposite" card, that is, if the move was transmitted clockwise, then the "Opposite" card changes the direction counterclockwise. By discarding a Take Two card, you can force the next player to take two cards and skip the turn. You can order the desired color using the "Order Color" card. Any suit can be used for this card. And the worst thing is the "Order a color and take four" card, using which you can both order the color you need and force the next player to take 4 cards! When one of the players has only one last card left in his hand, he must say "UNO!". If he forgot to do this, and one of the players noticed it, then he forgot to say the magical UNO! takes two cards from the deck. But be on the alert yourself, your opponents are watching the number of your cards, making sneaky plans and will also use special cards against you and each other in every possible way! "Uno" is a great game for the company! Parties fly by quickly and are..

 I'm back with a box of colorful cubes, cards and coin tokens. From the euro, that is. This time an unremarkable one, about which no one says much. Maybe they are hiding something, trying to prevent such a great game from being played by tabletop players all over the world? Let's figure it out. At first glance, everything looks quite ordinary. The Chilean port city of Valparaiso is the port to give the name to another box of euros about how some men try to sell the more expensive gray cubes for the maximum number of pesos to other men who trade orange cubes. But what are they hiding? The secret to chili and fiery gameplay? WHAT'S IN THE BOX? Two-sided playing field for 2-3 and 4-5 players. The sides differ in the number of villages on the island and slots for trade dice.  Tablets for players to stockpile resources and plan their actions using cards.  A pile of cardboard tokens that includes coins, trading tokens, and the first player's marker.  A pile of wood, consisting of meeples, houses and player ships, as well as resource cubes of three types.  An hourglass is especially for narrow-minded people who can't figure out what they want to do and thus annoy others. Mechanically not used in the game, except for the above purpose.  Action Cards: Five decks of 8 cards for each player and a small neutral deck that can be purchased during the game. GAME PROCESS Valparaiso is pretty much standard Euro, where you exchange resources for points, but with little interesting chips. Games without them are usually so unremarkable that they don't even reach the top seven on BGG. In the analyzed box, the rating is almost exactly 7, this is not a very high indicator, and further I will explain why the game is not accepted by the community. But now we will consider the features of the gameplay, and there are two of them that stand out: 1. Programming of processes per round. From the start of the game, everyone has a hand of 8 action..

 I would like to offer you a review of Reichbusters - an ambiguous game that was heavily criticized after its release. It's worth noting that I have decent experience in the dungeon crawler genre, and that I played version 1.1 with the errata, solo. In short, I think Reichbusters is a very good and unique game that suffers from being extremely unfriendly to newbies. PROS Uniqueness.  Surprised? You probably thought that Reichbusters is another representative of an endless variety of crawlers tied to "choose an action - roll the dice." But Reichbusters is a completely different game. It is related to competent drawing of action cards, hand management and creation of chains of devastating combinations. Your characters are true death machines, and the Nazis can only deal serious damage to you by attacking in a mob. The game expects you to annihilate multiple enemies per turn and encourages a playstyle accordingly. Until the alarm goes off, your goal is to make sure that at the end of your character's turn there are no Nazis left in range. Something like X-COM on the highest difficulty: you have to wipe out all the enemies without giving them a chance to fire back. In my opinion, Reichbusters is much closer to Dungeon Alliance (only with dice) than it is to traditional crawlers.  Fan As soon as you break through the obstacles, the game will play with all colors and become a very beautiful self. There are almost no residents with components (before the alarm sounds). Compared to some "Blade and sorcery" Reichbusters, one might say, even minimalistic. You focus on optimizing your moves, not calculating AI, modifiers, etc. After the alarm sounds, the game process slows down a bit: you will have to fill and move small amounts in large quantities. However, it becomes easier with experience. Bad guys always activate in the same sequence, always move in predictable ways, and always combine their attacks into one powerful attack. So..