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Bushido

Bushido is a miniatures game of savage battles, of cunning stratagems and last-ditch defences, and where debts of honour are paid in blood.

In Bushido, the fate of the world hangs not on armies but on individual heroes, men and women of extraordinary capacity, attuned to the all-permeating life force known as Ki. This force is the very fabric of the universe, and those with the appropriate training or natural talent can tap into this energy source and gain seemingly superhuman powers. In the world of Bushido, the delicate tapestry of Ki – and thus the universe itself –is threatened by the forces of imbalance, and it is up to you to protect it – or help rip it apart. In a game of Bushido, nothing less than the universe itself is at stake. Are you ready for the challenge of the Way of the Warrior?

Quinns: Morning everybody! We’ve got good news and bad news for you. The good news is that during last week’s “Stream of Annihilation” where Wizards of the Coast announced a whole load of new Dungeons & Dragons products via Twitch, we found out that dinosaurs are coming to the D&D world!

The bad news is that they seem to have zero interest in renaming the brand “Dungeons, Dragons & Dinosaurs”, or DD&D. Imagine! After a few more years of announcements they could be selling Dungeons, Dragons, Dinosaurs, Diplomats, Dinghies, Derby’s and Dancers, or DDDDDD&D.

Paul: A couple of board games came out of this announcement. We’re getting the Dungeons & Dragons: Tomb of Annihilation Board Game, which can be combined with all those D&D board games that came out in 2011, and we’re also getting Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate. Which is–

Quinns: Oh no

Paul: Which is a Dungeons & Dragons-themed version of fabled box of nonsense Betrayal at the House on the Hill.

Quinns: Oh, no.

June 9, 2017 Reviews Imperial 2030, Heavy Games, SU&SD Recommends Money! Money makes the world go round. Money also makes factories, fleets and armies that around that world and bash each other to bits, at least that’s according to Imperial 2030! But is it really all about war? Just because it looks like Risk and … Read more

Thrower: The table is a wreck of cards, tokens and wads of cash. One player has collapsed on the sofa, eyes closed, exhausted. Another feverishly sorts their deck, cards held close to face, unable to understand what went wrong. Someone else has walked out, professing a desire for space and calm.

I’m wondering where the last two hours went and how I didn’t notice we now have an audience of a new visitor and a cat. I realise, suddenly, that on this cool spring evening I’m bathed in sweat. This is the aftermath of Millennium Blades.

We’ve spent the time pretending to be players of a fictional collectible card game in an anime universe. Millennium Blades is, then, a game about playing games. This sounds like a recipe for a design that disappears up its own backside. Instead, this game is interesting, intense and ingenious. Stuffed with self-referential satire, it sits, winking at its players from the comfort of its oversize box. If you can unpick all the parodies from a card called “I’ll Form the Head” from the “Obari as Hell” card set, you’re a higher voltage gamer than me.

Millennium Blades is a CCG-Simulator — A game in which you play as a group of friends who play the fictional CCG “Millennium Blades”.

In this game you will build decks, play the meta, acquire valuable collections, crack open random boosters, and compete in tournaments for prizes and fame. The game takes you from Starter Deck to Regionals in about 2-3 hours.

The game draws heavily on Manga/Anime inspiration for its art, and parodies Magic: the Gathering, Yugioh, and many other collectible games.

At its heart, it’s a commodity trading game, except that instead of cubes or stocks, the things you’ll be buying, selling, and speculating on are trading cards that can be used throughout the game in periodic tournaments. By trading wisely, playing the market, working together with friends, building collections, and winning tournaments, you’ll secure points and become the Millennium Blades World Champion.

The game features a system of card pods, where you will play with about 400 of the base game’s 600 cards every game.

Paul: Quinns. QUINNS.

Quinns: PAUL WHAT IS IT.

Paul: I HAD A NIGHTMARE.

Quinns: WHAT HAPPENED.

Paul: I dreamt that you agreed to get the new Zombicide Kickstarter and play it even though it’s $120. And you certainly wouldn’t be alone in doing so! At the time of writing this Kickstarter has raised almost $2 million from more than 16,000 backers.

Quinns: Well, like Zombicide: Green Horde’s setting, your dream remains very much in the realm of fantasy. But for once, this site has a very good reason for throwing shade on Zombicide.

Star Wars: Destiny is a collectible dice and card game of battles between iconic heroes and villains that encompasses characters, locations, and themes from the entire Star Wars saga.

In Star Wars: Destiny, two players engage in a fast-paced duel, each striving to eliminate the other’s characters first. The game’s innovative mechanisms combine dice-driven combat with faction-driven hand management. Straightforward rules make the game easy to learn, but also enable deep strategic thinking and clever deck-building. Players can create decks that include characters from every faction and any era, as long as heroes and villains are on opposite sides of the fight. For example, Padmé Amidala might fight alongside Rey and Finn, taking on Jabba the Hutt, Kylo Ren, and Jango Fett.

Each round, you use your characters’ abilities, an assortment of dice, and a carefully constructed thirty-card deck filled with events, upgrades, and supports. You and your opponent alternate actions: activating your dice, playing cards from your hand, attacking your foes, and claiming the battlefield. You need to prove your skills and defeat your opponent’s characters to claim your destiny!

Imperial 2030 is a game on its own, based on the rules of Imperial. The six powers (USA, Europe, Russia, China, India, and Brazil) develop their industrial basis and build up armies and fleets. They fight over control of neutral land and sea areas in order to become the most powerful nation worldwide.

In this game it is not the players who take turns, but the six powers, one after another. The players are just internationally operating investors who act in the background. By giving money to the six powers, which all have their own treasuries, the players influence the politics. The biggest investor in each nation gains control of that nation’s government and decides what the nation will do. As control of a government can change with each new investment, players may control several governments at the same time. As investors, players should not get too attached to their preferred nation, but rather focus on where their investments have the best rates of return. Essentially the game is about money, and not about military domination!

Ghostbusters: The Board Game II features an original story by Ghostbusters comics writer Erik Burnham in which the Ghostbusters investigate mood slime that has flooded the city, creating earthquakes and riots in another attempt to bring back Vigo and his minions. In line with the story, the map tiles in the game depict buildings destroyed by earthquakes and fires, as well as collapsed streets that expose sewers infested with slime, tunnels with derailed subway cars, and ghost trains.

This standalone game features new game elements that allow players to:

Switch between Proton and Slime Blower Packs with new custom figures and double-sided Character Cards.
Battle challenging new Plazm enemies that combine into stronger versions to attack and split up in defense; immune to Proton Streams, these phantoms can be taken down only by Ghostbusters wielding Slime Blower packs.
Use new ghosts to bring new Slime tokens that can inhibit the Ghostbusters’ sight, movement, maneuvers and combat rolls.
Recover stolen experimental Ghostbusting equipment and level the playing field with new weapon, trap, utility and tome cards to survive challenging Event Cards and reap the rewards before things go from worse to apocalyptic.

In this shellshocked edition of the SU&SD podcast, Matt, Paul and Quinns crawl out from their writing-trenches to discuss the mammoth feature we published this week: SU&SD Take On The BoardGameGeek Top 100. As a postscript, they discuss the dozens of phenomenal games that are cruelly, criminally absent from BGG’s fabled list. Are you disinterested in crimes against arbitrary inventories? Not to worry. Matt also chats about his tiny dice in Star Wars: Dice-Tiny, Paul discusses the impractical politics of Imperial 2030, Quinns has finally rolled around in Roll for the Galaxy and, for some reason, there’s also there’s a discussion of Ghostbusters: The Board Game II and whether ghosts can move through other ghosts. Ugh.

Bushido

Games News! 12/06/2017

Review: Imperial 2030

Review: Millennium Blades

Millennium Blades

Games News! 05/06/2017

Star Wars: Destiny

Imperial 2030

Ghostbusters: The Board Game II

Podcast #59: The Ghost of BoardGameGeek’s Top 100

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