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1944: Race to the Rhine

No gas, no ammo, no food. No time to spare to cross the Rhine before the enemy closes all the gaps. You need to secure the bridgehead before others do. That’s the only way to Victory and your personal glory.

1944 Race to the Rhine is a new game experience. You can’t win this game without proper planning. Your tanks need gas to move and ammo to fight. But don’t forget to feed your GIs. So what would be your transport priority?

Will you follow general Patton’s strategy to discard ammo in order to bring additional fuel barrels along to move boldly forward? Would you risk your prestige and gamble on Market-Garden as marshal Montgomery did? Would cross the Rhine quicker than general Bradley did, with the help of your hard work and a little luck?

(Images courtesy of BoardGameGeek.)

Thrower: General Patton chewed his cigar and look East, over the Rhine, into Germany. He’d done it. By loading his divisions down with fuel, he’d stolen a coup on the other Allied commanders and made it to the river first.

Now, only the 155th Panzer Brigade stood between him and the history books. Disorganised and demoralised, they were no match for his crack US corps.

Suddenly the field telephone crackled into life. “Sir? Sir! We can’t action that advance order. The troops have no ammunition. Montgomery requisitioned the lot.”

“WHAT?” bellowed Patton, spraying out a mouthful of cheesy wotsits. “That British f*** took EVERYTHING? Jesus!”

Quinns: Morning, everybody! I know these pieces usually appear at about 5pm GMT, but I like that greeting too much to change it. As such, I’m now ruling that it is never “midday” in England until after the Games News. Please update your calendars accordingly.

I’m gonna lead with the week’s Kickstarters, but only because our first one has just four hours left! Rogues to Riches looks just lovely. This is storytelling & card game hybrid that casts the players as thieves sharing stories of last night’s exploits. Can you explain to the other players how you used nothing but your hat to steal the pub’s most valuable sandwich?

In one of our most anticipated reviews of the year, Paul and Quinns have hunkered down in their rubbish-strew hideaway for a spoiler-free analysis of Dead of Winter.

Like SU&SD favourite City of Horror, here’s a zombie game that isn’t about zombies. Rather, Dead of Winter wants to tell you a story of a freezing cold colony where men and women are exiled over a lost tin of beans, and the degree to which you trust your friends could save you as easily as get you killed.

Did we mention it’s the first board game we’ve reviewed with a sex scene? Oh, yes.

Crossroads is a new series from Plaid Hat Games that tests a group of survivors’ ability to work together and stay alive while facing crises and challenges from both outside and inside.

Dead of Winter is the first game in this series, designed by Isaac Vega and Jon Gilmour. It puts 2-5 players together in a small, weakened colony of survivors in a world where most of humanity are either dead or diseased, flesh-craving monsters. Each player leads a faction of survivors with dozens of different characters in the game.

Dead of Winter is a meta-cooperative psychological survival game. This means the players are working together toward one common victory condition–but for each individual player to achieve victory, they must also complete their personal secret objective. This secret objective could relate to a psychological tick that’s fairly harmless to most others in the colony, a dangerous obsession that could put the main objective at risk, a desire for sabotage of the main mission, or worst of all: vengeance against the colony! Certain games could end with all players winning, some winning and some losing, or all players losing. Work toward the group’s goal but don’t get walked all over by a loudmouth who’s only looking out for their own interests!

WITNESS THE CRAZIEST CAMEL RACE OF ALL TIME, AS THINGS REALLY GO TOPSY-TURVY WHEN CAMELS STACK UP AND ENTIRE PYRAMIDS TURN UPSIDE DOWN.

As members of Egyptian high society, you gather in the desert with one simple goal: to gain the most money by backing the right camel to win a leg or even the entire race. However, in this race, it’s not just the lucky ones who can beat the odds. Reading the dynamics of the race and having a good sense of timing is just as important when it comes to backing the right camels and taking the victory.

Place your bids wisely and decide when it is time to strike, and maybe – just maybe – with a little bit of timing and a lot of luck, your bid will pay off!

Quinns: As you’d imagine, we take our time with the games we review. There are tea breaks. Pee breaks. We’ll pass around a bit of cardboard, saying things like “Feel how thick that is!” and “That’s quite thick actually”. But yesterday? Yesterday, we were in a hurry.

“PUT YOUR FINGER HERE,” I ordered. Matt cautiously slipped a forefinger into the recess of my toy pyramid, letting me wrestle a rubber band around its neck.

“OK,” I began. “We’re going to bet on some camels now. It’s going to be fun, OK? This game won an award. Now everybody sit down and listen to the rules because we only have half an hour oh jesus is that the time let’s go let’s go”

Quinns: Morning, everyone. The bad news is, you’re all going to die because the end of the world is coming. The good news is, you can pick your flavour of ragnarok.

I’m referring to Fantasy Flight’s new range of pen and paper role-playing games! From left to right they’ll cover zombies, angry gods, aliens and murderous machines. In a great little twist, though, all the players control themselves. So, Paul Dean and Matt Lees having to use their real-life skills to survive when their fridges and lawnmowers start wanting them dead.

The Opener: Cash 'n Guns and Sausages and Mash and Onions and Gravy

Matt’s definitive series on getting your friends and family into gaming, The Opener, has made its delicious return!

This week Matt looks at the brand-spanking new edition of Cash ‘n Guns, a game of criminals dividing the “take” after a “heist” by “shooting one another”, before ending the video with a lovely recipe for bangers’n’mash. It’s basically the closet we’ll come to filming Snatch.

The big heist may have been a success, but it all goes wrong when every crook wants a bigger cut. With this much money on the table, bullets speak louder than words!

In Cash ‘n Guns, players will point foam pistols at each other and try to intimidate their opponents into letting them have the largest share. The bravest crooks enjoy the most money – but only if they live long enough to spend it!

1944: Race to the Rhine

Review: 1944: Race to the Rhine

Games News! 15/09/14

Review: Dead of Winter

Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game

Camel Up

Review: Camel Up

Games News! 08/09/14

The Opener: Cash ‘n Guns and Sausages and Mash and Onions and Gravy

Cash ‘n Guns (second edition)

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