Strategy

The latest strategy game from Reiner Knizia is set in ancient Egypt. This game is for players who loved his previous strategy games and have been waiting for another great strategy game from the good doctor. Players try to outdo each other in building pyramids and growing crops, but must watch out for floods and droughts along the nile.

Noah is tearing out his beard and the time-pressure is difficult. Clouds are gathering and the rain could come anytime. The weather forecast is not good. Meanwhile, animals are gathering before the ark.

Now, a handful of people are offering to help, but they look like gamblers and game players!

The animals slowly drag along and nothing can be said to speed them up. Fortunately, the helpers manage to keep the animals from attacking each other. And, now someone has cleverly stored 2 loads of grain with the Tyranno. His reasoning was that there was room AND the animal would not eat it as it is a meat-eater!

Now, if only the ark can be launched without capsizing......

More animals AND a useful summary card are added to the basic Ark game.

There are nine treasures to be discovered! Capt’n Clever’s simple rules will take 2-4 fearless mariners on an exciting, action-packed adventure. The goal is to plot the best course and bring back a ship filled with a booty of gold and jewelry. Unfortunately, your neighbor is the one who controls your itinerary: each player has to use their pirate talents to send the others on the longest route possible!

Diam is a game of strategy for 2, 3, or 4 players. The simplicity of the rules and the depth of play will satisfy players of all strengths and all ages.

The goal of the game: to place 2 pawns of identical color at the same height on 2 diametrically opposed spaces. The objective is very clear, and you constantly feel you're close to winning. Victory is within your grasp!

But beware, this simplicity is misleading. With each move, your opponent can discern your intentions and launch a counter-attack! You'll need solid nerves. Stay focused, anticipate, move your colors with accuracy and you will become the master of Diam!

No. of Players: 2 - 4
Duration: 10 to 15 minutes
Min. Age: 8

GL Price: £23.49        (RRP is £24.99)

Travel Version of DIAM.

At the turn of the 20th century, the seven Great European Powers engage in an intricate struggle for supremacy. Military forces invade and withdraw, shifting borders and altering empires with subtle maneuvers and daring gambits.

Form alliances and unhatch your traitorous plots as you negotiate and outwit—in a delicate balance of cooperation and competition—to gain dominance of the continent! In Diplomacy, your success hinges not on the luck of the dice, but your cunning and cleverness.

The 50th Anniversary Edition of Diplomacy contains:

The Ancient Game of Choi Dai Di

Golden Deuce steps up this classic trick-taking climbing game that requires cunning wit and strategy by changing the odds with a unique 60-card deck, while providing board game action for a new twist on this addictive game! Be the first player to lay down all your cards, and win points from other players in the card game round. Then, maneuver any of your pawns the number of spaces to match the number of points that you earned. But beware! Moving too many pawns too quickly may leave you unable to collect the points you deserve! With special spaces to send you back, move you forward, or “warp” your pawn to another space on the board, it’s a race to the finish to win the game!

Contents: A beautiful game board with sleek eye-catching graphics, a unique 60 card deck of Golden Deuce playing cards, Convenient and concise Rule & Card Ranking reference cards, 4 gem stone playing pieces for each player, and Easy to understand Player’s Instructions for quick-start game play.

Travel back to New York's golden age of gangsters, where you get to take on the role of a crime boss in 1950's Little Italy. Make your rounds about town as you pick up money from different buildings, but watch out for the "heat"!

Each crime boss shares control of two cars, each with a different opponent. Drive through the streets, timing it right to collect money and avoid the police.

Play strategically, and you'll be able to drive your opponents straight into a stakeout, costing them big money while you collect the big score. If you don't, you'll find yourself sleeping with the fishes!

One of the two players represents Jack the Ripper, who will be one of the 8 characters on the board. This player knows the identity of this character and his goal is to flee from the district as soon as possible (or avoid being accused for eight turns). The other player represents an independent investigator (not represented on the board) who tries to guess the identity of Jack. But he can make only one accusation during the game!

During each turn the players move the characters, using their special powers, placing them either in shadow or light. At the end of each turn, the witnesses declare if Jack is visible (in light, or adjacent to another character) or not (alone in the shadows). This allows the investigator to know which characters are innocent. This continues as the investigator tries to eliminate suspects while Jack tries to escape. Intuition, logic and cold blood will be necessary for each of the two participants.

You control a tribe of amoebas living in Earth's past trying to survive in the Primordial Soup. At first, your amoebas drift along, eating the nutrients that are available, but soon you'll have to figure out how to get to the rapidly depleting supply of nutrients before your opponent's amoebas beat you to it. You will purchase rule-breaking Gene cards to give your amoeba capabilities to be the top dog in the Soup. Some of these capabilities include more coordinated movement, longevity, aggression, etc. The player who keeps his amoebas alive and balances the use of his or her Gene cards will reign in the Soup.

The 5-6 player expansion for Primordial Soup. The new gene cards also may be used to "spice up" the 3 and 4-player game.

When the great pyramids rose to touch the heavens, warrior kings battled amongst themselves in a struggle to achieve ultimate earthly power.

To be victorious required careful strategic planning and great cunning . . . knowing just when to attack and when to retreat.

Can you demonstrate these skills in order win? You'll need to be able to think and act clearly and quickly, have a good sense of spatial awareness . . . and a very good memory!

QUINAMID will put you face to face against your opponent. As the victor you can bask in your glory; whilst as the vanquished you will know that you could have won if you had used better tactics . . .

. . . But as a game of QUINAMID takes only a few minutes, you will have the opportunity to get your revenge . . . QUICKLY!

A board game of pain and loss in a rough parochial school ...

Recess is a strategy board game for three to five players. Players each start with two boy figures and two girl figures on opposite sides of the grid-marked modular board, which is dotted with playground-themed obstacles. Children move like a rook in chess, while nuns move like a queen. A child that lands on a space occupied by another child starts a fight and takes a coin from him. Other children can break up a fight by landing on that same space, or tattle by landing on a nun's space. If a nun moves onto the fight space, the attacker is sent back to the entrance for detention. Finishing thirty of the minute-long turns marks the end of the game, or it ends immediately when one player's boy and girl figures meet on the same space while out of sight of the nuns. The resulting kiss earns two coins from each player, but to win you still have to end up with the most coins.

We are in the realm of SIAM which once upon a time was heaven on earth, a vast country where elephants and rhinoceroes had been living in peace for centuries. Once, the earth started to shake and SIAM was reduced to three regions surrounded by gigantic mountains. Since then, elephants and rhinoceroes dont have enough space to live. These two incredibly strong species shall now struggle mercilessly to rule over two territories.

Contents:

We are in the realm of SIAM which once upon a time was heaven on earth, a vast country where elephants and rhinoceroes had been living in peace for centuries. Once, the earth started to shake and SIAM was reduced to three regions surrounded by gigantic mountains. Since then, elephants and rhinoceroes dont have enough space to live. These two incredibly strong species shall now struggle mercilessly to rule over two territories.

Contents:

We are in the realm of SIAM which once upon a time was heaven on earth, a vast country where elephants and rhinoceroes had been living in peace for centuries. Once, the earth started to shake and SIAM was reduced to three regions surrounded by gigantic mountains. Since then, elephants and rhinoceroes dont have enough space to live. These two incredibly strong species shall now struggle mercilessly to rule over two territories.

Contents:

The times were hard indeed. Our ancestors worked with their legs and backs straining against wooden plows in the stony earth. Of course, progress did not stop with the wooden plow. People always searched for better tools and more productive plants to make their work more effective.

In Stone Age, the players live in this time, just as our ancestors did. They collect wood, break stone and wash their gold from the river. They trade freely, expand their village, and so achieve new levels of civilization.

That is exciting and interesting. With a balance of luck and planning, the players compete for food in this pre-historic time.

Risk and grow as your ancestors did. Only then the victory ring sings to you!

The nefarious Pirate King has stolen Her Majesty's Ship, the Sea Hammer, pride of the Royal Navy. Furious, the Queen has offered a great reward to the person who can retrieve it. As one of the advisors to the Queen, you have chosen an officer of the Royal Navy to pursue the Pirate King. Of course, it might take a thief to catch a thief, so you've also conscripted a vicioius pirate from the Queen's dungeons.

Now they are preparing to enter the dreaded Lair of the Pirate King. Will one of them be the first to recover the Sea Hammer? Or will one of your rivals receive the Queen's reward instead?

The six Battle Clans of the Terakh each possess an Orb woven of ancient magic. During the Festive Battles of Valgor, the Orbs give power to shape-shift the Clan's Inkas into Idols, whose versatile abilities set interleaving ripples in the ever-shifting tides of the rotating Battle Planes.

In the game you are one of the five Grandmasters, leading an order of knighthood, and you help to build up a Medieval Town to become a Citadel with beautiful houses and buildings. You can influence your own progress in the game, of course. A special feature in this game is the Influence Card, which gives you the chance to counter your opponents. You can take new territories, take over territories of other Grandmasters or create disorder in the citadel by burning down an important building on the board. The basic version of the game is accessible for all players of 10 years and older. The Rules of the Game are easy to understand.

Strategic Variant

In this terrific boardgame you can enjoy the play with 2-5 Grandmasters, all striving for the strongest influence, which enables you to become king. The strategic variant of the game introduces the Grand Power in one of the four different development areas. Also the isolation of territories increases the fun for the more experienced player of strategy games. Try out this wonderful game and you will be convinced of the power of De Ontembare Stad.

English Rules attached.

In 1490, Kaiser Maximilian I awarded Franz von Taxis the contract to deliver mail between the Kaiser’s residences in Innsbruck and Brussels.

He did such a good job, that postal services in the country continue to be connected with the name Thurn and Taxis. With the introduction of postal carriages in the middle of the 17th century, members of the family were raised to Count status and given the hereditary title of Postmaster General. The game begins at this point in history.

Can you emulate the achievements of this family and build a successful postal network? Do you have the talent to connect the right cities to create an effective network and not lose sight of the need to acquire new carriages when they are needed? Plan your moves carefully and watch your opponents’ moves carefully, so you are prepared to respond to them.

The game takes you back in time and gives you challenges that will bring you back to the game over and over.

This 2nd expansion for Thurn and Taxis is actually two in one!

In Audience, each player sends 5 clergyman to attend an audience with the Pope in Rome. The players endeavor to make certain the carriages with the clergyman arrive, but not too early! A player who arranges for his cardinal to arrive at just the right time will score more points than the player who manages the same with a simple priest.

In Offices of Honor, the players try to use the office holders as evenly as possible, in order to receive different office tiles. The more different tiles a player can return at one time, the greater benefits he receives.

"All Roads lead to Rome" contains two expansions.

Whether you play Audience or Offices of Honor or both together with Thurn and Taxis, they will take you and the game to a new dimension.

The postal carriages continue to roll. Now that players have learned to master the postal routes in the south, they naturally turn their eyes toward the north, looking for more routes to establish to add to their ever-growing postal networks. The new routes run between Holland and Sachsen – between Preußen and the free cities. The player build new postal stations in order to provide fast service for important letters to the many new customers in the north.

Hard-working postal carriers add horses to their carriages to enable them to travel farther and more safely, which will help the separated Preußen provinces to achieve power and glory.

With this expansion, we offer new ways for players to enjoy Thurn and Taxis. The new board opens up new areas for postal routes. To support the new board, we include new bonus tiles and new city cards (with horses on their backs to support the new rules). We hope players will enjoy these changes and the strategic opportunities they offer.

Long ago, between the Tigris and the Euphrates, a civilization grew. The leaders of new kingdoms were gods. As a god you must ensure that your dynasty rules. You guide the King, the Priest, the Merchant, and the Farmer, to forge the strongest kingdom.

Welcome to Tiki Island, home to nine colorful carvings all competing to be the top Polynesian Idol! In this fast-paced strategy game, try to maneuver your secret tikis to the top of the line by playing the right combination of action cards. Use a Tiki Up card to move a tiki ahead in line. Tiki Topple sends opponents' tikis tumbling to the back of the pack. But watch out for the sneaky Tiki Toast cards, which knock your tikis off the board! Score the most points and call yourself the Tiki Master.

If one were to judge a game strictly by its looks, Tiki Topple would certainly come out on top in our book. From the unique set of colorful carved tiki pieces to the rich illustrations, this is one of the most beautiful games we’ve ever produced. Yet what really makes this game shine is that, along side the gorgeous graphics, stands a game design that is equal in richness and elegance. As with all of our favorite games, Tiki Topple is simple to learn while offering a challenge every time it’s played.