This hobby is a blessing of glorious treasures, from simple card games to extravagant sprawling tabletop experiences. The issue however (if you can call it an issue), is there are always some more amazing treats to feast your beady eyes on.
That’s why we thought it would be fun to sit back and take stock of some of those upcoming delights. So here are a selection of our more anticipated (by all means not all) games.
Assassins Creed Animus
A very recent Kickstarter campaign by Mantic games brought us the Assassins Creed Animus board game. One of half of Peaches and Meeples is very much an fan of this franchise, so he had basically already backed this before he could. Visiting Mantic HQ, he secretly hoped to grab a cheeky look, but to no avail.
Theme aside though, the game looks like great. Each player has their own character and associated board, each of which has its own playstyle. You move your character round the board, activating actions based on the space you are on, or committing to challenges, which encompass those all-important assassinations, which are accompanied by valuable points for end game scoring. This is not a co-op game, oh no… you may all be playing assassins, but as you play, you draw cards, and sometimes those cards can be played to hinder your opponents, slowing them down, or even lumbering them with desync tokens, which at the end of the can negatively impact their points score.
Mantic have clearly thought about the fans, with the Kickstarter sets covering many of the popular era’s and assassins, and the retail set is planned to contain some of the iconic characters from the series, so even if you missed the Kickstarter, you will still get some great characters. Fan service aside though, this looks like it could be fab game to try, even if the theme matters little to you.
Unmatched Adventures: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Never played Unmatched? You should… Played Unmatched but not had the chance to try Unmatched Adventures yet? Ooo you are missing a treat. You see, Unmatched is one of those games, which proves less is more, simple straight forward rules, card play and cool miniatures covering a wide range of legends, literary greats or popular IPs, all confined to a board that will fit on many tables no problem. Unmatched Adventures takes this simple but very effective rule set and makes it a co-operative game (or solo if you fancy it), all with the ability to use any characters you want from the main series and vice versa. That’s why Unmatched is a firm favourite.
This year, Restoration Games is going for the ultimate nostalgia based mega punch with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Featuring all the classic heroes and villains, this game is destined to be great fun. Also, Restoration have brought in a special treat with this set, the villains will have playable decks for the main series, which is great addition for fans of the game, but also of the Turtles series. Afterall, who doesn’t want to see how the Shredder will cope against Bruce Lee, Bloody Mary and a T-Rex?
Unmatched always has great minis, but the card art is also always amazing and given they are core to the gameplay in Unmatched, we are already expecting to lose time during our games just admiring them.
This game is going to be a real treat for fans of the game and of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and we cannot wait to get our hands on this game.
Tag Team
The UK Games Expo (UKGE) in Birmingham is a great chance to check out new or upcoming games. This year we had the please of trying Tag Team, and honestly, the only reason it did not come home with us, is because we couldn’t buy it. This game would have been the fastest impulse buy ever had it been available and is very firmly on pre-order as a result. At its heart the game is a battling game and will probably appeal to fans of games like king of Tokyo, Dice Throne, Unmatched or any other combat game you can think of where you have one or two characters, and the aim is to reduce the opponent to zero health. How this one differs, is how you fight. You have two characters (hence tag team) and they each have their own set of cards. These cards form a draw pile and then you have a couple of cards to start with in your ‘hand’ (by ‘hand’, this is merely a deck of facedown cards used for combat). Those cards are in an order, and in a round you draw those cards from your hand in order to determine attacks that take place. Then when you get to draw a card, you add this new card to any point in your ‘hand’, affecting the order of the cards. This means, not only are you creating a predetermined run of cards that form your attacks, you are constantly second guessing where in their ‘hand’ the opponent has put the new card, changing the position of their existing cards. This simple mechanic becomes quite ‘thinky’. Afterall, you might have placed a card hoping to mitigate an attack you know is coming, but then the opponent throws your tactic out the metaphorical window, by shifting that card earlier or later when including their new card. The cards you draw are also determine who attacks and who gets attacked, so that again factors in to where in your ‘hand’ you place the new card.
The range of characters are colourful and interesting, and with it being about making teams you fight with, it opens up a lot of combinations you could try when playing. You can already tell there is a good buzz around this, based on various online videos or reviews talking about how fun this game is, but add in we got to try it, its hard not to be excited for its release.
Koi
Koi was a game we fell upon by accident. Bonsai is a firm favourite and discovering that the designers were doing a new game very much perked our intrigue. Having had a look at the rules, you can see how this will be pretty much the spiritual successor to Bonsai. You can see Bonsai’s influence, but rather than based on bonsai trees, you are now building your own pond, decorating it and filling it with Koi. This game is also in 3d, with decorative components that also serve as scoring opportunities.
IT LOOKS GORGEOUS! As with Bonsai, each turn you take with two core actions; Meditate where you draw cards, earn coins, and acquire koi from the market; or work where you use your Sensei’s abilities to shape your pond by placing your tiles. Much like Bonsai, you build your pond just how you want to, hoping to score well and achieve some goals along the way. The card art again looks to capture the theme beautifully, and this art style is carried through on to components and player boards. Koi is definitely a game we cannot wait to try and could very well end up a cheeky treat.
Avalon: The Riven Veil
Again, the UKGE proved it can be a treasure trove of what is to come. Avalon: The Riven Veil, was a game we came across in our first year, but at that point it was essentially a promotional stand for the upcoming campaign on crowding funding sites.
Fast forward a year, and the game was back for visitors to check it out. So, we did. This game is an area control and exploration game, with an incredible looking tiled board, that is double sided and flips over as you progress. Artwork on the board is matched by the card art we saw, and to top it off there were amazing miniatures, although from what we were told, the main retails would also feature standees for the standard troops.
The theme of Arthurian legend just all over this game and Shadowborne games have done an outstanding job bringing this into realisation.
Sadly, we never got to play the game at the UKGE, but that speaks volumes about Avalon: The Riven Veil. Even just by talked to about the game, and getting to look at the components it got us excited enough to see if we could jump onto a late pledge. We were not able to pledge sadly, but this game has most definitely landed on our wishlist with a huge splash and we cannot wait to actually get our hands on a playable copy.
About the author:
We are Peaches and Meeples, busy professionals who love to chill out to fun table top games. We love board games, card games, miniatures games, competitive or co-operative. Put some dice in our hands and we are in our happy place.
We are also proud guinea pig parents to two lovely fluffballs of joy.
