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Welcome to the brilliantly titled Board Horde – it’s called that because we’ll be talking about a lot of board games, so if you think about it, yeah, it’s brilliant. I’ve also mentioned the title again in case Zatu’s elite editors decide to change the name on me and ruin the fun. Logically speaking, though, they could change the title in this paragraph as well, couldn’t they? And nobody would be any the wiser. My brilliance would be wasted once more. Whatever this round up of recent board game news is now called, let’s have at it!
The Cats of Mont Saint Michel
We’ll open the round-up with this absolute cracker first, for two reasons. One, there are Musk-cat-eers. Yeah. Two, the crowdfunding campaign is in its final days, so get over there quick. Three, there’s cats. How many reasons did I say?
The Cats of Mont Saint Michel is a miniatures solo/cooperative campaign game set in the historical monastery Saint Michel and just before the French revolution. You will be playing directly on the coil bound scenario book and using 12 sided dice for combat and collecting cards for loot, skills and powers. The game plays out over a series of linked scenarios forming a campaign and ongoing story. Each previous scenario in the campaign affects the start of the next.
There will be a choose-your-own-adventure element to your progress, so your feline heroes will have to work together and choose very wisely indeed if you’re going to navigate the campaign successfully. The Cats of Mont Saint Michel uses Raybox Games’ Paths Unknown system – used previously in Escape From Stalingrad Z and Gates of Nifleim – wherein the direction that your heroes choose to exit a scenario decides the new page in the book they travel to.
And the miniatures are fantastic. I’d pledge for this just for the miniatures, I’ll be honest. Go to it here
If things have gone well, there should also be an interview with game designer Marco Pecota in this blog any minute now…
Railroad Tiles
Not into cats? (Weirdo.) No sweat, I’ve got something for everyone. Let’s rustle up some trains instead. What do you mean, you’re not into trains either? Go sit in a corner, the rest of us will enjoy this.
There’s a good chance that you’ve heard of Railroad Ink from Horrible Guild, as it’s been a big success. Well, original designers Hjalmar Hach and Lorenzo Silva return, along with artist Marta Tranquilli are back, replacing the markers and boards with a tile-flipping mechanic, retaining some familiarity whilst bringing a brand new flavour. The combination of certain meeples with certain tiles will earn you points, and the strategy will lie within deciding which meeples to deploy and when. Railroad Tiles, then, is a quick-playing tile placement game in which you pick tiles and place routes to build an interconnected community. There’s eight rounds, and you start each round by drafting your tiles from the sets available in the common pool, then you place your routes in front of you, trying to make as many connections as possible; be careful not to lock yourself in with choices that are too constraining.
The launch (boarding?) date for Railroad Tiles on Kickstarter is September 17th, so head on over and register your interest here!
Weirdwood Manor
As an author, I must admit to some jealously. That there is a title I wish I’d come up with. It’s the name of a place you’d want to go and look at from the fence… but should you dare to venture inside? I mean, in all seriousness, if you can’t learn the lessons of the idiots in movies, the ones where the dumb kids climb in a broken window as a dare, the kind of dare where you have to come out with proof, the kind of proof which ends up being a cursed object, if you can’t make a sensible decision in that kind of situation, then what hope is there for you?
The game publisher Greywood Games can describe this one best:
Enter the world of Weirdwood Manor, where the magical and dangerous realm of the Fae intersects with the everyday world of the Real. You’ll assume the role of one of 6 different characters and coordinate strategies with your companions to battle against one of 3 asymmetrically designed Fae Monsters and their insidious minions, the Clockwork Scarabs, who have invaded the Manor and threaten its enigmatic ruler, Lady Weirdwood.
Experience a unique temporal mechanic that reflects the magical, ever-shifting Manor. Every time a player or the Fae Monster takes an action, time will move forward in the game and the connections between the rooms will shift via unique rotating corridor rings on the game board. Fighting against time, you’ll make use of dice drafting, card play, resource management, and location actions as you move through the shifting Manor in pursuit of ultimate victory over the Fae Monster!
We didn’t manage to cover this one during its Kickstarter campaign, but it’s available to buy now, and if you like your board games to have a striking table presence, it doesn’t get much more eye-catching than this. Shop around for a good deal.
Horrified: World of Monsters
That Chthulu. Bit of a Jack-the-Lad, eh? He’s got a bad attitude, he hangs around with cultists every now and then, mucking about with rituals and chants and whatnot. And when he’s not doing that, he spends most of his time having a snooze beneath the Pacific Ocean like a jobless layabout. When he finally bothers to drag his backside out of bed, he gets all snarky and threatens to end us all. I tell you, he needs a nice cup of tea to settle his nerves.
If you’re here then it’s highly likely that you’ve heard of the Horrified series: it’s become a major name in the board game hobby since the release of the original game in 2019. This fourth iteration features less monsters and isn’t as tightly themed, but there are two fairly major aspects of the game that should sell it to the fans. Firstly, as hinted, Chthulhu is here and presents the first-ever multi-phase in the series: one puzzle in the World of Monsters, the second in the realm of Chthulhu, so this should present a major and refreshing challenge. Secondly, you can mix and match monsters between this game and the previous edition, Horrified: Greek Monsters. This is something the series has been crying out for really, so it’s a great feature and hopefully one that will become a mainstay of the series. Note that you cannot mix and match with the original game or with American Monsters.
I believe this may already be available to buy in the US from Ravensburger, but we’ve got Horrified: World of Monsters available for UK pre-order here at Zatu.
Dinner Party
We’ve all done the thing where we imagine who we’d invite to a dinner party. People we admire, people who’d be fun or interesting or both. What if all kinds of people from history –good, bad and worse – came knocking on your door, drawn by the smell of your legendary spag bol, and you had to decide who to keep and who to foist upon your neighbours? Thanks to Failure Factory you need imagine no longer!
You’re the hosts of a dinner party, and your guests are people of history. Convince characters like Marie Curie, Cleopatra or Gandhi to join your table, use their special abilities and treat them to drinks from the bar. Send Adolf (who came uninvited and insists his invitation “got lost in the mail”) to the table of an opponent to ruin their evening, and make sure to keep your own guests entertained so other players won’t be able to charm them away from you. Only one can have the greatest party ever when the game ends and dinner is served!
I’ve got my hands on a preview copy of this, so I can confirm that it’s not as all-out shocking as the ‘Includes Hitler!’ sticker on the front might infer (and I've been advised the sticker design is due to change!). In the realms of bad taste, this is more satire than unnecessary offence, and once the game is under way it becomes great fun to see what combo of historical figures you end up with.
The pre-launch page is here, and there’ll be a 15% discount for those early birds who snatch it up quick enough.
Natera: New Beginning
The animals are coming! And they’ll probably run things a hell of a lot better than we have! That’s the general gist of the story, which to me sound more like a warning of our obvious self-made doom. But never mind the misery, let’s play games! In Natera: A New Beginning, you play as a sentient and intelligent animal tribe, exploring and controlling areas abandoned in a bright, post-humanity world.
With the help of your unique tribe leader and your explorers, you will explore, build authority, and take control of four distinct areas. Doing so will unlock new, more powerful tiles and allow you to establish settlements to further cement your presence. Improvements with human science will unlock powerful bonuses on a tech tree. Collecting the most venture points after four seasons will prove you are the animal tribe that adapted the best to the new Natural Era.
Natera: A New Beginning is on its way to Kickstarter on the 27th August from Horizon Game Studios – Click here and get ready to lead a whole new world.
Go. Play games. And come back here soon, when I’ll attempt to ruin your life and your wallet with even more temptations.
