Strategy

The first delicate flowers herald the end of a harsh winter. The sun shines longer day by day and pushes the snow back. Lush meadows bloom, and curious marmots slowly awaken from hibernation. Finally, spring is coming into the mountains — the perfect time for a hike. Choose your route carefully, watch out for the burrows of the marmots, and pack enough snacks. Your chances to earn an edelweiss hiking pin are rather low if you sit hungry in the snow.

Spring Meadow is the grand finale of Uwe Rosenberg's puzzle trilogy following 2016's Cottage Garden and 2017's Indian Summer. The complexity of this game — the most interactive of the trilogy — is set in between those two games, and fans of the trilogy will find familiar elements combined in an innovative way.

Place your meadow tiles with 0-2 holes skillfully on your mountain board to receive extra tiles when creating or expanding groups of holes. Find your way around the burrows of the marmots because they can restrict you during tile placement. Scoring takes place depending on the players' selection of meadow tiles from a central game board. Whoever has the largest meadow during a scoring receives a hiking pin, and the first player to earn their second hiking pin during scoring wins.

New puzzle challenges are guaranteed with 172 tiles in 49 shapes.

Patchwork Express features the same basic gameplay as Patchwork, but with a smaller playing area and with larger and less complex pieces.

In the game, each player tries to build the most aesthetic (and high-scoring) patchwork quilt on a personal 7x7 game board. To start play, lay out all of the light-colored patches at random in a circle and place a starting marker in a particular location. Each player takes some buttons — the currency/points in the game — and someone is chosen as the start player.

On a turn, a player either purchases one of the three patches standing clockwise of the starting marker or passes. To purchase a patch, you pay the cost in buttons shown on the patch, move the starting marker to that patch's location in the circle, add the patch to your game board, then advance your time token on the time track a number of spaces equal to the time shown on the patch. You're free to place the patch anywhere on your board that doesn't overlap other patches, but you probably want to fit things together as tightly as possible. If your time token is behind or on top of the other player's time token, then you take another turn; otherwise the opponent now goes. Instead of purchasing a patch, you can choose to pass; to do this, you move your time token to the space immediately in front of the opponent's time token, then take one button from the bank for each space you moved.

In addition to a button cost and time cost, each patch also features 0-3 buttons, and when you move your time token past a button on the time track, you earn "button income": sum the number of buttons depicted on your personal game board, then take this many buttons from the bank.

What's more, the time track depicts six 1x1 patches on it, and during set-up you place six actual 1x1 patches on these spaces. Whoever first passes a patch on the time track claims this patch and immediately places it on their game board.

At some point during the game, dark-colored patches are added to what's available for players to take, and these pieces are smaller than the light-colored ones, making it more likely that they'll fill in holes on a player's board.

Rooted in the World of Terris, a brutal, dark fantasy setting envisioned by authors Robin Laws and Scott Hungerford, Battue: Storm of the Horse Lords is a strategy board game in which players take control of a horde of Horse Lords bent on looting Tarsos, the City of Brass Pillars.

Battue is a conflict based game in the same vein as Risk, whereby players are trying to control the city of Tarsos by moving Mongolian styled tribes and their units into key positions and eliminating enemy forces. Players are able to create multiple forces called Hordes. The city of Tarsos is made up of many districts, which start play face down and unknown. As hordes enter new sections they are flipped and if defeated they can offer benefits such as additional troops and varying victory point values.

The aim of the game is to control the highly valuable parts of the city before the endgame is triggered, which is done when key parts of the city are controlled by the players.

The game features a modular board, allowing for the game to be tactically different with each play.

Further expansions will introduce new rules and options as well as allow additional players to join the game.

Today, Nusfjord is a tranquil fishing village in the Lofted archipelago in northern Norway. 50 years ago, business was booming when the codfish would come for spawning. But, travel back in time and Nusfjord is completely transformed. Sailing ships dominate the fjord, and the rocky beauty of the island is masked by vast forests. Visit the heyday of Nusfjord’s maritime commerce and expansion, and success may be yours! As the owner of a major fishing company in Nusfjord, your goal is to develop and expand the harbor and surrounding landscape. You will do this by using your workers to help you develop your fishing company, persuade village elders in the council to join you, and build buildings for valuable effects and victory points. Plus, don’t forget to expand your fishing fleet to increase your fishing capacity, and issue shares in your company for a quick gold or two. You also need to balance the clearing and reforesting of your land for building resources. And don’t forget the ever important gold needed to buy shares, which can earn you additional fish and points. In the end, the player with the best fishing company (and most points) wins the game!

Experience two fantastical centuries of expansions and combat in Paper Tales. Remodel your assorted assembly of characters, units, and buildings in each period based on your developments and the age of your heroes. Write a new legend of the rightful ruler who brought unity to the rival kingdoms.

In more detail, Paper Tales is a simultaneous drafting card game. Each turn, players draft five units that they then recruit into their kingdom — assuming that they can pay. These choices determine the players ability to shine in battle, generate great income, construct dominant buildings, and earn legend points. There are only four hiring positions available during the four rounds of the play, but your units grow older with each turn until time takes them away.

Build a comprehensive strategy and adapt the shape of your realm according to opportunities and restrictions and you will make history!