The Non-Euclidian Staircase

Fury of Dracula is a re-design of an older game we used to play to death back in the day. Most of the changes seem sound. There's an extra player (Mina, complete with her psychic link to the Count), a card-based hidden movement system for Dracula (rather than the original screened-off map) and, in general, a greater use of cards (cards being far easier to custom design and print now than they were pre-Magic). I've seen a few complaints online about some odd places on the board where Dracula can accidentally corner himself and be unable to move without triggering the "cheating" rules and I expect the balance is still closer to by-player than by-side (that is, Dracula will not win half of the games, but closer to the 1-in-5 ratio that he has to the other players), but I really want to try this one out for myself. It looks to be far less disappointing than the cluttered-up and overly lengthened Arkham Horror re-do by the same company. I'm also pretty sure their other Games Workshop re-do, Warrior Knights, will also make my "must try this one soon" list if I let myself read through it again, but it hasn't quite made it there yet.

Twilight Struggle is an intriguing entry into the "card-driven wargame" style that its publisher, GMT Games, has been impressing with for some time now. But this entry isn't really a wargame, it's a Cold War game. As such, it isn't troop movements you need to manage but rather political influence. Oh, wars are important, but they're abstracted, usually to just a quick die roll. What you manage in this game is your political resources, and in particular the game forces you to deal with good and bad news, both anticipated and unanticipated. It does this via cards, each of which has a political point value (which you can use to fuel the basic actions of the game) and an event. When you play a card, you can play it for either purpose if it's biased toward your side (USA or USSR, if the sides in the Cold War aren't obvious to you) or neutral, but if it's biased toward the other side then you MUST let them have the "good event" it represents. The balance of power clearly shifts through the game, as the initial deck is somewhat biased toward the USSR but over time additional cards are added that are strongly USA-biased. Knowing what might be coming and preparing for it is a critical skill, and being completely prepared is well beyond the limited resources either side has to deploy, based on my reading, so it looks like there's always somewhere you'll be vulnerable. The game has a definite political bias (for example, I think it credits politics and, in particular, certain politicians too much and simple economics too little for the eventual result of the Cold War) and it's littered with annoying typos and unclear verbiage, but the underlying ideas are very solid and quite interesting. I really, really want a chance to give this the several plays it looks to want before it's understood.

Command and Colors: Ancients is also from GMT Games, but it couldn't be more different from Twilight Struggle. This game is a third design based on a very clever, reasonably simple tactical wargame system previously used for the games Battle Cry and Memoir '44, covering the US Civil War and WWII, respectively. This take focuses primarily on the Punic Wars, Rome vs. Carthage (with a forthcoming expansion which will add other armies of the broadly-defined "Ancient" era, including the Greeks and the Persians). Deceptively simple rules control movement (units are activated by cards which indicate the part of the battlefield or the type of unit the commander may select units from this turn) and combat (roll lots of dice, look for the icons that hit with the unit you're using), but the real meat of this game seems to be in the features of each particular type of unit. Some offer ranged attacks, some speed, some durability, all by very slight changes in the movement and combat options. Unlike its two predecessors, which used plastic soldier figures, this game uses dozens and dozens of wooden blocks, to which stickers with illustrations of the appropriate unit are applied. A unit on the battlefield is made up of multiple blocks, which lets the game indicate casualties in battle by slowly removing the unit, block by block. And after the hours spent applying the hundreds of stickers, I really want to put this one on the table and fight out a few battles!

Rheinlander fills out the all but mandatory Knizia entry on this list. This game casts players as factions of the nobility along the Rhine River, slowly building and combining kingdoms. Cards are played to control where you can place your knights, either on the number you play (there are two land spaces and a river space for each number, with the river space available only if both land spaces are already occupied) or next to any other of your knights (in which case the number played doesn't matter). Groups of two or more knights create a duchy, ruled by the majority faction. Cities, castles, and cathedrals modify the scoring, defensibility, and political influence (respectively) of the duchy they abut. If a new knight changes the majority faction in a duchy, the old duke's player gets points before he's kicked out, but most points come from holding duchies at game's end. Sounds simple, but thanks to the subtlety of castles and cathedrals, a map that is deceptively simple and that has cities, castles, and cathedrals shuffled randomly each game for variety. This looks like a very solid game of abstract strategy.

Battleground: Fantasy Warfare is the last on my current "priority" list. This clever game takes the essentials of miniatures games but replaces the expensive and hard to transport miniatures with very reasonably priced and easily carried cards. And, for a nice additional touch, designs and coats the cards so important game notes can be written right on the surface with the appropriate tools (wax pencils or dry-erase markers). Also, all ranges used in the games are expressed in card sizes (half or all of a short or long side, or a combination of several), which is quite convenient. I've looked through the four armies currently in print and I'm quite impressed with the variety and range of the armies. And the Undead army looks quite fun to play, which is always a plus in my book.

There's half-dozen others I'd like to get onto a play table as well, but these are the heart of my current priority list.