BGG | The Hotness

  Brass: Birmingham is an economic strategy game sequel to Martin Wallace' 2007 masterpiece, Brass. Birmingham tells the story of competing entrepreneurs in Birmingham during the industrial revolution, between the years of 1770-1870. As in its predecessor, you must develop, build, and establish your industries and network, in an effort to exploit low or high market demands. Each round, players take turns according to the turn order track, receiving two actions to perform any of the following actions (found in the original game): 1) Build - Pay required resources and place an industry tile.2) Network - Add a rail / canal link, expanding your network.3) Develop - Increase the VP value of an industry.4) Sell - Sell your cotton, manufactured goods and pottery.5) Loan - Take a £30 loan and reduce your income. Brass: Birmingham also features a new sixth action: 6) Scout - Discard three cards and take a wild location and wild industry card. (This action replaces Double Action Build in original Brass.) The game is played over two halves: the canal era (years 1770-1830) and the rail era (years 1830-1870). To win the game, score the most VPs. VPs are counted at the end of each half for the canals, rails and established (flipped) industry tiles. Birmingham features dynamic scoring canals/rails. Instead of each flipped industry tile giving a static 1 VP to all connected canals and rails, many industries give 0 or even 2 VPs. This provides players with the opportunity to score much higher value canals in the first era, and creates interesting strategy with industry placement. Iron, coal, and cotton are three industries which appear in both the original Brass as well as in Brass: Birmingham. New "Sell" system Brewing has become a fundamental part of the culture in Birmingham. You must now sell your product through traders located around the edges of the board. Each of these traders is looking for a specific type of good each game. To sell cotton, pottery, or manufactured goods to these traders, you must also "grease the wheels of industry" by consuming beer. For example, a level 1 cotton mill requires one beer to flip. As an incentive to sell early, the first player to sell to a trader receives free beer. Birmingham features three all-new industry types: Brewery - Produces precious beer barrels required to sell goods. Manufactured goods - Function like cotton, but features eight levels. Each level of manufactured goods provides unique rewards, rather than just escalating in VPs, making it a more versatile (yet potentially more difficult) path vs cotton. Pottery - These behemoths of Birmingham offer huge VPs, but at a huge cost and need to plan. Increased Coal and Iron Market size - The price of coal and iron can now go up to £8 per cube, and it's not uncommon. Brass: Birmingham is a sequel to Brass. It offers a very different story arc and experience from its predecessor.

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  Defy fate and save Middle-earth! The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship is Matt Leacock's most mechanically-rich Pandemic System design to date. Gather heroes to defend the havens of Middle-earth from advancing shadow troops, complete objectives that will change each time you play, and help Frodo evade the hunting Nazgûl as he travels to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring. EPIC COOPERATIVE STRATEGY GAME: Join forces to save Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship, a cooperative strategy game where players must complete evolving objectives and protect the realm from the forces of darkness. HELP FRODO DESTROY THE ONE RING: As Frodo journeys to Mount Doom, players must work together to help him evade the relentless Nazgûl while preventing the shadow armies from overtaking key havens. DYNAMIC OBJECTIVES: Each game presents new challenges with unique objectives that change every time you play, ensuring endless replayability and fresh strategies. PANDEMIC SYSTEM DESIGN: Created by Matt Leacock, this is the most mechanically rich Pandemic System design to date, offering deep strategic gameplay and thrilling cooperative mechanics. PERFECT FOR FANS OF LOTR & STRATEGY GAMES: Designed for 1-5 players, this immersive adventure is ideal for ages 14 and up, making it a must-have for fans of The Lord of the Rings and strategic board games. Contents: 72 Player Cards, 50 Shadow Cards, 24 Objective Cards, 10 Reference Cards, 13 Character Cards, 13 Character Figures, 9 Nazgul Miniatures, 3 Battle Dice, 7 Search Dice, 48 Shadow Troops, 10 Gondor Troops, 9 Elven Troops, 8 Rohirrim Troops, 8 Dwarven Troops, 1 Eye of Sauron, 1 Solo Token, 1 Threat Rate Marker, 1 Hope Marker, 6 Haven and Shadow Stronghold Tokens, 36 Symbol Tokens, 1 Game Board, 1 Dice Tower

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Magical Athlete is a racing game of pure chaos! Roll a die and move your racer that many spaces. But! All of the racers have wacky, game-breaking abilities. Compete over four races and whoever has the most points wins! A Japanese cult classic, that uses many traditional game mechanics - like roll & move or losing a turn Updated with new racer powers and rules by Richard Garfield You'll feel like you built a powerful team of racers that let you skip over the spaces occupied by other players or can reroll their die, but what's this - your opponent has a character that always gets to move 5!? Contents: 1 double sided race track36 wooden racers36 racer cards6 dice4  1st place trophies4 2nd place trophies9 three point stars

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The artwork is awesome in Sagrada! I love the dice rolling and drafting mechanics used to build the stained glass windows. It is a very simple game with a lot of depth to your strategy. Awesome entry-level game for newer board gamers!                                                                                     - Will (Marketing Manager) As a skilled artisan, you will use tools-of-the-trade and careful planning to construct a stained glass window masterpiece in the Sagrada Familia. Players will take turns drafting glass pieces, represented by dice; carefully choosing where to place each one in their window. Windows have unique color and shade requirements, and similar dice may never be adjacent so placing each die is more challenging than the last. Fortunately, you’ll have just the right tools to help you through. Gain prestige by adapting to the preferences of your fickle admirers, and of course, by adding your own artistic flair while completing your glass masterpiece in Sagrada. Sagrada - A Game of Dice Drafting and Window Crafting for 1 to 4 players that plays in about 30 min or less. Carefully designed by Daryl Andrews & Adrian Adamescu with graphic artistry by Peter Wocken.

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In Ark Nova, you will plan and design a modern, scientifically managed zoo. With the ultimate goal of owning the most successful zoological establishment, you will build enclosures, accommodate animals, and support conservation projects all over the world. Specialists and unique buildings will help you in achieving this goal. Each player has a set of five action cards to manage their gameplay, and the power of an action is determined by the slot the card currently occupies. The cards in question are: CARDS: Allows you to gain new zoo cards (animals, sponsors, and conservation project cards). BUILD: Allows you to build standard or special enclosures, kiosks, and pavilions. ANIMALS: Allows you to accommodate animals in your zoo. ASSOCIATION: Allows your association workers to carry out different tasks. SPONSORS: Allows you to play a sponsor card in your zoo or to raise money. 255 cards featuring animals, specialists, special enclosures, and conservation projects, each with a special ability, are at the heart of Ark Nova. Use them to increase the appeal and scientific reputation of your zoo and collect conservation points.

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In Dune: Imperium Uprising, you want to continue to balance military might with political intrigue, wielding new tools in pursuit of victory. Spies will shore up your plans, vital contracts will expand your resources, or you can learn the ways of the Fremen and ride mighty sandworms into battle! Dune: Imperium Uprising is a standalone spinoff to Dune: Imperium that expands on that game's blend of deck-building and worker placement, while introducing a new six-player mode that pits two teams against one other in the biggest struggle yet. The Dune: Imperium expansions Rise of Ix and Immortality work with Uprising, as do almost all of the cards from the base game, and elements of Uprising can be used with Dune: Imperium. The choices are yours. The Imperium awaits!

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Cities on the moon! This will be humanity's crowning achievement. At last, no longer bound to the Earth — the moon, a stepping stone to the stars. The rockets are loaded with supplies and colonists; the robots are programmed and ready. Everything has been planned down to the tiniest detail, and there is no chance whatsoever of failure. To the moon! Moon Colony Bloodbath is an engine-building, engine-losing tableau game, with a shared deck the players build that makes things happen, many of them bad things that kill people in your moon colony, but some positive, and some that let you build up. More specifically, each turn one card is revealed from the shared deck, which starts with four work cards, two trouble cards, and two twists. For work, each player takes an action of their choice simultaneously: mining for money, farming for food, research for cards, build a new building, or restock boxes on buildings. Twists vary from one game to the next. Trouble adds a new event card to the deck: hunger, paperwork, glitches, accidents, leaks, power failure — whatever can go wrong will go wrong, then whenever the deck is shuffled, you can prepare for all those events once again. Players can add cards to the shared deck, too, whether perks that are only for you or developments that affect all players. The game lasts until one player's moon colony has no people remaining, or until the players reach the bottom of the event deck. At that point, the player with the most survivors wins.

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In Star Trek: Captain's Chair, you will go head-to-head with an opponent, each stepping into the shoes of an iconic captain from across Star Trek's galaxy and history. Command ships, crew, and away teams while you manage resources and alliances! Each of the six captains comes with a unique, asymmetric deck of cards themed to that captain's personality strategies, allies, and assets. Each deck creates different strategic directions based on which common cards are available and what strategy your opponent deploys. The captains to choose from are: Jean-Luc Picard Benjamin Sisko Michael Burnham Koloth, The Dahar Master Sela Thy'lek Shran True to Star Trek, antagonism will not win every game. You will need to pursue diplomacy, exploration, and science, with different captains excelling at different paths. With hundreds of unique, deeply thematic cards, you'll want to explore the galaxy again and again! The chair is yours, Captain!

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Hello, student beings! The cosmic faculty of the Technical Academy of Creation is delighted to welcome you to your Civolution, the final exam in Civilization Design! For this occasion, we prepared a humanoid scenario on an isolated continent. Here, each of you holds the rank of a local deity which is closely linked to its very own civilization and must lead it to success over the other civilizations. Your developmental possibilities are endless and reach from cultural and technical progress to evolutional adaptations. For example, what would you consider more beneficial to your tribes: inventing the wheel or growing wings? Demonstrate your ability to operate your civilization console and show us how well you can adjust to changeable environmental conditions and mild creational chaos. When the exam ceases after four eras, whoever managed to gather the most success points will not only pass the exam but will become a full member of the Technical Academy of Creation and garner the opportunity to be promoted to the next instance. Civolution is a medium heavy to heavy euro-style game that utilizes a dice selection mechanism to trigger actions on a tech tree-like structure. As you figure out how to best use your dice and put your unique cards into play, tons of strategies and paths to victory emerge, though each time you play, you will only explore a fraction of the possibilities that the game’s system and many cards provide.

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Hot Streak is a game about betting and racing and SCREAMING!!!!!!! You’re all hard luck gamblers betting on the world’s most off-brand mascots. And unlike most racing games, the races never stops for you to make any decisions. All your sneaky strategizing is done beforehand, so everyone can just sit back, cheer, boo, and scream at a hot dog man.Comes with 4 chunky mascot figures and a ridiculously long pull-out racetrack. Contents: Four Mascot figures 1 pull-out racetrack 1 rulebook 100 dollar bills 18 Betting Tickets 12 side bet cards 53 racing cards

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Plunge into the modern era, where our planet's vast interconnected ocean scape is one of the last frontiers to discover and explore. Experience a deep new ever-changing adventure in this followup to the smash hit Endeavor: Age of Sail!In Endeavor: Deep Sea, you head an independent research institute with the goal of developing sustainable projects and preserving the fragile balance of marine life. Throughout the game, you’ll recruit field experts and use their abilities to explore new locations, research dive sites, publish critical ecological papers, and launch conservation efforts.Expand your expertise, develop your team, and learn as much as possible about the sea. The action your institute takes now, could mean a healthy ocean and a sustainable future for the planet.Endeavor: Deep Sea is designed by Jarratt Gray and Carl de Visser, the same creative team behind the smash hit Endeavor: Age of Sail. This edition is set in a new era of nautical discovery, but uses streamlined rules which will be familiar to fans of the original game.

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This item is a pre-order item with an expected release date of Q2 2026 Orders containing a pre-order items WILL NOT SHIP until the final pre-order item is able to be shipped. Dates and product details are subject to change as new information from the manufacturer is updated. Listen up, I'm absolutely fizzing about this one. The Old King's Crown is a phenomenal board game that absolutely deserves your attention. This is the type of rare box that is able to induce that kind of bounding enthusiasm the excitement that gets you day dreaming about when you're able to get it to the table, that promise that shivers through you as each rule rattles with possibility. And not just the rules, but the presentation too!" - Shut Up and Sit Down The Old King’s Crown is a game of card-driven conquest, where you play as heirs to a vacant throne, vying for control of an ancient, overgrown kingdom. Wield unique abilities and leverage your followers’ traits to best outwit your opponents across a map that stretches from the teetering heights of the castle to the dappled light of the necropolis. As leader of your faction you will be staking claims with Heralds openly as well as positioning your forces in secret, hoping to claim the locations that fit your designs. However, keep an eye on your rivals, as they too have agents and agendas, poised to undo your best laid plans. Royalty, rebels or ruses. What crown will you wear? In The Old King's Crown, players move their Herald to locations, hoping to claim them. Then simultaneously players play cards from their hand, facedown to regions of the board. These are then revealed and resolved. Winning these clashes will result in different rewards that further their position and grant them the game's primary goal, influence. The player with the most influence by the end of a set number of rounds will be declared the winner. What We're Saying We're big fans of Root's asymmetry, Inis' art styling, and the bluffing mechanics of Dune; Old King's Crown somehow combines all three into a package that is fairly accessible given just how big it is. That doesn't mean the gameplay is easy or by any means simple, but it does mean it's intuitive and won't send people used to more medium weight games running for the door when you bring this box out.  We're really excited for Old King's Crown and we're expecting to see this on the Hotness list more and more as the initial Kickstarter run is supported by a mass-market printing hitting in Spring. This game will be hitting your table often, and if the secondary market is any indicator it's going to be highly sought after for years to come. 

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Lewis and Clark are tasked not only with exploring America, but with ridding the land of numerous invasive monsters that have appeared. Corps of Discovery: A Game Set in the World of Manifest Destiny is a co-operative deduction game in which players each take the role of one of the crew on the expedition and set out to explore the land. The game board allows for different maps to be inserted into it, so you have many adventures ahead of you. In addition to finding and killing monsters, you must also complete numerous daily challenges that require specific resources that you can find on the board. You have to use logic and deduction to reason out where the resources you need are located. Ally yourselves with Sacajawea and the indigenous people of the area to help you on your quest. The game comes with two chapters: Fauna and Flora. Each has new mechanisms, a different goal, and new components to give each chapter a different feel.

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For centuries, the Novarchs, descendants of the royal House of Novarchon, have ruled with an iron fist over the feudalistic galactic empire of humankind, the Domineum. During this time, they brought stunning technological innovation and scientific advancements to their domain. This accelerated progression helped the Domineum reach — and eventually inhabit — even the farthest segments of the known galaxy, where new Houses emerged to govern the outer sectors of the empire. As the House of Novarchon grew in power, so grew the religious cult that surrounded them, proclaiming grim prophecies about an ancient cosmic being from another dimension: the Voidborn. Many thought it to be only a myth, but in truth, it was the Voidborn's dark influence that granted the Novarchs the sheer knowledge to achieve rapid expansion for the empire. While the cult of the Novarchs envisaged eternal life through the otherworldly entity, the Voidborn's only intention was satiating its eternal hunger. And so, when the Domineum had achieved a vastness fitting the Voidborn's craving, interdimensional rifts opened at the heart of the Domineum to unleash cosmic corruption. As the House of Novarchon and its followers welcomed the Voidborn and sought their false salvation, the entity infected and spread and seized control over the inner worlds. Now, it is time for the remaining Great Houses to purge the galactic corruption, prevent the Voidborn from fully manifesting in our dimension, and to ultimately overcome the chaos as the new rulers of the Domineum. Voidfall is a space 4X game that brings the genre to Euro enthusiasts' tables. It combines the tension, player interaction, and deep empire customization of the 4X genre with the resource management, tight decisions, and minimum-luck gameplay of an economic Euro. Win by pushing back the Voidborn in the solo/coop mode, or by overcoming your rivals' influence in restoring the Domineum in the competitive mode — both using the same rule set and game system. Variability is ensured not only by multiple playable houses with their own strengths and weaknesses, but also by many different map set-ups for all game modes. As the leader of a defiant Great House, you play through three cycles, each with a game-altering galactic event, a new scoring condition, and a set number of focus cards that can be played. Focus card decisions and sequencing is the centerpiece of the gameplay. By selecting two of their three impactful actions as you play them, you develop and improve techs; advance on your three house-specific civilization tracks; manage your sectors' infrastructure, population, and production; and conquer new sectors with up to five different types of space fleets. Space battles are fought either against the Voidborn's infected forces (which are present as neutral opponents even in the competitive mode) or against other players. Instead of relying on the luck of a die roll, battles in Voidfall are fully deterministic and reward careful preparation and outsmarting your opponents.

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Speakeasy will transport you to the roaring 1920s during the era of Prohibition. Manhattan was under the firm control of Lucky Luciano, a prominent mobster. To strengthen his grip on the territory, he implemented a well-structured system. He divided Manhattan into different districts, each assigned to a specific mobster responsible for handling their "business" operations. In this worker-placement and card-management game, you take on the role of one of those mobsters, managing and operating your very own speakeasy empire in Manhattan. To do so, you'll need to use all your cunning and resources to stay ahead of the competition. As you improve your operation, become more infamous, and upgrade to more lavish speakeasies and even casinos, you'll attract the attention of the outside mafia and the police. You need to use your leverage to keep your business running and receive your share from Lucky Luciano. You need to hire goons to help you take over Manhattan during this exciting and dangerous time. You can associate with outside mobsters — and even attack and rob rum runners to gain valuable resources to gain an edge over your rivals. You need to manage your cards carefully, placing your workers strategically to deliver illicit liquor and reach Manhattan's goals to earn income. You will cook your books to fill your safes with free tax money by achieving some goals. The ultimate goal is simple: accumulate the most money and become the most successful mobster in the city. Do you have what it takes to rise to the top of the speakeasy scene and take over Manhattan during Prohibition? It's time to grab your fedora and find out in Speakeasy. So, get ready to dive into the thrilling world of Speakeasy from Eagle Gryphon Games, where strategy and social intrigue collide! This exciting game transports you back to the Roaring Twenties, putting you in the shoes of bootleggers navigating the vibrant underground scene. You'll engage in one of the most awesome board games on the market, where every decision counts and alliances shift for the best advantage! In Speakeasy, you’ll face challenges as you accumulate money and outsmart your opponents, making it a standout among tabletop board games. With its elegant design and immersive gameplay, it’s truly one of the best board games for both casual and experienced players. Whether you're forming your team or crafting your next move, you'll find yourself captivated by the strategic depth and historical context. Get ready for an unforgettable night of competition and camaraderie with this fantastic addition to your game collection! 

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Long ago, the once-gentle leviathans lost their minds and tore the world apart. After generations of hiding and struggle, humanity discovered that the frenzied leviathans can be restored. Climbers willing to take the risk must explore the wilds and work together to remove a series of binding crystals to heal the leviathans roaming the world. In Leviathan Wilds, 1-4 players will confront these colossal beings, with each creature being depicted across the spread of a spiral-bound storybook that makes up the game's board. The book also forms the basis of a connected campaign mode built around the game's story, with each of twenty included scenarios estimated to last around 45 minutes. Tougher difficulty levels are also available for added replayability. Each character's deck of multi-use cards is unique, allowing them to climb, jump, and glide around the board in different ways. The number of cards left in the slim deck represents their grip on the leviathan's body; if the deck runs out, the player loses their grip and begins to fall down the board until they're able to reach a rest space, which resets their deck. Moving onto rest spaces also provides a way to regain one's grip without falling. Other spaces reduce a character's health or grip or they increase blight, a status that reduces their overall hit points. The leviathan has its own deck of cards, which triggers various effects at the beginning of a player's turn, from targeted attacks that reduce health to effects that move players between spaces or loosen their grip. As the game progresses, the leviathan gradually gains "rage", which intensifies the effect of its event cards. Players' characters can move around a square grid overlaid on the creature's body by spending action points — the number being determined by a card played at the start of their turn — and their remaining hand of ability cards to reach the crystals and reduce them to zero. Victory is achieved by reducing all crystals, which vary in strength, to zero.

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