Quinns: Hello! Is everybody ready for a three dayboard game party? We don’t have cake, gifts or music, but we do have board games, card games and (checks notes) even more board games!
Through that link you’ll find an Aladdin’s cave of content. There are treacherous piles of upcoming games, plenty of shiny new features, and even glimmering giveaways. Here’s a helpful list of what not to miss:
Over on our YouTube channel we have just this moment UNLEASHED six videos, each containing a bundle of previews of upcoming games, presented by Tom, Matt and myself. It’s ridiculous. Seriously, there are now hours of new SU&SD content for you to check out.
More than 30 hours’ of programming will soon start on our Twitch channel, which for the duration of AwSHUX resembles a SU&SD television channel! We’ve got panels, special guests, game shows, and an absolute boatload of programming where you can watch team SU&SD play unreleased games. Find the schedule in the above header image!
But SHUX isn’t just about looking at games, pawing at your monitor like a kitten at a window. This weekend you can play games free on Tabletopia – use the code SHUX2021AGAIN to get 7 days of free Gold Access! Here’s how to apply your coupon code.
Can’t find the game you want on Tabletopia? Try these other options: BGA (free), Sovranti (Platinum access through to Nov 30th 2021 with code SHUXfall21), Yucata (free), Boîte à Jeux (free), TTS (buy on steam).
Can’t find people to play with? This weekend, you can! If you just head over to the official AwSHUX Discord server you’ll find plenty of “open gaming” channels where you can find people just like you who are looking to set up a game. Alternatively, you can even have games taught to you by the publishers themselves in the #looking-for-demo channel!
Finally (and you can expect to hear a lot more about this on the site in the coming days), we’ve only gone and made another official stand alone SU&SD expansion for a game, this time the superb MonsDRAWsity with the fine folks at Deep Water Games. Here’s Tom announcing the project and the KS Notify Me page which I believe goes live on the 26th of this month, but if you’re just totally uncertain as to why you should be excited, you’ll find our podcast chat about Monsdrawsity on episode #123.
This is the third in a series of InsideGMT articles from Paul Hellyer about his board game Tsar, currently on GMT’s P500. You can view the previous article here.
As the new year arrived in 1917, Russia’s Tsarist regime teetered on the brink of collapse. Public opinion had turned against it, its army was struggling in the war, the economy was falling apart, and the capital of St. Petersburg faced a severe food shortage. In late February, hungry workers went on strike, demonstrated in the streets, and looted granaries. The regime had a short window of opportunity to reassert control, but this proved difficult. Its most loyal and capable troops were away at the front, as was the Tsar himself. The Tsar boarded a train and ordered troops to return to the capital, but they all found themselves stranded on blocked railway lines. Some officials in St. Petersburg tried to use the unreliable local garrisons to put down the disorder, but the soldiers instead murdered their officers and joined the revolutionaries. Left with few options, Nicholas II signed his abdication in a railway car.
Tsar turns the clock back to 1894 when Nicholas acceded to the throne. To give players a chance to set a different course, the game aims to capture all the factors that ultimately led to revolution: public support, army and navy morale, the regime’s political authority, agricultural and industrial production, infrastructure, and external factors like international trade, foreign relations, and war. As you play the game, you can change the inputs and watch the game engine respond. The end result might be a repeat of history, a stable constitutional monarchy, a fearsome police state, or a dysfunctional kleptocracy hanging by a thread.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at these factors and discuss how they relate to the regime’s survival, starting with popular support. Tsar measures this in four key “Sectors”: Nobles, Bourgeoisie, Peasants, and Proletariat. One angle is the total level of support in all Sectors combined, which determines the number of Unrest Cards featuring incidents such as general strikes, demonstrations, insurrections, and assassinations. Another angle is the level of support in individual Sectors: different Sectors react differently to various events, with the Bourgeoisie and Proletariat Sectors tending to be more troublesome for the regime. Low support in the Bourgeoisie Sector triggers a recurring Dissidents Coded Card and trouble in any Sector can trigger economic production penalties. If support in any Sector falls to zero, players draw a Revolt Coded Card which can rapidly lead to revolution if left unchecked.
But as an autocrat, the Tsar doesn’t necessarily rely on public support. Depending on other factors, his regime might easily counter domestic opposition. One of these other factors is army and navy morale, which are also tracked on the game board. High morale gives the regime more options to suppress unrest, while low morale can itself become a threat to the regime—when morale reaches zero in the army or navy, a Mutiny Coded Card appears which can be even more dangerous than a civilian revolt. Another key factor in the military is the availability of “Elite Army Units” that always remain loyal. They’re based on historical regiments such as the Preobrazhensky Life Guards Regiment that drew their officers from the ruling class. Assuming resources and transport are available, these units can always be used to put down strikes, revolts, and mutinies. But with only three of these units, they can easily become overstretched. That’s especially true in wartime, when players are pressed to send the best units to the front, meaning they are not immediately available to respond to internal threats —creating the same situation that brought down the real-life regime in 1917.
The regime’s political authority is measured by the game board’s “Order Tracker,” shown on the left. It consists of two parts, Fear and Reverence. Order is defined as Fear or Reverence, whichever is higher. Fear refers to the government’s reputation for oppression and punishment, while Reverence depends on the Tsar’s mystique and cultural authority. The former is easier to manipulate, but actions that raise Fear tend to come with negative side effects. For instance, you can opt for capital punishment for the Tsar’s enemies, but this lowers popular support in the Bourgeoisie Sector, which may trigger a dissident movement and lead to a cycle of violence.
When Order is high, the regime has more options for responding to domestic unrest and maintaining military discipline. The highest levels of Order often allow the regime to silence its critics through surveillance and intimidation without the expenditure of any resources, whereas lower levels of Order may restrict the regime’s ability to issue orders and use force. But as with popular support, high levels of Order aren’t necessary to the regime’s survival. If you govern through popular consent, you won’t need the most oppressive options offered by the highest levels of Order. This lets players aim for different models of stability, emphasizing either Order or popular support. Having a coherent strategy is important: once you commit to political reforms that lower Order, you need to be vigilant about maintaining popular support; if you alienate the public through Fear, you need to be vigilant about maintaining Order. Avoiding extremes is also important: you need to maintain some minimum levels of popular support and Order, regardless of your strategy. High levels of public unrest will eventually exhaust the regime’s resources, while a total collapse of Order triggers Coded Card 8 (Revolution) and ends the game.
As in real life, the Russian economy affects the regime in many ways, and so the game leans heavily into resource management. The game board tracks five key economic factors: income for the treasury, grain production, industrial production, transport infrastructure, and international trade. The regime needs cash to pay troops, advance government programs, and keep the Tsar happy. Grain keeps the population fed and functions as Russia’s key export in this time period. Industrial production drives the development and maintenance of infrastructure and the military. A robust transport network is needed to move grain from the countryside to cities and ports, to move and supply troops, and keep the economy functioning. Finally, the regime can’t import or export unless it has willing trade partners and infrastructure such as ports and canals. Through trade, the regime typically earns cash through grain exports and (on occasion) pays to import industrial products. All these economic factors are connected and a failure in any one area will weaken the regime, either by angering the public, lowering army and navy morale, or limiting the regime’s scope of action.
Finally, the game tracks foreign relations, which affect trade levels, access to credit, the regime’s reputation, and the possibility of war. France was Russia’s main creditor in the late Tsarist period, and the game creates opportunities for loans and financial aid conditioned on relations with France. Relations with other countries can affect trade, Russia’s international objectives, and the possibility of armed conflict. The game captures the effects of soft power through state visits and reactions to Russian cultural exports; it also captures foreign reactions to Russia’s internal politics—for example, too much political oppression can trigger rebukes from Western nations, while performative amnesties can improve the regime’s public image abroad.
War is the most significant aspect of foreign relations. In real life, war was the catalyst for revolution, both in the incomplete Revolution of 1905 and the February Revolution of 1917. The story of Nicholas II could not be told without war. When war arrives, you’ll find that Tsar is not a traditional war game of tactics. War is treated at a macro level and we’re mainly concerned with the way it affects the regime’s stability. Outcomes mainly depend on the economic factors discussed above and the regime’s ability to maintain internal cohesion. The effects of war may include blockades, public unrest, economic stress, and faltering morale. For instance, drafting a large army reduces grain production, while at the same time increasing the cost of paying and supplying the soldiers. In short, war will present the regime with a stress test.
Notice how all these different factors are connected to each other. Nothing stands on its own. Popular support affects the economy, and the economy affects popular support. The regime’s troops need economic support, and the economy may need the intervention of troops. Healthy trade levels are needed to develop the economy, and a healthy economy is needed to develop the infrastructure for trade. So there are many feedback loops in the game, which can be either positive or negative. When things go badly, the game reaches a tipping point where revolution becomes inevitable.
Watching these feedback loops and forecasting the regime’s stability is an important part of gameplay, because victory conditions are radically different for games that end in revolution and games that end with the Final Scoring Card. If the regime survives to the end of an Era, players win according to their VP scores, based on their Faction’s policy objectives. Gold that they stole through corruption is deducted from their VP scores. But in multiplayer games, revolution ignores VP and awards victory to the player with the most gold. You’ll need to closely watch the game board for signs of collapse and consider what the other players are thinking: when everyone at the table loses faith in the regime’s survival, they’ll focus on hoarding gold through corruption, which accelerates the slide into revolution. In solitaire games, revolution means you lose—so your first goal is always to avoid revolution, which requires careful long-term planning and perhaps some desperate measures at the end.
As a final note, I’ll share some thoughts about the regime itself and its depiction in the game. In real-life terms, was the regime’s collapse in 1917 a good or bad outcome? My feeling is that the late Tsarist regime occupies a morally ambiguous space, comprised by its many atrocities and failings, and yet relatively benign compared to the Stalinist regime that followed. But whatever my views may be, I don’t try to convey them through the game. My aim as designer is to make a game that’s enjoyable to play, historically accurate, and thought provoking. I’m content to let players create their own narratives through the choices they make and form their own opinions about the regime’s place in history.
In the next InsideGMT article in this series, we’ll focus on the players’ factional objectives and scoring.
This week we assembled the whole editorial team for our 2021 Christmas Gift Guide – with everyone picking a small handful of games that are excellent gifts AND currently actually available to buy!*
Below you’ll find links and a brief description of each game, but for more detailed explanations and recommendations, be sure to listen to the podcast episode that’s paired with this post – in which the whole team go through these individual choices. Thanks for reading and listening along, and do share the article or podcast if you think it’s a valuable resource for others this year. Much love from all of us – LET’S GO!
Super Skill Pinball: Ramp It Up
Players roll one set of dice that everyone then uses, choosing the next nearby location with a matching die-face to send their pinball pinging off towards. Push your luck and achieve killer combos, or take the safer option? This pinball-inspired Roll & Write that plays up to 4, but our very own Tom Brewster swears that it shines brightest when played alone for high-scores. A small box of shiny, ridiculous delights. Perfect for pinball enthusiasts or solitary thinkers – just maybe don’t mention which of the two you’ve got them pegged as. Check out our review.
The Fuzzies
Alternate-reality Jenga designed by aliens, The Fuzzies is a surprisingly compelling exercise in denying physics their right to exist – players take it in turns to remove a fuzzy ball from anywhere on the tower, placing it in a higher location than it previously sat. A tiny handful of rules later, and you’re good to go – with the real joy slowly settling in as you realise that these strange grippy things behave in a way that almost feels like magic. This small, lightweight crowd-pleaser requires dexterity and deftness that not everyone has, but it’s joyful to behold – even if you aren’t playing. See it in action here, in our full review.
A multiplayer re-imagining of the Choose Your Own Adventure genre – three small stories of choices and challenges, muddled together with truly gorgeous components. Replaying through scenarios to find the optimal solutions, you’ll be tasked with small physical mini-games to pass challenges. Sky-scraper capers and exploring Koala Cove, this is a colourful, modern take on a classic style of game that older folks will be well-familiar with.
The small-box code-cracker that continues to delight. Two teams must work to communicate safely with one another, while not giving away so much information that the other team are able to intercept their codes. Tougher to teach and play than the mega-hit Codenames, but vastly more rewarding. A SU&SD classic we just can’t get rid of – this cerebral party game might be your next family favourite. Watch our review!
Another dramatically simple set of rules that achieves more than you’d expect – this orange box of questions each has a numerical answer that players need to estimate by offering a range of numbers that they think will contain the answer. Really though, this one requires no quiz-skills to master: party game silliness means that much of the game is less about getting things right yourself, and more about correctly estimating who you’ll think around the table is most likely to have nailed it. Discussed in Episode 101 of the podcast! Oh, and if you’re unfamiliar with the beautiful language – check out this video for the Welsh version of the game.
Tile-laying puzzler with adorable bears. Collect strangely-shaped enclosures and then strategically place them on your empty plots of land, turning the chaos of bad shapes into something neat and tidy. Gently making shapes and filling gaps in your playerboards doesn’t get smoother and nicer than this – the ideal gift for those who prefer quieter games, with minimal confrontation. Although you’ll still get stressed about where to put the toilets. Watch our full review here, including the monorail expansion.
The tightly-packed version of a classic. Players must choose whether to persist with progress in expeditions they’ve already embarked on, or play it risky and start new adventures in tandem. Tricky choices and rapid hubris make this an easy crowd-pleaser. If you’re a fan of rolling dice and then writing things down, for Ava’s money this is the best gift available. Discussed in Episode 154 of the podcast!
A huge hit in the party game scene, and for good reason: there aren’t many games this clever that only require a handful of brain cells to comfortably play. A single player must guess the correct word – everyone else must guide them towards it by writing down a single-word clue, with the caveat that all duplicate clues will be erased before the guessing player sees them. A collaborative gem that takes moments to teach, and rapidly becomes raucous. Discussed in Episode 90 of the podcast!
A two-phased auction game that is light, immediate, and deeply silly – while also dripping with simple thematic charm. Will you end up stinking rich and owning a castle, or spending 15k on a cardboard box? Tactical & smart and yet lucky & light, this is a beloved classic for good reason. Discussed in Episode 99 of the podcast!
A family board game of bold exploration – build up a personal deck of cycling cards that you’ll successfully use to snag the treasures of El Dorado. Players race across an expanded board of large hexagonal tiles, in this – the most board-game-looking game of this year’s recommendations. A beloved classic by Reiner Knizia – who is widely regarded as being “The Best”, and we probably shouldn’t have spent years representing him as a deranged man in a grey wig failing to pilot a spaceship. Check out our full review of the base game, and the expansion.
The family game that Matt simply won’t stop recommending, this push-your-luck game of brewing risky potions is a joyful experience from start to finish. Earn gold to buy ingredients that you’ll then randomly pull out of your own personal bag, hoping that you won’t go too far and explode your cauldron in the process. Raucous, loud and comedically unfair, you only need look at how grubby that white token in the photograph above is to get a sense of how many times this gem has hit our table. Check out our full review, which features a frankly misguided use of paint cannons.
Hubris and silliness finally tie the knot: in SPACE. This modern classic has finally seen a reprint, and you’ve every reason to be excited – players assemble ships from a communal collection of face-down tiles, peeking and placing whilst working against the clock. The fabulous/terrible ships you’ve each constructed will then be put through their paces in the field, as you attempt to lug cargo from A to B whilst keeping your rapidly-assembled ship in one piece. If drastically unfortunate strokes of poor luck sound like the ideal recipe for a great night, this is the one you want. Watch the digital version of the game in action here, in which Matt went head-to-head against Tom.
Finally – after an extended length of time in which this game was sold out – we hope you’ll allow us to be VERY CHEEKY here and give a brief plug for a game that we made. The Serious Nonsense Box is a stand-alone expansion to the game Monikers – a beautifully produced party game in which you’ll play through several rounds, trying to get your team to guess the title of as many cards as possible – whilst against the clock.
In the first round you can say almost anything, or even just read out the card’s descriptions – but by the final round you’ll only be able to act out the titles using silent charades. What initially sounds impossible becomes a magic trick in familiarity, and we took this formula and honed it further to specifically amplify the capacity of players to be naturally funny, writing hundreds of new cards and keeping the cream of the crop.
If you want a comedy party game that doesn’t feel the need to get grim or punch-down, we’re pretty proud and confident of what we’ve crafted here. But don’t just take our word for it, obviously! Check out someone else’s review!
The MurderbotDiaries, Martha Wells’ popular series of darkly comedic science-fiction books, are coming to Apple TV+ in the form of a new series starring Alexander Skarsgård and created/written/directed by Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz. As with any adaptation, however, some pretty big changes are being made, and after watching the series, I wanted to know why. So when I got the chance to ask the creators, I did just that.
For anyone who has read the first Murderbot novella, All Systems Red, you know that the book is both short and yet somehow packed full of wonderful story moments and character traits. The story of Murderbot, a hacked rogue security bot who just wants to be left alone to watch TV shows but ends up being a hero, should fit perfectly into the length for a TV series or film, leading to the idea that the Weitz brothers had the opposite challenge of most adaptations. Whereas most require changes by cutting down the storyline, Murderbot needed fleshing out. Of course, any of those changes went through Wells first, and it was important to respect the source material.
“I think everything that’s in the book is in the show basically,” explained Paul Weitz. “We early on got in touch with Martha Wells kind of as fans and, so there are things that are added to the story, sort of like filling in the cracks, but anytime that we had an idea like that, we would call up Martha and say, ‘Hey, here’s what we’re thinking of, what do you think?’ And she’d either say, ‘Oh, that’s a cool idea’ or ‘Well, maybe think about this instead. That was a huge, huge relief.
“I think that part of the thing for us was never feeling like we were like we were padding stuff,” he continued as he explained why they made the changes they did.
To be clear, the series follows the first book’s story as a whole and does an incredible job adapting the tone and themes of the first novella, but there are a few major key moments that are different. This includes a very sudden and violent moment that’s a major change from the story. The Weitzs said they made such a big, impactful change to help maintain the tone of the books.
“Well, one thing that Alexander was very conscious of, even more so in a way than we were, was that you don’t want things to thaw completely,” Chris Weitz said when discussing the change. “Possibly ever, but even to appear to thaw until the very end. So I think at the very point at which everybody’s thinking, ‘Oh, it might not want to look at us or give us a hug, but it’s part of the team.’ Murderbot does something which reminds everyone that it’s a being that has done violence and that that’s part of their experience and their DNA.”
It wasn’t just the storyline of Murderbot that needed to be tweaked, however. The directors felt they should dive deeper into the lives of the rest of the characters, with particular attention given to fleshing out Garathin, who is played by David Dastmalchian.
“Part of it, in a way, was looking at the characters in the book, which might not have much said about them, and being like, ‘OK, these people exist, so why are they behaving this way? Why are they doing this?’” explained Paul Weitz.
“Doing a lot of work on that,” Chris Weitz commented. “Like, Garathin has a backstory in this, but we checked with Martha whether that was cool, and we also checked with David (Dastmalchian) whether that was cool because it’s trading on a little of his personal, you know, his personal experience. Just playing with the characters with utter respect and belief that they actually exist. (The characters) act in worthy ways, but they have neuroses, they have idiosyncrasies, and that was part of the interest (making changes).”
Murderbot will premiere on Apple TV+ on May 16.
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Days Gone occupies a weird place in gaming culture. It sold nine million copies, but barely made a dent in day-to-day culture and gaming discussions. In a strange way, that makes it perfect for a remaster. Old fans get to replay the game optimized for PS5, while new ones can discover it for the first time.
A common criticism – and one that rings true, to an extent – is that Days Gone has an identity crisis. The open world exploration brings to mind Red Dead Redemption. The focus on biking is very Sons of Anarchy. The zombie apocalypse and day/night cycle bring to mind Dying Light, while the emotional beats are reminiscent of The Last of Us. However, Days GoneRemastered manages to feel distinct from all of these.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment via The Escapist
You play as Deacon St. John – a violent but ultimately good-hearted biker whose beloved wife, Sarah, dies in the opening hours of a zombie outbreak. Two years later, Deacon ekes out an existence living in the wilderness of Oregon, doing jobs for the various survivor camps dotted around the wilderness.
A Bloody Good Time
Gameplay largely consists of travelling around the countryside and abandoned towns, fighting freakers (Zombies, in classic “Not-using-the-Z-word” fashion) and human enemies, ranging from marauders to the deadly Rippers. There’s plenty of side content to enjoy, ranging from clearing outposts to taking down hordes of up to 500 freakers.
While taking down hordes seems impossible at first, it’s a huge moment when you clear your first one. It’s always fun to race through obstacles, waiting for the perfect moment to spring a trap.
Along the way, you’ll find various encampments filled with survivors, which offer an interesting, if ultimately shallow, morality system. Most camps will offer either guns or upgrades to your bike, and early on, you’ll be forced to choose whether to send any survivors you find to a work camp or one under martial law and run by a conspiracy nut. It’s a dilemma, but one that’s instantly solved as soon as you unlock the third camp. Lost Lake offers bike upgrades and guns, and quickly cements itself as the good option. While you might need to send survivors elsewhere from time to time, sending them here just feels right.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment via The Escapist
Compared to a lot of post-apocalyptic worlds, the Farewell Wilderness feels alive. Everywhere you go, you’ll see deer darting across the path, enemy camps, or survivors to rescue. Deacon will meet plenty of people he can interact with and do missions for. While none of the bonds feel as strong as one like Joel and Ellie’s, these characters still feel important and deep. You’ll see his annoyance at a happy-go-lucky addict, or his protectiveness of a mentally broken young woman. Missions are separated not just into what they are but who they focus on, so you can see these relationships progress; however, there are no choices to make here, and many of them are story-mandated, so you’ll complete most of them as you play the game.
Blood, Bikes, and Booms
The best new addition is Horde Assault mode, an endless game mode where you’ll face progressively bigger and bigger hordes until you eventually die. There are different zones for the mode, each of which thrusts you into a different section of the map. Unlike something like The Mercenaries it’s a frankly huge chunk of the map, and there’s no time limit – you just keep going until your inevitable death.
However, Days Gone Remastered isn’t quite as beautiful or as detailed as many of its contemporaries. It’s pretty, but doesn’t look as good as the games it emulates. The remaster improves the lighting, the number of enemies on screen, and the skybox is gorgeous, but it doesn’t quite look as good as it wants to. There are a few floating textures from time to time, or somewhat cheap visual effects.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment via The Escapist
As good as the story is, it does make an odd habit of cutting things out. Cutscenes will occasionally jump from Point A to Point C, going from cause to effect without showing us the action. Deacon will frequently discuss the bounties he’s picked up as if we’re supposed to know who they are.
There were also a few glitches – nothing major, but it was annoying to see an aura around a character. A few times, I saw freakers flying through the air or fighting with nothing while I took potshots at them. Most annoyingly was a recurring glitch where the music would play so loudly that it drowned out the dialogue. It only happened a few times, but it was always frustrating, despite the gorgeous soundtrack.
Overall, Days Gone Remastered is a fantastic, if flawed, game. It isn’t quite as good as the games it emulates, but if “It’s not The Last of Us” is a valid complaint, then it’s one you can throw at most titles. It’s a game that absolutely deserves your time, either as a replay or for the first time.
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Panic over. At least for now. Sort of. Fresh off of the news that Helldivers 2 is getting some fresh content in May, April’s closed with the Illuminate’s planet-eating death ball being stopped in its tracks – something players have been working towards for ages.
Yep, this is not a drill. The Illuminate have gone into hiding too. Take that, the colour purple! I’m sure this relative peace will last forever, and that “more exciting news to come” not long after the next Warbond won’t have a chance of kicking off more squid shenanigans.
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If you take a glance at the Galactic War map right now on April 30, you’ll see no trace of the faction the divers have been going at it with on the reg for the past few months – there are only Automatons and Terminids left, because those two old foes will never totally die out. Though, as Arrowhead explained in its latest briefing, neither have the Illuminate.
“The Meridian Singularity has come to a halt,” this briefing reads, “The Illuminate have disappeared completely; Ministry of Defense analysts have concluded this is likely explained by too few remaining to present a significant threat. The enemy is likely attempting to evade detection in order to survive a second total annihilation.”
MAJOR ORDER: The Meridian Singularity has come to a halt. The Illuminate have disappeared completely; Ministry of Defense analysts have concluded this is likely explained by too few remaining to present a significant threat. The enemy is likely attempting to evade detection in… pic.twitter.com/oF9Ohtlkml
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So, the big wormhole thing that was on its way to try and add the Helldivers’ home planet of Super Earth to the list of worlds it’s blown to smithereens has stopped in its tracks, and the squids have made a tactical retreat. Nice.
This is Helldivers 2 though, meaning the fighting’s never over and there’s still a fresh major order. “The Terminids and Automatons remain significant threats,” Arrowhead continued, “In the Illuminate’s final hours, they dealt significant damage to the defenses of multiple strategic sites across both battlefronts, granting the opportunity for our foes to capture formerly well-defended territory.” Damn. It can never be easy, can it.
So, players are now taking on the task of holding on those weakened sites – the planets Fenrir III, Turing, Claorell, Mastia, and Achernar Secundus. As of writing, the latter two are being battled for, while the first two are currently held by Super Earth with just over five days left on the order. So, by the time it runs its course, that next Warbond reveal on May 8 will be just around the corner.
Are you glad to see that the death ball has stopped rolling towards your Super loved ones? Let us know below!
The Adventures of Robin Hood is another new one, this time an elaborate adventure game packed full of surprises. Players take on the roles of Robin Hood and his Merry Men and embark on a range of missions to help the poor and thwart the Sherriff of Nottingham’s evil schemes. A hardback story book and a great big board full of secret advent calendar-style doors to open are just a couple of the delights in store in this box!
Browse the full selection of games in our shop here or use the ‘family games’ filter to narrow down your search. We’re hoping to manage one more ‘Top 5’ list before Christmas arrives… watch this space, and click back through our previous posts for more suggestions.
Both spells have continuous effects which modify the creature’s characteristics in Layer 2, and the one with the latest timestamp wins. It doesn’t matter that Act of Treason is only temporary (and one could say Donate doesn’t have a duration at all):
611.2a A continuous effect generated by the resolution of a spell or ability lasts as long as stated by the spell or ability creating it (such as “until end of turn”). If no duration is stated, it lasts until the end of the game.
613.1b Layer 2: Control-changing effects are applied.
613.3. Within layers 2–6, apply effects from characteristic-defining abilities first (see rule 604.3), then all other effects in timestamp order (see rule 613.7). Note that dependency may alter the order in which effects are applied within a layer. (See rule 613.8.)
The situation would have been different if Act of Treason had read something like
Gain control of target creature. At the end of turn, return it to its owner’s control.
because then that last part would be ‘later’ than, and overriding the effect of, your Donate.
A related example: you cast Donate on one of your creatures and give it to Player C. Player A casts Act of Treason so it comes under Player A’s control; at the end of turn, it’s returned to Player C, not to you.
Solken’s lands are made up of five main continents, briefly outlined below.
Temorel. Once the home of many feuding kingdoms, the old Church united the Temorel Empire into a collection of parishes. While the Church is no longer an active force in Temorel, the political machinations of the parishes never truly went away, and the fields and forests of the continent often trade hands in strategic deals and counter-claims. Those outside of Temorel often take a dim view of its citizens’ intelligence, characterising them as rubes and simpletons.
The Northern Territories. Connected to Temorel by a land bridge at its southern tip, the Northern Territories are thought of as cold and inhospitable by those beyond its borders. In truth, while the settlements of this area are few and far between, their clans are tight-knit and fiercely loyal. Far to the north the dwarf-kings sit alone in their palaces that once belonged to giants, making proclamations that echo through the vast tunnels below the earth.
Aerix. The heat of the Timaron desert has forced the inhabitants living on its borders to find ingenious methods of survival. The multi-hued dragons of Whitewing have evolved against the sun, their super-sized city casting shadows of sanctuary. Further north, in the city of Angley, gnome inventors celebrate ingenuity and creative problem solving for the common good. However, since the coming of the Shards, great strides in technology have made some of the surrounding traditionalists nervous – particularly the rumours of living metal men…
Yagora. Once a continent of thinkers and scientists, Yagora was ravaged by the Year of Catastrophe more than any other (arguably; see below), leaving it cracked and desolate. The fey courts, seeing an opportunity, began to twist the land in strange, surreal ways to suit their own ends. Perhaps if they hadn’t, the fall of the gods might have allowed Yagora to heal again – instead, the land remains as wild and dangerous as ever.
New Elar (not pictured). The home of the Children of the Sun. New Elar is an island cluster that rose from the remnants of Elar, an old continent which sank into the ocean during the Year of Catastrophe. While it was never recovered fully, roughly a third of the continent was struck by a set of Shards and returned to the surface, where a community of idealists from across the world began to craft it in the name of New Elar.
If Solken sounds like your kind of place, why not come and join us on our upcoming adventure, starting on March 3rd? Book your place here.
With no one vulnerable at match points, right hand opponent dealt and opened one heart. I passed, left hand opponent raised to two hearts. and all passed. I led ace, king and third of clubs from the following:♠J985 ♡J76 ♢Q72 ♣ AK2.
Partner captured the third club with the queen (both opponents following to all three rounds), and led the ace of spades. At this point dummy (to my left) showed the following: ♠ Q2 ♡K93 ♢K853 ♣J.
Right hand opponent dropped the 4 of spades, and I signalled with m 8 of spades, my second lowest. Partner led another spade, which dropped the opposing K and Q together, leaving my J high (but leaving the opponents void of spades).
Partner complained about being misled by my signal but conceded it didn’t matter. She was out of clubs and wasn’t about to lead trump, so it was a choice between spades and diamonds. I didn’t particularly want a diamond lead with the K in dummy sitting over my Q. Of course, she could have led the ace of diamonds if she had it, but she didn’t.
I quoted what I had been taught (by the late Dorothy Hayden Truscott). With regard to following with four of a suit:
Follow with lowest (5) means, “You’ll get no help from me if you lead another one.”
Second lowest (8) means, “I can accommodate another one.”
Second highest (9) means, “Please lead another one.”
Highest (J) means, “lead another one for crying out loud.”
I believe that partner was “disappointed” that I didn’t have the controlling honor after I played the 8. My understanding when playing the is that it means, ” I don’t see any better lead than another spade, whether or not it wins.
Did partner have a good reason to complain about my signal?
Published: Apr 30, 2025 12:01 pm