Watch your Back: Week October 16 to 22 (Part 1)

*rolling sleeves*

*deep breath in*

*exhale*

Ready. Let's get started. This is going to take long.

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Trench Club: Legacy is a 1-5 player wargame that re-implements the original Trench Club. In the base game, you play as either Britain, France, Germany or Austria-Hungary during WWI battling against an opposing force. The game comes with miniatures and a hex map on which you move the units.

In each round, you spend movement points to place your infantry or vehicles in the desired location, and then either conquer forts or attack enemy forces. Combat is executed by rolling dice and applying modifiers like war experience and pre-existing damage. In the solo mode, you follow specific rules to determine how the opponent reacts. It is launching on Kickstarter on October 18.

Image source: BGG

Personal opinion: This seems to be better as a multiplayer game.

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20 Strong (no BGG page yet) is a new solitaire game by Chip Theory Games that uses just a deck of cards and a set of 20 dice. The Gamefound campaign on October 18 offers two options: either just the Solar Sentinels deck, or the Solar Sentinels plus two more decks inspired by the Too Many Bones and Hoplomachus: Victorum games.

Each card in the deck is a challenge that you have to overcome by rolling a number of dice depending on your stats. These stats determine your hit points, your number of rerolls and how many dice you can recover.

Image source: Gamefound

Personal opinion: I'm tempted but information at this point is scarce. I hope they will show a gameplay video when it launches.

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Canvas: Finishing Touches is an expansion for the 1-5 player drafting and set collection game Canvas. In the base game, you are layering transparent cards on top of each other to create paintings. Cards are drafted from a central 'market' and paid for by spending inspiration tokens.

The new expansion adds frames and the challenge of having your paintings hung on the gallery walls. It is launching on Kickstarter on October 18, and the campaign will include a reprint of Canvas.

Image source: BGG

Personal opinion: A pretty game but comes with an AI.

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Deep Shelf is a 1-4 player pick up-and-deliver game in which corporations compete for deep sea mining and research of the ecosystems at the bottom of the oceans.

Players extract resources from hex spaces on the board. With each depletion, the game comes closer to the end. By building underwater labs and taking science actions, each player can make progress in a field of study (mineralogy, ecology, zoology). A dragon creature will attack the players who get too greedy with mining. Solo rules haven't been revealed yet. It is launching on Kickstarter on October 18.

Image source: BGG

Personal opinion: Looks good for multiplayer.

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Escape from New York is a 1-4 player cooperative or semi co-op game inspired by the 1981 John Carpenter movie. You are playing as either Snake or one of his companions. Your goal is to help the President escape from the prison-state of New York, or follow your own agenda and escape by betraying the rest of your team.

On a character's turn, you play action cards from your hand, suffer damage, or level up. New York prisoners are the enemy, and they get to move and perform actions as well. It is launching on Gamefound on October 18.

Image source: BGG

Personal opinion: I want to see the movie but the game doesn't interest me.

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Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood returns to Kickstarter with a second edition on October 18. This is a 1-4 player cooperative narrative-driven adventure game in which a group of heroes journey through the Deepwood fighting monsters and gaining experience along the way.

You can choose to resolve fights by rolling dice or playing cards from your hand. The game relies heavily on storytelling which is voiced by the actor James Cosmo. The new edition comes with new encounters and possibly some cosmetic upgrades.

Image source: BGG

Personal opinion: Much as I appreciate an immersive story, I don't like it when it interferes with the gameplay and sets the game on rails.

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... stay tuned for Part 2 of next week's overview