Ain't No Cave Deep Enough (Above and Below)

Dear Diary,
As you may have known by now, we were driven from our home by barbarians.  Luckily, we were able to find a new place to call home.  But if they expect me to explore these filthy caves, they've just got to find someone else.  How could you dare ask such a business man as myself to stoop to...manual labor?  I could get dirty!  Just because we are desperate doesn't mean we're savages.  I have my place, the workers  have theirs, Above and Below, respectively.  Well, it is time for me to open shop, I need to get downstairs and see how the tots are working along.
Formally yours,
Franklin Delaware Worthington, the IV

BACKGROUND:  Above and Below is a 2-4 worker management board game.  It was created in 2015 by Ryan Laukat and published by Red Raven Games.  Players build strong, working villages while exploring a cave system in a limited amount of time.

GAMEPLAY:  The game is played in 7 rounds.  Every round, each player may take an action on their turn.  If a player doesn't want to, they can pass to stop taking actions.  The round ends once all players pass.

ACTIONS:  To take an action, players move the appropriate villagers to the Exhausted area, and take the action.

• Explore:  Roll the die and draw a cave card.  The player to the left reads the encounter, the possible choices and requirements, but not the rewards.  The player makes a choice and rolls the dice to try to get the lanterns.  If a player does not get them, some encounters will have a fail condition that is read, some do not.  Players may also move villagers to the Injured area to get another lantern.
• Build:  Players may pay coins to build houses, which have various effects.  Outposts may only be bought if the player has an empty cave card to place it in.
• Harvest:  Players take a Good that their house or outpost produces, 1 per villager used.
• Labor:  Players gain 1 coin per villager.  The first player to do this gains the Cider token that round.  Goods can be placed on the Advancement track at the bottom of the board (1 per slot), or kept off to the side.
• Train:  Buy an available villager according to the cost on the board, and place it in the exhausted area.

There are also 3 free actions players may take whenever they want before they take their normal action:  Take 1 Good, Potion, or Cider and put it for sale (upper left corner of the player board), buy from another player (3 coins), or once a turn, discard and replace all building cards in a row.

ROUNDS:  At the end of a round, once everyone passes, all buildings, Cider token, and Villagers get added to the current layout.  Each player gains income according to their Advancement track, and may heal/unexhaust villagers according to their number of beds, or by using potions (injured to exhausted) or ciders (exhausted to ready).  Any goods that refresh are added to the players cards, and the 1st player card is passed to the left, starting the next round.

WINNING:  At the end of the 7th round, each player totals up their Village Points.  Village Points are indicated in heptagons.  Each building is worth 1 VP.  Each slot on the Advancement track is worth an amount of VP.  VP for reputation is determined by who is highest, with points awarded appropriately.  Some cards give bonus VP, or VP for having

CONCLUSION:  This is a nice worker placement game that starts out a little tricky to learn.  The encounter book really helps sell this world, and adds a bit of flavor and theme that could easily be generic.  The biggest problem is that this game is surprisingly fast, which prevents players from a long term, deep strategy.  This game is a lot of fun, it just would be better if it was a few turns longer.

Disease {Name} is Spreading! (Pandemic)

We attempt to treat spreading viruses all the time, but a new plague has entered the scene, leaving the public baffled at what to expect.  At first, it seemed harmless enough, merely taking away a couple hours out of a few groups lives, but it was infectious.  It grew quickly, spreading and affecting thousands of people.  Medical professionals are uncertain of how it will grow next, but as it has spread over land, sea, air, and Steam, there is one name everybody recognizes it by: Pandemic.

BACKGROUND:  Pandemic is a co-operative board game for 2-4 players.  It was created in 2008 by Matt Leacock and published by Z-Man Games, Inc., among others.  Known as one the most successful board co-operative games, players take the roles of various research heads to fight against brand new diseases while they spread quickly across the world.

GAMEPLAY:  Each player has 4 actions during their turn. Players take their turns by moving across the world via train, or discarding a card to move by plane.  They can trade if either player has the city they're in by trading said city, treat the disease by removing cubes located on their city, or discover a cure by discarding 5 city cards of matching color.  Some Role cards, which are dealt at the beginning, also have or change certain actions.  Player end their turn by drawing 2 new cards, and discarding down to 7.



INFECT:  Each players turn ends with drawing cards from the Infect deck according to the Infection Level.  When an Epidemic card is drawn, raise the Infection Level, draw from the bottom of the Infect deck, and shuffle the Infect discard and place it on the top of the deck.  Whenever 3 or more disease cubes are placed on any city, an Outbreak occurs, spreading that disease to each connecting city.

LOSING:  If the players manage to cure all diseases, they win.  However, as is far more likely, the players lose if:

• DEATH: More Disease cubes need to be added, but are all out.
• OVERWHELM: The 8th Outbreak occurs.
• SHORTAGE: The player deck runs out when a player needs to draw.

CONCLUSION:  As with a lot of co-operative games, Pandemic is hard, plain and simple.  Games will generally cause you to lose, but that's part of the fun.  It's a little tricky to watch every timer this game has, and can be annoying if you know you couldn't do anything because of the luck of the draw.  That being said, there's a reason that almost everybody, casual or hard-core board gamer knows this game; because it's just that good.  Don't be afraid to catch this disease.

Planet of the Boars (Zoon)

Earth: 2808
Humans have long since abandoned the planet, but their legacy lives on.  Now, we who were once mere creatures, have become something so much more.  We are the dominant species, Rhinogoths and Monkus, Warus and Boarix.  We have taken over, and we will fight until one of us is dominant on the entire planet.  We are the Zoon, more than beast, more than human!



BACKGROUND: Zoon is a strategy card game for two players.  It was created in 1999 by Migou Auteurs, Robert Cepo, Nicolas Pilartz, with art by Robert Cepo.  It was most recently published by West End Games.  Players each take a deck of cards and attempt to capture the others Emblem, marked with a flag.

GAMEPLAY:  The game starts with both players setting up their "Zoons", or cards face-down on an imaginary board of 6 by 6 in their first two rows, with 3 Trump Zoons in their hands.  Each card has a movement printed on it, and each player, on their turn, move any Zoon according to their movement.  Instead of moving, a player may instead play a Trump from their hand.



COMBAT:  Whenever a Zoon moves into a space with an enemy Zoon, combat happens.  Players rotate their cards, and pick a corner on the opponents Zoon.  Flip the card, and the player who has the higher number wins.  The losing Zoon is discarded, and either moves into the space to which it was advancing, or stays where it was.  In a tie, the Zoon that moved moves back to where it approached from.  If a Star is hit, apply the effect that is on the Tribes card.

TRUMP:  Some Trumps apply once when they are played and are discarded.  Others, like Weapon Trumps, return to their hand unless the player hits their X effect.  Most Trump cards, however, require a specific type of Zoon to be in a specific position.  If a battle is used with a Trump, use the Trump as the attack unless it states otherwise.

WINNING:  Each player has an Emblem somewhere on the board.  A player wins when they defeat the opponents Emblem.

CONCLUSION:  The first thought most people will have about this game is that it's a card game version of Stratego, and not unfairly.  On its own, Zoon has a fair amount of issues.  First off, the imaginary board: This is an aspect that gets frustrating, and while not hard to imagine or use tokens or even make a custom one on a blank mat, it can still be confusing where anything is.  You constantly have to check where your cards are, unless you have a superhuman memory, which can slow the game down.
Its biggest issue, however, lies in the combat.  The spinning is a neat trick, but once you see a Zoon, it tends to go from a 1/4 chance of hitting the big numbers to 1/2, once you know where they are.  I'd roll a D4 to keep things level, and mark the cards appropriately. The thing I can see a lot of players complaing about is the victory conditions, as it is easy to have almost nothing, be in a bad spot, and still win.  However, I thing that's the games strength, as it is so incredibly easy to bounce back that it never feels like you can't.  I did enjoy this game, but it's a shame that this is the game we got, when it could be a lot better.  Still, I'd rather play this than Stratego.