It's New Game Friday David Wiley (Cardboard Clash) is here to tell us about the new games.
Here’s what is new this week:
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Before the Storm
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Battle Pages: Kingdom of Therax, Marching Order #1
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Power Creep: Earlene - Uptown, 2111
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Dangerous Space: Dekkar, Diffuse Mission
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GRIMLORE Case File #24: JD Myers, Mythos Historian
https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games
Before the Storm
You are in position. In the dark. In the silence. Perched where no one sees you. This is the last quiet moment before the storm. There’s no turning back now. Make it count.
This is an interesting solo journaling RPG, which can be played as an isolated game or as an enhancement to a scene in something else you might be playing. You’re moments away from something big - a heist, an assassination, an infiltration, etc. Use a deck of cards to gain prompts relating to your character’s state prior to the job, and the game ends when you get a 5-card poker hand in a 5x5 grid. That final hand determines your emotional and mental state as you jump into action. If that sounds interesting to you, then don’t skip this one!
Battle Pages: Kingdom of Therax, Marching Order #1
Masters of crystal magic. It’s no wonder that their home is under attack from plunderers.
Battle Pages returns with a brand new kingdom, which means a new slew of foes, warriors, a new hero, and a new big baddie. We’ll get into all of those over the next few weeks, but this week we will focus first on the hero: Petros. He’s pretty cool, targeting any adjacent enemy. But even better than that, he adds a charge to a unit in a surrounding space at the beginning of each turn. These might be best used on something like an Archer, which not only attack diagonally, but in a running line and hits flying units. You’re going to want plenty of those activations stored up!
Power Creep: Earlene - Uptown, 2111
Disturbing reports from other regions tell of settlements completely engulfed by darkness - someone has to do something.
A new character this week! I love the excitement of turning the page to new characters in these weekly games, and we’ll talk more about Earlene’s unique blueprint next week. This time we’re talking about the creep track, which adds a Traitor spot which is going to make you lose 2 health. That might sound painful, and it can be. Good thing the threats this week are Ration Pirates, which gain you a health group if you defeat them with only high die numbers. What a great incentive, and it is nice to finally see some player-friendly threats!
Dangerous Space: Dekkar, Diffuse Mission
Dekkar was trained by a secretive sect of martial warriors whose code devotes each to a life of daring missions and quests.
Dekkar is a fun character, with some really interesting Skills and Gear to unlock along the way. He has diversity in weaponry, carrying both Wrist Blasters and a Star Fist. He can gain a Sword Master skill, to add 1 to the die used when attacking a threat with that strike weapon. He’s also Stealthy, letting you reroll a reaction die. Of course, none of these help a lot with the mission this week, as Diffusing the Bombs requires avoiding the use of a 1 or a 2 in the row or column with an active bomb as you try to mark all of its spaces with even numbers. What should you upgrade first as you work your way through the mission with Dekkar? Well, that’s up to you…
GRIMLORE Case File #24: JD Myers, Mythos Historian
JD Myers doesn’t sleep well anymore. Since the raid on Innsmouth, the world has never looked quite right. The oily reflections in puddles ripple wrong, and sometimes, late at night, he hears the voices of drowned things calling him by name. Officially, he closed the case, but he knows it never ended. When a backlogged lead from a Mistatonic ethnographer lands on his desk - something about a grotesque depiction of cannibal rites in a derelict New England farmhouse - JD volunteers, seeing a pattern others don’t. After all, the Deep Ones weren’t the only ancient hunger buried in old blood.
Ooh there’s some really fun stuff going on here. Well, fun if you’re a glutton for punishment, and want to feast one frustration as you try to complete this week’s Case File. The Glutton Wights are nasty, dealing necrotic damage to your highest attributes, which is going to make things a little more challenging as you progress. But they aren’t even the nastiest thing on here. The Feast Keeper is your big baddie, and on a 6 he clears any placed letter in a Wight lane. Oof. Nothing like losing progress to humble you, right?
Check out Game of the Week here: https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/game-of-the-week
Revolver Noir: Rogue Agent Expansion
Not every shape in the shadows is a rival investigator; there are a host of other dark figures skulking around the mansion. Each has their own purpose, and the tools to accomplish the job.
A fun little expansion that adds role cards to the gameplay of Revolver Noir. Because these don’t get mixed into the game itself, you can even use the PNP version of the expansion with the wallet version of the base game! If you like having special and unique abilities, you won’t want to miss how this changes up the dynamics. Just hope you don’t both pick the same role. There’s nothing wrong with that, per say, but how much more interesting would it be to have different restrictions and abilities when facing off?
Check out the new Button Shy releases here:
https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games
Game of the Week: Avant Card on sale for just $5!
Your eccentric collection of avant-garde art needs a public show! Hone your collection by purchasing art that attracts patrons with special powers to help you assemble the best exhibition! Every piece in your collection means more strategies to use each round. Great exhibitions earn awards! Each turn that you earn $6 or more, you’ll get an award. The game ends when the awards run out, and whoever has the most awards wins!
An interesting little card game, filled with colors and numbers on cards, and with certain numbers having unique special powers. The basic concept, of trying to play as many cards matching in color or number to the previous card you played, is interesting enough. But you add in the layer of buying new cards for your deck, allowing you to try and add more synergies while using some card powers to filter out the cards which don’t gel with what you’re buying. The more you can play, the more money you’ll have to spend for new cards and the more awards you’ll be able to win. If you enjoy deckbuilding or card-based gameplay, you will want to check out Avant Carde.
Check out Game of the Week here: https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/game-of-the-week