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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War in the Pacific: A WW2 Roll & Write Game
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Trenches: Night Raid
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Trenches: Night Raid - Secret Missions
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GRIMLORE Profane Truths - Case File #21: Owen Delaney, Investigator
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Battle Pages: Kingdom of Chandar, Marching Orders 2
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Power Creep: Danni, East Burg 2108
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Dangerous Space: Kwadill, Deliver Mission
https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games
War in the Pacific: A WW2 Roll & Write Game
The year is 1942. Japan has rapidly expanded across the Pacific, bombing Pearl Harbor, capturing key territories, and threatening to dominate Asia. The United States, determined to halt this advance, begins a daring island-hopping campaign to weaken Japan’s hold and force their surrender. Can you lead the American forces to victory, or will the Japanese resistance force the United States to a negotiated settlement?
If you love rolling and writing, or you enjoy historical games, you won’t want to miss this one. With several things to try and boost along as you go, you’re going to have some tough decisions on how to best utilize your rolls each round - especially knowing there’s chances to mark extra bonus boxes if using the right number at the right spot. I love seeing the game also share the marker for a historical outcome, meaning you can gauge whether you did better, or worse, than what truly happened during this part of the War in the Pacific.
Trenches: Night Raid
The constant bombardment and rotting stench of the trenches have just about gotten to you when the lieutenant hands you a letter without saying a word. You look over it without reacting. When you realize he was still there looking at you, you grumble a “yes sir”. You probably won’t come back. Your last squad leader didn’t. “It will be a whole lot better than waiting around to die,” you think. “I’d rather go out on my own term anyways.” You drop the letter and whistle for your squad. The letter hits the ground and starts to soak up the mud, but not before one of the privates sees the words: NIGHT RAID.
Maneuver your teams through the trenches and deal damage to the enemy during the raid in order to win. You must eliminate targets on the other side, while also minimizing your own damage/casualties, as there’s three unique ways to lose the game while playing. There’s room in here for some clever planning by the player on how best to move and to allocate resources for attacking, giving you a nice, fairly quick-playing tactical solo game to get to the table.
Trenches: Night Raid - Secret Missions
Two new missions that provide special rules to enhance your experience with Trenches: Night Raid. With one scenario, you ignore scoring victory points and instead must find three downed aircraft while searching on the map. The other gives you an additional objective to complete, but it also comes with some big VP rewards to earn. You won’t want to miss this expansion, as it adds more of what makes Trenches: Night Raid a solid solo game.
GRIMLORE Profane Truths - Case File #21: Owen Delaney, Investigator
Owen Delaney, a battle-worn investigator, is summoned to Baker Moor, where the last of the cursed Baker line has died under spectral circumstances. Locals speak in hushed tones of “Old Black Eyes”, a monstrous hound with eyes like twin voids, haunting the fog-drenched moors. As Owen delves into the legend - akin to a blasphemous parody of the Baskerville curse - he uncovers a pact made at an ancient stone circle. The hound is no mere ghost, but a vessel for a hungry, transdimensional entity clawing at the veil. With revolver and ritual, Owen must break the bloodline curse before the creature crosses over.
The Sherlock fan in me delights in the theming present in this week’s GRIMLORE case file. Whether you’re dealing with the Blood Hounds, the Baker’s Revenant, or even Old Black Eyes himself…this has me howling with pleasure. What you do NOT want to experience, on the other hand, is these hounds rolling a 6 to activate, as they will make you test your influence and, well, let’s just say you will NOT want to fail that roll. Good luck to you if you do fail there…
Battle Pages: Kingdom of Chandar, Marching Orders 2
Traders in secrets and spices, the inhabitants also enjoy a good song or story.
Okay, this week we’re going to dig in on the big baddie for the Kingdom of Chandar: the Eye of Veros! This ugly eyestalk is a pain, as it locks down you from spawning anything sharing its row or column once it appears - meaning you’re going to want to either have some forces prepared for its arrival, or lean heavily on Archers or Catapults to help deal with its threat. Not only that, but the Eye also hits everything in its row and column when it activates, meaning you want to take it down and do it fast!
Power Creep: Danni, East Burg 2108
New rivalries are ignited, challenging the old regime’s claim to power and breaking the fragile peace.
Danni’s got some pretty cool things up her sleeve when it comes to her unique blueprint. For it to have an effect, though, you have to defeat every enemy in that chosen structure, which isn’t necessarily an easy task (although one you’ll want to do in this scenario! Those vines can HURT you). But if you succeed, you gain all uncollected items and crafting materials in the structure, which means you can intentionally make a path ignoring those, taking down the baddies on your rush through.
Dangerous Space: Kwadill, Deliver Mission
Private Gin has always been fascinated by the latest weapons and gear. The kwandarian’s current favorite is the tri-blaster.
Kwadill has a good set of tools at his disposal, as we touched on last week, but those aren’t really going to do a ton to help with his delivery mission. Sure, the better attack might help eliminate threats. And the defense might help reduce his damage taken. And he has decent movement options to help him blitz through the mission - but you’re going to be stuck managing all of that incoming damage no matter what. With some mean threats on deck, he’ll want to make good use of his equipment and the upgrades along those paths to be able to get that Kit to the end.
Check out Game of the Week here: https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/game-of-the-week
Dionysia
All of Athens has turned out for the Dionysia, a grand theatrical festival to honor the god Dionysus. Impress the crowds with your well-crafted drama to win the playwriting competition as well as the favor of the gods!
An interesting game of planning out which card to draft each round from the three in the center, placing it into one of three acts. I love how you can place it either on the top of the act (assuming it already started) to trigger an effect or its end-scoring condition, or else tuck underneath to simply add the icons. And those icons are important! You’ll be trying to line up patterns for all three of your top cards, but the patterns need to be left-to-right and up-to-down only. There’s plenty of room for those who love to hate draft, as well as those who prefer to focus on their own engine and see who does the best. Don’t miss this one with its awesome artwork and unique theme!
Check out the new Button Shy releases here:
https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/new-games
Game of the Week: Ring Knight on sale for $8!
You are a Ring Knight, a disgraced warrior, cursed to wear the trappings of a criminal - a length of chain rings that must be removed through honorable deeds and glorious combat. Craft wondrous weapons and magical items to empower your hero to victory. Perhaps if you rid the land of the great evil threatening the kingdom you can regain the title, Knight of the Realm!
A fun game of crafting items, foraging and fighting foes to gain what you need to craft new and stronger weapons/potions, and looping through the countryside until you battle the big baddie at the end. Each encounter and crafting of an item will make you a little more flexible for the upcoming trials, letting you add special abilities to rings, potions, and more. Everything but the magic rings have limits to their uses, forcing you to craft more and more in order to not run around unprepared.
Check out Game of the Week here: https://www.pnparcade.com/collections/game-of-the-week