Tabletop Role-Playing Therapy A Guide for the Clinician Game Master

Ebook Only
The Geek Therapy Playbook How to Use Comics Games and Movies to Understand Each Other and Ourselves

Audiobooks
Integrating Geek Culture Into Therapeutic Practice: The Clinician’s Guide to Geek Therapy

Tim takes bookings for his 1:1 Game Therapy work through MABLE (you will need a free mable account to view his profile and rates there)

Through MABLE, Tim is NDIS approved and insured for 1:1 client work.

Tim has had many roles including; youth outreach worker, chaplain, emergency carer for children under G.O.M, OSHC child carer, creator and facilitator of multiple personal development programs for youth and children in multiple schools, youth centres and NGO’s and Peer Support Coordinator in disability.

Currently the director of his own business, Miniature Worlds Workshop, Tim teaches people the creative art of miniature & diorama making.

http://www.miniatureworldsworkshop.com.au/

His new passion for boardgames holds no limit.

Tim uses the Mable (formerly Better Caring) platform to book his 1:1 services, and is fully covered by the relevant public liability insurance, etc.

The Mable (formerly Better Caring) platform uses Zurich Australian Insurance Limited and Gow-Gates Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd to establish a suite of covers that are made available to all its affiliated care workers when providing services arranged and invoiced through the Mable platform.

The Community Care Liability Insurance cover made available to affiliated care workers includes

Group Combined General Liability cover

Group Professional Indemnity cover

Group Personal Accident cover

Villains lurk in the streets of Infinity City and the only hope is the Numbers League. Assemble your team of Superheroes, use the sum of their incredible powers and ingenious devices to capture as many villains as you can.

Quote from the Creators:
“We are on a mission to get Numbers League into everybody’s hands. Here is a link to a free Print&Play version of the game, no strings attached. The world is a little crazy right now and our little part in helping is we can do this one little thing, providing a free Numbers League.”

Michael Says,

“I have made versions of this game in game workshops using 2mm plywood and painting original superheroes on them. The game itself is engaging as well as educational, and, as always, making your own version gives you ownership and for young kids a vested interest in playing the game and educating themself.”

Numbers League – Adventures in Addiplication is a stand alone superhero themed card game where your basic math skills can save the day. The more you play the sharper these skills will become until no villain is safe from your numerical onslaught.

Included in the box are 24 double-sided Villain cards (different values on each side), 21 Device cards, 75 Superhero body part cards (25 heads, 25 chests, and 25 legs), four note pads and a 16-page full-color rules booklet with instructions in English, German, French, and Spanish.

Tom Vassel says,
In Numbers League, players are creating super hero teams to capture villains on the loose in Infinity city. Twenty-four villain cards are laid out on the table, each with a different number (ranging from “3” to “26”) showing their “weakness” and another number (from “1” to “3”) showing their level. A deck of Hero and device cards is shuffled, and seven are dealt to each player. Three cards are laid down to create the “sidekick”, and the remaining cards form the Hall of Heroes (deck). One player is chosen to go first, and the game begins.

On a player’s turn, they simply can either play two cards from their hand or discard as many cards as they’d like. Either way – they draw back up to seven at the end of their turn. When playing cards, players are forming heroes using three different body parts: head, bodies, and legs. Heroes can be formed in thousands of combinations, and each body part has a point value. Players can also play a device card on each hero (limit – one per hero) that adds points or even doubles the points of that hero. Players can also trade a card from their hand with a card from the sidekick. If the sidekick at any point has a head, body, and legs, it becomes “active”.

If the player plays cards (does NOT discard) on their turn, they have the option of capturing a villain. If the total on one of their completed heroes (or combination of their completed heroes) equals the weakness number, the player takes the card, placing the villain on their trophy pile. If a device was involved with capturing the villain, that is also removed from the hero and placed in the trophy pile. Players may also use an “active” sidekick to capture or help capture villains.

After a player’s turn, the next player takes their turn, and play continues until all the villains have been captured. At this point, the player with the most points in their victory pile wins! Each device is worth one point, and villains are worth points equal to their level. Players may also play an expert level of the game. More superheroes and devices are added with different numbers, including some negative numbers. The villain cards are double-sided, and some or all of them can be flipped over, increasing the range of their weakness numbers from “-8” to “39”. Other than that, game play stays the same.

1. Adrenaline
2. Arctic Scavengers
3. Akrotiri
4. Bang! The Dice Game
5. Blood Bowl
6. Bushido
7. Cosmic Encounter
8. Camel Up
9. Cockroach Poker
10. Colt Express
11. Concordia
12. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong
13. Dinosaur Island
14. Dominion
15. Dungeon Fighter
16. Dungeon Petz
17. Flashpoint: Fire Rescue
    21. Fort
18. Ghost Stories
19. Hanamikoji
20. Hit Z Road
21. Horrified
22. Jamaica
23. Jaipur
24. Kemet
25. Kemet: Ta-Seti
26. Lords of Waterdeep
27. L.O.W: Scoundrels of Skullport
28. Maximum Apocalypse
29. Mission: Red Planet
30. Monster Lands
31. Nexus Ops
32. Odin’s Ravens
33. Otys
34. Pirates of the 7 Seas
35. Portobello Market
36. Quacks of Quedlinburg
37. Quacks of Quedlinburg: Herb Witches
38. Raptor
39. Reef Encounter
40. Road Kill Rally
41. Rush N’ Crush
42. Sailing Toward Osiris
43. Shadows Over Camelot
44. Smallworld
45. Specter Ops
46. Stone Age
47. Sushi Go Party
48. The Crew
49. The Dragon & Flagon
50. The Manhattan Project
51. The Pursuit Of Happiness
52. The Pursuit Of Happiness: Communities
53. Thunder & Lightning
54. Tiki Topple
55. Western Legends
56. Wingspan
57. 7 Wonders

East India Railway was the prototype title for this game, and it became Portobello Market when published by Schmidt.

As the waves break on your ship, take a turn for the topsy-turvy motion of the ocean by rolling your ship dice — but remember that where they land on the board means as much as what you roll! Choose to remain an independent vagabond, or maybe cut a deal with a Governor to become all official-like in your pirating ways. Consult with a shaman to curse the other pirates or pay a visit to the cartographer to find a map with some hidden treasure.

In the game, the turn begins with players choosing the character card whose action they want to play — because each character has its own ability to help you get rich quickly — and places it facedown in front of them. When everyone has chosen their character cards, the first player announces the characters one by one. When you hear your character, you reveal your character card and play your adventure, curse, or port card, and everyone gets involved in a new adventure, which usually ends with a grandiose sea battles, or some curse, or finding a new port.

The pirate with the most booty wins the day, but a pirate’s life isn’t always on the up and up. Savvy?

Otys is an optimization and development game co-published by Pearl Games and Libellud. Optimize your game in order to match the depth of your divers, their special abilities and the Colony bonuses. That is how you will supply the best contracts and win.

The future is built from the past…

In Otys, each player has a team of divers and must use them to take actions, retrieve items, and complete objectives. The divers are stacked in a column on the player’s individual game board, and some of them are next to depth gauges that read 1-5.

As divers obtain items, those items are kept at the appropriate depth on a player’s board, and when a player has the needed items together at the same depth, they can claim one of the shared objectives revealed on the table or one of their personal objectives (if they’ve taken any). Players are racing to score 18 points first in order to win the game.

On a turn, a player chooses an available depth gauge on their individual board, then carries out the action at that same depth on the shared game board, then takes the action for their diver at that depth. Afterward that diver moves to the surface, pushing down all the other divers in the queue. That depth gauge is placed at the bottom of the player’s board, and they return to the player’s board to be chosen again only when that player’s gauge meter is full. Initially a player must play all six of their gauges before getting any back, but they can improve their meter so that it takes fewer gauges to fill, thereby giving them more choices for their actions.

The revised second edition of Thorsten Gimmler’s award-winning Odin’s Ravens has been completely redesigned, with new rules and a beautiful new art style inspired by Norse mythology.

FAQ
Only the “rotate” action on the Loki cards can be used on a loop card, or a card which has been slid partially out of the path.

Units are composed of various alien races and have stats similar to those used in the Axis & Allies series. Combat is also similar. Players who lose battles are compensated with Energize cards which grant them special powers later. Players can also obtain Energize cards by controlling the Monolith, a raised structure in the center of the grid. The first person to reach the required number of victory points wins the game.

At the end of the game, the crown is handed to the clan with most victory points, which are gained by amassing glory, reputation, gold, and trophies from defeating monsters. The most important factor is glory; to gain it you must leave the safety of the Citadel and undertake missions, defeat or capture monsters, and conquer lands.

Your mercenaries provide you with dice, which you will use to take actions using a “worker-placement” mechanic. In the Citadel, your dice allow you to improve your clan, acquiring hunting tools, shields, potions, venoms, mercenaries, and more. The timing of your dice placement and the type of dice you use affects both yourself and other players.

In the Outside, your dice become battle tools. You roll them in missions and battles to try and defeat monsters or reconquer the land. If you plan well, you will have many ways to manipulate your dice results and increase your chance of success. You cannot simply hope for lucky rolls to snatch the crown, you will need to carefully manage your resources and do some proper planning to be successful.

Do you have what it takes to go for the crown?

As the head of a mining corporation, these minerals and ice found on Mars could make you unfathomably wealthy – if you can reach them before your competitors. You have ten rounds to send your astronauts into space, occupy the planet’s most resource-rich zones, and harvest as much celerium, sylvanite, and ice as possible. At your command is a team of nine professionals. Each has a unique skill set, from helping your astronauts traverse the Red Planet to blowing up spaceships before they launch.

In each round in Mission: Red Planet, players start by secretly deploying one of their character cards, with this card determining both when they place astronauts on the spaceships awaiting launch to Mars and which special action they take during the round. Each spaceship has a specified destination, and until an astronaut sets foot in a region, no one knows which resource they’ll find. Players collect resources (worth points) three times during the game, and they each have a secret mission card that might grant them additional points at game’s end. During the game, players might acquire an additional mission or a research card that changes the value of what awaits on Mars.

The 2015 edition of Mission: Red Planet features the same gameplay as the original 2005 edition, but it includes:

Components for up to six players instead of five
Special two-player variant rules
New action cards and revised mission and discovery cards
Mars’ moon Phobos as a new zone that astronauts can explore before possibly returning to the planet itself

The game map is randomly generated and different every time that you play. On each turn, a player can use up to four actions to explore the map, play cards, equip weapons, scavenge for resources, draw cards or battle off monsters.

Picking a unique survivor class within the group, players must plan their strategy and work together while leaning on their survivor’s strengths in order to defeat monsters and avoid starvation. For example, the Fireman is deadly up close with his ax and can easily chop down monsters; meanwhile the stealthy Hunter is great at scouting the map and avoiding traps — but roaming monsters are gathering quickly and time is running out. If you are overwhelmed by monsters or die of starvation, the players lose. If they can find enough gas and get it back to their van to escape, they all win and live to play another scenario.

See also Maximum Apocalypse the Roleplaying Game Quickstart Guide

The Undermountain Module

Undermountain is a vast and multileveled dungeon beneath Mount Waterdeep that once served the crazed wizard Halaster as a site for magical experiments. Now it is a labyrinthine maze with few refuges for weary adventurers.

The rumored wealth of Undermountain entices adventurers to brave the mysteries and monsters beneath the City of Splendors. The risks and the rewards are greater for undertaking Quests that require more Gold and Adventurers.

The Skullport Module

Skullport—also known as the Port of Shadow—is nestled in the heart of Undermountain, deep below the streets of Waterdeep. It is a haven for nefarious crimes, underhanded deals, and back-alley murders. Those who visit Skullport do so at their own peril, for around every corner are new ways to make people disappear.

The Skullport module includes a new resource: Corruption. Unlike Adventurers and Gold, having Corruption in your tavern penalizes you at the end of the game.

Each Corruption token in your Tavern at the end of the game is worth negative Victory Points. The exact negative value depends on how much Corruption has been collected throughout the game; the more corrupt you and your fellow Lords are, the more Corruption hurts your score.

In Lords of Waterdeep, a strategy board game for 2-5 players, you take on the role of one of the masked Lords of Waterdeep, secret rulers of the city. Through your agents, you recruit adventurers to go on quests on your behalf, earning rewards and increasing your influence over the city. Expand the city by purchasing new buildings that open up new actions on the board, and hinder – or help – the other lords by playing Intrigue cards to enact your carefully laid plans.

During the course of play, you may gain points or resources through completing quests, constructing buildings, playing intrigue cards or having other players utilize the buildings you have constructed. At the end of 8 rounds of play, the player who has accrued the most points wins the game.

Ta-Seti, the first expansion for Kemet, adds several new things to the base game:

A new pyramid color with corresponding power tiles
A new game phase (dawn)
The path of the souls
New Divine Intervention cards
New combat cards
Players can choose which parts of the expansion to add, as each module works on its own in addition to meshing with the other modules.

The conquest for the land of Kemet takes place over two phases: Day and Night. During the day, choose an action amongst the nine possible choices provided by your player mat and perform it immediately. Once every player has taken five actions, night falls, with players gathering Prayer Points from their temples, drawing Divine Intervention cards, and determining the turn order before the start of the new day.

As the game progresses, they can use Prayer Points to acquire power tiles. Some of these enroll magical creatures and have them join their troops. In addition to intimidating enemies, these creatures provide special powers!

Detailed miniature components represent the combat units and the supernatural creatures that are summoned to enhance them. Combat is resolved through cards chosen from a diminishing six-card hand and enhanced by bonuses.

Jaipur is a fast-paced card game, a blend of tactics, risk and luck. On your turn, you can either take or sell cards. If you take cards, you have to choose between taking all the camels, taking one card from the market, or swapping 2-5 cards between the market and your cards.

If you sell cards, you get to sell only one type of good, and you receive as many chips for that good as the number of cards you sold. The chips’ values decrease as the game progresses, so you’d better hurry! On the other hand, you receive increasingly high rewards for selling three, four, or five cards of the same good at a time, so you’d better wait!

You can’t sell camels, but they’re paramount for trading and they’re also worth a little something at the end of the round, enough sometimes to secure the win, so you have to use them smartly.

Setting: Jamaica, 1675.
After a long career in piracy, Captain Henry Morgan skillfully gets appointed to be Governor of Jamaica, with the explicit order to cleanse the Caribbean of pirates and buccaneers! Instead, he invites all of his former “colleagues” to join him in his retirement, to enjoy the fruits of their looting with impunity. Each year, in remembrance of the “good old days,” Morgan organizes the Great Challenge, a race around the island, and at its end, the Captain with the most gold is declared Grand Winner.

Goal: The game ends on the turn when at least one player’s ship reaches the finish line, completing one circuit around the island of Jamaica. At that point, players are awarded different amounts of gold in accordance with how far away from the finish line they were when the race concluded. This gold is added to any gold a player gathered along the way by detouring from the race to search for valuable treasure, by stealing gold or treasure from other players, or just by loading gold as directed by the cards the player played during the race. The player with the most total gold acquired through all these means is then declared the winner.

Gameplay: The game is played in rounds. Each player always has a hand of three cards, and a personal board depicting the five “holds” of their ship, into which goods can be loaded during the game. Each round, one player is designated as “captain,” with the next clockwise player being captain in the following round, and so on. The captain rolls two standard D6 dice, examines her cards, then announces which die will correspond to the “day” and which to the “night.” Each player then simultaneously selects a card from their hand and places it face down in front of them. Each card has two symbols on it, one on the left – corresponding to “day” – and one on the right (“night”). The symbols indicate either ship movement (forward or backward) or the loading of a type of good. After every player has selected a card, all cards are revealed simultaneously and then resolved clockwise one by one, starting with the captain’s. When it is a player’s turn to resolve her card, for first the left symbol on her card and then for the right symbol, the player will load a number of goods or move a number of spaces equal to the number of pips showing on the corresponding day or night die for that round. Thus the main decision each player makes during the game is which of their current three cards would best serve them on a particular turn, given the values of the day and night dice. Finally, during the race, when a player lands on a spot already occupied by another player, there is a battle. Battles are mainly resolved by rolling a “combat” die, but players may improve their chances by using “gunpowder” tokens from their holds, if they loaded any on previous turns. The winner of a battle may steal some goods or treasure from the loser.

Horrified includes high-quality sculpted miniatures (Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Creature from the Black Lagoon). Its innovative, easy-to-learn, cooperative gameplay has players working together against the monsters with varying levels of difficulty. Just as each monster is unique, they require different strategies and tactics to be defeated.

Three different stages of adventure cards create an experience of increasing difficulty and ensure that each playthrough is unique. Each round begins with an auction that determines both player order and which cards you will encounter. Since the resources used for bidding are the same as those used to battle the oncoming zombie hordes, your survival depends as much on your resource management as it does upon winning those bidding wars. The player who either accumulates the most points or survives the longest wins.

Zombies of all types await, with cannibals, anti-personnel mines and radioactive wastes also being among the hazards awaiting the players. Who will survive the zombie onslaught?

In Hanamikoji, two players compete to earn the favor of seven illustrious Geishas by collecting each Geisha’s preferred performance item. With careful speculation and a few bold moves, can you outsmart your opponent to win the favor of the most Geishas?

Jixia Academy features the same gameplay as Hanamikoji, but with different artwork.

The players, using teamwork, will have to exorcise the ghosts that appear during the course of the game. At the beginning of his turn, a player brings a ghost into play and places it on a free spot, and more than one can come in at the same time. The ghosts all have abilities of their own – some affecting the Taoists and their powers, some causing the active player to roll the curse die for a random effect, and others haunting the villager tiles and blocking that tile’s special action. On his turn, a Taoist can move on a tile in order to exorcise adjacent ghosts or to benefit from the villager living on the tile, providing it is not haunted. Each tile of the village allows the players to benefit from a different bonus. With the cemetery, for example, Taoists can bring a dead Taoist back to life, while the herbalist allows to recover spent Tao tokens, etc. It will also be possible to get traps or move ghosts or unhaunt other village tiles.

To exorcise a ghost, the Taoist rolls three Tao dice with different colors: red, blue, green, yellow, black, and white. If the result of the roll matches the color(s) of the ghost or incarnation of Wu-Feng, the exorcism succeeds. The white result is a wild color that can be used as any color. For example, to exorcise a green ghost with 3 resistance, you need to roll three green, three white, or a combination of both. If your die rolls fall short, you can also use Tao tokens that match the color in addition to your roll. You may choose to use these after your roll. Taoists gain these tokens by using certain village tiles or by exorcising certain ghosts. One of the Taoists has a power that allows him to receive such a token once per turn.

To win, the players must defeat the incarnation of Wu-Feng, a boss who arrives at the end of the game. There are also harder difficulty levels that add more incarnations of Wu-Feng, in which to win, you must defeat all of them.

There are many more ways to lose, however. The players lose if three of the village’s tiles are haunted, if the draw pile is emptied while the incarnation of Wu-Feng is still in play, or if all the priests are dead.

By doing this cool stuff, you’ll score victory points, and at the end of the game, the player with the most victory points wins! Your cards not only let you take actions on your own turn, but also let you follow the other players’ actions on their turns. Will you devote yourself to your own posse, or copy what the other kids are doing?

But be careful as your carefully constructed deck might start losing cards if you don’t actually use them. After all, if you don’t play with your friends, why should they hang out with you anymore?

Flash Point: Fire Rescue is a cooperative game of fire rescue.

There are two versions of game play in Flash Point, a basic game and expert game.
In both variants, players are attempting to rescue 7 of 10 victims from a raging building fire.
As the players attempt to rescue the victims, the fire spreads to other parts of the building, causing structural damage and possibly blocking off pathways through the building. Each turn a player may spend action points to try to extinguish fires, move through the building, move victims out of the building or perform various special actions such as moving emergency vehicles. If 4 victims perish in the blaze or the building collapses from taking too much structural damage, the players lose. Otherwise, the players win instantly when they rescue a 7th victim.

The expert variant included in the game adds thematic elements such as flash over, combustible materials, random setup, and variations on game difficulty from novice to heroic. The game includes a double sided board with two different building plans and several expansion maps are available.

Dungeon Petz is a standalone game set in the Dungeon Lords universe. The game consists of several rounds in which players use unusual worker placement mechanisms (players simultaneously prepare different sized groups of imps in order to play sooner than others) to prepare themselves for the uneasy task of raising creature cubs and pleasing their different needs (represented by cards) in order to sell them as grown and scary creatures to Dungeon Lords. In the meantime, they also attend various contests in which they show off their pets, scoring additional points.

In Dungeon Fighter, a fully cooperative board game, players take on the roles of heroes venturing deep into a three-tier dungeon. Along the way, they explore the dungeon, search its many rooms, and face endless hordes of vicious monsters. Best of all, your skill determines the ability of your character. Can you kill Medusa without looking into her eyes, defeat the Minotaur in the labyrinth, or resist the breath of the dragon? Will you be able to hit a target by throwing the dice under your leg with your eyes closed?

You will feel truly part of a centuries-old battle between good and evil…with a touch of foolish stupidity.

But wait! It must be something in the air; several other monarchs have had the exact same idea. You must race to get as much of the unclaimed land as possible, fending them off along the way. To do this you will hire minions, construct buildings, spruce up your castle, and fill the coffers of your treasury. Your parents wouldn’t be proud, but your grandparents, on your mother’s side, would be delighted.”

—description from the back of the box

In Dominion, each player starts with an identical, very small deck of cards. In the center of the table is a selection of other cards the players can “buy” as they can afford them. Through their selection of cards to buy, and how they play their hands as they draw them, the players construct their deck on the fly, striving for the most efficient path to the precious victory points by game end.

Dominion is not a CCG, but the play of the game is similar to the construction and play of a CCG deck. The game comes with 500 cards. You select 10 of the 25 Kingdom card types to include in any given play—leading to immense variety.

Do you go big and create a pack of Velociraptors? They’ll definitely excite potential visitors, but you’d better make a large enough enclosure for them. And maybe hire some (read: a lot of) security. Or they WILL break out and start eating your visitors, and we all know how that ends. You could play it safe and grow a bunch of herbivores, but then you aren’t going to have the most exciting park in the world (sad face). So maybe buy a roller coaster or two to attract visitors to your park the good old-fashioned way?

The Forensic Scientist has the solution but can express the clues only using special scene tiles while the investigators (and the murderer) attempt to interpret the evidence. In order to succeed, the investigators must not only deduce the truth from the clues of the Forensic Scientist, they must also see through the misdirection being injected into the equation by the Murderer and Accomplice!

Find out who among you can cut through deception to find the truth and who is capable of getting away with murder!

Roles

Forensic Scientist x1
As the game master, the Forensic Scientist holds the solution to the crime. They are responsible for assisting the Investigators in identifying the “Key Evidence” and “Means of Murder.” When an Investigator does that successfully, the crime is solved and the Forensic Scientist and the Investigators win the game.

During the game, the Forensic Scientist is NOT allowed to hint to the solution with words, gestures, or eyes.

Murderer x1
When the crime takes place, the Murderer chooses 1 Clue card and 1 Means card as the solution to the crime. These will be the “Key Evidence” and “Means of Murder” respectively.

The Murderer tries to hide their role and look for a scapegoat. Even if they are identified, the Murderer still wins the game if no one correctly identifies both the “Key Evidence” and the “Means of Murder”.

Investigators x8
To solve the crime, the Investigators must analyze the hints given by the Forensic Scientist. As long as one of the Investigators correctly identifies both the “Key Evidence” and “Means of Murder,” the Murderer is arrested and the Investigators win the game (as does the Forensic Scientist).

Bear in mind that the Murderer (and sometimes Accomplice) is among the Investigators! The innocent Investigators must make a vigorous effort to defend themselves from false accusation.

Accomplice x1
The Accomplice is an optional role for games with six or more players. The Accomplice knows who the Murderer is, as well as the solution to the crime. The Accomplice and Murderer both win if the Murderer gets away with his crime.

Witness x1
The Witness is an optional role when playing with six or more players.* The Witness is an Investigator who has witnessed the culprits leaving the crime scene. They have no way of knowing which is the Murderer and which is the Accomplice and they do not know how the crime was committed.

If the Murderer is arrested but can identify the Witness, the Witness is considered to be killed, allowing the Murderer and the Accomplice to get away with murder and win the game.

Concordia is a peaceful strategy game of economic development in Roman times for 2-5 players aged 13 and up. Instead of looking to the luck of dice or cards, players must rely on their strategic abilities. Be sure to watch your rivals to determine which goals they are pursuing and where you can outpace them! In the game, colonists are sent out from Rome to settle down in cities that produce bricks, food, tools, wine, and cloth. Each player starts with an identical set of playing cards and acquires more cards during the game. These cards serve two purposes:

They allow a player to choose actions during the game.
They are worth victory points (VPs) at the end of the game.
Concordia is a strategy game that requires advance planning and consideration of your opponent’s moves. Every game is different, not only because of the sequence of new cards on sale but also due to the modular layout of cities. (One side of the game board shows the entire Roman Empire with 30 cities for 3-5 players, while the other shows Roman Italy with 25 cities for 2-4 players.) When all cards have been sold or after the first player builds his 15th house, the game ends. The player with the most VPs from the gods (Jupiter, Saturnus, Mercurius, Minerva, Vesta, etc.) wins the game.

In Colt Express, you play a bandit robbing a train at the same time as other bandits, and your goal is to become the richest outlaw of the Old West. The game consists of five rounds, and each round has two phases:

Phase 1: Schemin’ Each player plays 2-5 action cards on a common pile, with the cards being face up or face down depending on the type of the round. Instead of playing a card, a player can draw three cards from her deck.
Phase 2: Stealin’ The action cards are carried out in the order they were played, with a player’s best laid plans possibly not panning out due to mistakes and oversights!
The game takes place in a 3D train in which the bandits can move from one car to another, run on the roof, punch the other bandits, shoot them, rob the passengers, or draw the Marshal out of position. The train has as many cars as the number of players, and each car is seeded with gems, bags of loot or suitcases at the start of play.

Each player starts a round with six cards in hand, with each card showing one of these actions. At the start of a round, a round card is revealed, showing how many cards will be played; whether they’ll be played face up or face down, or individually or in pairs; and what action will occur at the end of the round (e.g., all bandits on top of the train move to the engine). You can pick up loot, gems or suitcases only by playing a “steal” card when you’re in a train car that holds one of these items — but since everyone is planning to get these goods, you’ll need to move, punch and shoot to get others out of your way. You can punch someone only in the same car as you, and when you do, the other bandit drops one of the goods he’s collected and is knocked into an adjacent car.

Each player’s character has a special power, such as starting the round with an extra card, playing your first card face down, or pocketing a bag of loot when you punch someone instead of letting it hit the ground.

You can shoot someone in an adjacent car or (if you’re running on top of the train) anyone in sight, and when you do, you give that player one of your six bullet cards; that card gets shuffled in the opponent’s deck, possibly giving her a dead card in hand on a future turn and forcing her to draw instead of playing something. If the Marshal ends up in the same car as you, likely due to other bandits luring him through the train, he’ll be happy to give you a bullet, too.

At the end of the game, whoever fired the most bullets receives a $1,000 braggart bonus, and whoever bagged the richest haul wins!

On a turn, a player takes one card from his hand, lays it face down on the table, slides it to a player of his choice, and declares a type of critter, e.g., “Stink bug”. The player receiving the card either

Accepts the card, says either “true” or “false”, then reveals the card. If this player is wrong in her claim, she keeps the card on the table in front of her face up; if she is right, the player who gave her the card places it face up before him.
Peeks at the card, then passes it face down to another player, either saying the original type of critter or saying a new type. This new player again has the choice of accepting the card or passing it, unless the card has already been seen by all other players in which case the player must take the first option.
Whoever lost a challenge and had to place the card before him on the table begins the next round.

The game ends when a player has no cards to pass on his turn or when a player has four cards of the same critter on the table in front of him. In either case, this player loses and everyone else wins.

Camels don’t run neatly, however, sometimes landing on top of another one and being carried toward the finish line. Who’s going to run when? That all depends on how the dice come out of the pyramid dice shaker, which releases one die at a time when players pause from their bets long enough to see who’s actually moving!

In Cosmic Encounter, each player becomes the leader of one of dozens of alien races, each with its own unique power. On a player’s turn, he or she becomes the offense. The offense encounters another player on a planet by moving a group of his or her ships through the hyperspace gate to that planet. Both sides can invite allies and play cards to try and tip the encounter in their favor.

The object of the game is to establish colonies in other players’ planetary systems. The winner(s) are the first player(s) to have five colonies on any planets outside his or her home system. These colonies may all be in one system or scattered over multiple systems. The players must use force, cunning, and diplomacy to ensure their victory. And, because alliances are a key part of the game, multiple players can win together!

Players begin with a card draft which represent the training of their fighters.

After training players play a series of round wherein they play technique cards from their hands, or change their guards, in order to create a pool of combat dice which they hope to use to strike their opponent or defend their attacks.

In this game damage escalates quickly so players must be able to block, evade, and strike simultaneously to try and keep the momentum of the encounter in their favor.

The game ends when one warrior has bested the other.

Actions in the game are resolved through the use of dice. Regular six-sided dice are used to make tests in a number of cases, such as when a player attempts to pick up the ball, pass it, catch it or dodge past an enemy player. Custom dice are used when one player wishes to Block another, using graphics to represent each of the different (but all violent) potential outcomes.

The rules in this edition of Blood Bowl are almost identical to those found in the Competition Rules Pack, which was the culmination of several years of development of the Blood Bowl Living Rulebook. This has resulted in an incredibly well-honed game which sees regular competition play around the world. In fact each team takes turns moving, blocking and advancing the football down the field. The game comes with plastic miniatures.

This game is a part of the Blood Bowl Series.

Game Therapists, Michael Thorburn and Brady Irwin use Tabletop Simulator to train consumers, clients and other professionals in the mechanics of boardgames, roleplaying games, card games, and traditional games. All are available in the Steam Workshop either free of charge or as paid DLC.

Tabletop Simulator is an invaluable training resource for Game Therapists and other allied health practitioners.

Endless Games

Tabletop Simulator has it all. The base game includes 15 classics like Chess, Poker, Jigsaw Puzzles, Dominoes, and Mahjong. Additionally, there are thousands of community created content on the Workshop. If you’re the tabletop gaming type, we include an RPG Kit which has tilesets & furniture, as well as animated figurines that you can set up and battle with your friends, with even more options in the Chest. There’s even an option for Game Masters so they can control the table!

Create Games

If you’re into creativity and prototyping, you can easily create your own games by importing images onto custom boards & tables, create custom decks, import 3D models, create scripts, and much more. You can choose to upload your creations on the Steam Workshop or share them privately with your friends.

Fun For All Ages

Everyone can play Tabletop Simulator! Play a classic board game with grandma, have poker night with the guys, or start your epic RPG adventure with your crew. Play almost any tabletop game you can think of! Being a multiplayer-focused game, up to 10 players can play at any given time.

Key Features:

• Online sandbox with unlimited games to play how you want.
• Multiplayer physics with objects that collide and interact just how you would expect.
• Create your own mods easily with full Steam Workshop support and 3D model importing.
• Take games to the next level with Lua scripting support.
• Play just like you do in real life; pick up, rotate, shake, and throw any object.
• Up to 10 people can play together on the same table.
• Team system with voice and text chat.
• Save & load individual objects and complete games.
• Hotseat mode allowing you to play locally on the same computer.
• Browse the internet, listen to music, and watch videos in multiplayer, in-game on a tablet.
• Perfect for RPGs – build your very own roleplaying dungeons with our modular tileset, RPG Kit, Multiple States and Tablet (useful for character sheets).
• Great admin tools to enable or disable player permissions and to eliminate griefing in public games.
• 360° panoramic backgrounds that change the lighting and atmosphere.

Included games:

Backgammon, Cards, Chess, Checkers, Chinese Checkers, Custom Board, Dice, Dominoes, Go, Jigsaw Puzzles, Mahjong, Pachisi, Piecepack, Poker, Reversi, RPG Kit, Sandbox, Solitaire, and Tablet.

TABLE TOP GAMES
Warhammer 40k – link
Warcry – link

CARD GAMES
Once Upon a Time; The Storytelling Card Game – link
Magic the Gathering – link

BOARD GAMES
Stuffed Fables – link
Zombicide Season 1 – link
Zombicide Black Plague – link
Zombicide: Green Horde – link

ROLEPLAYING GAMES
Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition – link

BOARD GAMES
Pandemic – link
Settlers of Catan – link

ROLEPLAYING GAMES
Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition – link
Call of Cthulu – link

TABLETOP GAMES
Star Wars: Armada – link
Star Wars: X-Wing – link

CARD GAMES
Chez Dork – link
Star Wars: Destiny – link

BOARD GAMES
Axis & Allies – link
Axis & Allies: D-Day – link
Axis & Allies: Guadalcanal – link
Axis & Allies: Pacific – link
Betrayal at House on the Hill – link
Carcassone – link
Doctor Who – link
Discworld – link
Escape from Colditz – link
Firefly – link
Formula de – link
Pandemic – link
Settlers of Catan – link

ROLEPLAYING GAMES
Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition – link

TABLE TOP GAMES
Gaslands – link
Marvel Universe Miniatures – link
Star Wars: X-Wing the Miniature Game – link
Star Wars: The Card Game LCG

CARD GAMES
Boss Monster – link
Elevense – link
Game of Thrones: Westeros Intrigue – link
Sentinels of the Multiverse – link
Star Wars; Empire Vs Rebellion – link
Welcome to the Dungeon – link

BOARD GAMES
Azul – link
Carcassonne – link
Betrayal at House Hill – link
Blokus – link
Dungeon – link
Fallout: Monopoly – link
Fallout: the Board game – link
Forbidden Desert – link
Kevin Bloody Wilson’s Pub Krawl – link
King of Tokyo – link
Ghost Fighting Treasure Hunters – link
Scrabble – link
Scrabble: Word for Kids – link
Skylanders: Pop n Race – link
Star Wars: Monopoly – link
Talking Bull – link
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Foot street Fight Game – link
Test Match – link
Ticket to Ride – link
Trivial Pursuit – link
Trouble – link
Wasteland Express Delivery Service – link
XCom – link
Zombicide Season 1 – link
Zombicide Prison Outbreak – link
Zombicide Toxy City Mall – link
Zombicide: Angry Neighbours – link
Zombicide: Rue Morgue

DEXTERITY GAMES
Hopshots – link
Pictionary – link
Pie Face – link
Rat in a Stack – link


ROLEPLAYING GAMES
Champions: Hero System – link
D20 Modern – link
Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition – link
Super Squardran – link
Toon – link

The game board depicts several major population centers on Earth. On each turn, a player can use up to four actions to travel between cities, treat infected populaces, discover a cure, or build a research station. A deck of cards provides the players with these abilities, but sprinkled throughout this deck are Epidemic! cards that accelerate and intensify the diseases’ activity. A second, separate deck of cards controls the “normal” spread of the infections.

Taking a unique role within the team, players must plan their strategy to mesh with their specialists’ strengths in order to conquer the diseases. For example, the Operations Expert can build research stations which are needed to find cures for the diseases and which allow for greater mobility between cities; the Scientist needs only four cards of a particular disease to cure it instead of the normal five—but the diseases are spreading quickly and time is running out. If one or more diseases spreads beyond recovery or if too much time elapses, the players all lose. If they cure the four diseases, they all win!

The 2013 edition of Pandemic includes two new characters—the Contingency Planner and the Quarantine Specialist—not available in earlier editions of the game.

Pandemic is the first game in the Pandemic series.

Michael recruited Dean to run Dungeons and Dragons games for the teen cohort of Asperger’s Victoria.

“In the late seventies the U.K. education policies meant that kids did minimal maths in junior schools. Arriving in Australia as an 8 year old, I was expected to understand a higher level of maths than I did. In short, I hated maths and suffered major anxieties during maths lessons. This caused me to act out sometimes in class. By grade 5, a kindly teacher took enough interest in me to understand the frustrations I felt which caused me to throw chairs or maths equipment around the room. With a little extra assistance and assurance I began to fill in my learning gaps and experience some success.”

“I continued to work hard on my maths when I got to High School. Fortunately I had a good supportive group of friends and challenged myself to take maths all the way to year 12. Well, things happened… After lots of different jobs I didn’t get to Uni till I was 34. After graduating I spent 3 years in cellular research and then pushed myself through a teaching (graduate) Diploma.”

Dean will also be presenting (with Michael Thorburn & Brady Irwin) The How To Be A Dungeon Master When You Have Anxiety program for various organisations like Aspergers Victoria.

Fellow Therapeutic Game Master, Michael Thorburn uses recordings of Dean’s prose descriptions of scene changes in the Dungeons and Dragons game for personal guided relaxation hypnosis sessions.

Lucas has a long history of community engagement and firmly believes in the importance of community building and social integration. He finds great reward in his current work as a support worker on www.mable.com.au with multiple clients with ASD and looks forward to growing his experience in this field.

Lucas now works for Banyule Council as a Youth Access Worker (after Game Therapist Michael Thorburn organised his student placement in their Banyule Youth Dungeons and Dragons program). Lucas is passionate about working with young people to further their potential.

Lucas recognises the great potential for games as a safe space for exploring ideas and simulating experiences that can be applied in real world problem solving. His experience as a professional storyteller has made him a natural game master for RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons, and he is currently working on his own RPG system which emphasises narrative, cooperative play and creative problem solving over brute combat. Occasionally though, combat can be fun, and Lucas has an extensive collection of war-games and board games.

Lucas can be engaged via Mable through his profile here

Lucas uses the Mable (formerly Better Caring) platform to book his 1:1 services, and is fully covered by the relevant public liability insurance, etc. The Mable (formerly Better Caring) platform uses Zurich Australian Insurance Limited and Gow-Gates Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd to establish a suite of covers that are made available to all its affiliated care workers when providing services arranged and invoiced through the Mable platform.

The Community Care Liability Insurance cover made available to affiliated care workers includes:

Group Combined General Liability cover

Group Professional Indemnity cover

Group Personal Accident cover

Thunder & Lightning, a reimplementation of Hera and Zeus, features the same gameplay as the earlier design, but with larger decks of cards with a different distribution of powers.

In the game, each player starts with nine cards in hand, then places three cards face down in their first row, with these rows butting against one another and each player having space for four rows in their playing area. If a player loses a card in a row, then any cards in the same column behind this card slide forward to fill the empty slot. On a turn, a player has as many action points as the number of columns they have in the playing area. They can use these action points to draw cards, play cards to the battlefield, play a mythological card for its power, or challenge an opponent’s card.

To challenge, the player chooses a card in their first row that abuts an opponent’s card, then reveals both of them. Most cards have a strength value (0-7), and the card with the lower strength value is discarded, with the opponent’s other cards in the same column then sliding forward.

If a player cannot use all of their actions or has no actions (due to having no cards on the battlefield) or loses control of Odin’s Crown/Ring, then they lose the game.

With each mission, the game becomes more difficult. After each mission, the game can be paused and continued later. During each mission, it is not the amount of tricks, but the right tricks at the right time that count.

The team completes a mission only if every single player is successful in fulfilling their tasks.

The game comes with 50 missions, with three additional missions published in spielbox 2/2020.

Each player’s turn starts with drawing poker cards and/or gaining cash. Then they choose three actions. Possible actions include: move on the map (how far depends on whether they have a mount), doing a location-specific action (such as mine for gold if they are at a gold mine, gamble if they’re in a saloon, etc.), fight other players at the same location (either duel them, rob them, or arrest them if they’re wanted), play poker cards that have action abilities, etc. Legendary Points (LPs) are earned based on the outcomes of many of these actions, and the winner is whoever has the most LPs at the end of the game.

Key Points
– Award-Winning gaming experience set in the American West!
– Beautiful artwork, and presentation brings this highly thematic game to life.
– Intuitive gameplay and choices let’s you write your own legend every game!

Historic characters from the American Wild West face off and write new legends across the face of history! Gather your gun, your mount, and your grit as you forge your path into the history books.

Pharaoh had no offspring so tradition holds that the governors of the land be tasked with building monuments to Pharaoh’s glory so that Osiris will favor his spirit in the afterlife. Accordingly, Pharaoh’s successor will be the governor who builds the greatest tribute to the late king.

Resources and laborers are limited, the gods are capricious, and time is short; the memorials must be finished before the barge reaches the temple of Osiris at Men-nefer.

Sailing Toward Osiris is a euro-style game with worker placement, resources management, project completion, and no direct conflict. Down-time is kept to a minimum via a single action, round-and-round turn structure that emphasizes timing decisions and subtle strategies.

The game takes place over four “seasons” with the movement of Pharaoh’s barge tracking the game’s progress. Each season, after players draw workers from a communal bag, play begins with each player taking a series of one-action turns from a list of 10 possible actions:

1. Play a worker to harvest resources
2. Play a worker to a city for cards
3. Play a worker to a caravan as leader or follower
4. Hire an extra worker
5. Trade at the market
6. Plan a monument
7. Build a monument
8. Play a city card
9. Play a boon card
10. Withdraw from further actions.

Players are working to build sphinxes, obelisks, and pylons to the glory of the late Pharaoh and to earn extra glory by building the monuments on certain river segments and in certain configurations. However, as more monuments are built, resource harvesting becomes less productive and viable locations for future monuments become scarce. By the last season, players will have to be creative to find enough resources or available land on which to build.

The player who has amassed the most glory points by the end of the game will be crowned the new Pharaoh.

Sailing Toward Osiris was inspired by the real events surrounding the death of Rameses XI at the end of Egypt’s 20th Dynasty and the ascension of Smendes, a powerful governor in Lower Egypt.

Each player has their own bag of ingredient chips. During each round, they simultaneously draw chips from their bags and add them to their pots. The higher the face value of the drawn chip, the further it is placed in the pot’s swirling pattern, increasing how much the potion will be worth. Push your luck as far as you can, but if you add too many cherry bombs, your pot will explode!

At the end of each round, players gain victory points and coins to spend on new ingredients, depending on how well they managed to fill up their pots. But players whose pots have exploded must choose points or coins — not both! The player with the most victory points at the end of nine rounds wins the game.

List of expansions available to play:

Quacks of Quedlinburg
Quacks of Quedlinburg: Herb Witches

In Arctic Scavengers, you are the leader of a small tribe of survivors. Resources, tools, medicine, and mercenaries are all in scarce supply. You and your tribe are pitted against up to four other tribes in a fight for survival. Build up your tribe, skirmish against other players head-to-head, or even bluff your way to victory.

The player with the largest tribe at the end of the game is declared the winner!

The Dragon & Flagon is a game of chaos and mayhem for 2-8 players. Throw mugs, smash chairs, swing from the chandelier, sip from the legendary Dragon Flagon, cast spells, and pull the rug out from under your fellow adventurers as you attempt to build up your reputation and win the day!

Play as one of nine unique characters in a 3D tavern environment that can be set up differently every time. Multiple play modes add even more variety.

Will you leave with the greatest reputation from The Dragon & Flagon?

After more than forty thousand years of war and strife among the stars, Humanity stands on the brink of extinction. Beset on all sides by hostile aliens and threatened from within by traitors, Humanity’s only chance for survival rests with the continuation of the cruel and bloody regime known as the Imperium. Yet few among Mankind’s untold population realise the full truth of their situation. If there is any future at all, it is a grim one…

The Book

A 280-page hardback, this is the essential book for any fan of Warhammer 40,000 – everything you need to know to collect, build, paint and play with Citadel miniatures.

Rules

The Core Rules explain everything you need to play to play Warhammer 40,000. Moving, shooting, using psychic powers, charging, fighting and morale tests are covered, giving you the basic framework to play with. You can play a game using only these 8 pages, bolting on more advanced and complex rules when you and your opponent are ready.

Three Ways to Play

• Open Play – pick some models, put them on the table and begin a game. This is the most flexible approach, designed with near-limitless possibilities; all you need is some models, their datasheets and the core rules. Included are some themes and ideas you can use or build upon to add atmosphere to your games, and 3 example missions.
• Narrative Play – Warhammer 40,000 has a vast, rich history with countless epic battles. Narrative Play is designed to let you and your friends re-enact those battles at your leisure. There are special rules to help you do this, such as Concealed Deployment and unpredictable, random battle lengths, and the book includes several missions * 6 Crucible of War missions and 1 Echoes of War mission, each showing you how to play in this style.
• Matched Play – for many players, Warhammer 40,000 is an opportunity to prove their mettle with tactics and strategy, an exercise in out-thinking and out-gunning their opponent with balanced, equal armies: Matched Play is for them. There are several ways to ensure that your forces are balanced against each other – a points limit is the typical way, but the system is flexible enough to allow armies based on unit numbers, Power Ratings, Wounds; as long as your limits are agreed, the possibilities are manifold. This book provides details on choosing your armies, and provides missions as examples of the tactical challenges available: 6 Eternal War and 6 Maelstrom of War missions, with explanations covering the use of Tactical Objectives.

Advanced Rules

While the Core Rules provide with you with everything needed to play, the Advanced Rules are a selection of rules and expansions that can be used to play with your miniatures the way that you want to. With these rules, there are always new challenges to face, new battles to fight, and new ways to play:

• Battle-Forged Armies: organise your models in a way that reflects the armies of Warhammer 40,000 – this places restrictions on your army, but makes up for it with powerful benefits, which use a system of Command Points;
• Battlefield Terrain: rules for a variety of terrains (Woods, Ruins, Barricades, Obstacles, Imperial Statuary, Fuel Pipes, Battlescape and Hills), each of which introduce scenarios and opportunities that change the nature of battle;
• Battlezones: rules for fighting amidst the effects of otherworldly environments, including low visibility, beneath an apocalyptic orbital battle and in the middle of a devastating psychic maelstrom;
• Planetstrike: slam down from orbit in a terrifying planetary assault. Two players are separated into Attacker and Defender, with scenarios that play out a full incursion and a Planetfall mission;
• Cities of Death: street fighting in the ruins of a shattered city, with buildings bitterly fought over – the claustrophobia of urban warfare makes for tense battles with snipers and grenades coming to the fore. Includes a Firesweep mission for playing out room-to-room combat;
• Stronghold Assault: dig in for a game of fortified siege warfare. One player seeks to overwhelm the prepared defences of another, with a Bunker Assault mission included;
• Death From the Skies: dogfighting for your Flyer models, allowing the recreation of epic clashes above the battlefield. A Tactical Strike mission involves a defence against a bombing run;
• Multiplayer Battles: rules accommodating three (or more!) players, with an example of a multiplayer battle to work from;
• Campaigns: an overview of linking your games into Tree, Matrix and Map campaigns.

The goal is to be the first across the finish line, as only first place counts. No matter the game mode used, Arcade or Overdrive, the race is always a deadly obstacle course around a track made of ten reversible tiles, which can be assembled to build many different racetracks. Fire your engines, buckle your helmet, and be ready for the armed racing game!

This is more than just a skirmish version of Warhammer Age of Sigmar – it’s hyper-kinetic, it’s tactical and it’s very, very bloody, featuring bold new game mechanics.

Warcry is perfect for narrative players looking to forge character-driven campaigns where warbands grow and develop through their own journey. Meanwhile, gamers looking for a close-matched, fast and exciting experience will find a game that fits both their coffee table and coffee break.

In the game, you’ll follow the myriad tribes of Chaos – reavers and despoilers from every corner of the realms – as they make their dark pilgrimage to the Varanspire. Warcry explores a never-before-seen side of life (and death!) in the Age of Sigmar. Every model for this game is brand new, reflecting on the dizzying diversity of Chaos on a scale never attempted before and rooted in rich lore that realises the servants of the Dark Gods as deep and varied cultures.

—description from the publisher

Play a first-person shooter on your gaming table. Grab some ammo, grab a gun, and start shooting. Build up an arsenal for a killer turn. Combat resolution is quick and diceless. And if you get shot, you get faster!

• The Witches – new characters with special abilities that players may use once per game
• Locoweed – a new ingredient whose value is determined by its ability rather than being fixed
• New ingredient books for each existing ingredient type, increasing variety even further
• Player components in black color – increasing the number of players to 5

List of expansions available to play:

Quacks of Quedlinburg
Quacks of Quedlinburg: Herb Witches

But running an expedition can be costly. In order to fund your voyages into the unknown and excavate the ancient temples, you will have to first ship resources found on surrounding islands back to the resource-poor island of Thera.

In Akrotiri — which combines tile placement, hand management, and pick-up and delivery — players place land tiles in order to make the board match the maps that they have in hand. Players excavate temples; the ones that are harder to find and the ones further away from Thera are worth more towards victory, but the secret goal cards keep everyone guessing who the victor is until the end! May the gods forever bless you with favorable winds!

The second edition, published in 1995, features an expanded card set.

The third edition, published in 2012, features multiple changes, including new artwork by Omar Rayyan, a new card set, and a simplified rulesheet.

Box says: Contains 110 story cards, 55 ending cards and a rulebook(my box has 114 role cards)

Stuffed Fables is the first “AdventureBook Game”, a new product line from Plaid Hat Games in which all of the action takes place in the unique storybook — a book that acts as your rules reference, story guide, and game board, all in one! Each adventure in the game takes place over several pages of the immersive AdventureBook. The book opens flat onto the table to reveal a colorful map or other illustration central to playing the game, with choices, story, and special rules on the opposite page.

On their turn, a player draws five dice from the bag. The colors of the dice drawn determine the types of actions and options available to the player. White dice can re-stuff stuffies injured in battle. Red dice perform melee attacks while green dice perform ranged attacks. Yellow dice search while blue dice are used for special actions and purple dice can be used as any color. Most dice can always find a strategic use, including moving, using items, or contributing to group tasks. Players can store dice for later, combine dice for stronger actions, or use them one-at-a-time for multiple activations. As turns go by, black dice are also drawn, and after enough appear, minions emerge or attack, and the dice bag is reset!

Players can encourage each other by sharing dice or their precious stuffing. In addition to fighting minions, each page of the storybook offers numerous points of interest, charming characters to interact or trade with, as well as many unusual challenges. And each page is but one chapter that folds into a branching, overarching story with a multitude of items and a special discovery deck full of surprises.

The game takes place on a map of Earth. Each player takes the part of one of four factions included in the base game. At the start of a turn, players Gather Power, then, during a series of Action Rounds, they spend this Power to accomplish various tasks, such as recruiting Cultists, moving units, engaging in battle, summoning monsters, building Gates, casting spells, and Awakening their Great Old One. When all players run out of Power, the Action phase ends and the next turn begins. Victory is determined by accumulating points on the Doom Track. The first player to 30 is the lone victor *if* he has unlocked all six of spell books.

Driving the strategy are a player’s wish to expand his power base, and his need to accomplish six tasks to acquire his faction’s spell books. Each faction has a unique set of monsters, spell books, and special abilities, and has different requirements to acquire its spell books. All factions have multiple strategies open to them.

The base game supports 2-4 players (the map supports 5 players), but with new factions and maps released as expansions it can support up to 8 players.

This is the grandfather of the collectible card game (or CCG) genre. Cards are categorized as common, uncommon, rare, and mythic rare. Players collect cards and build decks out of their collection.

Players build a deck of cards and duel against an opponent’s deck. Players are wizards attempting to reduce their opponent’s life total to zero. The first player to reduce his opponent’s life to zero (or meet another set win condition) wins the game.

An important part of the game is deck construction, which is done prior to the actual game by selecting what cards are included in a particular deck. There are nearly 20,000 different cards from which to build your deck!

Cards can be lands, which usually generate mana of various colors, or spells, which require a certain amount of mana to be used. Some cards (creatures, artifacts, and enchantments) stay on the board and continue to affect the game, while others have a one-time effect.

Players randomly draw spells to see what they get and can play each turn. Although this limits your choices, there is a lot of strategy in how you play those spells. A robust list of game mechanics, including intricate rules for reactive card play called “the stack,” provide for rich tactics and tough choices each turn.

Though traditionally a two-player duel, there are several casual and tournament formats to Magic that allow more players to play.

Set in the same medieval era as Black Plague, players will take on the role of Survivors looking to defeat the shuffling, undead menace by any means possible.

In Green Horde, up to six players can join the battle for survival. They’ll combine forces and work cooperatively to accomplish their goals, and against all odds, stay alive. Fans of the Zombicide series have become familiar with the Walkers, Runners, Fatties, and Abominations that shuffle around, looking for victims. But the creatures they will face are not just zombie humans, they’re zombie orcs! The Survivors will have to gear up with a wide variety of medieval equipment if they hope to outlast these fearsome foes. Zombie Orcs are stronger than the classic zombie and represent a stiffer challenge to even seasoned undead-hunting veterans.

A new challenge for the Survivors is the Horde. It represents a growing group of Orc zombies that are ready to enter the board in an unexpected location and ambush the Survivors. As zombie cards with the Horde symbol are drawn, one extra zombie miniature of the same type is set aside, collectively forming the Horde. They will be locked into place until an “Enter the Horde!” card is drawn, spawning the Horde on the board. Any Survivor caught on their own near this roving menace would best beat a hasty retreat.

With such menacing new foes, the Survivors are going to have their hands full dealing with the Green Horde. Luckily, they’ll have some new weapons and spells on their side to help combat the rotting masses. Things like the Lava Burst, the Norse Sword, and the Bone Kukri will all be helpful when hacking through a pack of the undead. Oh, and if they should gather together too tightly, the Survivors can always hit them with the catapult…(did we not mention the catapult?).

Zombicide: Green Horde includes ten new challenging quests, featuring some of the toughest scenarios a Survivor has ever had to face. With new terrain, like ledges and water holes, and the ever-present threat of the Green Horde making an appearance, the team will have to plan their routes carefully. Sometimes avoiding trouble is better than facing it head on! Zombicide: Green Horde is the next chapter in the ever-evolving world of Zombicide. There’s no rest for the Survivors if they hope to battle their way to a new hope and a new beginning.

They say no man is an island. We live within communities where we get to interact with other people, engage in various activities, have new experiences and be part of something bigger. The people around us shape who we are and in turn, we shape their lives through our behavior. The actions we take, allow us to become more popular, or slide us into obscurity. How will the community around us affect our constant pursuit for happiness?

List of expansions: 

Pursuit of Happiness
Pursuit of Happiness: Community

Designed by Philippe Keyaerts as a fantasy follow-up to his award-winning Vinci, Small World is inhabited by a zany cast of characters such as dwarves, wizards, amazons, giants, orcs, and even humans, who use their troops to occupy territory and conquer adjacent lands in order to push the other races off the face of the earth.

Picking the right combination from the 14 different fantasy races and 20 unique special powers, players rush to expand their empires – often at the expense of weaker neighbors. Yet they must also know when to push their own over-extended civilization into decline and ride a new one to victory!

On each turn, you either use the multiple tiles of your chosen race (type of creatures) to occupy adjacent (normally) territories – possibly defeating weaker enemy races along the way, or you give up on your race letting it go “into decline”. A race in decline is designated by flipping the tiles over to their black-and-white side.

At the end of your turn, you score one point (coin) for each territory your races occupy. You may have one active race and one race in decline on the board at the same time. Your occupation total can vary depending on the special abilities of your race and the territories they occupy. After the final round, the player with the most coins wins.

You are bird enthusiasts—researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors—seeking to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves. Each bird extends a chain of powerful combinations in one of your habitats (actions). These habitats focus on several key aspects of growth:

• Gain food tokens via custom dice in a birdfeeder dice tower
• Lay eggs using egg miniatures in a variety of colors
• Draw from hundreds of unique bird cards and play them

The winner is the player with the most points after 4 rounds.

If you enjoy Terraforming Mars and Gizmos, we think this game will take flight at your table.

2035 – The Road Kill Rally becomes a worldwide phenomenon, attracting contestants from throughout the world. Ratings exceed three billion for the Rally Cup Finals, making it the most watched spectacle in human history.

As a driver in the Road Kill Rally, you are racing against opponents eager to destroy you with guns, rockets and flame throwers. But the big points come from scoring pedestrians: running them over or blasting them out of the road. After all, you have three billion viewers to satisfy.

How much will you be able to achieve in just one lifetime during The Pursuit of Happiness?

We all have one common desire: the desire for happiness. As we build our life, taking steps towards the pursuit of happiness, we come closer to the realization that happiness lies in the pursuit.

List of expansions: 

Pursuit of Happiness
Pursuit of Happiness: Community

Raptor is a card driven boardgame with tactical play and some double guessing. Players use their cards to move their pawns (scientists on one side, Mother and baby raptors on the other) on the board. Every round, the player who played the lowest ranked card can use the corresponding action, while his opponent has movement / attack points equal to the difference between the two cards values. The scientists can use fire, can move by jeep on the tracks, and can even call for reinforcements, while the mamma raptor can hide in the bushes, yell to frighten the scientists, and call for her babies.

Specter Ops is a sci-fi, stealth ops game of hidden movement that’s similar to Scotland Yard. Players are trying to locate/capture a mysterious agent, who keeps track of their sneaking via a private map. The other players take control of unique characters who must use their wits, abilities and technology to help them hunt down this infiltrator. Items like flash grenades, scanners, and the like are at the disposal of this covert agent.

In Stone Age, the players live in this time, just as our ancestors did. They collect wood, break stone and wash their gold from the river. They trade freely, expand their village and so achieve new levels of civilization. With a balance of luck and planning, the players compete for food in this pre-historic time.

Players use up to ten tribe members each in three phases. In the first phase, players place their men in regions of the board that they think will benefit them, including the hunt, the trading center, or the quarry. In the second phase, the starting player activates each of his staffed areas in whatever sequence he chooses, followed in turn by the other players. In the third phase, players must have enough food available to feed their populations, or they face losing resources or points.

To be successful players must consume polyps from neighboring corals in order to acquire the ‘consumed’ polyp tiles that are the key to the game. The consumed polyp tiles have a myriad of uses (and have a similar effect to the action points in games like Tikal and Java). Most importantly they can be used to flip over or lock the coral tiles, which determine the respective values of the different types of coral at the end of the game.

You alone control your nation’s destiny. You choose when to send out your workers–and when to call them back. Careful management and superior strategy will determine the winner of this struggle. So take charge and secure your nation’s future!

The Manhattan Project is a low-luck, mostly open information efficiency game in which players compete to build and operate the most effective atomic bomb program. Players do not “nuke” each other, but conventional air strikes are allowed against facilities.

The game features worker placement with a twist: there are no rounds and no end-of-round administration. Players retrieve their workers when they choose to or are forced to (by running out).

An espionage action allows a player to activate and block an opponent’s building, representing technology theft and sabotage.

Each player represents a knight of the Round Table and they must collaborate to overcome a number of quests, ranging from defeating the Black Knight to the search for the Holy Grail. Completed quests place white swords on the Round Table; failed quests add black swords and/or siege engines around Camelot. The knights are trying to build a majority of white swords on the Table before Camelot falls.

On each knight’s turn, the knight takes a “heroic action”, such as moving to a new quest, building his hand, or playing cards to advance the forces of good. However, he must also choose one of three evil actions, each of which will bring Camelot closer to defeat.

Moreover, one of the knights may be a traitor, pretending to be a loyal member of the party but secretly hindering his fellow knights in subtle ways, biding his time, waiting to strike at the worst possible moment…

But enough words… don your cloak, climb astride your warhorse, and gallop into the Shadows to join us in Camelot!

Tiki Topple sends opponents’ tikis tumbling to the back of the pack. But watch out for the sneaky Tiki Toast cards, which knock your tikis off the board! Score the most points and call yourself the Tiki Master.

AWARDS & HONORS

• 2014 Årets Spill Best Family Game Nominee
• 2009 Golden Geek Best Children’s Board Game Nominee
• 2008 Mensa Select Winner

7 Wonders lasts three ages. In each age, players receive seven cards from a particular deck, choose one of those cards, then pass the remainder to an adjacent player. Players reveal their cards simultaneously, paying resources if needed or collecting resources or interacting with other players in various ways. (Players have individual boards with special powers on which to organize their cards, and the boards are double-sided). Each player then chooses another card from the deck they were passed, and the process repeats until players have six cards in play from that age. After three ages, the game ends.

In essence, 7 Wonders is a card development game. Some cards have immediate effects, while others provide bonuses or upgrades later in the game. Some cards provide discounts on future purchases. Some provide military strength to overpower your neighbors and others give nothing but victory points. Each card is played immediately after being drafted, so you’ll know which cards your neighbor is receiving and how her choices might affect what you’ve already built up. Cards are passed left-right-left over the three ages, so you need to keep an eye on the neighbors in both directions.

Though the box of earlier editions is listed as being for 3–7 players, there is an official 2-player variant included in the instructions.

Sushi Go! takes the card-drafting mechanism of Fairy Tale and 7 Wonders and distills it into a twenty-minute game that anyone can play. The dynamics of “draft and pass” are brought to the fore, while keeping the rules to a minimum. As you see the first few hands of cards, you must quickly assess the make-up of the round and decide which type of sushi you’ll go for. Then, each turn you’ll need to weigh which cards to keep and which to pass on. The different scoring combinations allow for some clever plays and nasty blocks. Round to round, you must also keep your eye on the goal of having the most pudding cards at the end of the game!

Sushi Go Party! expands Sushi Go! with a party platter of mega maki, super sashimi, and endless edamame. You still earn points by picking winning sushi combos, but now you can customize each game by choosing à la carte from a menu of more than twenty delectable dishes. What’s more, up to eight players can join in on the sushi-feast. Let the good times roll!

Tarquin says, “Setting goals (is good), but it doesn’t matter what you do in a game session: in the end as long as everyone walks away laughing and happy then job done. Doing it right makes the stories we like to tell”

(Game Therapy can be a lateral therapy)

Tarquin is currently a long-standing (and paid) therapeutic dungeon master and minecraft moderator for Aspergers Victoria.

Over the years Tarquin has played games with people suffering depression, anxiety, confidence issues, developmental issues like: autism, panic disorders, the list goes on.

In almost 30 years of collecting Tarquin has a huge catalog of games that he will make available to you. When he meets you, learning about you is a massive part of picking the right games for you. Going solo is easy, if you want to invite friends to play that’s easy too.

This also means Tarquin can do group bookings if you’d like (with enough warning so he can make sure the correct area needed is booked) and split the cost of an appointment.

Tarquin runs his therapeutic game master practice in a variety of community settings, at times alongside other Game Therapists or Therapeutic Game Masters. Tarquin offers a controlled and secure environment, that can be private or public, depending on whether you want more social interaction and experience.

Tarquin uses the Mable (formerly Better Caring) platform to book his services. (link to come), and is fully covered by the relevant public liability insurance, etc. The Mable (formerly Better Caring) uses Zurich Australian Insurance Limited and Gow-Gates Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd to establish a suite of covers that are made available to all its affiliated care workers when providing services arranged and invoiced through the Mable platform.

The Community Care Liability Insurance cover made available to affiliated care workers includes:

Group Combined General Liability cover

Group Professional Indemnity cover

Group Personal Accident cover

Brady works with other Game Therapists, Therapeutic Game Masters, and Leisure Counsellors to ensure that programs they produce are clinically sound, in particular Michael Thorburn and Dean Ramsbottom’s instructional course, “How to Be A Dungeon Master When You Have Anxiety”.

Brady is currently a Mental Health Clinician for Barwon Health.

Chris Millagin works for the Department of Human Services as a Support Worker. He is also a professional airbrush artist with murals across Melbourne, and is an actor who has appeared on national television in programs and advertisements. He is an award-winning and convention-title winning gamer, specialising in Warhammer 40k and other tabletop and miniature games. He has competed interstate and overseas.

Chris has facilitated game sessions with children on the spectrum and their family members, creating positive, memorable situations for all concerned. One of his biggest Game Therapy inspirations came when witnessing a gaming friend competing in a tournament against a guy born without arms. This player used his feet to move game pieces across the board.

With a long experience of the social aspects of gaming, Chris understands the value of community integration. Preventing social isolation and facilitating level playing fields in niche communities are two of Chris’s passions in the healthcare sector. In this regard, Chris has built networks and friendships with game shops and game clubs across Melbourne.

Chris has an extensive knowledge of gaming and model making techniques and has trained other Game Therapists in these specialties.

Chris can be contacted through this website or booked for Game Therapy sessions through his Mable Australia (formerly Better Caring) profile: http://www.mable.com.au/carer/christophermi

Through Mable, Chris is fully covered by the relevant public liability insurance, etc. The Mable (formerly Better Caring) platform uses Zurich Australian Insurance Limited and Gow-Gates Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd to establish a suite of covers that are made available to all its affiliated care workers when providing services arranged and invoiced through the Mable platform.

The Community Care Liability Insurance cover made available to affiliated care workers includes:

Group Combined General Liability cover

Group Professional Indemnity cover

Group Personal Accident cover

Michael can be contacted through this website or booked for Game Therapy sessions through his Mable Australia (formerly Better Caring) profile: http://www.mable.com.au/carer/michaelth1

Kindly gives Michael a 25% discount on their product range for his game therapy work in the community (which he is also able to pass on to his clients.)

www.knightsofdice.com

Michael has also volunteered for several organisations: the Freedom Wheels program run by Solve Disability Solutions (formerly TADVIC), where he modifies bicycles for kids with disabilities and assists in assessment clinics; The Royal Talbot Rehabiliation Centre (pre-Covid), where he ran free form games programs for ABI patients in the hospitals Rec Room, and assisted the Community Integration & Leisure Services Department in their duties; Whittlesea Community House: with his teenage daughter and primary school age sons, Michael facilitated an art after school program called PLAYSCAPES. The key to the program is letting the children choose and research their own art journey.

Originally a trade-qualified printer, relevant courses in the field that he has studied include diplomas in counselling and leisure & health and certificates in Allied Health Assistance, Cognitive Stimulation Treatment, Applied Behaviour Analysis Therapy, Art Therapy, Life Coaching, Board Game Development, Cartooning and Bicycle Maintenance.

Michael was recently awarded a full financial aid scholarship from Case Western Reserve University in the United States to study their Inspired Leadership specialisation, based on his peer teaching programmes in the Whittlesea community.

It was to facilitate Michaels volunteer work at the Royal Talbot Rehabiliation Centre, that the Game Therapy Network was formed.

Michael wanted to be able to present to patients that he engaged with a list of games that he was able to source to play with them, and also give them access to rules and video tutorials.

Having been involved in gaming since a child, it was natural for him to include his fellow gamer colleagues also involved in the healthcare fields (Please contact him at gametherapynetwork@gmail.com if you are looking for this kind of work).

As a Mable Ambassador, Michael can even fast track your approval.

Michael can be contacted through this website or booked for Game Therapy sessions through his Mable Australia (formerly Better Caring) profile: http://www.mable.com.au/carer/michaelth1

Through Mable, Michael is fully covered by the relevant public liability insurance, etc. The Mable (formerly Better Caring) platform uses Zurich Australian Insurance Limited and Gow-Gates Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd to establish a suite of covers that are made available to all its affiliated care workers when providing services arranged and invoiced through the Mable platform.

The Community Care Liability Insurance cover made available to affiliated care workers includes:

Group Combined General Liability cover

Group Professional Indemnity cover

Group Personal Accident cover

The current rule system is referred to as the 5th edition or 5E.

Both Tarquin Murnane and Michael Thorburn work with Aspergers Victoria as consultant Game Therapists. Tarquin runs games for high-functioning teens on the spectrum, and, as well as developing leisure programs for and representing the organisation in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Michael runs Dungeon Master Training workshops for high functioning people across the lifespan on the spectrum. Michael teaches coping strategies as well as game mechanics. 

Before the game begins, each player creates their player character and records the details (described below) on a character sheet. First, a player determines their character’s ability scores, which consist of Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Each edition of the game has offered differing methods of determining these statistics. The player then chooses a race (species) such as human or elf, a character class (occupation) such as fighter or wizard, an alignment (a moral and ethical outlook), and other features to round out the character’s abilities and backstory, which have varied in nature through differing editions.

During the game, players describe their PC’s intended actions, such as punching an opponent or picking a lock, and converse with the DM, who then describes the result or response. Trivial actions, such as picking up a letter or opening an unlocked door, are usually automatically successful. The outcomes of more complex or risky actions are determined by rolling dice.

Factors contributing to the outcome include the character’s ability scores, skills and the difficulty of the task. In circumstances where a character does not have control of an event, such as when a trap or magical effect is triggered or a spell is cast, a saving throw can be used to determine whether the resulting damage is reduced or avoided. In this case the odds of success are influenced by the character’s class, levels and ability scores.

At the core of Michael Thorburn’s game therapy practice is the belief that learning to play and DM games like Dungeons and Dragons is a life-long activity. Traditionally, it’s hard for players to find an experienced DM. By enabling clients to become Dungeon Masters, Michael can put YOU at the centre of your own social circle.

As the game is played, each PC changes over time and generally increases in capability. Characters gain (or sometimes lose) experience, skills and wealth, and may even alter their alignment or gain additional character classes. The key way characters progress is by earning experience points (XP), which happens when they defeat an enemy or accomplish a difficult task. Acquiring enough XP allows a PC to advance a level, which grants the character improved class features, abilities and skills. XP can be lost in some circumstances, such as encounters with creatures that drain life energy, or by use of certain magical powers that come with an XP cost.

Hit points (HP) are a measure of a character’s vitality and health and are determined by the class, level and constitution of each character. They can be temporarily lost when a character sustains wounds in combat or otherwise comes to harm, and loss of HP is the most common way for a character to die in the game. Death can also result from the loss of key ability scores or character levels. When a PC dies, it is often possible for the dead character to be resurrected through magic, although some penalties may be imposed as a result. If resurrection is not possible or not desired, the player may instead create a new PC to resume playing the game.

Game Therapist Michael Thorburn has developed an invitation only play-by-post forum on this website for his clients to enable them to socialise, keep track of characters and campaigns, and even play role play games online. By keeping the forum invitation-only and  not allowing groups to cross-socialise: privacy, confidentiality and online safety is ensured.

Dungeons and Dragons traditionally uses a full set of polyhedral dice including the iconic 20-sided dice. The game itself, for one so large is breadth and scope, is also one of the cheapest to play. Die sets can be purchased online for less then a dollar, or free randomised dice roller apps can be downloaded from app stores. Hardcover rule and setting books can be purchased, but a lot of content is available for free online in PDF format or as free apps.

Champions, first published in 1981,^[1] was inspired by Superhero: 2044 and The Fantasy Trip as one of the first published role-playing games in which character generation was based on a point-buy system instead of random dice rolls. A player decides what kind of character to play, and designs the character using a set number of “character points,” often abbreviated as “CP.” The limited number of character points generally defines how powerful the character will be. Points can be used in many ways: to increase personal characteristics, such as strength or intelligence; to buy special skills, such as martial arts or computer programming; or to build superpowers, such as supersonic flight or telepathy. This point system was praised by reviewers for the balance it gave character generation over random dice rolls.^[2] The stats in Champions are Strength, Constitution, Body, Dexterity, Intelligence, Ego, and Presence.

Players are required not only to design a hero’s powers, but also the hero’s skills, disadvantages, and other traits. Thus, Champions characters are built with friends, enemies, and weaknesses, along with powers and abilities with varying scales of character point value for each. This design approach intends to make all the facets of Champions characters balanced in relation to each other regardless of the specific abilities and character features. Characters are rewarded with more character points after each adventure, which are then used to buy more abilities, or eliminate disadvantages.

Awards & Honours

• 2013 Golden Geek Best Thematic Board Game Nominee

“After the Earth was used up, we found a new solar system and hundreds of new Earths were terra-formed and colonized. The central planets formed the Alliance and decided all the planets had to join under their rule. There was some disagreement on that point.

After the War, many of the Independents who had fought and lost drifted to the edges of the system, far from Alliance control. Out here, people struggled to get by with the most basic technologies; a ship would bring you work, a gun would help you keep it.

A captain’s goal was simple: find a crew, find a job, keep flying.” — Shepherd Derrial Book “Firefly, the popular Fox television series created by Joss Whedon, comes to life in a new boardgame from Gale Force Nine.

Compelling characters, great storytelling and an evocative universe have made Firefly a fan favorite for over a decade. Now fans of the television show and board games can chart their own course with Firefly: The Game. In Firefly: The Game, players captain their own Firefly-class transport ship, traveling the ‘Verse with a handpicked crew of fighters, mechanics and other travelers.

As a captain desperate for work, players are compelled to take on any job — so long as it pays.

Double-dealing employers, heavy-handed Alliance patrols and marauding Reavers are all in a day’s work for a ship’s captain at the edge of the ‘Verse.”

Rule Manuals Downloads and Video Tutorials

Type of Game:Super Hero Role Playing Game
Awards & Honors:

Synopsis of Game World:
Mutants & Masterminds (abbreviated “M&M” or “MnM”) is a superhero role-playing game based on a variant of the d20 System by Wizards of the Coast. The game system is designed to allow players to create virtually any type of hero or villain desired.

Mutants & Masterminds’ game mechanics use a highly modified version the d20 System. Differences include changes to character creation, injury and damage, hit points, the addition of “hero points” and super powers, the elimination of character classes and attacks of opportunity,a modified skill list, a very different feat selection, and that any equipment possessed is considered a part of the character and purchased in a manner similar to powers

Power Level
M&M characters are not class-based nor do they technically have class levels. Instead, they have a Power Level (or “PL”), and typically a character begins at Power Level 10 instead of Level 1. This allows a character to begin as an already established superhero with incredible abilities. The power level represents the maximum rank of any combat abilities a character can purchase. Each power level typically grants a character an allotment of points to purchase attribute levels, base attack and defense bonuses, saving throws, feats, skill ranks and super powers, though the game encourages game masters to modify the number of points given per level up or down to reflect the style of game they wish to run. All aspects of the character, including abilities, feats, skills, powers, and equipment, are purchased from this pool of points.

The M&M power level restricts the maximum bonus held by skill ranks, ability scores, and most feats and powers. Beyond limiting bonuses, power level does nothing to restrict a character’s power; a power level 10 character can have a maximum strength of 40.

Toughness saves
Damage in M&M is handled differently as well. M&M does not use hit points. Instead, characters have a fourth saving throw called the “toughness save” which is based on their Constitution scores, like the fortitude save. Weapons and powers that do lethal and subdual damage do not roll any dice to determine damage. Instead, damaging attacks are ranked based upon their overall power. For example, a fairly fit but normal human may throw a punch that inflicts +1N (non-lethal) damage, while the irradiated simian mastermind with enhanced strength and razor-sharp claws throws out +12L (lethal) damage. When a character is struck by an attack, he or she rolls a toughness save against a target number equal to the rank of the attack plus 15. Success allows the character to shrug off the attack with minimal effect, while failure results in injury according to the degree of failure and the type of damage. Accumulated damage applies a penalty to further saves, increasing the chances of any given attack knocking out the character.

This system of damage is meant to model the nature of superhero comics, in which many characters can ignore most damage outright while still being susceptible to a lucky punch or superpowered blast. The Mastermind’s Manual rulebook includes notes for conversion to traditional hit points if desired.

Advancement
In M&M, characters are awarded experience points, called “power points” (pp), that can do many beneficial things for the character. As described above, power points are used to purchase powers, feats, skills, abilities, and devices. The specific nature of power points was changed drastically with the 2nd edition of Mutants & Masterminds. In the first edition, when a character accrues 15 pp, they advance a power level, thus raising the caps on power and skill ranks, as well as on power bonus stacking.

Under the second edition, power points and power levels are independent, the latter being set by the gamemaster as a function of the campaign. The 2nd edition version of power level determines only the maximum bonus that any power can give, and does not imply that a character does or does not have the points required to purchase enough levels in any power to reach this limit. Though the two are described as being entirely independent, the Mutants & Masterminds manual recommends that the power level be increased by one with each 15 Power Points awarded.

Hero points
Like many other super-hero role-playing games, M&M uses “hero points”. Hero points allow an unlucky player to be able to hold their own in a battle, thus reducing the amount that luck plays into the gameplay. A hero point can do several things, like allow the reroll of a failed roll of any sort at a crucial moment, including toughness saves to avoid damage. On this reroll numbers under 11 have ten added to them, resulting in a range of 11-20, and a very slim chance of failing.

A player may also use a hero point to ignore fatigue, allowing them to use temporary feats without the negative effects of fatigue that normally occur with such feat usage.

Hero points are generally awarded to a player by the gamemaster when something bad befalls the character, such as the villain escaping without them having a chance of stopping him. This is particularly encouraged if the bad thing in question is something related to one of their disadvantages, and many disadvantages provide no other benefit aside from acting as a source of hero points.

Game Credits: designed by Steve Kenson and published by Green Ronin Publishing.

Zombicide Season 3: Rue Morgue introduces a terrifying new zombie type: the Skinner Zombie! Make sure you put these zombies down hard, otherwise something might come crawling for you! And don’t forget Season 3’s new big bad is the A-Bomb Abomination! An Abomination so twisted and mutated that its elongated arms can drag you back to it as you try to escape!

With all these new foes you’re going to need to team up if you want to survive!! Zombicide Season 3: Rue Morgue introduces teams into the Zombicidefranchise! Players pick from the largest pool of survivors in a Zombicide game yet and form teams to scavenge, loot, and kill zombies! And if you really want to shred through the shuffling dead, you’ll first need to make sure your team has skills that complement each other well.

Zombicide Season 3: Rue Morgue has new zombies, new weapons, new survivors, and even new team mechanics, but the biggest game changer of all is the new optional Player versus Player rule set! Yes, in Rue Morgue players’ teams can go toe-to-toe to see which set of Survivors really deserve to survive! If the zombie apocalypse isn’t horrifying enough for you, then prepare to face off against the deadliest foe yet: Man!

List of expansions: 

The popularity of Zombicide led to the creation of stand-alone expansions and spin-off games. Expansions are divided into “Seasons” (1, 2, and 3). Spin-off games are self-contained and feature significantly different mechanics and settings: fantasy (Black Plague) and sci-fi (Invader). Each Season and spin-off comes with special scenarios and miniatures to play with. We don’t always have access to the latest and greatest releases but will definitely be just as excited as you when we do.

• Zombicide Season 1
• Zombicide Season 2: Prison Outbreak
• Zombicide Season 2: Toxic City Mall
• Zombicide Season 3: Rue Morgue
• Zombicide Season 3: Angry Neighbours
• Zombicide: Black Plague

Release Date: 2015

Publication history
Super Squadron was designed by Joseph Italiano and published by Adventure Simulations in 1983 as a 60-page book and a 24-page book.[1] The second edition was published in 1984 as a boxed set including a 60-page book and a 24-page book, and a pamphlet.[1]

Super Science was the final supplement with expanded rules on powers, vehicles and running a space campaign.

Reception
William A. Barton reviewed Super Squadron in Space Gamer No. 73.[2] Barton commented that “If you have no qualms about random power generation […] Super Squadron is definitely a game you should check out. Even if you don’t wish to switch from Champions, Superworld, or V&V, SS has a lot of source material […] you’ll find useful.”[2]

In Star Wars: Armada, you assume the role of fleet admiral, serving with either the Imperial Navy or Rebel Alliance. You assemble your fleet and engage the enemy. Using the game’s unique maneuver tool, you steer your capital ships across the battlefield, even while squadrons of starfighters buzz around them. Then, as these ships exchange fire, it’s your job to issue the tactical commands that will decide the course of battle and, perhaps, the fate of the galaxy.

Maneuver Tool
The maneuver tool is one of the game’s most innovative features and adds a unique feel to the way your capital ships must accommodate for inertia as they maneuver through the stars.

It consists of a number of segments linked with hinges, which is used to plot the ship’s course. More nimble ships are allowed to turn the ship further at each hinge.

Command Stack
Armada balances the awesome scale of the Star Wars galaxy’s ships and space warfare with intuitive ship designs and accessible rules for issuing commands and resolving combat that make for rich, engaging, and highly tactical play experiences.

Capital ships are extremely powerful war machines, but they’re also massive and sophisticated vessels that can’t swiftly react to every development in the heat of battle. Accordingly, the key to flying these vessels effectively is learning how to plan ahead. You want to issue your commands in such a way that your crews will be ready to execute them at just the right times.

Each of your pre-painted capital ships has a command value, which determines how many commands it will have in its stack at any given point in time. During setup, you secretly build your initial command stack, selecting from any of four different commands, each of which provides a different advantage. Once you have locked your selections, you place the commands in your stack in the order of your choice. Then, during each round of game play, you secretly select and assign a new command to your ship, placing it at the bottom of your command stack, before you reveal the command at the top of your stack and gain its benefits.

AWARDS & HONORS

• 2016 Dragon Awards Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures/Collectible Card/Role Playing Game Nominee
• 2015 UK Games Expo Best Miniatures Game Winner
• 2015 International Gamers Award – General Strategy: Two-players Nominee
• 2015 Golden Geek Best Thematic Board Game Nominee
• 2015 Golden Geek Best 2-Player Board Game Nominee

Find weapons, kill zombies. The more zombies you kill, the more skilled you get; the more skilled you get, the more zombies appear. The only way out is zombicide!

Play ten scenarios on different maps made from the included modular map tiles, download new scenarios from the designer’s website, or create your own!

Release Date: 2012

Amount of Players: 1 – 6

Duration: A game lasts for 20 minutes (beginner board) to 3 hours (expert board).
Suggested Ages: 13 and up.
Difficulty: Strategic thinking is required.
Measured Space Game Board Takes Up

List of expansions: 

The popularity of Zombicide led to the creation of stand-alone expansions and spin-off games. Expansions are divided into “Seasons” (1, 2, and 3). Spin-off games are self-contained and feature significantly different mechanics and settings: fantasy (Black Plague) and sci-fi (Invader). Each Season and spin-off comes with special scenarios and miniatures to play with. We don’t always have access to the latest and greatest releases but will definitely be just as excited as you when we do.

• Zombicide Season 1
• Zombicide Season 2: Prison Outbreak
• Zombicide Season 2: Toxic City Mall
• Zombicide Season 3: Rue Morgue
• Zombicide Season 3: Angry Neighbours
• Zombicide: Black Plague

Game Credits:(Designers) Raphaël Guiton, Jean-Baptiste Lullien, Nicolas Raoult (Artists) Nicolas Fructus, Édouard Guiton, Mathieu Harlaut, Eric Nouhaut (Publishers) CMON Limited, Guillotine Games, Asmodee, Asterion Press, Black Monk, Edge Entertainment, Galápagos Jogos, Hobby World

Where the world’s militaries have failed to stand against the alien invaders, you must succeed. To do so, you must make strategic use of the resources available to you. You must launch Interceptors to shoot down alien UFOs, assign soldiers to key missions, research alien technology, and use that technology to defend your base — all while trying to keep the world from collapsing just long enough that you can coordinate one final mission to repel the invaders for good.

One of the more notable aspects of XCOM: The Board Game is the way that it incorporates a free and innovative digital app into the core of its gameplay. This digital companion will be available both as a downloadable app and as an online tool.

The app’s primary function is to coordinate the escalating alien invasion, randomly selecting from one of five different invasion plans. Each invasion plan represents a general outline that the alien commanders will use to coordinate the arrival of new UFOs, plan strikes against your base, and respond to your successes or failures as it seeks to conquer Earth. The app manages all of these tasks and heightens the game’s tension as it forces you to respond in real-time. Then, after you move quickly to coordinate your response, you engage the enemy in the untimed resolution phase and feed the results to the app. Based upon these results, the app launches the invasion’s next strikes.

Additionally, the app teaches you the rules, controls the information that your satellites provide you, and tracks the progress of your resistance efforts, even as it allows you to enjoy the game at any of three levels of difficulty: Easy, Normal, or Hard.

The use of this app does more than simply streamline your play experience and track your turns in real-time; it also permits a uniquely dynamic turn structure. While the variety of game phases remains the same from round to round, the order in which you and your friends must play through them may change, as may the number of a given phase. As a result, while you’ll want to know where UFOs appear before you deploy your Interceptors, the alien invaders may be able to disrupt your satellite intel and force you to deploy your Interceptors on patrol with limited or no knowledge of the UFOs current whereabouts. Similarly, you may be forced to think about the costs of resolving the world’s crises before you know how many troops you’ll need to commit to your base defense.

The effect of the app is to immerse you deep into the dramatic tension at the core of XCOM: The Board Game, and it ensures that the game presents a challenging and cooperative (or solo) experience like no other. Just like the XCOM department heads that you represent, you’ll need to keep cool heads in order to prevail.

You are humanity’s last hope.

This is one of Game Therapist Michael Thorburn’s favourite games, and one that he has used in art programs where participants paint their own tiles featuring the castles, roads, cities, etc and even create their own meeple tokens.

The tile might feature a city, a road, a cloister, grassland or some combination thereof, and it must be placed adjacent to tiles that have already been played, in such a way that cities are connected to cities, roads to roads, etcetera.

Having placed a tile, the player can then decide to place one of his meeples on one of the areas on it: on the city as a knight, on the road as a robber, on a cloister as a monk, or on the grass as a farmer.

When that area is complete, that meeple scores points for its owner.

During a game of Carcassonne, players are faced with decisions like: “Is it really worth putting my last meeple there?” or “Should I use this tile to expand my city, or should I place it near my opponent instead, giving him a hard time to complete his project and score points?”

Since players place only one tile and have the option to place one meeple on it, turns proceed quickly even if it is a game full of options and possibilities.

EXPANSIONS

An extensive list of expansions is to come.

AWARDS & HONORS

• 2012 Ludo Award Best Board Game Editor’s Choice Winner
• 2004 Vuoden Peli Family Game of the Year Winner
• 2004 Vuoden Peli Family Game of the Year Nominee
• 2004 Hra roku Nominee
• 2002 Årets Spel Best Family Game Winner
• 2001 Spiel des Jahres Winner
• 2001 Spiel des Jahres Nominee
• 2001 Spiel der Spiele Hit mit Freunden Recommended
• 2001 Nederlandse Spellenprijs Nominee
• 2001 International Gamers Awards – General Strategy; Multi-player Nominee
• 2001 Deutscher Spiele Preis Best Family/Adult Game Winner
• 2000 Meeples’ Choice Award

Game of Thrones: Westeros Intrigue is a fast-paced game of cards and intrigue at court, created by renowned game designer Reiner Knizia. Every game is played over a series of rounds, as you and your opponents play character cards in an attempt to claim the Iron Throne for yourselves.

In each round, you pursue your own plans and seek to foil your opponents by playing character cards. Each turn, you will play a character card from your hand, adding to the court at King’s Landing. You can advance your own prospects by playing your character cards cleverly, but certain rules govern exactly where you can place your character cards.

The first character cards must be played in a single row, forming the bottom row of the court. Once there are two cards in a row, you may play a card in a new row above them. The card that you play in the new row, however, must match the House of one of the two cards below it. In Game of Thrones: Westeros Intrigue, character cards are divided between House Stark, House Lannister, House Baratheon, and House Targaryen, and each player may have character cards from any of these Houses in his hand.

The court develops as you and your opponents play cards, but a player will eventually discover that he can no longer legally play a character card. Once this occurs, that player is eliminated and the round continues. A round ends when no one can play another character card, and whoever played the last character card wins the round. In Game of Thrones: Westeros Intrigue, you will play rounds equal to the number of players.

If you win a round of Game of Thrones: Westeros Intrigue, you reap the rewards by drawing an Iron Throne card, which cancels a number of your penalty points. Your opponents, on the other hand, must take penalty points equal to the number of character cards that they have left in their hand. Over the course of the game, players gain penalty points from having character cards at the end of the round, and reduce their penalty points by winning a round and drawing an Iron Throne card. At the end of the game, the player with the least penalty points wins!

Star Wars: Destiny is a collectible dice and card game of battles between iconic heroes and villains that encompasses characters, locations, and themes from the entire Star Wars saga.

In Star Wars: Destiny, two players engage in a fast-paced duel, each striving to eliminate the other’s characters first. The game’s innovative mechanisms combine dice-driven combat with faction-driven hand management. Straightforward rules make the game easy to learn, but also enable deep strategic thinking and clever deck-building. Players can create decks that include characters from every faction and any era, as long as heroes and villains are on opposite sides of the fight. For example, Padmé Amidala might fight alongside Rey and Finn, taking on Jabba the Hutt, Kylo Ren, and Jango Fett.

Each round, you use your characters’ abilities, an assortment of dice, and a carefully constructed thirty-card deck filled with events, upgrades, and supports. You and your opponent alternate actions: activating your dice, playing cards from your hand, attacking your foes, and claiming the battlefield. You need to prove your skills and defeat your opponent’s characters to claim your destiny!

At launch in November 2016, Star Wars: Destiny consists of two starter sets — Reyand Kylo Ren, each with nine dice and 24 cards — and the Awakenings booster packs, each containing one die and five cards.

—description from the publisher

AWARDS & HONORS

• 2017 International Gamers Award – General Strategy: Two-players Nominee
• 2017 Dragon Awards Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures/Collectible Card/Role Playing Game Nomiee
• 2016 Golden Geek Best Card Game Nominee
• 2016 Golden Geek Best 2-Player Board Game Nominee

Game Credits: (publisher) Nickelodeon.

Mike says, “This is a simple game that is easy to play – it is due to this simplicity and the modular board play (sewer tiles that flip over for a result) that make it is a highly adaptable board game. It is a great and customisable option for play therapy sessions.”

Game Credits: designed by Rob Angel.

This expansion brings four new survivors and ten mysterious Zombivor heroes, not to mention ten new missions, four of which can be played with the other game from this same season: Prison Outbreak.

Also, Toxic Zombies are a new feature. These zombies can infect players, turning them into Zombivors.

List of expansions: 

The popularity of Zombicide led to the creation of stand-alone expansions and spin-off games. Expansions are divided into “Seasons” (1, 2, and 3). Spin-off games are self-contained and feature significantly different mechanics and settings: fantasy (Black Plague) and sci-fi (Invader). Each Season and spin-off comes with special scenarios and miniatures to play with. We don’t always have access to the latest and greatest releases but will definitely be just as excited as you when we do.

• Zombicide Season 1
• Zombicide Season 2: Prison Outbreak
• Zombicide Season 2: Toxic City Mall
• Zombicide Season 3: Rue Morgue
• Zombicide Season 3: Angry Neighbours
• Zombicide: Black Plague

Release Date: 2015

Game Credits:

Take on the role of the half-insane drivers for the last delivery company left of earth: the Wasteland Express Delivery Service. In order to scratch out a living in this deranged universe, drivers will deliver goods and guns between the handful of settlements pockmarked throughout the hellscape that you call home and take on missions from the handful of factions still trying to hold onto the last dregs of civilization.

Course, none of this is easy. Inhabiting the post-apocalyptic wasteland are unhinged characters set on unleashing mayhem at every turn. If you want to survive, you’ll have to battle through the psycho raiders who occupy the void between cities. Maybe the world can be saved, maybe you can bring humanity back from the brink. Band the world back together to fight back against the void. Then again, what the f*&% do you care? You’re here to get paid and live another day free. Outfit your truck, get loaded for bear, hire some allies, get paid, and just keep on truckin’.

In the game Azul, players take turns drafting colored tiles from suppliers to their player board. Later in the round, players score points based on how they’ve placed their tiles to decorate the palace. Extra points are scored for specific patterns and completing sets; wasted supplies harm the player’s score. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Recently acquired game. Details to come.

Playing Boss Monster requires you to juggle two competing priorities: the need to lure Heroes at a faster rate than your opponents, and the need to kill those Heroes before they reach your Boss. Players can build one room per turn, each with its own damage and treasure value. More attractive rooms tend to deal less damage, so a Boss who is too greedy can become inundated with deadly Heroes.

Players interact with each other by building rooms and playing Spells. Because different Heroes seek different treasure types, and rooms are built simultaneously (played face down, then revealed), this means that every “build phase” is a bidding war. Spells are instant-speed effects that can give players advantages or disrupt opponents.

As a standalone card game with 155 cards, Boss Monster contains everything that 2-4 players need to play.

Recently acquired game. Details to come.

Gaslands is a tabletop wargame of car-on-car destruction in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Players form a racing team, and compete for money and fame, scrapping in between races for the resources they need for the next race.

Movement consists of movement templates and custom “skid dice” to create a fluid and madcap game.

Gaslands was the winner of both the Judges’ Choice and People’s Choice awards for Best New Miniatures Rules at the UK Games Expo 2018.

Recently acquired game. Details to come.

The website notes:

Greetings wastelanders! If you’re just tuning in, my name is Johnny Atom-Bomb, your humble host broadcasting live from Old Line Radio, the Tri-State Wasteland’s only radio station, excepting derelict government civil defense broadcasts or other dubious transmissions. The wasteland may not look like much, but she’s all we got, and I’m here to help you see another sunset. So load your gun, turn up that dial, and stay tuned.”

—Old Line Radio Opening Sign-on Announcement

The rules of TNT could be used for any post-apocalyptic world, but the official setting begins in the heart of the Tri-State Wasteland, a part of the old Mid-Atlantic States of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
The core rules include, from website “This is Not a Test uses 10-sided dice, referred to as D10 in the rules, and occasionally standard six-sided dice, labeled D6.

Two types of dice roll mechanics resolve all actions: Opposed and Stat tests.

Opposed tests are used for resolving direct actions between figures, mainly close combat. Both players roll a D10 and add the appropriate stat and any applicable modifiers. The highest score wins. Ties always go to the defender.

Stat tests are used when a figure is trying to accomplish an action, usually something unopposed by an enemy model. Examples include opening a locked door or climbing a ledge. The player rolls a D10, adds the relevant stat and any applicable modifiers, and checks to see if he rolled equal to or higher than the required Target Number (TN). The TN is specified by the type of action, as are the results of success or failure. Unless otherwise specified, all stat tests have a TN of 10. Specific types of tests are discussed further under stats.

Additionally, several dice conventions are used.

Critical Hit: A natural roll of 10 on the D10 indicates a lucky bonus. Should a Critical be scored the player may roll a D6 and add the result to their original D10 roll.

Fumble: A natural roll of 1 is always bad, but does not result in any penalties. However, 1s cause additional problems, such as weapon failure or ammo depletion, which are described later in the relevant sections.

D3 – Some rules require the roll of a D3. To get a result roll a D6, where a score of 1 to 2 = 1, 3 to 4 = 2, and 5 to 6 = 3. Rolling a D3 never results in a Critical or Fumble.

Scatter – Scattering means to determine a random direction, usually to represent a misplaced grenade or errant entity. To determine this direction simply roll a scatter die, or if that is unavailable, roll D10 and use the direction the top of the die is pointing, or some other agreed upon method.

Rerolling Dice – Some abilities allow players the opportunity to reroll their dice in the event they are unhappy with the first result. The second result cannot be rerolled even if it is worse. You may not reroll a reroll!”

The game will offer random encounters to give the play a different feel.

“In This Is Not a Test your warband’s problems don’t just start with your opponent, the wasteland itself can be just as danger. TNT offers rules for both hazards of wastes as well as a bestiary of wasteland denizens. At the beginning of each battle, players roll to determine if any hazards are present. There roughly a 50% chance something bad will occur. The point was to offer something a little different without over burdening the players with too much going on.

“Hazards are natural, and unnatural, phenomena that pervade the wasteland. Earthquake, ash storms, unexploded ordinance and other dangerous events. Below are just two examples taken directly from TNT.”

Recently acquired game. Details to come.

Type of Game: Abstract Strategy Game.
Awards &  Honors: 2005 Årets Spill Best Family Game Nominee; 2004 Årets Spel Best Family Game Winner; 2003 Vuoden Peli Family Game of the Year Winner; 2003 Mensa Select Winner; 2003 Australian Games Association Game of the Year; 2002 Spiel des Jahres Recommended; 2002 Japan Boardgame Prize Best Japanese Game Winner; 2002 Japan Boardgame Prize Best Japanese Game Nominee.

Synopsis of Game World:

Blokus (officially pronounced “Block us”) is an abstract strategy game with transparent, Tetris-shaped, colored pieces that players are trying to play onto the board. The only caveat to placing a piece is that it may not lie adjacent to your other pieces, but instead must be placed touching at least one corner of your pieces already on the board.

There is a solitaire variation where one player tries to get rid of all the pieces in a single sitting.

Game Images:

A home made Blokus game is a great art therapy activity.

Release Date: 2000.

Game Credits: (Designer) Bernard Tavitian (Artist) Alan D. Hoch (Publishers) Educational Insights; Mattel; Alary Games; Beverly Enterprises, Inc; danspil; Divisible By Zero (DBZ) Aust Pty Ltd; Euro World; FoxMind Israel; Granna; Green Board Game Co.; Heidelberger Spieleverlag; Hodin; Kaissa Chess & Games; Piatnik; QfreeGames;  Ravensburger Spieleverlag GmbH; Sekkoia; Winning Moves France; Winning Moves Games (USA)

Imperial Assault puts you in the midst of the Galactic Civil War between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire after the destruction of the Death Star over Yavin 4. In this game, you and your friends can participate in two separate games. The campaign game pits the limitless troops and resources of the Galactic Empire against a crack team of elite Rebel operatives as they strive to break the Empire’s hold on the galaxy, while the skirmish game invites you and a friend to muster strike teams and battle head-to-head over conflicting objectives.

In the campaign game, Imperial Assault invites you to play through a cinematic tale set in the Star Wars universe. One player commands the seemingly limitless armies of the Galactic Empire, threatening to extinguish the flame of the Rebellion forever. Up to four other players become heroes of the Rebel Alliance, engaging in covert operations to undermine the Empire’s schemes. Over the course of the campaign, both the Imperial player and the Rebel heroes gain new experience and skills, allowing characters to evolve as the story unfolds.

Imperial Assault offers a different game experience in the skirmish game. In skirmish missions, you and a friend compete in head-to-head, tactical combat. You’ll gather your own strike force of Imperials, Rebels, and Mercenaries and build a deck of command cards to gain an unexpected advantage in the heat of battle. Whether you recover lost holocrons or battle to defeat a raiding party, you’ll find danger and tactical choices in every skirmish.

As an additional benefit, the Luke Skywalker Ally Pack and the Darth Vader Villain Pack are included within the Imperial Assault Core Set. These figure packs offer sculpted plastic figures alongside additional campaign and skirmish missions that highlight both Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader within Imperial Assault. With these Imperial Assault Figure Packs, you’ll find even more missions that allow your heroes to fight alongside these iconic characters from the Star Wars saga.

Amount of Players:2 to 5.
Measured Space Game Board Takes Up:
Duration: 60 -120 min
Suggested Ages: 14+
Difficulty: medium.

At the start of each turn, you roll six dice, which show the following six symbols: 1, 2, or 3 Victory Points, Energy, Heal, and Attack. Over three successive throws, choose whether to keep or discard each die in order to win victory points, gain energy, restore health, or attack other players into understanding that Tokyo is YOUR territory.

The fiercest player will occupy Tokyo, and earn extra victory points, but that player can’t heal and must face all the other monsters alone!

Top this off with special cards purchased with energy that have a permanent or temporary effect, such as the growing of a second head which grants you an additional die, body armor, nova death ray, and more…. and it’s one of the most explosive games of the year!

In order to win the game, one must either destroy Tokyo by accumulating 20 victory points, or be the only surviving monster once the fighting has ended.

Game Credits: designed by Richard Garfield, Published by IELLO, Various artists.

Game Credits: (publisher) USAopoly.

Every Seeker zombie get an additional activation every time a seeker zombie spawn card is drawn.

Angry Neighbors brings four new survivors to your apocalypse, each with their own special abilities, and their Zombivor counterpart!

Angry Neighbors brings more than just new survivors to your party, it brings you companions! These four special human companion miniatures are here to support you! These companions may be strong enough to survive on their own, but can’t commit zombicide like you do! Rescue them, lead them, and add their firepower and special abilities to your party!

Angry Neighbors wants you enter the next era of the apocalypse! Set at the same time as Rue Morgue, buildings have crumbled and roads have collapsed. Now gaping holes litter the city’s streets! With poor decision making you may find your survivors slowed down in these holes, and with a wrong move you may just end up in zombie filled pit from hell!

With these new zombies and environmental hazards, you’re going to need something to keep you safe! Luckily for you, Angry Neighbors adds all new weapons to your core game as well as a collection of Ultrared equipment! These equipment cards offer the most powerful and potent zombie-obliterating weapons in the Zombicide universe to date! Perfect to up your survivors’ survivability!

Fend Off the Angry Neighbors!

List of expansions: 

The popularity of Zombicide led to the creation of stand-alone expansions and spin-off games. Expansions are divided into “Seasons” (1, 2, and 3). Spin-off games are self-contained and feature significantly different mechanics and settings: fantasy (Black Plague) and sci-fi (Invader). Each Season and spin-off comes with special scenarios and miniatures to play with. We don’t always have access to the latest and greatest releases but will definitely be just as excited as you when we do.

• Zombicide Season 1
• Zombicide Season 2: Prison Outbreak
• Zombicide Season 2: Toxic City Mall
• Zombicide Season 3: Rue Morgue
• Zombicide Season 3: Angry Neighbours
• Zombicide: Black Plague

Release Date: 2013

Game Credits:

AWARDS & HONORS

• 2008 JoTa Best Monster Board Game Nominee

It depicts WWII on a grand scale, full global level. Up to five players can play on two different teams.

The Axis which has Germany and Japan, and the Allies which has the USA, the United Kingdom, and the USSR. A full map of the world is provided, broken up in various chunks similar to Risk.

The game comes with gobs of plastic miniatures that represent various military units during WWII. Players have at their disposal infantry, armor, fighters, bombers, battleships, aircraft carriers, submarines, troop transports, anti-air guns, and factories.

All of the units perform differently and many have special functions. Players have to work together with their teammates in order to coordinate offenses and decide how best to utilize their production points.

Players also have the option of risking production resources on the possibility of developing a super technology that might turn the tide of war.

Axis and Allies was originally published by Nova Games in 1981.

EXPANSIONS IN GAME THERAPISTS COLLECTIONS

AXIS and Allies Pacific
AXIS and Allies Guadacanal
AXIS and Allies D-Day

AWARDS & HONORS

• 2001 Origins Awards Best Historical Board Game Winner

From the publisher’s website:

Axis & Allies Pacific is the second stand-alone game expansion to the Axis & Alliesgame system. In this game, three main powers (Britain, Japan, and the US) square off against each other against the backdrop of the Pacific ocean. Japan is trying to grow her empire, either through military might or by holding off the Allies long enough to consolidate her gains.

The game adds a few new rules and a few new twists to the established A&A game system. Naval bases and air bases turn small, meaningless islands into vital strategic holdings. Convoy zones allow a single submarine pack to cripple an economy. The Chinese forces, while limited, are hard to crush. Japan gets her kamikazes, but will it be enough to hold off the vast economic power of the USA?

Axis and Allies was originally published by Nova Games in 1981.

EXPANSIONS IN GAME THERAPISTS COLLECTIONS

AXIS and Allies Core Game
AXIS and Allies Guadacanal
AXIS and Allies D-Day

AWARDS & HONORS
2005 Årets Spill Best Strategy Game Nominee
2004 Origins Awards Gamers’ Choice Award Winner

From the Avalon Hill web site:

It’s the morning of June 6, 1944. As Allied forces prepare to storm Normandy’s beaches, the fate of Europe is in your hands! In honor of next year’s 60th anniversary of D-Day, Avalon Hill will release Axis & Allies D-Day, a new, stand-alone extension of the classic strategy game Axis & Allies. Axis & Allies D-Day will allow players to recreate the largest amphibious invasion in history.

Axis & Allies D-Day features detailed game components including a new blockhouse piece, an extra-large game board, and original artwork commissioned exclusively for the D-Day game box. Other elements of this new Axis & Allies variant include a card deck with three card types — Orders, Tactics, and Fortune — to add depth and complexity to play. Order cards determine play sequence and break turns into distinct phases; Tactics cards offer players varied strategic opportunities; and Fortune cards add an element of unpredictability.

Axis & Allies D-Day begins as Operation Overlord, the invasion of German-held Normandy, is underway — 130,000 soldiers of the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States are poised to assault Fortress Europe. You and your fellow world powers control their fates.

One player controls Germany, whose Axis forces have turned the beaches of Normandy into a near-impenetrable stronghold. Set to breach those defenses are the Allies: the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. The future of Europe and the world hangs in the balance.

Axis & Allies D-Day is designed for two or three players and can be played in two hours. Axis & Allies D-Day is the third Axis & Allies variant, following the successful Axis & Allies Europe and Axis & Allies Pacific, both of which were published in 2001.

Axis and Allies was originally published by Nova Games in 1981.

EXPANSIONS IN GAME THERAPISTS COLLECTIONS

AXIS and Allies Pacific
AXIS and Allies Guadacanal
AXIS and Allies Core Game

AWARDS & HONORS

• 2008 JoTa Best Monster Board Game Nominee

It depicts WWII on a grand scale, full global level. Up to five players can play on two different teams.

From Wizards website:

A sweeping conflict in the South Pacific where naval might leads to air superiority. Axis and Allies: Guadalcanal challenges you to control sea zones and island groups while managing troop and supply transport and directing land, sea, and air forces in one of the decisive campaigns of the Second World War’s Pacific Theater.

• Created by Larry Harris, designer of the Axis and Allies board game.
• Incorporates crucial elements that were key factors in the historical campaign, such as air strip construction, troop and supply transport, and furious land, sea, and air battles.
• Introduces the Cruiser unit as well as mechanics for land, sea and air combat in the South Pacific using a randomized casualties system.
• Provides fans with the historical counterpoint to the World War II experience offered by Axis and Allies: Battle of the Bulge.

Note the following errata from the AH website:
The rulebook states that players get 5 reinforcement points, plus 2 per island they control. This is incorrect due to an error in the rulebook. The correct reinforcement scheme is that each player gets 10 reinforcement, plus 4 per island they control. The game is playable either way, but Avalon Hill recommends playing the correct way (10 and 4 per). We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes.

EXPANSIONS IN GAME THERAPISTS COLLECTIONS

AXIS and Allies Pacific
AXIS and Allies Core Game
AXIS and Allies D-Day

Each player has a circular playing piece with six pie-shaped holes. The goal of the game is to collect a pie in each color. The colors correspond to different question categories.

The board consists of a circular track with spaces in seven different colors. Six of the colors correspond to question categories while the last color gives a new dice roll. Six spaces along the track are “pie spaces”, and from these there are “spokes” of track leading to the middle of the board.

Players roll a die and move along the track in any direction they like. When a player stops on a color they get a question of the appropriate category. If the player answers a question correctly while on a pie space, they get a pie of that color (assuming they don’t already have it). A correct answer on another square allows the player to roll again.

Once the player has one pie in each color, she can move along the spokes to the middle of the board to win the game.

• Mike says, “This is another classic game that I have found lends itself well to art therapy sessions and creative personalisation. Being such a classic game – it is another readily available op shop find.”

Game Mechanic Used: roll to move, spin to move, answer questions to move.

Categories: party game, trivia.

List of expansions:nil

Release Date: 1981

Amount of Players: 2-24.
Measured Space Game Board Takes Up:
Duration: 90 minutes.
Suggested Ages: 12+
Difficulty: (broken down into healthcare fields)skills required ie. Strategic thinking. Memorisation.

Which therapists offer it: Michael THORBURN
Copies on Hand: (game might be personal collection, donated to network stocks or part of hospital stock) 3 personal stock.

Game Credits: (Designer) Scott Abbot, Chris Haney.

You are racing to collect your combination of the Key of Chronos and return to a hero’s welcome on Gallifrey.

Not only must you contend with the inhabitants of the many planets you will discover, but also with the threat from other Doctors, all intent on getting their Keys home.

To help you in this mission are many artifacts ranging from the Tardis to the legendary Jelly Babies.

Everything combines to give a fast, furious and fun game as you tread boldly where no Time Lord has gone before.

The game is abstract, each player has set of pawns of his color. Each turn player rolls a die using the Pop-O-Matic and selects one of his pawns to move. Pawns can enter the track from Home base only on a roll of six. Each pawn needs to travel around the board and finish on the Finish lane. If pawn of another player is bumped, the bumped pawn is returned to home. The goal is to be the first one to get all the pawns to the Finish lane.

For advanced players, we suggest that when a piece gets bumped, it should only be bumped back to its START space, rather than to its HOME. Only when bumped from their START space are pieces sent HOME.

Mike says, “This game is great when used as an art therapy resource where clients paint or illustrate their own spin on the popomatic board. Trouble has been around for so long and  in so many iterations , that it is easy to find $1 op shop  deals for this purpose.”

Game Mechanic Used: Roll to move.

Categories: Children’s game, racing game.

List of expansions: nil.

Release Date: 1965.

Amount of Players: 2-4.
Measured Space Game Board Takes Up:
Duration: 45 minutes.
Suggested Ages: 4+
Difficulty: Light.

Which therapists offer it: Michael THORBURN
Copies on Hand: (game might be personal collection, donated to network stocks or part of hospital stock) 1 personal stock.

Game Credits: (Designer) Frank Kohner, Paul Kohner, Fred Kroll
(Artist) Peyo.

Players can simulate a one-day international, or a full five-day test match.

Mike Says, “The pieces came unpainted, and could be painted the colors of your favorite teams. I have even used this game with other favourite toys as fieldsmen.”

Zombicide: Black Plague allows you take control of paladins, dwarves, knights, and magicians, wielding powerful swords, crossbows, and even magic spells to defeat the zombie hordes and its Necromancer overlords. The classic Zombicide rules have been revamped for this new incarnation of the game, while still retaining the nonstop action, tense atmosphere and easy-to-learn rules that made Zombicide a classic. Equip your survivor with equipment like chainmail armor or shields to defend against the undead, pick up spell books to perform fantastic enchantments, or light up a pool of dragon bile to create an all-consuming inferno of dragon fire!

Take on the zombie invasion from the medieval streets to secret vaults that create quick passages through the citadel (and often hold special artifacts). Chase down the elusive Necromancers to keep them from multiplying the zombie masses. And tackle a whole new set of missions through which your group of survivors will become the heroes of the land (or the last victims of the zombie massacre).

List of expansions: 

The popularity of Zombicide led to the creation of stand-alone expansions and spin-off games. Expansions are divided into “Seasons” (1, 2, and 3). Spin-off games are self-contained and feature significantly different mechanics and settings: fantasy (Black Plague) and sci-fi (Invader). Each Season and spin-off comes with special scenarios and miniatures to play with. We don’t always have access to the latest and greatest releases but will definitely be just as excited as you when we do.

• Zombicide Season 1
• Zombicide Season 2: Prison Outbreak
• Zombicide Season 2: Toxic City Mall
• Zombicide Season 3: Rue Morgue
• Zombicide Season 3: Angry Neighbours
• Zombicide: Black Plague

Release Date: 2015

Game Credits:

The game is played in rounds. The player sets up the base character and all the equipment equipped. This represents every player as a fully equipped dungeon delver.

Each round, the start player (the person who challenged the dungeon last or the last player to be in a dungeon) can choose to draw a card from the monster deck or pass their turn.

If they choose to draw, they can do one of two things: (1) keep it and de-equip an equipment or (2) place it face down in the dungeon. Placing it face down in the dungeon creates the dungeon deck and fills the dungeon with monsters that the challenger will have to face later. If they choose to pass their turn, they cannot participate in the rest of the round. Once only one person is left after all the other players have passed their turn, that player then becomes the challenger and must go into the dungeon with only the equipment he has equipped.

The player then flips cards off the dungeon deck and fights the monsters within. Some equipment allow you to null the enemy damage or be able to withstand it by increasing your HP. If the player survives the dungeon with at least 1 HP, they win that round. If not, they lose. The players then reshuffles all the cards to make a new monster deck and re-equips all the equipment to start a new round.

The game ends when someone has won twice or one player is the last man standing.

Welcome to the Dungeon includes four different sets of character cards whereas Dungeon of Mandom has only a single character.

Game Credits: (Designer) Masato Uesugi (Artists) Dimitri Chappuis; Bastien GrivetPaul Mafayon; Igor Polouchine; Régis Torres; Masato Uesug.

The action takes place on a map of Ankh-Morpork, with players trying to place minions and buildings through card play. Each of the 132 cards is unique, and “the cards bring the game to life as they include most of the famous characters that have appeared in the various books. The rules are relatively simple: Play a card and do what it says. Most cards have more than one action on them, and you can choose to do some or all of these actions. Some cards also allow you to play a second card, so you can chain actions” (Wallace).

A team of artists have recreated the city and its residents for the cards, game board and box, with Bernard Pearson coordinating that team. Ankh-Morpork has been sublicensed to Mayfair Games for the North American market and Kosmos for the German market.

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a cooperative, fixed-deck card game with a comic book flavor. Each player plays as one of ten heroes, against one of four villains, and the battle takes place in one of four different dynamic environments.

Each player, after selecting one of the heroes, plays a deck of 40 cards against the villain and environment decks, which “play themselves”, requiring the players to put the top card of the appropriate deck into play on the villain and environment turns. On each player’s turn, they may play a card from their hand, use a power printed on one of their cards in play, and draw a card from their deck. Each round starts with the villain turn, continues clockwise around the table, then concludes with the environment turn. Each villain has various advantages, such as starting with certain cards in play, as specified by the villain character card. Play continues until the heroes reduce the villain to 0 or fewer HP, or until the villain defeats the heroes, either via a win condition or by reducing all the heroes to 0 or fewer HP.

The Kevin Bloody Wilson Pub Krawl is an hilarious, fast-paced and just slightly naughty board game for 2 to 6 players- male, female or mixed! But then, what else would you expect from Kev! Race the other players round town on your pub crawl, stopping for a drink at your favourite watering holes on the way. Pick up a Kev Kard and face the challenge – or pay the penalty! Impress your friends with your balancing skills!

Warning: Designed for adults only. Although billed as a “pub crawl” it is NOT necessary for players to drink alcohol to participate fully in this game – and still have a great night out at home!

Although Toon is a genuine role-playing game requiring the participation of players and a game master (called the “Animator”), it is designed with a tongue-in-cheek style that deliberately parodies many of the conventions of more standard, “serious” role-playing games.

In Toon the player characters never die.[1] As in many role-playing games, characters have hit points, which are deducted when the character is injured (usually in combat, or by having anvils fall on them). When characters are reduced to zero hit points they do not die or fall unconscious, but fall down. Since cartoon characters never actually die, and always return in time for the next scene, a fallen down character returns to play a set time later, with all hit points restored.

This lack of true “character death” is also designed to encourage players to deliberately abandon the skills and reflexes they learned in other games, namely to have their characters able to solve problems and fight enemies while staying alive.[5] According to the game’s rules, the two prime directives for Toon players to follow are “Forget Everything You Know” and “Act Before You Think”.[1]

The game encourages players to have fun above all other considerations – even to the point of breaking the rules of the game. If the players and the Animator agree that a players’ actions in a game are funny and enjoyable, then that players’ actions are allowed and encouraged. This can be seen as a way for players to “break the fourth wall” in the game, in the same way that animated cartoons often ignore reality for the sake of laughs.

The game uses a very simple skill-based task resolution system based on a list of only 23 skills that cover all possible character actions. These are assigned to four controlling attributes, humorously named “Muscle” (strength), “Zip” (dexterity and speed), “Smarts” (intelligence) and “Chutzpah” (pushiness and self-confidence).[3] In addition, characters can have optional “Shticks”, which give them unusual cartoon-like abilities, such as flying or invisibility.

The game was inspired by the classic Warner Bros. cartoons of the 1930s through the 1960s, and characters such as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, but Steve Jackson Games is careful to avoid any copyright violations. For example, there is an “Ace Corporation” in Toon products (instead of the Acme Corporation), and the writers’ guidelines for Toon prohibit the use of the word “toon” to mean “a cartoon character”.[6]

Zombicide Season 2: Prison Outbreak takes the players to an indoor environment with vicious close-ranged fights, Prison Outbreak contains all the needed material for a new player to enter the Zombicide universe, and lots of content, almost all new, for an existing Zombicide player to expand his game experience. In fact, Prison Outbreak holds even more material than the core game published in 2012 (now nicknamed Season 1)!

The Prison Outbreak will feature berserker zombies. They’re really tied to each other. Prison tiles display tortuous alleys, small rooms and doors everywhere, filled with berserker zombies immune to ranged weapons. You have to think fast, foresee the improbable and jump into melee at every turn. This is like a modern dungeon where levers are replaced with switches to open or lock doors, use security rooms and reach secret areas.

Prison Outbreak also contains six new survivors with their Zombivor aspects. These survivors are really designed to act as a team, as their skills really complement each other. They’re precious assets to any Zombicide team.

Missions featured in the rulebook form a campaign on their own, as survivors battle to turn a zombie-filled prison into a reliable shelter. Many challenges await them, but they have new tools of the trade: riot shields, automatic shotguns, concrete saws and many more toys. There’s even an alternate ending.

List of expansions:
The popularity of Zombicide led to the creation of stand-alone expansions and spin-off games. Expansions are divided into “Seasons” (1, 2, and 3). Spin-off games are self-contained and feature significantly different mechanics and settings: fantasy (Black Plague) and sci-fi (Invader). Each Season and spin-off comes with special scenarios and miniatures to play with. We don’t always have access to the latest and greatest releases but will definitely be just as excited as you when we do.

• Zombicide Season 1
• Zombicide Season 2: Prison Outbreak
• Zombicide Season 2: Toxic City Mall
• Zombicide Season 3: Rue Morgue
• Zombicide Season 3: Angry Neighbours
• Zombicide: Black Plague

Release Date: 2013

Game Credits:

Whatever your chosen vessel, the rules of X-Wing facilitate fast and visceral gameplay that puts you in the middle of Star Wars fiercest firefights. Each ship type has its own unique piloting dial, which is used to secretly select a speed and maneuver each turn. After planning maneuvers, each ship’s dial is revealed and executed (starting with the lowest skilled pilot). So whether you rush headlong toward your enemy showering his forward deflectors in laser fire, or dance away from him as you attempt to acquire a targeting lock, you’ll be in total control throughout all the tense dogfighting action.

Star Wars: X-Wing features (three) unique missions, and each has its own set of victory conditions and special rules; with such a broad selection of missions, only clever and versatile pilots employing a range of tactics will emerge victorious. What’s more, no mission will ever play the same way twice, thanks to a range of customization options, varied maneuvers, and possible combat outcomes. Damage, for example, is determined through dice and applied in the form of a shuffled Damage Deck. For some hits your fighter sustains, you’ll draw a card that assigns a special handicap. Was your targeting computer damaged, affecting your ability to acquire a lock on the enemy? Perhaps an ill-timed weapon malfunction will limit your offensive capabilities. Or worse yet, your pilot could be injured, compromising his ability to focus on the life-and-death struggle in which he is engaged…

The Star Wars: X-Wing starter set includes everything you need to begin your battles, such as scenarios, cards, and fully assembled and painted ships. What’s more, Star Wars: X-Wing’s quick-to-learn ruleset establishes the foundation for a system that can be expanded with your favorite ships and characters from the Star Wars universe.

Game Images:

Game Mechanic Used: strategy turn based; action / Movement Programming; Dice Rolling; Player Elimination; Simultaneous Action Selection; Variable Player Powers.

Categories: Aviation / Flight; Collectible Components; Science Fiction Wargame Mechanisms; Action / Movement Programming; Dice Rolling; Player Elimination ; Simultaneous Action Selection ; Variable Player Power.

List of expansions: link to new pages if necessary

Release Date: 2012.

Amount of Players: 2+
Measured Space Game Board Takes Up:
Duration: 20- 40min.
Suggested Ages: 10+
Difficulty: skills required: Strategic thinking. Memorisation.

Which therapists offer it: Michael Thorburn , Chris Millagin, Tarquin Murnane. Both Chris and Tarquin have competed at tournament level with this game and can offer coaching as well as gameplay.

Copies on Hand: (game might be personal collection, donated to network stocks or part of hospital stock) multiple expansions and core sets for both 1st edition and 2nd edition versions.

Michael’s List:

How-to-play Videos

Part 01: OVERVIEW

Part 02: GAMEPLAY

Part 03: COMBAT

Part 04: SQUADRONS

Game Credits:

Fallout is a post-nuclear adventure board game for one to four players. Based on the hit video game series by Bethesda Softworks, each Falloutscenario is inspired by a familiar story from the franchise. Survivors begin the game on the edge of an unexplored landscape, uncertain of what awaits them in this unfamiliar world. With just one objective to guide them from the very beginning, each player must explore the hidden map, fight ferocious enemies, and build the skills of their survivor as they attempt to complete challenging quests and balance feuding factions within the game.

As they advance their survivors’ stories, players come across new quests and individual targets, leading them to gain influence. Who comes out ahead depends on how keenly and aggressively each player ventures through the game; however, if a single faction is pushed to power too quickly, the wasteland will be taken for their own, and the survivors conquered along with it.

Type of Game: Story driven advanced board game
Awards & Honors: 2017 Golden Geek Best Thematic Board Game Nominee

Game Credits: (Designer) Andrew Fischer, Nathan I Hajek (Publisher) Fantasy Flight Games)

In Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters, a.k.a. Geister, Geister, Schatzsuchmeister!, four intrepid treasure hunters are on a quest, searching for precious hidden jewels, but the phantoms in this house do not give up their bounty easily. As their ghoulish numbers grow, the treasure hunters must work together to acquire all eight jewels and escape the house before it becomes fully haunted or else face their own gruesome demise.

Players roll dice to determine how many spaces they move this turn and whether a new ghost is added to the board. Players may move up to the number of spaces shown on the die. If they end their movement in a space with a treasure, they may pick it up and place it in their backpack. If they end their movement in a space with a ghost, they fight that ghost by rolling a fight die. If they roll the matching symbol, they remove the ghost from the game board.

If the players must add a third ghost to a room, it transforms into a haunting. A haunting requires at least two people in the room to attempt a fight with it. Players win if they can get all eight treasures and their whole team out of the house; they lose if all six hauntings are on the board.

Mike says, “This is a very cute and engaging game. I have seen it capture the attention of 15 year old boys and 8 year old boys.”

How-to-play Video

Game Credits: (designer) Brian Yu (artist) Piero (publisher) Mattel.

In a game you will usually have between 4-7 characters on your team. Each of these characters act individually using their own Power to carry out different attacks and use Special Powers.
Many can help or hinder each others though with boosts and actions like a Fastball Special.

The aim of the game is to win set scenarios by completing different tasks and scoring Victory Points. These could be anything from take down / save the highest Level model in the team or rescue and keep a Cosmic Relic.

Each character comes with their own Stat Card which shows everything they can do. Attacks, Defence, Skills, Power, Damage and such.
These are then used in a 2 D8 mechanic during the game. For example, 2D8 plus Attack Stat vs Defence Stat or 2D8 against your own Agility.

Earth’s Mightiest Heroes joined forces to take on threats that were too big for any one hero to tackle. With a roster that has included Captain America, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Hulk, Thor, Wasp and dozens more over the years, the Avengers have come to be regarded as Earth’s No. 1 team.

Game Mechanic Used: Dice rolling, player vs player.

Categories:super heroes, skirmish wargames, comic books.

List of expansions: link to new pages if necessary

Release Date:2015

Amount of Players:2
Measured Space Game Board Takes Up: 4 feet x 4 feet.
Duration: Up to 120 min
Suggested Ages:12+
Difficulty: Wheelchair clients may need the game to be played on a lowered surface to give them a full view of the game board to position their pieces. They may need either a support worker or the other player to position their pieces.

Which therapists offer it: Michael & Chris.
Copies on Hand: (game might be personal collection, donated to network stocks or part of hospital stock) multiple.

Game Credits: published by Knight Models.

Play lasts for a pre-determined length of time or number of rounds. If an Escape Officer can free a pre-determined number of POWs (usually 2) before then, they win. Otherwise the Security Officer wins.

The game was co-designed by Major PR Reid, a British soldier who was one of the few to actually successfully escape from Colditz during the Second World War.

Each player starts the round with an identical set of eleven morning tea cards. Each card has a point value as well a special action which must be carried out when it is played. The lower the point value of a card, the better its power. The powers lead to surprising interactions between the players! Cards must also be played to a specific position on the table. Whenever a card is played, in most cases you pick up the card that was previously in its position, requiring you to plan your morning tea carefully!

The round ends when a player plays the “Elevenses” card. It’s time for tea! The players compare the value of their cards. Points are awarded to the highest scoring morning teas. The game continues until a player has 7 or more points. She has served the finest morning teas of all and wins the game!

The six-card expansion Elevenses: The Special Guests is included in the game. With this expansion, each player is dealt one special guest card in secret at the start of each round. Each guest will come to your morning tea only if you serve certain things. If you play the right combination of morning tea cards, the guest arrives, you reveal the card, and your morning tea goes up in value!

Game Images:

Game Credits: David Harding, TJ Lubrano, Grail Games.

Awards & Honors: 2015 Best Australian Awards Best Australian Game Nominee

Players collect cards of various types of train cars they then use to claim railway routes in North America. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Additional points come to those who fulfill Destination Tickets – goal cards that connect distant cities; and to the player who builds the longest continuous route.

“The rules are simple enough to write on a train ticket – each turn you either draw more cards, claim a route, or get additional Destination Tickets,” says Ticket to Ride author, Alan R. Moon. “The tension comes from being forced to balance greed – adding more cards to your hand, and fear – losing a critical route to a competitor.”

Ticket to Ride continues in the tradition of Days of Wonder’s big format board games featuring high-quality illustrations and components including: an oversize board map of North America, 225 custom-molded train cars, 144 illustrated cards, and wooden scoring markers.

Since its introduction and numerous subsequent awards, Ticket to Ride has become the epitome of a “gateway game” — simple enough to be taught in a few minutes, and with enough action and tension to keep new players involved and in the game for the duration.

Game Mechanic Used: card drafting, route building, network building

Categories: hand management, trains, travel, family games.

HOW TO PLAY

We can show you the ropes when it comes to playing this game in person. In the mean time, or if you’d like to see if this is the game for you, we encourage you to watch this short video tutorial and/or download or view the game manual.

Video Tutorial

Game Manual (click to download) 

List of expansions: while there are now several years worth of expansions (train routes on different continents primarily) with this game, we only list the ones we have direct access to.

Release Date: 2004.

Amount of Players: 2-5.
Measured Space Game Board Takes Up:
Duration: 30-60min

Suggested Ages: 8+
Difficulty: slight.

Which therapists offer it: Michael THORBURN
Copies on Hand: (game might be personal collection, donated to network stocks or part of hospital stock) 1 personal stock (MT).

“I love route building games and I love railroads so my goal with Ticket to Ride was to design a game that combined those two things in the simplest way possible, while retaining a game that was fun to play no matter how many times you played it.

I also wanted the emphasis to be on building routes from coast to coast. People often ask me if I knew the game would be a hit. But if I’d known that, I would have designed it twenty years earlier.”

Learn more about Alan R. Moon

Ticket to Ride

Game Credits:Designer Alan R. Moon
Artist Cyrille Daujean, Julien Delval

Each player has a deck of objective cards representing various missions plus a deck of player cards of units (characters, vehicles, droids and creatures), events, enhancements and fates. Each objective is linked to a set of five player cards. Deck construction consists of choosing which objectives are to go into your objective deck, then adding each of those objective’s set of five player cards to your player deck. Game play consists of deploying cards to your tableau, attacking your opponent’s objectives, defending your own objectives, and committing cards to the Force Struggle.

The Empire wins if the Death Star dial reaches 12, with this dial increasing by one on each dark side turn, effectively putting a timer on the game. It may also be increased by winning the Force struggle, destroying light side objectives, and via card effects. The Rebels win by destroying three dark side objectives before the Empire wins.

Game Images:

Game Mechanic Used: Card drafting, hand management, living card game.

Categories: Collectible card game, science fiction, movie theme.

List of expansions: link to new pages if necessary

Release Date: 2012.

Amount of Players: 2.
Measured Space Game Board Takes Up:
Duration: 60 min.
Suggested Ages: 12+.
Difficulty: Medium to high.

Which therapists offer it: Michael THORBURN
Copies on Hand: (game might be personal collection, donated to network stocks or part of hospital stock) 1 personal stock (MT)

Download the Rules As An E-Booklet
StarWars The Card Game Rulebook

Videos:

Part 1: Overview

Part 2: Gameplay

Part 3: Gameplay

Part 4: Gameplay

Part 5: Deck Building

Game Credits: (Designer) Eric M. Lang (Artists) Christopher Burdett; Tony Foti; Henning Ludvigsen; Vlad Ricean (Publishers) Fantasy Flight Games.

• 2005 Japan Boardgame Prize Best Advanced Game Nominee
• 2004 Origins Awards Gamers’ Choice Award Winner

From the press release:

Betrayal at House on the Hill quickly builds suspense and excitement as players explore a haunted mansion of their own design, encountering spirits and frightening omens that foretell their fate. With an estimated one hour playing time, Betrayal at House on the Hill is ideal for parties, family gatherings or casual fun with friends.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a tile game that allows players to build their own haunted house room by room, tile by tile, creating a new thrilling game board every time. The game is designed for three to six people, each of whom plays one of six possible characters.

Secretly, one of the characters betrays the rest of the party, and the innocent members of the party must defeat the traitor in their midst before it’s too late! Betrayal at House on the Hill will appeal to any game player who enjoys a fun, suspenseful, and strategic game.

Betrayal at House on the Hill includes detailed game pieces, including character cards, pre-painted plastic figures, and special tokens, all of which help create a spooky atmosphere and streamline game play.

An updated reprint of Betrayal at House on the Hill was released on October 5, 2010.

This game is about buying the latest geeky gadgets and gamer items.

Each player takes on the personality of one of the stars of John Kovalic’s comic “Dork Tower” in an attempt to purchase and possess the items that satisfy their obsessions. Of course, tastes are prone to change (one week it’s LARPs, the next it’s Computer Games), so players are constantly trying to purchase/trade/auction items so as to reach a certain number of points (items in your obsession count double towards victory).

A light-hearted game with loads of gamer/otaku/LARP humor makes this a nice filler game that anyone can play.

NOTE: Some form of currency/money is needed to play this game.

On one side of this galactic battleground are the heroes of the Rebel Alliance. Only rarely can these heroes go toe to toe with the unlimited reserves of the Imperial Navy and Army. Instead, the iconic characters of Star Wars and the unsung heroes of the Rebellion must work in secret, utilizing diplomacy, reconnaissance, and the Force to achieve their aims. Even when the Rebellion deploys its full military strength to win a battle or destroy a key Imperial emplacement, they need the groundwork put in place by Alliance Special Forces.

Opposing the heroic endeavors of the Rebel Alliance is the massive power of the Empire, led by the twisted Emperor. The dark side of the Force is strong with the Emperor and Darth Vader, and the military might of the Empire is unparalleled across the galaxy. Whether you undertake aggressive negotiations or hire bounty hunters and scum to ferret out Rebel spies, making the Empire the ultimate power in the galaxy rests in your hands.

To successfully win these struggles and reclaim the galaxy in Star Wars: Empire vs. Rebellion, you will need to utilize all of your resources. Every turn, you can increase your faction’s presence at the current event by drawing the top card from your deck and putting it into play. Each resource card you play give you more power and brings you closer to the objective value of the current event. As an example, the resource card shown to the right has a resource value of five, which it contributes to your total resource value while in play. Playing more resource cards may bring you closer to your target, but it also makes your efforts more obvious. If your total resource value ever passes the event’s objective value, your forces are discovered and your opponent claims the event.

Instead of playing a new resource card, you can also trigger the power of a resource card currently in play, exercising the might of the Empire or the cunning of the Rebel Alliance. To activate a resource card’s power, you must exhaust it by rotating it 90 degrees clockwise. Once a card is exhausted, you can’t use its power unless it becomes ready again. In addition, an exhausted card contributes its exhausted resource value, shown in the lower left-hand corner of the card while the resource is ready.

Skip-a-cross was licensed by Selchow & Righter and manufactured by Cadaco. Both games have identical rules but Skip-a-cross has tiles and racks made of cardboard instead of wood. The game was also published because not enough Scrabble games were manufactured to meet the demand.

In Forbidden Desert, a thematic sequel to Forbidden Island, players take on the roles of brave adventurers who must throw caution to the wind and survive both blistering heat and blustering sand in order to recover a legendary flying machine buried under an ancient desert city. While featuring cooperative gameplay similar to Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert is a fresh, new game based around an innovative set of mechanisms such as an ever-shifting board, individual resource management, and a unique method for locating the flying machine parts.

Game Credits: (Designer) Matt Leacock (Artists) C. B. Canga; Tyler Edlin. (Publishers) Gamewright

DUNGEON! features a map of a simple SIX-LEVEL DUNGEON with hallways, rooms and chambers. Players move around the board seeking to defeat monsters and claim treasure. Greater treasures are located in deeper levels of the dungeon, along with tougher monsters. Players choose DIFFERENT character CLASSES with different abilities. The object of the game is to be the first to return to the beginning chamber with a set value of TREASURE.

Game Mechanic Used: Fighting Mechanic, Dice Rolling, Roll To Move, Role Playing, Variable Player Powers.

Release Date: Year (original) 1975 (our version) 2014.

How to Set Up the Game:

Detailed Tutorial

Play through.

Game Credits: (designers) Chris Dupuis, Michael Gray, Gary Gygax, Larry Kessling, David R. Megarry, S. Schwab, Steve WINTER. (ARTISTS) Daniel Gelon, Keith Hill, Richard Hill, James Holloway, Larry Kessling, Michael Komarck, Tracy Lesch, Victoria Maderna, Erol Otus, Harry Quinn, Jim Roslof, Stephen Sullivan, Franz Vohwinkel. (publishers) Altenburger Spielkarten, Jedko Games, Novedades Montecarlo, Parker Brothers, TSR, Wizards of the Coast

Game Credits: Published by Rocket Games.

Alterations to the d20 System

Basic Classes
In d20 Modern each character is referred to as a hero. All heroes start with a first level basic class. Each basic class corresponds to one of the six ability scores in the d20 System. They have their own set of skills, feats, talents, saves, hit dice, wealth bonus, and so on. A hero will become a specific hero, but it depends on the players in what ability they favor. The six basic classes are:
The Strong Hero, based on Strength (STR). These heroes are brawny, and they greatly favor melee combat.
The Fast Hero, based on Dexterity (DEX). They’re nimble and quick, and able to evade most incoming attacks.
The Tough Hero, based on Constitution (CON). Difficult to take down and can resist most sicknesses.
The Smart Hero, based on Intelligence (INT). The typical know-it-all hero has most the skills and points.
The Dedicated Hero, based on Wisdom (WIS). A strong intuitive hero and always vigilant.
The Charismatic Hero, based on Charisma (CHA). A hero who has a way with words and personal magnetism.

Advanced Classes
In addition to basic classes, there are also advanced classes. Similar to basic classes but with requirements to fulfill. There’s 14 advanced classes to qualify: Acolyte, Bodyguard, Daredevil, Field Medic, Field Scientist, Gunslinger, Infiltrator, Investigator, Mage, Martial Artist, Negotiator, Personality, Soldier, and Techie. Advanced classes can be easily achieved depending on the hero’s basic class. For instance, a Tough Hero can be an excellent candidate for Bodyguard or Daredevil. In later levels, the player may choose to multiclass their hero. A Strong and Dedicated hero, or Smart and Field Scientist hero, are examples. There’s no limitations how many classes the hero may have, but heroes tend to have two or three classes.

However, some Gamemasters (GMs) may have restrictions on certain advanced classes in his or her campaign. Thus, the advanced classes might be tougher to acquire or won’t be available. The most frowned upon advanced classes are the Acolyte and Mage. Gamemasters tend to shun these classes because they involve spellcasting, as seen in Urban Arcana. Reasons may greatly vary on the Gamemaster.

Action Points
One of the interesting additions to the system was the action points. Actions points are used by characters to affect game play greatly. Whenever a character spends one action point, the character receives a small boost in his or her skill checks, ability checks, level checks, or saving throws. There’s a bit of restriction when and where to use them. As the character spends these points, they’re very limited. However, through level advancement, he or she replenishes spent action points.

Feats, Skills, and Items
In order to fit the d20 Modern setting, some skills and items are reworded and rebalanced, and both the feats and skills mechanics receive expansions.

Also included are game statistics for both modern weapons and “archaic” weapons, such as swords, axes, and crossbows.

Occupations and Wealth Bonus
Occupations aren’t considered classes but act as a job or career that a character holds. He or she may hold multiple occupations, but over time. There are over 19 different occupations and each with its own restrictions, such as age. As well, they open more options when choosing skills and higher Wealth bonus. The 19 occupations are: Academic, Adventurer, Athlete, Blue Collar, Celebrity, Creative, Criminal, Dilettante, Doctor, Emergency Services, Entrepreneur, Investigative, Law Enforcement, Military, Religious, Rural, Student, Technician, and White Collar.

Instead of using real world currency, such as United States dollar (USD) or Euro (EUR), it’s been replaced with the Wealth bonus. It functions just like any real world currency: income, credit, debit, to deposit or withdraw, purchasing and selling, and so on. It also defines the characters’ financial conditions, from being opulent to impoverishment. All characters have their own wealth. Determining wealth at first level, the player rolls a four-sided die two times (2d4), and then adds the results together. The result can be increased by occupation, the Windfall feat, and the Profession skill. Whenever the character advances in level, the player rolls a Profession check.

These street tracks each have a novel inclusion or two to add greater theme -The game mechanisms are a simple race, get to the finish line first! However, players have to use a significant amount of planning, and rely on quite a bit of luck. Each player manages when to shift gears, with each gear providing a different speed. (For example, 4th gear is a die that rolls random numbers from 7 to 12 for spaces moved.) Each turn, players may move up one gear, stay in that gear, or move down gears. This forces players to match possible rolls with the optimum distance for that turn, and hopefully plan ahead. However, speed is not the only issue! Corners have a “stop” rule that requires players to stop once, twice, or three times on that corner in consecutive turns or face a penalty. This creates an effective speed limit to the corners. 

Of course, things do not always go as planned! Players take penalties if they miss their roll, bump into another car, are blocked by other cars, have to brake heavily, or have to downshift several gears. These are taken off of a car’s attributes (Tire health, Brake wear, Transmission Gears, Body, engine, and Suspension). Losing the maximum in any of these categories will result in elimination, or a severe setback for that car. This requires that players manage their car’s health, plan for their best path, and have good luck on their rolls. This high amount of luck gives the game its family appeal, and lets weaker players have a chance at winning once in a while.

However, the fun does not end with a single race! The rules include the ability to customize your cars, use a pre-generated character, add Slipstreaming (Drafting) rules and road debris, and change tire types to modify your distance rolls. There are also variations for a single lap race, or multiple laps with pit stops to repair some of your damage points. In addition, numerous expansion tracks can be purchased to vary the demands on each driver and car. Each track may also have weather effects (rain) that change car handling and die rolls due to skidding on wet track. This opens up the game for rally rules giving championship points over a number of races.

Formula D adds a few items that are not in the original Formula De: There is the added excitement of illegal racing in the streets of big cities – anything goes! This adds custom cars, nitro acceleration, drifting in the curves, dirty tricks, gun battles, and trash on the road to add more variation. A basic change is the use of a “Dashboard” with movable pegs to manage your car’s attributes instead of the paper forms from Formula De. There are also two sets of pre-painted cars; a Formula 1 set and the Street Race set of stock cars. The street cars come with “Character” profiles to give a bit of role-playing to the game. Finally, the old category of “Fuel” for the car has been renamed Transmission Wear to give a better thematic fit to the effect of multiple downshifting.

The popularity of this game has given it a lot of expansions, some simplifications to the rules (See Formula Dé Mini), and a lot of “after market” parts. There are also fan expansions and tracks for the very dedicated player. In many ways, this has become a multiple game system.

AWARDS & HONORS

• 2009 Ludoteca Ideale Official Selection Winner
• 2009 JoTa Best Family Board Game Nominee
• 2009 Golden Geek Best Party Board Game Nominee
• 2009 Golden Geek Best Family Board Game Nominee
• 2009 Golden Geek Best Board Game Artwork/Presentation Nominee
• 2008 Lucca Games Best Family Game