Lord of the Rings: Circle of Conflict

• Designers: Geoff Engelstein, Stephen Buonocore 
• Publisher: OfficeDog
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 14+
• Time:  60-90 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

It is the Third Age of Middle-earth, and a great war between the many nations is unfolding. In The Lord of the Rings: Circle of Conflict, you simultaneously command both The Shadow and The Free Peoples armies; your Free Peoples will fight the Shadow of the opponent to your left, and your Shadow will fight the Free Peoples of the opponent to your right.

As the dice are rolled, you will decide how to apply the results. Will you recruit iconic characters for The Free Peoples or perhaps muster the troops of Mordor to fight for The Shadow in one of two pivotal battles? Will you hunt your opponent’s Fellowship with your Nazgûl or secretly move your Fellowship to evade Sauron’s watchful Eye?

To win as The Free Peoples, get The Fellowship to reach Mount Doom or defeat The Shadow in battle. As The Shadow, you must fully corrupt The Fellowship or defeat them in battle.  When all the victory points have been tallied, the player with the most points wins!

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Traveluencer

• Designer: Ryo Nakamura (中村 良), Zhonghao Yang, Kai Zu 
• Publisher: Broadway Games
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Preorder link: https://forms.gle/RqukaTumiF9zULs1A
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In Traveluencer, players must try to make their posts go viral and become the most popular travel influencers! Trending topics change daily – only by staying on top of the latest buzz can you succeed as a KOL(key opinion leader)! Traveluencer is a trick-taking game. Players play any number of cards in an attempt to win tricks and boost engagement. They must manage their resources carefully,or they risk losing followers due to inactivity.

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Pandasaurus has been on a bit of a run this year reprinting classic games. Earlier this year, we reviewed Gulo Gulo and Hacienda.  Now, they have come out with two card games: Bohnanza and 6 nimmt! Baron Oxx.

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Plotters, Inc.

• Designer: Klaus Plaesch
• Publisher: playte
• Players: 4-6
• Age: 14+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher
• Preorder link: preorder.playte.com

Plotters, Inc., first released as Mit List und Tücke (“With Cunning and Treachery”), is a trick-taking game with quite a few twists.  Everyone has a plan, but those plans often collide in a web of betrayal and schemes.  In this unique trick taking game, you never win a trick alone; the players with the best and worst cards always split it.

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