Renegade Game Studios continues to fire on all cylinders to bring classic (mostly army/fantasy) boardgame titles back into print while pushing forward with some of their IP licensing. The classic worker placement Lords of Waterdeep is out along with its expansion, Scoundrels of Skullport. The dungeon-crawling Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft is back. On the military side you have the Axis & Allies reprints Battle of the Bulge, 1941, and the brand-new Risk G.I.Joe: Special Missions. Robo Rally Dice ditches the card programming for dice programming to make a faster, slightly friendlier game. Due to its IP, Dungeon Crawler Carl: Unstoppable was getting a huge amount of interest. This is fine by me as I found Unstoppable to be an excellent solo game. If you’ve read this far, you may wonder where the Heroscape love is…. There continues to be an almost overwhelming amount of Heroscape releases. Try to tell that to those of us who are Heroscape addicts, however, and we will note your lips are moving, but you clearly aren’t making any sense.

Lords of Waterdeep by Peter Lee, Rodney Thompson, (& Chris Dupuis on expansion)

Lords of Waterdeep is primarily a worker placement game. The “resources” here are cubes representing adventurers (white = cleric, etc…) Players collect these cubes and then spend them to complete various quests, rewarding points and other prizes. As worker placement games go, this one has a higher than typical take-that to it – you can mess with other players here and there, including giving them lame quests that clutter up that opponents quest options until they are completed.

The expansion, Scoundrels of Skullport is also coming back. This is two expansions in one. The Undermountain Module tends to offer up most costly, but more rewarding quests. The shining star here, though, is the The Skullport module. It brings in a corruption mechanic. Players can take corruption in order to bend and/or break the game in interesting ways. However, this corruption grants negative points at the end of the game. It is not a fixed penalty because more corruption held by the players increases the penalty. Thus, it’s not a big deal, unless lots of people are involved in corruption. While it adds just a bit of overhead to the game, I prefer to add Skullport to the game whenever I can. The corruption mechanic really opens up the strategic choices in the game.

Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game by Rob Heinsoo, Peter Lee, Mike Mearls, Bill Slavicsek

Around 2010/2011 there was a series of Dungeons and Dragons games that tried to tap into the whole dungeon-crawling concept as a medium-weight boardgame. They were all cooperative games, with players taking on the role of an adventurer and trying to explore through a series of rooms to complete a quest, often killing the boss monster of the level. Characters explore the maze by flipping over new tiles whenever they leave an exit from a face-up tile. This usually triggers the placement of new monsters, with all the monsters governed by preprogrammed movement, not needing a player’s coordination. Player characters have a unique class, with its own special powers, and are able to level up (I think only once) during the course of one game. Characters can also find better, cooler equipment while they explore. Each game box had several, very loosely linked scenarios, culminating in a big bad combat. There was a series of these D&D big box games. Characters from one game can be used in another.

Axis & Allies: Battle of the Bulge by Larry Harris, Jr.

An oldy but goody, Axis & Allies: Battle of the Bulge is originally from 2006. I’m going to assume you have a bit of an idea of how Axis & Allies works. Players start their turn with money to buy a variety of army pieces, then take their turn, gain money based on the board situation, and then place their reinforcements. Originally, the game was based around World War II, but it has expanded into many new territories. There are several unique aspects of the Battle of the Bulge. The board is laid out in hexes rather than standard Axis & Allies groupings. Movement is different when moving along roads. Air power comes in to play, but only towards the end of the game. Perhaps the most realistic part of the game, when compared to others in the A&A series, players also need to worry about supply shortages. The biggest difference form other games in the A&A line is the very asymmetric board situation, even asymmetric win conditions. The Germans have a fleet of tanks pouring into the woods, trying to claim Antwerp. Meanwhile, the Allies try to hold the front line, with very limited resoursces, until reinforcements finally arrive.

Axis & Allies: 1941 by Larry Harris, Jr.

First published in 2012, Axis & Allies: 1941 is designed to be baby’s first Axis & Allies. (Depending on how incredibly advanced the baby is.) The basic mechanics of the game are still there: buy units, move units, then fight with units, place purchased units, and collect money based on the areas you control. Like its bigger brother, 1942, it still plays 2 to 5 players and generally favors the Axis powers at first, who must win before the economic powers of the Allies overwhelm them. 1941, however, is simplified in its setup and its style of play in order to try and get play time down around 90 to 120 minutes. Players comfortable with the A&A system may find the game too lightweight for their tastes, but it does have a nice niche as an introduction to the game. For the true A&A grognard, the actual models used for the units are all new. Things like Tiger Tanks, P-40 Warhawk, Akagi Aircraft Carrier, etc… So, they are welcome to port the new sculpts into their other A&A games.

Risk G.I. JOE: Special Missions by Dan Blanchett

Risk G.I. JOE: Special Missions is Risk, but set up for two sides (1v1 or 2v2) where the goal is to complete special missions, earning Objective Points (OP) rather than simply destroy the other team. In fact, the game only lasts three rounds (I admit I don’t know how long a round is, though.) Unlike other Risk games, the units are NOT all identical. They vary in their movement, battle bonuses, and initiative. Destroyed units are just temporarily out, they get cycled into the game again. There are five scenarios, changing things up from game to game. The action cards are another unique aspect of the game, allowing players to move and/or gain non-standard units.

Robo Rally Dice by Kane Klenko

Morphing the original Robo Rally into a dice-based game is not a big stretch. Players are once again trying to get their little robots to drive around on the factory floor and be the first to tag all the flags in order to be crowned the fastest robot. If a few robots get shot along the way? That’s just racing.

Rather than manage cards, as in the original game, players roll (and optionally reroll) a set of dice showing off directions. Players then lock their dice into a set of directions. Players will then take turns (one die at a time) moving through the maze (factory floor) and interacting with the hazards there. The game comes with 4 double-sided boards, full of fun things. There are conveyor belts that boost you directions and may turn you, lasers that will shoot, and convenient pits to fall into. “Good” spots will get a robot a new toy (card) or release a homing missile that will hit every robot on the board!

Overall, the game should be friendlier and faster than the original. Falling down a pit is not so bad. Here, a robot just takes one damage and resets back to the nearest reboot spot. Take a total of 2 damage, and a player will lose the use of one of their dice, just for the next round. The programming phase of the game is timed. The first player to completely lock in their program will grab a set of black dice and will get to move first. The other players may continue to program their robots until that first player is able to roll a 6 three times on a special black die. Any empty spots that remain will be a “null” move and that robot will just ride along any on-board movement.

Every robot has a laser that will automatically fire for free but there are also special toys to gain. These may affect movement or provide special attacks. Some special attacks are “special” enough that they are only triggered when a player queues up a die with the star symbol showing. Alternatively, queuing a star can be used to get a new special toy. There is always a “market” of two toys available from which to choose. In summary, Robo Rally Dice streamlines the game, keeping it under an hour and makes the game much more interactive while scaling down the penalties when a robot is damaged or destroyed.

Dungeon Crawler Carl: Unstoppable by John D. Clair 

Beware of Princess Doughnut’s magic missle attack!

Dungeon Crawler Carl is a series of fantasy books based around a guy and his pet cat. Aliens flatten everything on earth and then open up stairs to a dungeon. People descend into the dungeon and then fight their way through to deeper levels. Each level has some sort of theme and they get more dangerous as they go. The protagonist and his pet cat (technically his girlfriend’s) enter the dungeon and try to survive. Unfortunately, the AI takes a liking to Carl and forces him to run around barefoot and wearing boxer shorts. Like a role-playing game, characters received a “race” (and eventually a class) which meant the cat (Princess Doghnut) became intelligent and could speak. The general theme is that whoever designs the levels is practically cheating to make them overly-hard. The protagonist, Carl, then goes about breaking all the rules and overcomes each level to go down to the next one.
Whew, such a huge backstory. However, the books have really hit home with many people and have become a thing. Renegade held a crowdfunding campaign for a set of role playing books for the system, and raised $13 million (yes, $13,000,000) in funding. That’s pretty crazy but what’s great for us, part of that campaign included the creation of a Dungeon Crawling Carl take on Unstoppable.

What’s Unstoppable, you say? Unstoppable is a unique combat-focused card-crafting game by the designer of the card-crafting game, Mystic Vale. It is a combat deck-builder where the focus of the game is to damage enemies or purchase upgraded cards to defeat more enemies in the future. The “hook” here lies in how the cards are used. When it’s time to acquire a new card in your deck, it is “created” by sleeving the “good” card in the front with a “bad” card on the other side.

Cards come in levels, level 3 is better than 1 and a big part of the game is working towards recuiting those higher cards ASAP.

Once you have some cards, time to add in some upgrades, as you can see on the right side of these equipment cards.

This makes a unique double-sided card. During the game, you can upgrade each of your cards twice. They are added between the two sides to make the card more powerful to use. Since even the upgrades are double-sided, they usually make the “bad” side harder to fight. Just to be mean, the player doesn’t (normally) get to draw cards. Instead, one must defeat an enemy in order to draw it into your hand. While trying to stay ahead of the oncoming cards (it’s particularly mean, they’re YOUR cards but you have to defeat them to get them back…) there is a main boss to fight. Kill the boss (or whatever other quest) before dying to win the game.

So, now you know Dungeon Crawler Carl and Unstoppable. How does this chocolate and peanut butter come together? Obviously, there is a lot there to build off of. There isn’t too much to know for sure but I can easily see how the book’s “levels” would serve up as a great single play of the game. The initial game will have stuff from the first three levels in the book. Games can be one-off (level) or linked together for a campaign. What has been bantered around is that, like the book, players will start out with both a class and a race.The idea is they should “feel” rather broken (in a good way) so that the game can throw nasty stuff at you that seems particularly evil (and you need powerful combos to survive.) Fans of the book series should see plenty of known characters and Easter eggs throughout the game.

As with the original, the Carl version of Unstoppable can be played solo or co-op with a friend. The game will also launch with one expansion, Crawler Chaos Expansion. Fans of the original Unstoppable will be glad that it won’t be ignored and more non-Carl content will also be coming out. As for a release date, most of the game (it was being played/demoed at Gen Con) is complete so it’s down to production. The tentative date I have is for a late fall release.

Heroscape (originally designed by Stephen Baker, Rob Daviau, Craig Van Ness)

As mentioned, Heroscape keeps trucking along now that it has been recently revitalized by Renegade Games. Perhaps the biggest news about Heroscape’s ongoing plans are is the announcement of the reprinting of some of the more sought-after figures from sets originally appearing well over a decade ago. Headlining things is a reprint of one of the Heroscape “leaders:” These were single heroes with abilities that combined well with factions of a specific type. These came with matching custom dice and dice bags. There was at least one release of larger creatures produced late in the cycle that was also very hard to find. Some of which have been announced as reprints. The new releases will have new sculpts and have the same general powers, but some will have adjusted point values, readjusted over many years of play.

Renegade just announced a new way to play. Heroscape Expeditions has each player pick a team of eight figure cards and then fight their way through a series of “rooms.” Players fight over treasure and after a specific trigger, the door to the next area opens. Player armies then take a break, healing up a bit and possibly becoming eligible to head out in a later room. After the game is played out, points from each room are totaled to find the overall winner.

What follows are some overview photos but if you want more detail, I’ll end the post with a galleries of the close-up photos (at least the ones that worked…)

The most recent Heroscape expansions, Secrets of the Citadel, were released just this week. The largest of which is a new Battle Box (smaller starter set) featuring some western themed guys with a bit of darkness and mushroom terrain.

My favorite of the set is a cool clockwork dragon with some animal friends.

The next wave of releases will be coming in October. In addition to a evil-santa-like Krampus, there will be more Scottish soldiers and knights.

This is the first release that contains the remastered figures. A knight & Scottish hero along with the big robot Zetacron.

Next up: Valdo’s Vow releasing in winter 2027.

There are some nice nautical/fea themed figures like a giant crab but my favorite is probably the pig cavalry (dwarves riding pigs, not that the cavalry riders are pigs… but you never know with Heroscape.)

G.I. Joe is There

Further afield there is a new G.I. Joe wave releasing in the spring of 2027: G.I.Joe is There. It is a fairly large release of good & bad guys. My favorites here include his and her (well, COBRA and G.I. Joe) tanks.

Bleakewood’s Bane

The last release to tease you with is Bleakewood’s Bane, also coming in the spring of 2027. Unfortunately, my phone’s autofocus proved more powerful than my shooting skills. What I have for you are a series of rather (extremely) blurry images of the new figures. Let’s just pretend it was on purpose as a way of obfuscating figures to avoid unwanted spoilers. There are winged angel dudes/dudettes, cool biped monsters with shoulder guns, and (my favorite) some sort of blobby cyclops creatures with big heads. I call big heads for the win!

These dangerous mechanoids have the ability to blur time and space…

We have sacrificed our second eye in order to have a larger head! Surely nothing could go wrong!

Finally, as promised, here are some close-ups of the G.I. Joe is There release:

And of the fey/nautical Valda’s Vow: