I love checking out the Leder Games offerings as they often dive deep into asymmetric play. When done well, it gives the game a bunch of replay value as you want to see how each new side works. Done poorly, and the explosion of options give the game a huge mental overhead. Root leans dangerously close to the second option but, for most of my gaming friends, manages to stay on the happier side. The newest expansion, Root: The Homeland Expansion brings in three new factions and a big two-sided board playable by up to 6 players. Their big title about racing kids’ go-karts, Kart is only a bit asymmetric at the start but players soon bolt on new toys to their karts as they race down a hill, plowing through different terrain while trying to manage ever increasing speed. It is in its final throes of crowdfunding so if you’re interested you would need to hop over there pretty much right now. Their other news, along with the Kickstarter, is a reprint of Fort. This, second edition, doesn’t change rules but clarifies the rulebook, fixes some errata, and has much better gaming bits and bobs.
On the other end of company size, Ravensberger had a few new games and others that continue on with some of their popular lines. Mind the Lines is a party drawing game. However, drawers get a large squiggle on their paper. To “draw” their target word, a player is only allowed to trace over lines that already appear on the page. Disney Villainous: Darkness Brewing serves as an entry point for new players. It has three previous villains in the series (slightly cleaned up and streamlined for new players) and one new villain, The Sanderson Sisters which is the first “villain” to be more than one character. The Sisters are also available as a single-villain expansion if you already own all the others. The Horrified line goes back to Dungeons and Dragons with the new Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons – Ravenloft, placing the game in the realm of the vampire-filled land of Ravenloft. All the new monsters in the new stand-alone release are also compatible with the previous Horrified D&D game. Finally, Ravensburger is bringing back the dice-rolling majority game, Las Vegas. It’s not a straight reprint as rewards are increased, fewer rounds are played, and players now have a double-strength die. Rules and bits for a neutral player are also included.
LEDER Games
Root: The Homeland Expansion by S.W. Smith, Joshua Yearsley
The newest expansion for Root is the Homeland expansion. There are three new factions and two new maps to play on.
The Lillypad faction brings in a new Frog suit of cards. They can change locations on the board into Frog suits.
The Twilight Council actually sleeps during the day phase and sort of fly in and grab unprotected things at night. They’re particularly good at defense and can also help others in their defense.
The Knaves of the Deepwood have a bit of a Robin Hood theme. They can steal stuff and/or take meeples prisoner. These can be ransomed back or they will slowly return over time. They are also trying to spread Renown for their various actions.
As for the two new maps, there is a Marsh map set up to be a good map for big games of 5 or 6 factions. Parts of the map can be flooded to make it suitable for three players. The second map has a Chasm/Gorge running through it, forcing players to use a rope bridge to cross back and forth.
Kart by Alita Robertson
The brainchild of an intern in the summer of 2021 (or so I have written down), is a game about young kids racing downhill in homemade, engineless go-karts. Players start with their own unique Kart with special powers but as they race downhill new parts can be duct-taped on on the fly! Hopefully, they will form copacetic combinations to make one’s kart even more cool looking and operating. Players are navigating downhill, bobbing and weaving in order to take advantage of good terrain and avoid bad.
Example image from the Kickstarter campaign.
As players move downhill they will go faster and faster, but that also means less control. Control is important as it governs upgrades, activates powers, and, of course, helps you steer. Take some damage and you will also lose parts as they fly off, but maybe that ends up all for the best after all (or not.) The game is in very late stages of crowdfunding – ending sometime tonight, so hop over there very soon if it tickles your fancy.
Fort (Second Edition) by Grant Rodiek
Along with the Kart campaign, Leder Games is taking orders for a second edition of Fort – a deckbuilding/drafting/suit-matching/engine builder of building a circle of friends and building a fort. There are no huge changes to the core game but the new edition will have a better rulebook (clearer, more examples), improved icons, include errata, and have better bits in the box – including a better storage solution. The second edition will also include the Cats and Dogs expansion.
Ravensburger
Mind the Lines (2024) by Die 7 Bazis
I believe new to the U.S., Mind the Lines is a 2 to 6 player cooperative party game of drawing. The unique catch here are the drawing limitations. Each player is given a word card and a card full of squiggles and must draw the word by only tracing over some of the squiggle lines. These drawings are then put out on the table.
The word cards, along with one extra word card per person, are shuffled together and also placed out on the table. Players then take turns removing word cards they think are NOT shown by one of the drawings on the table. Once every player has removed a card, the left over ones are checked for scoring. Every incorrect word card on the table is a penalty point. The whole round is repeated three more times. The game is cooperatively lost if the number of penalty points at the end of the game exceeds the number of players. Word cards have easier (white) words and harder (black) ones. (Note the U.S. version has fewer cards and plays up to 6 players whereas the original goes up to 8.)
Disney Villainous: Darkness Brewing
The next release in the Disney Villainous line, Darkness Brewing. Designed as a mass-market,
good starting release for the system, Darkness Brewing contains four characters. Three previously released ones: Ursula, Maleficent, The Evil Queen, and a new one, The Sanderson Sisters – from the Hocus Pocus film.
The first three villains have been reworked a bit to make them clearer and easier to play. The Sanderson Sisters are the first multi-character villain in the game. They’re trying to set up to brew the potion of life and live forever. Some of their cards refer to all 3 characters while others are focused on just one sister.
An expansion (Disney Villainous: Come, We Fly!) containing only The Sanderson Sisters character is available for gamers who already have the previous characters in this set.
Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons – Ravenloft by Peter Lee, Nick Tourville
Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons – Ravenloft is a stand-alone release that brings the elements of the vampire-filled Ravenloft area to the Horrified game system.
As with the other Horrified games, one to five players are battling monsters together while the monsters strike back. In the Ravenlost version, players can, at any time, trigger the Dark Gift. This immediately (and I believe irrevocably) gives all players a new, more powerful and yet more dangerous (to the player) ability for the rest of the game. The available monsters in this set include Carrionette, Gulthias Tree, Baby Lysaga, and Strah von Zarovich (the big bad vampire lord in Ravenloft.)
As with the previous D&D version, there’s a d20 added to the basic Horrified system to give it a splash of D&D feeling. Pliers can mix and match monsters between this release and the previous D&D one.
Las Vegas by Rüdiger Dorn
A refresh rather than just a rerelease of the original Rüdiger Dorn’s Las Vegas, this new version streamlines play a bit with fewer rounds. The game still has players rolling dice and placing all of one number onto a casino in an attempt to get a dice majority on that one.
Players gain money at the end of the round based on the first and second majority on a location. This new version plays up to six players and adds in some small changes like the use of an extra big die that counts as two. There’s a new, 7th casino that pays out cash but only allows placement of one of each number. There is also an option to add in the randomness of a neutral player through the One-Armed Bandit variant.
