Just received my Elden Ring Kickstarter.. have opened it yet…

Welcome to Limgrave, a mysterious and otherworldly realm where the landscape is rich and varied. As you explore, you’ll build out a hex-based map of your surroundings, with unique locations to visit, resources to gather, NPC’s to interact with, and enemies to fight. Your progress is tracked by a narrative story that provides objectives as well as guidance on how to achieve them – and, depending on your decisions, alternative side-quests and emergent narrative to experience, too.

Diceless and with strong elements of deck-building, combat is both deadly and personal. As your Tarnished character levels up, you must carefully build your attack and effect decks to best optimise with your equipment. Although exploration takes place on the zoomed-out hex map, each player has their own dedicated quest book on which combat encounters will take place face-to-face.

When you enter combat, you’ll open your quest book to the indicated page. There, you’ll find a battlefield grid that raises the level of combat from one of simple physical positioning to state of mental readiness. Using rows and lanes, this unique system means your position dictates not only your physical position in the encounter, but your battle stance: aggressive, neutral, or defensive. Each battle stance has benefits and drawbacks to exploit and avoid with the changing state of battle, which can even vary from one encounter to the next.

Understanding enemy attack patterns is key, helping to inform when to expose an enemy weakness and press home an attack, and when to play defensively while your stamina returns. Drawn at random but possible to manipulate, the marching order will determine which characters act when, and give you the vital opportunity to plan ahead, just as you’d learn ‘tells’ in the video game.

A single bad decision can mean death to the unwary, sending unlucky Tarnished back to the nearest Site of Grace to respawn.

Because combat takes place in your individual quest book, your encounters also won’t disrupt play for everyone else. After making the three actions in your turn — and enduring any enemy attacks — your combat will pause while the other Tarnished continue exploring the overworld, with combat resuming once your turn comes back around.

When your party locates a dungeon, your quest books will be joined together, allowing you to take on bosses together on a much larger stage while still being up close and personal. But boss encounters aren’t the only time you’ll fight side by side. If one of your fellow Tarnished is in trouble, there are also ways to join their personal combat book and lend a hand — or a sword.

The official tabletop adaptation of the hit video game that sold over 13 million copies in its first month after release, ELDEN RING™: The Board Game features huge and lavishly detailed miniatures, as well as close to a thousand cards, four large quest books, and a towering stack of exploration tile, all in the core box alone.

It’s a big box cooperative campaign game for 1-4 players, where each session is playable in 90-120 minutes and core box campaigns will span 30-40 hours, increasing to 90 hours with the expansions. And your Tarnished can make the entire journey with you, from one region to the next…

Based on the world-renowned video game, Total War: ROME – The Board Game allows up to four players to play as the leaders of Rome, Carthage, Greece, and Barbarian Tribes of Gallo-Germania. Each player will conquer new lands, develop their faction, claim territories, recruit epic armies, fight enemies in intense battles, build their cities, raise taxes, spy, riot, trade, and so much more!

Set in the Ancient World, Total War: ROME: The Board Game sees players take control of the main combatants in Europe from 400BC to 50BC as they seek to build their own empire and take control of the region surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. In under three hours, players will carefully balance their faction’s military and economy as they compete to be the first to reach the top of the victory point ladder.

Rome is the “governor” of the Ancient World, with an empire that lasted over 700 years from its development under the republic through the decline of the empire. Carthage, the jewel of North Africa in the 3rd century BC, faced the might of Rome under Hannibal until defeated during the Second Punic War of 218BC to 202BC. Greece is the intellectual centre of invention in the Ancient World, and became a great empire under Alexander the Great. The Barbarian Tribes comprised over fifty tribes ranging from the Lusitanians of Spain in the West, through the Averni of Gaul, to the Brigantes of Britannia, to the Belgae, to the Alamanii Germanic tribes, and on to the horse-based Sarmatians in the East.

Rome: Total War Complete Rules

Rome: Total War Rules Condensed

Rome: Battle Board (to simulate computer game: optional expansion)

The following are an overview of the game mechanics by the developer. Note that the order of the video titles are correct.. not what the presenter mentions. To help, I’ve embedded the first video and given a list of the other videos.

Phase 2 – Agent Phase

Phase 3 – Taxation Phase

Phase 4 – Campaign Phase

Phase 5 – Spending Phase

Sword & Sorcery is an epic-fantasy cooperative board game in which 1-5 players fight together against the forces of evil, which are controlled by the game system itself.

Ancient Chronicles, a new starting point for the game, is fully compatible with the original Immortal Souls campaign in terms of gameplay, allowing players to cross over heroes and monsters from one campaign to another. Gameplay remains familiar, but this new cycle also introduces new elements to the setting, expanding both the narrative engine and the mechanisms, without making the game more complex.

The Ancient Chronicles campaign is set in the distant past of the events narrated in the Immortal Souls campaign.

New features in the game:

• No Game Master needed. Play alone or with up to 5 players together against the game system itself.
• No player elimination. Dying, becoming a ghost soul and resurrecting your Hero are part of the game engine.
• A real story-driven campaign with multiple outcomes, a main plot and several optional Quests.
• World and city exploration, with different paths and ventures to discover.
• Multiple development paths for your Heroes.
• A sophisticated tactical combat system, based on custom ten-sided dice.
• An advanced artificial intelligence engine for Enemies and Master Enemies.
• Customizable difficulty level, thanks to the different options provided with the game rules and granted by the Challenge set.
• Full backward compatibility with Sword & Sorcery: Immortal Souls heroes and enemies.
• Crafting, Loots, Treasures, Traps and many other aspects of a true fantasy legendary adventure are a part of the game!
• Familiars, a new type of faithful companions for all your Heroes.

Lee (Jeanne-Inquisitor), Richard (Xantares-Wild Mage) and Steve (Thorgren-Stonerager) played the first two scenarios as Evil characters and it was a learning experience… there are so many counters and symbols which one has to comb the rulebook for what they are and how to use them. But, eventually they can be found.