New Game Round-up: Fight the DEA in Breaking Bad: The Board Game, Fight for Honor in Battle for Rokugan, and Fight a Familiar Enemy in Specter Ops: Broken Covenant

New Game Round-up: Fight the DEA in Breaking Bad: The Board Game, Fight for Honor in Battle for Rokugan, and Fight a Familiar Enemy in Specter Ops: Broken Covenant
Board Game: Breaking Bad: The Board Game
Now that SPIEL '17 info is mostly somewhat vaguely under control, let's run through another batch of game announcements that might be new to you and might be something I've overlooked in the past few weeks.

• At Gen Con 50, Edge Entertainment — which is part of Asmodee — had a space cordoned off for Breaking Bad: The Board Game, a space barely occupied during the show. We didn't film an overview of the game as part of our coverage, so I can offer only this overview now of the Antoine Morfan and Thomas Rofidal design due out in December 2017:

Quote:
Based on the critically-acclaimed TV series, Breaking Bad: The Board Game propels you into the treacherous underbelly of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Will you play as a member of one of the criminal factions (Heisenberg, Los Pollos Hermanos, or the Juarez Cartel), trying to amass a fortune by manufacturing the biggest stash of Blue Sky while eliminating your rivals? Or will you join the ranks of the Drug Enforcement Administration, ready to slap the cuffs on the lawbreakers who would dare peddle their poison in your city?

In more detail, when playing a criminal faction, your goal is to produce Blue Sky, then sell the quantity needed to win before your opponents can. You can also win the game by taking out all of your opponents by using cards to bomb, shoot, or otherwise eliminate them. As the DEA agent, your goal is to seize the criminal factions' labs (by playing DEA Raid cards). You can also win the game by taking out all of your opponents, either by killing them or putting them in jail.
Board Game: Battle for Rokugan
Board Game: Kingsburg (Second Edition)
Fantasy Flight Games plans to make good use of its purchase of Legend of the Five Rings, announcing in late August 2017 a standalone game by Tom Jolly and Molly Glover called Battle for Rokugan, the short take of which is this:

Quote:
Conquer the realm and bring honor to your clan in Battle for Rokugan! This turn-based strategy game of conquest and mayhem puts players in the role of Rokugan daimyō struggling for control over the rich land of the Emerald Empire. Leaders must balance their resources, plan their attacks, and outwit their enemies to ensure their clan's victory. The land is there for the taking. The most honorable daimyō will win the day!
For the long take, click on that FFG announcement linked to above.

Z-Man Games will release the second edition of Andrea Chiarvesio and Luca Iennaco's Kingsburg in the U.S. in late 2017. This game was first released in 2007, and the new edition includes all the modules previously released as expansions as well as a new sixth expansion module. BGG recorded an overview of this new edition with originating publisher Giochi Uniti:



Board Game: Specter Ops: Broken Covenant
• Also due out in late 2017 is Specter Ops: Broken Covenant, a standalone game by Emerson Matsuuchi and Plaid Hat Games that's set in the same universe as the original Specter Ops, but it's not clear from the publisher's offered description how this differs from the original game:

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Specter Ops: Broken Covenant puts two to five players in the middle of a war that's fought in the shadows.

Corporate secrets linger within the corridors of Raxxon's abandoned headquarters and, even though the base is empty, it is not forgotten. In this tense cat-and-mouse showdown, a lone A.R.K. agent stalks the shadows of the facility, attempting to complete secret objectives while hunters from Raxxon's Experimental Security Division try to pinpoint their location and destroy them. On one side, the agent must use all their skills and equipment to succeed. On the other, the hunters rely on teamwork and superhuman skills to locate their prey. No matter who you play, you must use strategy, deduction, and stealth to win.

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