New Game Round-up: Spiel 2016 — KOSMOS Expands Andor, Invites Cunning, Revisits Luther, and Asks You to Leave the Room

New Game Round-up: Spiel 2016 — KOSMOS Expands Andor, Invites Cunning, Revisits Luther, and Asks You to Leave the Room
Board Game: Legends of Andor: The Last Hope
Board Game: Luther: Das Spiel
Spiel 2016 is still more than three months away at this point, but some companies have started to reveal their late 2016 titles, so expect more such round-ups like these from now through mid-October. (The Spiel 2016 Preview will go live August 8, 2016, the day after Gen Con 2016 ends. One con at a time!) That said, we can still take an early look at what KOSMOS will release:

• While Die Legenden von Andor: Die Letzte Hoffnung has been announced as the final title in Michael Menzel's Andor trilogy, this September 2016 release from KOSMOS is actually a standalone title (instead of simply an expansion) and it will be followed in February 2017 by Die Legenden von Andor: Dunkle Helden, a five- & six-player expansion that adds four new heroes to the game.

• The description of Martin and Erika Schlegel's Luther: Das Spiel is brief for now, so it's not clear what the nature of gameplay is like. KOSMOS does mention that an enclosed brochure includes background information on Luther's work, but other than that detail we have only the following for now:

Quote:
For the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses of 1517, players can now live as Luther's contemporaries, following in his footsteps, traveling the cities where he worked, and encountering important companions of the Reformer.
Board Game: Brutal Kingdom
Michael Rieneck's Mit List und Tücke is billed as having "twenty cards with which to cut and thrust" and other than 52 influence crests that's it for game components. Here's an overview:

Quote:
The King is dead; long live the Queen! Or vice versa, really, as in the intriguing game Mit List und Tücke it's hard to tell what everyone is up to and who will have the greatest impact until it all ends. Yes, the bishop's poison has been touched, but has it been administered to the abbot or is it still waiting to be used? What's happening with the witch? And the executioner is waiting for his next job...

At the beginning of a round, each player has four character cards in hand. On your turn, you play a card in front of you and follow its instructions. With some cards, you can carry out actions on your opponent and bring an end to the round's influence — but only if you don't fall victim to your opponent in the process.
Board Game: Targi: The Expansion
• Four years after the release of the base game, Andreas Steiger's Targi gets an expansion in the plainly titled Targi: Die Erweiterung, which like the item above is due out September 2016. An overview:

Quote:
The expansion of the tribe goes on in Targi: Die Erweiterung. With water as a new element, the tribe has more flexibility in how it will extend itself. To send a Targi to a drifting sand dune can be an advantage at the right moment, and whoever searches near the Tuareg woman — the Targia — will be rewarded.
Board Game: Word Slam
Word Slam from the team of Inka and Markus Brand will likely be a hard pass for English speakers, but for those learning or already speaking German, I present the following:

Quote:
In the communication game Word Slam, two teams compete against one another simultaneously.

In each round, one player on each team tries to get their teammates to guess a hidden word or phrase using only the 105 explanatory cards available in the box — no words! A player can use as many explanatory cards as desired, and whichever team guesses correctly first scores a point.
• The Brands are also responsible for a trio of "escape room" games from KOSMOS — EXIT: Das Spiel – Das geheime Labor, Die Grabkammer des Pharao, and Die verlassene Hütte — with each of them being a single-play experience for €13 that puts 1-6 players in a sticky situation with nothing more than a notebook and a spinning code dial of some sort to get them started on the path to freedom.

Board Game: Exit: The Game – The Secret Lab
Board Game: Exit: The Game – The Pharaoh's Tomb
Board Game: Exit: The Game – The Abandoned Cabin

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