New Game Round-up: Trains in the Netherlands, Treasures in the Lava & Vikings in Your Face

First, nearly every route on the game board is a double-route, with two tracks connecting cities. Both of these routes are in play no matter how many players are in the game.

Second, every route — whether double or single — has a bridge toll that a player must pay when building on that route. On a single route or the first track of a double route, the player pays this toll — which costs 1-4 coins — to the bank; on the second track of a double route, the player pays this toll to the player who built the first track. Players start the game with 30 coins, and if you can't pay a toll, you must take a loan card to cover the fare, with each loan costing you 5 points at the end of the game.

In addition to helping you avoid loans, coins matter because at game's end, players receive a bonus based on how many coins they hold relative to everyone else. In a five-player game, for example, the player with the most coins scores a 55 point bonus; the 2nd place player scores 35 points, and the other players 20, 10 and 0 points. If you've taken a loan, however, you're ineligible for this bonus scoring, so players have an incentive to build early and often.

These coin bonuses are balanced by the multitude of destination tickets with large point values: six of them are worth 29+ points while another seventeen are worth 17-26 points.

Help! Lava is coming!! In Mauna Kea, you're exploring a previously unknown volcanic island in the South Pacific with your research team when suddenly there's a terrible roar: The volcano has come to life! Now, you must find as many artifacts as possible and bring them, along with your researchers, to the rescue boats at the coast. If you plan your ways cleverly and have a little bit of luck, you'll survive the volcanic eruption as the rescuing hero!

Each player starts the game with a team of 3-5 researchers (depending on the number of players) and a set of randomly selected terrain tiles that collectively have at least five movement points; the more jungle spaces on a tile, the more movement points it provides. On a player's turn, he must play all of his tiles in any order he wants, either placing them on the game board to expand the terrain on which players can move or spending the movement points to move his researchers to orthogonally adjacent spaces (1 point to enter jungle, 2 points to enter water, 16,000 points to enter mountain — actually, you can't enter a mountain space). If his researcher enters a space with an artifact, he then drags that artifact with him as he moves. If his researcher reaches a boat, he fills as many seats as possible with artifacts, then hits the water. Sorry, chumps!

At the end of his turn, he draws new tiles — and if he pulls a lava tile from the bag, he places it on the board immediately. Lava flows away from the central cone, with each tile indicating the side of the volcano from which it flows. If lava hits established terrain, it covers that terrain; if it hits researchers and artifacts, it covers them, too. Players continue taking turns until someone has no researchers left on the island, whether due to them leaving the island or donning a lava blanket. Everyone else takes one final turn, then players score, collecting 3 points per saved researcher, 1-3 points for each artifact, and -1 point for each empty space on the boats they used. The player with the highest score wins.

In the advanced game, players don't return tiles to the bag when they use them for movement points. Instead they start the game with four action or task cards in hand. They can play as many action cards as they wish on a turn to help their researchers cross mountains, swim faster, or helicopter to safety, but they have only four for the entire game. The game now ends when a player has no researchers or no tile remain in the bag. In addition to their other points, players now score for completed task cards, earning points for specific combinations of artifacts or for taking a certain boat. Again, the player with the highest score wins.

In Vikings: Warriors of the North, players take the roles of Viking jarls, fighting for control over the North and the Konung Crown. The first one to pillage all of the villages and take the daughters of their thanes to his home port will be declared the winner. To do this, the jarls will have to brave the stormy northern seas, battling each other along the way, and watch out for the sea monster that lurks beneath the waves! The most cunning and vehement of them all – that is, the one who the Gods favor – will throw a great feast and become the Konung of the North.

Vikings: Warriors of the North is a card-based game. Players draw cards from a common deck. Wind cards are used for moving a drakkar around the board that depicts the cold north sea. Players can move the drakkar to a village (to sack it), to an enemy drakkar (to attack it), or to their own ports, where they can throw a feast for the Gods.

A player can also use cards to drastically change the gameplay: He can increase his chances in an attack, re-roll the dice, sail further with his drakkar, or steal cards from an enemy's hand. All of those cards represent story events that have tangible effects within the game. Some cards represent heroes who can become part of a drakkar's crew. As long as a hero stays on the ship, he grants his owner a permanent effect. Each drakkar has three open slots for heroes. The kidnapped daughters of the thanes are also considered heroes, so they also occupy drakkar slots. With only three slots, players have to think hard about their crew composition.

On a turn, a player can play any number of cards from his hand and take one action: attack, sack a village, throw a feast, etc. Attacks are resolved by a roll of a six-sided (d6) die, although many cards influence the combat result, so each battle is exciting.

When a player kidnaps three daughters of the thanes (each of a different, opposing player color) and brings them to his own port, the game is over and that player wins. The gameplay is fast, furious and fun, full of twists and comebacks; it really lets you feel like a Viking chieftain!