New Game Round-up: Welcoming Tides of Madness, Succeeding Alexander, Revisiting Barony & Eating Fresh Fruit

Tides of Madness is a sequel to Tides of Time and features gameplay similar to that design. Tides of Time is a drafting game for two players. Each game consists of three rounds in which players draft cards from their hands to build their kingdom. Each card is one of five suits and also has a scoring objective.

After all cards have been drafted for the round, players total their points based on the suits of cards they collected and the scoring objectives on each card, then they record their score. Each round, the players each select one card to leave in their kingdom as a "relic of the past" to help them in later rounds. After three rounds, the player with the the most prosperous kingdom wins.

Tides of Madness adds a new twist to the above game: madness. Some cards, while powerful, harm your psyche, so you must keep an eye on your madness level or else risk losing the game early as your mind is lost to the power of the ancients. More specifically, eight of the eighteen cards in the game feature a madness icon, and while scoring, you receive a madness token for each such icon in your collection of cards. Whoever has the most madness in a round either scores 4 points or discards 1 madness token — and the latter option is valuable because if you ever have nine or more madness, you lose the game immediately.

Alexander the Great has conquered a vast empire, but his power is now waning and the time is ripe to compete for his inheritance.

Each player in Phalanxx leads one of four competing factions that are ready to rule that vast empire. To do this, you must become the most powerful faction by reinforcing your troops, ensuring sufficient supplies, and occupying the most important cities and oases.

Barony: Sorcery brings magic to the world, with a sixth action now available to the players that allows them to cast powerful spells. Before they can cast spells, however, they need mana, and only a few places on the board allow them to collect those precious mana points. The battle for control and access to these places will be hard!

Barony: Sorcery stays true to the base game as the new elements add no luck to the game, instead opening up possibilities for players to bend the rules, thereby adding even more tension to the board.