New Game Round-up: Another Army for Neuroshima Hex, Upcoming Releases from Rio Grande & Mascarade's History and Future

New Game Round-up: Another Army for Neuroshima Hex, Upcoming Releases from Rio Grande & Mascarade's History and Future
Board Game: Neuroshima Hex! 3.0: Sharrash
• Portal Publishing has announced a new army pack for Neuroshima Hex! with a publication date of March 2013. The Sharrash army pack will include rules in English and Polish, and here's a summary of what they do:

Quote:
Sharrash is a mysterious and well-organized community of mutant rats endowed with inhuman intelligence. They live underground, in tunnels and canals of the destroyed cities, along with degenerate humans and mutants who serve the Sharrash. They do not allow strangers anywhere near them and fiercely defend their nests, and their fighters will not hesitate to give their life for the pack.

The main advantages of the Neuroshima Hex! Sharrash army are mobility of HQ, the ability to blow up even the fastest enemy units and to paralyze the slower ones, and the possibility of bypassing the enemy's defense lines thanks to the mortars. Another advantage of the Sharrash is a difficult to eliminate Foundation Tile (Hole), which can easily thwart the enemy's plans.

Sharrash's disadvantage is a smaller number of fighting units than in other armies, their low mobility, low toughness and initiative, as well as a complete lack of armors.
Board Game Publisher: Rio Grande Games
• On January 29, 2013, while I was on a plane to Nürnberg, Rio Grande Games posted the following in a Facebook update: "We have several other new games in the pipeline which we plan to release in February. These include Cinque Terre, Piñata (a rethemed version of Balloon Cup by Stephen Glenn) and Arctic Scavengers. Later this spring we plan to release Credit Mobilier, Mogul, Dominion: The Guilds, and Race for the Galaxy: Alien Artifacts. We also have planned several reprints for the spring: El Caballero, Tikal, Space Alert, and Space Alert: The New Frontier." On Feb. 19, Jay Tummelson from RGG posted an update, noting that Arctic Scavengers is on the boat and due at distributors in March, but he gave no word on the other titles listed above.

• Designer Matt Worden is looking for feedback for a third edition of his Jump Gate.

Board Game: Terra Mystica
• On Facebook, Z-Man Games has given an early April 2013 release date for its edition of Terra Mystica.

• I recently posted a preview of Bruno Faidutti's Mascarade, with Thomas Provoost from Repos Production giving an overview of the game, which is due out by June 2013. Faidutti has now posted a design history of Mascarade on his blog, naming its distant inspiration, noting a similar game that was not an inspiration, comparing it to two recent releases – Love Letter and Coup – that have somewhat similar gameplay, and offering a reason why his creation might fare better in the annals of game history: "It's the only game in which players not always don't know who the other players are, but often don't know for sure who they are – like in real life."

In addition, Repos has now passed along three promotional images showing the artwork on character cards as it evolved from pencil sketch to color wash to final image. Sweet! (Also, the player count for Mascarade has been finalized as 2-13, as compared to the 3-10 player count mentioned in the video.)

Board Game: Mascarade

Board Game: Mascarade

Board Game: Mascarade

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