New Game Round-up: Spiel 2014 – Realm of Wonder, Bucket King 3D, Pick-a-Seal, Black&White, Amber Route & Medieval Battle

Realm of Wonder puts 2-6 players in the boots of fantasy characters from a yeti to a rockman in a fantasy world with spinning continents. During your journey, you need to achieve your scenario objective, then return to the king's castle in the middle of the board.

Each turn starts with bidding to see who will first use magic and who will first move on the board. During the magic phase, players take turns trying to harm opponents with nasty magic tricks or enhance their own character's abilities. Movement takes place on a game board divided into three continents, and the two inner continents can be moved via magic stones to hinder an opponent's movement or allow a player access to blocked areas. During the journey, players need to combat opposing figures, destroy monsters, find treasures that might boost character abilities, and gain or invade resource pools to fuel a player's economy.

Realm of Wonder mixes area control, dice rolling, and bluffing. The game is beautifully drawn with a set of miniature figures for each character. Random elements can be minimized with an alternative rule set that makes this a great game for both younger people above 9 and hardcore gamers alike. Playing time with six players should be less than an hour.

Amber Route is a journey to the land of Slavic beliefs, monsters and magic. In this game full of surprises, you will embark on a dangerous adventure, leading your caravan through the uncharted territories. At every step you will face lurking evil creatures, traps, and ancient magic. Plan your moves carefully, protect your ambers, expand your retinue, and try to reach the destination as quick as possible.

In this game you must take care of your escort, ambers, and power cards — all while keeping an eye on your opponents. During course of the game, you will encounter monsters, ghost, deadly traps, thieves, and other sorts of evil. All encounters are resolved via dice, but each is resolved in a different way. On your turn, you must choose one of the following actions:

• Move and explore the place you have reached
• Hire the escort
• Buy the power cards

Whatever you do, keep a lookout for your opponents don't sleep; they just wait to stab you. You must remember one thing: Be quick or be dead in your quest for amber. Good luck!

War is in the air. Two feuding nations after a decade of a very fragile truce assemble their armies: her majesty Susanna from Thargaton with troops in black uniforms to the west and cardinal Nicodemus from Vesani with white-robed religious fanatics to the east. Both leaders try to secure the most strategic parts of forty-kilometer-long strip of no man's land. There are heavy fights to gain control of the old forts that survived the war of the apostles. Who is going to outmaneuver the enemy? Who will use their troops most efficiently in this mortal battle? Play this quick war game and find out.

Black&White is a two-player block war game that takes place on a hexagonal board that may be customized by terrain tiles. Before the game, each player builds his army using available troops and also assigns the leader. Each side of the conflict has nine different units from which to choose. The choice is not simple, however, as only a proper balance between various types of infantry, cavalry and artillery will make for a strong army.

Medieval Battle is a model battle game, with two players each commanding an army of knights. Players start by building a battlefield, recruiting knights to their army, then deploying them. Players act in turn to maneuver their knights on the battlefield, and the combat potential for each type of troop differs, with heavy armored units moving more slowly and fighting better than lighter units. Pikemen can stop cavalry, while archers and longbowmen want to keep enemy units below them and light cavalry are ideal for chasing archers on horseback. The unique system of combat results has no randomness.

Players look for advantages and opportunities, attacking the enemy when it's too tired to run, for example, or claiming good terrain position. By using the power and mobility of his forces, a player tries to control more strategic points than his opponent and thereby win the game.