New Game Round-up: Thunderstone and Guildhall Get Bigger, Railways Gets Dice & Bombyx Gets the Urge to Fill All of Your Gaming Storage Space in a Single Year

New Game Round-up: Thunderstone and Guildhall Get Bigger, Railways Gets Dice & Bombyx Gets the Urge to Fill All of Your Gaming Storage Space in a Single Year
Board Game: Thunderstone: Starter Set
Board Game: Guildhall: Job Faire
• In addition to all of the other recently announced titles from Alderac Entertainment Group, the U.S. publisher plans to release Mike Elliott's Thunderstone: Starter Set in June/July 2013, with this set providing fewer cards than Thunderstone or Thunderstone Advance: Towers of Ruin. Why a starter set? Well, to start players who haven't played previously. Thunderstone: Starter Set has a lower price point than those other two games (and fewer cards), while including a set-up designed to get new players into the game quickly – or so promises AEG. The set includes new hero, monster and village cards to entice experienced Thunderstoners.

• One of those other titles recently announced, but not one covered on BGG News, is Guildhall: Job Faire, a sequel to Hope S. Hwang's 2012 release Guildhall that is both a standalone game and something that can be combined with the original game. In both of these card games, you collect workers in six professions, and each of those professions grants you special abilities, with these abilities growing stronger the more of a set that you complete. When you cash in a complete set for victory points, however, you lose the ability until you can build it up again. The first player to gain 20 VP on her turn wins.

Board Game: Railways Express
• U.S. publisher Eagle Games plans to release Railways Express in late July or early August 2013. The name is a reference to Eagles' Railways of the World game series, and the "Express" in the title should clue you in that this is a dice game modeled after the original. In more detail:

Quote:
In the dice-rolling race game Railways Express, 2-4 players travel around the USA and through parts of southern Canada and northern Mexico, building track as in the related Railways of the World game series from their individual starting city across plains, waterways and mountains based upon what they roll on the two terrain dice and two track dice.

By linking cities with track, you are awarded re-roll cubes (and possibly cards), which gives strategic options for the routes available to you as you try to connect more cities. If you're the first player to link all four cities of your color, you win!
Board Game: Taluva
• In other FRED news, a BGG user notes that Ferti's 2012 edition of Taluva from designer Marcel-André Casasola Merkle will be distributed by FRED Distribution in the U.S., with the games expected to arrive in the U.S. in May/June 2013.

• In his BGG blog, designer Kevin Wilson writes about prototypes that he planned to bring to Alan Moon's Gathering of Friends convention, including a design code-named "Tweedledee". Wilson describes it briefly as follows: "[T]he game is a co-design between Eric Lang and I, and I can definitely say that it's one of my favorite games I've helped to design. I keep pulling it out to play with people even though it doesn't really need any more playtesting (having achieved total buttery smoothness already). Although the final name is not finalized, I can also reveal that the game is based on the Finding Gossamyr comic series" from U.S. publisher Th3rd World Studios.

Board Game: Spice Merchant
• Gun-Hee Kim's Spice Merchant, released at Spiel 2012 by Korean publisher DEINKO, has been picked up by French publisher Bombyx for a new edition, with Animalia and Jamaica illustrator Mathieu Leyssenne providing new artwork for this upcoming edition. Squee! (Leysenne has posted one sketch of the game board on his blog, and it gives a cool perspective on the look of the marketplace.) Bombyx is asking gamers to vote on a new name for the game, but if you don't speak French, your vote probably won't do them much good.

Board Game: Continental Express
• Other titles coming from Bombyx in its line of tin games – of which the redesigned Spice Merchant will be a part – include Continental Express from designer Charles Chevallier and illustrator Gaël Lannurien; 1001 Palais ("1001 Palaces"), once again from Chevallier with art by Soi H. Che and Xavier Collette; Ocean Lords from designers Bruno Cathala and Chevallier (yes, again!) and artist Xavier Collette; Nessie from designer Laurent Pouchain; Smôk by Pouchain and Sylvain Thomas; Les Bâtisseurs ("The Builders") from designer Frédéric Henry and artist Sabrina Miramon; and other titles yet to be revealed. Phew! How is that list even possible? I'm curious to learn details about the games, but mostly I just want to see more smokin' French art beyond a fetching mademoiselle twirling an umbrella in my general direction. Bonjour, mam'selle. Comment allez-vous?

Even though the game details have largely been under wraps, Bombyx has posted a variety of images related to these games on its Facebook feed, some of which I've posted below:

Board Game: Continental Express
Prototype of Continental Express

From gallery of W Eric Martin
Designer Charles Chevallier with a mock-up of 1001 Palais

From gallery of W Eric Martin
Les Bâtisseurs in prototype form

From gallery of W Eric Martin
Tagged as "Bruno Cathala" on Facebook

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