New Looks — and Old! — for Robo Rally, Acquire, Heroscape, Risk 2210 A.D. & Nexus Ops | BoardGameGeek News

U.S. publisher Renegade Game Studios has been holding regular livestreams since 2020 to announce new titles, and its most recent event took place at the start of March 2024 to coincide with the company’s tenth anniversary. I got to see — and play! — some of these titles while visiting GAMA Expo 2024, so let me review them now:

• Robo Rally Transformers was announced at Gen Con 2023, and this design from Dan Blanchett is an ideal merging of an existing game design and an established non-game IP.

Gameplay is much the same as in earlier iterations of Robo Rally: Players each control a figure, and at the start of each round you program the movement of this figure by placing cards from your hand into program slots, then you reveal cards one slot at a time, with everyone moving their figure. Everyone has a laser shooting out of the front of its head, so if you end up “looking” at another figure, your laser damages them, which can mess with their ability to program in the future. Your goal is to reach the finish line first, which can come after a series of flags or consist of a single flag, depending on how long you want to play.

Sorry for the glare!

Robo Rally Transformers modifies gameplay in several ways. First, each player controls one of six Transformers, and each Transformer has a bot form (i.e., a robot form) and a vehicle form. Whereas the vehicle has only a front laser like normal, the bot fires straight, left, and right. Bots can enter buildings and vehicles can’t, but vehicles can use jump ramps and arrows on moving walkways to travel additional spaces or turn without needing to spend a program card. You can convert from bot to vehicle or vice versa once each round while programming your movement.

Each Transformer starts with a set of personal upgrade cards in hand, along with a random upgrade from the deck. Players start with two “Energon”, which you can spend to draw new upgrades or put ones in hand into play.

Robo Rally Transformers, which is due out in May 2024, contains four double-sided game boards, is for 2-6 players, and can be combined with other Robo Rally expansions. I played a few rounds in a demo, and it felt like Robo Rally of old, with me immediately misreading the board and running into a wall to waste a move and screw up the rest of my turn. Classic!

• In addition to this item, in August 2024 Renegade will release Robo Rally: 30th Anniversary, with this edition of the Richard Garfield and Michael Davis design being for 2-8 players, with four new double-sided game boards, wooden tokens, pre-painted robots, dual-layered player boards, and a US$120 price tag.

• In June 2023, Renegade announced that it had received a license from Hasbro to bring HeroScape back to market, and now it’s unveiled plans for doing so, with the Heroscape: Age of Annihilation – Master Set scheduled to debut in August 2024.

Hasbro had tried to crowdfund Heroscape: Age of Annihilation in a massive package for US$250, and Renegade is breaking the new material into smaller parts, with this Master Set selling for US$125. All of the components in this set are compatible with past (and future) Heroscape products, and the miniatures come unpainted, with a “premium” pre-painted edition of Heroscape: Age of Annihilation – Master Set being available for US$225.

Demo during game night at GAMA Expo 2024

Heroscape: Age of Annihilation – Battle for the Wellspring is a smaller standalone set for those just dipping their toes into Heroscape, with this set coming in both unpainted and painted editions as well. Heroscape: The Grove at Laur’s Edge is a terrain expansion that lets you add trees and underbrush to any landscape you set up.
• I covered three Axis & Allies titles — a new edition of Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition, plus the new titles Axis & Allies: North Africa and G.I. JOE: Battle for the Arctic Circle — in a January 2024 post, but I had overlooked a new edition of Axis & Allies: Guadalcanal that will beat all of them to market in April 2024.

• Two other new editions of older Hasbro titles coming from Renegade are Rob Daviau and Craig Van Ness‘ Risk 2210 A.D., with this July 2024 release having “quality of life updates to components” but no other apparent changes…

…and Charlie Catino’s Nexus Ops, with new illustrations and graphic design, team play and variant rules from the Fantasy Flight Games edition, a molded plastic 3D monolith, and “blacklight glow” miniatures akin to the original Avalon Hill edition. This game is due out in August 2024.

• One of the few non-IP titles coming from Renegade is Ezra and Nehemiah, the latest release from Garphill Games, with this S J Macdonald and Shem Phillips design being due out in June 2024. Here’s an overview of this 1-4 player design:

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The aim of Ezra and Nehemiah is to be the player with the most victory points (VP) at game’s end. Points are gained primarily by building a temple for the returning Israelite exiles, rebuilding the city walls and gates, and by teaching the Torah. Players may also seek to develop their land, travel to settlements outside the city walls, or stoke the altar’s fire to keep it burning day and night. The prophets Haggai and Zechariah will be doing their part to keep the people focused on what is most important.

Over three weeks (rounds), players will use their hand of cards, workers, and resources to do their part in rebuilding the great city of Jerusalem. After six days of work comes a Sabbath day of rest when food will be needed, and the week’s work will be reflected upon. The game ends after the third Sabbath has been completed.

• Finally, October 2024 will bring us Acquire: 60th Anniversary Edition, with this edition of Sid Sackson‘s Acquire featuring “Acquire-themed poker chip style money”, a drawstring bag for the tiles, player powers (which were last included in the 1995 edition, and “upgrades” to the game board and headquarter buildings.

This edition will retail for US$100, and all I have to show of it for now is this crummy image from the GAMA Expo 2024 presentation: