Garolium Scraggart, beloved ruler of the people, has died. Despite an upbringing of real hardship she rose to the highest rank in the royal court and did what she could to make sure the poorest in Brighthelm were not forgotten. She died too young, her work half done.A tournament has been announced to find her successor. Brave knights have travelled down royal highways. Bold paladins have knocked on royal doors. So too have bards, lords and heroes. All looking to take over Scraggart’s reign and rule the realm to their desires.And every one of them has been sent back to whence they came.Because Garolium herself had devised the tournament. It was the last thing she did, and she decreed it would only be open to those of the most limited means. Those whose potential had been locked by the chains of ill-fortune and poverty. Brighthelm's paupers. She had spent her whole life building their ladder and nobody was going to kick it away.•••Play a pauper in Garolium's tournament. Along with your bird companion, explore the wild and treacherous land of Brighthelm as you strive to learn three of the five virtues: generosity, fellowship, bravery, knowledge, and magnificence. Battle a bestiary of creatures, undertake quests, find ingredients to craft powerful recipes, and discover the sights and wonders of an exciting new world along the way. But beware! You're not the only pauper in town...In Paupers' Ladder, the land of Brighthelm is illustrated with a playing board and over 400 cards depicting equipment, quests, recipes, monsters, ingredients, encounters, cities, villages and more besides.•••HOW TO PLAYThe aim of Paupers’ Ladder is to learn any 3 of the 5 Virtues. Virtues are learned in different ways. For instance, you learn the Virtue of generosity by discarding a certain amount of gems from your purse. When a player has learned 3 Virtues, they have won the game.You control 2 characters: your Pauper, and their Bird companion.• PAUPERThere are 8 different Paupers to choose from, and each has their own unique piece of starting equipment. Your Pauper’s character card is where you’ll keep track of your progress towards learning Virtues.• BIRDThere are 4 different Birds to choose from. Birds start the game untrained. You can pay to train your Bird to learn a unique ability.PLAYING YOUR TURNOn your turn you use both your Pauper and your Bird, in either order. Each character may move from the Region they occupy into any adjoining Region, or stay where they are. Paupers’ can pay to travel extra Regions. Your character now explores the Region they occupy.When a Region is explored, you choose to either:• Play a card that’s already in that Region by following the instructions on it.• Draw a card from the top of that Region’s deck, place it there and follow its instructions.The Region card you play will be one of the following:• EVENTEvents include things like friendly citizens, equipment and villages.• HAZARDSHazards are creatures and traps that must be fought.• INGREDIENTSIngredients are used by your Pauper to learn recipes.When you have moved and explored with both your Pauper and your Bird, play continues to the next player.

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In 2024, Lookout Games is celebrating the 10th anniversary of another Uwe Rosenberg classic: Patchwork, tremendously popular with players all over the planet, get's a reprint with a brand new color scheme and comes with new artwork. On top, the box will get some extra "bling" and special custom made tokens. Exquisite brand new patterns are designed by illustrators Cecila Mok and Carrie Cantwell. The new skin will replace the original patterns and will be the standard for future reprints of Patchwork. The 10 Year Anniversary Edition contains:1 time board2 quilt boards2 wooden time markers1 wooden neutral token39 cardboard tiles50 cardboard tokensand 1 rule book This edition has one Patchwork: Automa included.

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In Patchwork, two players compete to build the most aesthetic (and high-scoring) patchwork quilt on a personal 9x9 game board. To start play, lay out all of the patches at random in a circle and place a marker directly clockwise of the 2-1 patch. Each player takes five buttons — the currency/points in the game — and someone is chosen as the start player.On a turn, a player either purchases one of the three patches standing clockwise of the spool or passes. To purchase a patch, you pay the cost in buttons shown on the patch, move the spool to that patch's location in the circle, add the patch to your game board, then advance your time token on the time track a number of spaces equal to the time shown on the patch. You're free to place the patch anywhere on your board that doesn't overlap other patches, but you probably want to fit things together as tightly as possible. If your time token is behind or on top of the other player's time token, then you take another turn; otherwise the opponent now goes. Instead of purchasing a patch, you can choose to pass; to do this, you move your time token to the space immediately in front of the opponent's time token, then take one button from the bank for each space you moved.In addition to a button cost and time cost, each patch also features 0-3 buttons, and when you move your time token past a button on the time track, you earn "button income": sum the number of buttons depicted on your personal game board, then take this many buttons from the bank.What's more, the time track depicts five 1x1 patches on it, and during set-up you place five actual 1x1 patches on these spaces. Whoever first passes a patch on the time track claims this patch and immediately places it on his game board.Additionally, the first player to completely fill in a 7x7 square on his game board earns a bonus tile worth 7 extra points at the end of the game. (Of course, this doesn't happen in every game.)When a player takes an action that moves his time token to the central square of the time track, he takes one final button income from the bank. Once both players are in the center, the game ends and scoring takes place. Each player scores one point per button in his possession, then loses two points for each empty square on his game board. Scores can be negative. The player with the most points wins.

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Assemble your clans mightiest ninja and compete for honor and glory in the annual ninja games. The moonlight casts a pale light over the battleground as you compete with your team, earn experience, gain skills, and battle rival ninja clans in this league/campaign style game.Featuring world class Chibi style sculpts from the world famous Soda Pop Miniatures team (makers of Super Dungeon Explore), expect fun and whimsical game play to be married with fantastic and unique style and fun.Ninja All Stars allows for 2 to 4 players to take control of a team of ninja (this may be a pre-rolled team or a team purchased with points) and battle over objectives. Each Ninja Clan is drawn from a different element (6 in total), with each element providing different bonuses in-game. As well, the game's dice mechanic is based on the element system, using a rock-paper-scissors type of dice elimination to determine the outcome of various aspects such as combat, searching, and special abilities. It is important to note that combat is not a simple "I rolled more swords than your shields"; the elimination of dice will give the winner a choice of different combat results based on the remaining dice. The interesting point here is, ninja don't die in this game-rather,they are knocked out and placed in their team's dojo, where they rest and recover and may eventually be brought back onto the board. The rules allow for one-off scenario games as well as league play with guidelines on ninja advancement, meaning that players can develop their ninja over many games.The game comes complete with enough miniatures to allow for 4 teams, each of a different element, the game board, and numerous tokens for game effects.

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Higher and higher, the construction grows. Before long, the steel girders reach dizzying heights. Fearlessly, the workers carry on, with nothing more than hardhats to protect them. The danger of collapse hangs over everything — so just make sure that nothing happens! You also have to impress Rita, the boss, if you want to be Employee of the Month. There's a lot to do, so let's get going!Men At Work is a stacking and balancing game in which players compete as workers on a job site who are carefully constructing a tower to avoid accidents and, maybe, earn Employee of the Month. The game includes three gaming modules to add loads of replayability, as well as wooden components housed within a well-designed insert for easy set up.—description from the publisher

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The king was accidentally turned into a frog! Gather your friends, stride across the forest, and find the correct ingredients to prepare a potion that will cure him.Magic Maze Kids is a cooperative game that makes the original mechanisms of Magic Maze accessible to young players. Everyone controls all of the heroes, but only in one direction! Tutorials gradually teach you the rules, and several levels make the game evolve with the children.—description from the publisher

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