INVASION OF THE BROOD will probably be offered on a special kickstarter this January. Our current plan is that we will have pre-printed copies of the game, so it can ship out immediately after the campaign funds (we did this on Ghoul Island and 8-Bit Attack). Of course “our current plan” may change with the vagaries of the world nowadays. 

It does not have miniatures – instead, it uses colorful cardboard tokens with silhouettes and relevant numbers. Here is a brief introduction. 

Invasion of the Brood

“This world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.” H. G. Wells

Introduction

All broodmasters lust for conquest – their greed is unmatched in the galaxy. But for the broodmaster Magnalux, it was not just lust, it was necessity. Magnalux had rebelled against its superior, broodmaster Thunderchild and Magnalux had lost the fight. Fleeing for its life, Magnalux escaped in a ship. But for the Brood, true safety is found in absolute rulership and control.

After traveling thousands of parsecs, Magnalux’s ship dropped out of hyperspace near Earth. It landed on the far side of Luna, where its ship could not be spotted from Earth. Magnalux had few resources – only those it could scrape from the moon’s surface – but its technology was far superior to humankind. Conquest should not be difficult, particularly if Magnalux took advantage of the complex Brood life cycle … and the equally complex human political situation.

Summary

Invasion of the Brood is a two-player board game about the conquest of planet Earth in the first half of the 21^st century. The Humans must first unite against the threat, then hold off Magnalux’s minions long enough to build a rocket to attack Magnalux’s moon base and kill it, ending the threat. If they fail, all of humanity will fall under Magnalux’s thrall.

Victory

The Humans win by launching the Orion Rocket. They do this during the Project Orion Phase by having six Project Orion pieces on their player sheet, which they accumulate by launching pieces of the Project from Antarctica.  

The Brood wins by having a Worker control at least one factory inside each of the six major nations at the same time. It wins immediately when this happens. 

<Sandy’s Tip: Project Orion is a super-rocket that is launched by firing off hundreds of atomic bombs. If it is launched anywhere but Antarctica, the devastation, fallout, and poisoning of the atmosphere would be so great that humanity would probably go extinct anyway. So Antarctica it is.>

Sequence of Play

The game is played in a series of alternating turns. First the Brood takes its turn, then the Humans take theirs. Each game-turn is composed of several phases. These phases differ from Brood to Human.

• Brood player turn
  1. Gather Phase – the Brood gets free stuff from its Moonbase
  2. Spend Mindpower – the Brood spends mindpower for actions.
• Humans player turn
  1. Awaken – the humans seek to alert the great nations to their peril
  2. Project Orion – the humans launch, move, and build Orion units
  3. Move – the humans move any or all of their units, except Orion units
  4. Attack – the humans attack
  5. Build – the humans place new military units at free factories

You’ll notice that the two sides have completely different turn sequences. They play nothing alike!