When a mid-10th century Viking grave was excavated in Birka, Sweden in the 1880s, the warrior remains within were assumed to be those of a man, despite some contradictory skeletal traits. Using DNA analysis, however, researchers with Stockholm and Uppsala Universities have now established that the occupant of the grave was a woman. The individual carried two X chromosomes and no Y chromosome, demonstrating that the women warriors in Viking poetry and art were no myth.

As befitting such a leader, the individual was also holding a board game.

The grave goods include a sword, an axe, a spear, armour-piercing arrows, a battle knife, two shields, and two horses, one mare and one stallion; thus, the complete equipment of a professional warrior. Furthermore, a full set of gaming pieces indicates knowledge of tactics and strategy, stressing the buried individual’s role as a high-ranking officer.

[via EurekAlert]

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Outdoor games! Kubb is a lawn game that dates back to the age of Vikings, where you toss batons and blocks to knock over other blocks. Wait, no! Don’t leave! It’s actually a cool game that Downtime Manufacturing Co. is making: Beautiful, solid, hand-crafted wood, with several different designs. Check out the video at the campaign page. They’re just under two thousand dollars away from funding and have a few days left!

Daniel Solis makes small games, and Pod-X is his latest game to hit Kickstarter. The seventeen-card game features a doomed spaceship and a frantic search for the last escape pod. The dealer knows the location, but can she misdirect the other players into giving her the win? A deductive game, this is one of the Button Shy Games’ Wallet Games. Already funded, you can get a copy for a $3 pledge.

Interested in a five-minute cooperative real time fantasy adventure game? Sure, how about Dungeon Time by Ares Games? Gear up, go on a quest, and when the timer runs out, go through the deck to see if you’ve actually completed the goal. This card game seems like a fantasy version of Space Alert (without the soundtrack) or Ticket to Ride: The Card Game (but fun). A $25 pledge gets you a copy.

Maybe something bigger. Far East 1592 is a strategic war game depicting the Seven Year War, where Japan invaded the Korean peninsula. Your troops are modified by thirty different generals. Far East 1592 looks beautiful and, with just four days to go, needs a push to get to the funding mark! The game is available to those that pledge at least $60.

This week in the “we can make a Cards Against Humanity knockoff” category is Pick Your Poison, which just looks like CAH, but isn’t as awful or mean-spirited. It’s more of a Would You Rather… game where you choose one thing that’s cool, but are saddled with something that sucks. You’ll get combinations like “Win the lottery, twice, but never be trusted again” or “Go anywhere in the world for 3 weeks, all expenses paid, but never eat another slice of bacon again.” The judge chooses the one he or she would rather. It’s surprisingly refreshing in a field of CAH-“inspired” games. We’re actually looking forward to this one succeeding! If you want a potty-mouth version, there’s also a Toxic NSFW expansion.

Previously, on… Did Drawing Without Dignity, the potty-mouth Pictionary, make it? Nope, they cancelled the project with 37% funded. They’re going to relaunch the campaign with a slightly more sane funding goal ($5k instead of $10k) and trying to market the game.

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Catalyst always has a table full of amazing looking books, miniatures, and games. This year there were several new products they were showing off. Three Shadowrun 5th Edition sourcebooks, and three tabletop games. Dragons, Deckers, Vikings, and more.

Shadowrun: Hard Targets

Hard Targets is a book about death. It’s got wetworks, gear, and tactical info. It also contains adventure hooks for an in-depth look at the city of Havana in the Caribbean League, a political and criminal hotspot that lends itself to all sorts of wetwork jobs.

Shadowrun: Data Trails

Decker’s delight in this sourcebook. Technomancer’s too. This book is all about the Matrix and the flow of information. There’s even a section in here for non-Matrix users, and how their actions can effect the digital world.

Shadowrun: Rigger 6.0

Vehicles. Jets, boats, and hot rods. This book is jam packed with everything a Rigger could desire, including detailed rules on vehicular combat.

Wrath of Dragons

Forget resource management. Wrath of Dragons is a resource destruction game. Players each control a dragon that constantly pillages and destroys various regions every century. The game features resource destruction, card drafting, and dragon leveling. I had a chance to play this one, and it was a ton of fun. I’ll have a more detailed review in the near future, but for now you can check out the rules here.

Vikings

Based off the hit show on The History Channel, Vikings is a game of pillaging and plundering with all your favorite heroes from the show. Gather your resources in the Winter for your Summer raids.

Jarl

Another game in the Vikings universe, Jarl is a tile laying, strategy game where the goal is to capture your opponent’s Jarl. Pieces move as indicated on their tile, and every time you move a tile it’s flipped, revealing a different move set.

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Catalyst hit the show this year with new products delivered just-in-time for every category. The highlight was Shadowrun: Crossfire, Catalyst’s new deckbuilding card game that’s also cooperative and progressive (meaning progress can be tracked from game to game). Crossfire should be available at retail in September for $60.

New Shadowrun roleplaying products available at Gen Con included the:

• Beginners Box ($20)—An introductory product with essential rules, dice, a standard adventure, and a 1-on-1 adventure (GM and single player).
• Runner’s Toolkit Alphaware ($60)—A campaign setting in a box with handouts, maps, background information, and job book—designed especially as a next step after the Beginners Box.
• Street Grimoire ($50)—Book of advanced magic.
• Run & Gun ($50)—An advanced combat book.
• Stolen Souls ($45)—A campaign sourcebook for Manhattan.

Gen Con also saw the release of the first Shadowrun novel, Fire & Frost ($15). Five more novels will ship in the next 18 months.

More in the roleplaying category, Catalyst had Beyond the Gravastar ($25), a campaign setting for Cosmic Patrol, and the new Valiant Universe RPG ($40), which applies the Cue System from Cosmic Patrol to the superhero genre.

An advance shipment of the Bravest Warriors Encounters card game made it to the show, though it wont be available in general retail until October. A basic two-player set full of inside jokes from the cartoon sells for $13. By combining red and blue boxes, though, the game can accommodate four players.

For BattleTech, Catalyst finally had the Introductory Box Set ($60) back in print. This is the one with new higher-quality plastic.

Following up on Alpha Strike, the simplified faster-playing BattleTech rule-set that the company launched last Gen Con, this year Catalyst had BattleTech Alpha Strike Companion ($40), a supplement that adds some strategic-level options to the game, and a series of four Lance Boxes ($20), which include two new mechs and two previously released mechs (plus Alpha Strike cards) each. Four additional Lance Boxes will be released in September and October.

In the board game category, Catalyst had two new expansions for The Duke, Siege Engines (5 tiles for $8) and City Troops (12 tiles for $13). The tiles in Siege Engines are red and do not go in the bag. Instead, they’re available in a central pool to both players and can be substituted for certain other tiles already on the board.

Last but not least, Catalyst was previewing two new games tied to the Vikings TV show on the History Channel. The first is simply called History Channel Vikings and is a game of exploration, conquest, and resource management. Available for $60 in March (timed to launch with the new season), the game has a constructable map and sees players crewing a longboat as characters from the show.

The second Vikings game is Jarl ($45), which plays exactly like The Duke but includes new pieces made of an imitation stone instead of wood. In fact, though it won’t be advertised as such (license restrictions, I assume), Jarl can be played in combination with The Duke.

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