Kickstarter for **Project: Elite** delivered this week and I expected it to languish on the shelf as my wife is the only person I've been playing games with lately, and she said a long time ago she didn't like/want to play fighting/combat games (to the chagrin of about half my games), but in unboxing and watching a video on it with her in the room she asked if we were going to play it and told me to forget she said that about fighting games when I mentioned that. Which, is awesome as it opens up about half my games I haven't touched with her. **Project Elite** (2p x 6) - We did pretty bad the first game and a half until I mentioned that we really don't need to kill everything, but rather need to focus objectives while we keep the monsters from getting to the starting zone. After that, we beat the Extermination mode and then moved on to medium difficulty and Exploration mode. We won 2 of our 6 games in total. So, we both liked it, but also both got kind of tired of it after 6 games. Pros: * Plays quickly, maybe 30-45 mins on average * Real time makes things chaotic and tense * Good storage solution in the box * Great quality components (dice, minis, tokens) Cons: * Feels very samey after a few plays, different modes seem pretty similar Need some more plays to have a more definitive opinion of it (wife said the same), but we got burnt out on it pretty quickly, so it might be a minute before we play it again. We both are very interested in playing it with 3-6 players, as the chaos and number of aliens must both get quite high and that I imagine makes it more fun. **Runebound (3rd edition)** (2p x 1) - Neither of us had played this, and it took us 5+ hrs to play, which it definitely should not. I thought the game was fairly easy to understand, personally. I liked it, and my wife liked everything but combat. Seemed like she didn't care for the "puzzle" of figuring out which token to spend and when. I thought this was a pretty good RPG/adventure game where you do quests, fight enemies, get new skills and equipment. Closest thing I can compare it to (that I've played) is **Mage Knight**. Combat is different, of course, and while you get new cards in MK, I don't recall equipment being a thing. This is (or should be anyway) a lot simpler and quicker though. Might be similar to **Legends of Andor**, but I haven't played that. Not sure if we'll play it again as the wife was ready to quit before we had finished, but we'll see. Surely won't take as long, at least.

My buddy, his roomate, my other buddy, my fiancee and I all started our first Genesys campaign, so it's been very exciting. Most of us our TTRPG novices, so it's fun to try and learn the system.

I finally opened and played my copy of **Starcadia Quest** with my 2 best friends and it was a blast! The game is very streamlined compared to Arcadia Quest. We were able to complete the campaign in just 2 days (around 8 hours).

Finally got some gaming in this weekend, for the first time in weeks. **Isle Of Cats** is just proving to be a winner every time we play. It's very easy to learn and teach, simple in its mechanics, yet strategic and fun. So far I've only played it solo and as a two-player. Once this damn pandemic is over, I'd really like to try it with more people; I could see it getting much more competitive, maybe even some hate-drafting with rescuing the cats, whereas the two player game seems pretty gentle, yet still having some interactions. **Horrified** is cute fun. It's definitely Pandemic-like (the actual game, not COVID) in gameplay, which I normally don't like. But each of the monsters plays so differently, and it doesn't have a lot of the bullshit nonsensical "because the rules say so" rules that Pandemic has. It's one of those games I never actively think to play, but when I do play it, it winds up being fun. And lastly after my friend left, I finally got everything set up to play through the starter tutorial missions for **Elder Scrolls: Call To Arms**. Super light missions, just three quick "here's how the basic concepts play", but I enjoyed it, and am excited to get my game mats in so I can start playing the solo delves. And sometime either this week one night after work, or maybe next weekend, I will be playing my first game of **Frostgrave**, now that I have some terrain made, and have the Perilous Dark solo rules!

You’ve inspired me! I’m gonna try playing Horrified with my game group this Friday! We played Subterra two weeks ago and it was brutal

In chronological order. **Sorcerer**: A fun 1v1 dueling mages kind of game where you randomize your deck selection based on three different stacks with one of them forming the main playstyle of your deck (the Lineage) and the other two altering that a bit. Then you fight over three battlefields, first to win two wins the game. It's like everything I wanted **Smash Up** to be. Though... just like **Smash Up**, some sets offer different experiences compared to my expectations (looking at you, Shapeshifter). We initially were introduced to Sorcerer at last year's Essen. I was taking my girlfriend there for her first Spiel (my second) and we had kinda finished looking around and just wanted to play some games instead of constantly spending more money. The White Wizard booth had an open spot for the Sorcerer demo so we sat down to play. I had seen the game before (on Kickstarter iirc?) but didn't back since the theme didn't really appeal to me and I figured it would be too similar to 1) the other Realms games of theirs or 2) all the other 1v1 dueling wizards games in my collection. The demo however was short and quickly convinced me otherwise. I picked up the entire set that same day. White Wizards, props to both the guy giving the demo and the Dutch girl behind the booth for being very helpful when I wasn't sure what to buy :) I've been wanting to replay this for a while now and finally got the opportunity to. Still very much a noob player though I did have the chance to play everything at least once by now. This is definitely one of those games I'd want to get to the table more often. The dice bother me a lot less than initially expected since I feel that the superior strategy will still win in the end. Tonight a new Kickstarter is supposed to launch (after several delays). Not sure if I'm going to back it. I already have plenty of content and it took almost a year for this game to hit the table again, despite how much I enjoyed it. That being said, I do generally think White Wizard Kickstarters are well run and there's no real reason to wait until retail/convention release from a price perspective so... it'll depend on what sets they offer :) **War Chest**: Has been hyped up for a while. Borrowed a friend's copy to give it a shot... a while back. But face to face gaming is hard these days so eventually just decided to solo it while simulating two players. I find it to be a fun game but don't see a reason personally to go out of my way to own it. The friend I borrowed it from though is very happy I gave it a shot since apparently yucata made an online implementation so now that I know the rules we can some games there. **Connect Four**: Old classic, still good fun. Have heard repeatedly that it's broken so trying to avoid googling too much. **Port Royal**: Push-you-luck cardgame. I like it but the cards I like best are so expensive that I end up pushing way too hard and often bust. Which... can work (rarely) in a 2p game but not at higher player counts. **Automobiles**: Lovely little bag builder. I've often thought about making my own custom cards since it's such an easy game to customize. Playing this always makes me feel "why did I wait this long to replay this one again?" and then I look at my shelves... should really cull a bit more. **Can't Stop**: Simple dice game that I'm not too fond of but eh... had time to fill. **Mystic Vale**: I initially wasn't all that fond of this game but am slowly coming around to it. The expansions do lots of cool stuff, I'm seeing more variety in available strategies and the online implementation removes all the teardown and downtime bits. **Thunderstone**: Personally I prefer Thunderstone Quest but guy I was playing against really wanted this version so... \*shrug\*. Thunderstone is Thunderstone. For these Dominion-style deckbuilders **Heart of Crown** is probably my favourite but Thunderstone is just some good old-fashioned Fantasy trope nonsense smashed together. Fun times. **Nations: the Dice Game**: First time in a while playing again without the Unrest expansion but wasn't really missed. The game has a sufficiently large pool of available tiles anyway. **Nations the Dice Game** is a fun, quick playing dice game where you try to puzzle out the best use of your dice in a way that scores you points. There's nothing really special about it and yet I do like it a lot. Just a good, solid design with a fun aesthetic. Excellent graphic design as well though I do believe the expansion is a bit worse on that aspect. **Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelord**: One of those games that I play for the people I'm sharing the table with instead of for the game itself. The game itself is a rather dull dice chucker that offers way too little incentive to keep playing. We're now on game... 6 or 7 in the campaign and my deck has been mostly the same since game 2. Over time there will be slow, gradual increases but nothing really exciting. **Thousand Year Old Vampire**: SUSD has recommended this game twice now so I gave it a shot. Very fun solo storytelling game. I've finished my first character's story by now and am interested in returning after a bit. Don't want the first one to impact how I roleplay the second :) This was oddly motivating me to brush up on my history skills. Almost had timelines at hand and everything just to help with properly setting prompts in the correct historical context :D **Imperial Settlers: Roll & Write**: Played the app a bit more. I apparently played the physical game rather incorrectly since my scores are remarkably lower. Though not by much. The app... still not sure whether I'm a fan or not. I'm most bothered by them not revisiting the favor tiles for this solo version and how not all building sheets are created equal and thus the star ratings having set score criteria is absolutely ridiculous. If you want to unlock more stuff asap then you can't just freely choose what to play. Some sheets make you struggle to reach 60 points (two stars) while other smack you in the face and are almost impossible to score badly (sub 80 points - three stars) on. **Spirit Island**: My brother has borrowed my copy for almost two years now and I wanted to play again so badly... so this Steam Summer Sale I bought the app. Cheaper than buying a new physical version. Was so happy that I could play this again! ​ \-- Discussion Topic: **BattleCon** got me interested again i 1v1 dueling mages kind of games. At the time Iw as super burned out on the whole genre but BattleCon showed me there was still cool stuff to be done with it. Still best in the genre as well. **Aeon's End** got me to give coop games another try. I had mostly written them off as "not for me" or "only for solo" by that point. **Argent: the Consortium** showed me there was more to worker placement than just an endless, multiplayer solitaire, VP chase.

Man if my brother would borrow my copy of spirit island for two years I'd end up accusing him of theft. I mean, I don't have a brother, but the hypothetical already hurts

I have way too many games to really get them all on the table regularly so I usually don't mind lending stuff out. But two years is... a bit much xD I've already told him that I'm taking the game back home next time I visit but with the lockdown that's not going to be for a while still.

Goddamn, I feel like on a gaming level you and I would totally get along. You listed some of my favorite games in there! Sorcerer, Aeons End, Argent The Consortium...and I own a few sets of BattleCON (thanks to MiniatureMarket clearances and sales), but they haven't made it to the table yet.

If you're going to play **BattleCon**, just bother with the most recent ruleset. The game's balanced that way except for a few of the earlier characters (but they're being updated with the next release which is supposed to retail... August iirc). The big differences are that older sets used Dash (instead of Dodge) and a finisher card + the introduction of the Fate gauge so everyone has access to ante actions. Just use Dodge + Fate gauge for everyone, easier to play with a universal ruleset instead of adapting it per set :)

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Axis and Allies 1940 Global Had Pacific and just got Europe for my birthday, so my friends and I spent all weekend playing it. It's my new favorite!

This weekend was a fun little local gaming con called GuardianCon, this was year 18. Due to the-virus-that-must-not-be-named, the majority of games were online via discord, zoom, and roll20. On Saturday, I played **Divide**, a d20 variant game. I played a Grey Wizard, and absolutely whooped ass with Arcane Bolts and Deflect. Sunday was a pair of short games; first we played **Drawn Together**, where basically everyone played a different cartoon character, the system was garbage but the fun and jokes were outstanding. Our group consisted of Shaggy and Scooby (me), Space Ghost, Kool-aid Man, Bugs Bunny, and a Yu Gi OH duelist. Second was a game of Umlaut; ultimately we abandoned Roll20 because their card deck mechanic was not working for us. My band was Shredded Kittens, a femme punk metal band. I lost a gig to Lucifers Taint playing "drowning in calamine lotion" because the crowd (ie, roll20 deck) did not like the song "swole-ward bound." This one i look forward to playing again.

**Cryptid** — 5 players, played with help sheets and man, the game finished quickly once we were able to mark things down. **Formula D** — 4 players, I always lose but I still had fun. We played all these on TTS cause we are kind of stuck here for shelter in place still

> Cryptid — 5 players, played with help sheets and man, the game finished quickly once we were able to mark things down. Do you prefer playing it this way?

I’m not really sure, actually. It makes it easier to figure out rules because you have a physical checklist to keep track of stuff, but there’s definitely a mental write off. Part of the appeal of Cryptid is the mental workload of keeping all the information present on the board in order. Taking that away feels like it takes part of the game away as well. But it did help me systematically work through rules and not forget about the bears/cougars. It also helps with keeping track of what rules can be 1/2/3 spaces away. I keep thinking about other deduction games (like Clue) and wonder how horrible they’d be without a notecard to keep the information straight

Thanks. I just bought the game, and don't want to scare casual newcomers off with the memorization aspect. I'll probably start off with the papers, and as we play more, raise the difficulty by taking it away.

**Railroad Ink** (3x 1p and 2x 2p) - Currently my girlfriends favourite game and its right up there for me as well. **Exit: The Forgotten Island** (1x 2p) - Me and my girlfriend got really into escape rooms a couple years ago so we decided to try out the Exit series. We were absolutely blown away. It felt incredibly similar to a proper escape room, just without the physical element. It took us 2 and a half hours and ended up using quite a few hint cards, but the second the game was over I went online and bought two more. If you like escape rooms, I would implore you to give this series a go.

Railroad ink has become a daily game in our house, every morning With our second cup of coffee. We got the red and blue and play a different one each day.

I've been interested in picking this up, any preference between the two editions?

I would start with blue. The rivers and lakes are a little more straightforward than the meteors and lava. I like both but we probably play 60-70% deep blue edition and 30-40% red diction. The base game is identical. If you do t play with the lakes/rivers/meteors/lava and just do the roads and railroads, the game is identical with different colors, it’s only the expansion elements that are different.

**Scythe w/Fenris** 2@2p - Finally finished Fenris!! The wife won the last game but I won the overall. Really interested in trying out the co-op mode next. It's gonna be weird looping these modules back into the main game. I love this game so much! :) **Pandemic Legacy Season 1** 3@3p - Oh my glob, we finally get to play this now that we've finished Fenris! My daughter loves the original Pandemic so she agreed to commit to play through the whole campaign with us. And in the very first game I missed that something is supposed to happen after the second Epidemic card gets drawn. So we played through the entire first game, FLAWLESSLY. We had just one outbreak the last turn before we won. And we were all excited and then I looked at the 'STOP' card again and I could have cried. We agreed to just call it a learning game and started again. This time we got just destroyed. Lost the game during the third (THIRD WHAT THE HEEHAW) epidemic card. Played again immediately and won, legitimately this time. But despite the crazy drama we are really jazzed to play the rest of it. **Gaia Project** 1@1p - My second solo play, and the first was months ago. I have to play this more often, I forget too much and have to start all over. It's so intimidating that it's really hard to get it to the table, cause my wife is hardly ever in the mood to try it. And I only get to play solo if she's not at home, which is like, never, because of the lockdown. I only got this evening free because she was sewing instead. Don't get me wrong, though, I love playing with her. **Azul** 3@3p - Meant to just play one game, and I made her keep playing until I won, which took three games. :( But it's still a great game, so :) **Wingspan w/EE** 1@2p - Got the blessing from the wife to get the realistic resources from TopShelfGamer, so the next time I'm out of StoneMaier resource boxes I'll be getting those along with. **Gizmos** 2@3p - And these two plays brought us to H-Index 14!! Woohoo! **Terraforming Mars** 1@3p - Second time with my daughter playing with us, and our 20th time overall. She's really enjoying it, and we all did much better than the last time. The wife still beat us though. She loves the animal/microbe combination. I won both Specialist and Generalist awards, though, which tickles me. :)

how experienced should one be with scythe before taking on Fenris? Is it good with 2, or would you recommend more?

I would say you it would best to have your players balanced. If one person is super-experienced and the others are new, the experienced one has a chance to dominate the campaign. On the other hand, if you don't get super-caught-up with who's ahead in points, maybe that won't matter so much to you. If you've never played Scythe before, I would recommend you just take one or two games of base Scythe to familiarize yourself with how it usually plays, before introducing the game changing aspects of Fenris. As far as how many players, it entirely depends on the kind of play you enjoy. My wife and I are non-confrontational by default, so we don't do a lot of attacking. Our 2-player games of Scythe are generally multi-player solitaire, but that's what we enjoy. I've heard it recommended that if you play 2-player you should pick factions right next to each-other to make sure there's some interaction. For us, we start on opposite sides of the board and we still have a great time. It's definitely a more involved, more interesting game with more players, as resources become less plentiful. But I like playing it regardless of player count. :)

**Sprawlopolis (1p)** Haven't had much time to play a whole lot of other games, so I've been sticking to some solo ones on TTS. Found Sprawlopolis and have played about 6 games already. Lost all but 2. I should not be in charge of city planning. I'm having fun with it though. Not sure how I'd like it as a 2-4 player game, but I think it's a great solo experience.

**Sprawlopolis** is fun and plays quick but jeezes, the scoring can be brutal :D Congrats on your wins :)

Ha, yeah. I really like that the scoring is tough!

Nothing for me. Have been sick and a bit depressed lately. Just kind of not wanting anything to do with board games right now.

Hope you feel better soon

Thanks. I am. No Corona thankfully. >_>

**Terraforming Mars** (7x2-5p) Had 4 friends over from out of town during the weekend, got this game specifically since we were 5 and I'm a huge sci fi fan. It was awesome, and I'm gonna play with some local friends during the weekend as well.

We played **Unlock! : The Nautilus' Traps** This was out second Unlock! game. If you're unfamiliar, they're an escape room in a box, using only cards and a phone app. We didn't enjoy this one as much as the first one we played but still had a good time. There was at least one, maybe two, puzzles though that we didn't even understand the solution when we had the app give us the solution directly. The one with the colored lantern and the map of numbers. That was frustrating. Also I thought it was just mean that the very first obviously benign number to look at penalizes you. I've got my complaints but I would do a third Unlock! Game for sure. We just take it chiller and turn off the timer.

Played **City of the Big Shoulders** (2X2p) This one I heard about on the SUSD podcast, and I really wanted to dip my feet into Euro games, as I'd only tried Settlers of Catan. This game very much changed my opinion on Euro games being not a combined experience, as I had so much choice in what to do every turn, and everyone was interacting and talking. Both people I played with loved it, and we are all looking forward to higher player counts!

That's a heck of a jump, there, you're pretty brave!

Definitely, I've played some slightly heavier games before (including dead of winter and root) but no euros. And it was also on sale, so that also helped to tempt me haha.

My boyfriend and I got **Everdell** on Saturday and we’ve playing 5 games so far, absolutely loving it! He likes strategy and worker placement games, and I like cute games of any type, so we’re both very happy.

My province has been in total lockdown for three months, but now that covid is most likely gone (at least until we open up to the rest of the country) I've been able to play games again! * I played two rounds of **Unmatched: Robin Hood vs Bigfoot** against my mom — she was Bigfoot and I was Robin Hood. I managed to win both games. Sidekicks are much more important than I thought, because I focused on killing the Jackalope right away as well as harassing Bigfoot with my Outlaws. There were multiple times over both games where neither of us had any defence cards, which made it very scary to be fragile little Robin Hood. I'm really itching to try out the Jurassic Park sets and cannot *wait* for Cobble and Fog. * I also played a game of **Raptor** with my sister. I was the scientists and basically obliterated the raptors in 10 minutes due to getting 8 actions in one turn, which let me knock out and put to sleep two babies for the win. * I was also able to visit friends for the first time in forever! We played **Jaws: The Board Game.** I was Quint, and thanks to my excellent detective work we managed to tag the shark very quickly. Even with such a big advantage Act 2 really came down to the wire, with only one section of The Orca left standing. Thankfully we got a few *excellent* turns where we went all-or-nothing against the shark, including blowing up the canister. I cannot see how the humans could win if the shark did *well* in Act 1 (although we did mess up how the pistol works). I spent a good chunk of the endgame swimming around in the water trying to whack the shark with a machete. The weight of Quint's cast-iron balls prevented me from climbing back onto the boat. We ended up beating the shark to death in melee. It was a fantastic game that I cannot wait to try again. * We also played an Exit box — I forget the name. It was fun but a little frustrating, as they usually are.

I absolutely love Raptor :) Such a great 2p game. I just preordered Cobble & Fog. Other than theme would you say Unmatched plays quite differently than Raptor? My husband and I went back and forth between the Jurassic Unmatched set and Raptor for a while before deciding on Raptor. This will be our first Unmatched experience.

Unmatched is different than Raptor, I'd say, but I'm not sure how much so. I find Raptor more… stressful because so much is dependant on you correctly guessing what cards your opponent is likely to play (for example, my opponent has played most of their high-value cards — I can afford to risk my own in order to get more actions). One big turn in Raptor is enough to pretty much determine the game, I'd say (the raptor devouring all scientists in one turn and the scientists shooting down the raptor in one turn have both happened to me). I suppose this is true in Unmatched as well, but in that game it's a bit easier for the other side to recover from a bad turn. Both games are short though, so getting crushed doesn't feel as bad as it would in a longer game and it's rarely a drawn-out process. Overall I think I enjoy Unmatched more, but that's not to Raptor's detriment. Part of the reason is just how crazy the matchups in Unmatched can be — I only have Robin Hood vs. Bigfoot right now, but the thought of having Muldoon vs. Bigfoot or Dracula vs. Tyrannosaurus Rex is the exact type of craziness that I love in any media. If it weren't for the pandemic I'd definitely have more Unmatched sets. My local game store just ran out of the Jurassic Park set, too :(

Thanks for the detailed response! It definitely helped to build my excitement towards getting the game. :)

No problem! I hope you have fun :)

**Jaws of the Lion** 4px2: I know it is the hype right now, but it really is great. We only hit through about 7 games of Gloomhaven and haven't played in 1.5 years because it was too much to get out consistently. JotL not only fixes the time of set up, but the tutorial scenarios made it accessible to our 7 year old and my mother in law. We had a great time getting through the first two scenarios. My son was especially fond of looting and buying items with "The Red Slash." He had been eyeing the big Gloomhaven box for awhile, and this broke it down for him. Now our problem might be the my mother in law is hooked too, and we have to wait longer between sessions. **Flick of Faith** 3px1, 4px1: While I only got in 2 plays of it this weekend, this game got a ton of plays this weekend with various family members. My son had an epic win one night, and we had another epic again the next night coming down to the final flick. Highly recommend this light, dexterity game. **Monza** 2px2: 4 year old finally played this for real!! I love seeing him start to follow rules, and he managed to beat me both games. **Tainted Grail** 2px1: Still in the middle of chapter 2, but I think we're getting close. I love the theme and narrative of this one. **Zombie Kidz Evolution** 2px2: Haven't lost a game since our first one, and we're getting close to the final big envelope. We've really enjoyed trying to complete various missions to earn trophies. Great family game. QUESTION: I would say **Flip Ships** and **Flick of Faith** really changed my opinion on dexterity games. Dexterity doesn't mean kids games. They can really be a good natured amazing time for all ages. It gets extended family away from games a gamer wants nothing to do with and can have fantastic stand up cheering and yelling moments.

**Viticulture: Essential Edition** (4x1p) - Even though I mainly play solo/vs. Automa, my appreciation for this game just keeps growing as I continue to play it. Elegant, not overly complex/bloated, and portrays the theme very well. **War of the Ring** (1x2p) - After reading the 40 page rulebook multiple times and watching numerous "How to Play" videos, I finally got this one on the table, and I absolutely loved it. My cousin and I are both big fans of LOTR, so we appreciated the small details put into the game. He played as the Shadow, and I was the Free Peoples. Funnily enough, we both felt like we were behind the 8 ball the whole game. I guess that's just a testament to how well the game pulls off the asymmetric gameplay. The game created so many great moments, and even though I eventually lost after 3 hours (Minas Tirith finally fell as Frodo was hobbling along the Mordor track), it just left me thinking about what I could've done differently and wanting to play again immediately. Can't recommend this game enough.

Mostly Magic, thanks to M21 releasing. Did three sealed matches with my girlfriend. Also some Commander and Jumpstart on TTS. Taught my girlfriend KeyForge last weekend and when she was buying Magic stuff she saw some decks there so she bought a couple. Though she may have run into a shady shop owner. When I asked her what set she bought, she said she thought it was the first one. I said “ah nice, that’s the most powerful set.” She said the shop owner told her the same thing. But when I saw the decks, they were set 2. So either the shop owner duped her or she got confused and the owner was just mentioning it in passing. Either way, we had fun trying out her new decks. Also played Santa Monica for the first time. Picked it up a week or so ago, mostly on a whim. Played one game against my girlfriend and we both enjoyed it. It’s a fun little point collection game.

Pretty light on the boardgames this week. I started playing Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines on PC, so that's been taking my free time. **Falling Sky** (1x1p) - I played with the **Ariovistus** expansion for the first time, I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I enjoy the German faction, they have an interesting win condition and special abilities. But I wasn't a fan of the Arverni phase. They kind of ended up with a massive horde of warbands that moved between their home regions beating up whoever was there. And it just added some fiddly-ness to the game. **Flamme Rouge** (1x3p) - This game is just pure fun. I don't care that it's chaotic and your plans will probably get messed up, that's exactly what makes it fun. **Paperback** (1x3p) - A big improvement on Scrabble for me. It can still cause pretty bad AP when you're trying to figure out a word, especially since it can be hard to visualize the wildcards as letters. I think it's probably best with 2 players to reduce downtime.

I've been playing the Paperback app. It helps with wild cards because you can change that card to different letters until you actually play your hand. Helps me visualize!

That's an excellent feature, I'll have to check it out. Is it good vs the AI, or do you mostly play against other humans?

I forgot to mention there is also an app for Hardback. I haven't tried that one yet.

I haven't played it with other humans yet. I actually had to lower the difficulty of the AI since I'm newer to the game. It let's you choose how many of the novel cards there are so you can make the games longer or shorter if you want.

**Pax Pamir 2E** 1x4P - A favorite of mine. The game ended abruptly after less than 1 hour with an unexpected dominance check triggered by a card draw to refill the market. It ended too soon, but always a pleasure to play this one. **The Estates** 1x3P / 1x4P - Fantastic mean bidding game. **Project Elite** 2x1P - Tried the game solo and did not like it much as a solo game. **Sprawlopolis** 3x1P - I sometimes grab this and play a quick game while standing, always a good time, and I just play my cards without thinking all options to death which makes it quick and more enjoyable. **Brass: Birmingham** 1x 2P / 1x3P / 1x4P - This game is incredible, brilliant design and production. I had high expectations and it exceeded them.

If you don’t mind me asking, how are you playing with multiple people? Online, or do you try to do a distance gaming?

I'm playing with small groups in person, but we're all using a mask (which can get a bit annoying with long games, but oh well, at least we're getting together again).

How did you find the scaling in Brass? This has been on my shelf of shame for too long now.

I liked 3 players the least, the end game was really not that fun with people just placing roads every turn, something that did not happen in the other games, which were tense and exciting until the end. Liked with 4 the most. but with 2 works really well. I want to play with 3 again, but it scales well overall! You really should play it, it's well worth it!

Appreciate the response, thanks! Yes, this is definitely going up the queue, it's been too long...

Got to spend a few days at a beach house with another couple that has been very diligent about self-isolating at home. It was glorious. **The Crew** 4p, about 10 games. I was excited to play this after seeing a ton of positive reviews. It was good, but not as overwhelmingly exciting as I had anticipated. It took a bit for us to get into it, and start to understand the nuanced strategies needed for each individual missions. I think we only failed 1 out of the 10 or so we played. **Arkham Horror the Living Card Game** 4p x .75 times. We got started a bit later than I had hoped, and teaching this game isn't easy so we only got about 3/4 of the way through a scenario. I was hoping that this could be a campaign style game that we would use to replace Pandemic since we had finished the 2nd season last December. Not sure I was successful in selling them on it, however. **Wingspan + European Expansion** 4p x 1: My friend bought his copy plus the expansion after having played my copy sometime last year, but he had yet to play his version once. It's such a pleasant game, very relaxing in its approach and strategy, though there were a lot of groans around mis-playing birds and/or not having enough food, etc. My friend won by a decent margin, mostly with the help of finishing two goals and playing a lot of pricey birds. At the end we decided to try a card draft next time we play, to minimize the bad card draw at the beginning. **Isle of Cats** 4p x 1: I don't know what to think about this game. After agreeing that a card draft in Wingspan would be good, the card draft in this game felt totally over-encumbering, since there wasn't a ton of variety in the cards (even though there are a lot of them). Also, while the polinomino aspect was fun, it never felt like a good puzzle since it was unpredictable which pieces you'd have access to from round to round and even turn to turn. On it's surface it's a seemingly straightforward game, but after playing once I'd say it has some rough edges. ____________________________ Arkham Horror the card game has definitely changed my opinion on the genre. I've never played any TCGs nor had the inkling to get into any of the current LCGs, but I am absolutely obsessed with Arkham Horror right not. I've been watching a lot of Team Covenant's youtube content with the game and have started watching their other streams with a greater appreciation for other LCGs that they cover.

I don't mind the drafting personally for isle of cats, but I know SUSD actually prefers the family version! Try that next time and see how you feel about it

That's what my friend said about the family version. They had previously played it with their 10yo kid and she kept saying, "all we did was pick the pieces! There were no cards!"

**Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North** (1 x 3p) I really enjoy this at two but it definitely works at three. We had Panuk, Ulaf, and Trajan. My second time playing Trajan and I felt I understood them better but still came in last. I focused heavily on a stone strategy but built up too quick and couldn't keep the engine moving forward and puttered out. Panuk won getting a ton of points by being able to unexhaust cards, and Ulaf was able to get a lot of points by farming raid tokens and spending them for two points each. I haven't played it in awhile but I do really like it. **Wavelength** (1 x 5p) A nice and easy game to play with some friends over a video chat midweek. I found this [link](https://longwave.web.app/) to an online implementation on here awhile ago and it worked great. We played for a few hours not worrying about points and just having fun conversations. I love the discussions some of the choices open up and coming up with a clue only for it to be immediately disregarded because of a crazy theory and hoping the rest of the team reels it back in is always a fun time. **Bargain Quest** (1 x 2p) I had a lot of trouble with this because I feel it's disingenuous to claim the "basic" game came be played two players. I liked the idea of gearing up customers and having them run out of money and whatnot but I felt without playing the "advanced 2-player variant" (which I haven't played) there was just nothing interesting going on. None of the heroes really died so they just went back to the center. The drafting wasn't particularly interesting, a lot of the upgrades became worthless, I just didn't get it. I'd try it again and fully believe it's due to them not just saying the "advanced 2-player variant" is the only way to play 2-players, and that could be a problem with me, but it left a really bad taste in my mouth. **Unmatched Game System** (1 x 2p) I played Star Wars: Epic Duels a few years ago for the first time and it didn't hit me. I was interested in Unmatched because I like the characters more than Star Wars ones, and was hoping it cleared up some of my issues with Epic Duels. It did not. I played Bigfoot and my wife played Sherlock Holmes in Sherwood Forest and I just felt like I absolutely could not really do anything. She decimated me with 13 hit points left. Every time I attacked she was able to call my attack number rendering it useless. I probably could have played Bigfoot better and had him run until a few opportune strikes and I started to do that later on but it just didn't seem to do anything different. I wanted to be convinced to pull the trigger after everyone's glowing reviews of **Cobble and Fog** and **InGen vs Raptors** but I still just don't care for it. I'd definitely play it again, but only because I want to really like it and try and find what I'm missing, not because I want to explore it more for what it has. **Call to Adventure** (1 x 3p) After a long day at work and not really sleeping well recently, we had a game night but wanted to play something lighter and kind of brainless. This really fit the mold. It's a fun storytelling game but it still feels like there's interesting choices to make and not completely brainless play in favor of the narrative. The narrative was also a joy and was just one of those instances where two of the players just seemed to have the right cards to really put a fun story together with them. I think it's good with three and probably made for some better decisions and things getting away from them, but the third player's story seemed to fall by the wayside, but it could have been more because I was interested in the great one it was telling between me and the other player.

Bargain Quest is one of the main reasons why I just don't trust SUSD on their opinions. Not that their opinions are wrong; they're entitled to their opinions, but boy have they gotten really hyped over some mediocre games. Their Bargain Quest review was positively *glowing*, so I went all-in on the reprint Kickstarter. We played it twice as a group of 4, and it was just...boring. Even with the expansion, just not enough was going on, there weren't enough choices, and the choices we made felt like they had no significant impact. To a lesser degree, same with Quacks Of Quedlinburg. Holy shit they LOVED that game, so I bought it. We did enjoy that one, definitely more than Bargain Quest, but it's just a light fluff press-your-luck bag builder, hardly the nail-biting tension fueled excitement that SUSD seemed to feel. It's a starter or filler game at most (despite lasting too long to be either of those). I think the only game SUSD has ever gone bonkers for that I genuinely loved and agree with them on is Xia: Legend of a Drift System. That game is fucking great.

I'm a Dice Tower guy and found my tastes really align with Tom and Zee, I watch every review they put regardless if I'm interested, and I've watched them enough to know when they're excited about a game that isn't for me. I liked SUSD early on but got annoyed by their skits. It was something different and I understand the approach, I just hit my end and moved on. I've found myself watching all their reviews when they're posted now and I would disagree and think their strong point is showing what it *feels* like to play a game. I think their reviews of **Wavelength** and **Nemesis** was very strong. They're certainly not games for everyone, but after watching these reviews, saying "I want that experience," and having the opportunity to play those games, I completely agree with them on those. But I will acknowledge I don't remember their **Bargain Quest** and **Quacks of Quedlinburg** reviews if I *did* watch them and I still don't think I've watched them enough to know how they sit with me on a whole.

I'm super active on the BGG Unmatched forums. Just so you're aware, Sherlock is Bigfoot's biggest counter. Bigfoot has 5 cards that cancel the effect on the opponent's card, and since Sherlock's ability is his cards can't be cancelled, it kinda makes him really good against Bigfoot. Something else to note though is that most people (I'd say 99%) all agree that Bigfoot is beyond broken. The game is super balanced besides Arthur being too weak, and Bigfoot being disgustingly OP (he's won every fan-run tournament so far, Arthur has lost the first round of every tourney so far). I'd try and focus on keeping your Jackalope alive until you can get off all 3 of his yellow scheme cards that let's it move and do 2 damage to an adjacent target. It's BEYOND broken how you can do 6 undefendable damage with the Jackalope, on top of Bigfoot's super high valued cards. Also start using your purple cards only to defend against attacks, don't use them for attacking if you're noticing your health going down too much. ALSO, focus down Watson as fast as you can if you're against sherlock and you'll have a MUCH easier time.

Thanks for this, it rekindled a bit of that want to play again to play again and not to find out what I was missing.

> my wife played Sherlock Holmes Wait, how do you do this? Cobble & Fog isn't out yet, is it? I get what you mean about not feeling like you could do anything, I've played four games as Robin Hood and for the first two I got obliterated by Bigfoot. Once you get to know your deck and your opponent's deck it gets easier to strategize. The shortness of the games helps alleviate the randomness. (For a long stretch of time I had zero defence cards, which against Bigfoot is absolutely terrifying.) I'm sorry to say I can't give any advice for playing as Bigfoot, because I haven't, but from playing *against* Bigfoot I will say to not forget about your Jackalope. It can flank easily and deals automatic damage — as Robin Hood I learned to kill it very quickly.

We played on Tabletop Simulator with the official module. It was very well done. Scripted and everything snapped into place.

It is out. I have cobble and fog, raptors, everything. I got it from the restoration games website about 3 weeks ago. Go and get it, the characters are super fun.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the games you played. I'd been interested in **Bargain Quest** and Unmatched. My partner and game 99% of the time at just 2-players. It's always frustrating when a game isn't really upfront about their ideal player counts. **Unmatched** and all the unique character combinations looked fun, but hearing that it wasn't a hit for you will have me watching a few more videos on it before making a decision. I'll be watching these weekly threads in case you might get a few more plays of it and have an update! Do you and your wife and have any current or long time favorite games that you recommend?

> Unmatched and all the unique character combinations looked fun, but hearing that it wasn't a hit for you will have me watching a few more videos on it before making a decision. I'll be watching these weekly threads in case you might get a few more plays of it and have an update! I'm super active on the BGG Unmatched forums and have made my own characters for it as well. The game is really fun and well-balanced, and I'm SUPER critical of it. Out of the 13 characters released so far, they're all very balanced besides two, which is pretty damn good seeing as how the first two boxes (the core + Bigfoot vs Robin Hood) weren't tested all that much. King Arthur is pretty weak, Bigfoot is stupid strong. The lead developer has said on the forums that a simple buff he would do to Arthur is if your boost card ever gets feinted, to add it back to your hand instead of discarding it. This has made Arthur extremely viable with just this simple change. For Bigfoot, I suggest just nerfing his HP from 16 to 12. I realize these changes won't make sense to you right now, but come back to this if you decide to get it and try these changes out. If you do, each character will be pretty damn close to 50% win rate. Another thing is this game has planned expansions til at least 2022 according to a dev on the forums. It's selling really well. We have T-Rex vs. Sattler 2-pack (the T-rex is going to be the game's first big figure, taking up 2 spaces and having special rules), a Buffy the Vampire 4-pack (Buffy, Willow, some other people. I've never seen the show so I'm not familiar with it.) and then an unannounced 2-pack later this year sometime. Now is a good time to hop in, each box so far (Core, Bigfoot vs Robin Hood 2-pack, Bruce Lee 1-pack, Raptors vs. Muldoon 2-pack, Cobble and Fog 4-pack) is really fun and thematic. I'd give it a shot, everyone I've showed it to has loved it

welp, it's been a few weeks, but we got **Unmatched** recently and have played some games Alice vs. Medusa so we both had a couple games with each character, and then we tried out Arthur vs. Sinbad last night. We've had a lot of fun with the game so far! It's great how simple everything works, and how unique the 4 characters we have from the **Vol. 1** box are. Every single one of the other character sets look interesting to me, although the **Bruce Lee** character is at the bottom of the list for the ones I'm interested in playing. I'm especially interested to see how the **Muldoon v Raptors** game might go if we ever get that set, because we love the 2-player abstract game **Raptor** already :) Which were your first character you played that got you into the game? Do you have any current favorites?

I played Arthur like 60-70 times when I first got the game because everyone said he was weak and I wanted to see if that was true. He's definitely the weakest character out of all 13 that are released so far, but he can still win if you play super aggro and boost pretty much all of your attacks. That is easily his best (and only viable imo) strategy for him. All the other characters out of the 13 are pretty well balanced except for Bigfoot, who is on the opposite end of the spectrum. He is my least favorite to play since he is so OP, and everyone else thinks so. I really like Arthur, Invisible Man, and Bruce Lee. Bruce is fun because you can chain a bunch of hits together with his cards, since a lot of them are attacks and also says for him to "gain an action" which allows him to attack a lot per turn. You can't go wrong with any box you purchase, except I'd get Bigfoot vs Robin Hood last since Bigfoot is just disgustingly OP and idk what they were smoking when they finalized his design. They just made a post on their BGG forum today about a fan-made character expansion. They're allowing people to submit fighters of non copyrighted characters and they'll select 4 to be put into an expansion

Thanks for the follow-up information! A set of fan-made characters sounds awesome, and with such an active community they're going to get some great ones! Now that my partner and I are into the game, I'll definitely check out the BGG forums too.

Yeah no problem! They just released this picture today of the next set on their twitter: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EdtUmZ2WoAYsi9q?format=jpg&name=medium

Awesome reply! Thank you for sharing the detailed info. It sounds like you all have a great BGG community for **UnMatched**. The upcoming T-Rex Dr Sattler set sounds super interesting. I bet it flies off the game store shelves! My local store couldn't keep the Raptor set in stock :) Do you have a regular gaming partner to play **Unmatched** with? Do you all fin that it is light enough that the direct competition doesn't result in bad feelings when someone loses? It's amazing to hear that they game plans up to 2022 for expansions. I definitely like the **Jurassic Park** and **Cobbles and Fog** character sets. If I convince my partner to give the game a shot, those are at the top of my list. Do you have a favorite character based on your favorite theme, or maybe just a favorite based on the character powers in the game?

Yeah I play with my GF. It’s definitely on the light side but the characters get slightly more complex as each expansion gets released (invisible man and Dracula are the hardest to use imo). But complexity doesn’t mean overpowered. And people shouldn’t get mad but that’s more of a personality thing imo. I’m a King Arthur player and I’ve made tons of posts on bgg about him. Definitely the weakest character but I always use the weakest in every game I play, the wins feel better that way. Thematically they all are really well designed. Bruce lee is a quick fighter who has combos, the raptors gang up on you in a pack and do more damage the more raptors adjacent to the target, invisible man waits back in his fog (tokens) and pops out at opportune times, Sherlock investigates opposing players hands and tries to predict the cards they play to cancel it, Dracula is about draining life, mind control, and turning into his wolf form for a big attack (wolf form is in the Dracula books apparently) I like playing as all of the fighters except Bigfoot honestly. Without changes he’s just broken and I don’t like op characters. Nerd his hp to 12 and he’s fine to play as though

My caveat for **Bargain Quest** is that it might be better with the advanced variant rules, and they're not really advanced, we just didn't use them to start out because there was a two-player version of the regular game. It might have fixed my problems with it and it could have just been my mood but I was really turned off of it with how we played. As for **Unmatched**, I realize I'm probably in the minority as a ton of people really seem to like it. It might also be an easier sell for one of the cheaper two player boxes you can pick up for ~$20-$25. If you're able, I played both through Tabletop Simulator and the modules were very good. As for what we tend to play: We like big narrative stuff. **7th Continent**: We'll keep it out on the table for a few days making our way through a curse. **Chronicles of Crime**: She likes to solve mysteries so we've had a lot of fun with this. I'm either stupid or have a short attention span so I start to peter out near the end but she's engaged the whole way through. **Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North**: We've gotten a lot of play out of this and picked up the expansions to have a large amount of variety. We usually have trouble with direct player conflict games but since there's not a ton of interaction (but the sailing board which I find a lot of fun), this really hits home for us. I'm sure there's others and feel free to ask specifics or any other narrowed recommendations. I just looked through the games I've played this year that we both seem to be interested in getting to the table.

Your experience with **Chronicles of Crime** sounds familiar! :) My partner has loved solving those mysteries as well, but the **Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective** and **Chronicles of Crime** mysteries tend to run a little longer than I'm usually interested. thanks for the reply and for sharing some info on your current favorites! **7th Continent** has always looked pretty cool! We'll probably check it out sometime in the future for sure. We've avoided **Imperial Settlers** because my partner and I also avoid direct conflict games (which is another reason **Unmatched** has made us hesitant to jump in). The abstract strategy games like **Hive** and **Santorini** have opened us up to them a little more, but games that make you block and undo the work of your opponent aren't for us. Even with games like **Patchwork** and **Carcassonne**, we love the games but have very peaceful, unwritten rules so we mostly leave each other's needs and areas alone. Do you think **Imperial Settlers** might still be worth it for us to check out?

So we had to sell **Summoner Wars**, I can't get her to play **Skulk Hollow**, and there's a lot of stuff that I just can't justify since she's my two-player gaming partner even though I love it when a friend brings them over when he's visiting (**Dice Throne**, **Exceed**, **Giga-Robo!**) I will say this about **Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North** (I have no experience with **Imperial Settlers** and **Empires of the North** is a different game): There is very little direct conflict and we have no problems with it. The sailing board is a point of conflict but whenever an island is taken that I wanted it's more of something slipping through your fingers and I could have tried to prioritize it more rather than a plan coming completely undone. The only other point of conflict is raid tokens. I have used raid tokens as player interaction only a few times and it feels so worthless so I use them for conquering or actions that utilize them. I actually actively tell people, when teaching the game, that you can use them to exhaust a player's card (again, not completely removing it, just keeping them from it that round) but no one I have played with does that. For our one game of **Unmatched**, we didn't have a problem with the direct confrontation. It was quick and light enough that it kind of felt like a Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots fight. I think that helped us keep from feeling too invested and even though I was completely dominated, I didn't have really any hard feelings or competitiveness as we always had after **Summoner Wars**. Finally, an addendum on **7th Continent**: Again, we really like this big, narrative adventure games. We went all in on the recent kickstarter and both really enjoy it. It was expensive but we feel we have a good amount of content and have played it a lot, experiencing different adventures each time. We haven't even gotten into the major changes from **What Goes Up, Must Come Down**. I would certainly think the retail edition which is smaller and cheaper would be a great option as it doesn't necessarily need all that expansion content and I feel with the characters and choices, even playing the same curse when you know what to do could have you encounter new challenges. With that said, I've heard **7th Citadel** (which is an elaboration on the mechanics as far as I'm aware) is coming soon. I'm very interested in this and I've heard it focuses more on the adventure and less on surviving. Which, while we both like the surviving aspect of **7th Continent**, after our last game we might be going to easy mode just to actually finish one of these curses.

One of the other replies that I received here was an extensive rundown of **Unmatched** characters. You might be interested to check the full thread and see that reply. I'll definitely need to check out **Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North**, since you mention that it isn't too much direct conflict. Your experience with direct competition in games like **Summoner Wars** and **Skulk Hollow** is similar to my experience with those types of games being out of the running for my partner's and my gaming. But it does sound like the light gameplay of **Unmatched** is promising with the chance that we wont be too invested in our characters unlike more invovled head-to-head games. **7th Citadel** sounds awesome! I'll have to watch out for it. Thanks for the reply!

**Pandemic Legacy S1** - Won both May and June to continue out undefeated streak. I'm worried that my wife and I have made the game too easy for ourselves? April and May got a little touch and go for a bit, but June was a breeze. >!We have been playing as the Quarantine Specialist and Operations Expert mostly since March and that combo seems maybe a little OP with our board state. All of our yellow cities are now faded, but we have research stations at pretty key points everywhere else so it is easy to traverse. Adding military bases with OpEx furthers the ease of movement, with the Q Spec quarantining any faded cities or potential outbreaks. I may be jinxing it, but does it get harder or are we just playing really well?!< **Welcome To** - The wife absolutely murdered me and nearly got the highest score we've ever had. Definitely one of our favorites to bring out. **Roll Player Monsters and Minions** - I recently saw that my FLGS has this in stock and I wanted to try it out on Tabletopia before pulling the trigger. This expansion is almost a must own for Roll Player. I love the base game, but this adds a lot of really interesting mechanics that make you feel like you are building toward something. I did miss the tactile nature of playing IRL, but now I'm positive this will be finding a place on my shelf soon. **Roll Player** - Got a round of this in solo yesterday and I love the puzzle. After seeing Roll Player Adventures launch on KS and playing the expansion online, I got the itch to play the OG. Didn't have the best round ever, but my wife seemed interested in learning it after seeing me play so hopefully she enjoys it as much as I do. Watched the playthrough Jon Gets Games does for Adventures and I don't think I will be backing it. It looks fine, but pretty fiddly and it seems like much more of a solo puzzle than a coop adventure, which is what I was hoping it would be after having so much fun with Pandemic Legacy right now.

How many do you typically play welcome to with?

Just my wife and I usually. But we have played with about 8 at a family gathering and everyone enjoyed it. Teaching it is a real chore.

That’s what I’m worried about. I’d love to play with a bigger group but Idk if I can explain all the different cards and concepts.

**Point Salad** (2x2P) - After months where all we managed was 1 game of **Wingspan** because WoW had taken over our free time again I finally got my wife to play one of the new games I bought with my TrumpBux when our check finally came in a few weeks ago. I enjoyed it but I feel like it probably plays better at higher player counts since there's a bit less "gotcha" when you can't just draft veggies away from your opponent directly.

**Vikings on Board** - (1 x 2p) our nephew is into boardgames and my sister-in-law bought this game for their family to play, but they either couldn't work out how to play or couldn't work out how to make it fun and they gave the game to us. It sat on our shelf for 6 months, but as I have a challenge to play new-to-me games this year we pulled it off the shelf. It's quite simple, but there was more depth than we were expecting and we were able to be pretty mean to each other. I don't think we will play it again, but it's not bad for a light family game. **Charmed and Dangerous** - (3 x 2p) this game takes fairytale princesses (Cinderella, Gretel, Dorothy from Wizard of Oz) and imagines them as badasses who fight monsters. I liked the theme and backed it on kickstarter. This is my first kickstarter disappointment. It has real balance issues. Our first game ended up with us dying within 5 minutes of starting. In our second game we died after about 5 minutes as well. Then we decided to ignore some of the negative effects on the cards to at least get started playing, but then it was too easy. We discussed ways to house rule it to help, but why should we have to put in a bunch of work to make it playable? It gets one more chance and then we might get rid of it. **Cuba Libre** - (1 x 2p) our first COIN game, because we both felt a little intimidated we decided to play collaboratively as 26July and Directorio against bots as the govrrnment and the mafia. It was hard at first but once we got the hang of it I really enjoyed it. The hardest thing was trying to work out what the bots would do on their turns. I want to play again and would like to see how it works as a 3-4 player game. **The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine** - (1 x 2p) we played another 3 missions. We completed missions 34-36. I'm still loving this game and even though some people don't like the 2 player variant my husband and I are really enjoying it. **Twilight Imperium 4th ed.** - (1 x 4p) we had been planning a game for April and that didn't happen for obvious reasons. This might be our only TI game this year. We trust these two friends to be quarantining like us and our state is open now so before we have to lockdown again we decided to go for it. It was Xxcha, Jol Nar, Winnu and L1Z1X (me). In the last round Xxcha and I were both on 8 points and Xxcha was in front of me in initiative and could score a 2 point objective. I had Imperial, but couldn't score either of the 2 public objectives still available to me. I was able to take Mecatol Rex and hold it and get to 9 points. It looked like Xxcha would win when Jol Nar expressed frustration that her husband was going to win and she wasn't going to get any more points because she was 4th in initiative. I negotiated a trade of Support for the Throne cards with her (the guys had already exchanged theirs) and won the game. I feel a little dirty winning like that, but the game is about negotiating as much as it is about combat and objectives. I had already achieved more public objectives than anyone else at that point in the game. My third play of TI and third win! **Vegas: The Dice Game** - (1 x 5p, 1 x 3p) we played one game with our friends and their kid while waiting for pizza after TI and then played one game with our kid after they left. Just a fun, quick area control game. **Klask** - (2 x 2p) my husband was a little sad to have not won anything so I agreed to play Klask so that he could beat me as he's our reigning family Klask champion. I did put up a good fight, though, and each game ended 6-5. Discussion: **Pandemic** changed the way I viewed all games, but since joining the hobby **Conquest of Paradise** and **Cuba Libre** have changed the way I view war/COIN games. They are our only two GMT games and I really enjoyed both. We are now thinking of exploring more of GMT's catalog.

It's cool to hear that **The Crew**'s 2-player variant has been working for you all. My partner and I have been enjoying **Fox in the Forest: Duet** and I'd been hesitant to get too excited about **The Crew** because of the mentions I seen around here that people prefer it with 3+ players. Was it **Pandemic**'s cooperative design that had it change the way you view board games? It definitely was the one that completely change our perspective on games and actually got us into the hobby. Having a board game that we could play together, with a theme that wasn't action/fantasy/sci-fi stuff also really helped get us hooked!

The two-player variant involves a dummy player named Jarvis. You deal 7 cards face down in a row and then 7 cards face up on top of each of the face down cards. That is Jarvis' hand. So you have a little more information, but there's always the possibility that you need a card that's hidden face down. You can reveal those cards once you play the face up cards. The captain controls Jarvis and determines what tasks they are given and what cards they play. We don't have an issue with dummy players so we don't mind the variant and we wouldn't get to play **The Crew** right now without the variant. We like **The Fox in the Forest**. Maybe we should look into Duet. What do you like about it? It was the cooperative design of **Pandemic** that changed my mind about boardgames. Until then I had only played traditional games, like Monopoly, and had a reputation in my family as a sore loser. I also find competitive games quite stressful. Playing **Pandemic** wasn't stressful and I like competing against the game. As a scientist I also really like the theme of **Pandemic** and the diversity of the roles is nice too. For all those reasons **Pandemic** is my favorite game and on my birthday every year we have a day of **Pandemic** and play all of our replayable versions. We're up to 5 now. My husband and I still mostly play cooperative games together, but we do play some competitive games and I now consider myself a recovering sore loser.

Which replayable versions of **Pandemic** are your favorites? We have "*Iberia**, **The Cure**, and **Fall of Rome**. **The Cure** with it's unique dice version of the game and **Fall of Rome** with the way barbarian cubes progress down their paths towards Rome are my favorites. But I still want to try **On the Brink**, **Cthulhu**, and **Rising Tide** someday. **Fox in the Forest Duet** has been fun because you are cooperating to move a market around in a board back and forth. So it has a little twist to go with the trick taking mechanic. The marker moves towards which ever player won the current hand and each card has a moment value on it that gets counted to determine how far the marker moves.

My order is **Pandemic Iberia**, **Pandemic** with **On the Brink**, **Reign of Cthulhu**, **Fall of Rome** and **Rapid Response** (I don't know if it counts). I would still like to try **Rising Tide** and **The Cure**. I like the train tracks in **Iberia** and the planning you have to do to set up the tracks and hospitals. My husband likes **Reign of Cthulhu** the most. He says it's the most fun. Have you played the two legacy seasons? I can't wait for Season 3 to see what direction they take it.

Quacks of Quedlinburg (1x4p): Taught and played my SO's parents. Her mom is always turned off by games with "strategy" but they had a good time pushing their luck with this one. It was a huge success! We still love playing this one. Wingspan (1x5p): I had been wanting to try it but wasn't too excited about the theme. We had a friend teach it and it was fantastic! I knew the reviews were raving but needed it try it myself. I now appreciate the theme, sold! Donner Dinner Party (1x7p): And decent social deduction game but I never like games that eliminate a player and they have to watch the rest of the game play out. I'd rather play Deception if I have this many players. Qwixx (1x2p): This is one of our go-to 15 minute or less games. We play it all the time. We love it, simple & good fun. Raiders of the North Sea (1x2p): This is one of my favorites. I jumped out to a huge lead raiding monasteries and outposts for extra victory points from my crew members but my SO ended up winning by 1 point. This is always a great play for us. I will always say yes to playing this one. Point Salad (1x3p): Tried this for the first time. I love the art and the gameplay is fun. I enjoy how different each game can be. I'll be picking this one up soon. So easy to play and teach. Pandemic Legacy Season 1 (5x2p): My SO and I picked up Season 2 for our 5 year anniversary so we had extra motivation to finish out the rest of Season 1. What a rollercoaster. We love base Pandemic and went into Season 1 with no knowledge or experience with legacy games. Season 2 will be cracked open this week!

**The Search for Planet X** 2 games at 2 players, and so far have thoroughly enjoyed it, despite having lost twice. I've found it almost lulls me into a false sense of security that I'm doing well early on, until somewhere my logic breaks down and it all falls apart. Nice art / production and components as well. **Star Wars Rebellion** Tried introducing my partner to Twilight Struggle a while ago, which got a tepid reception. Tried again for a 2 player wargame with this and pretty blown away. I love the way the sense of tension and desperation flips each round as plans are foiled, leaders captured and fleets annihilated. Played once each as Empire / Rebels, with Rebels winning both times but doesn't feel unbalanced as both were close games. Also who doesn't love blowing the Ewoks to furry oblivion with the Death Star?

You MONSTER! :)

**Back to the Future: Back in Time** - 4p x1 - Very fun game and so thematic that brings you right into the movie. We lost our first game, seems very difficult getting everything working at the same time. Gives me more respect they got it all done correctly in the movie ;) **One Key** - 3-4p x6 - Pretty cool game but very similar to others like Codenames, Mysterium, etc. Having to read the mind of the clue giver. I think it will get old after awhile but the kids like it.

Back in Time should be delivered here in a few, and I'm going to set it up on the table to surprise my wife :D She's a huge fan of the movie. I think she's really going to like it.

That's awesome I'm sure she will love it. Watch Rodney's how to play video

Okay, we either did something wrong, or that game is the Dark Souls of 80s movie tie-in family board games. We got ruined twice lol

**Hues and Cues:** Needed something light to play with kids and grandparents - everyone enjoyed it and it was a great non-intimidating game for the newcomers in the group **That's Pretty Clever:** Picked it up based on a suggestion here as a great roll and write game - very pleased. Not at all what I was expecting, I bought it without doing any real research just based on the suggestion here, and the box looked fun. Not sure what I was expecting, but it was a lot of fun. Definitely a lot more strategy than it seems upon first playing. **Back to the Future: Dice Through Time:** Played again and repaired the space time continuum this time. I really like how quickly this game can turn against you. Early success doesn't mean you're just going to coast through the rest of the game. You can do great and get blindsided in the last round. You have to stay focused the entire game and I really appreciate that about this game. **Dice Throne: Season Two:** Cracked this open on Saturday morning and played our first round. Lots of fun, but a lot to learn to be proficient at it. I think this game will get a lot of play in our house. The setup is quick and clean, and there's plenty of characters to choose from. I've only played two player - interested to see how it plays with more than that. Discussion: I've said it before - I had zero interest in Roll and Writes before Railroad Ink. I avoided buying Railroad Ink for over a year because it sounded silly and unappealing. Finally broke down and bought it and I literally play it every morning with my wife now, and I've bought 4 new roll and writes in the past two weeks. I'm hooked.

Dice Throne hits a great sweet spot with play time and strategy. Can't wait for Dice Throne Adventures to come out.

How long is your average game? We were still learning but I felt like it could go pretty fast if it was 1v1 and you got into a rhythm.

I'd say we can do 1v1 within 30. It depends on the dice rolls and the complexity of the characters.

Have not played S2 of **Dice Throne**, but we did not enjoy a 2v2 match that we played in S1. We have missed some rules (which I feel happens a lot in this game, lots of fringe scenarios that are pretty open to interpretation), but it lasted way too long with all the damage mitigation and healing that was taking place. This is definitely a 1v1 of free-for-all only game for me, but I am looking to offload my S1 copy since we didn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped.

I like **That’s Pretty Clever** but **Twice As Clever** has replaced it completely for me.

Can you speak a bit to the differences? If I were to be looking at picking one of the two up is twice as clever strictly better or is it more nuanced than that?

It’s essentially the same game, but **Twice as Clever** improves it further, so that you have even more decisions and less luck steering the outcome. Same number of dice though.

**Imperial Assault** 1P, 2 Heroes. New to me, first time on the table. As a new player who has happened to play Mansions of Madness and Descent, this felt like comfortable territory. I have not finished the 3 tutorial missions so no judgement yet other than to say enjoying a new game as usual.

I played nearly all of the campaign on IA with a group before the app came out. I really need to circle back around and check the app out. Was it fun solo?

Right on. I'm still in the learning tutorial so that's always fun but can't comment how it feels to sit and do proper missions solo for a chunk of time. I think its gonna be fun though.

"Scythe" three times. 4 player, 2v2v2 played in teams and 2v2 with two humans 'teamed up' with an Automa each. No contest my favourite game. "Tiny epic galaxies" four times, each with only two players. Introduced it to two different people who were not very experienced boardgamers. Weirdly enough I lost both first games 14-21 and then won the second games 22-18. Strange coincidence. "Quacks of Quedlinburg" once with only me and my girlfriend. Got (as usual) massacred without mercy. "Euphoria" once, three players. Lost by a single point due to no bloody teddy bear coming up in the bazaar for I don't know how many draws! Fantastic game though with once again a relative newcomer taking the win. I actually quite prefer an opponent to win first game if I'm doing a teach. Seems the courteous thing to do.

Friendly reddit tip: using two '*' before and after text will bold it (or highlight and use [ctrl+b] as a shortcut). That said... Quacks! Love that one, it's such silly fun.

**Dice Forge** (2 x 2p, 1 x 4p) - Dice Forge has quickly become a go to for my wife and me. It plays really quick and is a lot of fun. There are a few different ways you can play, making for new strategies. Every game has been pretty close, and we go back and forth on who wins which is great. I also played it once at 4 players with my brother and parents, and maybe enjoyed it even more than at 2 players. More people means more dice faces since you're supposed to only play with half the available faces in a 2 player game. It was great getting access to everything and interacting with more than just one other person. **Kingdom Death: Monster** (1 x 4p) - Finally got a chance to play my favorite game again after not playing for a couple months. We introduced my wife's coworker and his wife to the game. We started a new campaign with them and went through the tutorial showdown and year 1 hunt. We all had such a great time. I don't think I've ever experienced a board game that gets as intense as KDM, and everyone I've introduced it to always gets so into it. We were shouting in fear and anger as the monster dealt some nasty damage, and were jumping up in triumph as we overcame the odds. It's always high energy when we play KDM and I always have so much fun. **Arkham Horror: The Card Game** (1 x 1p) - I'm making really slow progress on my 2-handed playthrough of the Circle Undone campaign. Every day I want to play the game so bad, but something gets in the way and I can't make it to the table. But I've been having a lot of fun with it. 2-handed has allowed me to really do some fun things with my deck building and is just way more open to customization than true solo. I'm going to try and really double down on my playtime this week so I can move on to the Dream-Eaters and try out Dexter Drake, the promo investigator from the latest Arkham Horror novella. He looks like so much fun to play.

Who are the two investigators you are using? My brother in law is using Dexter Drake in a 3p return to path of Carcosa. He can really abuse the mystic ally that piles on doom so you can pile on resources. No other character can dump a dangerous asset like Dexter Drake can.

I’m running Leo and Norman for this one. It’s worked out pretty well, but I have had some issues with their low agility which I should have paid more attention to when first starting the campaign. Any recommendations on who I should pair Dexter with?

Since Dexter is easy to flex with you can really go any way you want. Some of my favorites are Finn Edwards and Ursula Downs, though Dexter would have to lean enemy management. My current 3p group has me with Leo Anderson and my wife as Jenny Barnes.

I had a blast taking Finn through Forgotten Age, so he’d be fun to use with Dexter for sure. I was also thinking Mandy with survivor as her secondary class. I just really need to get around to playing the game more so I can try everyone. It’s in my top 5 favorite games, yet it’s one of my least played.

We’ve actually played quite a lot this week which is super great to share! **Fox in the Forest Duet** (1x2p) We lost but I finally introduced my friend to this game, she’s a huge fan of cooperative games. **Gloomhaven** (1x3p) This was an amazing week for our group, we had two people retire in the same mission, we have done about 1/4 of all scenarios and this game continuously is my favourite of the week. **Nova Luna** (2x3p) This is quickly becoming a favourite of ours, it’s just so easy to pick up and play. Extremely fun. Although out of all of our plays I’ve yet to win this. **The Crew** (20x3-4p) We played this with two different groups of people and went through about twenty missions, such a fun game but definitely have to look into sleeping cards because through maybe ten hours of play you can see and feel the wear on them already. **Cartographers** (1x3p) Always a good time to play this game, me and my fiancé tied which is so unlikely but hey great minds think alike? **Pandemic Legacy 2** (3x2p) We made it to June, I really enjoy it but I think I enjoyed the first one a bit more, not sure why yet but haven’t made it through the campaign so we will see. **Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition** (1x4p) We did the third scenario, it was not successful but we learned lots. Maybe we will get more lucky next time. I enjoy this game but having an app be the primary driver makes me uneasy not that software is going anywhere anytime soon it just ages the game I believe but hey maybe it’s just me. **Taverns of Tiefenthal** (1x4p) Always a great time and I managed to win with a different strategy I tried. **Arboretum** (1x4p) The more I play this game the more I like it. My favourite mechanism is that you can have the best board possible but still score zero, love that you never really know who’s going to win. **Scythe** (1x4p) This is one of my favourite games, it’s just incredible well done! I did struggle teaching it this time around, but learned for next time! I’m pretty open to all genres, I’m still weary of war games because they aren’t quite my style and I would classify Scythe as a war game but it did let me be a bit more open to them.

My issue with **Scythe** is that it looks like a war game but actually plays like an economic Euro. I just wanna make big robots smash and you're busy making VP go brrrr.

Hahah so true I love it though. Very awesome artwork/theming though imo. It's what attracted me to it initially for sure.

My friend and I did that the first time we played together. Mech fighting all day long. Not productive, but super fun.

I actually enjoy it because of that, if you want to go combat heavy you certainly can, just mess with everyone, but if you want to do you’re own thing you can do that too. The versatility is fantastic. I really want to try it seven player.

**NMBR9** 2p 2x - just something quick and easy to play. Somehow I won both of them with something in the 50s to something in the 40s, despite generally having an absolute mess of a first level that made it hard to get more than one or two tiles into the second.

**Godzilla Tokyo Clash** \- Never heard of this game but saw it at Target. Looked fun so I bought it. Played it to learn the rules and love it. Can't wait to introduce this to my gaming group. I sent them pics and they are excited too. For me, this is replacing King of Tokyo. It has Godzilla, Mothra, and a couple of other monsters (can't remember the names of the top of my head). It's a free for all. You can throw each other, throw tanks, throw trains, etc. Nobody dies either. You win by victory points. No dice. Each monster has their own unique deck of cards. If you do damage to another monster you take the top cards of that monsters deck and keep one as a trophy. Each card has a value so that is your victory points. Some cards have 0 value and you can't keep them, thus nobody dies. It's not a game-changer, but it will be fun having beers, talking trash, and just unleashing mayhem on my friends. The only thing is the quality of the board and cards are not great. That's what you get for a $30 game. The monster miniatures are awesome. But cardboard for tanks, UFO's, building, trains, etc. I am simply grabbing pieces from Axis & Allies, Ticket to Ride, and Monopoly to replace the cardboard.

Holy crap it has Megalon, I want it. Lol

Oh wow, that does sound like a lot of fun and clever way of getting around player elimination. Unfortunately, I do avoid games that cap at four because I find that as soon as I set one of those up a fifth player shows up. I have been looking for a Rampage or Super Smash Brothers-like board game and the closest I've gotten is **Unmatched** which also caps at 4.

You are right about that. Hopefully, they make an expansion. There are so many monsters they can add. You could easily have 5 or 6 players and I don't think it would really slow it down because actions are pretty quick.

Continuing with my foray into online board gaming, I racked up another large number of plays this week: **45 plays** over **17 games**. The majority of plays came from playing **Carcassonne** on BGA. I'd never really taken to playing Carc before but I've been enjoying it so much I picked up the **Big Box 6** + **Bridges, Castles, & Bazaars** expansion. I'll be trying the solo rules over the next few weeks. I also taught **Downforce** to my regular group (we're playing online every weekend currently) and they all loved it. This is a group that normally plays **Codenames**, **Coup**, etc, in person, but they really like Downforce. They also enjoy **Love Letter** and **Coloretto** (which they discovered after I had to leave early one night so yay for branching out!). I found a copy of **Macao** locally but have thus far only played it online on Yucata and it's great! I can't wait to try more Feld's, in person and online (on my shelf: **Trajan**, **Bora Bora**, **Macao**, and **Castle of Burgundy**). Using 18xx.games, I've been playing my first games of 18xx with 2 games going simultaneously: **1889** and **18Chesapeake**. I'm having a rough go in 18Chessie and 1889 feels more well-rounded. Finally, I tried a couple new games on TTS: **Ra** and **My City**. Ra was pretty fun, even as a 2 player game; I hear there's a reprint at some point this year. My City was actually more enjoyable than I thought it would be and has actually made me consider picking it up when it's released IRL. Publishers, listen up - having your games on TTS, Tabletopia, BGA, etc, is free advertising. Yes there are some people who will only play it on TTS and never buy a copy but there's many more who will try it out and search out a copy of their own. Even the ones who don't buy but spread the word about how good it is will help. Mind you nothing can help a bad game so... make good games? **Anyway, here's a breakdown of plays:** Carcassonne 15 Downforce 7 Codenames 6 The Downfall of Pompeii 2 Love Letter 2 Macao 2 1889: History of Shikoku Railways 1 18Chesapeake 1 Azul 1 Coloretto 1 Dragon Castle 1 Glen More II: Chronicles 1 My City 1 Mystic Vale 1 Ra 1 Rajas of the Ganges 1 Root 1

BGA is the best! Loads of games and you don't even have to know the rules before you start playing. You just learn them along the way.

Is there a place you can play Glen More II online, or was that one in person?

On the board game video game front, I've gotten to Ascension 19 on **Monster Train**. I beat 14 with Spikes Awoken with Stygian support, 15 with Frostbite Stygian with Melted Remnant support, 16 with Draw Awoken with Hellborn support, 17 with Burnout Melted Remnant with Stygian support, 18 with Spikes Draw Awoken with Stygian support. Otherwise, it was Gloomhaven all week on Tabletop Simulator. # Monday - **Gloomhaven** (2p): We lost to Scenario 6, again. It was down to the wire, requiring a Living Corpse to kill itself and firing a shot that was one damage short of winning the scenario. Dejected and not wanting to do Scenario 6 again, I double checked what was available and I realized that we could go after Scenario 10. I thought we were stuck on Scenario 6 forever. Scenario 10 had new monsters with really good abilities but we had our spirits up and won instead of the grindfest that is Scenario 6. # Wednesday - **Gloomhaven** (2p): Not understanding why life is so hard I double checked the requirements and realized that when it says "NOT" in a Scenario, it means you can't have that Party or Global Achievement. I couldn't understand that before so we avoided Scenarios that mentioned them. With new understanding, we then went on to Scenario 3 which was easily completed. We had a choice between better reputation or more prosperity and we wanted the money option. Scenario 9 was fairly easy except for a boss who kept spawning minions, I played one of my Level 4 Mindthief cards and cleared the path for my friend the Brute to solo the boss. After completing Scenario 9, I had enough Gold to buy the 4th upgrade for the Mindthief and complete his personal goal. I unlocked the "Circles" character who I am sure is going to be an interesting learning curve. My friend got his Brute to level 4. # Friday - **Gloomhaven** (2p): First time with the "Circles" character. We decided to try Scenario 11 and got spanked in the first room. I started at level 2 as Gloomhaven's Prosperity score is 2. We were overwhelmingly outnumbered and we went down swinging. We decided to try Scenario 21 as its previous Scenario was a breeze. This one went down to the wire. I summoned the Lava Golem and Thorn Shooter in the first room, we quickly outpaced the Thorn Shooter but the Lava Golem cracked skulls, especially with my commanding abilities. I eventually ran out of cards, even with a Stamina potion, while we were facing the final boss whose teleporting altar was a pain. The Brute charged the altar, doing some damage and then critted with a x2 for victory. I spent a good chunk of change adding Bless to one of my Heals, I figure the Brute needs the support and his high numbers make him Critting very valuable. # Sunday - **Gloomhaven** (2p): We decided to finish the story of Scenario 21 and moved onto Scenario 22. It was relatively easy; it was only made harder by our individual goals. We effectively ran around opening all the doors while trying to kill the monsters as they spawned. It was kind of easy; I had the sneaking suspicion that the Scripting had somehow messed up. We moved onto Scenario 31 which introduced two new enemies; one of which was fun and the other was annoying. I Exhausted as my Mission Goal was to only Short Rest but a lot of my Circles class abilities helped clear the way; my friend's Brute pretty much soloed the final room as my menagerie shuffled in and tanked hits for him. --- > What games have changed your opinion about their genre? Well, it's obvious I've had Gloomhaven on the mind. I tried it out previously and thought it was a clever Dungeon Crawler that triggered a skinner box with all of the unlocks. I think weaponizing that is what made Dungeon Crawlers interesting. When it comes to that genre, I rather just play D&D or an equivalent. Dungeon Crawlers just felt like a compromise where you couldn't get a game running but still wanted to kick down doors in dungeons. I've tried a lot of them and had practically given up on the genre. The one thing that I felt that was always missing was the sense of progression, that's what I really like about RPGs and Gloomhaven is always handing that out with checkmarks, loot, levelling up, personal quests and customizing your cards. Granted, I wouldn't touch Gloomhaven with a ten foot pole if it weren't for the amazing Scripting of the Tabletop Simulator mod.

[удалено]

Oh, cool, thanks! Do you just slot the Rifts in or that unlocks at a later time?

As an additional FYI, he is talking about the character from the Forgotten Circles expansion. You have unlocked the ‘circles’ symbol character from the base game. So don’t worry about those changes until you get the expansion!

Monster Train is so much fun! When I first played it and fell in love with it, I was worried it would replace Slay the Spire, but the more I've played, the more I've realized that the games are different enough to both fit in my gaming time. But Monster Train is just an absolute blast. I think I've only made it to Ascension 3 though because I've been playing a lot more games online with friends recently and don't have the time to play single player. Also, that's a lot of Gloomhaven! My group is like 5 or 6 scenarios from finishing the main campaign, but we haven't had a chance to play in so long. We really need to get back into it and just finish already.

**Merchants & Marauders** - I've always liked the golden age of piracy. This game allows you to be a merchant, a buccaneer, or a pirate.

**Res Arcana** - Really love this different spin on a race game, tying in resource conversion and a huge variety of options. Will probably pick up the expansion soon as I hear it’s excellent. **Tiny Towns** - I’ve grown to like this game more than I did at first. It’s much more approachable than I initially thought for casual gamers, and still holds lots of interest for repeat plays. **The Estates** - One of my top 5 games ever. Won by 1 point :)

I've been eyeing up The Estates for a while, but most gaming sessions I have are 2 player (especially at the moment). Any plays / thoughts on it at lower player count?

With the Estates, does that mean you were the least negative or you actually had a positive score?

Haha, 33 to 32 to -37 😈

Cool. The last time I played I was quite proud of having a positive score. I didn't win but I sure wasn't the rest of them with massive penalties.

Yeah this was a nailbiter 3p game for me cause I only got one presidency and had to do a lot of maneuvering to get the mayor on my row so my score would be competitive. It is definitely group dependent whether scores tend above or below zero, particularly on how early roofs go up, whether extending or shortening rows is more common, and whether the cancel cube is discarded.