New to Me – September 2023

September was a fairly lean month for gaming, especially new to me games.

I’ve already talked about my September gaming in general, so how about the monthly chat about “new to me” games?

I’m actually quite proud of the fact that this is my 72nd post about them. I don’t think I’ve missed a month where I played a new to me game but didn’t post.

Hey, that’s 6 years of posts! (plus 6 months where I didn’t actually have a “new to me” game).

To celebrate that, I actually only played 3 new to me games in September, and they were all from either last year or this year.

The Cult of the New to Me members were kind of giving me the stink eye for that.

That’s ok, though! I placated them by cooking them all dinner!

That kept them busy with lots of gastronomical issues, keeping them off my back for another month.

Serves them right for not checking my school record before eating and seeing that I failed Home Ec.

All of it.

Anyway, without further ado (all of my ado was thrown into an ocean on Mars to help make it habitable anyway), let’s begin!

Terraforming Mars: the Dice Game (2023 – Stronghold Games) – 4 plays

Designer: Jacob Fryxelius

Artist: Isaac Fryxelius

Players: 1-4

This was the big game of the month, because a friend of mine backed the Kickstarter and it finally arrived.

How different would it be from the main game, one of my faves?

How different would it be from Ares Expedition?

It’s actually quite an interesting dice game with lots of ways to mitigate your dice luck (though that can really delay your engine-building if you roll really badly).

I don’t know if I would put it above either of its parents, but it’s fun, can take under an hour (our first few plays took longer than that but our last one was 45 minutes!)

Essentially you start with a corporation (as per the other games in the series) which will give you some dice to start with, as well as some wild tokens that can be any resource.

These dice represent resources, and if your corporation doesn’t tell you what dice face to use, then you roll them to start.

You’ll also have some project cards in your hand that you can spend the dice resources to play, based on the requirements of the card.

On your turn, you will either do Production (meaning you get a bunch of resource dice based on the production of your cards) or an Action turn.

On an Action turn, you can take one support action to start. This will be either taking a resource die and rolling it, spending a resource die to change another die to any face you want, or spending a resource die to draw 2 more cards.

Then you can take a main action, which may be another support action if you need more dice. Or you can spend resources to do one of the main actions (which will place tiles on the board or increase one of the global parameters).

The cards have resource costs in the top left and these are the dice that you need to get rid of in order to play them.

You can also use your Wild tokens for resources you don’t have.

There are also milestones that you can claim as soon as you meet the requirements (rather than having to “fund” them like in the main game) and three dice that are rolled at the beginning of the game which will give points to whoever plays cards that require those resources the most.

Unlike the other two games, the game end is triggered only when two of the three global parameters are completed (Oceans placed, Oxygen and Temperature).

This is a fun little game that does give you a bit of the sense of Terraforming Mars, but without all of the huge setup (though there are still a bunch of cards). The box says it’s a 45-minute game, and we did manage that in our last play.

It all depends on what cards come out, because if you don’t get the cards that let you place forests or raise temperature, the game won’t end unless players do the main actions. Our first few games took upwards of 90 minutes.

Thus, since it’s so unpredictable, it’s hard to put it down as a “lunch time game” though we do enjoy it (even if we don’t finish it).

It’s a nice option and I definitely did like it.

I also like how there are a lot of ways to manipulate your dice, whether it’s spending other dice, or maybe some of the tile placement on the board will let you do so.

Dice games with dice mitigation are always a win for me.

Definitely would play again.

Resist! (2022 – Salt & Pepper Games) – 2 plays

Designers: Trevor Benjamin, Roger Tankersley, David Thompson

Artist: Albert Monteys

Players: 1

Resist! is a solo card game about the resistance to the Francisco Franco regime in Spain in the late 1930s.

I’ve only played it twice so far, but damn is it hard!

You start with a deck of 12 Resistance fighters and 3 Spies (spies just basically clog up your deck, but if you ever draw a 5-card hand full of Spies, you lose!).

The other Resistance members are in another deck that you may eventually be able to recruit from and into your deck.

There will be a series of Missions on the table that you can try to complete, but each one will have some bad guys attached to it.

Unless you use some of your Resistance members abilities to reveal them, you won’t know what bad guys are on the Mission until you choose to try and complete it.

On your turn, you will have 5 resistance members in your hand. Each member has a “Hidden” side and a “Reveal” side.

The first phase, you will play members that have “Plan” abilities.

For example, Domingo’s Hidden ability works in the Plan phase. He can flip one or two face-down Enemies on a mission and then discard one of them.

If you play a member on the Hidden side (the left side), then you use that ability and strength. These hidden members will remain in your deck.

If you play a member as Revealed (the right side), then they may have different abilities and/or strength, but they are revealed to the bad guys so they are removed from your deck.

You may be able to get them back, unless some other effect removes them from the game.

But they’re pretty much gone.

Adolfo above has a Hidden strength of zero but it allows you to discard one Enemy in the Attack phase.

His Revealed strength is 3 and in the plan phase he lets you flip all of the Enemies on one Mission face-up.

What is this strength?

Each Mission has a defense value that must be exceeded in order to successfully complete the mission.

Also, each Enemy that’s on a Mission has a defense value that must be exceeded to defeat them.

You only have so much strength!

Once you’ve decided on the Mission and calculated your strength, you then decide how to distribute that strength. Some Enemies must be defeated before anything else can happen. If you have enough strength left, you can succeed at the Mission, defeat some of the Enemies, or both!

Keep in mind that Enemies that aren’t defeated, if they have a Survive effect, can be nasty.

The Radio Operator above has you place a face-down Enemy on all other Missions. The Military, if he survives, will have you discard one of your revealed Resistance members from the game.

That’s harsh!

However, sometimes you have to let the Enemies be because you have to complete the Mission.

If you fail two Missions, you lose the game!

You will get the points on the Mission if you succeed at it, though.

Play continues until you lose (fail two Missions, have five Civilians in the graveyard, or have an entire hand of Spies) or until you decide to end the Resistance.

However, less than 14 points is a draw, so why did you even bother playing?

My first game, I got to 12 points but I was hanging on by a thread. I couldn’t defeat another Mission and ended up losing the game.

But I didn’t want a draw!

This game is hard, but it is a lot of fun.

Even though it’s a card game, it is very thinky. You have to decide when you want to lost a fellow member and when you want to keep them around and in your deck.

Sometimes you just have to reveal them because you need what they bring when they’re revealed.

But it does kind of hurt.

I love the artwork on the cards as well.

The game comes with a Scenario book, but I think I want to actually win a game before trying the scenarios.

I will be playing more of this over the next little while, and maybe I will finally win one!

The Barracks Emperors (2023 – GMT Games) – 1 play

Designers: Wray Ferrell, Brad Johnson (I)

Artists: No artists credited on BGG

Players: 1-4

We all know Time of Crisis is one of my favourite games.

How could I resist a game that’s basically a trick-taking card game set in the same time period?

And using the same artwork?

The Barracks Emperors is a trick-taking game but all of the tricks are out there on the board, waiting to be won.

Each of the solid coloured cards is an Emperor of Rome during the time of crisis from 235 – 285 AD.

There are 45 in total, though only 39 will be in play unless somebody plays a card that brings out another one.

The game goes over 3 rounds and there will be 13 emperors in each round.

Each player will be dealt a hand of four cards (straight out of Time of Crisis!).

Players will take turns playing a card to a space adjacent to at least one Emperor (unless you play a Barbarian card).

Each player has a side of the board that is theirs, either wreath, swords, eagles or columns.

When you play a card, you play it to the emperor whose symbol matches what side you are.

So if I played the above Cavalry card and I was swords, I would be playing it on the red emperor Aurelian.

However, that card I played is also affecting all of the emeprors around it, benefiting (maybe) other players.

That same card is benefiting the eagles player on Balbinus, the wreath player on Decius, and the column player on Trebonianus Gallus.

When an emperor is completely surrounded, then somebody is going to “win” him to their scoring area.

Each emperor has a colour, which is “trump” for that emperor. The highest card of that colour that surrounds him will win him.

However, there are some caveats.

First, if two or more cards of the same number are being considered, they cancel each other out.

So above, the two 7s would cancel, leaving the yellow 1 to take the emperor, which means the eagle player wins.

The player who wins takes the emperor and removes the card that won the “trick.” If a card is no longer next to an emperor, then it’s removed as well.

As the round goes on, the board will clear out.

The round ends either when all of the emperors are taken or a player has no legal play (they don’t have a card that they can put legally on the board, since you have to put a card on your side of an emperor).

The game lasts three rounds and at the end of those three rounds, you add up your scores.

For each set of different coloured emperors you have, you get 3 points.

Each emperor and barbarian also gives you a point.

Whoever has the most points is the winner!

That’s a very simple description of the game (maybe more detail if I ever review the game), but that’s the gist of what you do.

This game really does kind of burn your brain, but in a good way.

When you play a card, you are doing it to hopefully help yourself, but you have to keep in mind how it’s helping other players as well.

Also, each card 2-8 has some kind of ability, so you’re keeping those in mind as well.

I really like how you draw new cards as well.

There’s a market of 4 cards, placed in numerical order.

The higher the card you play, the lower value the card you can take is.

If you play a super-powerful 8 card, then you can only take the 2 card above.

However, if you play a really low, wimpy card, you can take the most powerful card available.

The set collection aspect of the game is also pretty interesting.

I really enjoyed this game, though it did take us 2 hours to play.

I don’t know if more plays would shorten that or not, but you have to be ready for it.

Tom Vasel said it’s too long for what the game is, and I can see that point.

I don’t necessarily agree with it (I’d have to play it some more), but I can see it.

Anyway, I hope to get this game to the table again, as I found it a lot of fun.

What new to you games did you play last month?

What do you think of these games?

Let me know in the comments.