New to Me – December 2023

It’s a new year, but let’s take one last look at the old year before we continue on!

December was not a huge month for new to me games, as I detailed earlier.

But quality trumps quantity, so even though there are only three games on this list, they were all killers.

The Cult of the New to Me was actually really ecstatic because not only were two of them older, but one of them was from 1991.

1991!!!!

They kind of went on a bender after hearing that.

I don’t think I’ll have to worry about a revolt for a while now.

Maybe next month?

Anyway, without further ado (all of my ado was used to pay the greedy translator anyway), let’s get started!

Scholars of the South Tigris (2023 – Garphill Games/Renegade Game Studios) – 3 plays

Designers: Shem Phillips & S J MacDonald

Artist: Mihajlo Dimitrievski

Players: 1-4

This is another great game in the South Tigris trilogy.

However, rather than talk about it here, why not check my review?

Obsession (2018 – Kayenta Games) – 1 play

Designer: Dan Hallagan

Artist: Dan Hallagan

Players: 1-4

I’ve never watched the TV show Upstairs, Downstairs, or even the newer show, Downton Abbey.

I am, however, a history buff and one of my favourite eras to read about is Victorian England.

Plus, I’ve constantly talked about playing Obsession because it’s in the BGG Top 100 and I’m trying to play as many of them as I can.

So you knew Obsession was going to get played soon, right?

On Christmas Eve, a Christmas miracle occurred!

Obsession came out.

It was played.

And it was marvelous.

Obsession is basically a game of running a family estate during the Victorian era in England. It’s also a little bit about romancing somebody from a good family, but that’s kind of a side thing.

Instead, you are renovating your estate, hosting huge parties or other social gatherings, and trying to attract the most prestigious people to come to said gatherings.

Each player is a family, and that family’s player board has a unique power.

I played the Cavendish family, which has the added bonus that they start at a higher reputation level than the other players.

Which you think would have meant that I was vying for highest reputation in the game, but you would be wrong.

The extended game (which we played) goes over 20 rounds (the basic game is 16 rounds) and after a certain number of rounds, there will be a courtship of one of the two prominent members of a prestigious family.

Each set of rounds before a courtship, a card is drawn to see what those family members are looking for in the estates that they are going to grace with their presence (really, these two are such stuck up…well, this is a family blog).

Each courtship period, what they are looking for changes, but at the end of the game, you’re going to add up all of them.

Whoever has the most points value of Estate (in this example) tiles will win one of the two suitors into their deck.

But only until the next courtship period, where they fuck off to whichever family has more of their new desire than you do.

Anyway…

Each round, you’re going to activate one room and you will need certain types of servants to host the party/gathering/activity/whatever the heck they want to do.

Some rooms require only one servant and one gentry card from your hand.

Oh yeah, this is kind of a deckbuilder too, in that you are collecting gentry to your deck in order to invite them to your little get togethers (every family has their own group of cronies and nobody crosses the streams).

When you activate a room, you’ll also play one of gentry cards that match the requirement of the room (the one above requires a lady, any lady, from your hand).

Some gentry also require some servant attention. If you don’t have the right servants left, then you can’t use that gentry for your activity.

Each gentry will give you an effect when you use them. The guy on the bottom right above (sorry, those cursive names are fine when you’re playing the game but did not come out well in the pictures) will give you 200 pounds when you use him. Lady Montgomery on the bottom left will give you one new basic gentry card and 100 pounds.

You will cycle through your servants as you use them. They are essentially unusable for two rounds after you have. (Servants do have to sleep sometime!). Though if you spend some reputation, you can make them work even though they are bone-tired.

After you get the effects of the room you activated, you flip it if it’s not already flipped. This will usually mean the room is worth more points and may have a better effect next time.

You also then get to buy a new room.

Warning as the game goes on, though. Often a room has negative points until you use it. If you buy one late, you might not be able to flip it!

There are other bits to the game, of course, but that’s the basics.

At the end of the game, you add up all the points of your rooms, as well as objective cards you’ve met and the points of the gentry in your hand (which, if you won the final courtship, will include one of the greedy idiots well-to-do family members that you’re courting).

Whoever has the most points is the winner!

People have been raving about this game for a while but I just haven’t been able to play it. I sometimes wondered if it was really all that.

It is.

This is a really fun game, a sort of action selection, deckbuilding, tile-laying (not quite, because it doesn’t matter where you put them) game where you have to plan your engine just a little bit.

Using a room gets you points, because most of the rooms get you more points once you flip them.

But you have to have the right gentry in your hand, and you can’t pick them up from your discard pile once used unless you “rest” on your turn.

Having each gentry give you a different effect when you use them is also really interesting. It makes your choices more important, especially because you can’t use them again without resting.

Some of them may have powerful effects but are negative points at the end of the game.

Good thing some of the rooms let you remove them from your circle of friends!

It’s kind of an engine-building game in a way, and I do like those (even though I typically suck at them).

I’m definitely interested in playing this one again and already have an async game going on Boardgame Arena.

This one’s a keeper.

Tichu (1991 – Fata Morgana Spiele) – 1 play

Designer: Urs Hostettler

Artists: Lots!

Players: 4 players

Tichu is a team trick-taking game with a bit of a twist.

In addition to the typical four suits (though of course they’ve changed the suits from normal playing cards), there are some special cards which can affect the tricks.

Also, this isn’t your normal “play a card, follow a card” trick-taking game.

Instead, you play some kind of poker hand to the table. It could be a single card, or a pair, three of a kind, two pair, etc.

The other players have to follow that. They can’t just play a single card if you played a pair. They can’t even play a three of a kind if you played a pair.

They have to play a higher-value pair.

Play continues until three of the four players are out of cards (or whatever depending on player count, but we played the 4-player game).

Once that happens, the team who both ran out of cards total up the points from the cards in the tricks they won. Only certain cards have value, though. Not everything.

Special cards are also special points.

The Dragon is a single-card play that beats all other single cards. He’s worth 25 points.

However, if you win the Phoenix, that’s -25 points. The Phoenix is a wild card that can be matched with anything to make a bigger hand (two Kings and the Phoenix are three Kings, for example). He can also be a single card, which gives him the value of 0.5 above the highest card played so far.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention.

The bomb.

If somebody can’t follow a play, but they have a really cool poker hand (Straight flush, four of a kind), they can play that instead of following the play that’s already out there.

Then only a higher bomb will win the trick.

At the beginning of the round, each player will pass three cards to the other players, one to each (so one to each opponent and one to your teammate).

As you are drawing cards at the beginning of the round (we dealt them out, but technically you’re supposed to draw), you can declare a “small” or a “large” tichu.

A small tichu means that you are predicting you will run out of cards before anybody else (even your partner). If you get it, you will get an extra 100 points. If you don’t, you will lose an extra 100 points. This can be declared at any time prior to playing the first card.

A large tichu means, after drawing your 9th card (you will end up drawing 14 cards in total), you think you will be the one to go out first. This is worth +/- 200 points.

As soon as a team reaches 1000 points, the game ends.

This was a really interesting trick-taking game. Not among my top favourites (I did write my trick-taking post after playing this), but still pretty high.

We played a few rules wrong, so I would love to play it again. We also didn’t have time to play to 1000 points.

It’s really appealing and has some interesting strategies.

Not a lot of new to me games played last month, but the ones I did play were keepers!

What new to you games did you play in December?

Let me know in the comments.