Dinner Battlefield – Food Fight: Reheated Review

Don’t you hate it when you’re having a peaceful Sunday brunch, and suddenly James’ bacon pulls out a machine gun and starts firing it at your burger, while Abi’s pesto linguini starts shooting rockets at both Vicki’s pizza and your tater tots?

Meanwhile everybody’s diving for cover because it’s suddenly getting hot in here?

Is that just me? Did I have a bit too much vodka last night?

No, that’s me and others playing the updated version of a classic (ok, I use that word loosely) card game.

Food Fight: Reheated is an updated version of the 2011 game of the same name (without the “reheated,” of course, because that would just be dumb).

Designed by Nathaniel Yamaguchi with art by Robb Mommaerts, this reheated version was published in 2025 by Cryptozoic Games.

I played the original as an app on my iPad many moons ago, but it’s been so long that I don’t remember any details.

So I couldn’t tell you what changes were made from the original, other than one thing the BGG page says (it’s streamlined so there are only three rounds) and I’ve heard that the Mascots, which were an expansion to the base game I believe, are now standard.

I could be wrong, though!

I’m sure a friend of mine will be by later to fill in the details.

Anyway, let’s get to the meat of the matter.

(I’m sorry. I’ll try to stop).

The idea behind the game, of course, is all of these various breakfast, lunch, and dinner food items are fighting over three distinctive meals: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

You’d almost think that was planned.

Essentially Food Fight: Reheated is a card drafting game where you are assembling your food armies to win each meal (as opposed to bear armies).

Some of the meals are just straight points while others are one point less but have an effect on the current battle.

Card drafting can be a great way to form a deck rather than just being randomly dealt cards, because you can look at your options and plan something, at least a little bit.

Sure, you may not be given great cards that mesh, but you can also try to deny your neighbour synergies that you don’t want them to have either.

Which is probably why you draft four cards, passing left, then four cards, passing right.

What cards are you drafting?

Cards can be of two types: Troops or Supports.

Troops are going to be the ones fighting it out on the battlefield, and each one is one of the meal types.

That mainly becomes important because whoever has the most troops of the current meal’s type actually wins ties, but they can also trigger synergies that will greatly help you.

Some Troops will get stronger if other Troops of their meal types are also out on the table, or you may get a bonus for discarding a Lunch troop, for example.

Supports are instant effect cards that can modify things in your favour, or do something else that will benefit you.

They’re the sauce that will make your meal delectable.

(I am sorry…really sorry).

The game is already random because it’s being dealt cards, though you are drafting the ones you keep, but is there any other randomness in the game?

Of course there is.

After you draft your eight cards, you have to form a Troop deck of five Troops. Your Supports can’t go in it, so you’d better hope you drafted five Troops.

Since you get to choose what goes into your Troop deck, that means that you can set yourself up for success, right?

Nope.

You shuffle the five cards so you don’t know in what order they will come out.

You could place the Troop that gives all of your other lunch Troops +6 yumminess, and then it comes out last.

That’s the sugar that you accidentally put on your fries when you wanted to put salt on them.

(I’m done apologizing).

Is that too random?

You be the judge.

You’re playing a card game, are you really worried about randomness at this point?

Each skirmish (or turn), all players will turn over the top Troop in their deck and compare yumminess (that’s the strength in the top right corner).

Previously skirmished cards are in your army off to the side and could have an effect (like being another Private Potato Chip on the table, meaning your current one in the center is actually 16 yumminess instead of 4 because both armies have one).

Each player will have a chance to play Support Instant cards to have an effect, either on the current skirmish or maybe it will just straight up give you a mint (the rewards for skirmishes).

Whoever has the highest yumminess after all Support cards have been played will win the mint.

Mints serve a dual purpose which is kind of confusing but I understand why they did it.

If you win a skirmish, you take a mint.

The number on the back doesn’t matter.

However, at the end of the meal, whoever has the most mints wins the meal and takes the card, getting the points on it.

They also collect a VP for each mint they have.

That’s where the numbers matter.

You exchange your mints so that the value of your collected mints equals your VP.

It’s really confusing, but considering the size of the box, I can see why they would want to put the mints to double use rather than also providing VP markers.

One minor annoyance in favour of efficiency, though is the trade-off worth it?

You’ll have to be the judge. It does become second nature after a play or so.

That is essentially the game, as whoever has the most VP at the end of the game wins.

One thing I do love about Food Fight: Reheated, and it makes me glad they included these from the outset, is the Mascots.

Mascots are Instants (the same as Support cards), but you get one per meal (though you may get the opportunity to draw more during skirmishes).

These Instants provide very strong abilities that can make or break a game if played at the right time.

In one of my recent games, I was behind in VP during the Dinner meal (the meal that gets the most points) and I had Pyro Peter in hand.

I was trailing in Dinner as well, but on the last skirmish, I played Peter to make everybody discard a mint, bringing them down to my number of mints, and then I won the last skirmish, giving me more mints than anybody else.

I won the Dinner and that gave me enough VP to actually win the game.

The Saucy Wench is also quite powerful, making all of your Troops also be the same type as the current meal, which Kelvin rode to completely dominating lunch (he had Troops that gave bonuses to all other lunch Troops, and now every one of his cards were that!)

The Mascots are a lot of fun and I’m glad they’re in the game.

The artwork on all of the cards is very good, sarcastic and whimsical and just brilliant.

There are a few cards that come very close to the edge of being offensive, so I do have to note that in case you are sensitive.

The worst is the Kaboom Kabob, which has very stereotypical art and really threw me off.

While The Tot Offensive isn’t bad in itself, the artwork on it is really terrible.

You can just take any of these cards out if you want, because the rest of the game is still worth playing.

Maybe this is why the game is rated for ages 17 and up?

I can’t think of any other reason, since the gameplay is not that complicated.

Food for thought.

(Ack! That one was unintentional…kind of).

Anyway, Food Fight: Reheated is a zany way to spend a lunch hour, a game where you’re rarely totally out of the game because the point values keep increasing each meal and you can try to dominate that last one to give you the victory.

The card drafting is an effective way to strategize at least a little bit, though you’re at the mercy of your Troop deck shuffling.

It does what it sets out to do, and that’s the most important thing.

It’s too bad that they couldn’t remove that one card.

While the other potentially offensive cards are very situational (mocking religion is one of the mainstays of modern society, though I didn’t notice any Jewish cards in there, but I might have missed one), that one really shouldn’t have made the cut.

Or at least changed the artwork.

I think it’s the artwork that really brings the terrible out in that one.

I still keep it in our games, but whether or not to do so is a personal choice.

Even with all of that, though, the game is worth checking out as a nice card-drafting game that will bring a lot of laughs to the table.

At least it didn’t fall flat as a pancake.

(Ok, I’m out)

(This review was written after 3 plays)