New to Me – March 2026

This is very late, and I am very sorry.

Usually I have written my “New to Me Games” post by the end of the first week of the month.

But March was such a cornucopia of new games that I just couldn’t do it!

Just past the middle of the month isn’t too bad.

I really loved the variety of new to me games, too. There were some great fillers, some longer games, and some games that I don’t need to play again.

Variety is the spice of life!

That, and the Cult of the New to Me was very happy because there were some really old games in here.

2015, 2009, hell, even 1992.

1992?

They were in awe!

I don’t think I’ve ever seen them that speechless, except that time I brought in Justin Bieber to perform for them, though that kind of speechlessness was probably murderous.

I apologized and bought them all dinner.

So without further ado (all of my ado was stolen with all of my cookies!), let’s get started.

Brace yourselves! This one is long.

Cover Your Cookies (2023 – Grandpa Beck’s) – 2 plays

Designer: Jeffrey Beck

Artist: Apryl Stott

Players: 3-6

I’ve reviewed Cover Your Assets, and mentioned Cover Your Kingdom (a slightly more advanced version of the original classic), but now we have (well, “now” being 2023) a new version of the game that adds a bit more substance to it, and is about baking rather than grand regal politics or high finance.

This time, instead of financial assets or new creature recruits to your kingdom, you are baking cookies and then trying to keep them from being stolen by your adversaries.

This the standard game, where you can lay down a pair of the same type of cookie, covering up your previous groupings of cookies so they are safe from being stolen, or you can play a card to try to steal somebody else’s top cookie.

There is one addition, though.

When somebody steals your cookie set, you do get a bit of compensation.

You won’t lose all the points they were worth, though you will lose most (especially if it was a big group because you stole somebody else’s huge group with a bunch of wild cards and other things).

The more you get stolen from, the more endgame points you will get.

So if you have a mere 30-point set and you’ve already been stolen from 3 times, you may want people to steal your stuff!

Sure, it only gains you 15 points (from 45 to 60), but it’s still not bad considering.

Otherwise, there really isn’t any difference between these three games.

It even has the standard wild cards that can be used to steal or defend, or just to make your own set if for some reason you can’t.

There are always lots of laughs as somebody tries to steal, it’s countered, they play another card to continue the steal, but it’s still countered, etc.

Then somebody takes advantage of you being out of cards and steals it anyway.

Always fun.

Light Speed: Arena (2025 – Tablescope) – 2 plays

Designers: Leonardo Alese, James Ernest, Tom Jolly, Emanuele Santellani

Artist: Marco Salogni

Players: 1-4

Funnily enough, this game showed up in one of my latest “Boardgame Geek Centuries” posts, because it is currently ranked #2353.

I pretty much explained it all there, so let me just refer to that.

Light Speed: Arena (#2353) is a real-time, very quick game where you are taking your 6 (or more or less depending on player count) and one at a time from a shuffled pile, playing your ship out onto the table inside a pre-sized area of the table in order to try and destroy other players’ ships or bases.

The game uses an app and each 10-second round, you have to turn over a ship and place it.

You’re trying to point the lasers on your ship towards an opponent’s vessel and not your own, because accidental self-kills are a thing!

After all ships have been placed, you use the app (which uses your camera) to essentially record the playing surface, and then the app proceeds to execute all of the firing and destruction.

The app will then give you the points for each player.

It’s actually quite cool!

This is roughly a 5-minute game, so you can play multiple times like we did.

I’m not a fan of real-time games, but this one doesn’t offend me too much.

You’re essentially trying to make sure your lasers line up with other players’ tiles, which is easy enough to do.

If you need something really quick, this isn’t a bad choice.

Speakeasy (2025 – Eagle-Gryphon Games) – 3 plays

Designer: Vital Lacerda

Artist: Ian O’Toole

Players: 1-4

The new Lacerda game is all it’s cracked up to be.

New York mobsters during Prohibition, intricate “just place a worker and OH MY GOD WHAT DO I DO NOW?” game play.

But don’t take my word for it.

Read my review!

Expeditions (2023 – Stonemaier Games) – 1 play

Designer: Jamey Stegmaier

Artist: Jakub Rozalski

Players: 1-5

I have never played Scythe and I’ve always been indifferent to it.

However, I’ve heard good things about Expeditions, which is a game in the Scythe universe but isn’t actually a sequel or anything like that.

I still haven’t been begging to play it, but at Bottoscon Winter on March 1, Joanne and Tim had brought it and asked if I wanted to check it out.

So I did!

This was a really interesting game where an ancient meteorite has crashed in Siberia, unleashing massive corruption around it.

Expeditions are formed to go out and explore the area, to see what artifacts may have been unearthed (or even landed on the planet), to gain glory as they find cool stuff and cleanse the area of corruption.

The game is played on a board full of hidden hexagonal tiles, though each tile has a level so there are only certain spaces they will go.

The further out you go from the base camp area, the more stuff you’ll gain, but the harder the challenges will be as well.

The game has a kind of action selection mechanism using cards, in that there are three available actions you can do in a turn.

However, once you move your cube up to an action, that particular action is blocked on the next turn. So when your cube is at the reset place (where it is now), you can do all three actions.

But you move your cube up to one of them and then next turn, only the two visible actions are available.

You keep moving your cube from one space to another, until finally you decide to refresh, which makes all three actions available again.

You’re moving your mech around the board, exploring hidden tiles, or just trying to gain resources, remove corruption, and the like.

Tiles have an action you can do on them (like on the left above), but you can also spend resources to cleanse corruption and, if you clean off all the tiles, you will unlock a second option as well.

The card play is really cool. You are playing out your cards in a row to do actions, but you gain them all back when you do a Refresh action.

The cards will always give you resources, though you need the appropriate coloured worker to activate the other ability and do the action itself.

You’re essentially trying to complete goals, and once the fourth goal has been achieved by somebody, that will trigger the game end.

I like how triggering game end doesn’t necessarily mean you will win, though.

I didn’t trigger the endgame, but I came within 2 points of winning because of all the other endgame point possibilities.

All of the goals being the same each game might make the game a bit samey, but I’ve only played it once so I can’t really say.

The variable map definitely would help with that, though, as I am a sucker for variable maps!

I like how, while the levels of the tiles are predictable (further away will get you better stuff), the actual layout of the map is different each time.

I really enjoyed my play of this and would definitely play it again.

Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor (2025 – Lookout Games) – 2 plays

Designer: Kosch

Artists: Toni Llobet, Judit Piella

Players: 2-5

I have actually now played this game enough to review it, but I don’t want to delay this post any further in order to write that first.

This is the sequel (not expansion, as they are not compatible) to the already excellent Forest Shuffle, and I have to say that I prefer it to the base game, even with the base game expansions.

Forest Shuffle: Dartmoor adds an intriguing twist to the whole thing: moors.

Moors are horizontal terrain types and they don’t allow you to place animals on the left/right side of the card.

So no bats in moors!

Instead, you can place two flowers/small animals on the bottom and two flying animals on the top.

Some other small changes don’t make a lot of difference, but they are there.

Instead of butterflies, in moors you’re getting dragonflies, but they have the same set collection mechanic.

Bats have been boosted a bit, because each bat has a power when it’s played, most of the time playing another small card from the clearing.

They still have the same scoring (5 points each if you have three or more different kinds of bats).

I like how there a lot more different scoring paths, though, and there is no over-powered deer strategy.

Plants are more viable, most moors have a scoring ability that will give you points based on colours in your tableau, or different animal types.

Another new aspect is the Caves.

While the original had Caves and got you one point per card in your Cave, Dartmoor has Caves with unique powers or abilities.

There are only five of them, so in a five-player game, they’re all coming out, but it is a nice bonus.

Even the one that doesn’t give you an ability (like getting a Moor card out before the game even starts) will get you 5 points at the end of the game.

The basic gameplay is the same: on your turn you either draw 2 cards or you play a card and pay for it with other cards (unless it’s zero-cost).

But it almost seems like they’ve learned from the original game plus expansions, because the scoring is much more balanced and fun in this one.

Give me Dartmoor any day!

Dungeons & Dragons: Temple of Elemental Evil – The Boardgame (2015 – Wizards of the Coast) – 1 play

Designers: Peter Lee, Ben Petrisor

Artist: N/A

Players: 1-5

This game came out at the end of a Saturday night at Terminal City Tabletop Convention when four of us were just looking for a game from the games library to end the night.

Otherwise it’s not something we would normally have played.

However, it was a pretty cool game and I can see how the campaign game would be attractive.

Playing as a one-shot, though, I’m not sure if we did it right.

Players are essentially adventurers exploring the buried Temple of Elemental Evil, exploring the dungeon with random tiles as well as fighting off monsters, encountering traps, and trying to stay alive.

As I said above, I love random maps that you uncover!

This is a perfect example of that.

When you do it as a one-shot, you choose one of the missions of the campaign and just play it out.

You are going deep into the dungeon, trying to find the big bad, and then defeating it.

I’m not sure if you’re supposed to adjust the encounter deck or not, and the treasure deck just made no sense for a one shot.

A lot of the treasure results give you gold, which doesn’t do anything in a one shot.

However, some of the encounters cost you gold, so should you be getting gold anyway?

Or do you ignore both?

The rules don’t say.

Plus, the Encounter and Monster decks are both gradually toughened up during the campaign.

I do like the mechanics of the game, though, where you either explore a new tile or you draw an Encounter card, meaning something is happening every player turn.

New tiles will bring new monsters (most likely, but not always), which will then start running toward the party to attack them.

You have to balance things pretty precariously.

We ended up winning, but I’m not 100% sure we played it right and the confusion of playing a one shot in a the middle of a campaign made the whole experience a bit surreal.

I don’t know if I would play this as a one shot again, but the campaign was fairly interesting if I had the time and availability to actually play a campaign (which I don’t).

Power Struggle (2009 – Eggertspiele) – 1 play

Designer: Bauldric & Friends, Maximilian Maria Thiel

Artists: Fréderic Bertrand, Lars-Arne “Maura” Kalusky

Players: 3-5

Power Struggle is a game that plays best at 5, which is why Tartan has continued to bring it whenever we have 5 players.

It just hasn’t gotten to the table until the Terminal City convention, though.

The power struggle in question is within a corporation (I think?) with players trying to take control of various departments in the corporation, or maybe just getting seats on the board.

There are a number of rounds in the game, variable depending on when one person fulfills all four of their goals.

Each round, whoever is head of Communications (which can change depending on whether somebody tries to control it during a round) will look at all of the Event cards for the current round, and they’ll order them the way they want to.

Events will then happen at the beginning of each turn and then players will take an action. It can be to place employees in their departments, maybe gain influence in a department in order to try to take control of it, or maybe bribe somebody else to use their department’s special ability.

You’re trying to move forward on a number of tracks which will lead you toward your goals.

This could be having a bunch of shares in the company, or maybe having moved some of your workers off into being outside consultants, or maybe just being as corrupt as possible!

The game has a lot of laughs and also some negotiation, where you have to decide how much money your ability is worth giving away to another player.

Of course, if you want to move up on the Corruption track as one of your goals, you have to bribe (or be bribed) a whole bunch!

The goals are interesting because they are based on how you are on one of the tracks in comparison to one other player.

It’s not a “be at Level 10” or anything like that.

It’s “be higher than the blue player” on a certain track (and I can’t believe I didn’t take any pictures of the goal cards! Sorry about that).

It’s an interesting game, but it’s not something that I really want to play a lot of.

I wouldn’t say no to it, but I also wouldn’t volunteer it.

Trinket Trove (2025 – GameHead) – 1 play

Designer: Rocco Privetera

Artist: Sandara Tang

Players: 2-6

In Trinket Trove, you are critter collectors, trying to amass sets of high value trinkets, because you know mice love grabbing shiny objects.

You’re trading and collecting sets of trinkets, but you have to use some of the stuff you’re collecting to bid on other sets of trinkets.

So the push/pull aspect of the game is quite high.

You’re not bidding on sets of trinkets, though.

Instead, you’re bidding on draft order, where you will be drafting sets of trinkets to go into your hand.

After 5 or 6 rounds (maybe determined by player count? I’m not sure), you score your hand of trinkets and whoever has the most points is the winner.

Trinkets score in a set collection manner depending on what type of trinket it is.

So Gems start a bit high, level out at 2-3, and then really jump if you can get a lot of them.

The thing about bidding, is, though, that if you see a set of trinkets you really want to add to your hand, you have to bid high value from your hand of already-collected trinkets.

It’s a really hard river to navigate!

It’s definitely a filler game (30 minutes maximum), and it’s completely random due to card shuffling, but there are some hard decisions to make based on the cards that do come out.

I’d definitely play it again.

Harvest (1992 – ForGames) – 1 play

Designer: Yukihito Morikawa (森川幸人)

Artist: Osamu Inoue (井上磨)

Players: 1-6

We though the Cult of the New to Me was happy about the Power Struggle, they were really happy when they heard about Harvest.

Harvest was published way back in 1992, and there’s nothing in it that wouldn’t make it a good game today, even if it didn’t make a huge splash like some of the newer titles do.

Fields are put out on the board adjacent to each other, with each colour having its own.

Each player will also have a hand of tiles to place.

If you don’t have anything in your field, then you have to place on your field.

Otherwise, you can place anywhere except on a player’s field that is also empty.

When you connect three tiles of the same colour in a row, column, or diagonally, then the tiles are removed and whoever’s field a tile is on will get that tile.

So you could be helping another player!

But if you placed a 40-point tile on your field and they’re only getting a 10-point tile, who really cares?

Even better if you can place a negative-points tile on their field, removing some of their points.

The game will end when all of the tiles have been played or somebody doesn’t have a legal placement.

There are a couple of tiles that are special.

There’s a wild tile that can make multiple connects at the same time.

And there’s a tornado tile that will wipe away ever connected tile, which is a good way to get rid of those negatives if they’ve been piling up.

This is a lightning fast game and it was actually very fun.

Go 1992!

Slay the Spire: The Board Game (2024 – Contention Games) – 1 play

Designers: Gary Dworetsky, Anthony Giovannetti, Casey Yano

Artists: Bruce Brenneise, Jose David Lanza Cebrian, Anailis Dorta

Players: 1-4

I have sunk tons of time into the Slay the Spire video game, and the boardgame version has looked intriguing but I never got the chance to sit down with it.

Then came a day where we had limited table space and 8 people, and Abi brought it out to give me the chance to play it.

It is so good!

Not equal to the video game, but still very fun.

In the video game, you are one of four different characters trying to advance to the top of the Spire over 3 Acts, building up your deck as you go along.

In the boardgame, you are 1-4 players playing one of the characters in the game, and you are teaming up against the monsters you are facing.

But each time you go into combat, each of you is facing your own adversary.

You can team up and defeat anybody’s enemy, but there isn’t just one that you’re attacking.

You’re still moving up the map, choosing your route, encountering chests and markets and all of that.

And building up your deck, adding more powerful cards to make things a bit easier (though never easy).

Ultimately, you’re facing off against a big boss at the top of the Act, who will have power based on the number of players in the game.

There are 3 Acts in the game, though the first two Acts took us 3.5 hours, so you will want to budget some time if you want to play the entire game.

This definitely gives you the feel of the video game, and lets you play cooperatively, which is cool.

Of course, now that Slay the Spire 2 is out and lets you play cooperatively, how much will that pull away from the board game?

I definitely enjoyed my time with it, and I love the mechanisms and how they adapted it from the video game, but I’m not sure how much I want to keep playing it.

I would never say no to it, because it’s fun, but I also don’t have a burning desire to keep playing it.

Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends (2025 – Wizkids) – 1 play

Designer: Bruce Glassco

Artist: Darren Calvert

Players: 2-6

Finally (yes, I see you falling asleep over there…WAKE UP!), we get to a new version of a fun (and very quick) card game, and it almost seems a bit better for some reason.

Fantasy Realms was a fun card game because you just drew a card and discarded a card, and when the discard pile hit 10, the game was over.

You were trying to form combos with the cards in your hand to score them all as high as possible.

Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends does that too, with a lot of new icons and symbolism involved, but it adds one clever mechanic that, while I don’t generally use it, makes the decisions a bit more interesting.

The cards in this one are Greek Gods, Heroes, Items, Locations, and Monsters.

They all have various abilities and will score (or not score) based on other icons that are in your hand.

The new addition for this game, however, is the Afterlife.

Cards in the Afterlife will score you -10 points, but they will also score themselves (whether positive or negative), meaning that you could be scoring 8 or more cards rather than just the 7 in your hand.

As long as the Afterlife card has a net positive (maybe 20 points to make up for the -10?), then that’s more points that you wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Of course, that means you need to work harder to make them all go together well.

That makes the game more intriguing!

It still has the same “trying to match all the right icons to score additional points, and avoid penalties, etc) mechanic.

It’s a fun game and very quick, maybe 10-15 minutes depending on how much people need to think, and you’re often trying to make agonizing decisions because you don’t want to discard something.

It’s random as hell, but I think most people who hate randomness don’t mind it in a 15-minute game.

I need to play this some more!

There you have it.

An extremely long (and extremely late!) showcasing of all the new to me games that I played in March.

Conventions help!

April won’t be nearly as long and also won’t be nearly as late, I’m sure.

What new to you games did you play in March?

If you can remember that far back.

Let me know in the comments!