Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
January 2025 Gaming
It’s a new year! And already we’re 1/12 of the way through it.
Who would have thought it would go that fast?
It’s also a new year of boardgaming, which means everything I played this month is actually unique to 2025! Unless I played it more than once, of course.
Even missing a Sunday game day, it managed to be a good month, too.
It wasn’t quite as good as December, but it was close.
Here’s what I played in January.
And here it is in grid format!
All in all, 14 games were played a total of 17 times (which included a marathon of three plays of the same game during one lunch period at work).
Thanks to BG Stats for the great app that lets me record all of this!
It was definitely a month of some great games, four new to me (detailed in a post next week) and one that I hadn’t played since 2023!
Read MoreSouth Tigris Trilogy Expansions from Garphill Games – On Kickstarter Now!
Yes, I know what you’re thinking.
“Oh, another Garphill Games post by Dave…it must be Tuesday.”
But this is big news for me! And anybody else who likes the South Tigris trilogy of games from Garphill, or even if you just like one or two of them!
Today the Kickstarter campaign launched for the expansions to all three games, as well as the Moonsaga expansion that unites all three games.
Instead of doing individual launches for all three, they’ve decided to do one big launch, but where you can pick and choose which ones you want.
They all sound amazing, but yes, I could be biased since I love the base games as well.
Before I begin, I’m not really going to be talking about the Moonsaga expansion because it’s not really something I’m interested in. However, to quote the BGG page:
“This expansion provides players with the means to play all 3 South Tigris games back-to-back, with special goals and abilities across each game.”
The three expansions to the three base games, though, sound really intriguing.
(All photos, except the box covers which are from BGG, are from the Kickstarter page)
Read MoreWho Wants a Fragrant Clock? – Inventors of the South Tigris Review
Necessity is the mother of invention, but is it the mother of a game about inventing things?
Things to ponder.
That’s what I am always thinking when I play Inventors of the South Tigris, the latest (and last) of the South Tigris trilogy of games from Garphill Games.
(Ok, not really, as that’s much too philosophical for me)
Inventors of the South Tigris (it’s just “Inventors” from now on, ok?) was designed by Shem Phillips and S J MacDonald, with art by the Mico (Mihajlo Dimitrievski). It was published in 2024 by Garphill Games and Renegade Game Studios.
After having played it the necessary three times for review, I have to say that I think Inventors is probably the heaviest game of any of the trilogies, and even more so than Ezra & Nehemiah (which I thought was probably the heaviest before this).
There are a lot of mechanisms that you’re pulling, and needing to pull in the right order to do well.
But as with most Garphill games, there are multiple paths to victory if you concentrate on one or two things.
What do I mean?
Let’s look under the hood and see if they’ve actually managed to invent the car as well.
Read MoreThis is a Prince-Free Bash – Rebel Princess Review
I’ve been on a trick-taking tear recently, though that’s not necessarily reflected in my reviews (getting them played is another thing).
I have been buying a bunch of them, though.
One of them that I’ve actually played enough to review recently is a rather unique game called Rebel Princess.
It was designed by Daniel Byrne, José Gerardo Guerrero, Kevin Peláez and Tirso Virgós, with art by Alfredo Cáceres. The 2nd edition was published by Bezier Games in 2024.
Oh my god, that was last year! It’s not “current” anymore…
Anyway, if you’re an old-school trick-taking veteran, then this game will be very familiar to you. However, it adds a bunch of interesting twists and turns that just brings joy to this trick-taking fan’s heart.
Read MoreCombat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 62 – Bessarabian Nights II
If the sight of blood makes you feel squeamish, you can certainly continue reading this after action report.
I haven’t seen this much of a dearth of blood in a Combat Commander game since my first ladder game in 2021!
I’m getting ahead of myself, though.
Welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander ladder! The ladder is a monthly tournament of one of the best games out there, run by the unsurpassed Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame.
Each month, you get to face off against a different opponent to see if you can manage to actually draw enough good cards to win the game!
Or, you know, maybe actually have superior tactics to defeat your opponent.
Some days it’s one, some days it’s another.
After losing last month, I really needed a win, because otherwise I would be at .500 in my Ladder career and next month would become way too important.
This month’s scenario is from the Resistance expansion for the game, where the Partisans (in this case, Russian partisans) face off against the Germans to see who can actually destroy as many units as possible.
Wait, you squeamish people! Pay attention to what I said at the beginning of this post. You’re fine.
The scenario is Bessarabian Nights II, a callback to the base game scenario where the Russian units are randomly placed, leading to a very chaotic scenario.
In this case, the Partisans are randomly placed, leading to…well, some chaos.
(Incidentally, I played this scenario in December against Noel, but since this month’s ladder scenario was this one, I’ll post that AAR later).
My opponent this month was Roger L, a recent returnee to the ladder and for the first time ever, somebody I’ve actually met and gamed with in person!
Yes, Roger played 6 Nimmt! with us at Bottoscon last November, so it was a pleasure to be playing a meaty wargame with him.
Here’s the setup for our game on Saturday.
(Don’t forget that you can click on a picture to blow it up)
This scenario is interesting for a couple of different special rules.
The Partisans (Me – Yellow) set up their Sighting markers anywhere on the board, and choose three crews and weapons (remember that Partisan weapons are randomly chosen) onto spaces 1, 2, and 3 on the Time track.
Then the Germans (Roger – Grey) set up, having to be in contiguous hexes.
Finally, the Partisans draw a random hex for every starting unit. They must set up in or adjacent to that hex.
There is no exiting the board. It’s a cage match, where the only object is eliminating enemy units!
I beat Noel in this scenario in December (sorry, I have to keep mentioning that because I’m still amazed), but would I be able to beat Roger?
Let’s find out.
Read MoreTop 10 New to Me Games of 2024
I’ve been writing this blog for almost 8 years now, doing a monthly “new to me” post for just as long (it started in April 2017, but it was about March’s games!), and I often do “best games played” of the year if I’m not already doing an all-time “best of” series of article.
But something hit me.
No, not that rotten apple you threw at me, and believe me, I saw that. You’re going to get detention at least, if not more.
It hit me that I have never actually done an annual “best new to me games” list, and maybe I should start doing that!
Especially now that I’m playing 60+ new to me games each year.
I know, right?
Welcome to the first annual edition of the “Top 10 New to Me Games” of the past year.
Let’s hope I remember to do this next year as well.
I played a lot of great new to me games last year, so many that it was kind of hard to rank them.
So thanks, Pubmeeple, for helping me out.
Believe it or not, even though I played three new Garphill games last year, none made the list!
Ok, one was 11th and one was 15th, but still…
The Cult of the New to Me is not very happy with me since all ten of these games are either 2023 or 2024 games, but that’s not my fault!
Funnily enough, I’ve actually written posts about all but two of them as well.
I played 68 new to me games last year, and these are the cream of the crop (for me, anyway).
Read MoreRock Hard 1977 – Storage Solution from Folded Space
Regular readers of this blog know that I’m a big fan of Folded Space inserts because they just make organizing and playing games so much easier.
No emptying of baggies, and then wondering which baggy each thing should go in when you’re putting stuff away.
Most of the trays can be used during the game so you don’t even need to dump things out (mainly player pieces but also resources and such).
They’re also made of very light Eva Core (memory foam made from 75% recycled plastic), meaning they don’t add real weight to the game.
If any game called for an insert like Folded Space, it was Rock Hard 1977.
A phenomenal game, but lots of bits and cards, so many cards that you had to separate them into a few baggies.
And then more baggies for other little pieces!
Thankfully, Folded Space came to the rescue with a really nice insert, and it wasn’t that difficult to put together either.
Read MoreCombat Commander After Action Report – Supplemental No. 5 – Tito’s Trick
At the end of December, between Christmas and New Year’s, I was off of work (that’s one of the lucky perks of my job).
Seemed like a perfect time to get some extra Combat Commander games in!
Ladder Rules Guru Noel graciously agreed to play a couple of games with me on Friday and Monday morning and we decided to try to predict what January’s ladder scenario would be.
That meant playing two Partisan scenarios from the Resistance expansion pack!
Of course, if we guessed right, I’m not posting that AAR this month because I don’t want to do two AARs of the same scenario in the same month.
That would be boring for you, my dear readers.
So we’ll have to see when this gets posted! It may be later in 2025.
Or not…I guess you’ll know because if you’re seeing it in January, it’s not this month’s scenario!
If it is, I should probably edit all of that stuff out for later posting.
Or maybe not?
Anyway, the first (or actually second, but I’m writing this one up first) scenario Noel suggested was Tito’s Trick, a scenario between the Partisans (me) and the Italians (Noel) in Yugoslavia.
The Partisans are trying to break out of an encircled pocket, moving through an Italian strongpoint.
I wasn’t going to write up this game because it went so badly, but then decided it might make good comedy so decided to do so.
Here is our initial setup.
(Don’t forget you can click on the picture to blow it up)
Gracefully (and because this is a practice game anyway), Noel let me switch around some of the weapons and leaders for a couple of reasons: the cliffs (meaning you can only Advance up them and you can’t take support weapons with you) and the one Smoke Grenades card in the Partisan deck (only one leader can actually use it!).
But we finally started, though let me go through a couple of the special rules first.
Read MoreNew to Me – December 2024
It’s a new year, and coming up on my 8th blog anniversary in March!
One thing I forgot to mention in yesterday’s Blog in Review post was the fact that, in those 8 years (or at least since I started, which I think was almost near the beginning), I have not missed a “New to Me” post, no matter what my internal posting struggles have been.
Some have appeared quite late in the next month, but I made it!
Of course, I’ve skipped months during the COVID lockdowns when I didn’t actually play any new to me games, but if one was played, it was recorded here!
Which brings me to December, when I thought this was going to be a month that I had to skip.
I had no new to me games as of December 22!
But then Abi and Cal came to that Sunday’s game day.
Lo and behold, I now had four games to write about.
Thank you, guys.
Not only that, but while two of them are brand new games, two of them are really old.
Older than me!
Ok, nothing’s that old, but they did come out in the first decade of the century.
That made the Cult of the New to Me very happy.
So happy that they decided not to rebel as a late Christmas gift to their dear leader.
(That’s me, if you couldn’t guess)
There’s always January, though.
All four were very good games that I would like to play again (some more than others, of course).
So, without further ado (all of my ado was stolen by a mad computer and used to simulate building a civilization anyway), let’s get started!
Read MoreBlog in Review – 2024
Happy New Year, everybody!
I hope you had a safe and happy New Year’s Eve celebration last night, or at least just spent the changeover with your loved ones.
Some of you may even have been asleep!
As I did last year and for the five years previous (really, that long?), I wanted to do a bit of a retrospective for my gaming and this blog, letting you now some of the highlights, the stats, and just what stood out to me.
This won’t be a year in review in general because, well, the year wasn’t that great!
The dumpster fire in November and everything that led up to it, bringing on chaos, confusion, fear and anxiety, those have been examined elsewhere and I don’t think I could do justice to them.
Personally, however, 2024 wasn’t as good as 2023.
I had more mental health issues, mainly anxiety and self-regard issues that led to a few blog outages as well as just bad feelings in general.
Getting sick and missing my 25 year anniversary at my job celebration really hit me hard because I’d been looking forward to it all year, but at least we had an office party for me the week before which was very nice, including a speech from a man I consider a mentor and good friend who I have worked with for 18 years now.
But yeah, missing the actual celebration sucked.
However, upwards and onwards and I’ve been feeling better the last couple of months, or at least I’ve been dealing with the anxiety better and not letting it overwhelm me.
Which has resulted in a great two months of blog posting recovery, but we’ll get to that in a bit.
Read More
Dude! Take Your Turn! 