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A Gaming Life
First Impressions – Cascadero
Another first impressions post, mainly because I doubt this game will come out to our game days again, other than maybe one more time (I prefer to review a game after 3 plays).
These first impressions posts are not reviews exactly, because I’ve only played the game once (and sometimes that one play might be slightly wrong, like this one).
But I want to let you know some information about a game so you can maybe make your own decision about wanting to try it.
As I mentioned in my Harmonies first impressions post, my opinion could change with more plays and, if I play it enough to review it, I will either mention it in an amendment to this post or, if my opinion changes drastically, write up a new review.
This week’s first impressions post is about a brand new Reiner Knizia game called Cascadero.
It’s designed by Knizia with artwork by Ian O’Toole (wow, two masters on the same game? Can the space-time continuum handle it?) and published by Bitewing Games in 2024.
Bitewing games is coming up with some really cool productions recently. Definitely a publisher to keep an eye on.
How does this compare with other Dr. Knizia games?
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Modular Expansions & Stories
It’s vacation time!
Today was my last day of work for 4 weeks, and wow has this been needed.
I’m hoping that my blog output will increase a bit this month as I have more mental capacity to actually write.
But we’ll see what happens.
In the meantime, welcome back to the bar for another Friday night of talking about boardgames!
I will do my best not to fall asleep on you.
What? Oh, good. You’re still here. Sorry, must have nodded off.
Let me get you something to drink and let’s chat. Nobody else is here to interrupt.
Not sure how I stay in business, now that I think of it.
How about we talk about modular expansions and expansion stories?
After a few weeks of one of them, I need to get it off my chest!
Read MoreCombat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 02 – Hedgerows & Hand Grenades
One of the great things about Combat Commander is that you’re almost never truly out of the running to win the scenario.
There are times, of course, where there’s really no point in going on, but those times are much fewer than in some other war games.
Anything can happen in Combat Commander! The luck swings can be drastic within the scenario.
Allow me to use my June outing in the Combat Commander ladder to prove that point.
It’s time for another adventure!
The ladder, run by the phenomenal Patrick Pence, creator of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials on Youtube, is the chance to play your favourite game at least once a month.
It is your favourite game, right?
I’m going to call this month’s scenario recap “The Ballad of Lieutenant Blankenship,” for reasons that will soon become apparent.
This month’s scenario is from the Combat Commander: Europe base game.
It’s also the second scenario I ever played when learning the game, with my good friend Michael from the Boardgame Chronicle.
I won that one (I thought I had lost it until I just now reread it), but could I repeat history?
I had played my opponent, Greg L, once before on the ladder, back in 2022 in a Stalingrad scenario. Would he be able to get revenge?
(Don’t forget that you can click on a picture to blow it up)
The scenario pits the Americans (me – green) against the Germans (Greg – grey) in a fight among the bocage hedges just past the Normandy beaches in 1944.
The Americans are the attacker and the Germans the defender, and there are only a couple of special rules.
The Americans set up first on the left side of the board, in the first three columns. Then the Germans set up anywhere on the rest of the board.
However, Lt. Blankenship is a forward observer and can set up anywhere on the board after the Germans set up. You could, of course, end up putting him with your units, but he can also be valuable in the German rear.
Since Greg hadn’t covered Objective 1, I figured that would be a good place to start him. He could maybe then move to rain down some artillery fire from behind the lines.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) he seemed to have replaced his radio with some other stuff instead.
The other special rule is that all of the hedgerows (those green lines that go along the hex sides) are considered bocage, meaning they are +2 to cover and +2 to move instead of the normal +1.
Would the Americans prevail?
Why don’t you come along for the ride with me and find out?
Read MoreReview – Furnace
There’s something about chains in games that is just so cool, even though they burn my brain sometimes.
I’m not talking about actual chains, of course. That would be terrible.
Unless you’re into that sort of thing, in which case who am I to judge?
But I’m talking about chaining abilities and cards so that one card feeds into another, which feeds into another, which feeds into another, until the whole world is destroyed by some long-forgotten ancient god or something.
Or, you know, you get tons of points.
Probably best to go for that second goal.
This is all a roundabout way to talk about a really cool auction/chaining card game called Furnace.
Furnace was designed by Ivan Lashin with artwork by Sergey Dulin, Marta Ivanova, Ilya Konovalov, Vadim Poluboyarov, Oleg Yurkov and Egor Zharkov.
It was published by Hobby World and Arcane Wonders, along with a host of other worldwide publishing companies, in 2020.
It plays 2-4 players, though the expansion (which I’ll review once I’ve played it more) adds a 5th player. It also has solo rules.
But the base game is 2-4 players.
What’s so special about Furnace?
It’s an auction game unlike almost any other auction game I can think of (which is where somebody comes in and points out an obvious other example that I’ve never heard of).
Let’s take a look under the hood and see what’s what.
Read MoreFirst Impressions – Harmonies
Welcome to the first in a periodic series of posts where I give my first impressions on a game that I don’t think I’m going to end up playing enough to actually write a review for it.
I broached this subject in a previous Friday Night Shots post, and the idea seemed to go over well, so I thought I’d give it a shot.
Keep in mind that the reason I don’t think I’ll play it enough to review it is not necessarily because my first impression of it was a bad one.
It’s more that so many different games get brought to our game group, or sometimes a game is difficult to get to the table, that I’m predicting that I won’t get to play it enough to review.
The inaugural game in this series is Harmonies, published by Libellud Games in 2024.
The game was designed by Johan Benvenuto with artwork by Maëva da Silva.
It plays 1-4 players.
Harmonies is a beautiful game, combining a couple of different mechanisms that I love along with one that I’m not a fan of (mainly because my brain hurts when I try to do it).
With that intriguing thought, let’s take a look at it!
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Box Size Preference – Room for Expansions?
Yes, the bar is still open!
It’s just been under renovations for the last…month, I guess.
Hopefully they’ve fixed that jukebox so that it stops playing shitty music.
Anyway, welcome back! I’m happy to have you stop by, have a drink, and talk a little bit about board games.
I know I’ve missed you!
So hop on a stool, let me get you a cold libation of some sort (or hot, if you’d like), and let’s go!
Damn, sorry, let me turn down the jukebox. Why it started playing “Roseanne’s Greatest National Anthem Renditions,” I have no idea.
I’ll have to fire the contractors.
Anyway, tonight I’d like to talk about board game box size.
Some too big, some too small, and some just right…until the expansion comes out.
Read MoreReview – Guild Academies of Valeria
I just love “series” boardgames, where you have multiple games in the same setting, though they have different mechanisms and stuff.
I think I actually talked about that before.
While I haven’t played a bunch of the Valeria series of games, I have played four now, and the latest (until the next Kickstarter which I’m sure will drag me in) is Guild Academies of Valeria.
This one is where you are running a mage academy, trying to teach students the basics of magic so they can go out and complete quests and give you prestige.
Like most universities in North America, when somebody has a major success, they say “that person went to college here!”
And that’s what you’re going for.
The game was designed by Stan Kordonskiy with artwork by Mihajlo Dimitrievski. It was published by Daily Magic Games in 2023.
In Villages of Valeria, you are trying to build the new capital of the region. In Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria, you actually play as the monsters who are attacking the kingdom.
Here, you are just running the local university, trying to turn out the best students to deal with bad situations around the kingdom.
It’s still a dice-drafting game, like Shadows, but there are plenty of differences as well.
How different is it?
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreFantastic Factories – Storage Solution from Folded Space
There’s just something about a really neat storage solution for games.
Sure, baggies are fine, and you can just turn the box upside down and drop a bunch of baggies onto the table for everybody to sort out.
They work…ok. And it’s not the end of the world if that’s what you have.
But a storage solution where you can actually take the trays out and use them as part of the game are just so much fun.
Of course, I’ve extolled the virtues of Folded Space inserts before, but what about a relatively small game like Fantastic Factories from Deepwater Games?
Even with such a small game, the storage solution actually comes in really handy once you have the expansions.
I know that when I got the expansions on Kickstarter and just threw things into the box, I actually had to keep both boxes in order to keep things separated enough to play just the base game.
Now, I don’t have to.
That’s not to say it was easy!
For such a small insert, this was one surprisingly difficult for me.
So how does the insert look?
Let’s take a…(don’t want to repeat words….) gander.
Read MoreMay 2024 Gaming
May seemed like a really dead month for gaming.
Hell, we missed out on two Sunday game days (Mother’s Day and a marathon the week before) so I thought it was going to be almost as bad as April.
When I looked at my BG Stats app, though (and you should really get this app if you record your plays at all!), it turns out that I had 21 plays in May, as opposed to 10 in April.
What the hell happened?
Well, there were some lunchtime games, where we played a bunch of stuff (including all 5 chapters of the first Oh My Goods expansion), and then the Sundays I did play were filled up with some good games as well.
Only one new to me game, but a couple of expansions, as detailed yesterday.
Here’s the list of games I played last month.
And here it is in grid form.
Pleasantly, there are a couple of games I haven’t played in a while!
Those are always the best.
This may not be as short as last month, but it will probably be kind of short.
So let’s begin so you can get on with your day!
Read MoreNew to Me – May 2024
May was a weird month for gaming.
Tomorrow (or Monday) I’ll be talking about the month in general, but as for new to me games, there was only one!
Which is annoying and that’s why I’m going to talk about a couple of new to me expansions as well.
I actually had to work for the one new to me game as it didn’t happen until the last Sunday of the month!
The Cult of the New to Me wasn’t very happy that the one new game was from 2023, but the fact that one of the expansions was from 2016 and that they know I’m going through a tough gaming time, both factors meant that they were a bit more lenient on me this month.
No revolts, at least.
That may change if I don’t do something different next month, though.
Sometimes a cult leader’s staying time can be counted in months!
Anyway, let’s see what’s what.
Without further ado (all of my ado was traded away to some viking colony anyway), let’s begin!
Read More
Dude! Take Your Turn! 