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A Gaming Life
Expansion Review – Smash Up: Disney
As part of a partnership with The OP, Alderac Entertainment Group is releasing three different Smash Up core sets with IP that the OP has (is that too much EP?).
The first, of course, was Smash Up: Marvel, which was a pretty good expansion even with the IP stuff and terminology changes.
The second one has just now been released, and it’s Disney!
Smash Up: Disney Edition is a new 8-faction core set that follows the same path as the Marvel set.
Thankfully, it follows the path in all the right ways, as once again we have 8 factions that do some new and interesting things rather than being a retread of previous Smash Up factions with the IP stuff added on.
The 8 factions, of course, are based on Disney movies.
It was also designed by Sean Fletcher and Paul Peterson and was released in 2022 (like, less than a month ago as I write this).
Once again, long-time Smash Up fans will have to remember the terminology changes in the game, mainly in the fact that “Minions” are now “Characters” and actions that you can play on minions/characters are now called “Character Modifiers.”
That becomes even more important because at least one of the factions included really likes Character Modifiers!
The Marvel set was pretty good.
Is the Disney set?
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreApp Review – Everdell
Dire Wolf Digital, in addition to being the publisher for some great tabletop games (like Clank in Space), is also one of the premiere publishers of digital boardgame adaptations.
From Raiders of the North Sea (which I haven’t reviewed yet but probably should!) to the wonderful Root adaptation (which I also should review!), they are one of the best digital boardgame publishers out there.
So when they announced Everdell, you know I had to have it.
Everdell was designed by James A Wilson with artwork by Andrew Bosley and Dann May. It was published in 2018 by a lot of different companies, though I believe the original publisher was Starling Games.
This is going to be a review of both the app as well as the game, as I doubt I will ever play the tabletop game enough to actually review it.
Thus, I won’t mention the 3-dimensional tree that’s used in the tabletop game and I can’t imagine trying to put it together each time, and I don’t have space to just put it on the shelf so I don’t have to take it down, and it wouldn’t transport to game day anyway and what was I saying????
The game is really intriguing because it’s another tableau-builder where you are chaining cards to play and gaining resources to play cards from your hand.
It’s actually really neat!
But how neat is it?
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreCombat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario #30 – Red Skies at Night
It’s August, and time for another tale from the Combat Commander ladder (yes, I stole that from the preeminent Patrick Pence, head of the Combat Commander ladder and all around great guy).
I’m into my second year on the ladder now and it’s been a wonderful time (marred a little bit by the loss of one of our own in July).
I was 9-5 on the ladder going into August’s game, but I received a tough assignment (Thanks, Patrick…grrrrrr).
Scenario #30 is from the Paratrooper Battle Pack but it’s an unusual one as it involves Russian paratroops! They are faced with some German units who are just starting to get into position.
It takes place in 1943 with the Russians in Recon mode while the Germans are in Attack mode.
That means no nasty Defense surprises like Mines or Wire!
That was a godsend.
The rest of it?
Well…
My opponent was Greg G and he was the Germans. I was the Russians and they are in a tough spot.
They have to set up at the top in hex columns A-H, but only one unit per hex. So really it’s just a matter of the order that you set them up in because there’s only one hex that won’t have a unit.
The Russians have a mortar, which is nice, and a couple of LMGs.
(Don’t forget that you can click on each picture to enlarge it)
Read MoreKingmaker Coming to Kickstarter on September 9 From Gibsons Games
(Edit 9/26/22 – The launch is live! Go here to back it.)
(Edit – the Kickstarter was supposed to start today (September 9), but it’s been postponed to September 26 out of deference to Queen Elizabeth’s death)
Here’s a light, Friday post for you leading into the weekend (and maybe leading into me getting some more posting done, sorry about that!)
I was excited to get the email announcement that a game from my past is being redone, and redone well!
At least it looks like it, anyway.
Kingmaker is a classic Avalon Hill game from 1974 that I first played in college (so around 1990, maybe?). It’s a game about the famous Wars of the Roses in the late 15th century between the Lancasters and the Yorks for royal supremacy in England.
It was designed originally by Andrew McNeil.
Of course, being a history buff, I am there.
On September 9th, Gibsons Games is launching a Kickstarter for an updated version plus a re-imagined Kingmaker II.
This sounds amazing!
Read MoreNew to Me – July 2022
July was a good month.
When you have the entire month of July off of work as vacation, it’s a glorious month!
It was sadly not a month for writing, which I apologize for to anybody who’s been anxiously awaiting the chance to read my writing (Hi, Bob!).
Since a lot of my game-playing after the COVID lockdowns has been on lunch at work, that does hamper the game playing though!
Even more so when I had to skip one of our weekly game meetings and another one was just one (long!) game.
But it was still a great month.
The highlight was seeing David Gray in concert.
Man, what a singer, and an even better performer. Probably the best concert I’ve seen.
If you want to see him in action from that concert, check out this video.
Anyway, as I was saying, not many games were played, and only two games that were new to me.
The Cult of the New to Me was kind of indifferent to that, even though they were from 2020 and 2021.
I guess they were feeling mellow too.
August looks to be a lot more active, so hopefully next month’s post will be longer!
So without further ado (all of my ado was eaten by a salmon living in the grasslands anyway), let’s begin!
Read MoreDo We Really Care That You’re Not Buying a Game?
I was looking at Boardgame Geek today after coming home from running some errands (I highly recommend taking a month off of work if you have enough vacation days for it).
I saw the news post about the new game coming from Czech Games Edition, Deal With the Devil (from designer Matúš Kotry).
This post isn’t about the game, however, though it does sound kind of cool, but it is for exactly four players…so maybe not as cool for me.
No, this post was prompted by a couple of the comments in the news article about it.
Read MoreStorm Above the Reich – After Action Report – Mission #20
Only a few missions into my “Late 43” season of Storm Above the Reich, things seem to be going swimmingly. I’ve been able to use various experience points to make sure the missions are in a positive frame of mind for me, and that’s been good!
But what happens when I decide not to make it a perfect scenario for me?
With Mission #20, I decided to experiment a little bit.
I’m still not going to try some new auxiliary fighters who are even more bullet magnets than the Ju-88s! But I thought I would try to save EPs and just take the mission as it came (though still spending them to make sure no Escorts were hovering around).
Would that help or hinder my victory points?
I’m currently at 28 VP (40 VP to “not lose” and 60 VP to win) and there are still 6 missions after this current one, so let’s see what happens!
It’s been so long since I played this one, we’ll have to see what happens together.
Because I don’t know!
Still no rockets or anything else like that which is new to the Late 43 season (though spoiler alert, Mission #21 has some of that!). Basically I’m just keeping on keeping on, and we’ll see where that lands us.
Let’s see what ends up happening!
Read MoreOnline Communities and People Passing
Today was a rough day for me, even though I’m on vacation and it’s been a wonderful couple of weeks (and still a couple of weeks left before going back to the Pit of Fun).
As you know, I’m a member of the Combat Commander ladder tournament, the monthly game of Combat Commander where we play monthly online against an opponent via Vassal and we’re all ranked based on our win-loss percentage and all of that.
All of us ladder participants (or many of us, anyway), have formed a community on the ladder Discord channel, where you can post rules questions, just chat about various things, or maybe even look for a game against somebody because you want to experience as much Combat Commander as you can.
A major part of that community died this week. John McLintock, an avid Combat Commander player who had weekly games going against multiple people on the ladder (and probably others as well), died Tuesday night or Wednesday morning (a ladder member played him Tuesday morning and he missed the scheduled Wednesday game with another ladder participant).
He is such a great loss to the community. He was always helping with rules questions, just chatting about the game in general, and always a positive force in the community.
He will be greatly missed.
What’s amazing is how all of this happened and became known.
I didn’t know John that well, so I can’t really do much of a eulogy for him.
I loved watching his videos with Patrick Pence (leader of the Combat Commander ladder group) and my limited interactions with him within the Discord group were always friendly, but I didn’t know him like some other ladder members did. I never played a game with him and I never chatted with him one on one.
He was a force on the ladder as well as a wonderful advocate for Combat Commander in general.
But this brings to mind something that I’ve thought about often.
And that’s about online communities and what happens when death becomes involved.
Read MoreReview – Jump Drive
Are you in need of a really cool, super-fast game that can be played almost between ordering your food and it actually arriving?
Have I got the game for you!
Jump Drive is like a combination of designer Tom Lehmann’s Race for the Galaxy and his The City.
How do you get a combination like that?
Well, when two games really like each other…
Whoops, sorry. Childhood flashbacks.
What I meant to say is that Jump Drive is basically The City using some Race for the Galaxy iconography and a couple of the mechanics from that game as well.
It all gels into a fast-playing mix that really satisfies the senses.
Jump Drive was designed by Lehmann with artwork by Martin Hoffmann, Claus Stephan, Mirko Suzuki and Jens Wiese. It was published by Rio Grande Games in 2017.
How does it play?
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreMy Year in Gaming – So Far
Just a fun little Sunday night post to share with you my year in gaming so far.
Little surprise that Jump Drive is #1 as it’s such a quick game. I even have a review of it posting tomorrow!
The large number of Space Base games is mainly due to the two Saga expansions (Shy Pluto and Terra Proxima) that we’ve been working through at work on lunch breaks.
I’m particularly proud of getting Clank in Space and Ark Nova to the table 4 times this year, though. Ark Nova is such an amazing game.
Storm Above the Reich is also no surprise given my ongoing campaign. The Mission #20 post should go up this week if everything works out.
So how has your year been so far? I already know Clio’s but what about the rest of you?
I hope your Summer is going well and you’re getting everything you want out of it.
And thanks to the wonderful Boardgame Stats app for letting me share this picture!
Dude! Take Your Turn! 