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A Gaming Life
Friday Night Shots – Removing the Shrinkwrap From New Games
It’s Friday, a week before Christmas, and the whiskey is flowing while I read blog posts.
Or write them!
I just got three new games this week from 401 Games (my Canadian retailer of choice for boardgames) and as I was eagerly ripping the shrinkwrap off of them, opening them and looking at the counters and boards and stuff, something occurred to me.
So many times, either in a Math Trade or some kind of boardgame sale from one person to another, you see “New in Shrink” in a game’s listing.
And I just can’t fathom that.
I know that most of the time, when I get a game, either from Kickstarter delivery or because I ordered it from a game store (or maybe even bought it from a local one), I will most likely not get to play it for a while.
Either it’s an investment for the future (like most wargames since I don’t really have an opponent for them at all) or it’s something I’m going to have to try and learn the rules for so I can teach it someday, or whatever.
It’s probably going to be at least a month or so, if not longer, before they are getting played. Sometimes it might be a year or two!
Yet I still open and punch them as soon as I can. Those counters are going into baggies. Those boards are getting looked at. I may even check out how it might look on the table.
I can’t imagine buying a game and then leaving it in its original wrapping.
I just don’t even understand the mindset.
Ok, sure. Maybe some people buy games for the express purpose of selling or trading them at some point.
I don’t get that either, but ok. If that’s what you’re doing, there’s no way you’re going to unwrap the game at that point, because part of its value is that nothing has been touched in it.
And yes, there have been games where I’ve done all of this and then realized that it’s never going to get played, and maybe I should trade it for something that I really do want to play.
But for the most part, if I buy a game, I want to own it.
I want to play it.
And I want to sniff that fresh new cardboard smell as I see racks and racks of unpunched counters and I want to revel in it like a kid in a pile of legos as I punch and bag all of the counters.
So those of you who buy games and leave them in shrink, I would like to ask you (unless you are buying them just to sell/trade later, of course).
Why do you do that?
Why leave a perfectly good game in shrink, unpunched, just because you might not play it for a little bit?
I really don’t get it.
Not that I don’t appreciate it when I get one of those in trade.
Not even opened? Cool, I’m all over that!
But as a game consumer, I don’t get it at all.
Anybody want to explain it to me?
I’ll wait.
Storm Above the Reich – After Action Report – Mission #8
We’re in the second mission of the second season of the Staffel Roy Storm Above the Reich campaign, and things aren’t necessarily going that well.
No more pilots have been lost and I did get a victory point last mission, but then I looked at the victory conditions for the second season.
Ten missions in the season, and you have to earn 30 VP to “not lose.”
Yeah, one point a mission is not going to fly!
Would Mission #8 do anything to alleviate that problem?
Or did I look at the victory conditions after doing Mission #8?
Only time will tell (well, I know, but you don’t know yet…)
Once again I’m doing the Advanced “Pursuit” rule, which means that if a bomber falls, I have to pursue it or I don’t get any victory points. Only destroyed bombers will count.
I think Kermit above has the right idea.
How did Mission #8 go? Will Ehrhoff ever get rid of his Green status? Will Clausen ever return to the Staffel or is he selling meds from his hospital bed?
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreWingspan: European Expansion Coming to the App
(Edit: 5/9/22) – And here’s the review of it. It’s great!
(Edit: 5/5/22): It’s here! Looks good so far, but watch this space (or this blog!) for a review of it in the upcoming days.
(Edit: 4/12/22): The release date has been announced! You can get this expansion on May 5, 2022.
Watch the release date trailer below:
(Now back to the original post)
I love getting fresh news just when I’ve decided I wasn’t going to post anything for the day!
Monster Couch, developer of the really great (if sometimes frustrating for online play) Wingspan app (reviewed here), just announced that the European expansion will be coming to the app soon.
Watch the Announcement Teaser here:
What does the European expansion add?
The expansion adds a bunch of new birds from the European continent (strange how that works), some of which have new abilities.
Some birds have round end abilities, which give you bonuses or effects at the end of the round instead of when activated. Some increase the interaction with other players, and some benefit from having excess food.
The boardgame was designed by Elizabeth Hargrave with artwork by Ana Maria Martinez Jaramillo, Natalia Rojas and Beth Sobel and it was published by Stonemaier Games in 2019.
I’ve played with them once, and they have nice abilities.
I am really excited about this and can’t wait to bring you more news about it. The game itself is good, but this expansion makes it even better.
More to come!
Everdell Coming to an App in 2022 From Dire Wolf Digital
(Edit – 7/14/22) – It’s now available to wishlist on Steam and is coming July 28!
Wasn’t going to post anything today, but then I got an email from Dire Wolf Digital announcing that their next digital project is Everdell!
I’ve always wanted to play Everdell haven’t had the chance to.
And now I will!
Everdell was published by Tabletop Tycoon in 2018. Designed by James A. Wilson with beautiful artwork by Andrew Bosley and Dann May, it’s a hand management, card-drafting game that always looked really cool on the table when I saw it at conventions.
Let’s blurb the blurb…
“From Everfrost to Bellsong, many a peaceful year have passed in Everdell — but the time has come for new territories to be settled and new cities to be established. You will be the leader of a group of critters intent on just such a task. There are buildings to construct, lively characters to meet, events to host— you will have a busy year ahead of you! Will the sun shine brightest on your city before the winter moon rises?“
The big tree was always the most memorable thing to me.
Hopefully Dire Wolf gets *that* into there!
Everdell will be coming onto Steam, iOS and Android platforms and hopefully it’s as good as all of Dire Wolf’s other games!
Review – Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition
(Edit: This game is on my Top 25 games played of all time!)
What happens when one of your favourite games gets a bit of a revamp where it’s faster and also uses some mechanisms from other games that you like?
It’s not the same game streamlined, though. It’s an actually different game that uses some of your favourite bits while making it take a shorter amount of time and actually adding some interesting cool shit?
That’s what happens when you try Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition, a game that takes a bunch of your favourite Terraforming Mars bits, like dropping a moon on Mars to raise the temperature…
and makes it an action selection game that still is a ton of fun and still (at least kind of) feels like the original game.
Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition was designed by Sydney Engelstein, Jacob Fryxelius and Nick Little with art by a bunch of different folks. It was published by Stronghold Games and FryxGames in 2021.
It is great fun to play, and this is from someone who has Terraforming Mars in his Top 10 games!
Sometimes a “streamlined” version of a game comes out and maybe you’ll try it once just to see what it’s like, and maybe it will be kind of nice but no patch on the original game.
Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is none of that. While I still prefer the original overall, this is a game that I will love playing due to the shorter time factor as well as the fun mechanisms that give you some of the feel of the original but still make it distinctive as its own game.
What do I mean by this?
(I’ll refrain from making another Soap joke).
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreStorm Above the Reich – After Action Report – Mission #7
With the successful (well, successful as meaning that I didn’t lose) completion of Mission #6 in Storm Above the Reich, it was time to move to the middle of 1943 and see if Staffel Roy could actually pull out a victory rather than just treading water in this air campaign.
After Mission #7, I can say…well, I think I’m treading water still.
It did not get off to the greatest start, though at least nothing truly bad happened!
Unfortunately, that was because some Escort fighters drained my strength before I could do much about it.
With the new season starting, I decided to use the Advanced Rules of Pursuit.
What this means is that if a bomber falls out of formation, you don’t get any points for it. You only get points for destroying bombers.
However, if a bomber falls, you can send fighters after it to pursue it.
This takes place after the rest of the mission ends, and it does really add a lot to the game, I have to say.
How did the first mission with this go?
Let’s take a look.
(Reminder, you can always click on a picture to see it full size. Also, for the specific rules of what I’m talking about, see the Mission #1 & #2 report though I will provide detail on the Pursuit rules)
Read MoreViscounts of the West Kingdom expansion on Kickstarter January 11, 2022
(Edit 1/11/22: The Kickstarter is now live!)
Having just played Viscounts of the West Kingdom for the first time yesterday (after having it for over a year but then COVID lockdown hit), I was very excited to see this on Twitter yesterday.
Woo!
I couldn’t remember if there was supposed to be an expansion for Viscounts but I figured there would be.
Instead, there are two expansions coming!
Also, given the Garphill Games track record, if they’re offering the Collector’s Box, then they won’t be doing any more expansions after the first one. They’re very good about that sort of thing.
After yesterday’s play, I’m not sure if it surpasses Architects of the West Kingdom for me or not, but I can see it possibly happening.
So to see new expansions for it coming out, that is very exciting news.
They are already on Boardgame Geek (Keeper of Keys and Gates of Gold) if you want to keep up with it as information comes.
But if I find out other stuff, you know I’ll be posting about it.
Sam Macdonald has confirmed on Boardgame Geek that this expansions will not add a 5th player.
There has also been confirmation of some new kind of card, called the “King’s Order.”
I’m not sure exactly what the new mechanism is for Keeper of Keys but the cards look cool!
I love that Shem and Sam are keeping this stuff coming.
With the second (and final) Architects of the West Kingdom expansion shipping in May (I backed that Kickstarter first day) and now this announcement, I am so happy!
Stay tuned for more news as I hear it.
Have you played this one, and what do you think of it? Are you excited for the expansion?
Let me know in the comments.
New to Me – November 2021
Welcome to November’s “New to Me” post!
You may notice something odd about November.
No, it’s not that I had way too much Thanksgiving turkey (THANKSGIVING’S IN OCTOBER, YOU NON-CANADIANS!).
It’s that three of the seven entries on this list are from Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG).
This is part of their “getting you hooked because the first one is free” plan that is as insidious as it is effective.
Two of them are free review copies of games that I’ve already reviewed this month. The other one is another Smash Up expansion from 2020, which you knew I was going to be playing once I got back to working in the office instead of at home.
All of the games were cool, though.
It also helps writing this post that I’ve reviewed all three AEG games! Not as much writing to do for this one.
This month, the other Cult of the New to Me members can’t even complain. There is a game from 2017, a game from 2015, and even one from 2005!
That is simply amazing.
No “cult of the new” accusations against me this month!
I think they’re biding their time and sharpening their pointed sticks, though.
So, without further ado (all of my ado was lost in a bid for the ultimate Wild card anyway), let’s begin!
Read MoreExpansion Review – Smash Up: Marvel
My first Smash Up review in almost two years!
One of my pandemic lock-down games purchases (and yes, there were many…too many) was the latest Smash Up expansion, this time done as a co-production with the OP and thus including the Marvel Comics license.
Smash Up: Marvel was designed by Sean Fletcher and Paul Peterson (thankfully Peterson still had a hand in it) with artists that aren’t credited to my knowledge. It was published by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) and the OP in 2020.
This is another Smash Up base set, so it has eight factions instead of four. However, I’m classifying it as an expansion because it is fully compatible with the original game and factions can be mixed and matched with original factions.
I explained how to play Smash Up in my review of the base set, so I’m not going to get into that here.
Instead, I’m going to talk about a few of the small changes (mostly in terminology) as well as the factions themselves.
Is this worth getting?
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreReview – Whirling Witchcraft
Do you like giving it to one of your opponents, good and hard?
By that I mean, of course, by overwhelming them with so much stuff that they can’t cope with it.
(What did you think I meant?)
Anyway, if you like that sort of thing, Whirling Witchcraft may be the game for you.
Whirling Witchcraft was designed by Erik Andersson Sundén with artwork by Luis Francisco and Weberson Santiago. It was published by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) just yesterday…ok, maybe not. But this last month or so (that’s 2021 for those of you finding this a couple of years from now).
It plays 2-5 players.
Whirling Witchcraft is a game where each player is a witch crafting potions.
Sound familiar?
Yeah, that’s been done before.
However, this time, the ingredients that your potions produce go to one of your opponents. They have to add those ingredients to their ingredient board.
If they can’t, then anything extra comes back to you for victory points.
What could be sweeter than overwhelming somebody like that?
Making sure you’re not overwhelmed the same way by somebody else, maybe.
Confused?
You won’t be, after this episode…I mean this review of Whirling Witchcraft.
(1 Million victory points to whomever catches that reference)
Read More
Dude! Take Your Turn! 