We’re now a quarter of the way through the year, and much gaming has been had. A big chunk of March came from board game adjacent additions to the collection.
From Folded Space I got the three West Kingdom Big Box inserts. The ones that came with the Big Boxes were not good for set up, so now we should have nothing but ease getting all three games to the table.
From Buy The Same Token I grabbed a bunch of 3D printed tokens for MARVEL CHAMPIONS. With my collection going across two big storage boxes, one of them being X-Men specific for now, I thought it would be nice to have a set of the basics to keep seperate so that I didn’t need to get both boxes out every time I played. The are really nice quality and look great when used in game.
My biggest set of orders went to Tesseract Games. Not only did I get dividers for both of our ARKHAM HORROR: LCG campaigns, as well as for all the MARVEL CHAMPIONS sets I’d recently aquired, but I also ordered two of their Infinity Storage Boxes. These come flat packed but are very simple to put together, even for someone like me. I used one for the X-Men sets of MARVEL CHAMPIONS cards, and the other for my KEYFORGE collection.
On top of that, three years to the day since we first met, I proposed to my Player-2. Board gaming has been the foundation of our relationship, what with games being the first thing we ever talked about, and our love of the hobby growing as we each found someone who wanted to play games as much as we had.
But enough of the romance. You’re here for board games. Let’s see what hit the table in the last 31 days.
KICKSTARTER ARRIVALS
It was another dry month with TINY EPIC VIKINGS being the only new arrival to our collection. With a mix of backing on Kickstarter and purchasing online, we’ve slowly managed to obtain all the Tiny Epic games so far, so it was kind of a no brainer adding this one when it launched on crowd funding. Hopefully we’ll get to try it soon.
NEW GAMES OF THE MONTH (AKA 52×1)
I recently got asked by University Games if I’d like to review a couple of games they were putting out in the UK on behalf of Forbidden Games. One of those was MOSAIC, a game I had almost picked up in Waterstones Southampton just a week or two earlier. I jumped at the chance to do a review of this one and immediately said yes. So we started March with an epic play of this civilisation game. And it’s pretty good. It looks a lot more complicated than it is. Turns are quick. Most of the game is cards and tokens. Two things I’m seeing in almost every review I’ve seen so far is that people are not keen on the fiddly set up, and the final scoring is a chore without a scrorepad. And these were the two negatives we immediately went to after our first play. But the game itself is great.
ISHTAR: GARDENS OF BABYLON is one of those games that I hear about occasionally, don’t know too much about, but want to try it based on how pretty it looks. A few weeks ago I stumbled across a copy in my local Game Store for just £9.99. And what a nice little game it is. Bruno Cathala is quickly becoming one of my favourite designers, and this is another fun and nice looking game from him. The insert too is one of the best in our collection. It’s something special. We’ve played a couple of games at two, and I’m really looking forward to trying it at higher counts.
ECLIPSE: SECOND DAWN OF THE GALAXY was recommended to us from Instagram buddy nat20au, and despite it’s high price, we decided it was what we needed to fill the TWILIGHT IMPERIUM hole we have because of the minium player count of three. And Eclipse did not disappoint. We managed to learn, set up, play, and pack away in about three hours. The game isn’t as complicated as we’d feared (thanks for the teach, RTFM), and we had a blast playing it. It’s another game I’d love to play at higher counts, but if we only ever play at two, it’ll still be great. And once again, amazing work on the inserts. Makes set up a dream.
I’d only been mildly interested in FINAL GIRL when I’d seen the second series on Kickstarter. It looked cool, but because I’m an all or nothing guy, I stepped back, not wanting to go all in without trying first. But when Out Of Town Games posted about it being back in stock recently, I decided to grab two features and see what all the fuss was about. While it’s early days, I wouldn’t be surprised if this ended up one of my favourite solo games.
I like to get my Player-2 a game for our anniversary each year, but with space being an issue recently, I decided it should be something small. She has a love for Japanese themed games, so I decided to go for KANAGAWA. It seemed like something we’d both enjoy. It’s got beautiful art, and some really nice components. It’s a fun game of pushing your luck to get the cards you want, but then also having the choice of how you want to use them.
Like a lot of people when the Pandemic hit, I found myself searching out solo games so that I could keep playing while isolated. It was in those early lock down days that I discovered the Oniverse, a series of prodomently solo games in small boxes set in the same setting. I grabbed a couple and was smitten. But as I tried to complete the set, I found CASTELLION hard to get hold of. Thankfully the designer, Shadi Torbey, set up his own Publishing company, and has rereleased all the games so far under inPatience. It’s probably the quickest setup of all the Oniverse games, with players building castle defences in specific patterns. It’s fun, but difficult if luck isn’t on your side. My first four games all ended within the first round due to poor draws. But the speed of set up means I was always straight back in for another try.
20×5 CHALLENGE
We mopped up the last of the second plays this month, with a Sunday seeing back-to-back play of SPLENDOR DUEL, MIND MGMT, and MEEPLES & MONSTERS. We rounded out the second plays with VITICULTURE and did it with out first play of the Tuscany Expansion.
This is something we’re starting to move towards with this challenge now. Not just playing a list of games across the year, but pulling in as many expansions as we can for them too. We’ve already learnt the Ride The Rails Expansion for GREAT WESTERN TRAIL, started using different boards for THE CASTLES OF BURGUNDY, and gone all in with both Scoundrels of Skullport Expansions for LORDS OF WATERDEEP.
It’s nice keeping our favourite games fresher.
HIGHLIGHTS
- 20 x 5 Challenge = 46%
- Managing to learn and play MOSAIC.
- Putting together two Infinity Storage Boxes to store my MARVEL CHAMPIONS and KEYFORGE decks.
- Winning a game of MAG-BLAST.
- Completing the first campaign of ARKHAM HORROR:LCG.
- Building my recent Lego purchase, the Optimus Prime set.
- And something else I’m forgetting . . .
- . . . oh yeah, getting engaged.
Always Play Blue 