The end of May and beginning of June was UKGE 2024, but unfortunately we were unable to attend this year due to money and a busy schedule. So instead we got to view the convention through the accounts we follow on social media. We are looking at fitting in a trip to UKGE 2025, finances depending. But other than that, what gaming did we get up to in the month of June?
KICKSTARTER ARRIVALS
The first Kickstarter delivery this month was an odd one. What I received on June 11th wasn’t anything new. The Kickstarter for SENJUTSU was a rough one. Delays, poor communication, under printing, and under fulfilling. If it could have gone wrong, it seems that it did. Eventually, around the end of 2023, some copies started to arrive with backers, myself included. I got my base game, I got the SENSO spin off card game, and I even got a replacement for an expansion meaning I had two minis that were ink dropped even though I didn’t pay for this extra. Which I was pretty chuffed about. But seven months later and they’ve sent a duplicate and an unnessessary lesser version of the expansion. And while this sounds like a complaint, it’s more about the waste of both product and postage cost for the company. SENJUTSU is the first in a planned trilogy of games, the second of which is partly designed by Martin Wallace. But based on the Kickstarters comment page, there won’t be much support for this company going forward.
At the other end of the scale was my only other Kickstarter delivery in June. We have been absolutely loving the Valeria series of games from Daily Magic Games, and their latest, CASTELLANS OF VALERIA (I’m refusing to drop the ‘Of Valeria’, even if they have) is another great addition to our collection. It’s area control, it has amazing production, and you can read about it more below.
NEW GAMES OF THE MONTH
I almost didn’t back EZRA AND NEHEMIAH on crowdfunding, mostly because it’s not one of the main trilogy games. But I watched enough content during the build up to know that we’d really like it and so I took the plunge. And very glad that I did. It’s got parts from other Garphill games, it’s closer to the weight of the current South Tigris that we’re really enjoying, and our first play was pretty smooth. We both had different tactics and the game ended with just a single point in it. We love plays like that.
June seems to have very much been a month of playing through our Valeria games. One of the few we own but hadn’t gotten around to yet was MARGRAVES OF VALERIA. In fact, it was the first Valeria game I bought, but it took three and a half years to try it. For some reason I thought it was a lot more complex than it tuned out. It does have a mix of mechanisms as you move around the map and fight monsters while gaining resourses so that you can build keeps around the region. It also has completely unnecessay but totally cool little cardboard keeps for you to hold your coins in. A nice touch.
Continuing our adventure through new Valeria games saw us try VILLAGES OF VALERIA. It’s one of the smaller box games in the series (like Quests and Corsairs) and revolves around just cards. You are either trying to build buildings and recruit villagers to gain one off or ongoing abilities, or using your cards to bulk up your available resources. It plays quick and has a nice ‘follow mechanic’ a little like TINY EPIC GALAXIES.
While enjoying a visit to our gaming friends on the South Coast we were taught CIRCADIANS: FIRST LIGHT, which is a Garphill game that I’ve not played but always wanted to. It’s another series that sits outside of the classic trilogies that I do collect. Thankfully @thoughtsofameeple was happy to teach us and it’s now a game that I’m trying to hold off buying. I enjoyed the dice mechanic of planning out your moves and only being able to go to certain locations based on the values you’ve rolled at the start of each turn. And like most Worker Placement games, you can plan your turn as much as you like, but those pesky other players can and will get in your way. It also has really good table pressence. One I’d definitely like to play again.
On that same visit we also cracked open THRONES OF VALERIA for it’s first play. I’ve avoided trying it at just two, and have been searching for people to finally try this with, so a Trick Taking themed games day made sense. It’s gimic is that you aren’t necessarilly trying to win the most points as the lead suit can change throughout the hand and whoever wins ends up winning or losing coin. And it’s who has the most coin at the end of the two rounds who wins the whole game. It takes a little getting used to, and it’s definitely horrible playing the first card as you’re at the mercy of the remaining players. I did find that there were perhaps too many card abilities (every card) and feel it might have worked better (and been taught quicker) if it was half the cards, like THE FOX AND THE FOREST.
SKULL KING was a Trick Taking game I picked up recently for two reasons. First, we were looking for more Trick Taking games for our upcoming game day, and second because my wife left me in a shop only a metre away from a bunch of small box games. Anyway, after getting our heads around the way tricks work and are won, and having a few turns of grasping the bidding and scoring, we ended up having a really good time with this one. In fact, of the three Trick Taking games we played that afternoon, it was my favourite. And while I think it might be a while before we chucked any of the extra cards in, the base game is a lot of fun and will be taken away with us to conventions and meetups in the future.
CROWN OF EMARA is a game that I have no memery of why I picked it up and it has been sat on the Shelf Of Shame for far too long. So one day I decided it was going to be the next game we played. And, as with many games we dust off for a long awaited first play, it was quickly realised that we waited too long. A great game with a duel Rondel as you work through your small deck of action cards to gather resources on the countryside board and trade them at the town baord. you have a deck of nine action cards and you’ll work through that deck twice over the course of the game. This means that each card only gets played twice. You also only have three cards per round, so you might not get to do what you want, when you want. Add to that the two rondels means you’re always having to choose which board you’ll be using on a turn and it gets nice and puzzely. The colour and art style make it feel like a much older game but it felt really fresh to us and definitly one I want to play a lot more.
STELLARION is a more recent release in the Oniverse. It has a similar feel to ONIRIM being just a deck of cards. You’ll be trying to reveasl certain sets to claim a launch card, of which you’ll need 8 to win. Obviously, being an Oniverse game, you’ll have secondary abilities on the cards that will allow you to manipulate the decks, helping you to move things around, retrieve discarded cards, and enlarge you’re selection. I felt it was okay, but far from being a favourite solo game. I’m not a big fan of gathering knowlege of where certain cards can be and working out how to manipulate them. To thinky, but maybe some of the modules can improve it.
CASTELLANS OF VALERIA was the fourth new Valeria game we played in June. We also got it to the table on the last day of the month, just one day after it turned up. And it’s another winner. It’s area control, which did have me worried as we mostly play at two, but it worked okay. It comes with a sort of dummy rival as standard on the 2 and 3 player games, but the rulebook also advises adding a third player set in with a really simple play method, or even using the solo game rival too (though we probably won’t try that as it’s more admin). We did struggle a little with remembering all the actions and sub actions and bonuses, and we both know that we missed doing things. For this reason I’m really keen to try the game again soon now that we have a feel for it. But overall it’s just another really good game in the series that we’ve been really having fun with recently. And it also looks amazing. From the always dependable Mico artwork to the dual layered boards, wooden components, and the amazing Game Trayz insert. It all looks fantastic.
HIGHLIGHTS
- A Games day with @thoughtsofameeple where we played a whole bunch of Trick Taking games.
- Getting stuck back into AGEMONIA for a whole day.
- Playing so many Valeria games and realising our love of the series.
Always Play Blue 