This is a month where we played a lot of games. A. Lot.
A week off for both of us with zero plans meant it was all about playing as much as we could. A mix of favourites, Shelf Of Shame, and bringing back some old classics, saw us sore to great heights. We even smashed our record plays in a single month by hitting 115 plays!
With my birthday being nestled in that week of gaming it meant that we also took a shopping trip to add some new games to our collection as a treat. We ended up returning home with three games and an expansion.
On top of all that, we hosted our first ever BlueCon. A tongue in cheek event that was really just two friends joining us for a Saturday of gaming, but we went and pulled out all the stops by having convention style signage everywhere (even toilet signs!) and we made up visitor lanyards for all of us.
As far as board gaming goes, this has easily been the best month of the year.
ART SOCIETY – During our shopping trip we met a really nice chap in Waterstones who, after over hearing us discussing a potential purchase, chipped in to suggest that it was a good game. What followed was a 30 minute conversation as all three of us discussed our favourite games and made further recommendations to each other from the shelves before us.
It’s one of those moments that shines a good light on the hobby and the people within it. Perfect strangers striking up a conversation based on a shared hobby.
A FAKE ARTIST GOES TO NEW YORK– Another game that my wife grabbed on that shopping trip was this higher player count deduction game. We’re always on the lookout for fun games to take with us to family visits and this one has always looked good. We’ve played things like SPYFALL and THE PRETENDER before, but I think the drawing aspect puts a little less stress on players who don’t enjoy outright lying to peoples faces.
SKULL – The was another game that my wife grabbed, soley because we always play it at group events but don’t have our own copy for the family visits. Problem solved.
CARCASSONNE: EXPANSION 2 – We’ve enjoyed all of our plays with ‘Inns & Cathedrals‘ and I felt it was time to bump things up and add a little more. We’ve played with the Traders & Builders before with someone elses copy, so I know what it brings. Looking forward to adding much more to one of our favourite games
UNDAUNTED: STALLINGRAD – We played the original a few years ago but it didn’t really gel with us. However, a recent retry of UNDAUNTED: NORMANDY saw us play though the entire 12 scenario set in just over a week. The larger campaign version seems like the next logical step, and after I saw it afordable but with a price rise days later, I jumped in before it cost too much more (still less than it’s £90 msrp!). We’re going to finish off the ‘Reinforcments‘ expansion first, which has a further 4 scenarios for Normandy, and then we’re diving in to Stalingrad.
BEER & BREAD – This was a game we tried back at GridCon 2023, and while we both really enjoyed it, for some reason we never picked up our own copy. So, while grabbing UNDAUNTED: STALLINGRAD, this one may have fallen into my online basket and come along too. Whoops.
MESSINA 1347 – I grabbed this in the recent Kienda sale and I’m so glad I did. Clever Worker Placement as you clean up the plague in the city, opulling characters out to heal (and maybe putting them to good use) before repopulating. There is an escalation to the state of the city as more rats find their way in, all while you gain more and more abilities on your board.
SOLAR 175 – This is a game that has been sat on our Shelf Of Shame for over 2 years. But it wasn’t tough rules or forgetting that it exisited that caused it’s delay getting to the table. The game is something special, and it takes up a decent amount of space. So I was putting it off for the right moment. And our long gaming week suited it perfectly.
It’s bag building on a galactic scale as you move you ship around, drop tokens for area control, and vote on a political party that will benifit your scoring come games end. It was pretty epic, made more interesting by the fact that it’s a legacy campaign game with the solar system getting bigger over the next few plays of it.
I’m looking forward to diving deeper into what this game offers and seeing what else we will unlock in future games.
ART SOCIETY – New purchase, straight to the table. I’d been interested in this one for a while. And it turns out that our strangers recommendation was spot on. A relaxing drafting game that sees you ‘bid’ on paintings of different sizes to fill out the wall in your own abode. There’s an interesting tactic of drawing out certain painting sizes that might hinder your opponent, and you’re always looking for certain painting types mixed with certain frames so that everything counts for final scoring. I’d like to see how it is at higher counts, but it’s pretty fun at just two.
GOLEM – I”ve been keen to try this one for a while and managed to get hold of a cheap copy in a trade group. Yet it still felt a little heavy to just get to the table at short notice, so it spent a month or two gathering dust before we finally took the plunge.
I’m so glad I grabbed a copy though. It’s a super tight resource game where you’re balancing out the movement of two different pieces; students and golems. The golems can get away from you as their movement is forced. And the less of them you have on the board, the quicker and further they’ll move. Meanwhile, it takes a little effort to keep the students trailing behind them.
The marble action method is also quite interesting. And with only three actions per round, it becomes quite the puzzle to gain resources and do everything you need to do. More plays to come, definitely.
CAN’T STOP – Our first ever evening of BGA with friends online was a lot of fun, and the first game we tried was CAN’T STOP. A classic Push-Your-Luck game that I’ve somehow never tried before, you roll four dice, pair them up, and use their results to move three counters up twelve lines. First person to reach the top of three lines wins.
But if you roll and can’t move one of the three counters that turn, you lose progress. Instead, you have to choose the right moments to stop so that you place a marker where you ended that turn. Then those lines can never go lower than that point.
I’m yet to win, but it’s a fun little game, made easier on BGA.
GALACTIC CRUISE – A few years ago we made a friend at our first ever visit to a local board game group. She recently contacted us to let us know she’d picked up this behemoth and wondered if I’d like to play it. The catch? I’d have to learn and teach. What followed was a five hour epic late night session (1 hour to teach, 4 hours to play). We ended up finishing at 1am. But what a game. I can totally see why all the hype.
The Worker Placement is spectacular with the ability to make the action spaces easier to reach if you place your cogs out. The journey to get everything you need to launch a ship is a long one, but accomplishing it feels so triumphant. And there there is the quality of the components in just the retail version, as well as the sublime art and design work. It’s an absolute gem of a game and I’m fighting hard not to add a copy to our collection (it’s not cheap).
BLOOD RAGE – Our good friend, @boardgamewaffle joined us for our last gaming Saturday of the month and was kind enough to bring not one, but two games we needed to learn to scratch off our top 100 poster. The first was this Viking themed area control game. This is a classic area control game by now (10 years old!). It involves a card drafting round before everyone then takes turns to spend rage (the games currency) in order to carry out actions like placing pieces on the map, going for quests, and upgrading their clan.
It’s pretty good, made much more enjoyable by the paint job that our guest has done on his copy. It looked amazing all set up. And while I was never in the game as the other two players beat the living viking snot out of each other while I enjoyed the two epic creatures I’d recruited and did nothing with, I still enjoyed my play of it.
GRAND AUSTRIA HOTEL – The second new game I was eager to try (and scratch off the poster) was this classic dice drafting game. It involves getting guests to visit you hotel with food bribes and then setting up rooms for them to stay in. Forever.
I like that all players immediately start breaking the game rules once they start laying staff cards down. I was able to take any guest card with zero cost for the entirety of the game. However, like some older Euro games of this ilk, I can see games being unbalanced due to that opening card deal if you don’t have anything useful. Of the three of us, I was the only one to have an end of game scoring card. The downside was that it was one where you can copy another players end of game score card. Potentially great, but it would have been a waste of 6 coin if I’d chosen to play it. Instead it was a wasted card for the whole game. I definitely need more plays.
THE GANG – A mix of THE MIND and POKER, this game is absolute genius. Each player has a pair of cards. As the rest of the cards are dealt to the centre of the table, players are trying to get their hands revealed in assending order at the end of the round. But there’s no verbal communication. You simply all take poker chips at the end of each of four turns that are marked with a star ranking. One star means your letting everyone know that your hand sucks, probably not even a pair. Meanwhile, someone might take the highest number of stars because they’ve got a Flush. Or maybe just two pairs and a high card. It’s like THE MIND in that the hesitation from a player can tell as much about what they hold as the star token itself. I would absolutely be drawn to play this at any meet up and really want to try it at higher than three.
MANTIS FALLS – Social decuduction with only two players? That can’t work, right. Well, somehow it does in this beautiful looking and heavily themed game. Players are Witnesses, trying to flee the town before the Mob catches up with them. They must travel the main road out and make it to the end to be picked up and taken to safety. But one of them might not be a Witness. One of you might be a mob hired Assassin, mearly pretending to be a witness. Now it’s all about the right time to strike while building trust with your actions.
It was pretty fun as my wife lured me in and then shot me twice while holding onto a grenade for back up. I actually found myself trusting her and I eventually slowed down after using a bus and sneakers to zoom ahead. It won’t happen again. Next time I’ll be the one holding the pistol.
And to think, I wasted a card on healing her at one point. I must have been out of my mind.
- BlueCon 1!!!
- An absolutely epic week of gaming
- We now have air con
- 4 hour game of GALACTIC CRUISE!!!!!!!!!
Always Play Blue 