Summer is right around the corner which means our games room air con unit will soon switch from warming my wife to cooling me down.
Work began on our games room this time last year and, while it had it’s issues, it was completely worth the time, money, and effort. We’ve hosted so many more people across many more games days than we were able to before. And it’s also allowed the collection to breathe a little.
But enough remenising. Let’s see what new stuff has been hitting the table in the month of April.
This one had been sat on my shelf for 6 years and 1 day when we finally desided to get it to the table. I’m not sure why we didn’t learn it sooner; I’m a big X-Men fan, and I also love co-op board games. Seemed like a no brainer.
Perhaps a mix of reviews on BGG put me off. Who knows. What did change is that we played a friends copy of ELDER SIGN last year, which I really enjoyed, and then I found out that Mutant Insurrection is pretty much a Marvel Mutant reskin of that very game.
And it pretty much is. There are some changes, like not removing a dice to reroll, but it was easier for us to get into it because of the experience we’d already had with the Arkham themed version.
The odd thing is, I think I’d rather play ELDER SIGN. Maybe it’s to do with how much ARKHAM HORROR LCG we are playing this past year. I just enjoyed it more, though the player count may have had something to do with that.
The Mint games were some of the first things I backed on crowdfunding as they were small and cheap. But, while waiting for them to turn up, the company that makes the Mint games got taken in by another company (a bad company) and the whole process left me with quite the sour taste. So much so that I put off playing any of the Mint games for a long while.
But we’re working through the backlog, and one day we wanted something filler between heavier fare. And MINT DELIVERY ticked the box.
It’s simplified Pick Up ‘n’ Deliver, which isn’t my favourite mechanic, especially at 2-player. In the game you have three actions: move your truck around, pick up Mints, drop them off to orders. That’s about it. Most of the time you’re using your three actions to move on one turn, delivering and/or picking up on the next. Over and over. It’s pretty boring.
This was a game we got gifted at last November’s FLGS Birthday bash. I will say now, that when our group of 6 drafted the 12 games from the table at the end of the night, this one was left until last and sort of pushed my way. But how did I actually find it?
Well . . . it’s okay. A lane battler of sorts with three different available modes: 1v1, Co-op, and Solo. I tried Solo and it was pretty easy on the standard difficulty. But it was also a slow play as I learnt each card that came up from my deck and the Goblin solo deck.
I like the card use where they are troops, actions, or currency, and there’s the whole getting troop cards face down in front of you for a constant currency each round.
I think I might give it another go, and maybe try the other modes with my Player 2, but I don’t think it’s going to stay in the collection for much longer.
Another Marvel reskin of an existing game, this time it’s a loose remake of LORDS OF WATERDEEP. It’s pretty basic worker placement, with players increasing the number of available Worker spots over the course of the game, something I really like.
There is the second phase to the round which is pretty good. One of the spaces on the board is a sort of holding area. You don’t get an action when you go there, but at the end of the round you go after the villains, which give good points and control the game timer.
I enjoyed this more than X-MEN: MUTANT INSURRECTION, but we found that our asymetric abilities were wildly over and under powered, so much so that I scoured the rulebook and BGG forums to make sure I wasn’t playing something incorrectly with my Mutations (played Cyclops & Jean Grey).
I wasn’t, and I scored big by the end. Because of this we want to play again and pay more attention to which characters and mutation cards we choose.
I’m not a big fan of CATAN. I’ve had nothing but crap experiences with it in the past, and I don’t find the game interesting enough to give it any more chances.
But a small box, short playtime, card game version? Well, MONOPOLY DEAL is way way better than MONOPOLY, so maybe this would be the same.
And that’s exactly what I found. 15-20mins of a game with a constant influx of resources which means if you don’t get people trading with you, you’re not stuck doing nothing.
Easy to teach, quick to play. My Catan of choice.
Our friend bought this round to teach us on a recent games day. I’ll admit that I wasn’t too bothered about this game based on the very little I knew about it and the uninspiring box cover.
But the recent No Pun Included video was in the back of my mind when my friend suggested bringing it round.
And I’m glad he did. It’s quite a fun game, one that ended too soon for my wife and I (always a good sign when you’re not ready to stop).
I enjoyed the expanding actions available as you recruit each round. I liked the number of different things you can do on each board. And there’s the ever expanding map.
The copy we played with was the Deluxe KS version, and it’s really, really nice. Near perfect insert and really nice components.
Our D&D group got back together for another entry of The Infinite Staircase. We brought the same characters we used last time, so I was looking forward to once more being a super powerful and stealthy Goblin Ranger who never gets hit.
Except this time the dice said no! In the worse way. I went down like a sack of potatoes, barely killed anything, and walked away with next to zero treasure. But I did purchase a cool bow. Yay.
We had our good friend @boardgamewaffle over for a games day towards the end of the month. Other than a couple of new games, it was actually refreshing to play a bunch that we all already knew. Check out the below video to see what hit the table.
I managed to put out a single review in April and it was for the recent Dranda Games release MUTAGEN. I’m a fan of games that Dranda put out, and Worker Placement is my favourite mechanic, so how did this one fair? Check out the review below.
I also got my second ‘5 Great Games . . .’ video up and, wouldn’t you know it, I went with Worker Placement.
Always Play Blue 