Monthly Archives: March 2022

Best of List, Board Game Reviews

On The Table Extra: Vacation Gaming

Every year in early March my extended family and I take a trip up to the Swedish ski slopes for a week of fun in the snow. Naturally, there’s a lot of downtime in the evenings so we play a lot of board games, in fact, I pack up as much as I can carry and despite bringing a considerable selection we manage to play through everything every year, this year was no different.

Texas Hold’em

Texas Hold’Em is the modern and most popular poker variant in the world, yet it is generally not considered part of the board gaming sphere which I find rather odd as it’s an awesome card game.

Some might not count Texas Hold’em as a game belonging to the world of board gaming but I beg to differ. If Texas Hold’em didn’t exist as a game for gamblers today and was packaged up as a family card game I predict it would be a smash hit.

It certainly is with my family, playing poker is a long-standing tradition and while we never play for money, the games are no less competitive and intense.

For those that have never played, Texas Hold’em is a unique member of the poker family mainly because the game is as much about the cards as it is about the betting and psychology of the game. Most hands of Hold’em are won and lost without cards ever shown. We have 4 kids between the ages of 10 to 17 in the family and they take their poker pretty seriously creating what is without a doubt the most competitive game of the week. This year the kids really showed us some serious skill taking the old dogs down with ease, clearly, we need to step up our game.

Hero Realms

Hero Realms takes the very basic premise of dynamic deck building and turns it into a dueling game with a fantasy twist, in my eyes a perfect combination.

Hero Realms is typically played two-player and it’s a fine game for that purpose but in our family, a free for all 4-6 player mega game is the way we do it and while it can go a bit long and there’s player elimination, this cut-throat competition brings with it various negotiations, alliances and betrayal which the kids love!

Hero Realms is a deck-building card game based loosely on the Dominion concept. The twist here is that each player gets a fantasy character (Thief, Wizard, Fighter etc..) represented by cards in a 10 card deck. In the center of the table are an additional 5 cards always available for purchase into your deck. As players take their turn they play cards from their hand, which include gold cards allowing them to purchase more cards for their deck. As play goes on players build up their decks with bigger and bigger plays possible. Anyone can attack anyone on their turn and so the game is as much about surviving as it is about looking threatening and negotiating to keep people from attacking you.

In the end it’s complete chaos, eventually, someone makes a big attack, that triggers rivalries and the game devolves into an all-out war until there is one hero left standing to proclaim victory.

This is a really fun game, it’s actually a variant on a science-fiction version of the game called Star Realms. It’s easy to teach and learn, while there is some reading required, there is really good iconography for the game that the younger kids pick up on really quickly so no major trouble getting the younger crowd into this one. I would not call it a deeply strategic game, but there is a lot to the deck-building concept, so which card you buy is a key decision point and how you build your deck will ultimately determine how well you combo when it’s your turn to play cards. Like Dominion, it’s all about keeping your deck lean and effective.

Twilight Struggle

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Twilight Struggle is THE finest representative in board gaming that creates a bridge between historical wargaming and the rest of the board gaming market. It’s a bonafide cross-over hit.

This classic cold war card game was for a time a major obsession for me, but it’s really difficult for experienced players like me to bring a new player up to speed to a point where they can be a challenging opponent because of how card knowledge in the game is such a huge advantage.

Thankfully over the last couple of years, I have been slowly but surely training my brother in law and whenever we do family trips like this, TS comes with us and we play a few rounds. He is not quite far along enough yet to beat me, but I offer him a fairly sizable handicap, and it’s starting to click for him. I think a few more games and he is going to be ready to play without the training wheels. My hope is that this will be one of those games the two of us can play together into our retirement years.

Unless you have been living under a board gaming rock, you know what Twilight Struggle is at least by name, but what I think most boardgames miss is that while this game is a historical board game, some might even call it a war game, it does not really fall into the standard historical war game formula. It really is just a great two-player strategy game and I would definitely recommend it for people who are not into historical wars. TS definitely transcends beyond its roots as the designers intended and while I will still argue that Imperial Struggle, the designers follow up to Twilight Struggle is a much better game, it does not cross over as easily as TS does.

One of the best games ever made in my opinion, an unquestionable classic and a fantastic gateway game into the larger world of historical card-driven games from which there are many fantastic titles to choose from.

Endeavor: Age of Sail

The more I play it the more I like it. This game is quickly becoming one of my favorite Euro-style games thanks in big part to its big board game feel in a very reasonable time frame.

This game comes in a big box and has a lot of pieces so I was quite hesitant to bring it with me, but my daughter insisted as she loves this game so I hauled this beast with me despite protests from the wife.

In the end, it turned out to be well worth it. The thing about Endeavor is that it has this great “big board game” feel and table presence but is actually a relatively short and simple game. It looks kind of intimidating and complex but once you understand the basic flow of a turn, it’s very easy to connect the rules to the strategy and players are typically off and running after a round or two. We had an age range between 12-50 and everyone picked it up very easily.

There are many deep and meaningful choices in the game, it’s a bit of a race to victory points, with resource management and much of the strategy is about well-timed execution of the five different actions you can take in a turn. What I find really interesting about this game is that it plays really well at all player counts including 2 player games, but the strategies that work in the game change wildly depending on how many players you have at the table. It’s a very dynamic setup for the game as well so you end up having to “re-think” your approach each time you play.

The version of the game I have is the new deluxe version which comes with a bunch of expansions we are yet to try, so far the base game has been more than enough for us.

This is a great family game having as many if not fewer rules than RISK or Monopoly, but a far more robust and interesting execution. I think my favorite aspect of Endeavor is how it works with a wide range of gaming groups, casual to veterans, it always finds its audience.

King of Tokyo

This silly dice chucker never stops impressing me with its uncanny ability to turn anyone into a fan.

Between the cartoon art style, the giant monster theme and the Yahtzee style gameplay, to me this is the perfect family game. The rules fit on a napkin and while there is some strategy this is a game of pushing your luck with dice which works really well with the casual crowd, yet makes for a great filler for more seasoned gamers.

It’s a pretty simple concept, you select one classic Japanese-themed monster like King Kong or Godzilla for example and you try to proclaim control over Tokyo in what is essentially a king of the hill game, as you fight all of the other big monsters in the game. You roll dice to do damage, build up energy to purchase special ability cards and simply try to last on the hill as long as you can to score points.

I always say that for every classic old-school game there is a modern replacement that is much better. In the case of King of Tokyo, it totally replaces Yahtzee for that light-hearted simple dice chucker.

A really fun game that produces a lot of big moments that had everyone cheering.

Sheriff of Nottingham

A party game for gamers that will have you in stitches, it has never let me down.

We played this one multiple times during our vacation, it was without question the big hit of the week.

Sheriff of Nottingham is closer to an “activity” than a game as the premise is quite simple. Each player draws six commodity cards (Chickens, Cheese, Bread etc..) at the start of each round and slips any amount of cards into a hidden baggy. One player is the Sherrif each round and that player must decide to either open (inspect) the baggy or allow it to pass through. The trick is that players can lie about what they are trying to get past the Sherrif and there are various “illegal” goods that are worth more than the legal ones. Things like Crossbows and Alchemic potions.

Players can bribe, make promises and deals, pretty much anything goes, but if the Sherrif catches you on a lie and inspects the bag, you have to pay a penalty. If the Sherrif opens the bag and you were telling the truth, the Sherrif must pay you a fee in addition to you getting to pass through with your goods for additional scoring at the end of the game.

Each player gets a turn at being Sherrif and whoever manages to get the most goods through (legal and illegal) wins the game. Typically games are won by the player that manages to get the most illegal goods past the Sherrif so there is a lot of motivation to lie, but if you get caught too often you aren’t likely to win, nor will you win if you inspect too many legal commodities.

The entire premise of the game is about social interaction and while there might be some strategy here, the game is rarely played with that approach. Most players naturally take to the psychology of the game and try to trick each other into opening or not opening the baggies as the case may be.

This game produces a lot of silly moments and when we play it, most of the game is spent hysterically laughing the entire time. It’s an absolute blast and works really well with pretty much any group, cocktails are recommended while playing this one!

We play this one at our summer gaming weekend retreat as well which is made up of many serious veteran gamers and this is usually a major hit there as well so this is one of those games that just always hits well with any sort of group which is why it comes so highly recommended by me.

Seven Wonders

I actually think it’s a great game and tend to agree with the general consensus about that, but personally, every table I introduce this to seems to shrug its soldiers with an audible “meh”.

Seven Wonders is a game about card selection and has been a highly rated game for years. This one didn’t hit that well with our little family gaming group and I have had trouble with it in the past as well with other groups.

I think it’s a great game and highly rated for good reason but it’s one of those games that doesn’t make a great first impression for some reason. You have to play it a few times before things click and that can be a hard sell if after a first try if you are unimpressed.

Seven Wonders is a bit like a professional golfer playing golf left-handed for the first time. Everything is familiar and logical, but there is just something off about it and some might see that as a challenge worth pursuing, others just feel like it should work differently than it does.

I have personally always really liked it, but to quote my daughter “It’s like a crappy Seven Wonders Duel”, which I think is a fair assessment. Seven Wonders Duel is a kind of two-player version of Seven Wonders that came a few years after the release of this one and I agree with her of the two games Duel is a much more interesting and less “odd” version of the game. It’s for two players only, so there is that drawback and unlike Seven Wonders there are no expansions for Seven Wonders Duel which notably are rumored to improve Seven Wonders a great deal (I have never tried them). For me personally, I have never had much luck getting anyone excited, it has always landed a bit flat, but I actually do think it’s a pretty fun game.

There were a few other microgames we played including Albion: The Resistance, Coupe, For Rent and The Hand of the King, all great games in their own right but I have talked so many times about these staple games in my collection I will just leave it here as a list.

It was a great week for gaming and skiing, now I need a nap!

On The Table

On The Table: February 2022

February has been a busy gaming month for me, I managed two full reviews which may not sound like a lot but for a guy who runs a blog as a hobby, that is quite a bit to add to my normal life schedule. This month my gaming group also managed to restart our long-running Vampire: The Masquerade chronicle which had been put on hold a number of times due to corona. With the pandemic taking a massive swing for the better and all the restrictions lifted in Sweden where I live, we are opening the gaming flood gates!

New Aquisitions

In a rare turn of events, there were no new acquisitions this month. I felt I had so many games to play this month it just seemed silly to add to the queue and there are a couple of games on the release calendar that I’m eager for so I’m holding out. Perhaps instead I can talk a little about future acquisitions instead to fill the space here.

Enemy Action: Kharkov

Compass Games component quality on Enemy Action: Ardennes was pretty awful so I have my reservations about this one in that regard, but it’s hard to pass up a Butterfield design, so it makes the list.

The Enemy Action series gets a second game in the series finally after 7 years of releasing the first, the amazing Enemy Action: Ardennes. John Butterfield is without question one of the most renowned designers in the Historical War Game genre right up there with Mark Herman, so when he makes a game we should all be paying attention.

The Enemy Action series is awesome for a lot of design reasons, most notably because it actually is three games in one. You get a solo game for two sides of the conflict and there is a 2 player version as well. More than that though this is one of the most thoughtful, original and exciting game designs to come out in the last decade and while I’m yet to do a full review on Enemy Action: Ardennes, I’m really looking forward to seeing a continuation of the series. It’s a very deep and complex war game, but it works on a wide range of levels.

My biggest beef with the series is that it had really weak publishing, the components weren’t great, there were a lot of misprints and alignment issues as well as missing components. I felt judging the game given that the quality of the components actually made the game nearly unplayable would be unfair to the designer, it was better that I waited for the corrections before I did a review. It has taken quite a while for Compass Games to send me replacement parts so this one despite how much I appreciate the design has remained un-reviewed. I only know it because of the Vassal version which I have used for my gaming but I never do reviews based on Vassal experiences mainly because I’m here to review board games, not digital versions of them.

Pacific War

A Mark Herman classic gets a reprint and its going to be hard to resist.

Pacific War by Mark Herman due to land any day now in Europe is a more tactical operations level world war II game set in the Pacific theatre, a pre-cursor to the amazing Empire of the Sun. I never played the original release but now that it’s being reprinted with a lot of bells and whistles, I’ve had my eye on it and I think in the end it’s going to find its way to my shelf.

I’m a sucker for all things Mark Herman and I have a particular interest in the Pacific War, so this game is right up my alley. I’m intimidated by its complexity, but I made it over the learning curve hump with Empire of the Sun so I feel like I can learn to play anything.

On The Table This Month

This month I focused a great deal of my gaming time on the two games I reviewed (Peloponnesian War and Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul). While Peloponnesian War practically reviewed itself, I struggled with Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul quite a bit. Doing reviews isn’t always easy, one of my goals with all reviews I do is to not only be fair and impartial but respectful to the designers. Games are not easy to design and I think as a reviewer it’s my job to have a good understanding of what the designer was trying to accomplish which sometimes can be quite tough. In either case, played lots of great this month so in no particular order.

Brass: Birmingham

The game is very pretty and while the theme is very historical, like most Euro games it is highly abstracted. It’s a thinker and a very tight point salad.

Brass: Birmingham has been on my must-play list for quite a while, as a game reviewer I feel obligated to play every game that appears on the top 10 list on BBG and this one has been sitting in the no. 3 spot for a while getting ready to challenge the two top spot games Pandemic Legacy and Gloomhaven.

This was a fascinating game based on the industrial revolution in England between the late 18th and early 19th centuries. You effectively take on the roles of business moguls trying to control the various early industries of the era building factories and transporting goods through canals and railroads.

The game is a quasi-card game with a fairly dynamic setup creating very unique obstacles and puzzles to solve each round as you try to outpace your opponents in a game where making money is important but points are scored more through expansion and control.

It did not take more than a round or two for the game to click, so while Brass is quite robust and there is quite a bit going on, the rules are streamlined and it was easy to catch on. Playing it well, however, coming to grips with what is and isn’t a good strategy is going to take a few plays I think. I did well but I was outpaced by the more experienced players on my first run, but I think I’m going to perform a lot better next time based on my first go.

We played it 3 players and while I think the game played fine in that player count, this game is clearly going to be best with 4 players and the next time I play I’m going to be aiming for that. With 3 players part of the map is kind of a “no go zone” and I always find that this way of handling reduced player count in games always feels off. It was strange that the map was two-sided and rather than creating a 3 player and a 4 player map to compensate for the player count, the two sides are identical having a day and night side which has no impact on rules and is just for cosmetics. Definitely a missed opportunity in my opinion.

Endeavor: Age of Sail

This is a really solid Euro-style game that plays very fast with a lot of great tension and great balance.

This one hit the table twice in February and continues to impress. I’m working on a review for it but I don’t mind spoiling a bit and say that I really like it quite a bit.

It’s a big and busy-looking game but is actually lightning-fast and super-tight which gives the game a sort of high tension right in the first round that stays with you until the very claustrophobic conclusion. There is a lot of dynamics in this game, but as we play it repeatedly we have uncovered a few strategies and counter-strategies and so far none have proven to be dominant which is great as it gives the game a really strong balanced feeling. Victory counts at the end of this game are always tight, we are talking 2-3 point differences between first and second place typically.

Great game, I think this will definitely be going on the list for our big summer board gaming weekend this year.

Empire of the Sun

There are games, there are historical war games and then there is Empire of the Sun, a game that demands as much as it gives. One of my all-time favorites, always happy to make time for it on my hobby table.

This beast hits my table in late February multiple times and I suspect I will still be playing it in March. Whenever I set up Empire of the Sun on my hobby table to play solo against the AI bot (Erasmus) I know it’s something I will be playing over the course of a week or so. Usually I become instantly obsessed and end up playing it for weeks at a time over multiple games and that certainly has been the case this month.

I’m playing as the Japanese right now as I find playing the historical loser in this game is very challenging against the AI bot and I really love the many different approaches you can take to this game and how that core is driven by your card draw. That initial card draw in Turn 2 completely changes the dynamics and direction of the entire game and never ceases to surprise me.

I can’t praise this game enough but I always caution anyone considering getting into this one that it’s super complex and a very robust game that will take some time to learn to play properly. Lots of exception-based rules driven by historical chrome that you might initially find to be overkill but if you are fascinated by the tragic history of the Pacific War like I am, these details really just give this game a narrative flair like no other. This is a game that is as complex as it needs to be, no more, no less. Mark Herman is great at explaining the why of his rules in the rulebook which while adding page count actually helps you to remember the rule itself as you make the connection so it’s a blessing in my opinion. I adore this game and I find it hits my solo hobby table often in long stretches at a time. Takes some doing to get into it, but if you make the crossing you will not be disappointed.

Peloponnesian War

This one blew the doors off, a complete game-changer with a core concept (switching sides) that I’m finding to be applicable to a lot of 2 player games I play solo. This one stands out in the crowd of solo gaming.

Definitely, the game of the month and one of my favorite recent discoveries, this absolutely amazing solo game is one of the most challenging games I have played in a long time. Rules are relatively simple to wrap your head around but unraveling this puzzle is going to take some serious effort.

This is one of the most unique handlings of a solo mechanic I have seen in any game ever and I keep saying this to anyone who listens but why on earth is this approach not seen more commonly in solo games. The concept of playing one side and then switching gives this solo game a really awesome feeling of playing a real opponent, there is no one better equipped to beat you than you.

Love the historical detail of this one and how that brings out the narrative of the game, it’s so good, absolutely a must-own for any historical wargaming solo fans. I put this one up there with Enemy Action Ardennes in terms best solo games I have ever played.

Find the full review for this game HERE.

Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul

I understand some of the complaints about balance in this one, but I don’t really share them. Let’s just say, I get it but not everyone will.

This latest addition to my CDG collection was a hit with my gaming partners both online and offline, myself included. Despite some oddly shaped balancing in the game that might trigger some to proclaim the game unbalanced, I personally found this game’s design goals to be intriguing and unique. It spoke to me and I suppose I’m on the “I get it” side of the discussion.

I can understand the arguments about the game being tilted towards a Gaul victory, I address my opinion about this one in my review but the short answer is, it is exactly what it needs to be to make this game work.

For me this was a keeper, it fits nicely with some of my other CDG games that I know and love and while it certainly didn’t kick my favorite Imperial Struggle out, I can see an argument for playing this over Washingtons War for example. I look at it like this. I have 4 CDG at the moment. Imperial Struggle is the best one, but it’s fairly complex and actually not really a CDG in the purest sense. As such it comes down to the other three, Twilight Struggle, Washington’s War and Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul. All games I can teach you and get you playing quickly, so it boils down to picking the historical subject you find most interesting.

Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul is a great game, it’s doubly so if the subject matter interests you and you already love CDG’s.

Find the full review for this game HERE!

Vampire: The Masquerade

The single best RPG experience of my life and I speak on the behalf of my entire gaming group of long-time RPG players.

Role-playing is as much a hobby for me as board gaming, but the truth is that the term role-playing is really redefined in Vampire The Masquerade. This is a game that goes deeper and more immersive than most RPG’s I play and this is precisely why my gaming group adores this game.

We have been playing the 5th edition since its release and we have created memories and stories that we will be talking about for the rest of our lives in my gaming group.

My gaming group post-corona-apocalypse restarted our ongoing chronicle right where we left off this week and everyone is super psyched to get this gaming going again.

If you have never played a role-playing game before this might not be the best place to start as it really makes a lot of assumptions about the player experience, but it’s definitely the crowning jewel of my personal role-playing experiences.

On The Horizon

I already mentioned a couple of games I’m looking forward to in the near future, but there have been a few new entries in the future-future section that got my attention this week.

Rebel Fury

Another Mark Herman game… I’m starting to think I’m a fanboy!

I have been looking to add my first Civil War game to my collection as currently, I have none! This is not a topic I’m super interested in at the moment, but I certainly see a lot of potential here.

Rebel Fury seems like a good entry point, its a Mark Herman game and it’s based on a game series that is highly regarded. This is a bit out of my scope in that the game is about specific battles rather than more global conflict, so while I’m still on the lookout for a game that lets me fight the whole war, this seems like a great place to start the next phase of my gaming education.

That’s it for this month!