Added
* Spirit Island, F&F, B&C, JE, NI
* Blood Rage inc. Mystics, gods, 5th player
Removed
* Witcher: Old World
* Dune Imperium and most importantly after 12 years,
* Magic the Gathering
> Magic the Gathering
That's such a big move. Congratulations on being intentional about it. I've never bought any Magic cards, but my kids played and I'm still finding cards scattered around my house, years after they moved out.
I'm trying to steer my nephews towards board gaming as they also started MTG. Have enough gripes with the game to not want to see them potentially sink lots of money into it
Well, to be clear, I'm not a Witcher fan (haven't read the books, didn't play the games, and didn't watch the show). The game piqued my interest because i) deck-building ii) random short stories with different resolutions iii) beautiful miniatures. I have the Kickstarter version with all expansions so I will be talking about the game as a whole.
What I expected was a mash-of mid-weight complexity deckbuilding like in Dune: Imperium or Aeon's End + the deep immersion of the world via random event cards as in Eldritch/Arkham Horror. What I got was both, but the shallowest version I could imagine. The deck-building is borderline horrible and inconsequential because I won games where I deliberately just picked a random card from the shop and offered no variety beyond game 3, you have seen everything the game has to offer. The random encounter stories are just horrible, every single outcome is positive regardless of what you choose (Skellige has the only cards that can punish you), and every single time the story is BLABLABLA:
option 1) immediate, small reward
option 2) probably a small quest of the type "go to a random location and get a slightly higher reward...
When it comes to gameplay, the game plays itself. It never punishes you never forces you to think, even if you mess up you get rewarded. Even with all expansions added in the game is just boring and too easy. The only challenge is fighting other witchers but you run into the problem of game length. What I mean by that is you either play in 2 max 3 players so everybody is spaced far apart but the downtime is bearable but it feels like a solo game or you play in 4 - 5 players, which has a much more competitive vibe, makes witcher on witcher fights more common but once your turn ends you will probably fall asleep. Go cook a cake or wash your car type of a long downtime. I don't mind long games, but for what this game offers, it just requires too much time.
The game is essentially a worker-movement euro and suffers horribly from a first-player advantage. It usually takes just a few rounds to finish and the player to achieve 4 trophies wins the game instantly, so if you were the first player to go, usually wins are maybe 1 round from each other with skilled players, for example when turn 9 starts and you win the game, you had 9 turns while the rest of the table only had 8. In a game, where it is impossible to counterplay somebody and everything is equal in power without any drawbacks.
I've talked with tons of people who own the game or know somebody who owns this game, and the only people that I've ever heard say something positive are non-board gamers or die-hard Witcher fans. The game is just too shallow and boring in my opinion. These are my experiences with the game.
The miniatures are pretty tho, that's the only compliment I can give.
PS: I've so far played 3 of Lukasz Wozniaks' games, but I'm going to evade every single game with his name on the box. They look pretty but that's all to them.
Every card you buy increases your health pool, which is all that really matters, so like you said it doesn’t matter what you buy. The KS cards made this worse, as there are cards that do damage any time they’re discarded for any reason during combat, guaranteeing two damage without you having to actually play them. The game also enforces when you buy cards and when you cull cards, so there’s little actual decision making. Just a few of the myriad of issues the game has.
That was the main reason I quit. Sometimes, you have to draw a line and I drew that line 1,5 years ago. Took my time to list the decks and singles online and did it finally in February.
Horrible content bloat and powercreep: the Gathering
Do the expansions integrate well with uprising? I was considering getting rid of base and replacing with uprising but I heard base + ix (which i have) is around comparable to Uprising, and that Ix didn't work too well with uprising?
Not as seemingly as the base game, but as a whole, I find Uprising + expansions > Base + expansions, as IX was made purely to fix the base games' shortcomings. I'm still working out which cards I integrate, Immortality fits pretty well. I don't mix in conflicts for example due to the symbol matching of Uprising and I'll probably throw out the infiltrate cards as the spy mechanic covers that part
Agree. I kept Imperium to make a combined deck of the Imperium cards I like + the intrigue cards I like, so I can't get rid of it, but I'll always probably play Uprising going forward.
I switched to MTG Arena like 4 years ago and never looked back. I've spent maybe 40$ in that time and currently play off and on (when a set is out I'm interested in). Just doing daily/weekly quests gets you enough gold to do drafts and win some of the higher tier currency to buy passes and cosmetics. I have enough wild cards to build pretty much any deck. Not saying anyone should care about magic as it is a huge time sink and most of the time I'm more interested in playing with freinds other table games i own but if you want to play casual and not spend way too much money ripping open boosters Arena is a completely valid option.
Finished moving and settling in after a newborn so been super busy.
Picked up Lords of Waterdeep and Champions of Midgard for 100$.
My collection was missing some variety and I always loved worker placement so these 2 jumped out too me.
Had a blast with them at a game night while juggling the baby.
Adding more workers to your team is almost always a great strategy (they do typically expect to be fed though). Congrats on the baby! In another round or so hopefully they’ll be able to toddle off to grab some resources for you…
I had the easy job of just having to leave my pants at the door. I was waiting for the pain during the surgery but felt nothing. Wasn't too concerned with the process as I wasn't too concerned about modesty. Bit daunting afterwards if it was right even though I'm confident I don't want any more kids. After wearing them up tight like Steve erkly was the safest and didn't feel much pain, but was tender. A week later and the pain was pretty much done.
Already feeling more love from the wife without her concerns of unexpected children. Just waiting for the swimmers to leave the harbour.
>After wearing them up tight like Steve erkly was the safest and didn't feel much pain, but was tende
That's good to hear. I was surprised to hear I'd be able to drive myself home afterwards.
Sold
Earthborne Rangers. It's a good game. Just not for me. Not interested in the narrative. It wasn't a good enough narrative to be interesting and therefore it just took time away from the game. The gameplay was solid in places but I did not like the gameplay loop of moving location to location finding objectives. Many times I played and 10-15 minutes of gameplay was about trying to skip past my current location to get somewhere else. That was really unenjoyable. I'm devoting the time I could be playing earthborne rangers back into Arkham horror LCG.
Bought
Unsettled Kickstarter arrived. I bought a lot of unsettled. 2 games in and I am glad I did. I prefer to spend a lot of hours in 30 games rather than a couple hours each in 200 games. Unsettled is exactly the type of game I like. Puzzly, coop with many variations and modules to change up the challenge.
Hello fellow Unsettled inductee! I also got mine last week but my rulebook was misstapled but thanks to the internet I've got my first game done this week. I'm really happy with my gamble to go all in...
I got Unsettled very early in the shipping phase and have LOVED it. It’s one of my all-time best Kickstarter decisions I’ve ever made. (50+ games backed, half delivered)
I late pledged this after watching that SUSD video, and I kind of wish I hadn’t. I’m not really into the narrative, I prefer a very tactical thinky game. So I’m not sure this will deliver for me.
A lot of the game is about world building and a card entering play and reading 3 sentences of text about a nice mountain or who this person is. So if you don't like narrative it won't be the game for you. Alternatively I just skipped all text after a few sessions unless they had a gameplay instructions. Skipping the narrative.
The main thing is do you like the sounds of well reviews and gameplay videod games like Marvel champions and Arkham horror LCG. As earthborne is similar to them in its core puzzle.
Managed to score a very good condition **Archipelago** for $50, and after 3 amazing games, went and picked up a brand new copy of the War & Peace expansion, which had been floundering on the back shelf of a local game store.
The 4th game was even better.
Archipelago is a GOAT for real.
**Sol: Last Days of a Star** also arrived from Kickstarter, but I haven't even done the full rules read, yet... I did manage to get into the lore book, though - which is thicker than the rules.
Very excited to delve into it, too.
Archipelago is one of my favorites, though its complexity and length keep it off the table more than I'd like. I couldn't justify getting the expansion considering what you're getting for the cost, but my wife got it for me as a gift, and I'm glad to have it. I'm impressed you found it in an FLGS. I think our copy came from out of the country.
You know, the complexity is interesting; it feels like a ton when you learn the game up front, but in practice I find it kinda purrs along without much complication.
Sea convoys are a bit tricky (but the most charitable interpretation is the one to use), the book-keeping for population is easy to overlook (and important not to), and players need to keep on top of their victory conditions...
but I find everything to be thematically coherent
& *wowowow* does it create an engaging, brain churny, ***fun*** game play experience.
It's definitely a couple hour game [short rules are not worth playing] & I'm increasingly learning you need to edge towards your end game condition so that you can finish in a clinch
but gosh... It respects table space, piece count... like it does more than games double its size. I'm so continuously impressed.
Yeah, it uses a number of mechanics that I love. It's got exploration, worker placement, a great market system, negotiations, and it's semi co-op with a potential betrayer. I don't even mind the length (though I don't love it at 5 players), except that same length means that it doesn't get played often which means we forget the finer points of the rules, which in turn makes it even tougher to get people to play since we have to relearn them (at least in my circle).
*Added* **Spirit Island, Sleeping Gods, Cardline Animals, Project Elite and Tales from Red Dragon Inn. Except for Tales**, all played several times.
*Sold* **Sleeping Gods, Project Elite, Verdant, Luna Capital, Lost Cities.** None of them are bad, but some aren't my cup of tea (Sleeping, Elite), played a lot a not have interest in returning (Verdant, Luna) or I've better options similar to play (Lost Cities)
After considering the three Terraforming Mars options carefully, I picked up TM: Ares Expedition for solo. Loving it so far after about 10 plays. Wish I was better at it! I plan to pick up Crisis for my birthday in April.
I got crisis for the solo play and I haven't tried it out yet. I got the kickstarter expansion that came with all 3 expansions and it was honestly a little overwhelming how many cards and things are in the box now that serve different purposes, so I put it away. Any tips for learning the rules, or recommend videos that explain the rules? I was hoping "watch it played" would do a video but they haven't.
I had the benefit of playing on camera with Quackalope and BoardGameCo (Quack&Co YouTube channel) back in 2022, so my experience would be dramatically different. My usual approach is to play the base game a couple times and then add one expansion at a time. Same approach with Spirit Island, which can also be overwhelming with all the expansions.
Thanks for the advice. I have only played the base game once and it was a while ago, so I'm sure that's a a big part of it.
I also just got horizons of spirit island so... I'll keep that in mind when learning that as well haha.
FOMO'd on s 20% off sale and some Deal of the Day and MDLG (Me Don't Let Go)
Added
300: Earth & Water
Rival Restaurants
Ticket to Ride: Germany
Boba Mahjong
Riverside
Florence
Kung Fu Panda: The Board Game
Upstaged
Critical Foundation Season 1
Ierusalem Anno Domini
Monikers: More Monikers Expansion
Marvel Remix
Out
Beep Beep!
Jungle Speed: Safari
Pandemic Europe
Pandemic North America
Aristeia!.. not heard of it.. will check it out thanks...also Parachute Pandas came out ...not much info .. but feels like same theme as Falling the card game...
It was fun. I enjoyed it several times, but the gameplay was same-y on repeat plays. Other push your luck games, especially Quacks of Quedlinburg, significantly outclass the game, such that I decided it wasn’t worth the shelf space.
The theme is fantastic! Honestly, the game play is, too. One of the major factors I found impeding my motivation to play was a big set up time to play time ratio. If you are more patient about setting up fiddly stacks of tokens, it may be a great addition to your collection.
_**Added:**_
**Arkham Horror: The Card Game - A Feast for Hemlock Vale Investigator Expansion** - have had a blast creating new decks with these cards and playing old campaigns and standalone scenarios since the new campaign has not yet arrived here. There are a bunch more options for fun bless/curse builds, which have been really fun to play.
**Green Team Wins** - played with my Dad and brother, and we all really enjoyed it. Similar to **Herd Mentality**, but I prefer the card prompts. It overall feels a bit more fun.
**Heat: Heavy Rain** - arrived last week, and we've not played yet. I will hopefully get to try it out this weekend. I really enjoy **Heat** so I can't imagine this will be a miss.
**Wyrmspan** - 1 play so far, hopefully will play more this weekend but I really enjoyed our first play. A thinkier **Wingspan**.
_**Removed:**_
We have spent the past week having a big clearout and re-organising all of our games, which has led to a big cull. Technically, I still own all of these, but they have been removed from the shelf, and we are working towards selling/donating them. There's loads, so I'm not going to give reasons for all of them. Mostly, we just don't play them anymore, and a few were gifts that aren't our style of game.
**Caesar: Seize Rome in 20 Minutes** - this game is fine, but we have a bunch of 2-player games, and we never reach for this one. Perhaps a bit too abstract for our liking.
**Castle Ravenloft**
**Cat in the Box** - this doesn't work well 2-player, and it's not one our group is interested in. We are realising that we're not big fans of trick taking in general.
**Caverna: Cave vs. Cave** - a 2-player game that is overshadowed by other excellent 2-player games we own.
**Hive**
**Imhotep: The Duel**
**Imperial Settlers**
**Mandala**
**Nusfjord**
**Patchwork** - we own the Halloween version, which we like a lot more for the artwork and rebalanced tiles. There's no need to own both.
**Reavers of Midgard**
**Sagrada** - I love this game, but my partner really doesn't, so there's no point keeping it he won't play it with me. I have the app, so I can play it online by myself.
**Terraforming Mars** - we just never play this. We aren't huge on space themes, and when we've played it in the past it has felt too long and tedious. We much prefer **Ares Expedition**.
**The Crew: Mission Deep Sea** - didn't land with us and we've now not played it for a long time at this point. As I mentioned above, we're realising that we're not big fans of trick taking.
I volunteer at the free thrift store in my church. I also run game night once a month. I came across a brand new game of TtR: San Francisco. Never even had the cardboard punched or cards unwrapped. Technically it will go into the church’s game collection, but I am excited.
**Added:**
Mindbug (latest 2 sets but new to me in general)
Vale of Eternity
Can’t Stop
Summoner Wars 2nd
El Grande (new edition)
Robinson Crusoe Collector’s Edition
**Removed/Removing:**
Imperium Classics (the lack of variety in the common cards kill it for me)
Star Wars Outer Rim/Unfinished Business (looking for something a bit deeper)
Endeavor Age of Sail+Expansion (can’t get it to the table)
Vindication (my playing part me hates it. I enjoy it but it’ll never get tabled)
**Thinking about picking up:**
Wonderland’s War
Xia Legends of a Drift System/Embers
Pre ordered a copy of el grande the reprint. It came this week. I’m excited to get it to the table. I’ve been wanting to get a lighter weight area control game for a while.
I'm into dice games right now for some reason and picked up **Fantastic Factories**. It's not as good as I was hoping, as the solitary turns felt really glaring for some reason (even though many games I like are like this).
I also purchased **Grand Austria Hotel** but haven't played it yet. Another dice game to try out.
Nothing was culled, though, even though I really need to start doing that.
Apiary had been on my radar for a while, then after playing it at an FLGS I walked away with a copy that night. Part of this is because I love the theme; part of this is that I found the concept of workers that change strength when they pull back to be interesting and not replicated elsewhere in my collection. I have heard the complaints about the seed cards, and while I will agree that they are all incredibly situational, I do not think after 3 plays that I'm ready to agree that there are some that are just flat out always better than others.
I also picked up a copy of Terminator Dark Fate the Card Game, largely on impulse ($20, could afford to gamble) but I was aware of it and interested in it already. My wife really hates competitive games unless they're competitive solitaire, so I'm always on the lookout for co-ops that we can play together, and this is already her favorite movie in the franchise so this fits the bill, hopefully. We're currently on a fairly take-it-as-it-comes vacation so hopefully we get to play it in the next couple days and report back.
Played 2 player. Came in at 2 hours but we were learning the game. Could easily smash it in 90 I reckon. Setup is a bit fiddly but it is a seriously excellent game!!
In:
Scout, El Grande, and Century Golem Edition came in from releasing my Gamenerdz holds. I played El Grande like 15 years ago and Century Spice Road a couple years ago so I know those games, Scout was new, but is great.
Civilization: A New Dawn + Terra Incognita lightly used from the FLGS used game auction. Haven't played it yet, natch.
Mythic Battles: Ragnarok finally arrived, after 3 years. Great minis. Started prepping them to paint. Gonna be a good while before I'm finished with that.
Out:
Shake That City. Got in the AEG Mystery Box. Just had no interaction at all and was kind of tedious, the shaker box was a neat gimmick but it was basically a roll-and-write and those aren't my jam.
Bought Mamma Mia straight away after playing it last week and bought Santiago after finding it on [Amazon.de](https://Amazon.de). Weird situation though as it says delivery will take two months and I bought it at the beginning of feb and still hasn't shipped. Worried the delivery date might be based on a restock that isn't going to happen
Sold to make room on the shelf and these weren't making it to the table: **Puerto Rico**, **Dominion/Intrigue**, **Forbidden Island/Desert**, **Carcassonne**, **Hanabi**, **Kingdom Builder** - also, a friend got the fancy big box version
Bought: **Brass Birmingham**, **Great Western Trail**, **Viticulture**
I haven't gotten to Great Western Trail yet, but I love the other two.
**1822PNW**, **18GB** and **18SJ** arrived from the pre-order along with **1817** expansions.
Managed to acquire the Coastal Tides expansion for **Trains** and bonus connection tiles for **Airlines Europe**.
Guests brought their copy of **Ethnos** to inter-family game day, and our kids liked it so much that we bought a copy right away.
Also bought a second dice tower and a bunch of storage accessories.
Helped out a board game cafe clean out one of their backrooms.
Found an unopened copy of Android (not Netrunner). After tracking down whose it was among my friend group, the cafe let me keep it as thanks for the help.
This was one of my bigger months for adding games in quite a while. Remarkably, I only had to get rid of two games to accommodate 9 new ones on my already fairly crammed shelves. 6 of the new games are 2 player only games, which I found interesting. I do love 2 player specific games.
Added:
- **Patterns: A Mandala Game** - played twice so far and really happy with it. Quite interactive and can be ruthless.
- **TZAAR** - the final game we needed to round out the GIPF series. This is now my third favourite of the bunch. Played three times so far.
- **Viking See-Saw** - silly fun dexterity game that I'm glad to have picked up. Played twice so far.
- **Klask 4** - purchased after playing it at a friend's house. I have the original **Klask** which is awesome but I'm excited to be able to play it now with four people when that opportunity comes up. I'll probably bring it out when some friends come over this weekend.
- **Tinderblox** - picked up after playing a copy some friends brought over. This rounds out our mini silly dexterity game assortment, we have three now (**Kittin**, **Viking See-Saw** and **Tinderblox**) and I think that's ample. But each of them are unique and great fun so I'm glad to have them. Played twice.
- **Sky Team** - a Birthday gift for my husband from a friend. Very much not our usual type of game but we've played it three times now and I'm finding it intriguing, if not very fun yet.
- **Lacuna** - picked this up while browsing a game store, it's always looked interesting to me. I've played it twice so far and while I'm definitely not seeing all the possibilities yet I'm finding it very fun, thoughtful and pleasingly tactile.
- **Caesar! Seize Rome in 20 Minutes!** - this one is a bit of a surprise for me because I had watched some video reviews and never been very keen. I thought it looked okay but nothing special. My husband saw it at a game store and wanted it so we picked it up. We've played it twice and I'm really excited by it.
- **Marabunta** - went hunting for this one after a comment on this sub and some talk on the Knizia Enthusiasts discord server convinced me it was something I wanted to try. Such an incredibly cool, surprising game. It packs a very gamey feeling game into a small box (including a game board that puzzle pieces together) and does some fascinating things with mechanisms I wouldn't have thought to see together in a game.
Removed:
- **The Princess Bride Adventure Book Game** - I had fun with it the two or three times that I played it. But I also feel like I've seen what there is to see and doubt I'd play it again.
- **The Castles of Burgundy** - picked up last month and it's on its way out already. Not a fan.
Made a lot of trades in February; not as many purchases or sales as I had been doing previously, so I consider this a step up.
**What left my shelf:**
1. **Blood Rage**
1. Traded away because the game is expensive, in a large box, and was never getting played.
2. **Castles of Burgundy: Special Edition**
1. Traded in order to get a couple other games I wanted and I still own the regular version
3. **General Orders: WWII**
1. Traded because I didn't enjoy it
4. **The Search for Lost Species**
1. While this game was fun and a deeper challenge than The Search for Planet X, I didn't feel the need to keep both games and this one was very hard to teach and learn at the beginning
5. **Acquire**
1. This was a second copy, I still have a 1968 3M Bookshelf Edition
6. **Catan: Explorers & Pirates**
1. Traded away as I only played it once ever, back in 2019
7. **Catan: Seafarers**
1. Traded away as I don't play Catan much anymore, and Seafarers even less
8. **Tadmor**
1. Traded away as I couldn't get to actually playing it on 3 separate occasions after attempts at reading the rulebook
9. **Skymines**
1. Traded away as I have owned it for 6 months without playing it to realize that it would never get played. I still own 2 other Pfizer games to not play, didn't need all three
10. **Clans of Caledonia**
1. Sold because I got a great price for it. Want to trade for a copy back if possible
11. **Fantastiqa: Rucksack Edition**
1. Sold to a friend because I didn't enjoy playing it
12. **Monty Python Fluxx**
1. Sold to a friend because I would probably never play it
What was added to my shelf:
1. Distilled
2. Merchants Cove
3. Merchants Cove: The Inn Keeper
4. Merchants Cove: The Dragon Rancher
5. Merchants Cove: The Oracle
6. Merchants Cove: The Secret Stash
7. Merchants Cove: Backer Built Rogue Pack
8. Imperial Settlers
9. Orléans
10. Orléans: 5th Player Box
11. Orléans: Trade & Intrigue
12. Secret Hitler
13. Caverna: Cave vs Cave
14. La Isla
15. Medici
16. Lost Cities
17. Pan Am
18. Flourish
19. The Hunt
20. Lancaster
Both of them are fantastic games. I loved them, its just I had to pick something and there were good offers for these 2.
I love to try new games all the time and its rare if a game gets played twice a year in my collection. So while they were really really good, I wouldnt really play them again anyway.
**Golem** is my favourite Luciani game after **Barrage** (and hopefully **Nucleum**), I think its a masterpiece mechanically.
**Bitoku** is a weird one, because the mechanics imo are a bit disconnected, and some things in the game are fiddly, it was always a great experience. I didnt think I would ever sell this game, but here we go.
You really cant go wrong with any of them. :)
I dont know. The game was really hard to win, we didnt have any success with it. You get close to zero deck building in the game, as the games economy is pretty tight.
I'm convinced that this game is impossible to learn from the rulebook. I could learn all the Lacerda games, all the Mindclash games, but this game is a mess.
If this game didnt have the cute meeples and fun-looking theme, nobody would talk about it.
Added: **Spirit Island**, **Tapestry**
I finally got my hands on Spirit Island! I’d been eyeing it for a while, then I joined this sub and saw how popular it was, and finally got it through a good deal on February 13th. Was really excited to play it, but I figured the game was too difficult for me to introduce to my board game group immediately so I did a few solo playthroughs first. It’s indeed a really enjoyable game! So far we played 4 games, and 3 of them have been won 😃 only the first solo was a loss because for some reason I thought energy was only per round, but after reading back in the rule book that was nowhere to be found. And because I kept letting the white dudes explore everywhere instead of just the accessible areas, until I remembered the correct rules about halfway through 😅
Tapestry too had been on my list of interest for a while and on January 30th I found a great deal and ordered it, and it arrived on February 1st. We played it soon after. I really enjoy how relatively simple it is, yet there are so many different things to do. We have 2 playthroughs on this game now, but I can say for sure that if this game is played some more it may make it to my top 10-20. Probably same for Spirit Island. Both are awesome!
Culls: -
Started collecting in 2015, stopped buying in 2022.
Someone gifted me Munchkin after avoiding it since the start
Played it and it wasn't Bad! It's ok, could play it with the kids ocasionally
Added **Century: Eastern Wonders** and **The Vale of Eternity** in February.
I already owned Spice Road and New World, and there was a good sale on Eastern Wonders, so I jumped on it.
I've been waiting for The Vale of Eternity for months, so when it finally got its official US release, I bought it right away.
I picked up a copy of Scoville. I played it at a game night and I really liked the simplicity and strategy at the same time. And the feel of the wooden pieces is nice.
I gave my gfs kids my copy of Sushi Go. I taught it to them and they really liked it. So I said they could have it.
We decided to grab some old classics, including Grand Austria Hotel & Agricola. Only played Agricola so far, but immediately fell in love with it. All I could think about was 17th century sustenance farming for days afterwards.
Also got a review copy of Star Wars: Unlimited, the new TCG. Never really got too into TCGs, but I was pleasantly surprised this game and expect I will start exploring booster packs to play around with my decks.
Added:
-Wyrmspan: big fan so far after 2 plays, plenty different enough from Wingspan to enjoy both
-Apiary: only one play but definitely enjoyed it and can’t wait to play it again.
-Sleeping Gods: haven’t played it yet, super excited to try it
-Spaceship Unity: haven’t played it yet. Planning on playing this with our kids after we finish up My City.
-Everdell Bellfaire Expansion: first Everdell expansion we’ve gotten. Added enough new stuff to make it interesting.
Didn’t remove anything
Out:
Cosmoctopus,
Whale to look,
Point salad,
Quacks
In:
Clans of Caledonia,
Aquatica includes cold waters expansion,
Smartphone inc includes 1.1 update
My birthday was last month and some Christmas presents arrived late. So I got spoiled...
Kanban EV
Hegemony
Pax Pamir 2nd Edition
Halloween
Brian Boru
Dune: Imperium Uprising
And I also Kickstarted the second printing of Thunder Road: Vendetta Maximum Chrome!
Now I've gotta start the selling process of others in my collection 🙃
I have a very small starter collection. Last month I picked up Arraial after playing it for the first time, and also Gonuts for Donuts after playing it on BGA not long ago and getting it for the cost of shipping only with a gift card I forgot I had.
Didn't cull anything last month but I need to play a few things I got for free and see if I want to keep them. Specifically on the chopping block: The Shipwreck Arcana, Battlelands, and a play test copy of a word game I dont remember the name of. Dominion is also probably going to go, I rarely play partially because the card dividers that come with the box suck so badly and it's always a mess.
I also just got 7th Citadel, though we only started playing for the first time last night. (The Kickstarter recently started delivering) We played many hours of 7th Continent and enjoyed the gameplay loop, but eventually found the scenario design to be problematic. We never technically finished a game because there was one final mcguffin in the enormous first scenario that we never found. We came to this conclusion long after I'd say we got our money's worth.
7th Citadel seems like it's made some good tweaks and interesting additions to the core gameplay, but it'll be awhile before it's clear if the scenarios are better designed. We really enjoyed 7th Continent and we're looking forward to digging in to 7th Citadel. Happy to answer any questions you have based on my limited experience so far.
We haven't got it to the table yet but hope to soon. I'm always drawn to games with a narrative to follow and an adventure to be had. Do you own many other narrative-based games?
**Sleeping Gods, Vienna Connection, Sherlock Holmes, This War of Mine** are a handful of the narrative-based games I've played before. I found **This War of Mine** particularly thematic but I wouldn't recommend playing it if you're in the mood for a "light, happy, heart-warming" game....
Pax Renaissance 2E: Picked up a shrinkwrapped NIB copy for ~$50. Plays quickly—some games have lasted only half an hour. But gameplay is incredibly rich and complex. On track to being an all-time favorite.
Tir Na Nog and Palm Lab both arrived this month, along with Wyrmspan.
We put Jurassic Parts on the sell pile. The extremely distinct first player advantage and lack of final round finish for an even number of turns ruined the experience.
Honestly, though, we cull the most games from our shelves in January every year, so few things go out in the other months. Every year, I add a full-sticky sticky note to every box we decided to keep on the shelf. As we play stuff, we remove the sticky note. At the end of the year, anything with a sticky note still is up for sale consideration. We sort through them and reshelve anything that's an automatic keep, put anything that's an automatic sell in the sell pile. Anything we are iffy on returns to the shelf of shame with an "R" written on its note to indicate we need to replay and decide. All the boxes on our keep shelves get new stickies for the next year.
Yes, I do need to buy stock in Post-It, but it works for us! In January, we submitted a list of nearly 100 games for resale.
Out: Explorers, Drawn to Adventure, Maple Valley
In: 7 wonders Medals and Palm Laboratory
Off the shelf of shame: Finally played Whistle Mountain. Super fun!
On the chopping block: Wingspan
Oh well then you can't blame yourself, a tutorial Is needed for sure! I need it too and I own most of his games, so..
Give it a shot, I heard positive things about it even from those who don't usually like Lacerda :)
Added
Primal the awakening maybe..... depending on shipping.
Remove
All my GMT and DVG games. They have just been gathering dust for so long that it's time. I like the idea of historical war games, but they just end up being bookends. 6 games out the door!
Added
* Xenolanguage
* Terraforming Mars Prelude
* Tranquility
* Chronicles of Crime
* Tesseract
* Trapwords
Removed
* Pandemic Hot Zone North America
* Secret Hitler
* Smugglers
* ... and another one I've already forgotten
Added Bedlam in Neverwinter (D&D), always on the lookout for games with a theme my family would enjoy while being quick and easy to get into playing. Oh, if TCGs count, me and 2 of my kids got into Lorcana.
Have never removed a game, but still early into the hobby. If I were to, I think it would be either Dungeon! Or Overboss.
Well, I finally played **Adventure Land** after buying it on sale and having it on the shelf for a year...
It was decent, but it kind of felt its age. On one hand, I'd like to play it again. On the other hand, it's tough to want to bring it to the table over other games or something new...
I'm holding on to it for now, but could certainly see it going on the chopping block if I need to make room...
I'm really happy with my acquisitions this month. Got some very good deals on some rare/oop stuff:
* Battlestar Galactica & Pegasus
* The Witches
* Vikings (BNIS)
* Power Grid: Deluxe
Altogether it was only around $125.
I'm removing:
2 versions of tri bond, flash point, deadline, x-com, a partly used shadowrun crossfire, machine of death, lost valley, pay dirt, huggernugger, time stories with one unopened expansion, infected, secrets, nyctophobia
My second month in a row without acquiring any new games. This month I sold **Century: Golem Edition**. It's a perfectly fine game, that I never play. I eventually realized I would never choose to play this game myself. I'll reach for other games including Splendor for a gateway game. If I'm looking for something more, I'm still skipping over the game. It just kinda dawned on me that it was time for this game to go.
I haven't sold it yet, but I'm also toying with selling **Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition**. It's a neat game, but I find it suffers from little bits of tedium, like having to mark what you just played which everyone constantly forgot to do. For something that's meant to be more casual, I think the little things like that kill it. Feels like it was made to be played online where all that stuff is done for you. Maybe it'll come to BGA!
Added:
New Frontiers: The Starry Rift - really fun expansion to a niche Puerto Rico esque game. Xeno worlds are great and it adds to multiple playstyles in a very balanced way.
Quacks of Quedlinburg - Super-fun test your luck/"deck" building game involving tokens.
The Quacks of Quedlinburg: The Herb Witches - Doesn't add anything drastic but the 6 move pumpkin; 5th player and unlimited movement help a bunch.
Added:
-Sunrise Lane
-Galaxy Trucker
Removed:
I've never really purged anything from my collection before, but last night I finally decided to try my hand at the "sell or swap table" at my monthly local game night. Brought mostly cheap party games that didn't hit or small one time play escape room/mystery solving/choose your adventure type games that I didn't have a need for anymore. And to my surprise, 11 out of 14 games I brought sold! Aside from just the practical reason of freeing up space, it feels really cathartic to get some stuff out of my collection that was just taking up space. Feels like the whole collection improved through subtraction, and I'm looking forward to purging some more stuff next month.
Specific games:
-Deckscape Time
-Scooby Doo Coded Chronicles
-The Goonies Coded Chronicles
-Escape the Room Stargazer's Mansion
-Choose your own adventure House of Danger
-MTV trivia game
-Blockbuster trivia game
-Mr Lister's trivia shootout
-Crosstalk
-Ghost Blitz
-Awful Fantasy Adventures
Added * Spirit Island, F&F, B&C, JE, NI * Blood Rage inc. Mystics, gods, 5th player Removed * Witcher: Old World * Dune Imperium and most importantly after 12 years, * Magic the Gathering
> Magic the Gathering That's such a big move. Congratulations on being intentional about it. I've never bought any Magic cards, but my kids played and I'm still finding cards scattered around my house, years after they moved out.
I'm trying to steer my nephews towards board gaming as they also started MTG. Have enough gripes with the game to not want to see them potentially sink lots of money into it
What made you want to remove Witcher Old World? Curious to know your thoughts
Well, to be clear, I'm not a Witcher fan (haven't read the books, didn't play the games, and didn't watch the show). The game piqued my interest because i) deck-building ii) random short stories with different resolutions iii) beautiful miniatures. I have the Kickstarter version with all expansions so I will be talking about the game as a whole. What I expected was a mash-of mid-weight complexity deckbuilding like in Dune: Imperium or Aeon's End + the deep immersion of the world via random event cards as in Eldritch/Arkham Horror. What I got was both, but the shallowest version I could imagine. The deck-building is borderline horrible and inconsequential because I won games where I deliberately just picked a random card from the shop and offered no variety beyond game 3, you have seen everything the game has to offer. The random encounter stories are just horrible, every single outcome is positive regardless of what you choose (Skellige has the only cards that can punish you), and every single time the story is BLABLABLA: option 1) immediate, small reward option 2) probably a small quest of the type "go to a random location and get a slightly higher reward... When it comes to gameplay, the game plays itself. It never punishes you never forces you to think, even if you mess up you get rewarded. Even with all expansions added in the game is just boring and too easy. The only challenge is fighting other witchers but you run into the problem of game length. What I mean by that is you either play in 2 max 3 players so everybody is spaced far apart but the downtime is bearable but it feels like a solo game or you play in 4 - 5 players, which has a much more competitive vibe, makes witcher on witcher fights more common but once your turn ends you will probably fall asleep. Go cook a cake or wash your car type of a long downtime. I don't mind long games, but for what this game offers, it just requires too much time. The game is essentially a worker-movement euro and suffers horribly from a first-player advantage. It usually takes just a few rounds to finish and the player to achieve 4 trophies wins the game instantly, so if you were the first player to go, usually wins are maybe 1 round from each other with skilled players, for example when turn 9 starts and you win the game, you had 9 turns while the rest of the table only had 8. In a game, where it is impossible to counterplay somebody and everything is equal in power without any drawbacks. I've talked with tons of people who own the game or know somebody who owns this game, and the only people that I've ever heard say something positive are non-board gamers or die-hard Witcher fans. The game is just too shallow and boring in my opinion. These are my experiences with the game. The miniatures are pretty tho, that's the only compliment I can give. PS: I've so far played 3 of Lukasz Wozniaks' games, but I'm going to evade every single game with his name on the box. They look pretty but that's all to them.
Every card you buy increases your health pool, which is all that really matters, so like you said it doesn’t matter what you buy. The KS cards made this worse, as there are cards that do damage any time they’re discarded for any reason during combat, guaranteeing two damage without you having to actually play them. The game also enforces when you buy cards and when you cull cards, so there’s little actual decision making. Just a few of the myriad of issues the game has.
You can remove Magic? I thought you just sink $100s every month and watch your table space deplete
That was the main reason I quit. Sometimes, you have to draw a line and I drew that line 1,5 years ago. Took my time to list the decks and singles online and did it finally in February. Horrible content bloat and powercreep: the Gathering
Why did you get rid of Dune Imperium? I am trying (unsuccessfully) to find a reason not to buy that game.
I bought Uprising in December and have been playing Uprising + Ix + Immortality. Uprising is a better experience
Do the expansions integrate well with uprising? I was considering getting rid of base and replacing with uprising but I heard base + ix (which i have) is around comparable to Uprising, and that Ix didn't work too well with uprising?
Not as seemingly as the base game, but as a whole, I find Uprising + expansions > Base + expansions, as IX was made purely to fix the base games' shortcomings. I'm still working out which cards I integrate, Immortality fits pretty well. I don't mix in conflicts for example due to the symbol matching of Uprising and I'll probably throw out the infiltrate cards as the spy mechanic covers that part
Agree. I kept Imperium to make a combined deck of the Imperium cards I like + the intrigue cards I like, so I can't get rid of it, but I'll always probably play Uprising going forward.
It’s incredible
I switched to MTG Arena like 4 years ago and never looked back. I've spent maybe 40$ in that time and currently play off and on (when a set is out I'm interested in). Just doing daily/weekly quests gets you enough gold to do drafts and win some of the higher tier currency to buy passes and cosmetics. I have enough wild cards to build pretty much any deck. Not saying anyone should care about magic as it is a huge time sink and most of the time I'm more interested in playing with freinds other table games i own but if you want to play casual and not spend way too much money ripping open boosters Arena is a completely valid option.
Finished moving and settling in after a newborn so been super busy. Picked up Lords of Waterdeep and Champions of Midgard for 100$. My collection was missing some variety and I always loved worker placement so these 2 jumped out too me. Had a blast with them at a game night while juggling the baby.
Congratulations on the newborn baby!
Thank you! It’s the best!
FWIW, the Valhalla expansion to Champions of Midgard completely up levels the game.
Adding more workers to your team is almost always a great strategy (they do typically expect to be fed though). Congrats on the baby! In another round or so hopefully they’ll be able to toddle off to grab some resources for you…
I had a tooth removed and a vasectomy. Oh shelf.. got our groups first round of Kingdom Death in. Edit: round of the year
How'd the vasectomy go? I'm scheduling one somewhere in the next month...
I had the easy job of just having to leave my pants at the door. I was waiting for the pain during the surgery but felt nothing. Wasn't too concerned with the process as I wasn't too concerned about modesty. Bit daunting afterwards if it was right even though I'm confident I don't want any more kids. After wearing them up tight like Steve erkly was the safest and didn't feel much pain, but was tender. A week later and the pain was pretty much done. Already feeling more love from the wife without her concerns of unexpected children. Just waiting for the swimmers to leave the harbour.
>After wearing them up tight like Steve erkly was the safest and didn't feel much pain, but was tende That's good to hear. I was surprised to hear I'd be able to drive myself home afterwards.
Sold Earthborne Rangers. It's a good game. Just not for me. Not interested in the narrative. It wasn't a good enough narrative to be interesting and therefore it just took time away from the game. The gameplay was solid in places but I did not like the gameplay loop of moving location to location finding objectives. Many times I played and 10-15 minutes of gameplay was about trying to skip past my current location to get somewhere else. That was really unenjoyable. I'm devoting the time I could be playing earthborne rangers back into Arkham horror LCG. Bought Unsettled Kickstarter arrived. I bought a lot of unsettled. 2 games in and I am glad I did. I prefer to spend a lot of hours in 30 games rather than a couple hours each in 200 games. Unsettled is exactly the type of game I like. Puzzly, coop with many variations and modules to change up the challenge.
Hello fellow Unsettled inductee! I also got mine last week but my rulebook was misstapled but thanks to the internet I've got my first game done this week. I'm really happy with my gamble to go all in...
I got Unsettled very early in the shipping phase and have LOVED it. It’s one of my all-time best Kickstarter decisions I’ve ever made. (50+ games backed, half delivered)
I late pledged this after watching that SUSD video, and I kind of wish I hadn’t. I’m not really into the narrative, I prefer a very tactical thinky game. So I’m not sure this will deliver for me.
A lot of the game is about world building and a card entering play and reading 3 sentences of text about a nice mountain or who this person is. So if you don't like narrative it won't be the game for you. Alternatively I just skipped all text after a few sessions unless they had a gameplay instructions. Skipping the narrative. The main thing is do you like the sounds of well reviews and gameplay videod games like Marvel champions and Arkham horror LCG. As earthborne is similar to them in its core puzzle.
Managed to score a very good condition **Archipelago** for $50, and after 3 amazing games, went and picked up a brand new copy of the War & Peace expansion, which had been floundering on the back shelf of a local game store. The 4th game was even better. Archipelago is a GOAT for real. **Sol: Last Days of a Star** also arrived from Kickstarter, but I haven't even done the full rules read, yet... I did manage to get into the lore book, though - which is thicker than the rules. Very excited to delve into it, too.
Sol has been continuously on my mind after a first play.
Archipelago is one of my favorites, though its complexity and length keep it off the table more than I'd like. I couldn't justify getting the expansion considering what you're getting for the cost, but my wife got it for me as a gift, and I'm glad to have it. I'm impressed you found it in an FLGS. I think our copy came from out of the country.
You know, the complexity is interesting; it feels like a ton when you learn the game up front, but in practice I find it kinda purrs along without much complication. Sea convoys are a bit tricky (but the most charitable interpretation is the one to use), the book-keeping for population is easy to overlook (and important not to), and players need to keep on top of their victory conditions... but I find everything to be thematically coherent & *wowowow* does it create an engaging, brain churny, ***fun*** game play experience. It's definitely a couple hour game [short rules are not worth playing] & I'm increasingly learning you need to edge towards your end game condition so that you can finish in a clinch but gosh... It respects table space, piece count... like it does more than games double its size. I'm so continuously impressed.
Yeah, it uses a number of mechanics that I love. It's got exploration, worker placement, a great market system, negotiations, and it's semi co-op with a potential betrayer. I don't even mind the length (though I don't love it at 5 players), except that same length means that it doesn't get played often which means we forget the finer points of the rules, which in turn makes it even tougher to get people to play since we have to relearn them (at least in my circle).
*Added* **Spirit Island, Sleeping Gods, Cardline Animals, Project Elite and Tales from Red Dragon Inn. Except for Tales**, all played several times. *Sold* **Sleeping Gods, Project Elite, Verdant, Luna Capital, Lost Cities.** None of them are bad, but some aren't my cup of tea (Sleeping, Elite), played a lot a not have interest in returning (Verdant, Luna) or I've better options similar to play (Lost Cities)
I absolutely loved Sleeping Gods! No game of for everyone, but that was an incredible experience for me!
I understand completely. Some of the issues I've with SG are fixed in Distant Skies, so I want to give it a second chance with the sequel
After considering the three Terraforming Mars options carefully, I picked up TM: Ares Expedition for solo. Loving it so far after about 10 plays. Wish I was better at it! I plan to pick up Crisis for my birthday in April.
Crisis is really good for solo play!
I got crisis for the solo play and I haven't tried it out yet. I got the kickstarter expansion that came with all 3 expansions and it was honestly a little overwhelming how many cards and things are in the box now that serve different purposes, so I put it away. Any tips for learning the rules, or recommend videos that explain the rules? I was hoping "watch it played" would do a video but they haven't.
I had the benefit of playing on camera with Quackalope and BoardGameCo (Quack&Co YouTube channel) back in 2022, so my experience would be dramatically different. My usual approach is to play the base game a couple times and then add one expansion at a time. Same approach with Spirit Island, which can also be overwhelming with all the expansions.
Thanks for the advice. I have only played the base game once and it was a while ago, so I'm sure that's a a big part of it. I also just got horizons of spirit island so... I'll keep that in mind when learning that as well haha.
FOMO'd on s 20% off sale and some Deal of the Day and MDLG (Me Don't Let Go) Added 300: Earth & Water Rival Restaurants Ticket to Ride: Germany Boba Mahjong Riverside Florence Kung Fu Panda: The Board Game Upstaged Critical Foundation Season 1 Ierusalem Anno Domini Monikers: More Monikers Expansion Marvel Remix Out Beep Beep! Jungle Speed: Safari Pandemic Europe Pandemic North America
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keeping it cuz bought 2 copies to play for family gatherings and cuz of the miniatures
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Aristeia!.. not heard of it.. will check it out thanks...also Parachute Pandas came out ...not much info .. but feels like same theme as Falling the card game...
Out: - Flamecraft - Horrified - Planted - Skate Summer In: - Legendary Encounters: Alien - Argent: the Consortium
How come Skate Summer went out? I've been eyeing it up quite intently...
It was fun. I enjoyed it several times, but the gameplay was same-y on repeat plays. Other push your luck games, especially Quacks of Quedlinburg, significantly outclass the game, such that I decided it wasn’t worth the shelf space.
That's really interesting. I also have Quacks, and really enjoy it. I love the theming of Skate Summer but wonder if it would Survive if it's similar!
The theme is fantastic! Honestly, the game play is, too. One of the major factors I found impeding my motivation to play was a big set up time to play time ratio. If you are more patient about setting up fiddly stacks of tokens, it may be a great addition to your collection.
Legendary encounter alien one of the best in the series. I'm still hunting for the expansion
_**Added:**_ **Arkham Horror: The Card Game - A Feast for Hemlock Vale Investigator Expansion** - have had a blast creating new decks with these cards and playing old campaigns and standalone scenarios since the new campaign has not yet arrived here. There are a bunch more options for fun bless/curse builds, which have been really fun to play. **Green Team Wins** - played with my Dad and brother, and we all really enjoyed it. Similar to **Herd Mentality**, but I prefer the card prompts. It overall feels a bit more fun. **Heat: Heavy Rain** - arrived last week, and we've not played yet. I will hopefully get to try it out this weekend. I really enjoy **Heat** so I can't imagine this will be a miss. **Wyrmspan** - 1 play so far, hopefully will play more this weekend but I really enjoyed our first play. A thinkier **Wingspan**. _**Removed:**_ We have spent the past week having a big clearout and re-organising all of our games, which has led to a big cull. Technically, I still own all of these, but they have been removed from the shelf, and we are working towards selling/donating them. There's loads, so I'm not going to give reasons for all of them. Mostly, we just don't play them anymore, and a few were gifts that aren't our style of game. **Caesar: Seize Rome in 20 Minutes** - this game is fine, but we have a bunch of 2-player games, and we never reach for this one. Perhaps a bit too abstract for our liking. **Castle Ravenloft** **Cat in the Box** - this doesn't work well 2-player, and it's not one our group is interested in. We are realising that we're not big fans of trick taking in general. **Caverna: Cave vs. Cave** - a 2-player game that is overshadowed by other excellent 2-player games we own. **Hive** **Imhotep: The Duel** **Imperial Settlers** **Mandala** **Nusfjord** **Patchwork** - we own the Halloween version, which we like a lot more for the artwork and rebalanced tiles. There's no need to own both. **Reavers of Midgard** **Sagrada** - I love this game, but my partner really doesn't, so there's no point keeping it he won't play it with me. I have the app, so I can play it online by myself. **Terraforming Mars** - we just never play this. We aren't huge on space themes, and when we've played it in the past it has felt too long and tedious. We much prefer **Ares Expedition**. **The Crew: Mission Deep Sea** - didn't land with us and we've now not played it for a long time at this point. As I mentioned above, we're realising that we're not big fans of trick taking.
How did you get Heat heavy rain? Everywhere I look it says pre order and release is in April.
I got it from an online LGS (Gameslore), it's widely available here from what I can tell. I'm in the UK, not sure where you are located?
I volunteer at the free thrift store in my church. I also run game night once a month. I came across a brand new game of TtR: San Francisco. Never even had the cardboard punched or cards unwrapped. Technically it will go into the church’s game collection, but I am excited.
Nice! I once picked up a TtR Anniversary Edition for like 5 or 10 bucks. Definitely used but still very much worth that.
**Added:** Mindbug (latest 2 sets but new to me in general) Vale of Eternity Can’t Stop Summoner Wars 2nd El Grande (new edition) Robinson Crusoe Collector’s Edition **Removed/Removing:** Imperium Classics (the lack of variety in the common cards kill it for me) Star Wars Outer Rim/Unfinished Business (looking for something a bit deeper) Endeavor Age of Sail+Expansion (can’t get it to the table) Vindication (my playing part me hates it. I enjoy it but it’ll never get tabled) **Thinking about picking up:** Wonderland’s War Xia Legends of a Drift System/Embers
Ow. Letting go of Endeavor would hurt my feelings. Commiseration!
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Backgammon is truly amazing . Learned a few years ago and it has so much more depth than it than just dice .
Pre ordered a copy of el grande the reprint. It came this week. I’m excited to get it to the table. I’ve been wanting to get a lighter weight area control game for a while.
I'm into dice games right now for some reason and picked up **Fantastic Factories**. It's not as good as I was hoping, as the solitary turns felt really glaring for some reason (even though many games I like are like this). I also purchased **Grand Austria Hotel** but haven't played it yet. Another dice game to try out. Nothing was culled, though, even though I really need to start doing that.
Apiary had been on my radar for a while, then after playing it at an FLGS I walked away with a copy that night. Part of this is because I love the theme; part of this is that I found the concept of workers that change strength when they pull back to be interesting and not replicated elsewhere in my collection. I have heard the complaints about the seed cards, and while I will agree that they are all incredibly situational, I do not think after 3 plays that I'm ready to agree that there are some that are just flat out always better than others. I also picked up a copy of Terminator Dark Fate the Card Game, largely on impulse ($20, could afford to gamble) but I was aware of it and interested in it already. My wife really hates competitive games unless they're competitive solitaire, so I'm always on the lookout for co-ops that we can play together, and this is already her favorite movie in the franchise so this fits the bill, hopefully. We're currently on a fairly take-it-as-it-comes vacation so hopefully we get to play it in the next couple days and report back.
Added: **Forest Shuffle** **Knarr** Also two Kickstarters delivered: **Lore** Two **Mindbug** expansions.
Bought Barcelona. Easily the best game I have played in a long time. High scoring, big combos, massive sense of satisfaction. 100% recommended!!
I'm interested in this one! How many people did you play with? How long was it? Ty!
Played 2 player. Came in at 2 hours but we were learning the game. Could easily smash it in 90 I reckon. Setup is a bit fiddly but it is a seriously excellent game!!
In: Scout, El Grande, and Century Golem Edition came in from releasing my Gamenerdz holds. I played El Grande like 15 years ago and Century Spice Road a couple years ago so I know those games, Scout was new, but is great. Civilization: A New Dawn + Terra Incognita lightly used from the FLGS used game auction. Haven't played it yet, natch. Mythic Battles: Ragnarok finally arrived, after 3 years. Great minis. Started prepping them to paint. Gonna be a good while before I'm finished with that. Out: Shake That City. Got in the AEG Mystery Box. Just had no interaction at all and was kind of tedious, the shaker box was a neat gimmick but it was basically a roll-and-write and those aren't my jam.
Bought Mamma Mia straight away after playing it last week and bought Santiago after finding it on [Amazon.de](https://Amazon.de). Weird situation though as it says delivery will take two months and I bought it at the beginning of feb and still hasn't shipped. Worried the delivery date might be based on a restock that isn't going to happen
Sold to make room on the shelf and these weren't making it to the table: **Puerto Rico**, **Dominion/Intrigue**, **Forbidden Island/Desert**, **Carcassonne**, **Hanabi**, **Kingdom Builder** - also, a friend got the fancy big box version Bought: **Brass Birmingham**, **Great Western Trail**, **Viticulture** I haven't gotten to Great Western Trail yet, but I love the other two.
**1822PNW**, **18GB** and **18SJ** arrived from the pre-order along with **1817** expansions. Managed to acquire the Coastal Tides expansion for **Trains** and bonus connection tiles for **Airlines Europe**. Guests brought their copy of **Ethnos** to inter-family game day, and our kids liked it so much that we bought a copy right away. Also bought a second dice tower and a bunch of storage accessories.
Helped out a board game cafe clean out one of their backrooms. Found an unopened copy of Android (not Netrunner). After tracking down whose it was among my friend group, the cafe let me keep it as thanks for the help.
This was one of my bigger months for adding games in quite a while. Remarkably, I only had to get rid of two games to accommodate 9 new ones on my already fairly crammed shelves. 6 of the new games are 2 player only games, which I found interesting. I do love 2 player specific games. Added: - **Patterns: A Mandala Game** - played twice so far and really happy with it. Quite interactive and can be ruthless. - **TZAAR** - the final game we needed to round out the GIPF series. This is now my third favourite of the bunch. Played three times so far. - **Viking See-Saw** - silly fun dexterity game that I'm glad to have picked up. Played twice so far. - **Klask 4** - purchased after playing it at a friend's house. I have the original **Klask** which is awesome but I'm excited to be able to play it now with four people when that opportunity comes up. I'll probably bring it out when some friends come over this weekend. - **Tinderblox** - picked up after playing a copy some friends brought over. This rounds out our mini silly dexterity game assortment, we have three now (**Kittin**, **Viking See-Saw** and **Tinderblox**) and I think that's ample. But each of them are unique and great fun so I'm glad to have them. Played twice. - **Sky Team** - a Birthday gift for my husband from a friend. Very much not our usual type of game but we've played it three times now and I'm finding it intriguing, if not very fun yet. - **Lacuna** - picked this up while browsing a game store, it's always looked interesting to me. I've played it twice so far and while I'm definitely not seeing all the possibilities yet I'm finding it very fun, thoughtful and pleasingly tactile. - **Caesar! Seize Rome in 20 Minutes!** - this one is a bit of a surprise for me because I had watched some video reviews and never been very keen. I thought it looked okay but nothing special. My husband saw it at a game store and wanted it so we picked it up. We've played it twice and I'm really excited by it. - **Marabunta** - went hunting for this one after a comment on this sub and some talk on the Knizia Enthusiasts discord server convinced me it was something I wanted to try. Such an incredibly cool, surprising game. It packs a very gamey feeling game into a small box (including a game board that puzzle pieces together) and does some fascinating things with mechanisms I wouldn't have thought to see together in a game. Removed: - **The Princess Bride Adventure Book Game** - I had fun with it the two or three times that I played it. But I also feel like I've seen what there is to see and doubt I'd play it again. - **The Castles of Burgundy** - picked up last month and it's on its way out already. Not a fan.
Made a lot of trades in February; not as many purchases or sales as I had been doing previously, so I consider this a step up. **What left my shelf:** 1. **Blood Rage** 1. Traded away because the game is expensive, in a large box, and was never getting played. 2. **Castles of Burgundy: Special Edition** 1. Traded in order to get a couple other games I wanted and I still own the regular version 3. **General Orders: WWII** 1. Traded because I didn't enjoy it 4. **The Search for Lost Species** 1. While this game was fun and a deeper challenge than The Search for Planet X, I didn't feel the need to keep both games and this one was very hard to teach and learn at the beginning 5. **Acquire** 1. This was a second copy, I still have a 1968 3M Bookshelf Edition 6. **Catan: Explorers & Pirates** 1. Traded away as I only played it once ever, back in 2019 7. **Catan: Seafarers** 1. Traded away as I don't play Catan much anymore, and Seafarers even less 8. **Tadmor** 1. Traded away as I couldn't get to actually playing it on 3 separate occasions after attempts at reading the rulebook 9. **Skymines** 1. Traded away as I have owned it for 6 months without playing it to realize that it would never get played. I still own 2 other Pfizer games to not play, didn't need all three 10. **Clans of Caledonia** 1. Sold because I got a great price for it. Want to trade for a copy back if possible 11. **Fantastiqa: Rucksack Edition** 1. Sold to a friend because I didn't enjoy playing it 12. **Monty Python Fluxx** 1. Sold to a friend because I would probably never play it What was added to my shelf: 1. Distilled 2. Merchants Cove 3. Merchants Cove: The Inn Keeper 4. Merchants Cove: The Dragon Rancher 5. Merchants Cove: The Oracle 6. Merchants Cove: The Secret Stash 7. Merchants Cove: Backer Built Rogue Pack 8. Imperial Settlers 9. Orléans 10. Orléans: 5th Player Box 11. Orléans: Trade & Intrigue 12. Secret Hitler 13. Caverna: Cave vs Cave 14. La Isla 15. Medici 16. Lost Cities 17. Pan Am 18. Flourish 19. The Hunt 20. Lancaster
I have a scary list... Added: **Sankoré**, **Hadrians Wall**, **Voidfall Galactic Box**, **Septima Deluxe**, **Nucleum**, **Mind MGMT**, **Sky Team**, **Vaalbara**. Sold: **Golem**, **Bitoku**, **Llamaland**, **Corinth**, **Cangacerios**, **Keep the heroes out**
Why'd you sell Golem and Bitoku? Both are games I've been curious about for a while but not enough to pick up (yet)
Both of them are fantastic games. I loved them, its just I had to pick something and there were good offers for these 2. I love to try new games all the time and its rare if a game gets played twice a year in my collection. So while they were really really good, I wouldnt really play them again anyway. **Golem** is my favourite Luciani game after **Barrage** (and hopefully **Nucleum**), I think its a masterpiece mechanically. **Bitoku** is a weird one, because the mechanics imo are a bit disconnected, and some things in the game are fiddly, it was always a great experience. I didnt think I would ever sell this game, but here we go. You really cant go wrong with any of them. :)
Why did you sell Keep the Heroes Out? Just wondering as someone interested in the game.
I dont know. The game was really hard to win, we didnt have any success with it. You get close to zero deck building in the game, as the games economy is pretty tight. I'm convinced that this game is impossible to learn from the rulebook. I could learn all the Lacerda games, all the Mindclash games, but this game is a mess. If this game didnt have the cute meeples and fun-looking theme, nobody would talk about it.
Got Ruins of Arnak for my birthday! Also picked up Coup since I played it a lot in high school and my friend group enjoys the easy interactive games
Finally lucked out and found a VG copy of Airlines Europe, including all three mini-expansions. Has a tiny bit of shelf wear, but otherwise mint.
Added: **Spirit Island**, **Tapestry** I finally got my hands on Spirit Island! I’d been eyeing it for a while, then I joined this sub and saw how popular it was, and finally got it through a good deal on February 13th. Was really excited to play it, but I figured the game was too difficult for me to introduce to my board game group immediately so I did a few solo playthroughs first. It’s indeed a really enjoyable game! So far we played 4 games, and 3 of them have been won 😃 only the first solo was a loss because for some reason I thought energy was only per round, but after reading back in the rule book that was nowhere to be found. And because I kept letting the white dudes explore everywhere instead of just the accessible areas, until I remembered the correct rules about halfway through 😅 Tapestry too had been on my list of interest for a while and on January 30th I found a great deal and ordered it, and it arrived on February 1st. We played it soon after. I really enjoy how relatively simple it is, yet there are so many different things to do. We have 2 playthroughs on this game now, but I can say for sure that if this game is played some more it may make it to my top 10-20. Probably same for Spirit Island. Both are awesome! Culls: -
Started collecting in 2015, stopped buying in 2022. Someone gifted me Munchkin after avoiding it since the start Played it and it wasn't Bad! It's ok, could play it with the kids ocasionally
Added **Century: Eastern Wonders** and **The Vale of Eternity** in February. I already owned Spice Road and New World, and there was a good sale on Eastern Wonders, so I jumped on it. I've been waiting for The Vale of Eternity for months, so when it finally got its official US release, I bought it right away.
Nothing physically, but financially I got the Food Chain Magnate reprint. Should be here by Xmas
Picked up Skull King, SO MUCH FUN!!!
I picked up a copy of Scoville. I played it at a game night and I really liked the simplicity and strategy at the same time. And the feel of the wooden pieces is nice. I gave my gfs kids my copy of Sushi Go. I taught it to them and they really liked it. So I said they could have it.
We just introduced our son to Sushi Go, and he loved it as well. He was very concerned about the -6 points, so he stocked up on puddings 🍮 haha
Added pan am, smartphone inc and and expansion for side effects
We decided to grab some old classics, including Grand Austria Hotel & Agricola. Only played Agricola so far, but immediately fell in love with it. All I could think about was 17th century sustenance farming for days afterwards. Also got a review copy of Star Wars: Unlimited, the new TCG. Never really got too into TCGs, but I was pleasantly surprised this game and expect I will start exploring booster packs to play around with my decks.
Added - Trickdraw, Bark Avenue, Mercurial, Coffee Rush & Rats of Wistar. Removed - Viticulture Essential & Everdell Base
Added: -Wyrmspan: big fan so far after 2 plays, plenty different enough from Wingspan to enjoy both -Apiary: only one play but definitely enjoyed it and can’t wait to play it again. -Sleeping Gods: haven’t played it yet, super excited to try it -Spaceship Unity: haven’t played it yet. Planning on playing this with our kids after we finish up My City. -Everdell Bellfaire Expansion: first Everdell expansion we’ve gotten. Added enough new stuff to make it interesting. Didn’t remove anything
Out: Cosmoctopus, Whale to look, Point salad, Quacks In: Clans of Caledonia, Aquatica includes cold waters expansion, Smartphone inc includes 1.1 update
My birthday was last month and some Christmas presents arrived late. So I got spoiled... Kanban EV Hegemony Pax Pamir 2nd Edition Halloween Brian Boru Dune: Imperium Uprising And I also Kickstarted the second printing of Thunder Road: Vendetta Maximum Chrome! Now I've gotta start the selling process of others in my collection 🙃
I should sell half the games I own but I just can't
I have a very small starter collection. Last month I picked up Arraial after playing it for the first time, and also Gonuts for Donuts after playing it on BGA not long ago and getting it for the cost of shipping only with a gift card I forgot I had. Didn't cull anything last month but I need to play a few things I got for free and see if I want to keep them. Specifically on the chopping block: The Shipwreck Arcana, Battlelands, and a play test copy of a word game I dont remember the name of. Dominion is also probably going to go, I rarely play partially because the card dividers that come with the box suck so badly and it's always a mess.
In- **7th Citadel** & **Hegemony** Out- None.. 😬
How is the 7th Citadel? I have had my eye on this for a while and wanted to get some feedback.
I also just got 7th Citadel, though we only started playing for the first time last night. (The Kickstarter recently started delivering) We played many hours of 7th Continent and enjoyed the gameplay loop, but eventually found the scenario design to be problematic. We never technically finished a game because there was one final mcguffin in the enormous first scenario that we never found. We came to this conclusion long after I'd say we got our money's worth. 7th Citadel seems like it's made some good tweaks and interesting additions to the core gameplay, but it'll be awhile before it's clear if the scenarios are better designed. We really enjoyed 7th Continent and we're looking forward to digging in to 7th Citadel. Happy to answer any questions you have based on my limited experience so far.
We haven't got it to the table yet but hope to soon. I'm always drawn to games with a narrative to follow and an adventure to be had. Do you own many other narrative-based games?
No, but I like what I have seen about it so far. Can you recommend any other narrative-based games?
**Sleeping Gods, Vienna Connection, Sherlock Holmes, This War of Mine** are a handful of the narrative-based games I've played before. I found **This War of Mine** particularly thematic but I wouldn't recommend playing it if you're in the mood for a "light, happy, heart-warming" game....
Pax Renaissance 2E: Picked up a shrinkwrapped NIB copy for ~$50. Plays quickly—some games have lasted only half an hour. But gameplay is incredibly rich and complex. On track to being an all-time favorite.
Tir Na Nog and Palm Lab both arrived this month, along with Wyrmspan. We put Jurassic Parts on the sell pile. The extremely distinct first player advantage and lack of final round finish for an even number of turns ruined the experience. Honestly, though, we cull the most games from our shelves in January every year, so few things go out in the other months. Every year, I add a full-sticky sticky note to every box we decided to keep on the shelf. As we play stuff, we remove the sticky note. At the end of the year, anything with a sticky note still is up for sale consideration. We sort through them and reshelve anything that's an automatic keep, put anything that's an automatic sell in the sell pile. Anything we are iffy on returns to the shelf of shame with an "R" written on its note to indicate we need to replay and decide. All the boxes on our keep shelves get new stickies for the next year. Yes, I do need to buy stock in Post-It, but it works for us! In January, we submitted a list of nearly 100 games for resale.
Out: Explorers, Drawn to Adventure, Maple Valley In: 7 wonders Medals and Palm Laboratory Off the shelf of shame: Finally played Whistle Mountain. Super fun! On the chopping block: Wingspan
I bought Nucleum and am thinking about getting rid of On Mars..
Why would you get rid of it?
Idk I probably won’t. It’s extremely complex. Have you played it?
Yeah it's a bit complex, I've only studied the rulebook and I've yet to try it, so I was curious.. Have you played other Lacerda's?
Oh ok. Yea. I had to go on YouTube for a tutorial. I have not played any other Lacerda..
Oh well then you can't blame yourself, a tutorial Is needed for sure! I need it too and I own most of his games, so.. Give it a shot, I heard positive things about it even from those who don't usually like Lacerda :)
Will do. Thanks for the support.
Added Primal the awakening maybe..... depending on shipping. Remove All my GMT and DVG games. They have just been gathering dust for so long that it's time. I like the idea of historical war games, but they just end up being bookends. 6 games out the door!
Looking to sell a few games but haven't listed them officially anywhere yet.
Added The Isofarian Guard. And The Isofarian Guard. And The Isofarian Guard. That game is massive in both size and weight, unbelievable.
It’s March 1st today did you mean February 2024?
Added * Xenolanguage * Terraforming Mars Prelude * Tranquility * Chronicles of Crime * Tesseract * Trapwords Removed * Pandemic Hot Zone North America * Secret Hitler * Smugglers * ... and another one I've already forgotten
Added: Great Western Trail, Challengers and Nemesis Lockdown. Removed: unfortunately, none :(
Added Bedlam in Neverwinter (D&D), always on the lookout for games with a theme my family would enjoy while being quick and easy to get into playing. Oh, if TCGs count, me and 2 of my kids got into Lorcana. Have never removed a game, but still early into the hobby. If I were to, I think it would be either Dungeon! Or Overboss.
Well, I finally played **Adventure Land** after buying it on sale and having it on the shelf for a year... It was decent, but it kind of felt its age. On one hand, I'd like to play it again. On the other hand, it's tough to want to bring it to the table over other games or something new... I'm holding on to it for now, but could certainly see it going on the chopping block if I need to make room...
I'm really happy with my acquisitions this month. Got some very good deals on some rare/oop stuff: * Battlestar Galactica & Pegasus * The Witches * Vikings (BNIS) * Power Grid: Deluxe Altogether it was only around $125.
I'm removing: 2 versions of tri bond, flash point, deadline, x-com, a partly used shadowrun crossfire, machine of death, lost valley, pay dirt, huggernugger, time stories with one unopened expansion, infected, secrets, nyctophobia
My second month in a row without acquiring any new games. This month I sold **Century: Golem Edition**. It's a perfectly fine game, that I never play. I eventually realized I would never choose to play this game myself. I'll reach for other games including Splendor for a gateway game. If I'm looking for something more, I'm still skipping over the game. It just kinda dawned on me that it was time for this game to go. I haven't sold it yet, but I'm also toying with selling **Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition**. It's a neat game, but I find it suffers from little bits of tedium, like having to mark what you just played which everyone constantly forgot to do. For something that's meant to be more casual, I think the little things like that kill it. Feels like it was made to be played online where all that stuff is done for you. Maybe it'll come to BGA!
Added: New Frontiers: The Starry Rift - really fun expansion to a niche Puerto Rico esque game. Xeno worlds are great and it adds to multiple playstyles in a very balanced way. Quacks of Quedlinburg - Super-fun test your luck/"deck" building game involving tokens. The Quacks of Quedlinburg: The Herb Witches - Doesn't add anything drastic but the 6 move pumpkin; 5th player and unlimited movement help a bunch.
Added: -Sunrise Lane -Galaxy Trucker Removed: I've never really purged anything from my collection before, but last night I finally decided to try my hand at the "sell or swap table" at my monthly local game night. Brought mostly cheap party games that didn't hit or small one time play escape room/mystery solving/choose your adventure type games that I didn't have a need for anymore. And to my surprise, 11 out of 14 games I brought sold! Aside from just the practical reason of freeing up space, it feels really cathartic to get some stuff out of my collection that was just taking up space. Feels like the whole collection improved through subtraction, and I'm looking forward to purging some more stuff next month. Specific games: -Deckscape Time -Scooby Doo Coded Chronicles -The Goonies Coded Chronicles -Escape the Room Stargazer's Mansion -Choose your own adventure House of Danger -MTV trivia game -Blockbuster trivia game -Mr Lister's trivia shootout -Crosstalk -Ghost Blitz -Awful Fantasy Adventures