Those who follow me on social media know that I’ve been playing a lot of games online, namely Board Game Arena. I am still not comfortable resuming my weekly game nights at my place, which bums me out as now I have a lot more space in our new house. One game that I’ve discovered on BGA — and have never heard of before until a few months ago — is Cinco.
Cinco is a quick end-of-night filler game that my friends and I have all enjoyed playing online. Think Connect 4 but with 5! Plus, fivefold more strategy than Connect 4. It plays about 15 minutes and worth checking out online.
In Cinco, you’re first dealt a hand of 4 cards. The cards go from 1 to 90, and when it’s your turn, you can either play a card, draw a card, or exchange your entire hand of cards if you have exactly 4 cards in your hand.
When you play a card, you place a marker on the board, which is this numbered hexagon, on any space the value of the card or higher. So, if you play a 65, you can place your marker on the 65 or any open space higher than that. When you select a card to play on your turn, the BGA interface actually shows you where you can place a marker. When you or your team connect five markers in a row, you win!
The 1 and 2 are valuable cards, because you can place the almost anywhere on the board.
You can play Cinco with up to 6 people, either two groups of 3 players, or three groups of pairs. We’ve enjoyed it as a 4P, as you play in two teams. You have no idea what cards your teammate holds, so it’s always so satisfying unknowingly working together to maximize your five-in-a-row options.
Cards can also become wild if you play it and that number and all the numbers above it have markers on them. It’s sometimes strategic to fill up the higher numbered spaces to make one card you have in your hand wild. Having a hand-size limit of 4 cards though really makes the game tight. You should always try to have the most cards in your hand, but sometimes you have to play a card to block your opponent — and even more painful if it’s a low-numbered card — instead of being able to draw on your turn.
Lastly, it’s also advantageous to hold on to really low numbers because you’ll be able to use them for almost any space, and they can be placed in the tough-to-reach center of the hexagon. For a game I’ve never heard of a few months ago, Cinco has quickly been one of our go-to games each game night.
And this was the end. I could not stop the black player from getting five in a row. *Yells Cinco! into the void*
We’ve made it to the ninth month of 2020, folks! Pat yourselves on the back. It’s been a busy two months for me, as I’ve been moving and undertaking some home projects in between organizing boxes and boxes of board games. I am seriously never, ever moving again.
In all honesty, I haven’t had much bandwidth or time to play a heavy game recently. I’m hoping to get back into that soon. In the meantime, a shorter game I’ve been truly enjoying is Pan Am, which plays in about 60 minutes.
I’ve been really enjoying my games of Pan Am recently.
It has all the elements I enjoy: worker-placement, bidding and route building (and blocking!), all packaged in a gorgeous game. And for a company that hasn’t existed for almost 30 years, that iconic logo immediately transports you to the golden age of flying. And with my personal travel in short supply these days, it’s fun to travel the world via the beautiful destination cards that the game comes with.
In Pan Am, players are competing to build a network of air travel. They’re bidding for airport landing rights, purchasing planes that fly longer ranges, claiming routes, and buying Pan Am stock. You’re also trying to create favorable routes in order for Pan Am to purchase them at a profit so you can invest in growth for your company.
There are a couple of event cards for each round to randomly choose from when creating your event desk. It creates a unique game each time!
The game plays for seven rounds, and at the start of each round, an event card is drawn. These events tweak the rules for the round and affect the stock price of Pan Am. The goal of the game is to have the most Pan Am stock, and while it’s good to purchase the stock early while the price is still low, you usually don’t have enough income to do so.
The stock price of Pan Am will fluctuate throughout the game. Best to get it early — if you can afford it!
For our 2P game, you start with 5 engineers (this number varies based on player count), and you take turns placing one engineer on action locations on the board. Some of these locations have numbers on it, so placing your engineer indicates your bid for that action. Another player on a future turn can outbid you by placing their engineer on a higher-valued spot in that location. Your engineer is then returned to you to place somewhere else, or at a higher-valued spot in that original location on your turn. All the locations with a bid can only have one winner on it when resolving.
In our 2P game, players start with 5 engineers, 2 destination cards, one hidden directive card, 3 planes and $12.
Other locations, like routes, resolve in placement order and don’t require a bid. This makes claiming routes especially tight as your opponent may want to build before you and foil your plans. To build a route between two cities, you’ll need landing rights either by having an airport in one of the cities you’re connecting, having the city’s destination card in your hand, discarding a card in your hand from the same region as one of the cities you’re connecting, or discarding two cards from the same region that’s different than the one you’re connecting. Lastly, you’ll need a plane from your fleet that can fly the route between the two cities. You place the plane on that route and then your income increases by how long the route was.
I absolutely love the bidding mechanism of this game. Even though I’ve only played this game as a 2P, it makes all your actions extremely tight and tense. Players might be fighting for that one destination card that satisfies the route they want to build, or maybe you’ll spend your action to be the first to build a route this round. You have to keep an eye out for what your opponents are planning!
There are always four destination cards in play, and players must bid on the card they want to take into their hand.
The last location that hasn’t been mentioned is Directives. This allows players to draw a directive card, which gives them a one-time or end-game bonus and can be powerful when played during the right phase. This location also allows your engineer to get Priority Access during the next round, meaning you’ll get to place your pawn first before the first player takes their turn.
Directive cards offer bonuses and are kept secret from other players.
Once everyone places their engineers, you resolve each location in order, paying your bid if you need to. If you’re unable to pay your bid, you have to sell back any Pan Am stock you have at half price to gain some money for the bid.
The last phase of each round is the Pan Am phase. This is where Pan Am expands along one of its route, hopefully hitting a route you’ve already built so you can sell it to them. When you sell them a route, you get a payout based on how large it is and your plane is returned to your fleet. Your income, however, does go down, but the nice profit bump is well worth it. Players then get their income and move onto the next round. The player with the most Pan Am stock after seven rounds wins.
Here’s Pan Am expanding along its South America route.
Pan Am is super enjoyable, and the artwork is just delightful to look at. The game is widely available at Target for about $30. And while I personally am not flying anywhere in the near future, I can dream of faraway locations to visit while playing this game.
We are officially almost through the seventh month of 2020 — also known as the longest decade ever — and it’s times like these when I get nostalgic for a much simpler time. A time when kids could actually go over to their friends’ houses and play in their yard, a time when kids, pizzas and toys ruled.
Fort, now available on preorder from Leder Games, is a game that takes you back to that time — complete with endearing and whimsical artwork. This unique deckbuilder is all about recruiting friends and building forts, and it plays 2-4 players in about 20-40 minutes.
Fort includes four sturdy player boards and a score tracker.
The game box is compact, but it has a lot of neat components in it. The player boards are made of thick cardboard with cutouts to place your pizza, toy and fort tokens in. I love it when player boards do this as it eliminates the accidental swipe of pieces with certain body parts. The cards are glossy, sturdy and colorful, and just a delight to hold in your hand. The game also comes with made-up rule cards and perk cards, which are smaller in size but also made up of the same glossy card stock. Lastly, there’s a scoreboard to keep in the middle of the table and marks the park area for the game.
I love how the tokens fit nicely into the player board.
And then there’s the top-notch artwork from Kyle Ferrin, whose artwork has created the enchanting world found in Leder games. The kid cards come in all types and colors, and they’re are just so fun to play with. I mean, who doesn’t want to play with Puddin? She seems so sassy!
How freakin’ adorable are these kid cards?
So back to the game. On your turn, you play one card, and sometimes you can add extra cards of the same suit (there are six suits in the game) to improve some actions. The one card you played has a public action, which other players can follow, and a private action, which is something only you can do.
Actions on the card range from gaining resources to put into your stuff or your pack, adding cards to your lookout, recruiting friends, or upgrading your fort. The amount of items that can sit in your lookout or pack depends on the size of your fort.
The goal of the game is to upgrade your fort to a level 5, and you’ll have to spend resources to do so when you use an action card that allows you to upgrade it.
The private or public action can be played in any order, and then players can follow your public action if they spend a card matching the suit of the active card. Once that’s done, the active player recruits a kid card from the park, which always has three face-up cards in it, or from their yard or an opponent’s yard.
If you build your level 5 fort, you gain the macaroni sculpture card, triggering the last round of the game.
Then, all your played cards and your best friends — the kid cards with stars on them that you start with at the beginning of the game — go into your discard pile. The unplayed cards are then placed at the top of your player board, putting them in danger of being recruited by others! There’s something a little heartbreaking about the Rocket Bros being taken by your opponent but that’s sometimes how life goes.
Lastly, you draw five cards from your deck. If you can’t draw five cards, you shuffle your discard pile to make a new draw deck. When it’s your turn again, you first clear out your yard of kid cards not taken by others and place them into your discard pile.
Play with your friends close! Don’t let them start wandering into other players’ yards!
I love the mechanism of following the leader’s action. It allows you to take extra actions when it’s not your turn and reduce the amount of cards left over at the end of your actual turn. Both of these mechanisms — hand management and the follow action — are what elevates Fort from your standard deckbuilder. It keeps all players engaged throughout the entire game.
Fort is based on designer Grant Rodiek’s game SPQF from 2018. I love the retheme and update to it, and I think many others will, too. And even though I’ve only had a chance to play this game as a two-player, the game still had plenty of memorable moments. I can’t wait to get this on table with more people when it’s safe to play with other people again.
Thanks Leder Games for sending me a copy of this game!
Truth be told, it’s been a little difficult being inspired to write while we’ve been on lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic. But in light of recent events and protests erupting across America, it’s important to take a stance. #blacklivesmatter. Period. There is so much racial injustice happening all over — it’s heartbreaking, and serious change needs to happen. We must do better.
Here in the board gaming community, we can listen, we can educate ourselves, we can speak out against racism and microaggressions, we can create a safe gaming space, and we can amplify black board game designers, artists and creators.
Rap Godz, designed by Omari Akil and Hamu Dennis, came out this year.
Omari Akil is a cofounder of Board Game Brothas and the lead designer of Rap Godz, a game about becoming a hip-hop artist. In this article written by Omari, he discussed how few black board gamers he encounters in the hobby — and even fewer game designers — and he wanted to change that.
I first encountered Rap Godz through my partner Chris who received his copy a few months ago. Chris enjoyed playing a demo of it at a local Unpub event in North Carolina in 2018 and ordered the game when it hit Kickstarter. We’ve had so much fun playing it since, often jamming along with one of our rap playlists!
This is hands down one of the most unique and colorful games I’ve ever played.
Rap Godz is a 2-4 player game that plays in about 60 minutes. Each player plays as an up-and-coming rapper trying to take over cities, hit career goals and earn the most record-sales plaques through three albums.
The whole board is laid out like a giant turntable, with crossfader markers indicating which album and track players are on. The entire game is three albums’ worth, with five tracks — or turns — for each album. That’s fifteen turns for everyone, which leaves a short amount of time to go platinum! Painted grooves on the record represent the three resource tracks: swag, skillz and street.
Turn up that track! Isn’t this crossfader piece just so cool?
On a player’s turn, they get a card and play a card. To get a card, they can draw one from the current album deck or discard three cards to grab one of the face-up Come Upz cards.
Cards give you resources and plaques. The ones with a lock and key can only be played if you’ve reached or passed that number on the resource track.
Players then play a card from their hand in front of them and create a timeline of their career. Played cards dole out plaques and resources to the player. Some cards though feature a lock and key, and players cannot play that card until they have equal to or more than the number of resources shown in the lock.
Players can also instead play a Beef card. When they do this, they pick another rapper to start beef with, roll their die and the red die. The other person rolls their die. The player with the highest number on a single die wins the beef. The loser puts the Beef card into their timeline and hands over resources and plaques on the Beef card to the winner. The winner collects a red Beef cube, which can help score an objective at the end of the game.
Do you have enough swag, skillz and street to be the top rapper?
As players cross resource thresholds on the record, they collect Pick Upz tokens, which gives resource, beef or card bonuses and can be used for a later time. The goal of the game is to score objectives by collecting Goalz, Citiez (each city has a different objective such as having the most Yellow cards in your timeline) and the most plaques. The player who has the most points after three albums is the Rap God.
The Goalz (pictured) and Citiez end-game scoring conditions change with each game.
The game has lots of replay value, as the Goalz and Citiez objectives change every game, and the interaction between the players by starting beefs always makes for a fun time. You also have 24 characters — and their distinct abilities and end-game scoring objectives — to choose from, and even Troopers and Cthudus want to be rappers!
The unique theme and components set this game apart. The game comes with a hefty gold medallion to indicate the first player, and I enjoy how the game ramps up with phased in album and Come Upz cards. Giving otherwise regular resource tracks a unique look is pretty creative. I also love and appreciate the diversity of artwork and experiences represented on the game cards.
I love the diversity of the artwork, including the range of looks on these female POCs.
One of the biggest things I’ve been an advocate for is representation in the board gaming community. Often, whenever I walk into a room at a game convention, there aren’t many people who look like me, and I want to see more people of color break into and thrive in this hobby I love. And we can do our part by taking action and fostering a more diverse and inviting community.
This review of backgammon was featured on Episode 85 of The Five By. Check out the rest of the episode, which also features Raiders of the North Sea, Snow Tails, Banned Books and Orleans.
Every so often, I’m watching a movie or TV show and a backgammon set shows up. I immediately pause the program to examine whether they’re playing correctly or it’s just being used as a prop.
For myself personally, backgammon for many, many years was just a game that existed. A game that people always randomly had in their house, probably a gift from their grandparents or a friend. It’s a game I’m surprised that a lot more people don’t know how to play, considering how old it is. It’s ancient — with its roots tracing back to nearly 5,000 years in Mesopotamia. I finally learned the game as an adult, and it has been one of my absolute favorites ever since. I keep my set in my car so I can bust it out at any time. And people, I have.
Backgammon is a classic two-player game that combines strategy and luck. It’s played on a board, often built into a mini little suitcase, and two players sit across from each other. Each player has fifteen pieces, also known as checkers, two dice in their matching color and a dice cup. Players must move all their checkers around the board in one direction into their home area, which then they can start bearing off the pieces.
This is the opening setup for backgammon.
The problem is: your opponent is moving in the opposite direction and can hit you, forcing your checker to start its journey home all over again by entering at your opponent’s home board, which is the farthest area from your home board.
When you open your case, you’ll see the board is made up of 24 long points, which look like long skinny triangles, and the board is divided into four quadrants. For the purposes of this review, I’ll call the points spaces instead so it doesn’t sound like we’re constantly talking about victory points this entire time. Checkers sit on a space and move in a horseshoe pattern around the board. Your home board is the set of 6 spaces closest to you, and your opponent plays the mirror image of the same board. Each quadrant on the board has exactly 6 spaces each.
There is a standard setup for the checkers at the start of the game, then players begin by rolling one die each, and the player with the higher die goes first. They move their piece or pieces exactly according to what’s rolled, in one direction toward their home board. For example, if a 2 and 4 were rolled, the player moves one piece two spaces, and another piece four spaces, or they may move the same piece two spaces and then four spaces.
To be able to move into a space, it has to be empty, or have your checkers sitting in it, or just one checker of your opponent’s sitting in it. If there are two or more checkers of your opponents sitting on the space, it is blocked and you cannot land there.
This is the white player’s opening move, moving one piece 5 spaces and another piece 1 space.
If there is one checker sitting there that belongs to your opponent and you decide to move in, their piece gets knocked off and goes to the bar, which is usually the middle fold of the case. Your opponent must then roll into an open space in your home board, which has their starting spaces.
On future turns, players take turns back and forth, plopping their two matching dice into their own dice cup and rolling. Players continue until one person bears off all their checkers from their home board. A player cannot start bearing off their checkers until they’re all in their home board, and even then, the player must be able to roll high enough to get them off the board. The first player to complete that is the winner.
There is a lot of back and forth in this game, and while it’s true that a couple of bad rolls could set you far behind, there is strategy in how you move your pieces. You want to move them in pairs, so that no one checker is sitting by itself, practically inviting your opponent to come hit you. You also need to understand when to make a run for it, moving all your checkers past your opponent. Sometimes, it’s advantageous to keep a few behind so that you can hit your opponent when the opportunity presents itself.
There’s also something to be said about building a wall of defense in your home board, so that if you do hit an opponent’s piece, they will have a hard time rolling into their starting area because you’ve blocked off many of their opening spaces
There is also the thing about doubles. Rolling doubles will result in four actions of that same number. For example, a roll of two 6’s is very powerful because you get 6 points of movement — four times!
Most of the game you’re hoping for doubles, while taunting your opponent by rage-shaking your dice cup near their face. It’s very fun.
This doubling cube can raise the stakes on your game.
For those who want to raise the stakes, try using the doubling cube. The doubling cube is a marker representing what the two players are betting. It begins at 64 at the start of the game, and when one player is feeling lucky in their progress, they can move it to 2, meaning if they’re playing for dimes, the winner will now be receiving 20 cents instead.
The other player can agree to the 2 or just end the game and pay the 10 cents. The doubling cube’s sides double from 2 to 4 to 8 to 16 to 32 to 64. Players have to take turns increasing the doubling cube; the same player cannot keep raising the stakes of the game.
If your opponent wins the game, and you haven’t taken a single checker off the board, you’ve been gammoned, and this doubles the stakes. If your opponent wins, and you still have a checker on the bar or in the home board of your opponent, then you’ve been backgammoned — and this triples the stakes. I’ve seen some epic games where someone had been backgammoned and paid a hefty sum to the winner!
I’ve had my backgammon set for years and it shows! I must’ve purchased this for less than $10 at Target many, many years ago. It has been great to me.
In all, backgammon is a quick, fun 2-player game that’s easily transportable and you can pretty much play anywhere. It has a self contained playing area with its suitcase setup. It’s also very easy to find an inexpensive copy, and chances are there are even a few sets at Goodwill. Just make sure all fifteen checkers are included.
And that’s backgammon. This is Meeple Lady for The Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as Meeple Lady, or on my website, boardgamemeeplelady.com. May you always roll doubles, and I’ll see you at the bar! Thanks for listening. Bye!
My oh my, how much life has changed in the past few weeks. I hope this blog post finds you all healthy and safe — and with enough toilet paper! Yeah, I still don’t understand why people are hoarding that.
I’m now entering my third week of working from home, and, if I’m being honest, the extrovert in me had a really tough time in the beginning not being able to hang out with coworkers and friends on the daily.
Me, working from home, my board games keeping me company.
Sure, I take my daily walks outside with my dog and then my partner comes home from his workday, but it’s really not the same when you can’t do all your favorite activities because of social distancing. Even my weekly game nights have been canceled in order to stay healthy and not catch the coronavirus.
So what have I been doing in the meantime? We’ve all jumped online.
I wrote about online gaming years ago, but now we are knee deep in it. Our current gaming workflow has been logging into boardgamearena.com and a Discord channel so that we can all talk to each other while we game. Though, just an hour ago, my buddy said that premium members can now activate the voice chat room on BGA. I’m very excited to try this out next time we game!
BGA has a bunch of games, and most are free. To play the rest of the games, you’ll need a premium membership, which is $4 a month. I like having access all the games and I feel like I’m doing my small part to keep the website running in tiptop shape now that we’re all online.
Some of the games I’ve been playing are Sushi Go, Takenoko, 6 Nimmt, Caylus, Race for the Galaxy and, of course, backgammon.
Who doesn’t love cute sushi? My girlfriends and I have been playing Sushi Go online.
I love how I’ve been playing with my gaming groups as well as my girlfriends, whom I all made sign up on BGA for the first time. Every online session with friends makes me feel a little bit more human during these uncertain times.
Luckily for me, my partner also likes to play games. We’ve been playing games that don’t take up a lot of table space, as my workstation has taken over half of the dining table. I’m home all the time now, but I have less space to bust out that giant Lacerda. Talk about bad timing!
Recently I really enjoyed playing Bruxulles 1897, the card game of Bruxelles 1893. It’s quite enjoyable and equally tight as the original, but with a much smaller footprint.
Bruxelles 1897 is a card game worthy of its predecessor Bruxelles 1893.
So what games have you all been playing, and what are some of the new routines life has foisted upon you? Also, is it too soon to play Pandemic? What about Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu, my favorite iteration of the game?
Anyway, here’s hoping the state of the world improves quickly. Stay well, avoid others, wash your hands, and practice self-care and check in with your friends. We’re all in this together!
This profile on the Tyson Wells Game Store is part of an ongoing series about Friendly Local Game Stores I’ve visited. Read other profiles here.
In the Arizona desert, just before the California border, sits the town of Quartzsite, which has a population of nearly 3,700. Folks driving into California often make a pit stop there as it’s about 2 hours west of the Phoenix area.
The Tyson Wells Game Store is open seven days a week.
Quartzsite is mostly known as a snowbird destination, as the town’s small population swells to about 250,000 during the winter seasons.
Snowbirds — people who move to warm weather locales during the winter — set up camp in their RVs and enjoy the town’s famous rock and gem shows, and vendor fairs. Most surprising, visitors can also purchase their favorite board games at the Tyson Wells Game Store.
This side of the store has a lot of new releases.
The Tyson Wells Game Store stocks over 2,500 games, and the selection is vast and top-notch — everything from new and Kickstarter releases, as well as old favorites and classics. The 2,000-square-foot store also sells miniatures, paint and supplies, and gaming accessories. It’s a board-gaming oasis in the Arizona desert.
Old favorites and classic games are also on store shelves.
The store has two rooms full of games, and it’s something you’d expect in the middle of a large-sized city, not one you’d find on a dusty road surrounded by RV parks.
In addition to the snacks and knick-knacks it also sells, the space is the home base for owner Kym Scott’s many businesses.
“I do rock-gem-mineral shows, arts and crafts shows, RV park and self storage,” he said.
Kym Scott is the owner of the Tyson Wells Game Store.
Scott was born and raised in Quartzsite. He grew up playing games such as Risk and Axis & Allies, and now plays Arcadia Quest, Star Realms, euros and worker placements. “Back when I was growing up here, it was about 400 people,” Scott said.
The store has a large room and one in the back with even more games.
The game store started small about seven years ago when Scott had extra office space. “Then four years ago, I connected with bigger distributors and game publishers and started carrying a full line of games,” he said.
The games in the other half of the back room.
The business is named after Charles Tyson who owned a well nearby during the 1800s called Tyson’s Well. When Scott’s stepfather started the business, he changed it to Tyson Wells. The Sell-A-Rama, Scott’s event where vendors sell their gems, art and jewelry, just wrapped up its 42nd show in January.
Scott is active in the gaming community on both sides of the Arizona-California border, attending meetups in Blythe, California, and Lake Havasu, Arizona. Scott also attends local conventions like Dice Tower West and Arizona Game Fair.
Of course Quartzsite has its own Monopoly game!
Scott said the gaming community in Quartzsite consists of snowbirds from across the U.S. and Canada, and people in RVs. “Because they’re so limited by space and the size of the games,” Scott says his best seller is the card game Five Crowns. Ticket to Ride and Catan are also popular.
Lastly, the best part of owning a game store is “Every time I get a delivery, it’s kind of like Christmas. I get to see all the new games,” Scott said.
Information and photos
Tyson Wells Game Store is located at 121 Kuehn St, Quartzsite, AZ 85346. It’s open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. You can find more information on its Facebook page and website.
My gaming group really loves 18xx games. But since there’s a whole lot of AP during our games, there’s no way we can really play one on a weeknight. Hence, we try to schedule our games on Saturdays as one game seriously takes an entire day for us.
Last Saturday, we punched out and busted a new 18xx game to most of us: 18CZ, set in the Czech Lands. As with most other 18xx games, the purpose of this game is to have the most personal money, and to increase the stock price of companies you own while also owning high-valued stocks.
The game is unique to other 18xx games we’ve played recently as there are a fixed number of rounds. Usually, when players break the bank, that’s when the game ends. In 18CZ, there are eight stock rounds and the number of operating rounds with each stock round increases as the game progresses, culminating in three operating rounds in the last phase. And trains rust after each set of stock round and operating rounds.
The game ends after 8 rounds, which include a stock round and three operating rounds.
But before the game gets started, a pre-stock round occurs where players can purchase private companies. The privates are randomly placed on this board based on their sizes (there are small, medium and large companies), which prices then in increasing order, and players take turns in a snake draft, buying them until they all pass.
These privates provide income to whoever owns them, and they can later only be purchased by a company of the same size or larger. For example, a medium company later cannot buy a large private company. They also provide a one-time use to build a special tile upgrade. Other than purchase price, they’re all identical.
The pre-round for buying private companies in 18CZ.
Small, medium and large sized companies — and their matching sized trains — make up 18CZ. Trains rust immediately when another player purchases a larger train of that type. And it’s printed on the train card itself too as a reminder.
Unlike other 18xx games, when you float your company, it’s fully capitalized. You don’t need to try to convince others to buy into it. But you suddenly flushed with $1,000 in your company coffers if you set its initial stock price at $100. Having all this money is great — you can immediately buy a train or two. But being fully capitalized makes it much, much harder to funnel money into your company when you need to purchase a very expensive train.
You’ll have to withhold payouts to add to your company coffers, which decreases the price of your stock. And unlike some other 18xx, regardless of how much you pay out to stockholders, your stock will jump once, and twice if you’re a large company.
Some of the early trains in 18CZ. How you orient them determines their scope.
Maximum ownership also varies for the different types of companies. Players can have 75% of their small company, and 60% of medium and large companies. Lastly, there’s no bankruptcy in this game.
Starting a large company can’t occur until later in the game. And players get to select their starting location from one of two hexes on the board. This is another neat mechanism of this game. You can start building your network over on this side of the map, but there’s a chance you won’t be able to build that large company near it to connect everything.
Mergers allow you to fold a company of the same size or small into your new company, and you can upgrade your trains this way as well. You can flip the orientation of your current train card or scrap it to get a larger train, and you’ll only have to pay the difference. This was helpful later to acquire larger trains.
Each company comes with fewer station tokens than other 18xx games I’ve played, so you have to be judicial during placement. In other games, you can use one to block another player, but there didn’t seem to be much blocking in this game as you couldn’t afford to waste a station.
Our recent 5P game of 18CZ. You can see from the red hexes that the large companies have been floated.
Our game ended up going for about 6 hours, which seems on par with the box description of 4 hours. My gamer group is slow and methodical, and we usually tack on some extra time to what it says on the box, even though we have cut time by not using actual paper money in the game. We just write everything down in our ledger. I highly recommend it!
I really enjoyed how unique 18CZ is compared with other 18xx games I’ve played recently. There’s a running joke among us saying that we play an 18xx game once and then never return to it. Maybe that pattern will change this year, and we’ll actually play the same 18xx twice! 18CZ is the one I’d totally recommend for that.
For those train folks, what’s your favorite 18xx game?
This review of Push was featured on Episode 78 of The Five By. Check out the rest of the episode, which also features Ingenious, Deep Space D-6, Vindication and Legendary Encounters: Alien.
At first glance, Push looks like an Uno deck. And for full disclosure, Push was a giveaway at BGG 2018, and I didn’t pick it up because it looked very similar to an Uno deck. At the risk of sounding like a board-game snob here, I’m definitely not playing Uno with you. There are plenty of better card games out there, for even the most inexperienced gamers.
It wasn’t until about 6 months later that someone introduced me to Push, and I enjoyed it so much that I immediately purchased a copy. Push, a short card game published by Ravensburger and designed by Prospero Hall, is a game I often travel with because it’s essentially a thick deck of cards and one 6-sided die.
This 25-minute game works well with a midsize group of 2-6, and I love busting it out with new and older gamers alike. The deck has cards ranging from 1 to 6, in five different colors, as well as Switch cards and Roll cards, which I’ll explain later what they do.
The three types of cards in Push — and that very mean die.
On your turn, you draw one card at a time from the deck until you want to stop or you bust! When you draw a card, you must play them into one of three stacks in the middle of the table. The rules for placement in the stacks is that you cannot have the same number or same color in any of the stacks. If there’s a blue 2 already face-up in the center in one stack, you cannot place a 2 of any other color or another blue card into that same stack. As the active player, it’s up to you how you want to build out those stacks. You can even keep them all in one stack if you follow the rules of placement correctly.
The stacks are important because each card contains victory points based on the number on it. If you decide to stop before busting, you select any one of those stacks in play and sort them into your bench in front of you by color. The next person to your left grabs the second stack if there is one, and so forth.
The Switch cards that are drawn during this player’s turn change the direction of who picks the stacks next. Instead of the stack selection going to the player on your left, it now goes to the player to the right and so forth. Switch cards aren’t placed into stacks either; they’re just shown on the side for reference during that active player’s turn.
Cards on your bench as worth victory points at the end of the game. They are, however, not completely safe from the dreaded Push die. If the active player draws a Roll card, they must place it into one of the stacks that already doesn’t have one in it. Roll cards also follow the placement rules like all the other cards.
Which stack do you want? Are you willing to push your luck?
When a player grabs a stack with a roll card in it, they must roll the 6-sided die. Each side of the die has exactly one color on it, and then a black square. Whatever side the die lands, the player loses all of those matching colored cards from their bench. It’s quite devastating when you lose a bunch of points this way! If you roll the black die, all your cards are safe — for the time being.
Also, if you keep drawing and flip over a card that you cannot place, you bust. You also roll the die and you don’t get to pick up a stack. Instead, the next person gets first choice.
Lastly, on your turn, you can choose not to draw cards but instead bank one pile of your colored stacks. If you decide to do this, you flip over those cards and then it’s the next person’s turn. All those cards you’ve flipped over will be safe from the dreaded Push die.
Might be a good idea to bank this yellow pile in your bench on a future turn!
Game play continues until you finish the entire deck. Players calculate their VPs based on the cards that are both in their bench and those banked faced down, and the person with the most VPs wins the game.
For non-heavy gamers, I like to play a variant I created for this game. Instead of placing the Roll card into one of the stacks in front of you on your turn, the active player just rolls the die and faces the consequences. That sense of impending doom adds to the experience, as everyone can relate to that Jack in the Box feeling of will this next card wipe out the 12 points of Red cards you have sitting in front of you. Why, yes, it will. It most definitely will. I like to reserve the option of placing the Roll card into a pile for more experienced gamers.
Even though this looks like Uno, it’s nothing like that game! Push is actually fun!
Push is perfect for a chill night with friends, whether you’re gathering around the bar or dining table chatting. It has a very small footprint so it’s easy to transport. It unfortunately isn’t very color blind friendly, as there aren’t any symbols on the cards to differentiate the various colors.
Other than that, it’s a fun game that is easy to jump into and create lots of laughter and merriment when you egg on the active player by saying, no, no, there’s no way you’re going to bust. And then they do!
And that’s Push! This is Meeple Lady for The Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as Meeple Lady, or on my website boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening! Bye!
Happy 2020, folks! Hope you all have recovered from the hectic holiday season! I know I have! I took one of the longest work breaks for a while as I traveled to Tennessee and Los Angeles to visit family, and then spent a few days at home recovering from all of that. Last year was a year of personal and professional milestones, as well as experiencing joyful memories of seeing friends and loved ones happy and healthy. And, of course, playing lots of board games with all those people!
Without further ado, here are my top 10 board games that I played for the first time in 2019.
10. Gandhi: The Decolonization of British India, 1917 – 1947
Gandhi is Volume IX from GMT’s COIN series, which stands for Counter Insurgency. I do love my COINs, and this one especially stands out. Gandhi takes us to India for a detailed look at the final decades of the British Raj. This is the first COIN to include nonviolent factions, which offer a unique perspective to these types of wargames.
Gandhi is the latest COIN game from GMT Games.
The are four factions: the British Raj, the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League and the Revolutionaries. The Congress and the Muslim League are the two nonviolent factions, and like most other COINs, factions somewhat work together until they don’t in order to meet their win condition. The map is beautifully done, and the game allows wargamers to study this historic period of European imperialism.
9. Gugong
I did a review on Gugong on Episode 58 of The Five By. It is one of those games that caught me by surprise early in 2019 by having a little bit of everything. It has hand management, set collection and worker placement, and plays 1-5 people. In Gugong, the emperor is working hard to ban corruption within the country, and the highest officials of the Forbidden City would pretend to uphold that ban on corruption by accepting gifts from petitioners instead, and returning a gift of a seemingly lower value. Players do this by playing a card from their hand to activate a location on the board.
I love using cards to activate locations in Gugong. It makes you to manage your hand well.
Players in Gugong also have to manage their supply of workers with the general supply, which replenishes at a different rate each round. The components are great, and the game scales for all players, with its two-sided board and solo variant. The game also comes with all sort of meeple shapes for various locations on the board.
8. Just One
Just One is my party game of the year. It’s so simple to jump into, it’s co-op, and it plays up to seven people! You never quite know if word games will be a hit with various gaming groups (I’m looking at you, Codenames), but Just One has never failed me. In Just One, the group is trying to get the active player to guess the clue on the card by writing a single word associated with it. Before the active player opens their eyes, the group reveals their word, and if there are duplicate copies of a clue showing, they are eliminated from being shown to the active player. The active player then opens their eyes to see the remaining clues and tries to guess the word.
Can you guess the clue in our Just One game? If you guessed pole, you’re correct!
I particularly enjoy when the group starts finding their groove after a few clues, and the game evolves into a metagame because people start assuming what everyone else will write based on their personalities. And everyone totally loves having their own dry-erase marker and nameplate to write answers on.
7. Escape Plan
We’ve all watched countless heist films. A group of skilled individuals lay out a plan, execute said plan and grab the loot. And then what’s the saying? The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Well, then shoot, Plan B. Hide the loot and lay low — for now. But now the time is up, and we’ve all got to grab our hidden loot and get out of the city.
Your mission is to escape the police in three days!
Welcome to Escape Plan, designed by one of my absolute favorite game designers Vital Lacerda. Escape Plan picks up right this moment of the heist narrative: players have three days to evade the cops, get their money and get the heck out of the town. This is by far Lacerda’s lightest game, but it’s still just as tense as his other games — and you never, ever have enough actions to do what you want to do. Just remember: don’t get caught.
6. Abomination
Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein is a worker placement game that’s strategic and fun, and, surprisingly, oozes with a unique theme that even a sometimes curmudgeonly eurogamer like me can appreciate. In Abomination, scientists are working in Paris to “collect” muscles, organs, blood and bone, and the occasional animal part when really, really needed it. And I say “collect,” because what you’re really doing is raiding hospitals, morgues, cemeteries and other suspicious Parisian locations for the freshest cadaver parts required to create your very own monster!
Just collecting some body parts in the lovely city of Paris!
The game is great for horror fans and heavier gamers alike but even though the box says 60-120 minutes, I cannot imagine ever getting through a game in under two hours. The 12 rounds take a while — even though there are events or cards that can move the round marker meeple forward — and there are a lot of difficult decisions to make, with decomposition of body parts creeping up on you.
5. The Quacks of Quedlinburg
Quack, quack! And not the bird variety. In The Quacks of Quedlinburg, quack doctors are conjuring up potions by blindly pulling ingredients from their potion bag and adding them to their cauldron. If you don’t bust during a round, you gain VPs as well as the option to purchase new ingredients to throw back into your bag and play a new round.
We are all quack doctors drawing ingredients from a bag to make potions!
This push-your-luck game is super fun and super addicting, and, surely, you won’t bust when you have a 1 in 10 chance of drawing the one ingredient that will cause your cauldron to spill over. But of course, you manage to pull out that exact piece EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I love this game so much that I even purchased the cloth bags and plastic bits for it via the BGG Store even though I rarely deluxify my games. This game is just delightful.
4. Wingspan
We can’t talk about last year without adding Wingspan to this list. This game for me — and what is represents — is peak 2019 inspiration. Seeing a female gamer design her own game based on her own interests with a well-known publisher hit the large stage, take flight and soar — pun intended — is exactly what the board game industry needs more of.
Wingspan is just so lovely to play and look at it. The giant blue bird is something I added to my game though as a first-player token.
Representation 100% matters, and I’m always beaming with pride when I show this game to casual gamers and explain Wingspan’s backstory. The game has enabled me to invite even more casual games to take the next step up in strategy games because of its presentation, subject matter and play style. I’d love to see more success stories like this. Plus, OMG the eggs!
3. Watergate
Watergate, a historical subject that’s near and dear to my heart, is one of my favorite games of 2019 and I believe the best 2-player of the year. In this day and age, there is something so supremely satisfying about stopping Nixon. But what I particularly love about this game is that you and your opponent can play a game and then switch sides and play another game immediately — and it still hasn’t taken up your entire evening.
Watergate is my favorte 2P game of 2019.
Watergate fits in a small box and can easily be set up and taken down. I love seeing all the historical figures brought together in this tug-of-war game that is easy to get into. The rulebook and the text on the cards are well done, and there’s even a lot of supplemental information about the presidential scandal in the back of the rulebook.
2. Dead Man’s Cabal
Skulls, skulls and more skulls! While Dead Man’s Cabal comes with a giant sack of bones, it’s the clever and unique game play that makes this game one of my favorites of the year. Players are working to collect and perform ritual cards that score VPs by collecting required skulls at various locations in the game.
Look at all these awesome skuls!
During a player’s turn, they take a private action and everyone else can take a public action based on skulls in play. Also, you can only activate locations on the board based on what skulls you have in your supply. It’s this midweight interconnected puzzle of skull collection in a 60-minute game that scratches my Vital Lacerda itch. The game has fantastic components, and did I mention it comes with a bag of plastic skulls? What else do you need?
1. Pax Pamir
And now we’ve hit No. 1. Pax Pamir was absolute love at first play at Consimworld. Oh. My. Goodness. Look at those gorgeous components. I’ve played other games in the Pax realm, Pax Porfiriana and Pax Renaissance, and while I enjoyed both of them a lot, the game ALWAYS seemed to take so much longer to explain than the actual game itself.
I can’t say enough good things about Pax Pamir. And look at how gorgeous that is!
But that’s not the case with this second edition of Pax Pamir. The added map and individual player dials make this game much, much easier to visualize which faction is dominating. During the game, players are buying cards to expand their tableaus. These cards allow them to take actions to strengthen their factions and armies. Players score points when a dominance check occurs. The game comes with so many cards, which keeps each game fresh every time. Pax Pamir (second edition) is my game of the year, and my only regret is not securing a copy for myself. It is, sadly, sold out. Someone hook a lady up!
And that’s my top games of 2019. What are some of your favorites that came out last year? And what are you looking forward to playing in 2020?
