Category: Board games
BGG Con 2019: New hotel, same game convention

BGG Con 2019: New hotel, same game convention

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Every year, my BGG recap gets later and later. Sorry folks! It’s so hard to rebound after Thanksgiving as I end up hitting the ground running for the holiday season. Anywho, I had a great time at BGG Con this year, especially since it moved into a new location in downtown Dallas — at the Hyatt Regency. 

We are definitely in the state of Texas.

The new hotel is larger, with convention activities spread out across multiple floors. The vendor hall and BGG library are downstairs in the basement, the main ballroom is way larger than last year’s, and on the Atrium level and third floor are rooms that people can rent out for group gaming. There are also tables sprinkled across those floors for people to drop in and game. I personally love that this downtown location makes it much, much easier to take a rideshare in search of non-hotel food. Texas BBQ, anyone? 

Look at the size of the BGG Library! And this photo shows just about half.

I volunteered again, which is always a great experience. And I was fortunate to meet new folks and game with old friends. This post will be a quick recap of each game I played at the convention. 

Tuesday games

Woof Meow Biscuits and For Sale. Woof Meow Biscuits is a card game in which cats and dogs are trying to steal biscuits by playing numbered cards to get to exactly 14. These biscuits are so snazzy! For Sale is always a great filler for a group of 6 people. 

Wednesday games

I played Heul doch! Mau Mau, a cute card game about crying onions. On your turn, you must play a card down that matches the color or number of a card that’s face up, but, of course, if you play it onto your opponent’s pile, they will get the points for it. But collecting a number of certain onions will count against your pile as well. My colleague Ruth on The Five By recently covered this game.

These poor, poor onions!

Shibuya is a small puzzle game about a Japanese crosswalk. Players are placing tiles on a grid to move their pedestrians across to their destinations. On each turn, a pedestrian can only move along one specific attribute — either all circles or squares, or all whites or black spaces. 

Shibuya board game
The first of a few pedestrian-destination games I played during the convention.

Signorie is a strategic dice-drafting game from What’s Your Game in which players are trying to gain influence in Italy. I really like how you’re limited to actions based on the number of pips on the dice you select — or else it gets really expensive and you never seem to have enough money for the game anyway. I didn’t like though how the women were basically just there to get married off, and how the crests that folks were trying to gain were randomly placed in. I ended up not completing two sets of crests. Alas. 

I finally got a chance to play Airship City. It’s a strategic worker placement from a Japanese game company, so it’s not widely available in the U.S., which is a bummer! This game is so neat! You move your airships to tile locations on a board to gain resources, and build and/or sell ships, but there are some locations that allow you to move those tiles around. I love the spatial puzzle of this! Thanks Matt Wolfe for teaching us this game! 

I then taught a 6P game of Sidereal Confluence, one of my favorite games to run during a convention. 

I love the chaos of Sidereal Confluence. And my giant tweezers make an appearance.

I ended Wednesday night with a chill game of QE, well as chill as it can be when you don’t know what exactly folks are bidding. QE is a set collection game where you secretly bid for tiles. The thing is that the person who bids the most during the entire game will immediately get knocked out. Such tense fun! 

Sky’s the limit for bidding in QE! Just don’t bid the most money overall!

Thursday games

I wandered into Unpub Protoalley to play Matt Wolfe’s Squaring Circleville, which is coming next year. I love the historical background of this game, of a town in Ohio that was built in a circle but had to make way for modernity by squaring its streets and entire town.

This is the prototype for Squaring Circleville.

I really enjoyed the rondel mechanism in this game, which allowed you to do one action, and then a second action, based on the tile that’s sitting on that piece of the rondel pie. That tile then gets placed into your player board, which then strengthens your action powers. I’m so excited for when this game comes out!

Had a great time playing with these cool people!

Chris and I picked up Spring on a String after seeing players on a nearby table in the main ballroom looking like they were … sewing. Wut?! In Spring on a String, players are threading a shoelace through flowers on this felt board and scoring VPs based on the number of flower petals they’re passing through. The game gets surprisingly brain burnery though based on the number of flower cards per game. These flower cards place restrictions/extra rules based on which flowers you can pass through. It’s a charming little game you can play and chat around the table with — as long as there aren’t too many flower cards in play, in my opinion. 

All the pretty flowers! But Spring on a String can be quite challenging!

We also picked up Brikks, a fun roll and write Tetris game. The active player rolls dice to determine which piece is in play, and you fill it out on your player sheet. You can also spend energy, which are hard to come by, to change the piece to another one instead, based on the piece chart. You score VPs and energy based on how you fill out your board. The higher rows are worth more, and closing out multiple rows at once nets more benefits. 

Roll-and-write Tetris! Now realizing I wasn’t very good at Tetris as child.

I picked up a copy of Pret A Porter, a game I had never played before but was super excited to own and play. It’s a worker placement game about fashion shows! Squee! And I love this version designed by Kwanchai Moriya. It’s gorgeous. This game is intense! You have two quick rounds to gather cloth, designs, models and/or buildings until your first fashion show. And each show is unique in what it’s looking for, either trendiness, PR, etc. You win ribbons by winning these categories, which will net you VPs and income later. But the bigger your fashion company is, the bigger upkeep you have to pay for models and buildings. So good!

Fashion shows are stressful! But man, what a great game.

The next game I played was Draftosaurus. It’s a light drafting game with tiny little dinosaur meeples! So adorbs! Players grab a handful of dinosaurs, pick one to place in their animal park, and then hand over the rest to the player on their left. Rounds continue until there are no more dinosaurs to pass along. And your VPs are based on fulfilling requirements in your animal park. 

Look at these cute dinosaurs! You literally place these guys in your hand when you draft.

We then played Randy Flynn‘s prototype, Rolling Up Roses, a roll and write where you’re collecting various flowers to make bouquets. I like how you’re choosing from a personal supply of rolled dice, as well as the rolled dice in the middle, to maximize the amount of flowers you get. Order cards are also phased in, so hanging onto those expensive roses might come in handy later! 

I forgot to take a photo when we started playing, but I enjoyed the Rolling Up Roses prototype.

Friday games

I started Friday by teaching Lisboa, one of my absolute favorite games ever, to Marlene and Randy. It’s a heavy game to start the morning with, but I think everyone had a great time. I know I did!

We started Lisboa at 11 a.m. I love this game so much that I’d be happy to teach it at 8 a.m. — and I’m not even a morning person.

Chris and I then took a trip up the Reunion Tower to see a bird’s eye view of downtown Dallas. The tickets were $17, and it was a fun experience. We picked a time right before the sun started setting so we were able to see some daylight and the nighttime skyline. But man, it was freezing up there because of the wind!

It was so windy and chilly up here! You can see the grassy knoll where JFK was assassinated.

The Inside Voices meetup was next, and I absolutely loved being able to hang out with such awesome folks in a small conference room. We even had a bunch of snacks and prizes! I ended winning Horticulture Master and Netterplays Felt Trays in a raffle. James Nathan said it best on his blog when he said it felt like a home-style game night. 

Had a great time with these folks during the Inside Voices meetup.

I played a fun 5P party game called Pictures. You’re secretly assigned to a photo on this 4×4 grid and you’re trying to get the rest of the players to correctly guess which photo is yours. The trick is that you’re given a random set of materials for the round. You either receive a deck of emojis on cards, string, an assorted set of 9 cubes, sticks and stones, or wooden blocks. Once the round is over, players move their supplies to the next player and the next round continues. It’s so unique! But also randomly fun.

Using sticks and stones to convey one of the photos in Pictures.

We then played Silver and Gold, a fun flip and fill where you write on the cards themselves and score victory points. There’s also a race to get the gold based on the squares you cross off. 

I then got to play Aquatica with the wonderful Beth Sobel. Best described as Concordia light, Aquatica is this gorgeous underwater engine building game. It did come with plastic manta ray bits, which had symbols on them that were a wee bit hard to see. But otherwise, the game had great components, such as a cardboard tableau where you actually slide cards into, and it plays quickly at about 30-45 minutes. 

Aquatica is just gorgeous and plays like a lighter game of Concordia.

ClipCut Parks is a neat roll-and-cut game! Dice are rolled to determine how much you’re clipping from your main parks sheet toss segment plots of land, in order to satisfy card requirements that have terrain and shape restrictions. If you can’t place your segment or a large strip of paper falls off your main sheet, you must CRUMPLE. It’s equally disheartening and satisfying! And the game includes scissors!

Snip, snip. ClipCut Parks is a neat roll-and-cut game!

Cinecitta 1936 is a game based on the real-life Italian movie studio of the 1930s. Each player is working to hire directors, producers and actors for their movie, as well as produce the highest-quality movie. The hiring of employees has a similar mechanism to Ponzi Scheme, where you secretly offer another player a worker and an amount of money. If they want that card, they’d have to pay you the same amount back, or if they don’t want the card, they can just take the money and add that worker to their movie. 

Making secret deals in Cinecitta 1936. You have to pay your workers at the end of the game.

We purchased Imhotep: The Duel, which is the 2P version of the solid midweight game Imhotep. It has the same tense mechanism as its original where you don’t want to set up the other person to sail away with the boat. But this time, goods are randomly loaded in 6 boats, which are docked at the end of a 3×3 grid. Each player takes their turn placing a cube onto one of the 9 Harbor Spaces, and if there are two workers of the same color in any column or row, they can choose to unload a boat instead of placing a cube, and gain the goods for their player tableau. 

Face to face, loading up boats and goods in Imhotep: The Duel.

Nokosu Dice is such a thinky trick-taking game that involves dice drafting. At the start of the round, players draft dice, which can be used like a card — color and pips included. But the last dice remaining determines which color/number is trump. And as you use you cards and dice during game play to win tricks, the last dice you have left in your pool marks your bid on the number of tricks you aim to win that round. You get a point per trick won, but lots of points for making exactly making your bid. So many tough choices!

I really liked this trick-taking game! Since you can see everyone’s dice, you have some information about what they can play, since dice act as cards — suit and number included.

Queenz: To Bee or Not To Bee is a light pattern-building game about bees and flowers. The beekeeper moves around the board collecting orchids, which you later use to fill a polyomino fields in play. As you fill in more fields, you score more points for connecting orchid flowers. You can also use these hive structures to fill in a spot for a field, which then score points for bees surrounding them at the end of the game.

Working hard to be the Queen Bee.

One of the best things about going to a convention like #BGGCon2019 is being able to try games you normally wouldn’t have access to. I got a chance to play Electropolis and just found it darling! It’s a tile-laying city-building game that has a clever turn order mechanism built in. You have to take a certain number of connecting tiles on your turn, and the earlier you go in turn order, the fewer tiles you’ll be able to take.

Electropolis incorporates some elements of Patchwork when collecting tiles for your city grid. But if you decide to go earlier in turn order, you get fewer tiles.

There are parameters each round about where on your board you can build those new tiles, and you score points based on how you place those industry tiles on your board. It feels similar to Quadropolis but more strategic and gamey!

Always a great time with Netters and Mitch!

Saturday

Chris and I did some exploring on Saturday afternoon to visit the Dallas Eye Sculpture. We found it.

Feeling watched in downtown Dallas.

And we ate some BBQ at Pecan Lodge. The BBQ was excellent, but the sides were meh. I need to have my sides yummy, otherwise, what’s the point. We walked around downtown Dallas and Deep Elum, which was a nice change of pace after being cooped up inside for the past few days.

All the meats! They were yum, but the sides were meh. And Chris was mad that the collard greens were sweet.

Bus was one of my must-play for the cons! Brian Frahm taught it to me, and it did not disappoint. Players are trying to deliver passengers to various locations by building connections, and the passengers will go to whichever destination they need to go. It’s brutal, cut-throat and a typical Splotter game, even though it’s been republished by Capstone Games this year. 

Passengers riding the Bus, not caring which route they take but that they just get to their destination.

I next played giant Container. I love, love this game. It’s a closed economic system in which you’re producing goods, setting a price for them to sell, loading them onto your boat, putting your boats up for auction and all to get those goods onto the island. The problem is that you can never buy from yourself, and a huge part of this game is pricing goods so that people will purchase it. Our game went completely bonkers, and we were so broke by the end of it. 

The Container island is very full. We all spent way too much money to load it up.

We ended Saturday night playing a quick game of Werebeasts, which is a werewolf-type social deduction game but with bidding, and For Sale. 

I got outted as a WereGhost. Womp womp.

Lastly, we played an adorable game of Fast Sloths. In the game, you’re trying to be the first sloth to collect all your leaves on the board, but being slow and sloth-like, you only move by jumping onto the backs of other animals. On your turn, you collect cards of various animals so that you can activate them for their animal powers — they’re all different — so you can travel around the board. The game lasts for about 45 minutes, but then it kinda slowed down a bit in the end. Nonetheless, we had loads of fun making random animal noises. Like for whenever we summoned the eagle, we all yelled, caw caw!! 

Fast Sloths! The box for this game is just adorable.

The last game of Saturday is On The Underground: London/Berlin. In our 3P game, players are in charge building out their 3 different rail lines, hoping the tourist will take your lines to the closest destination and give you VPs. The pawn doesn’t like walking to stops or changing lines, so it’ll embark on the route that’s easiest for it. This version is a reprint of an older game, which I heard only has slight differences in game play and on the map. I do love the box art style though.

Another game where the passenger must make it to their destination, not caring which route they’ll take — just the easiest one for them.

Got a chance to play Pictures with these cool folks on Sunday. Explaining this game is so funny because you’re immediately met with incredulous looks, but after a round in, you start seeing everyone finding their groove. 

One last game of Pictures. Fun times with Ross and Emma.

The last game I played for the entire con was Bruxelles 1897. This is the card game of the beloved board game, and it manages to feel just as tense in a small box format! To take an action, you play one of your architect cards, which has a cost value on it. Players are taking action to collect art, sell art, collect supplies or build buildings. Players can also take free actions, but then those architect cards go to prison, which means they won’t be available in your hand to take actions with later.

And just like that, five days of gaming was done! Next year’s BGG Con is the same weekend as Pax Unplugged in Philadelphia, which is causing many gamers to pick one over the other. It seems that more folks are picking Pax Unplugged. Sigh. Thanks kind folks who made it all the way down here! And let me know which game you’d most want to play! 
First 5 hobby games in my collection

First 5 hobby games in my collection

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It’s officially been five years since my first blog post. I wrote about last year’s anniversary, and with every passing year, I like to take a look back down Memory Lane. 

As I sit at my dining table plugging away on my laptop, my back toward my Kallax shelves full of board games, I can’t help to think of the first games to enter my collection, the catalyst to the inevitable transformation of my dining room area to board gaming central — mini-studio lights and all.

The first five games in my collection were Catan, Ticket to Ride, Agricola, Arkham Horror and Twilight Struggle. Catan, TTR and Twilight Struggle were all gifts, and Arkham and Agricola I purchased after a deep dive into the BGG rankings. 

The first five hobby games that started it all for me.

A few months ago, after a game of Agricola, nostalgia spurred me to share on Twitter these five games and asked followers which five hobby games first entered in their collections. 

Well, the Twitterverse did not disappoint. 

I received over 850 board game submissions, and I thought it’d be fun to compile that information and see which games were most often mentioned. A good majority of my Twitter followers seemingly entered the hobby around the same time I did, based on their responses.

For clarity’s sake, I lumped versions/editions/expansions into the base game of the same name. For example, I grouped all of The Settlers of Catans and Catan Seafarers all under Catan.  The top 12 results are below in a nifty data visualization I created. (You can hover over each bar to get more information.)

And here are the top 25 games mentioned, broken down by years. There appears to be a dark period there, based on the responses, between 1985-1995. (I’m pretty sure a lot of people were playing all those Milton Bradley games, such as Shogun). 

Then in 1995, Catan debuted and helped usher in the Golden Age of board gaming. And as they say, the rest is history. 

I still have a fondness for my first five games (which are all still present in my collection), but, in all honesty, I’d probably only play four of them if asked right this minute. I’ll let you guess which one wouldn’t make the cut. 

What were the first five hobby games in your collection, and which of them do you still own?
Tucson’s RinCon 2019: Trains, skulls and a giant rhino

Tucson’s RinCon 2019: Trains, skulls and a giant rhino

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Two weekends ago, I went down to Tucson for their annual board game convention RinCon! I particularly love how a bunch of us from the Phoenix area all trek down south to Tucson to game nonstop for a few days. I also love all the unique perks that RinCon offers its convention-goers — from nightly midnight snacks to the wonderfully curated Women’s Space. 

Here’s one of the main rooms at RinCon. The tablecloths are color coded, so you’ll know if a table is reserved for scheduled gaming.

It’s the third year in a row I’ve gone, and the second year in a row I’ve been a special guest. About 600 people attended this year’s convention, which was held again at the Sheraton Tucson Hotel and Suites.

Gamers setting up giant Azul in the RinCon lobby.

Friday

My buddy Mark and I arrived Friday afternoon, and we dove immediately into a game of Mexica. I love, love this game, and it never fails to disappoint! Everyone always falls in love with the game’s components, and, for me personally, I enjoyed easing into a hectic convention with a game I’m quite familiar with. 

Mexica has such table presence! But it can be so mean! The new players in this game learned quickly that blocking people is the way to go.

I then taught a 4-player game of Irish Gauge, a stock-based cube-rail train game. It’s the first title in the Iron Rail series by Capstone Games, first published by Winsome games back in 2007.

These guys are always so fun to game with! I wish they all didn’t live clear across town and, for Mike, in Tucson!

It’s a 3-5 player game that plays in about 60 minutes. Learning the game is easy; there are 4 actions to choose from after the initial stock bidding around. Players are building track to expand their train company, auctioning of stocks, upgrading towns to cities, or calling dividends. When dividends are called, cubes are randomly pulled from a bag, and that determines which routes will pay out. It’s a very stripped down stock game — complete with adorable candy-like train pieces. Irish Gauge was the first of many train games I played during the weekend.

Irish Gauge is a quick 3-5 player stock–based train game.

I then taught a 3-player game Dead Man’s Cabal, a clever puzzly strategy game where players are trying to raise the dead. It has skulls, spells and zombie cards!  Players have a private action, and then everyone does a public action, based on the skulls in play, and each skull represents a board that has actions associated with it. If you don’t have a particular color of that skull in your supply, then you can’t take the action. I really enjoyed this midweight euro! 

So many skulls! This game has been delightful each time I’ve played it.

Next up was Tokyo Metro, an economic stock game from Jordan Draper games. This is probably the heaviest of his games — and a little busier and fiddly, too — where players are investing in stocks and working to increase the values of stocks, as trains pass through rail stations along a giant cloth map of the Japanese metro. Trains only move a certain number of spots, so you’ll have to calculate payout based on that train schedule, and only certain actions will come out each round, based on the action cards that are phased in. I’d love to try this again, as my train was totally melting down by this time of night.  

So many trains, and so many rail lines! Tokyo Metro is based on the Japanese metro.

Then at 11 p.m., I hosted a Mega Game of Welcome To. About 20 people came out, and we used the Halloween expansion pack for our game. Welcome To is a roll-and-write game that doesn’t involve dice but instead cards containing numbers and special abilities that players use to fill out a map of their city. Everyone selects a number simultaneously so it’s a game that can be played out on the big screen in a large group.

GloryHoundd took this photo of me hosting Welcome To on the big screen.

And even though I was nervous running my first mega game ever, I had a great time, and I think everyone did, too. The winner was GloryHoundd, and she received the game, as well as a couple expansion packs, and the second- and third-place winners received some Halloween candy. 

Winner winner chicken dinner! The winners of the Mega Welcome To game.

At midnight, RinCon served its first midnight snack of the convention: Eegee’s. For those unfamiliar, Eegee’s are Tucson-based frozen fruit drinks, and people lined up to get a cup of this sweet treat. All attendees get tickets with their badge, which they trade in for the midnight snacks on Friday and Saturday night. 

Saturday

I then started early on Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. by teaching a 2P game of Abomination. I love this game so much, and I believe it’ll be more widely available now for more folks to check out! But I like to preface that this is not a short game by any means. Even with our 2P game, it took well over 2 hours. 

Building bodies early on a Saturday morning.

I then was invited to do a noon panel called “How to Teach a Game in 5 Mins.” Five us from the board game industry talked with a group of folks about methods that worked for us for teaching games, whether light or heavy. The discussion included how to teach teenagers how to win graciously as well as empowering new gamers to teach other gamers. Also, we had a legit space scientist Dante Lauretta among us panelists who is a board-game designer and does educational outreach at the Boys and Girls Club in Tucson.

GloryHoundd and I then hung out at the bar after our panel and caught up for a bit while drinking our respective signature drinks. Our drinks were super yummy and provided a midday breather to an already busy day.  

Drannnnkss! GloryHoundd and I both enjoyed our signature convention drinks.

My next game was The Soo Line, where I learned that it’s pronounced like the name Sue and not so. That’s the Valley girl in me coming out!

Always a fun time with Greg, Dr. GloryHogg and Brian!

Anywho, The Soo Line is a 45-minute pick-up-and-deliver stock train game. I made some poor choices for bidding in the beginning and never quite caught up again! How does the Soo Line actually made any money when it has to come all the way across the board? Tell me your secrets, folks!

It was so hard getting the Soo line all the way across the map!

I then joined a group of a dozen people to play Blood on the Clocktower, a giant social-deduction game described to me as similar toWerewolf but gamier. Benjamin led many, many games of this during the entire convention, and it was SUCH. A. BLAST.

Our fearless leader Benjamin running Blood on the Clocktower.

Unlike Werewolf, when you die in Clocktower, you can still have one vote for the rest of the game so that you can help your side win the game. It’s humans vs. demons, and there’s even a character sheet so you can deduce who is which character, and strategically reveal information about yourself or others. 

I was the ravenskeeper, and even though I died, I was instrumental in finding the imp, leading the humans to victory!

After a quick dinner break, I taught a 4P game of Tiny Towns. I was so involved in teaching this game that I completely forgot to take a photo, but friends, let me tell you that I crushed the game. I played a second game of Irish Gauge with 4 different players and immediately after a few games of Strike.

Strike is such a bar game, in which you’re tossing dice into the box stadium, and if there are any pairs, you take back dice into your hand. Players get eliminated when they run out of dice, and the last person standing wins the game. 

Throw in your dice to get more dice! Strike is a fun filler!

I then got to hang out with David Short and taught him and my buddy Rob Watergate. I always get kind of nervous getting games I love to game designers, because they know game mechanisms so well and I’m afraid they’ll find something really off or broken about said game. Luckily, everyone ended enjoying the game! 

The rest of the night was a series of shorter games. We played NMBR 9 (always a good time) and Illusion (I can’t for the life of me figure out these color percentages) before getting pizza for our midnight snack. 

And then some late-night shenanigans 1 a.m. happened with my buddies Mark, Greg and Brian.

We then played Giant Rhino Hero, Point Salad and Skulls. This was my first time playing Giant Rhino Hero and it was a riot! Players are basically stacking cards to build a giant tower for the Rhino Hero to move up in.

This is when it got called than me, though some people might say that it doesn’t take much to reach a height taller than 5’3″!

The tower eventually got much taller than me, and its ultimate demise was captured on video. (Notice that I am in fact standing on a chair!)

Point Salad is a quick card drafting game in which you’re collecting fruits and veggies to score objective cards. And Skulls is a fun bidding, bluffing game that has gorgeous artwork. 

Sunday

I began my day teaching Watergate at the Women’s Space. Folks, I cannot tell you how amazing this space is. I love that RinCon sets aside a suite for women to relax, get away from the crowd, and learn scheduled board games from female GMs. Mari runs the space, which is fully stocked with meeple cookies, snacks and drinks.

A nice couch to chillax on during the convention!
Here’s Mari, who keeps the lovely Women Space up and running.

Two ladies signed to learn Watergate, and they enjoyed the game so much that they switched sides and played again. The same player won both times!

These ladies are ready to go head-to-head in the battle for the White House.

I ended the convention playing another game of Mexica and Coimbra, which was the top game I played in 2018. And in case you were wondering, I crushed my two opponents in Coimbra. 

Coimbra is such a good game. We need to get to get it on table more often!

And just like that, another awesome time in Tucson was had at RinCon. This convention never disappoints, and I love how friendly everyone is here. Karen Arnold Ewing is the chair of the convention, and she succeeds in making this con inclusive and inviting, especially with the incredible women’s space. There are gamers of all ages, and there is definitely something for everyone! 

Here’s RinCon’s fearless leader Karen Arnold Ewing, who, along with an army of volunteers, works tirelessly to put on a wonderful convention.

And just like that, three days of gaming came and went. I had a lot of fun hanging out with friends and meeting new ones, and hosting/teaching games. Thank you so much for having me, RinCon, and I can’t wait to be back next year!

I love these pronoun badges that are provided at every RinCon convention.
Watergate: A Tug-of-war Presidential Scandal

Watergate: A Tug-of-war Presidential Scandal

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This review of Watergate is featured on Episode 69 of The Five By. Check out the rest of the episode, which also features Shards of Infinity: Relics of the Future, Hundreds of Horses, Lines of Action and Point Salad.

When I first heard that Capstone Games was releasing a game on former President Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal, I immediately knew I had to play this game. Political history and journalism — well, for those who know me in real life, this is exactly right in my wheelhouse.

Watergate, published in 2019 and designed by Matthias Cramer, is a 2P card-driven game that plays in about 30 to 60 minutes. It’s similar to one of my absolute favorite games, Twilight Struggle, but much less punishing while still maintaining the historic tug-of-war feel of this scandal — and in a fraction of the time.  

Watergate is a tense 2-player card-driven board game that plays in 30-60 minutes.

In Watergate, one player plays the side of a Washington Post Editor trying to connect Nixon to his informers, while Nixon is trying to hang onto his presidency and not resign. Each player gets their own individual deck of cards to play with, and a small evidence board that contains a research track sits in between the players.

There are also cards that keeps track of Nixon’s and the newspaper’s win conditions, as well as who has the initiative for the round. The player with the initiative will draw 5 cards in a round and go first, whereas the other player only gets 4 cards.  

On your turn, you play one card, either for its value part or its action part. The value part shows a number that you can move either the initiative or momentum token toward you on the research track or move an evidence token the same number as spaces as well.

When you play a card, you can either move tokens or evidence toward you on the research track, or take the action on the card.

There are three random evidence tokens placed face-down on the research track at the start of the round. They get flipped face up when they move, and these tokens are important for the Editor to connect Nixon to his informants on the board, or for Nixon to block those connections.

The evidence board looks like a giant corkboard with a bunch of lines and push pins printed on it. When either side claims an evidence token (either by placing it on the 5 spot on their side of the research track or when the round ends), it’s placed on the board face up by the Editor or face down by Nixon. As the board fills up, it starts to look like those investigation boards you often see in the movies when someone is working hard to uncover a conspiracy and connecting all the dots.

Every conspiracist needs a cork board and push pins.

Also, instead of using the value part when you play a card, you can also play the action portion. Sometimes these actions are one-time events that are so powerful that you then have to remove the card from the game.

A few examples of the Editor’s cards. Go Woodward and Bernstein!

These events are also how you can get informants onto the board. Each informant has exactly two cards; Nixon has one, and the Editor has one. If Nixon plays his card first, the informant is placed face down on the board, thereby closing off that pathway to victory for the Editor.

A couple examples of Nixon’s cards.

After all the cards are played, the round ends. Momentum and initiative tokens are awarded to the side they’re sitting on, and evidence tokens are placed by their respective winners as well.

The rounds continue until one side reaches their objective: Nixon manages to gain 5 momentum markers on his card, or the Editor connects Nixon to two informants on the evidence board.

In order to win, Nixon must gain 5 Momentum tokens. As the Editor collects tokens on their card, they gain benefits.

Unlike other card-driven games, Watergate gives each side their own player deck to cycle from and playing cards from your hand does not trigger good things for your opponent. And while I’ve heard some criticism of not having a large deck to cycle through and people getting too familiar with all the cards, I think this is a benefit as when players get more familiar with the game, there’s additional built-up tension bracing for that one particular card that your opponent still hasn’t played that could totally mess with you.

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. It also has a small footprint and can easily be set up and taken down. The box is small, about the size of a personal pizza box or for those familiar, a Patchwork box.

Watergate has a small footprint, and its box is easily transportable.

I love seeing all the historical figures brought together in this tug-of-war game that is very 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 scandal in the back of the rulebook.

And if you’re interested in more of the Watergate scandal, I’d highly recommend watching “All The President’s Men,” a movie about the two journalists investigating the Watergate scandal, whose reporting helped bring down Nixon’s presidency.

And that’s Watergate! This is Meeple Lady for the Five By. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as meeplelady, or on my website, boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening. Bye!

Thanks Capstone Games for sending me a copy of this game!
Gila Monster 2019: Meeting up with gamer friends — and a shark

Gila Monster 2019: Meeting up with gamer friends — and a shark

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Two weekends ago, I attended a small gathering of Arizona gamer friends for Gila Monster. This is the second year in a row we’ve done this, which originally sprung up as a way to play new Gen Con releases in an intimate setting. This year, we shelled out extra money to rent space at the Tempe Mission Palms and extended it over almost three days, starting with Friday night at Snakes and Lattes.

I didn’t start gaming though until early Saturday morning. I arrived at 8 a.m. and immediately jumped into Hadara. What a neat civ building, card-drafting game! We played with 5P, and I particularly how the first player can choose which pile to start drafting in, and then everyone else drafts where your crest is showing on the main board.

The first player In Hadara gets to move the wheel in the center of the board, determining which cards player will draft first.

On your turn, you pick two cards from the pile. You discard one into the discard pile, and for the remaining one, you can either purchase it or remove from the game for money. When you purchase a card, they give you resources on your various tracks on your player board, either income, military, culture or food (which you’ll need at the end of the era to keep your cards in your tableau.)

In between each phase, you then purchase colonies and erect statues, if you have enough military and/or culture, for VPs. Game play continues through three epochs, with cards getting more expensive and more powerful each round. The game is really straightforward and the iconography is easy to understand, but still tough decisions about which way to build your civilization. I can see this game being really popular with larger groups of people who have about an hour of game play.

Here’s the start of my civilization where I’m pretty even on the four tracks.

I then played a game of Kingdomino: Duel. This puzzly roll-and-write manages to capture the essence of the original game, now instead with dice! The first player rolls four dice, and they pick one. The second player then picks two dice, and the last die goes back to the first player. You fill in these symbols on your score pad, mapping out your country like in Kingdomino for matching terrain and multipliers. It also becomes a race to gain dice manipulation powers based on which dice you pick up.

Kingdomino Duel is a 2P roll-and-write that’s quick and puzzly!

I then played Barenpark with the Bad News Bears expansion. Oh my, look at this monorail! I’ve always been kinda lukewarm on the original Barenpark game, but I really enjoyed it with this expansion. It made the game more strategic with extra boards and more options for winning, and the monorails are a nice touch as they provide more meaning to the lowest base tiles. They can also be exchanged in tandem with other tiles for the giant bear tiles.

Look at my adorable monorail in my bear park!

I then got a chance to play Black Angel. This game is absolutely gorgeous (with artwork by Ian O’Toole, who designs most of Vital Lacerda’s games), and Black Angel is from Sebastien Dujardin of Troyes’ fame. I think Troyes is a great game that we don’t nearly get on table enough, so I was really excited to see to see what Black Angel had in store.

The artwork and colors in Black Angel are just striking!

In Black Angel, AIs seeking planet Spes after humanity destroyed Earth. Each player has a tableau in which you can gain technologies that trigger when you play a card from your hand. The many dice on the board enable you to take various actions across the main board. Players also draft mission cards, which then you send you bots onto a second board representing space. This entire board is made up of space strips, which then through the course of a game during a reset (when a player runs out of available dice to spend or doesn’t have resources to use someone else’s dice) flips over and moves to the front of the board, advancing the spacecraft Black Angel. Imagine a scrolling video game screen.

Black Angel is a dice-drafting game from the same designer as Troyes..

This core mechanism controls the timing of the game. Once Black Angel reaches Spes, the game ends. It’s a dice rolling, worker-placement game much like Troyes, and while I enjoyed playing it, it didn’t seem as punishing as Troyes, which is what I enjoy about that game.

I them played a quick game of Planet, which is a quick drafting game where you’re trying to score objective cards based on land terrain placement.

I’ve got the whole world in my hands! Isn’t this darling?

These magnetic tiles are placed on your soccer-ball-esque contraption, which makes for an adorable and tactile game. You literally have the whole world in your hands!

My planet is so pretty, even though there are forests right next to the frozen tundra!

I then taught folks Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein. Such a great game, and it seemed like everyone had a good time. Our 4P game took about 3 hours, and that included a couple rounds shaved off because of a few cards.

We are building monsters in Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein!

After dinner, I got a chance to play Blackout: Hong Kong. This is a game from Alexander Pfister, of Mombasa, a game I really like for its hand-management mechanism of your playing cards. Blackout has the same mechanism featured here. In this game, a giant blackout has hit Hong Kong, and you’re trying to locate resources and expand your network of specialists in order to claim a position of power.

We are trying to locate and collect resources in Blackout: Hong Kong.

At the start of the round, dice are rolled to determine which resources are available for that round, and then you pre-program your cards to collect those resources. Meanwhile, you’re trying to complete objectives on cards you’ve picked up in order to place them into your deck. When you get down to your last remaining cards, you pick the longest discard pile from your tableau to use them again in your deck. The board looks really sleek, and all the iconography is easily understandable. I’d love to play this again.

I love how the player boards have step-by-step instructions to guide you through the rounds.

On Sunday, I started super bright and early again with a chaotic game of Sidereal Confluence at 9 a.m. (Can you tell I’m so not a morning person?) I needed a lot of caffeine for this because there is a lot of yelling of course!

I didn’t run this game officially, so it was nice being able to concentrate on my faction and use its ability to my advance. As the whale squids Eni Et Ascendancy, I used my bargaining skills to hand out some really cool resource techs! I probably helped one guy too much as he came in first, and I came in second. Not too shabby! I love this game so much, or maybe I just love yelling across the table for cubes and somehow negotiating 3-way deals.

Next up was Ragusa. When my friend was teaching this game, he kept saying, “You only have 12 actions.” I responded, “This kind of reminds me of that Calimala game.” He’s like, “it’s the same designer!” And then I was kinda proud of myself for recognizing similarities in his games as I had never heard of Ragusa until that afternoon.

We are placing our structures in Ragusa, Italy, not to be confused with the Ragusa that is now present-day Dubrovnik, most recently known as a Game of Thrones film location.

In Ragusa, you place one structure on a corner of hex on the board exactly twelve times — and that’s the end of the game. The trick is that when someone else places on that hex, then you may get to activate that action again. You’re also placing strategically to collect resources, which allow you to build in the country or the city, as well as how many structures you can build on the same hex. You can also build walls or process resources for other goods, which then you can sell onto a ship for VPs. It’s such a neat game where every single placement really counts!

Insert all the Baby Shark renditions here …

I then got to play a game that I had been basically pestering people all weekend to teach me: Jaws. (Insert ominous theme song here.) This game is ridiculously fun! It’s a 4P game, where one player is the shark vs all the rest. The game takes place over two phases. In Act 1, the shark is doing hidden movement along Amity Island snacking on some swimmers, while Brody, Hopper and Quint are working to prevent that. When they locate the shark or when the shark has eaten a certain number of swimmers (like a bunch!), the game enters Act 2. The shark then gets some special power cards, while the rest get equipment cards, based on how well Act 1 went for either side.

Here you can see Jaws circling the two players in the water after destroying large chunks of the boat. Eeeeps!

Then it’s to the death! The board flips over and it’s an image of the Orca with tiles on it. The shark attacks the characters, and then Brody, Hopper and Quint get their turns. As the shark attacks, the boat tiles become damaged or lost, and players can end up in the water, which is no good! A series of dice rolls and action cards make for a very frantic and bloody finish, and, like I said, Jaws is thematically ridiculous and fun!

I then got a chance to play Copenhagen, a tile-laying puzzle game where you’re building the facade of your cute little Danish house. On your turn, you either pick up colored cards or turn in a group of cards for various polyominos of the matching colors of the cards you just turned in. You score victory points for filled in columns and rows, as well as some other extra objectives. A super cute light game!

Copenhagen! It’s like Patchwork but on the front of the building and with cards. This the deluxe fancy version. I’ll be forever spoiled by it.

I then ended Gila Monster by teaching a 5P game of Hadara. It was a perfect bookend to a chill weekend of gaming with friends and trying out games that I normally wouldn’t have had a chance to otherwise. We had our convention at the Tempe Mission Palms this year, the same location fo Consimworld, and it’s seriously the best spot because there are lots of food options within walking distance.

I’m already looking forward to next year’s event as well as seeing a lot of these guys down in Tucson for RinCon in October. And if any of these games were intriguing to you, let me know down in the comments!
Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein: Get ready to build a creature

Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein: Get ready to build a creature

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I don’t play too many monster-themed board games. Unless it’s in the Cthulhu world, and even then I’m referring strictly to Arkham Horror or Cthulhu Wars, monster games don’t usually draw me in. That is … until Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein by Plaid Hat Games. This worker placement game is 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!

The board features locations across Paris where you can collect cadavers, atone or do research, which will help you gain expertise and make better creatures.

Each player comes with a player board to place your resources, and three dials that keep track of your humanity, reputation and expertise. They also get a character card, which gives you variable player abilities, as well as two assistants and one scientist meeples. Later in the game, as your reputation increases, you can add an additional assistant, and you can trade them out for scientists, too.

The player board features dials, which are various tracks that will give or take VPs, as well as other benefits.

Acquiring more scientists is important because locations on the board have placement restrictions and they show which type of meeple will activate that location. Some are either/or, but the majority of them are reserved for scientists. If you don’t have an available scientist during the round, you cannot place your meeple there. Also, some locations give you more benefits if you place your scientist there instead of your assistant.

Abomination goes for 12 rounds, with four phases each round. At the start of each round, the event phase happens, and the first player draws from a deck filled with events or encounters for the round. The city phase is when players place their meeples one at a time on the player board. In addition to locations to find cadavers, there are also places where you can work for money, gain expertise or reputation, buy and sell items at the market, or hire some questionable characters to acquire some resources.

Abomination plays for 12 rounds, with an event or encounter happening each round.

In most eurogames, when a meeple is placed at a location, that location is closed to the rest of the players for the round. This isn’t the case for Abomination. Players can pay money to bump a meeple, so that the location will be available for them to use. There are only three meeples that can be bumped in each round, and those meeples go to the bump track at the bottom of the board. The bumpee pays the person who is being bumped 1 franc (or 2 francs if it’s the third and last bump in the round) to go there (or pay nothing if you’re bumping yourself). There is a lot of bumping that goes on in the middle of the night.

Bump, bump, bumpity bump. Such a fun mechanism!

Lastly, the person who took the first-player spot can place that meeple can make a legal move to an open location. We always call this mechanism  the Waterdeep move (because in Lords of Waterdeep, there are meeples that get to move after everyone has taken their turn.). The person who took the first-player spot cannot be bumped during the round. 

When everyone passes or have no more legal moves to make, the lab phase occurs. This is when people turn in their resources to make body parts, according to the resource and expertise requirements. Complicated body parts like the head require more expertise than say an arm. You gain VPs based on the decomposition of the body parts, as well as 1 expertise.

If you time it correctly, you can actually gain the expertise and VPs by building body parts in a certain order, so that you can meet the next expertise threshold. Super neat! Players can also complete a monster part, which involves collecting blood in addition to body parts, by flipping over their body part from the muscle side to the skin side up.

These are the requirements to start a monster part. The head needs the most expertise of course.

Players can also throw the switch to shock their monster to life, but they also run the risk of inflicting damage, which can degrade your body part if you have enough of it. The dice rolls are this stage in the round can be a little punishing, but there are research cards you can gain at the Academy location that can mitigate the dice effects. Plus, gaining expertise will give you the option to use the more favorable blue dice.

When you’re ready to throw the switch, you roll 2 dice per Leyden jar you have charged.

The last phase of the round is the reset phase. This part, in my opinion, features the most clever mechanism of the game. On your player board, when you find a cadaver, the cadaver card will give players either expertise or body parts. If you go to the hospital, you will receive Stage I or Stage II body parts; if you go to the cemetery, you’ll get less fresh parts, more likely Stage III or Stage IV parts.

These are a few examples of cadavers and the body parts you’ll get for them. Or you can forgo body parts and move up in expertise, which is the brain symbol.

During the reset phase, after you’ve built your body parts for the round, all your unused body parts will decompose one stage. This timing element is important because when you build body parts with less-fresh body parts, you will net fewer VPs. If you haven’t used your body parts by Stage IV (or preserved your materials from the lab phase), they you lose them. You can purchase ice from the Market to stop the decay though. The reset phase also wipes cards on the board for new ones and moves the round marker forward.

The VPs you receive when you build a monster part depends on the resources’ state of decomposition. The fresher, the more VPs.

Abomination is great for horror fans and heavier gamers alike. 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 creeping up on you.

I love the variety of locations on the board, including the Dark Alley, where you’ll get the freshest body parts — and a lot of them — for the dark price of some of your humanity. You can always visit Saint-Roch to atone though, but if you murder too many times, well, you’re irredeemable because the humanity dial locks you into that super negative space, and you lose a lot of VPs in the end. The events and encounters keep the rounds different, and the objectives also help factor into the decisions you make in the game.

I love the diversity in the cast of characters, even on the box cover!

The artwork in Abomination is gothicly interesting, and I appreciate the diversity in the cast of characters, even if it can be a bit too morbid for some folks. The game is not light by any means, so you’ll need to devote some time to playing it. The game really comes alive as people start assembling their monsters, which takes a few rounds to get going, and hopefully your creature is alive at the end as well!

Thanks Plaid Hat Games for sending me a copy of this game!

Consimworld 2019: Wargames in Arizona

Consimworld 2019: Wargames in Arizona

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Do you like wargames, whether COINs or the hex-and-counter variety? Well, you need to come down to Consimworld! This 8-day wargaming convention happens every year in Tempe, Arizona, literally in my very own backyard. I love attending this convention every year it allows me to play some games that normally wouldn’t come out at other conventions, plus I get to hang out with some of the wargaming legends!

Look at all that cardboard, plexiglass and chits! Gaming is officially underway.

Consimworld was June 22-29. Sorry for the delay of this post; it’s been a whirlwind few weeks. Consimworld is located at Tempe Mission Palms, and the location is so convenient. You don’t need a car as the hotel provides a shuttle to the airport, or you can take the light rail to it. The best part too is that there are plenty of food options in walking distance. (I’m giving a lot of other conventions the side-eye here.)

I arrived on Day 1 and learned to play Maria with my buddy Dan flew into town from Milwaukee. This 3P game is so freakin’ awesome!  It’s set during the War of the Austrian Succession. One player is Austria, the second player is France and Bavaria, and the third plays as Prussia and the Pragmatic Army. Each army has their own set of cards, and armies battle each other based on the suit of the location they’re fighting from. You have to manage your card hand, as well as ensuring your troops are still within range from their supply line. I really want to get a copy of this game!

Maria is such a great game! It’s a 3P wargame, where battles are resolved based on the suited cards your hand and which suitted terrain you’re sitting on.

Dan then showed me his game that’s he’s working on. It’s an Age of Sails wargame that plays in about 2-3 hours set during the Battle of Virginia Capes, a crucial naval battle during the American Revolutionary War. One player plays as the French, and the other as the British, and they move and position their boats along a checkered board (in accordance with the wind direction), and they take turns battling each other. You then both secretly decide which order your ships will fire, and you roll dice to fire upon your enemy.

Dan always has the fanciest prototypes! Here are the ships battling each other out at sea.

Hit points are marked on individual boat cards and designated to an area on your boat based on your opponent’s directive, which makes for interesting player decisions of how to allocate damage. If your boat can no longer move, then it’s removed from the game. The French are trying to last 12 rounds — which killing British ships shortens the game — while the British are trying to move up a track by destroying French ships. The game was tense and super fun, and I liked being able to allocate where on my enemy’s boat they should mark the damage. (It’s like a wargame roll-and-write!) I’m crossing my fingers that it gets picked up by a publisher.

Dan created these ship cards that you mark you hit points on with a dry-erase pen. If your ship can no longer move, it’s out of the game.

Next up was Fire in the Lake. The last time I played Fire in the Lake was at last year’s Consimworld. Man, I was so rusty! And the last few times I had played as the NVA (because I like red), but this time, I played as the VC for the first time, and it took me a bit to start terrorizing and spreading out my VC guerrillas. This game lasted way late into the night, and we had to call it. It looked like the Americans were winning.

Fire in the Lake has the most vibrant board and is one of my favorite COIN games.

Day 2 began early by cracking open Gandhi. Fire in the Lake ended so late on Saturday night that it was a quick turnaround for a 9 a.m. game of Gandhi, one I had briefly looked over the rulebook, but luckily another player read the rulebook as well, and we all decided it was going to be a learning game that morning.

Gandhi is the latest COIN game from GMT Games.

I had been excited to see how a nonviolent factions play out for a COIN, and was equally surprised to see that two of the factions do not have any currency. The British Raj’s actions are tied to the Restraint track, and the Revolutionaries’ actions costs resources. I played as the British and particularly liked being able to affect how much my actions cost. I plan to write more about this after a few more games under my belt. All I can say is this: Gandhi is a great COIN and seems more accessible than the other ones. Here’s me playing Gandhi:

I then played the first of many games of Pax Pamir (second edition) this convention. Oh. My. Goodness. Love at first play! I’ve played Pax Porfiriana and Pax Renaissance before, 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. And especially with Pax Porfiriana, it was difficult to visualize and keep track of who is dominating what.

Look at these amazing components! Pax Pamir is really well done.

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 see which faction is dominating. The components are gorgeous, and each game I’ve played of this has been different. There are just so many cards, and I ended up playing this game two more times during the course of the convention. I played it as a 3P and as a 5P. I think Pax Pamir plays best at 4P, even though I did end up winning my 5P game.

I absolutely cannot get enough of Pax Pamir! I wish I owned a copy of this game.

Saturday night ended with another awesome game of Battlestar Galactica. This is the second year in a row I’ve played with Dan, Mike, Harold and Jordan. We even got Kurt into the mix! These guys are always so much fun! I became a cylon sympathizer during sleeper, and despite two cylons and me as the sympathizer, we still lost to those awful humans. The worst!

These guys are so much fun! I look forward to avenging my loss next year!

I took a day off on Day 3 since it was a Monday. I played a quick game of Sekigahara, and by quick it was about 2 hours. The game continued through all seven weeks and came down to victory points. I love this game so much!

My favorite part of Sekigahara is the hidden info of which armies are going toward you.

I then played my other two games of Pax Pamir at the various player counts. I then got a chance to play Rococo. It’s a shame that this game isn’t more widely available! It’s a deckbuilder about making dresses. Players collect materials at various locations on the board, and ultimately, it’s an area control game in regards to where you display your dresses and coats. The game plays out over seven rounds. 

Making dresses in Rococo can be cut-throat!

In the middle of Rococo was the welcome ceremony. John Kranz took time to welcome everyone and give expo updates. Altogether, over 350 people had signed up, with more than 60 newcomers. Very cool! He also highlighted those who came from afar — some as far as the Philippines and Bahrain! That’s super neat to see people travel for all the wargames!

Everyone’s all gathered! John Kranz likes to give updates about the convention, and there’s a giant raffle at the end of this meeting as well!

One slide featured a nice tribute to my buddy Tom Wells. I miss gaming with him; there was never a dull moment gaming with him.

I finished Monday night with another tense game of Maria! My buddy Mark and I did better this time, but Dan still beat us. (It’s one of his favorite games, after all.)

Dan and Mark are too much fun! Dan and I are heading to SD Historical Con in November. I’m looking forward to that!

The rest of the week I worked during the day but I stopped by afterwards to get in a game or two. On Tuesday night, I got a chance to play a prototype of Barrage. What a clever eurogame with very specific spatial and timing quality to it! You are all companies trying to harness the power of water to get electricity. You have to build dams, conductors and power factories on this hill so that you can capture that energy as water flows down.

There’s an intricate network of how things need to be powered, and when you spend resources to build your buildings, they’re locked up on this wheel on your personal board, and they can only become available to you again when you build more buildings, which you probably won’t be able to do since your resources are tied up in this wheel! What a dilemma! You can, however, spend actions on this main board to move that wheel along. The main board is where the majority of the worker placement happens.

Stuff rolls downhill! Here are are trying to harness the power of water, and hoping someone’s dam doesn’t get in your damn way.

Each player has a team of engineers, and you can allocate however many you want to an action spot when it’s your turn. Players take turns placing their engineers until they’re have no more workers and must pass. So you need to manage your pool of engineers with the actions you want to do, while also trying to complete objectives during each round. Lastly, the last piece of the puzzle is that water isn’t always available each round. It will flow according to the cards drawn, and if someone else’s dam blocks water flow to your buildings, well, that’s a damn shame.

On Wednesday, I fangirled sooooooo hard. I got a chance to sit in as the awesome Mark Herman taught one of his games, Pericles: The Peloponnesian War to John Butterfield, Nick Karp and Bruce. They all go way back to Victory Games, and it was like being among the wargaming legends.

Here’s me being chill, even though I’m fangirling so hard inside.

Mark taught one round of Pericles, and I jumped into a second round, (holding my own I might add!) and pushing the Demogogues forward. It was great hanging out with them and hearing about old industry stories.  Also, achievement unlocked below: my dinosaur dress got into a C3i report!

The last night I attended Consimworld, I played Root twice, first with Kurt and Jordan, and then we picked up a fourth player for our second game. Kurt LOVES, LOVES Root (and if you want to be highly entertained, next time you see Kurt at a convention, ask him about COIN games.) 

Our first game of Root that evening. I won as the cats!

And just like that, an entire week of wargaming ended. I always have such a great time at Consimworld, and I always feel included among all the gamers here. That said, I’d love to see more younger folks here, especially more women and people of color. If you’re interested in these types of games, please let me know and maybe we can schedule something special for next year. I’d love a chance to teach some of these heavy games! Save the date: next year’s convention will be June 6-13, 2020. You’ll find me in the back with some giant tweezers pushing some cardboard chits.

Thanks for having me, Consimworld! Can’t wait until next year’s con!
Sekigahara: Marching warriors across Japan

Sekigahara: Marching warriors across Japan

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Sekigahara has been on my wishlist for a while, and I couldn’t have been more ecstatic when I saw this at game for $30 at a recent Arizona Game Fair flea market — unstickered!

Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan is a 2-player game published by GMT Games in 2011. According to the description, “the battle of Sekigahara, fought in 1600 at a crossroads in Japan, unified that nation under the Tokugawa family for more than 250 years. Sekigahara allows you to re-contest that war as Ishida Mitsunari, defender of a child heir, or Tokugawa Ieyasu, Japan’s most powerful daimyo (feudal lord).”

Sekigaha plays out for seven weeks, with each week consisting two movement and battle phases for each player. The game comes with 119 wooden pieces, which you’ll need to sticker yourself. There is a lot of stickering. But it isn’t too bad as the wooden pieces are substantial and it’s not too hard to align the stickers with the edge. Mitsunari’s forces are yellow, while Ieyasu’s forces are black.

Stickering took some time, and I thought I had lost one sticker but I accidentally placed it on a second side of one block. This is what happens when you’re up late stickering. Friends don’t let friends sticker after midnight.

Sekigahara also comes with 110 cards as each player has their own deck to draw from. Lastly, there’s a mounted map, rulebook and a handy-dancy player aid for each person. The game isn’t difficult to learn compared to other wargames, as the rulebook is well written.

The game lasts about 3 hours, but the time goes by quickly because there’s little downtime, as there is constant movement on the board, and you’re always strategizing your next move.

In a nutshell, Sekigara is a card-driven wargame that involves blocks on the board, which represent a unit that warriors that correspond to a daimyo  You are marching your forces across Japan to defeat your opponent’s leader, and using cards in your hands to deploy warriors and inflict war casualties. The cards are suited, and their symbol must match the daimyo warrior block you’re deploying.

This is the setup for Sekigahara. Starting blocks have a symbol for their starting position on the board, and a few random blocks drawn from a bag are added to various locations.

The coolest thing about this game is the hidden information. Your warrior blocks are facing toward you; and your opponent’s blocks toward them. You can see a giant formation of blocks marching toward you, but you don’t always know how strong the warriors are who are coming down to attack you and which leaders accompany them.

At the start of each week, players must play a card to bid for turn order. If your card has the highest number, you get to decide if you want to go first or second in each phase. Turn order stays the same throughout the week.

When it’s your turn, if you play zero cards, you can discard any number of cards and redraw from your deck, or you can move exactly one stack. If you discard one card, you can move three stacks. If you discard two cards, you can move all your stacks. Additionally, you can muster blocks from your recruitment box in place of a stack movement. The recruitment box is filled with a specific number of blocks at the start of each round, and they just sit there until they’re recruited.

Decisions, decisions! The cards in your hand are used for movement and battle.

Cards also come into play during the movement phase. Each stack has a base movement of one space. Highways; leadership from a leader, castle or capital; and a force march from discarding a card will give you movement bonuses, while the size of your stack will negatively affect your movement total. The larger the army, the slower they’ll move. And to get a leader bonus, you’ll actually have to show a leader from your stack, which can make for some revealing moments. When you enter a space with your opponent’s blocks, the movement stops. If you have four times as many forces than they do, their block is overrun and it gets removed from the game. Otherwise, battle occurs.

When players battle, the attacker deploys the first block by playing a card with the matching symbol. Initiative is calculated based on the number of symbols, plus bonuses for matching special attack symbols as well as matching the symbols from previous blocks deployed in this battle. The losing side holds initiative then and keeps playing cards to deploy blocks until they take the initiative lead. There are also Loyalty cards that can be played as an interrupt, and if the recipient doesn’t show a card with the matching symbol, the impact for that block gets calculated for the other side.

The battle continues until one side declines further deployments. The impact is then calculated. For every 7 points worth of impact, the opponent removes one block from the game. And the losing side also removes one block. For every two blocks removed, that side gains 1 card. Both players then redraw for every card used in battle.

These are some cards I used in a battle. The one with the double symbol allows you to deploy two blocks, with impact resolved for each block individually.

When the two phases are done, the week ends and the reinforcement phase begins. Players discard half of their cards, draw five cards and draws blocks from their bag to add to the recruitment area. There are also various locations on the map, that when controlled, either give you more cards at the start of the week or more blocks to add to your recruitment area.

The game ends immediately if the Tokogawa block is destroyed, or the Ishida block or Toyotomi disk is destroyed. If neither of these things happen after seven weeks, VPs are calculated — 2 VPs per castle and 1 VP per resource location to whoever controls it, and the person with the most points wins the game.

Ishida’s forces are surrounded! This battle might not have ended well for the Ishida side.

Sekigahara is so much fun to play! The combat is very in your face, and you have to make tough decisions about how to spend your cards. You need a lot of cards to move around the board quickly and to be successful in battle, but you also need the right type of cards to be able to deploy your warrior blocks. There were some moments when one of my blocks just got annihilated because I didn’t have any cards that corresponded with that stack. I’ve learned that it’s a good idea to keep your armies varied, so that you can be prepared for anything. But you’re at the mercy of which cards are drawn, and which blocks enter the game. And man, you can blow through your hand so quickly when discarding to move stacks around.

If you’re looking for a great introduction to wargames — and have a few hours to spend — Sekigara is just so much fun! The game is visually appealing, and the blocks and use of suited cards make the game accessible to many types of gamers. The game mechanics are simple and streamlined, but there’s so much strategy and history in the game. I immensely enjoyed the hidden information aspect of it, and I can’t wait to get this on table again! Hopefully at next week’s Consimworld — let me know if you’re going to be there!

Sekigahara is just delightful. Have you played this?
Bubble Tea: Shaken boba, not stirred

Bubble Tea: Shaken boba, not stirred

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I love boba. Growing up in Los Angeles with predominantly Asian friends, we didn’t say, let’s get coffee. Nope, instead we’d say, let’s get boba, also known as bubble tea in other parts of the world. For the unfamiliar, boba are marble-sized tapioca balls that you can order in a drink, drinks such as milk teas and slushies, in all sorts of flavors as well as other add-on toppings. My personal favorite is taro milk tea with boba. So yummy!

So you can imagine my excitement when I found out that Renegade Game Studios has a new game called Bubble Tea, another real-time game by Aza Chen, complete with the adorable animal artwork that he’s also known for. He’s also the designer of one of my favorite games of 2017, Shiba Inu House.

Bubble Tea is all about making boba drinks! At left is a taro milk tea with boba at Milk Run, one of my favorite drink cafes in the Phoenix area.

Coming out in July, Bubble Tea is a 20-minute game for 1-5 players. The game comes with wooden dice, Customer cards, Tea Base cards, Moji Moji cards (which are these transparent square tiles for layering ingredients), and a drink shaker! Just like when you order boba and they mix up your drink at the cafe, so will you, except with dice that feature drink ingredients drawn as cute animal characters. Characters such as the Milk Tea Cow, the Green Tea Frog, the Tapioca Dog, and the Taro Ball Bear.

Oh. My. Goodness! These cards are just so freaking cute! And I see the cute doggo from Shiba Inu House.

Bubble Tea is actually two games in one, which was a pleasant surprise! In both games, players are trying to craft the best drinks the fastest and get the most victory points. The first game actually involves shaking up the dice in the drink shaker. The current player places the dice inside the shaker and shakes them up. They flip over the shaker, the dice land on the table and then everyone yells, “1, 2, 3, Go!” to start.

Simultaneously, players are trying to match the tea base and ingredients shown on the dice by arranging and stacking the Moji Moji cards on their Tea Base card. This is trickier than it sounds because the nine Moji Moji cards that each player has are all unique, with different ingredients situated in various squares. The Tea Base cards are gridded, so you’ll have to arrange the transparent cards on top of each other in varying orientations, while following the grid on the Tea Base card, to match the dice that have just been tossed out of the shaker.

Players quickly stack and place their transparent Moji Moji cards to match the dice shown.

When a player finishes their drink, they take the shaker lid and cover the dice. Players check to see if they made the drink correctly, and if they did, they gain a Customer card. If that player didn’t make the drink correctly, they lose a Customer card and the other players continue playing. The game ends when a player gets three Customer cards.

For the second game, players are again simultaneously competing, this time to complete their Customer cards and gain victory points. In this game, you don’t need the dice, just the shaker, which will sit in the middle of the table. Each player draws 5 Customer cards and place one card of their choice face down in front of them. When everyone is ready, they all say, “1, 2, 3, Go!” and flip over their chosen card. Just like in Game #1, players must arrange their transparent Moji Moji cards onto the correct Tea Base card, according to what their Customer card is asking for.

If a player is first to complete their drink by placing their Moji Moji cards to match the ingredients on the Customer card, they receive the VPs on the back of the card.

The player to finish their drink first grabs the shaker. Game play stops, and they check the player’s card to see if they have the right number and type of ingredients in their drink as well as the correct Tea Base card used. If they did, they flip over the Customer card for VPs. The harder the drink, the more VPs it’s worth. If the player incorrectly created their drink, the round continues until someone correctly makes their drink.

At the end of the round, everyone passes the leftover cards from their hand to the player on the left. This game ends after five rounds, when there are no more cards to pass. The player with the most points wins the game.

Bubble Tea is just so adorable, and it comes with its own shaker!

Bubble Tea is so fun, and I just love, love, love the theme! Seeing a mainstream board game company create a game about a possibly niche food theme — but one that’s been a major part of my life — just warms my heart.

Bubble Tea is perfect to bust out with your friends at the boba cafe or when you need a quick filler for up to five people. The artwork is colorful and adorable, and having an actual shaker is just super duper cool, even if the dice can be a little bit loud when you’re tossing them around. But it doesn’t matter, because that action is such a small part of one game, and more often than not, you’re just frantically working to place that Sugar Monkey in that one sweet spot on your Tea Base card.

Thanks Renegade Game Studios for sending me a copy of this game!

Tiny Towns: At the mercy of a cute, little hammer

Tiny Towns: At the mercy of a cute, little hammer

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A few months ago, I started seeing a lot of buzz online about Tiny Towns, a new game from AEG. It wasn’t until recently that I got a chance to play it, and, what can I say, this game is delightful. If I’m being honest, I initially dismissed it because it seemed too light for my group, but after playing it multiple times, I discovered it’s a great crunchy, puzzly short game.

I’ve had so much fun every time I’ve played Tiny Towns.

In Tiny Towns, each player gets a 4×4 cardboard grid in which you’re building out your little town. Each square can hold exactly one resource or building. On your turn, you become the Master Builder — yes, there’s a cute little hammer included in the game — and you choose one of the resources: wood, wheat, brick, glass or stone. Then, everyone grabs that resource to place in their town to place on a square that’s empty. After everyone places their cube, they have the option to build any of the buildings in play for your game.

There are seven buildings in play every game. One building is always the Cottage, and, for the other six, players randomly select one card from four of that type to use. Players also receive two monument cards, and they keep one of them to potentially score in the game.

Tiny Towns comes with a lot of wooden buildings and cubes, and one hammer. The pink building is your monument, and everyone only gets one of those pieces.

Each building has resource and spatial requirements that must be fulfilled, and if a player has laid out their resources in the exact pattern on their grid, they can remove those resources and place that building on any of the spaces those resources occupied. After everyone builds (or not), the hammer moves to the left, and the next player starts their turn.

The game feels like a mix of Patchwork and Bingo (and I mean that in the most positive way because I love Bingo!). You’re anxiously awaiting the caller and hoping they pick the resource you need so you can place it in a beneficial location. Or you hope that you can place a resource you don’t need at the moment in a space that won’t mess you up too badly.

In each game, the Cottage is always in play, and then one random card from all the other types. Each card indicates what resources and pattern you need to build it, and what the building’s benefits are.

Game play continues until everyone fills up their grid, either with buildings or resources. There’s player elimination, but the entire game isn’t very long so it’s not a big deal if you’re eliminated early. When everyone is done, you remove all the unspent resources on your grid, and any unused space is -1 point. Players then calculate their VPs based on the building’s benefits.

Tiny Towns, which plays in 45-60 minutes, is for 1-6 players, which is great, as I’m always on the lookout for solid games that satisfy large player counts. And the best part, it keeps all the players engaged throughout the game — at least until they’re eliminated.

I’m the Captain … oh wait, the Master Builder. Isn’t this hammer so cute?

The game also offers opportunities to be a just a teeny bit mean, as you can pick to see which resources your neighbors are waiting for, and then select something else. There were more than a few moments during our games when someone would yell, “Why did you pick that??” The one complaint I’ve encountered so far was that you were at the mercy of the Master Builder’s selection, which, to me, adds to the puzzle of the game. You have to be flexible in placing resources but also deal with unwanted cubes.

You also don’t want to build in a way where you’ll trap yourself in a corner, unable to clear cubes for a future building. It’s the perfect mix of resource gathering and pattern building. When you plan and place your buildings perfectly, it’s so very satisfying. But more often than not, you’re staring at your 4×4 grid saying, “Gah, poor choices were made!”

Have you played Tiny Towns? What are some of your favorite crunchy short games?