Every time I get back from a convention, I am on a total high from all the games I played and all the people I played with. And then life moves on, and then you realize weeks have passed and you still haven’t written your convention recap. Well, friends, better late than never, right? Of course it is. And with upcoming travel plans to attend another board game convention, well, there’s nothing like an impending deadline to get cracking. 

Last month, I went to my local Arizona board game convention, RinCon in Tucson, and of course, I use the term local very loosely as Tucson is about a 2-hour drive from the Phoenix area, where I live. The convention was held on Oct. 1-3, 2026, at the Casino del Sol Resort and Hotel.

Friday

I arrived in Tucson on Friday afternoon just in time for a game of Wyrmspan. It was my first time playing, and the teacher has a very nice deluxified set complete with gems and neoprene mats. It plays very similarly to Wingspan, down to the cool dragon eggs, but in order to place your dragons into the rows on your player board, you’ll need to excavate out the cavern to make space. I also enjoyed the dragon guilt board, which offered bonuses as you moved around its board. 

Next up was Archeos Society, a game about archeological expeditions across multiple location cards. On your turn, you either take a card from the display or deck, or play expeditions. An expedition is a group of cards that either have the same color or symbol, and the first card you pick in the pile will determine which location you’ll move up. Each location has different thresholds by which you need to play that many cards to move up one space. And the rewards and VPs are different for each location. So maybe it makes sense going high up on the Europe track, but not so much on the Oceania card. Watch out for those three monkeys though in the deck as they will end the round. The game goes on for three rounds.

Then we played Libertalia. This is a game I played once or twice very early on when I first entered the hobby, so it’s been forever since playing this game. In this game, you are pirates competing against other pirates to get the best booty over the course of three rounds. In each round, one player randomly decides six character cards for the round, and everyone else takes them from their deck. You all play one character card face down from those chosen six, and they get turned over simultaneously and sorted into ascending order, which then they all trigger to collect loot, doubloons and other treasures.

The last game of Friday was Dnup, a very fun ladder shedding game. Be the first to discard all your cards! There are some comparisons to Scout, but this feels more streamlined because all you have to worry about is sets – one or more cards of the same active value –  and no runs. Each card has two values, so if you rotate your card, it can be a different number. When you get your hand of cards, you can rearrange them but you cannot rotate them — yet. On your turn, you do one of these four actions: Play a set of cards in front of you, add 1 card to another player’s set, take a set of cards in front of your opponent, or rotate all the cards in your hand. If you take any card from the table, you must rotate it before putting it back in your hand. The first player to shed their hand gets 2 letters, either the D or U. And the next person to go out gets one letter. The first person to get DNUP wins. 

Saturday morning 

I began Saturday morning teaching two games in the Women’s Space. It’s a space near and dear to my heart and it’s run by the wonderful Mari. It’s a cozy and quiet space to hang out and game, and I am always appreciative that it exists.

I taught a 5P game of Wingspan Pocket, a pocket-sized version of the Wingspan. I first learned this game when I was in Tucson the month prior at Gila Minicon. It’s a quick portable game to carry around, and people really enjoy learning about new birds. I love how it can hold up to 5 people, and game play is about a half-hour.

Next up was a game of Pond. I just reviewed this on Episode 179 of The Five By, and it’s quickly becoming a favorite of mine. It’s a strategic game that plays out in about 90 minutes, and did I mention the FREAKING ADORABLE frog artwork? These frogs are pretty angry and want to take over the the pond! It’s a deck builder game area-control game that’s a little mean, but plays quickly enough that it doesn’t become a bog. 

I then played a quick flip-and-fill game of Cartographers. A card is flipped each turn, and then you must choose one of the shapes to fill in your grid. When the season is over, your score sheet gets scored based on what two different seasons, of which there four, are looking for. I like being able to plan for a future season, when nothing is turning out right for your sheet in this season. 

The next game was Fairy Ring, this cute interactive fairy mushroom game. On your turn, you play a mushroom into your village by placing it on its own or growing one of your existing matching mushrooms. And then you move your fairy however many spaces shown on the mushroom card or cards you just placed, and this will go beyond your village. As people build out their mushroom villages, these fairies are crossing a play area that gets bigger and bigger. The artwork and fairies are just too adorable. 

My next game brought me to familiar waters – trading in the Mediterranean! In Medici, players are bidding on commodities to fill your boat and while trying to increase that commodity’s value. It’s a classic game that elegantly fits up to six players and plays out in about an hour. You also bid with your VPs, and gameplay creates fun opportunities for trash talk during bidding. 

I then taught a game of Akropolis with the Athena expansion for the first time. Akropolis is a wonderful game, so I was unsure if the Athena expansion would be needed. I’ve decided you can play with or without it, and either way is fine acceptable!

Akropolis is a tile-drafting and tile-laying game about building your Greek district. Housing, temples, markets, gardens and barracks all have unique requirements for scoring, and the Athena expansion adds objectives that once completed give you a little piece of an Athena statue to build overlooking your district. 

I then played Miams, a very cute roll-and-write about collecting fruit to fill your skewers. You win by hitting 50 points first, and you do that by filling in little hearts on your score sheet. On your turn, you roll dice to collect poker-hand sets of fruit so that you can mark up your sheet. The more full houses, for example, you roll, the farther along you go on its track for more VPs. The two currencies in the game are hearts, which are VPs, and stars, which allow you to purchase ability cards that can help you on future turns. 

We then played Hadara, a card-drafting civilization game that plays out through three epochs.

On your turn, you have an option between two cards. Either you will pay its cost to add to your board or to sell, and you discard into the main board. The second half of the epoch is interesting because those cards you discarded will be available for purchase into your tableau or to sell for money. In the meantime, you’re unlocking bonuses on your player board and making sure you have enough food to feed your people. The more cards of a type you put into your tableau, the cheaper it gets for you to purchase the same time on a future turn.

We, of course, took a break for midnight – well, 10 p.m. – Eegee’s, courtesy of RinCon. Always so cool of the convention to provide this chilly treat!

Dino Racer is a fast-paced racing game where you’re betting on which dinosaur will make it to the finish line. The dinosaur cards are lined up horizontally across the table, and a certain number of cards (the group total plus 1) are placed in a market to be drafted. Each player gets to pick a dinosaur from this market, which represents your betting ticket as to which dinosaur you’d want to win the race! The last ticket that does not get selected will move that dinosaur forward. As the dinos move along the race, there are checkpoints that trigger, which can cause some chaos for the dinosaurs. So freaking fun without a lot of rules to slow down the game. I pre-ordered this and can’t wait for it to arrive.

The second to the last game of Saturday was Bordeaux, the paper version of Fromage! This game came as a thick pad of sheets, like the size of a graphic novel. Each sheet is individually unique, and you are trying to be the best winemaker in Bordeaux. It uses the same 3 worker mechanic as Fromage, and it’s up to you how long you want to keep a worker working, either by maturing wines or gathering resources, for either 1, 2 or 3 rounds. It’s such a clever game!

And the final game of the day was Miams again. I think I did better than my first game, but still did not win. What a packed day of gaming!

Sunday

I started my last day at Rincon with a game of Moon Colony Bloodbath, designed by Donald X. Vaccarino of Dominion fame. You’re all trying to build colonies on the moon, have enough colonists for them, and avoid troubles and twists. As the game progresses, avoiding such pitfalls get harder and harder, as players – and the game – will seed the event deck with cards so all those bad things will cycle back around as you’re trying to build your engine and take actions such as mining, farming, research, building or restocking boxes. It plays in about 90 minutes – if your colony can hang on that long!

The last game I played before heading back to Phoenix was High Society. I love this card game and am always down to play it! It is a bidding card game where you’re hobnobbing with rich folks and showing off your prestige while trying not to go broke. If you have the least amount of money at the end of the game, you are ineligible to win. It plays quickly at 20 minutes for 3-5 players, and the artwork is just so dapper.

And that concluded my time at RinCon this year. Before I left for Phoenix, I stopped by to chat with Karen, one of the co-chairs for the convention. She told me that 650 badges were issued this year, about the same as previous years.

The organizers put on such a wonderful event every year. There’s so much gaming space, the vibe is so chill and inviting, and staying at the resort is so convenient as there are a lot of food options and quiet corners for those who need them. Those are all the reasons why I keep coming back time and time again. And with that, I will be heading to San Diego – remember when I said I had a deadline – this week for SDHistCon to play some historical games!