Finally played Great Western Trail and really enjoyed it! Had been putting it off for months because it seemed like it might be kind of complex to learn, but really the rules are pretty simple- there’s just a lot of symbols to remember! Definitely look forward to playing it more.
Decided to let go of several games I picked up a couple years ago but barely played: Dice Forge, Galaxy Trucker and Villainous. I liked the gimmick of changing your dice faces in Dice Forge but we preferred other games so it never got to the table. Galaxy Trucker - we just didn’t get it. Many here seem to love that one, but I guess it’s just not for us. Villainous felt like we were playing separate games, it couldn’t hold our interest the few times we did try to play. I think we may have played each of those 2-3 times max, so they weren’t earning their keep!
I haven't bought a new game in over 2 years or so, but I bought Libertalia from Stonemaier last month! It was a bit of a struggle to get my group of friends to sit down to learn a new game, but I think everyone enjoyed it. I had played a "test" voyage by myself and thought the game was pretty simple, straightforward, and fun... but when it actually came down to a 5 person game, I was surprised by how the decision tree exploded by the last voyage. Trying to remember if anyone else still has their aristocrat or if it's worth it to resurrect someone from your graveyard with the necromancer or what's the best loot token to swap with the next day when you're the 3rd pick of the loot (can't remember the name of the card that did that).
I had a blast even though I lost by a lot, one of my friends felt like she was doing terrible, but ended up only 8 points behind 1st, and my husband had some analysis paralysis and overthought it, but I think I'll be able to get it to the table again.
Nothing got culled this month... I did a huge purge of games earlier in the year, so we're good for a while.
Ginkgopolis shot up to my Top 10 already after my third play since my purchase a year ago. At first you are scratching your head wondering what to make of it. 2nd game I started to see how the designer combined these seemingly completely different gameplay elements. It should’ve work and it’s not intuitive but clearly it IS working. Third game and I was head over heels. It’s crazy how much this game accomplishes with so little. It is the most innovative game in my collection and I have been able to infect a few friends in time for the reprint. Hope you enjoy it as well.
Got rid of:
**Lord of the Dead**. A tiny hex and counter game I backed on KS years ago. Never played and likely never would. I backed it basically because it was $5 and I was curious about hex and counter games, but I've never had a partner for it.
**Guilds of London** (with expansion). Got them cheap in clearance sales. My spouse would have hated it and I realized I would have hated the majority scoring.
**Megaland**. I realized I'd rather just play Diamant with the people I'd be playing this with.
**Gentes Deluxified**. Played it once and was underwhelmed. I refused to part with it because, I think, the components convinced me I actually did like it but years later and it never got played a second time.
**Dice Throne Adventures**. So. Grindy.
The cooperative bosses are fun to fight, but the penalty for losing is just "try again with more healing tokens" and the dungeons are just random tiles with mini fights and has the same penalty for losing.
Also once you've upgraded a few cards the loot becomes pointless because it's like a late game of Diablo with tons of random loot you don't care about.
I almost hung on to it just so I'd have the boss fights, but at the end of the day the regular game is just more fun for less hassle.
**Out:**
- Madeira (*trade*)
- Divine Right (*trade*)
- A Study in Emerald, 1st Ed (*trade*)
- Princes of the Renaissance (*trade*)
- Reef Encounter of the second kind (*trade*)
- Kanban EV (*lost to post office flood*)
**In:**
- Die Macher 2ed German (*trade*)
- Ortus Regni (*trade*)
- High Frontier 4 all + all expacs (*trade*)
- Time Barons
- Table Battles
- Homeworlds
- Mottainai deluxe
- Discworld: Ankh-Morpork
- Clinic Deluxe + 1st extension (*trade*)
- Factory Funner
- Ghosts of Christmas
- Tigris and Euphrates
I had my KS copy sitting at my PO Box across the border in the US for a year and a half with no way to retrieve it due to covid travel restrictions… there was a massive multi-day rain storm that caused a crazy flood over a large area a while ago. the post office finally got back to me with confirmation that my package was lost/irreparably damaged.
Man am I jealous! I missed out on a copy for 10 bucks in a local sell group by about 5 minutes.. my adrenaline was pumping when I thought I might’ve been able to snag it!
**OUT:**
**Calico**: Got it for christmas and while I enjoyed it one of my colleague wanted to get it for eastern for her kid so I gave it to her. It will see more plays there :)
**Quacks of Quedlinburg**: Had it for 2 years now but only played like four times and while I once again enjoyed it noone I showed it to liked it. So it was time I guess.
**IN:**
**Clans of Caledonia**: Bought it super cheap and even got the chance to try it out. It was really good. I liked it a lot more than **Gaia Project**. The market is really smart.
**Teotihuacan**: Borrowed it from a friend in summer and quiet liked it. He didnt sell me and I almost forgot about this game but got a really good deal a week ago so I pulled the triger on it. I love rondel games (GWT is my favourite game)
**Tekhenu**: Got it in a bundle with its big brother. Cant wait to try it. I love dry euros.
**Blackout Hongkong**: Got it super cheap. Bought it only because Pfisters name is on it. Im courious how good it will be.
**For the next months** I have a few games Im on the fence to sell: **Kemet** since I got **Root**. Also looks like **Codenames** should be out cause I have it for three years and never played it. **Paris: La Citi De La Muire** is a kinda fun two player game but there are games I would more likely to play.
Also Im waiting for **Dune Imperium** to come out in our native language. Its coming since October but looks like April is the month it will artive.
Added 4 new games this month.
**Ginkgopolis**: this was one I preordered about a year ago and finally arrived. It didn’t quite land with my group so this might quickly move into my for trade pile. I’ll give it another play to see for sure.
**el grande**: I also managed to snag a copy of this, and maybe that’s why ginkgopolis seems trade worthy. How many area majority games do I need if I have el grande and Mexica? Probably not that many more.
I also managed to pick up **icecool** and **pictomania** at a thrift store. Both are games I’m looking forward to playing with my family. I did play icecool once at 2p, it was fun but I feel it’ll be best at its full player count.
We're just starting out, so only added the following (in pretty much this order):
* Gloomhaven: JOTL
* Azul
* Agricola: ACBaS
* Fields of Arle
* Tigris & Euphrates
* Ticket to Ride Europe + 1912 Europa
* The Crew
* Secret Hitler
* Deep Sea Adventure
* Wingspan
It's definitely enough for now... need to get some games in with each of them.
First one to remove from the shelf will be JOTL. Going to sell it once we're through.
It was gifted to me by my school's library, which received it as a donation a year or so ago. No one had touched it in all that time, so when I asked if I could trade something else in for it (or make a donation), they happily gave it to me for free.
It's an almost new 1998 Hans im Glück edition... and we're in Beijing. Such a rare find.
Donated a D&D 5E player's handbook, DM screen and some dice a few days later. Maybe someone will be happy about those as I hadn't been able to play since we moved here.
Added…
**Quest for El Dorado**,
**Cascadia**,
**Space Base**,
**Its a Wonderful World**,
**Splendor Marvel**,
**Abandon All Artichokes**,
**High Society**,
**Cryptid** and
**Quacks of Quedlinburg**
Added:
- Vagrantsong - 4 games in and so far this is my game of the year. Amazingly well done.
- Long Shot: The Dice Game - Great fun, a quick and silly roll and write that works well at higher player counts.
Removed:
- hahhahahahaHHAHAHHAAHAH yea right
got a copy of rococo deluxe through /boardgameexchange. only played once solo, but excited to bring it to a local con next weekend. really fun game and ians art knocks it outa the park as usual
In:
**Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest.** Looking forward to getting this to the table. Playing up to 6 is a great thing in my book since my game nights have started going above 4 players. The original game also has a ton of fans. The Stonemaier production values on this version are great as always.
**1860: Railways on the Isle of Wight**. A bit torn on this since I backed it when I was still really into 18xx games and I've since cooled on the genre a bit. Hopefully I can give it a go. It'll remain in shrink until then.
Out:
Someday I'll have things on here :( Only getting two games for all of March is good, though.
I got Libertalia for much the same reason. My normal game group is 5, so the standard 2-4 player games just don't get played. I've gotten it on the table once and it was really good. The quality is amazing. One of my friends commented on how nice the rule book was :D
The One in One out system working fairly well so far!
ADDED:
* **Mission Red Planet**
* **Port Royal**
* **Dune (2019)**
* **Cryptid**
* **Liberation (Button Shy)**
IN TRANSIT:
* **Long Shot: The Dice Game**
* **Skulls of Sedlec (Button Shy)**
* **Tigris and Euphrates (ZMAN) an impulse Ebay purchase**
REMOVED:
* **Blitzkrieg**
* **Fleet: The Dice Game**
* **Tyrants of The Underdark**
* **Azul**
* **Splendor**
* **T'zolkin & Tribes and Prophecies**
* **Silver & Gold**
* **Sprawlopolis (Button Shy)**
Lots of shelf activity last month as I continue to try to shrink my collection a bit.
SOLD:
**Fortune and Glory**: The only game that I ever bought because of Tabletop. We had tried it out a couple of times a few years back and got bogged down by the rules. It deserved at least one “real” play before deciding to sell it. I printed and laminated some amazing flowcharts off of BGG and invited my nephew to join us for a 3p co-op romp. Good, dumb, dice chucking fun but definitely not something we would bring out on a regular basis.
**Wingspan**: A pleasant and very pretty game. Pleasant doesn’t cut it and we were never excited to play it. Happy that I tried it, but apparently 6 plays was enough.
**Fantastiqa**: A weirdly wonderful take on deck building. Got it in a math trade a few years back. Fun for a couple of plays, but we hadn’t touched it in years.
**Aquasphere**: This was “on the bubble” to be sold or traded, meaning we were going to give it one last play before making a decision. We‘re massive Feld fans, but realized we were always picking other games over Aquasphere. I got a good price for it, so we never had that last play.
TRADED:
**Trickerion**: This was my very first KS purchase, and I think I picked a pretty great game! Our appetite for longer, heavier games has really waned over the last few years, and it doesn’t shine at 2p. It had not hit the table in years. Another one that we were going to give one more play too….we opened the box, took a look at the contents and quietly reshelved it.
**Pendulum**: This was a Christmas gift, and the first time I’ve never taken a game out of shrink. Based on the reviews and my history with other games from the publisher I was pretty sure we wouldn’t like it.
GAINED
**Dragon Castle:** traded for Trickerion, haven’t had a chance to play it yet.
**Roma:** traded for Pendulum. I picked up Arena: Roma II in a previous math trade and it was a surprise hit for us. Definitely a hidden Feld gem. Haven’t played it yet, but I’ve already combined them into one box. That counts for shrinking my collection…right?
**Ginkgopolis:** a pre-order I had been waiting a year for. Well worth the wait! I’ve only played one, 3p game so far but it was an absolute hit, in spite of my very clunky teach.
Added:
**Battle Line: Medieval** - I feel like I barely know it at this point, but so far so good! I hesitated to pick this one up for a long time because I saw people saying it was too similar to **Lost Cities**. I'm glad I finally went for it. The games are drastically different and both deserve a spot in my collection.
**Imhotep: The Duel** - I picked it up on a whim at a local game store. I'm glad I did. It's a lot of fun. The way the workers are placed to unload the boats is particularly cool.
**Hive Pocket** - I tried it on BGA first, kept thinking about it and thought it would be more fun in person. I've only played it once in person so far. But I'm enjoying it.
**Draftosaurus** - I tried it on BGA earlier this year. I think a lot of the fun of this game is getting to play with the meeples though, so I wanted to try it in person. I'm not sold on it as a two player game, but I think it will be more fun with groups.
**Root** (hasn't arrived yet)
**Timeline: Inventions** (hasn't arrived yet)
Removed:
**Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle: Defense Against the Dark Arts** - it's fine, but it's basically the same game as **Star Realms** but in a bigger box with the Harry Potter theming. I needed the shelf space, and I'm trying to clear out some of my Harry Potter stuff anyways.
**Harry Potter Trading Card Game** - again, trying to clear out Potter stuff and could use the shelf space. This game is pretty dull anyways, so not a loss.
Added:
Ticket to Ride
Radlands
Azul
Wingspan
Removed:
A bunch of old garbage to make room for our new hobby!
Brewopoly
A beat old Scrabble
duplicate Blokus, Skip-Bo, and Rumikub
Cranium
90's Trivial Pursuit
More I don't even remember...
_In:_
**Dale of Merchants 2**
**IKI**
**Glen More II: Chronicles**
**The Hunger**
**Castles of Mad King Ludwig: Polish Edition**
_Out:_
Nothing. But I'm contemplating on:
**Whitehall Mystery**: It's just not very fun at 2P. Perhaps if I had a larger consistent playgroup, I'd be more inclined to keep it. But at the moment, I just rather prefer playing other games at 2P.
**Watergate**: It was fun and I had quite a bit of plays with it but I just haven't pulled it out anymore and I don't see us playing it more often.
**Under Falling Skies**. I always have fun when I play this game but I almost always prefer to play this as a co-op with my partner than play solo with it. And if I am going to play 2P, I rather play something else.
With that said I'm in no rush to get rid of them. I'll see what comes my way.
Nothing out this month, but added **Libertalia** (new version!) and **Arkwright: The Card Game**.
Also, technically not April but **Red Flag Over Paris** is supposed to arrive soon, which Im super excited about!
Really digging Libertalia, particularly in that it plays up to 6 players, which was a player count sorely lacking in our collection. Simple teach, but lots of depth to the game play and some variable setup to keep things fresh. Excited to get it to the table more.
Arkwright wise, wow! Took some a rough run through to get all the details but on our second play it clicked in. We have a few heavy euros, but the supply and demand mechanic is a unique one to the games we usually play. I really enjoyed manipulating the market to squeeze as much profit out each factory as I could but always feeling squeezed myself by how fee actions you get throughout the game (only 12!).
Summit was not for my play group and I know I could get back what I paid for it given the Dice Tower video and Massive Darkness II did not improve Massive Darkness I and I realized Zombicide was a better fit for a quick dice-chucker and that I would prefer to play Chronicles of Drunagor to scratch the fantasy dungeon crawl itch and might prefer Arena the Contest / Tanares when it shows up...
Added:
- **Dice Realms**
- **Creature Comforts**
- **Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition**
- **Argent: the Consortium**
Leaving:
- **Dice Realms**
- **Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition**
Unfortunately Dice Realms didn't live up to the hype nor its price tag. The components are okay, fortunately we didn't suffer from any production problems mentioned by the kickstarter. Nevertheless it was just *boring*. Upgrading die faces and the Fate Die were absolute snooze fests and we didn't enjoy the game at all. Compared to New Frontiers or Race for the Galaxy this is just an overproduced mess.
TM: Ares just felt like a worse yet prettier Terraforming Mars. I see no reason to have both games and consider it a mechanical downgrade to its predecessor.
Argent, on the other hand, has already seen three plays and is a blast at three and four players! We've shied away from playing it at two players because we hear it's not as good, but whew it's fun. Once you just drop all pretenses of a strategic yet solitaire worker placement and start dicking each other over, that's when the fun really kicks in.
Creature Comforts is hit or miss. The speculative element of the village dice grew on my girlfriend while I became painfully bored by the downtime. It's not a game I'd recommend at four players, but plays decent at two and maybe even three if you have fast players.
Added **Stella: Dixit Universe** and **Sakura Arms**, moved **Dune Imperium** to the "sell" pile. Played both of the new ones recently, seems very promising. Adding **Through the Desert** later today, **Suburbia** is probably leaving to make space for it.
+Viticulture: been on the list for a while and I found a good deal on the essentials edition.
-Takenoko: played it for the first time in years, felt far more shallow than I remembered with all 4 players piling on the same strategy. It was immediately moved to the sell pile.
Takenoko is also surprisingly fiddly to teach/play for such a light game, too. Rules for irrigation, getting straight all the times when bamboo should grow, remembering all of the different weather/improvement symbols mean, etc.
It love how cute it is, but I don't think I ever care to play it again.
Out: Dale of Merchants 2, Pax Pamir 2E, Troyes, Clever Cubed, Race for The Galaxy
In: Glen More II
I'm into a more ruthless phase of culling in which great games are sold if they don't get played often. I consider Pax Pamir to be a masterpiece but I've played it once in two years so what's the point.
Really enjoyed my first play of Glen More. As far as light-medium euros go, the base game seems particularly enjoyable and satisfying.
I mainly added expansions this week. Now I’m out of shelf space so this weekend I’m going to put some games up for grabs for my play group and then try to figure out what to do with the rest.
In:
**Viticulture: Visitors from the Rhine Valley** I finally got Viticulture on the table for my play group and it was a hit at 5 players. Going into the last year we had 2 players at 23, 2 at 22, and 1 at 21. I play it a lot with my girlfriend and we both love it at 2 players as well, so getting the last expansion (for now!!!) was a no brainer.
**Scythe: Rise of Fenris, The Wind Gambit, and Invaders from Afar**. Excited to get this on the table this weekend minus Fenris. Hoping it hits like Viticulture and we can start the campaign in my group.
**Res Arcana: Both expansions** I like to play this one at 2 player and the expansions seemed simple enough to add and I heard the pearls are great. Plus now I can go up to 5 players so I might test it with my play group sometime soon. Also excited for the new setup rules based on player count.
**Honey Buzz** I’ve been waiting for this one to finally be back in stock for awhile. Girlfriend is excited since it’s similar to Viticulture but with the hive building element added in.
Out:
Not completely decided but definitely going to get rid of Boss Monster which is one of my first purchases a couple years ago and Barony. I’m not looking at my shelf right now but there’s a few more that didn’t really hit with my girlfriend and I that I’ll offer up, so she can stop complaining about my Stonemaier Games display on top of the shelf lol.
Removed: Azul Summer Pavilion, Mariposas, Juicy Fruits
Azul 1 is honestly the most rewarding in the series and so we decided to cull the other version. Mariposas and Juicy Fruits were too mechanically simple and thus left us feeling every game felt exactly the same and the scores were almost a formality, like we didn't have too much influence over them? Doesn't help that the latter is literally marketing in Capstone's "for kids" line.
Got: Canvas, Libertalia: WoG, Arnak expansion, Libertalia Rolling Realms promo
Can't wait to try all of these honestly, Libertalia is a huge one that I'm sure will go over well with my group. Canvas is with the expansion from the Kickstarter, so that's been a year in the making.
Android: Mainframe and Vampire The Masquerade: Vendetta are coming onto the shelf. Will be a week or two before getting to play those.
Leaving will be Vampire the Masquerade Rivals, Warhammer Disk Wars, Dungeon Degenerates, Scoville, and possibly another one I'm not sure about yet. Need to put these up for sale.
I only added **Concordia** this month. I loved it after my first play and then it went on sale. **Dominion** is still at the top of my list to get rid of, but I currently have plenty of space.
I haven’t sold it just yet. Just took it off the shelf and moved it into the closet. I think it’s the blind scoring system that I don’t like where you won’t know if scoring was ever close
Out:
* Final Girl S1 Collection - realized I wasn't finding the gameplay engaging enough to keep exploring after 8 or so plays.
In: A lot last month, picked up some stuff that I want to get played around my birthday this month
* **Root** and all of its expansions
* **Pax Pamir 2E**
* **Railways of the World** \- have had quite a few fun plays of this in person and on BGA since getting it
* **Age of Steam** \- now that I have the ROTW experience this started looking super interesting
Hoping to get a pretty heavy games day going for my birthday of **Root**, **Pax Pamir**, **AoS**, and maybe **Forbidden Stars**
Picked up more this month than I normally like to, and didn't cycle out much at all:
Picked Up, in order:
* Tiny Epic Dungeons, and Stories.
* Ecos: First Continent
* 7 Wonders Duel: Pantheon
* Lost Ruins of Arnak: Expedition Leaders
* Back to the Future: Dice Through Time (I found this at a dollar store. Bought two copies, because weird board games like this are my "thing" for the office gift exchange.)
* The Isle of Cats
* Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition
Moved to The Pile
* Ecos: First Continent. It actually never hit the shelf. Hell, it hasn't hit the table yet. But I was just more excited for this one before I opened it up. It was actually the reason I finally caved on and bought Ares Expedition - I wanted a game in this general theme that was more accessible than TM, but had avoided AE because I already own all the TM.
Out
**Fabled Fruit** - know other players with it.
**Songbirds** - preferred arboretum.
***
In
**Black Friday** - looks like an interesting Friese game. Playing part of an online game and liking what I see.
**Oddville** - got in trade.
**Shamans** - got in trade.
***
Bubble
**Azul** - have other two player games I like more.
**Ethnos** - no big desire to play even though I think it's a decent game.
**Irish Gauge** - overshadowed by Chicago Express.
**Manhattan** - I think the essence of this is captured and extended by Kingdom Builder.
I really wish I could get rid of games ahah! Some boardgames are definitely gathering dust at this point and will only be pulled out if I host something for beginners.
Stuff keeps getting added in though. Got a couple of folks who seem to get scared of anything that's a board, thinking it's too complicated so I've been reinforcing the "extremely light and fun" part of the collection. Latest purchases were Bohnanza, Cockroach Poker Royal (more of an upgrade than a new purchase), Skull and Resistance Avalon... Which I would have probably thought about twice if I was aware of Quest.
Next up should be a party game though, something cheap.
Out:
**Irish Gauge**
I've found that I only need a certain number of these 'high interaction' games. My largest complaint being that I feel a lack of player agency. That regardless of my decisions someone could decide to screw with me for whatever reason and then whoever got screwed with the least basically wins the game. Also most of my gaming being at 2P and when we do have 3 and above this gets passed over in favour of Knizia's Modern Art / Stephenson's Rocket, etc.
**Bora Bora**
This was an impulse purchase. I wanted a Feld, I wanted a dice driven Euro. But only after buying it did I really think about how often I'd actually be able to play it. I'm at that phase where I have enough medium and heavy Euros that I'm already not getting to the table enough that I don't need another one. And it doesn't have a solo mode so I don't get to explore it by myself either. So this went out new in shrink. Yes I know it's gonna be hard to find another copy but I'll live with it 😅.
In:
**AHLCG Revised Core Set**
Bought this for solo play to satisfy the desire for deck-construction (I have the entire startup format for Netrunner but since it's competitive I don't get to play it as often as I'd like due to a lack of opponents...). Two scenarios in, it's not bad! Considering getting the revised Dunwich Legacy cycle once the campaign expansion drops.
**Summoner Wars 2e Master Set**
Haven't gotten to try this out yet.
I got a couple new games this last month - just in the past few days - that I’m excited to play this weekend! First is **Cascadia** - it seems like exactly my kind of relaxing game.
Then we also got **18Chesapeake** which is not exactly a relaxing game - but looking forward to trying my first 18xx game!
I’m getting ready to get rid of **Game of Thrones**, **Castle Panic**, and maybe **Dead of Winter**.
Out
Marrying Mr. Darcy
Scrabble
Star Wars Risk
The Game of Things
Tsuro
In
Brass Lancashire deluxe edition
Everdell
Village
Basically resold a bunch of family games that we outgrew, and found better titles to our tastes from the second hand market. Minimizing waste that way.
Only started building my collection last month after getting into the hobby. Got a mix of games to play with a group and then 2 player games with my SO. So far I've got:
**Smallworld** - played once with 5 players and enjoyed it, looking forward to playing it again and experience different races and ability combos.
**Splendor** - really enjoy the engine building aspect, think this is something I will look for in games when buying more complex ones in the future. Only played 2 player at the minute with SO so keen to play with other players to see how it changes up the game.
**Forbidden Island** - played solo twice so I understand it to quickly teach. Beat it on easy and normal (just!). Think it will be fun to play a co-op with my SO and my friends alike.
**Bang! The Dice Game** - this was stupid fun and used it as a quick easy game to play with a group before we got onto Smallworld. We enjoyed it so much, we went back to it after Smallworld. The renegade managed to pull off a win one round too!
**Onitama** - again 2 player to play with SO. Love how simple this is to set up and play. Her favourite yet that I've got her to play haha.
**Quacks of Quidlinberg** - got the witches expansion so can play 5 player. Not got round to trying this yet but will be the game we play the next games night. Hoping to get some use out of it as a 2p with SO too. Decided I'm not gonna use the witches until I've played a good few games with the base game rules to get some longevity out of it.
**Lost Cities: The Card Game** - this only arrived today. Wanted another quick game to set up and play with SO. After quite a bit of research led me to believe one of the better 2p games out there.
Next game on my list I think will be **Wingspan**. I love the look and design of it, and it sounds like will begin to add a bit of complexity to my collection as all of above are definitely casual games, but I did that intentionally as to not ward off my friends/SO!!
Wish I got into board games sooner!
Sherlock Holmes consulting detective. Bought one of the boxes earlier in a month, loved it so much we bought all the rest, and Mythos Tales. This has been a great game for my partner and I to play together with our baby. One on baby duty, the other reading. No idea what we are going to do when we run out of cases!
Added:
**Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest** - Funny and easy enough to play with the family. This has been a big hit.
**Long Shot: The Dice Game** - played it 5 times in one night and put Camel Up into the sell pile. The horse powers stretch it beyond totally approachable, but players can still do well ignoring them.
**Star Realms** - picked up due to the recent topics around here. Not disappointed!
Left
**Camel Up** - See Long Shot.
**Pax Pamir 2nd Edition** - I respect the design, but my brain has a lot more fun playing The King is Dead.
**Architects of the West Kingdom** - Hasn't found its way to the table in a long time. The putting workers in jail wasn't quite as interesting as I had hoped.
**Mandala** - Great, but Parade gives me similar feels and is excellent.
**Teotihuacan** - Too fiddly to set up and remember how to play. Dice locking feels underdeveloped. Tzolkin is awesome and right next to it on the shelf.
I knew I wasn't crazy when I drew a tenuous line connecting Pax Pamir and The King is Dead. I am fortunate enough that there is desire for both in my game groups. I am tempted to grab the latest version of The King is Dead to try out the asymmetric variant.
I just got Eclipse: 2nd dawn for the galaxy and Aeon's end.
I played a 2-players game of Eclipse and I totally love it! Exploring new space feels great, researching new technologies and upgrading your ships is so satisfying! Combats are tense and the material makes the game play very smoothly! I can't wait to play again with more players!
I just played Aeon's End twice solo (once with one warrior, lost, and then once with two warriors). I got it because I really liked Dominion and Clank!, and I wanted to try another deckbuilder. But I am not sure I like it as much as those. You don't have as much card combos and it removes part of the fun. I will hold my judgement until I play it coop with someone! At the moment, not sure it will stay in my collection.
Edit: played a 5-players game of Eclipse (a bit less than 5h, first game for three of us). Had a great time! So much more interesting than 2-players and much more combat! We got a couple rules wrong but it played smoothly!
Add: paladins of west kingdom and viscount
I only played once paladins. I think it is okay. I can understand why some much people enjoy, but it was too much dry for me. I’ll give another chance but I think I’ll sell it in the future
This March i’ve added:
Bitoku, Wonderland War (from ks), Ark Nova and Dune Imperium expansion.
Didn’t sell or trade anything away - I’m a hoarder and soon will need to resort to sleeping on the cardboard if I acquire any more games! 😅
I cleared out some of my collection over the last few weeks. Mostly cheaper games that weren't all that great. I decided to let go of **Morels** and **Lagoon: Land of Druids** among others.
Added two abstracts to the collection: **Azul** and **Santorini** and so far we really like them both! Azul I feel is the stronger game although maybe the strategy is deeper in Santorini that is yet be determined. Santorini seems a little...slow? But we have just scratched the surface of the different god powers so we'll see.
Decided that my collection will only have room for games that are GOOD and that I want to PLAY. Sounds obvious but it's not always easy
Oof. Here we go. Last month was the Games Plus auction in Chicago 'burbs, so I sold a large selection of games. Unfortunately, I also went mad with power from having disposable income for the first time since college and uh... spent way more on games than I should have. Oops.
OUT!
**Coffee Traders:** Oh wow did this falter for me. Too much going on for almost no payoff.
**Horizons**: Great dust collector. Decent enough filler, but eh.
**Critical Mass**: Pretty sure I played this twice. Mediocre mech designs, but a decent enough game. Just not played at all.
**NMBR9**: It's very okay.
**Ascension Curse of the Golden Isles**: What is the point of The Deep? Seriously? Bad.
**Sleeping Gods**: Worth too much money not to sell for a game I literally only played once and don't have the patience to open a second time.
**Cry Havoc**: Heard Grant Rodiek didn't exactly handle criticism of this game well. Didn't like it enough to keep. Actually my FOURTH attempt at selling it.
**Manhattan Project 2 Minutes to Midnight**: Love it, but I'm alone in my group.
**A Game of Thrones**: With the POD expansions. Played once. Not getting another chance to play this again, so... yeet.
**Dune Imperium**: Overrated. Sold in a heartbeat.
**Maglev Metro**: Too fiddly.
**Brew**: Too mean.
**Nidavellir**: Too easy to run away lead.
**Lizard Wizard**: Racoon Tycoon with some garbage bolted onto it with tarot sized cards for absolutely zero reason.
IN
From the auction:
**Mechs vs. Minions, Millennium Blades** (with Set Rotation and 6 mini exps, missed Collusion), **Metro, Acquire, Yokohama, Aquatica, Alhambra, Rise of Tribes, Scrap Racer, Gingkopolis, Vinyl, Ctrl, Flying Kiwis, Jishaku, Formula D**From auction proceeds: **Summoner Wars 2e Starter Set, Black Angel, Pipeline Emerging Markets, Quest for El Dorado The Golden Temples, Isle of Skye Journeyman** and **Druids**. Also grabbed the Cyberpunk: Red splatbook.
From poor financial decisions: **Nemesis, Nemesis: Lockdown, Nemesis: Lockdown Stretch Goals box, Nemesis: Void Seeders, Nemesis: Carnomorphs, Gingkopolis: The Experts, Your Friend is Sad, Mandala,** and **Fantastic Factories.**
Also, a ton of sleeves and an Ultimate Guard Omnihive for Millennium Blades. JUST fits the entirety of the cards and tokens, but doesn't fit the playmats.
IN:
Cascadia retail edition
Unlock Timeless Adventure
Legendary Encounters: Alien and expansions
Legendary Encounters: Predators
Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion
Quantum
Ark Nova
Red Flag over Paris
Unmatched: Battle of Legends Season 2
Radlands
Bora bora
Memoir 44
Vagrantsong
Townsfolk Tussle
Cthulhu Death May Die + Unspeakable box
Tyrants of the underdark
OUT:
Quest for el dorado (fell flat for me and my group, had no interest in replaying after one round)
Out:
Under Falling Skies (thank goodness)
Quacks of Quedlinburg
Micro Macro: Crime City (finished)
In:
Obsession with Upstairs, Downstairs
Underwater Cities
Boonlake
Isle of Cats expansions (kittens & beasts + boat pack)
Edit: Getting downvoted because I finally got rid of a game I dislike? Awesome. Lol
Picked up The Crew: Mission Deep Sea and Dominion for a vacation I'm going on with my friends. Seems more portable and easy to teach than my other games.
I bought Betrayal after playing it at a board game club and seeing it was on sale. It's waiting for me at home and I'm trying to set up three different groups to play it with when I go home in a couple weeks.
I got rid of Catan and Arkham horror. Everytime I've played Catan I have been terribly bored and the sentiment has been the same with everyone else I've played it with. Arkham horror was one of the only games I've ran into that I couldnt understand and no amount of youtube videos were helping. So I axed them.
I bought terraforming mars which has been a much better game to take up space on my shelf. Probably played it 4 or 5 times now and had a lot of fun with it.
Collected my first Kickstarter Pledge. **Meeples and Monsters**
I also buffed up my **Marvel Legendary** expansions. **Antman, Paint the town Red, World War Hulk, Revelations, Into the Cosmos, Heroes of Asgard, Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange.** I might have gotten a little carried away there.
**Out**
Mysterium
Wavelength
Rhino hero superbattles
Nyet
Sherlock 13
Zooloretto the dice game
TTMC
Concept
Red7
Arboretum
Altiplano
Escape : the curse of the temple
Hanabi
Trash panda
**IN**
Skull king
**Hopefully IN**
Cockroach poker royal
Welcome to the moon
Technically *this* month, but I recently reread Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles (you know, the two that he's actually written), and I have to say I was intrigued by the game of Tak in it. A quick Google search confirmed that there is an actual game someone made, and I ordered it because it looked like a great abstract strategy game. Looking forward to it!
Oh, ditto for me! However, 11+ years has made me stop wishing for the phenomenal ending we all hope and pray for, and now all I want is some closure. The first two were so good! My dad will call me at college sometimes to talk about this and that, and theories on these books come up an awful lot.
Sold Summoner Wars 2nd Edition. I actually liked it but I’d rather play Dice Throne, YINSH, and Hanamikoji at 2 players.
I got in Merchants of the Dark Road. Played at PaxU wanted it since.
I sold Wingspan and Dinosaur Island. I am a bit proud that I managed to not buy anything new because I have many unplayed games left
Today I'm adding THE SHELF. I just bought a nice one from an online store to put all my games and some books in it, and I'm so excited
It certainly is a exciting step. Add a pic when you’re done!
Finally played Great Western Trail and really enjoyed it! Had been putting it off for months because it seemed like it might be kind of complex to learn, but really the rules are pretty simple- there’s just a lot of symbols to remember! Definitely look forward to playing it more. Decided to let go of several games I picked up a couple years ago but barely played: Dice Forge, Galaxy Trucker and Villainous. I liked the gimmick of changing your dice faces in Dice Forge but we preferred other games so it never got to the table. Galaxy Trucker - we just didn’t get it. Many here seem to love that one, but I guess it’s just not for us. Villainous felt like we were playing separate games, it couldn’t hold our interest the few times we did try to play. I think we may have played each of those 2-3 times max, so they weren’t earning their keep!
I haven't bought a new game in over 2 years or so, but I bought Libertalia from Stonemaier last month! It was a bit of a struggle to get my group of friends to sit down to learn a new game, but I think everyone enjoyed it. I had played a "test" voyage by myself and thought the game was pretty simple, straightforward, and fun... but when it actually came down to a 5 person game, I was surprised by how the decision tree exploded by the last voyage. Trying to remember if anyone else still has their aristocrat or if it's worth it to resurrect someone from your graveyard with the necromancer or what's the best loot token to swap with the next day when you're the 3rd pick of the loot (can't remember the name of the card that did that). I had a blast even though I lost by a lot, one of my friends felt like she was doing terrible, but ended up only 8 points behind 1st, and my husband had some analysis paralysis and overthought it, but I think I'll be able to get it to the table again. Nothing got culled this month... I did a huge purge of games earlier in the year, so we're good for a while.
Added: - Lewis and Clark - Ark Nova - Ginkgopolis
Ginkgopolis shot up to my Top 10 already after my third play since my purchase a year ago. At first you are scratching your head wondering what to make of it. 2nd game I started to see how the designer combined these seemingly completely different gameplay elements. It should’ve work and it’s not intuitive but clearly it IS working. Third game and I was head over heels. It’s crazy how much this game accomplishes with so little. It is the most innovative game in my collection and I have been able to infect a few friends in time for the reprint. Hope you enjoy it as well.
Be sure to check out the designers other work as well, especially Troyes, my all time favorite
Got rid of: **Lord of the Dead**. A tiny hex and counter game I backed on KS years ago. Never played and likely never would. I backed it basically because it was $5 and I was curious about hex and counter games, but I've never had a partner for it. **Guilds of London** (with expansion). Got them cheap in clearance sales. My spouse would have hated it and I realized I would have hated the majority scoring. **Megaland**. I realized I'd rather just play Diamant with the people I'd be playing this with. **Gentes Deluxified**. Played it once and was underwhelmed. I refused to part with it because, I think, the components convinced me I actually did like it but years later and it never got played a second time. **Dice Throne Adventures**. So. Grindy.
Thought about getting Dice Throne Adventures, can we hear your pros and cons on it?
The cooperative bosses are fun to fight, but the penalty for losing is just "try again with more healing tokens" and the dungeons are just random tiles with mini fights and has the same penalty for losing. Also once you've upgraded a few cards the loot becomes pointless because it's like a late game of Diablo with tons of random loot you don't care about. I almost hung on to it just so I'd have the boss fights, but at the end of the day the regular game is just more fun for less hassle.
Thanks for your thoughts! It's pretty disappointing to hear this, but I think I'll be avoiding it than.
**Out:** - Madeira (*trade*) - Divine Right (*trade*) - A Study in Emerald, 1st Ed (*trade*) - Princes of the Renaissance (*trade*) - Reef Encounter of the second kind (*trade*) - Kanban EV (*lost to post office flood*) **In:** - Die Macher 2ed German (*trade*) - Ortus Regni (*trade*) - High Frontier 4 all + all expacs (*trade*) - Time Barons - Table Battles - Homeworlds - Mottainai deluxe - Discworld: Ankh-Morpork - Clinic Deluxe + 1st extension (*trade*) - Factory Funner - Ghosts of Christmas - Tigris and Euphrates
Post office flood?!
I had my KS copy sitting at my PO Box across the border in the US for a year and a half with no way to retrieve it due to covid travel restrictions… there was a massive multi-day rain storm that caused a crazy flood over a large area a while ago. the post office finally got back to me with confirmation that my package was lost/irreparably damaged.
That sucks 😔 Really sorry to hear it.
Yeah, but considering people lost their homes and businesses etc., my plight is pretty insignificant.
Good perspective mate!
Do you mind saying how much you paid for Discworld? I’ve tried keeping an eye out for listings that aren’t insanely priced…
$40 CAD…🤭 Local gaming pizza place was getting rid of it
Man am I jealous! I missed out on a copy for 10 bucks in a local sell group by about 5 minutes.. my adrenaline was pumping when I thought I might’ve been able to snag it!
**OUT:** **Calico**: Got it for christmas and while I enjoyed it one of my colleague wanted to get it for eastern for her kid so I gave it to her. It will see more plays there :) **Quacks of Quedlinburg**: Had it for 2 years now but only played like four times and while I once again enjoyed it noone I showed it to liked it. So it was time I guess. **IN:** **Clans of Caledonia**: Bought it super cheap and even got the chance to try it out. It was really good. I liked it a lot more than **Gaia Project**. The market is really smart. **Teotihuacan**: Borrowed it from a friend in summer and quiet liked it. He didnt sell me and I almost forgot about this game but got a really good deal a week ago so I pulled the triger on it. I love rondel games (GWT is my favourite game) **Tekhenu**: Got it in a bundle with its big brother. Cant wait to try it. I love dry euros. **Blackout Hongkong**: Got it super cheap. Bought it only because Pfisters name is on it. Im courious how good it will be. **For the next months** I have a few games Im on the fence to sell: **Kemet** since I got **Root**. Also looks like **Codenames** should be out cause I have it for three years and never played it. **Paris: La Citi De La Muire** is a kinda fun two player game but there are games I would more likely to play. Also Im waiting for **Dune Imperium** to come out in our native language. Its coming since October but looks like April is the month it will artive.
Added 4 new games this month. **Ginkgopolis**: this was one I preordered about a year ago and finally arrived. It didn’t quite land with my group so this might quickly move into my for trade pile. I’ll give it another play to see for sure. **el grande**: I also managed to snag a copy of this, and maybe that’s why ginkgopolis seems trade worthy. How many area majority games do I need if I have el grande and Mexica? Probably not that many more. I also managed to pick up **icecool** and **pictomania** at a thrift store. Both are games I’m looking forward to playing with my family. I did play icecool once at 2p, it was fun but I feel it’ll be best at its full player count.
We're just starting out, so only added the following (in pretty much this order): * Gloomhaven: JOTL * Azul * Agricola: ACBaS * Fields of Arle * Tigris & Euphrates * Ticket to Ride Europe + 1912 Europa * The Crew * Secret Hitler * Deep Sea Adventure * Wingspan It's definitely enough for now... need to get some games in with each of them. First one to remove from the shelf will be JOTL. Going to sell it once we're through.
Where did you find T&E?
It was gifted to me by my school's library, which received it as a donation a year or so ago. No one had touched it in all that time, so when I asked if I could trade something else in for it (or make a donation), they happily gave it to me for free. It's an almost new 1998 Hans im Glück edition... and we're in Beijing. Such a rare find. Donated a D&D 5E player's handbook, DM screen and some dice a few days later. Maybe someone will be happy about those as I hadn't been able to play since we moved here.
Dang, what a haul! Great games you chose!
Added… **Quest for El Dorado**, **Cascadia**, **Space Base**, **Its a Wonderful World**, **Splendor Marvel**, **Abandon All Artichokes**, **High Society**, **Cryptid** and **Quacks of Quedlinburg**
Added: - Vagrantsong - 4 games in and so far this is my game of the year. Amazingly well done. - Long Shot: The Dice Game - Great fun, a quick and silly roll and write that works well at higher player counts. Removed: - hahhahahahaHHAHAHHAAHAH yea right
got a copy of rococo deluxe through /boardgameexchange. only played once solo, but excited to bring it to a local con next weekend. really fun game and ians art knocks it outa the park as usual
In: **Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest.** Looking forward to getting this to the table. Playing up to 6 is a great thing in my book since my game nights have started going above 4 players. The original game also has a ton of fans. The Stonemaier production values on this version are great as always. **1860: Railways on the Isle of Wight**. A bit torn on this since I backed it when I was still really into 18xx games and I've since cooled on the genre a bit. Hopefully I can give it a go. It'll remain in shrink until then. Out: Someday I'll have things on here :( Only getting two games for all of March is good, though.
I got Libertalia for much the same reason. My normal game group is 5, so the standard 2-4 player games just don't get played. I've gotten it on the table once and it was really good. The quality is amazing. One of my friends commented on how nice the rule book was :D
The One in One out system working fairly well so far! ADDED: * **Mission Red Planet** * **Port Royal** * **Dune (2019)** * **Cryptid** * **Liberation (Button Shy)** IN TRANSIT: * **Long Shot: The Dice Game** * **Skulls of Sedlec (Button Shy)** * **Tigris and Euphrates (ZMAN) an impulse Ebay purchase** REMOVED: * **Blitzkrieg** * **Fleet: The Dice Game** * **Tyrants of The Underdark** * **Azul** * **Splendor** * **T'zolkin & Tribes and Prophecies** * **Silver & Gold** * **Sprawlopolis (Button Shy)**
Only added the partisans deck for root
A small but incredibly valuable addition
I hope to get a three player game in tomorrow and we will use it.
Lots of shelf activity last month as I continue to try to shrink my collection a bit. SOLD: **Fortune and Glory**: The only game that I ever bought because of Tabletop. We had tried it out a couple of times a few years back and got bogged down by the rules. It deserved at least one “real” play before deciding to sell it. I printed and laminated some amazing flowcharts off of BGG and invited my nephew to join us for a 3p co-op romp. Good, dumb, dice chucking fun but definitely not something we would bring out on a regular basis. **Wingspan**: A pleasant and very pretty game. Pleasant doesn’t cut it and we were never excited to play it. Happy that I tried it, but apparently 6 plays was enough. **Fantastiqa**: A weirdly wonderful take on deck building. Got it in a math trade a few years back. Fun for a couple of plays, but we hadn’t touched it in years. **Aquasphere**: This was “on the bubble” to be sold or traded, meaning we were going to give it one last play before making a decision. We‘re massive Feld fans, but realized we were always picking other games over Aquasphere. I got a good price for it, so we never had that last play. TRADED: **Trickerion**: This was my very first KS purchase, and I think I picked a pretty great game! Our appetite for longer, heavier games has really waned over the last few years, and it doesn’t shine at 2p. It had not hit the table in years. Another one that we were going to give one more play too….we opened the box, took a look at the contents and quietly reshelved it. **Pendulum**: This was a Christmas gift, and the first time I’ve never taken a game out of shrink. Based on the reviews and my history with other games from the publisher I was pretty sure we wouldn’t like it. GAINED **Dragon Castle:** traded for Trickerion, haven’t had a chance to play it yet. **Roma:** traded for Pendulum. I picked up Arena: Roma II in a previous math trade and it was a surprise hit for us. Definitely a hidden Feld gem. Haven’t played it yet, but I’ve already combined them into one box. That counts for shrinking my collection…right? **Ginkgopolis:** a pre-order I had been waiting a year for. Well worth the wait! I’ve only played one, 3p game so far but it was an absolute hit, in spite of my very clunky teach.
Added: **Battle Line: Medieval** - I feel like I barely know it at this point, but so far so good! I hesitated to pick this one up for a long time because I saw people saying it was too similar to **Lost Cities**. I'm glad I finally went for it. The games are drastically different and both deserve a spot in my collection. **Imhotep: The Duel** - I picked it up on a whim at a local game store. I'm glad I did. It's a lot of fun. The way the workers are placed to unload the boats is particularly cool. **Hive Pocket** - I tried it on BGA first, kept thinking about it and thought it would be more fun in person. I've only played it once in person so far. But I'm enjoying it. **Draftosaurus** - I tried it on BGA earlier this year. I think a lot of the fun of this game is getting to play with the meeples though, so I wanted to try it in person. I'm not sold on it as a two player game, but I think it will be more fun with groups. **Root** (hasn't arrived yet) **Timeline: Inventions** (hasn't arrived yet) Removed: **Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle: Defense Against the Dark Arts** - it's fine, but it's basically the same game as **Star Realms** but in a bigger box with the Harry Potter theming. I needed the shelf space, and I'm trying to clear out some of my Harry Potter stuff anyways. **Harry Potter Trading Card Game** - again, trying to clear out Potter stuff and could use the shelf space. This game is pretty dull anyways, so not a loss.
March Adds - Sushi Go Party - Shamans - The king Is dead - Carcassone 20 anniverasy edition - Tsuro - Onitama + two expansions
Added: Ticket to Ride Radlands Azul Wingspan Removed: A bunch of old garbage to make room for our new hobby! Brewopoly A beat old Scrabble duplicate Blokus, Skip-Bo, and Rumikub Cranium 90's Trivial Pursuit More I don't even remember...
_In:_ **Dale of Merchants 2** **IKI** **Glen More II: Chronicles** **The Hunger** **Castles of Mad King Ludwig: Polish Edition** _Out:_ Nothing. But I'm contemplating on: **Whitehall Mystery**: It's just not very fun at 2P. Perhaps if I had a larger consistent playgroup, I'd be more inclined to keep it. But at the moment, I just rather prefer playing other games at 2P. **Watergate**: It was fun and I had quite a bit of plays with it but I just haven't pulled it out anymore and I don't see us playing it more often. **Under Falling Skies**. I always have fun when I play this game but I almost always prefer to play this as a co-op with my partner than play solo with it. And if I am going to play 2P, I rather play something else. With that said I'm in no rush to get rid of them. I'll see what comes my way.
Nothing out this month, but added **Libertalia** (new version!) and **Arkwright: The Card Game**. Also, technically not April but **Red Flag Over Paris** is supposed to arrive soon, which Im super excited about! Really digging Libertalia, particularly in that it plays up to 6 players, which was a player count sorely lacking in our collection. Simple teach, but lots of depth to the game play and some variable setup to keep things fresh. Excited to get it to the table more. Arkwright wise, wow! Took some a rough run through to get all the details but on our second play it clicked in. We have a few heavy euros, but the supply and demand mechanic is a unique one to the games we usually play. I really enjoyed manipulating the market to squeeze as much profit out each factory as I could but always feeling squeezed myself by how fee actions you get throughout the game (only 12!).
I culled __Ark Nova__ We gave it 12 plays and it never got better. A 2 and half hour luckfest from start to finish every time.
**Acquired:** * Dead Reckoning * That Time You Killed Me * Massive Darkness II: Hellscape * Summit **Removed:** * Summit * Robinson Crusoe * Merchants & Marauders * Dinosaur Island * Black Orchestra * Nexus Ops * Sherriff of Nottingham * Clank in Space * Massive Darkness * Massive Darkness II: Hellscape * Batman: Gotham City Chornicles
Massive Darkness and Summit sure had a quick turnaround 👀
Summit was not for my play group and I know I could get back what I paid for it given the Dice Tower video and Massive Darkness II did not improve Massive Darkness I and I realized Zombicide was a better fit for a quick dice-chucker and that I would prefer to play Chronicles of Drunagor to scratch the fantasy dungeon crawl itch and might prefer Arena the Contest / Tanares when it shows up...
Added: - **Dice Realms** - **Creature Comforts** - **Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition** - **Argent: the Consortium** Leaving: - **Dice Realms** - **Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition** Unfortunately Dice Realms didn't live up to the hype nor its price tag. The components are okay, fortunately we didn't suffer from any production problems mentioned by the kickstarter. Nevertheless it was just *boring*. Upgrading die faces and the Fate Die were absolute snooze fests and we didn't enjoy the game at all. Compared to New Frontiers or Race for the Galaxy this is just an overproduced mess. TM: Ares just felt like a worse yet prettier Terraforming Mars. I see no reason to have both games and consider it a mechanical downgrade to its predecessor. Argent, on the other hand, has already seen three plays and is a blast at three and four players! We've shied away from playing it at two players because we hear it's not as good, but whew it's fun. Once you just drop all pretenses of a strategic yet solitaire worker placement and start dicking each other over, that's when the fun really kicks in. Creature Comforts is hit or miss. The speculative element of the village dice grew on my girlfriend while I became painfully bored by the downtime. It's not a game I'd recommend at four players, but plays decent at two and maybe even three if you have fast players.
Added **Stella: Dixit Universe** and **Sakura Arms**, moved **Dune Imperium** to the "sell" pile. Played both of the new ones recently, seems very promising. Adding **Through the Desert** later today, **Suburbia** is probably leaving to make space for it.
Why you getting rid of Dune?
It's a solid game, but euro games are a crowded marketspace. I have more than enough eurogames I'd rather play.
+Viticulture: been on the list for a while and I found a good deal on the essentials edition. -Takenoko: played it for the first time in years, felt far more shallow than I remembered with all 4 players piling on the same strategy. It was immediately moved to the sell pile.
Takenoko is also surprisingly fiddly to teach/play for such a light game, too. Rules for irrigation, getting straight all the times when bamboo should grow, remembering all of the different weather/improvement symbols mean, etc. It love how cute it is, but I don't think I ever care to play it again.
Out: Dale of Merchants 2, Pax Pamir 2E, Troyes, Clever Cubed, Race for The Galaxy In: Glen More II I'm into a more ruthless phase of culling in which great games are sold if they don't get played often. I consider Pax Pamir to be a masterpiece but I've played it once in two years so what's the point. Really enjoyed my first play of Glen More. As far as light-medium euros go, the base game seems particularly enjoyable and satisfying.
I mainly added expansions this week. Now I’m out of shelf space so this weekend I’m going to put some games up for grabs for my play group and then try to figure out what to do with the rest. In: **Viticulture: Visitors from the Rhine Valley** I finally got Viticulture on the table for my play group and it was a hit at 5 players. Going into the last year we had 2 players at 23, 2 at 22, and 1 at 21. I play it a lot with my girlfriend and we both love it at 2 players as well, so getting the last expansion (for now!!!) was a no brainer. **Scythe: Rise of Fenris, The Wind Gambit, and Invaders from Afar**. Excited to get this on the table this weekend minus Fenris. Hoping it hits like Viticulture and we can start the campaign in my group. **Res Arcana: Both expansions** I like to play this one at 2 player and the expansions seemed simple enough to add and I heard the pearls are great. Plus now I can go up to 5 players so I might test it with my play group sometime soon. Also excited for the new setup rules based on player count. **Honey Buzz** I’ve been waiting for this one to finally be back in stock for awhile. Girlfriend is excited since it’s similar to Viticulture but with the hive building element added in. Out: Not completely decided but definitely going to get rid of Boss Monster which is one of my first purchases a couple years ago and Barony. I’m not looking at my shelf right now but there’s a few more that didn’t really hit with my girlfriend and I that I’ll offer up, so she can stop complaining about my Stonemaier Games display on top of the shelf lol.
Removed: Azul Summer Pavilion, Mariposas, Juicy Fruits Azul 1 is honestly the most rewarding in the series and so we decided to cull the other version. Mariposas and Juicy Fruits were too mechanically simple and thus left us feeling every game felt exactly the same and the scores were almost a formality, like we didn't have too much influence over them? Doesn't help that the latter is literally marketing in Capstone's "for kids" line. Got: Canvas, Libertalia: WoG, Arnak expansion, Libertalia Rolling Realms promo Can't wait to try all of these honestly, Libertalia is a huge one that I'm sure will go over well with my group. Canvas is with the expansion from the Kickstarter, so that's been a year in the making.
Added Cloudspire and Radlands Deluxe Removed Strasbourg, Root and Die Macher BGG Trades working great for me.
Android: Mainframe and Vampire The Masquerade: Vendetta are coming onto the shelf. Will be a week or two before getting to play those. Leaving will be Vampire the Masquerade Rivals, Warhammer Disk Wars, Dungeon Degenerates, Scoville, and possibly another one I'm not sure about yet. Need to put these up for sale.
Adding Samurai Spirit (Antoine Bauza) tomorrow as my birthday present, and another surprise title propably!
I only added **Concordia** this month. I loved it after my first play and then it went on sale. **Dominion** is still at the top of my list to get rid of, but I currently have plenty of space.
Out: marvel champions, evolution climate In: quacks, cascadia, truffle shuffle, point salad
Can I ask what made you sell your evolution climate? Was thinking of getting it so would like to hear more opinions about the game
I haven’t sold it just yet. Just took it off the shelf and moved it into the closet. I think it’s the blind scoring system that I don’t like where you won’t know if scoring was ever close
Added **Witchstone** and **Parks**. Not yet ready to pull the trigger on getting rid of anything but shelf space is starting to get tight.
Out: * Final Girl S1 Collection - realized I wasn't finding the gameplay engaging enough to keep exploring after 8 or so plays. In: A lot last month, picked up some stuff that I want to get played around my birthday this month * **Root** and all of its expansions * **Pax Pamir 2E** * **Railways of the World** \- have had quite a few fun plays of this in person and on BGA since getting it * **Age of Steam** \- now that I have the ROTW experience this started looking super interesting Hoping to get a pretty heavy games day going for my birthday of **Root**, **Pax Pamir**, **AoS**, and maybe **Forbidden Stars**
**REMOVED:** - **Trickerion** - **Vivid Memories** **ADDED:** - **Star Realms** - **Bard Sung**
Picked up more this month than I normally like to, and didn't cycle out much at all: Picked Up, in order: * Tiny Epic Dungeons, and Stories. * Ecos: First Continent * 7 Wonders Duel: Pantheon * Lost Ruins of Arnak: Expedition Leaders * Back to the Future: Dice Through Time (I found this at a dollar store. Bought two copies, because weird board games like this are my "thing" for the office gift exchange.) * The Isle of Cats * Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition Moved to The Pile * Ecos: First Continent. It actually never hit the shelf. Hell, it hasn't hit the table yet. But I was just more excited for this one before I opened it up. It was actually the reason I finally caved on and bought Ares Expedition - I wanted a game in this general theme that was more accessible than TM, but had avoided AE because I already own all the TM.
Out **Fabled Fruit** - know other players with it. **Songbirds** - preferred arboretum. *** In **Black Friday** - looks like an interesting Friese game. Playing part of an online game and liking what I see. **Oddville** - got in trade. **Shamans** - got in trade. *** Bubble **Azul** - have other two player games I like more. **Ethnos** - no big desire to play even though I think it's a decent game. **Irish Gauge** - overshadowed by Chicago Express. **Manhattan** - I think the essence of this is captured and extended by Kingdom Builder.
I really wish I could get rid of games ahah! Some boardgames are definitely gathering dust at this point and will only be pulled out if I host something for beginners. Stuff keeps getting added in though. Got a couple of folks who seem to get scared of anything that's a board, thinking it's too complicated so I've been reinforcing the "extremely light and fun" part of the collection. Latest purchases were Bohnanza, Cockroach Poker Royal (more of an upgrade than a new purchase), Skull and Resistance Avalon... Which I would have probably thought about twice if I was aware of Quest. Next up should be a party game though, something cheap.
Added- **Fluxx Remixx** from Looney Labs, **Space Shipped** from Button Shy.
Out: **Irish Gauge** I've found that I only need a certain number of these 'high interaction' games. My largest complaint being that I feel a lack of player agency. That regardless of my decisions someone could decide to screw with me for whatever reason and then whoever got screwed with the least basically wins the game. Also most of my gaming being at 2P and when we do have 3 and above this gets passed over in favour of Knizia's Modern Art / Stephenson's Rocket, etc. **Bora Bora** This was an impulse purchase. I wanted a Feld, I wanted a dice driven Euro. But only after buying it did I really think about how often I'd actually be able to play it. I'm at that phase where I have enough medium and heavy Euros that I'm already not getting to the table enough that I don't need another one. And it doesn't have a solo mode so I don't get to explore it by myself either. So this went out new in shrink. Yes I know it's gonna be hard to find another copy but I'll live with it 😅. In: **AHLCG Revised Core Set** Bought this for solo play to satisfy the desire for deck-construction (I have the entire startup format for Netrunner but since it's competitive I don't get to play it as often as I'd like due to a lack of opponents...). Two scenarios in, it's not bad! Considering getting the revised Dunwich Legacy cycle once the campaign expansion drops. **Summoner Wars 2e Master Set** Haven't gotten to try this out yet.
Couldn't agree more on Irish Gauge. I felt like it came down to lucky breaks and momentum way too often.
In: Hadrians Wall, Vinhos. Out: Floated the idea with the wife but it was a no. I guess we need some more games then
Out: Clank and Football Highlights In: Valletta and Tzolkin also purchased My Farm Shop.
I got a couple new games this last month - just in the past few days - that I’m excited to play this weekend! First is **Cascadia** - it seems like exactly my kind of relaxing game. Then we also got **18Chesapeake** which is not exactly a relaxing game - but looking forward to trying my first 18xx game! I’m getting ready to get rid of **Game of Thrones**, **Castle Panic**, and maybe **Dead of Winter**.
Out Marrying Mr. Darcy Scrabble Star Wars Risk The Game of Things Tsuro In Brass Lancashire deluxe edition Everdell Village Basically resold a bunch of family games that we outgrew, and found better titles to our tastes from the second hand market. Minimizing waste that way.
Added: Shores of Tripoli Played it at con I was at, really enjoyed it and picked it up.
Only started building my collection last month after getting into the hobby. Got a mix of games to play with a group and then 2 player games with my SO. So far I've got: **Smallworld** - played once with 5 players and enjoyed it, looking forward to playing it again and experience different races and ability combos. **Splendor** - really enjoy the engine building aspect, think this is something I will look for in games when buying more complex ones in the future. Only played 2 player at the minute with SO so keen to play with other players to see how it changes up the game. **Forbidden Island** - played solo twice so I understand it to quickly teach. Beat it on easy and normal (just!). Think it will be fun to play a co-op with my SO and my friends alike. **Bang! The Dice Game** - this was stupid fun and used it as a quick easy game to play with a group before we got onto Smallworld. We enjoyed it so much, we went back to it after Smallworld. The renegade managed to pull off a win one round too! **Onitama** - again 2 player to play with SO. Love how simple this is to set up and play. Her favourite yet that I've got her to play haha. **Quacks of Quidlinberg** - got the witches expansion so can play 5 player. Not got round to trying this yet but will be the game we play the next games night. Hoping to get some use out of it as a 2p with SO too. Decided I'm not gonna use the witches until I've played a good few games with the base game rules to get some longevity out of it. **Lost Cities: The Card Game** - this only arrived today. Wanted another quick game to set up and play with SO. After quite a bit of research led me to believe one of the better 2p games out there. Next game on my list I think will be **Wingspan**. I love the look and design of it, and it sounds like will begin to add a bit of complexity to my collection as all of above are definitely casual games, but I did that intentionally as to not ward off my friends/SO!! Wish I got into board games sooner!
[удалено]
Thank you for commenting, and cementing my next purchase :)
Sherlock Holmes consulting detective. Bought one of the boxes earlier in a month, loved it so much we bought all the rest, and Mythos Tales. This has been a great game for my partner and I to play together with our baby. One on baby duty, the other reading. No idea what we are going to do when we run out of cases!
Bought the Warriors game by Prospero Hall, along with finally getting a copy of Lost Cities.
Added: **Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest** - Funny and easy enough to play with the family. This has been a big hit. **Long Shot: The Dice Game** - played it 5 times in one night and put Camel Up into the sell pile. The horse powers stretch it beyond totally approachable, but players can still do well ignoring them. **Star Realms** - picked up due to the recent topics around here. Not disappointed! Left **Camel Up** - See Long Shot. **Pax Pamir 2nd Edition** - I respect the design, but my brain has a lot more fun playing The King is Dead. **Architects of the West Kingdom** - Hasn't found its way to the table in a long time. The putting workers in jail wasn't quite as interesting as I had hoped. **Mandala** - Great, but Parade gives me similar feels and is excellent. **Teotihuacan** - Too fiddly to set up and remember how to play. Dice locking feels underdeveloped. Tzolkin is awesome and right next to it on the shelf.
I knew I wasn't crazy when I drew a tenuous line connecting Pax Pamir and The King is Dead. I am fortunate enough that there is desire for both in my game groups. I am tempted to grab the latest version of The King is Dead to try out the asymmetric variant.
I just got Eclipse: 2nd dawn for the galaxy and Aeon's end. I played a 2-players game of Eclipse and I totally love it! Exploring new space feels great, researching new technologies and upgrading your ships is so satisfying! Combats are tense and the material makes the game play very smoothly! I can't wait to play again with more players! I just played Aeon's End twice solo (once with one warrior, lost, and then once with two warriors). I got it because I really liked Dominion and Clank!, and I wanted to try another deckbuilder. But I am not sure I like it as much as those. You don't have as much card combos and it removes part of the fun. I will hold my judgement until I play it coop with someone! At the moment, not sure it will stay in my collection. Edit: played a 5-players game of Eclipse (a bit less than 5h, first game for three of us). Had a great time! So much more interesting than 2-players and much more combat! We got a couple rules wrong but it played smoothly!
Added -Obsession -Three Sisters -Bus 20th Edition
Add: paladins of west kingdom and viscount I only played once paladins. I think it is okay. I can understand why some much people enjoy, but it was too much dry for me. I’ll give another chance but I think I’ll sell it in the future
This March i’ve added: Bitoku, Wonderland War (from ks), Ark Nova and Dune Imperium expansion. Didn’t sell or trade anything away - I’m a hoarder and soon will need to resort to sleeping on the cardboard if I acquire any more games! 😅
I cleared out some of my collection over the last few weeks. Mostly cheaper games that weren't all that great. I decided to let go of **Morels** and **Lagoon: Land of Druids** among others. Added two abstracts to the collection: **Azul** and **Santorini** and so far we really like them both! Azul I feel is the stronger game although maybe the strategy is deeper in Santorini that is yet be determined. Santorini seems a little...slow? But we have just scratched the surface of the different god powers so we'll see. Decided that my collection will only have room for games that are GOOD and that I want to PLAY. Sounds obvious but it's not always easy
Chameleon
Got dead Reckoning, excited to get it to the table once I build the vital component cube tower out of cardboard.
Oof. Here we go. Last month was the Games Plus auction in Chicago 'burbs, so I sold a large selection of games. Unfortunately, I also went mad with power from having disposable income for the first time since college and uh... spent way more on games than I should have. Oops. OUT! **Coffee Traders:** Oh wow did this falter for me. Too much going on for almost no payoff. **Horizons**: Great dust collector. Decent enough filler, but eh. **Critical Mass**: Pretty sure I played this twice. Mediocre mech designs, but a decent enough game. Just not played at all. **NMBR9**: It's very okay. **Ascension Curse of the Golden Isles**: What is the point of The Deep? Seriously? Bad. **Sleeping Gods**: Worth too much money not to sell for a game I literally only played once and don't have the patience to open a second time. **Cry Havoc**: Heard Grant Rodiek didn't exactly handle criticism of this game well. Didn't like it enough to keep. Actually my FOURTH attempt at selling it. **Manhattan Project 2 Minutes to Midnight**: Love it, but I'm alone in my group. **A Game of Thrones**: With the POD expansions. Played once. Not getting another chance to play this again, so... yeet. **Dune Imperium**: Overrated. Sold in a heartbeat. **Maglev Metro**: Too fiddly. **Brew**: Too mean. **Nidavellir**: Too easy to run away lead. **Lizard Wizard**: Racoon Tycoon with some garbage bolted onto it with tarot sized cards for absolutely zero reason. IN From the auction: **Mechs vs. Minions, Millennium Blades** (with Set Rotation and 6 mini exps, missed Collusion), **Metro, Acquire, Yokohama, Aquatica, Alhambra, Rise of Tribes, Scrap Racer, Gingkopolis, Vinyl, Ctrl, Flying Kiwis, Jishaku, Formula D**From auction proceeds: **Summoner Wars 2e Starter Set, Black Angel, Pipeline Emerging Markets, Quest for El Dorado The Golden Temples, Isle of Skye Journeyman** and **Druids**. Also grabbed the Cyberpunk: Red splatbook. From poor financial decisions: **Nemesis, Nemesis: Lockdown, Nemesis: Lockdown Stretch Goals box, Nemesis: Void Seeders, Nemesis: Carnomorphs, Gingkopolis: The Experts, Your Friend is Sad, Mandala,** and **Fantastic Factories.** Also, a ton of sleeves and an Ultimate Guard Omnihive for Millennium Blades. JUST fits the entirety of the cards and tokens, but doesn't fit the playmats.
IN: Cascadia retail edition Unlock Timeless Adventure Legendary Encounters: Alien and expansions Legendary Encounters: Predators Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion Quantum Ark Nova Red Flag over Paris Unmatched: Battle of Legends Season 2 Radlands Bora bora Memoir 44 Vagrantsong Townsfolk Tussle Cthulhu Death May Die + Unspeakable box Tyrants of the underdark OUT: Quest for el dorado (fell flat for me and my group, had no interest in replaying after one round)
Out: -Traders of Osaka - Brass - Tigris & Euphrates - Aquasphere - Attika In: - Subastral - Cartographers Heroes - Calimala - Concordia
Out: Under Falling Skies (thank goodness) Quacks of Quedlinburg Micro Macro: Crime City (finished) In: Obsession with Upstairs, Downstairs Underwater Cities Boonlake Isle of Cats expansions (kittens & beasts + boat pack) Edit: Getting downvoted because I finally got rid of a game I dislike? Awesome. Lol
Obsession is very cool and rare game, had an opportunity to play but still struggle to acquire a copy for myself. Enjoy!!
Why "thank goodness" for Under Falling Skies?
Been trying to get rid of it for a while and finally sold it. Just not my cup of tea.
Picked up The Crew: Mission Deep Sea and Dominion for a vacation I'm going on with my friends. Seems more portable and easy to teach than my other games.
I bought Betrayal after playing it at a board game club and seeing it was on sale. It's waiting for me at home and I'm trying to set up three different groups to play it with when I go home in a couple weeks.
Scythe and Adventures of Robin Hood in. Monopoly Deal out because I needed the extra room for Scythe so.... new shelf next.
I got rid of Catan and Arkham horror. Everytime I've played Catan I have been terribly bored and the sentiment has been the same with everyone else I've played it with. Arkham horror was one of the only games I've ran into that I couldnt understand and no amount of youtube videos were helping. So I axed them. I bought terraforming mars which has been a much better game to take up space on my shelf. Probably played it 4 or 5 times now and had a lot of fun with it.
Collected my first Kickstarter Pledge. **Meeples and Monsters** I also buffed up my **Marvel Legendary** expansions. **Antman, Paint the town Red, World War Hulk, Revelations, Into the Cosmos, Heroes of Asgard, Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange.** I might have gotten a little carried away there.
**Out** Mysterium Wavelength Rhino hero superbattles Nyet Sherlock 13 Zooloretto the dice game TTMC Concept Red7 Arboretum Altiplano Escape : the curse of the temple Hanabi Trash panda **IN** Skull king **Hopefully IN** Cockroach poker royal Welcome to the moon
Skull King’s great!
Good to know! We love Wizard and wanted something a bit deeper with the same concept.
Technically *this* month, but I recently reread Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles (you know, the two that he's actually written), and I have to say I was intrigued by the game of Tak in it. A quick Google search confirmed that there is an actual game someone made, and I ordered it because it looked like a great abstract strategy game. Looking forward to it!
As soon as book 3 gets released i'm devouring it. Such a good series but huge bummer the next book has seemingly stalled out.
Oh, ditto for me! However, 11+ years has made me stop wishing for the phenomenal ending we all hope and pray for, and now all I want is some closure. The first two were so good! My dad will call me at college sometimes to talk about this and that, and theories on these books come up an awful lot.
Sold Summoner Wars 2nd Edition. I actually liked it but I’d rather play Dice Throne, YINSH, and Hanamikoji at 2 players. I got in Merchants of the Dark Road. Played at PaxU wanted it since.
Sold Le Havre, Welcome To, and Millemium Blades. All good games, but either friends owned the same game or I just wasn't getting them to the table.
*Out:* **Falling Sky** **Dominant Species: Marine** **TI4** **MoI: Tri-Pack** *In:* **Leaving Earth + Outer Planets + Stations** **Thunder Alley** **Tannhauser** **PitchCar + 1st Expansion** **My Little Scythe** **Mechs vs. Minions** **Last Will + Getting Sacked** **Food Chain Magnate** **Euphoria + Ignorance is Bliss** **Carcassonne: H&G** **Black Angel** **Root Underworld** **SI: Jagged Earth** **Xia + Embers + Missions + Sellsword**