A number of Kickstarters, orders from retailers or publishers have come in this week. The biggest being Marvel United X-Men. So, it is time that I open up a lot of boxes and show off all that has come in. And there is a ton to look at, no doubt about that with Marvel United X-Men and I just start to show off some of those things. Let’s go through and see everything that I unboxed.

The Games

So let’s talk about everything that has come in that I need to find room for on the shelf. Some of it, though, I do have a creative solution for. So the big game that I unboxed was obviously Marvel United X-Men. And that, as well as Marvel United, have a ton of minis in those boxes.

So while the game isn’t huge, it is a lot to store all of the minis. So to store them, I picked up some make-up holders, wall mounted ones, that will fit the minis in quite nicely. I’m hoping that I can hang them and fit almost all of them in there and keep Marvel United and Marvel United X-Men down to one Kallax shelf, but we’ll see if that is possible.

Marvel United X-Men

I’ve got to talk about this first, because, well, it was the biggest thing that I unboxed. And I’m excited to get Marvel United X-Men to the table. Marvel United is a fun game that is great to pull off the shelf and easily get to the table. And for a game that has so much with it, that is great. It means that I can easily play it.

Actually, thinking about it, I might do what I did for Marvel Champions, get some extra boxes, clasp boxes, to store it so that it’s easier to get to everything. Though, I might need to get different dividers than what I have now. But it might be worth it because the actual boxes for Marvel United only work okay for storing stuff.

But if you want a good introductory game and you love Marvel, see if you can find a pledge. I love how I can pull it off the shelf, grab out a villain, a character, and really get to the table so fast. When I play it, it is two or three times in a row, each game goes faster, and you swap out characters each time. Plus, you do need more than the core box to really get the experience of the game.

Ghosts of Christmas

Ghosts of Christmas is a trick-taking game that I got interested in because of BoardGameCo. He put out a video with why he liked the game a lot as not a big fan of trick-taking. Ghosts of Christmas is going to be played as three tricks at one time. One is for the past, one is for the present, and one is for the future. And when you figure out the results the tricks, it goes in that order. But what the trump suit is can change, I forget how it works, but I believe based off of the previous trick. So that offers a unique challenge.

QE

QE is an odd sort of game where bid for businesses. But the weird trick is you can bid however much you want. I bid $200,000,000,000. Well, now you know what you need to bid in order to win any. However, the person who bids the most automatically loses. Even if they own all the businesses, in which case no one wins.

So I bid a massive amount, four times and I own those, you bid $1 than I do next time, now you’re in the lead. Then someone bids just under my total to get the next one. And all of a sudden the bidding continues to grow and goes crazy. I hope that this is a very fun game that has a good party feel for me. And I imagine that there will be a lot of laughing as we play and as bidding goes crazy.

Paperback

Paperback is a word building and deck building game. And I love my deck building games. As you can see, I kind of forget why I picked this one up. But I think it’s a deck building game, and from what I’ve heard not too hard of one, that my wife will like a lot. She and I are both big readers, and Paperback, about writing a paperback while deck building seems like it’ll work well for us. Plus our group of gaming friends likely will enjoy it as well.

Root Expansion

Just a little Root expansion. It swaps out some of the cards in the game. I don’t know how, but I needed something small to get to free shipping. And it is some of why I was talking about lifestyle games, though, let’s face it, I got very distracted. But Root, so me, is a lifestyle game because, well, you need to know the game. It’s not one that I pull off the shelf to teach just anyone, the game is too complex. So the group who knows the game is the one it gets played with.

Hadrian’s Wall

On my list as a roll and write games that I’ve wanted to try. I haven’t picked it up, though, because Hadrian’s Wall is not a cheap game. And that kept me from buying it for a while, but I finally caved. Why, everyone loves it as a solo game. So I’m in for that. Plus, I keep on playing more complex roll and write games and loving them. Paper Dungeons is fairly complex but is pushing to be one of my favorite roll and writes. Fleet: The Dice Game is one I want to try more.

I like light roll and write games for my gaming group. Stuff like Ganz Schon Clever, Welcome To… and others, which might actually be mid-weight roll and writes. But when I want to play solo, I don’t mind if it is a little bit heavier. And Hadrian’s Wall is definitely not a light roll and write game.

Riverside

Another roll and write game. And Riverside is definitely going to be lighter than Hadrian’s Wall. But I’m curious to see how heavy it is. There is an element of a river where the boat goes up and down the river. And you get passengers or items to take to certain stops. So you can push the boat down the river, but at the cost of passing some things up. I don’t know if that makes the game mean at all, but I’m curious. Plus, the game just looks peaceful to play with the aesthetic.

Doodle Dash

Doodle Dash is a party game that seems like a lot of fun. I get a bit of Just One as a drawing game. One person is it trying to guess a word. And players are drawing as fast as possible. The first person to finish drawing grabs a piece. The second person rolls a die until they get a stop, and that ends the drawing for everyone else. The first person wins showing their picture first. But it’s the fastest drawn picture, probably the hardest to tell what it is. But if it is guessed, they and the guesser get more points. Seems like extremely silly fun.

The Drink

Just a Negroni again. I really love that drink, very good for the summer too. I appreciate the bitterness of the drink. And because of that, and the grapefruit nature, I find it very refreshing.

Upcoming Streams

So what’s coming up. Next week I do want to do a Monday and Wednesday. On Wednesday, definitely going to be some gaming. And Monday, we’ll see, maybe Monday will be streaming some smaller games and Wednesday start my next bigger campaign game. See what looks good to get started. I want to play something bigger again, as long as I can figure out a fast way to get it to the table. Sleeping Gods is good that way that even as a big table hog, set-up and breakdown of the game is not that hard.

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