They just dropped a teaser for what this game is going to be over on the Quackalope YouTube channel where Jesse and Shira from Quackalope and Alex from BoardGameCo unboxed something, you can see it here.

So What Is CMON’s 50th Kickstarter?

Good question. We see the Silver Surfer, and he’s the herald of Galactus in the comics and the Fantastic Four movies. And this is a Kickstarter with Spinmaster. But we already had the Fantastic Four show up in the Marvel United: X-Men Kickstarter, and we’re still waiting on all of Marvel United X-Men to ship.

Plus the mini for the Silver Surfer isn’t in a chibi style. So that also leans away from it being something like Marvel United: Fantastic Four, at least in my opinion. Now CMON does have some other games that they could be using. How would you build a Zombicide Marvel game? There was just announced a Marvel Zombies Disney Plus show, find more about that here. But Silver Surfer doesn’t fit as well for that.

I think that they could be doing a version of something like Cthulhu Death May Die. Why, because one of the gimmicks for that was that they had a giant Cthuhlu that you could buy. You could easily do the exact same thing with Galactus if they want. Plus the Fantastic Four would work decently well as a team of characters for something like that. Or, of course, it could be a completely new game. But with a Death May die style game you’d be able to have Dr. Doom as a villain as well in it.

When Is This Coming?

Well, there is a November 19th date in the video. I’m not sure that’s when it is coming, though. If it is, that’s really soon, that could also be when more information is being revealed for it, since it’s a Friday and Kickstarters don’t often launch on Friday. So I’d expect to find out more news on it that day, but we’ll have to see, it could be coming out then.

Whatever it is, and whenever it is, I’m going to be interested in it, because, well, it’s Marvel and it’s CMON. I really like Marvel United, and I wouldn’t mind having a heavier game and a game with more minis, because who doesn’t want cool minis?

What do you think it is going to be?

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Plus, I unboxed some more board games. I talked about a lot of them in the Point of Order from this week. But I got to bust them open on stream and take a look at the pieces. There are a number of fun games in there, let’s take a quick look at which ones they were.

Formula D – Tracks

I got two new tracks for the game Formula D. This is a car racing game where you are in charge of a car and taking it around a track, rolling dice to see how well you do. If you go too fast around the curve, bad things can happen, but you need to know when to push your luck, and when the throttle down. These tracks just give more configurations to race in than compared to the base box. Also might be turned into a legacy game or a tournament by myself.

Deep Madness: Devourer of Worlds

Another epic monster, mainly because I swung my my FLGS to drop off a few things to sell. You can find out about that in the Point of Sale article that also went out on Monday. Just another monster to fight against in this cooperative scenario based survival game. As a refresher on the theme, there is a deep sea base, for mining or exploration and research, I forget which, but things start to go wrong. Monsters start to come in from another dimension and the base goes coms silent. You are part of a team sent to checkout what has happened and stop anymore more bad from happening. Needless to say, bad things will happen. Because the epic monster Devourer of Worlds isn’t a nice guy, even with a name like that.

Dice Throne: Season 1 & 2 Painted Minis

Really a highlight for me. These minis are awesome and 100% not needed. The base game comes with standees and the standees just move around the board in Dice Throne Adventures. But the painted minis look so cool on the table and I’m really excited to play with them.

Cthulhu: Death May Die

I love my Lovecraftian games. Mainly because I like Lovecrafts writing in theory, but in all fairness, most of it isn’t that interesting to read. When put into a larger narrative like you get in a game like Arkham Horror (3rd Edition or LCG) or Mansions of Madness you get a better and more interesting story. While this game also has story similar to the mythos that has been created in those games, it’s from a different company, CMON. And this one has a whole lot more dice chucking in it. I kind of like that it is scenario based and it’s going to be easy to get to the table, though there is a fair amount of set-up it seems, and get into the game throwing a lot of dice.

Lost Ruins of Arnak

Last one that I opened up on stream. Lost Ruins of Arnak is one of the hot games coming out of 2020. In fact, it’s really hard to find. I grabbed a copy from Barnes and Noble online when it basically was impossible to find anywhere else. This game is a Euro style game with worker placement, but it also has deck building. I like the theme with it being a adventure type of theme with Indiana Jones vibes. That isn’t a theme that shows up too often in board games, and I wish it would show up more. I get that adventure can be hard to do well, so I’m curious to play this one that makes it more about the mechanics than possible some story.

The Beer

New Holland Brewing Company was the creator of last nights beer, Dragon’s Milk Solera. Dragon’s Milk is a line of beers from New Holland that are all strong ales. They sit around 10-12% depending on the one. Solera refers to how it was barrel aged. The taste is solid, while regular Dragon’s Milk has more of a caramel flavor to it, this definitely leaned more towards stone fruits like plums or dark cherries. I don’t love that flavor as much, but it is still a solid beer. It definitely makes it a slower sipper with the flavor profile.

That’s everything that I unboxed and played last night on Malts and Meeples. Marvel United was a lot of fun to get to the table. And I’m hoping that maybe at the end of the month or the start of next month I’ll be able to do a bit unboxing for all the expansions when they are delivered.

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So let’s start with the two late backed honorable mentions:

Roll Player Adventures and Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor

Now, these two are only on the list because they were ones that I backed later. Roll Player Adventure because I picked up everything for Roll Player on Black Friday deals. Roll Player is a dice drafting game that has you building up a RPG character, basically. It’s like you’re making a D&D character, you just have specific stats that you are going for. Roll Player Adventures takes those characters and runs them through a story. It’s basically a dungeon crawl for the characters you roll up.

Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor, is also a cooperative game, but a very different type of one. It is a 4X cooperative game, in a fantasy setting. 4X cooperative games really aren’t something that’s heard of that much. What also drew me to the game is that this could have been a $150-200 game with minis, but instead they went with standees which look amazing. Finally, it has two bad guys that everyone in this cooperative experience is trying to beat. You don’t win unless everyone has beat both of them, that gives it a really interesting cooperative experience. And the two bad guy AI’s will fight each other as well as the players.

Alright, let’s get onto the list.

10 – The Night Cage

This one has me excited because I mainly back campaign games, but this one gives me a tense game in a small package. Big campaign games are the ones that I’m not sure will show up at retail. This one I know will, but I wanted to support it because of the tension that it has. You, and your fellow players, are lost in an underground labyrinth that is always changing around you. You are looking for keys and a portal out but trying to avoid monsters who will snuff out your candle and make it even harder to move around. It’s a cooperative game and everyone needs a key and to get to the portal before the tiles run out.

9 – The Reckoners: Steelslayer

Another cooperative game and one of two expansions on the list. This is an expansion for the Reckoners board game based off of one of my favorite series by Brandon Sanderson. In this game you are rolling dice to determine your actions and then researching and battling Epics, think evil superheroes, as the team of The Reckoners, not superheroes just regular people. This brings in the last two books of the trilogy and makes the game play a little less brutal in some ways and possibly more brutal in others.

8 – Project L: Finesse

Project L was a game that I had glanced at but wasn’t that interested in until I saw the Dice Tower play through. First, let me say that the game has some amazing pieces in it. The dual layered cards where you are filling in shapes with basically what amounts to Tetris pieces is great. But what really drew me in is the light engine building nature of the game. You fill in a dual layer card you keep the pieces you used to fill it in and get more pieces, or you can trade up and get better pieces using an old piece. The game is fast but has interesting choices but doesn’t look hard to play.

7 – Crash Octopus

Now for something completely different we are going treasure hunting while trying to avoid an octopus. To add in even more fun to that, we are getting the treasure by flicking it so it hits our boats. This game comes from the same company that made Tokyo Highway so the game looks amazing, and I do really enjoy flicking games or dexterity games quite a lot, though I’m not always the best at them. This just looks like a fun time and a silly time, and people are generally up for a light silly game.

6 – Hel: The Last Saga

Now we’re getting into more of my “normal” kickstarter game, the big epic campaign games. Hel: The Last Saga from Mythic Games really interested me because of the Vikings theme. Then the game play itself was quite interesting in particular how the story unfolded. I like games where you don’t always know everything about the game and what’s going on in a given chapter until you are part way through the chapter. I also like the religion in this game, I believe it’s Norse, Christian, and Druidic, and the characters can pray to only their deity for a boon, which I find really unique in terms of game play.

5 – The 7th Citadel

The follow-up to The 7th Continent, The 7th Citadel takes what they learned from that game and improves upon it, in my opinion. It is still an exploration and adventure game, but this one has more of a story that seems to be running through it. It also has improved upon the death where yes, going through the cards still matters for how long you can survive, but you have a health pool to go along with those cards that dwindles down over time. I like the idea of this game even more than The 7th Continent, because of the story that it tells and how that seems more straight forward in some ways, versus puzzling out how to solve a curse.

4 – Cartographers Heroes

A small box game, though I did get the big box. Cartographers Heroes is the follow-up to Cartographers a flip and write game that I like a lot. This adds in heroes that can help you defeat monsters. But beyond that it adds in new monsters that do interesting things and with the big box for it, that comes with three new maps that all work in interesting ways. Normally you can put your shapes anywhere, in those they limit you and give you restrictions on how to build. And it comes with colored pencils which is important for making it look pretty.

3 – Nemesis Lockdown

Now, I actually didn’t get Nemesis Lockdown, so why is it on my list? I got Nemesis instead. Lockdown is the planetary base version of Nemesis, which is a game where you are fighting off aliens who are trying to overrun your ship and get your ship back to earth. However, each player has their own secret objective as well. So it’s a semi-cooperative game, but one that works really well from what I’ve heard. Mainly because it isn’t like Dead of Winter where you’ll hold back something that could end up tanking the whole scenario for everyone. You more have a goal that you are trying to do, and it might be that crew member X doesn’t make it, but you can’t push them out the airlock.

2 – Marvel United

This was the first big Kickstarter I backed last year, and I’m really glad that I did, it’s also the only one to have delivered anything this past year. Marvel United is a card playing cooperative game where players battle a villain. I like how simple this game is for a cooperative experience. It’ll be one I can play with my kid when he gets a bit older. But I also like that it gives you a superhero team-up feel. I, on my turn, get to take my action as well as those of the previous card, so if someone plays down two punches, and I put down two punches, I can punch four times. Plus there are cute chibi miniatures in the game for the heroes and the villains. I’ll be backing more of this in 2021 as they come out with the X-Men.

1 – Frosthaven

Finally, no shock, Frosthaven is my #1. I am going to be really curious to see if I like Gloomhaven or Frosthaven better when I’ve played both. I think that it seems like Frosthaven will have improved upon a few things, and it adds in city building. But anything more with that dungeon crawl feeling and that great card play, I’ll be really happy. I also think that the starting characters sound really really interesting, so I’m excited for it when it comes out, most likely this next year.

That’s my Top 10 Kickstarters that I backed. How about you, what are your favorite Kickstarters that you’ve backed this past year? Are there any that you are waiting on from longer ago than that?

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The Collection

Numbers

A’s – B’s – C’s – D’s – E and F’s – G and H’s – I, J and K’s – L’s

M’s

Mage Knight Board Game

This is one of the most popular solo board games out there, which is why I picked it up when I could used. This is not the ultimate edition that has all the expansions, just the base game. From what I know of it, it’s a quite heavy game made even heavier by a fairly poorly written rule book and a tutorial that kind of tries to teach you the game but doesn’t do a great job at it, but it was a lot of things that I like, Deck building being one of them and it is said to have an RPG like feel as well. It’s one that I need to spend some time learning and get to the table.

Status: To Be Played

Magic: The Gathering

This was one of the games that kind of got me into modern board gaming again, or helped me diversify my gaming because the group that I joined in with. Magic is a good deck construction game that I don’t get to play all that often anymore. In fact, I sold off the majority of my cards, but I still had to keep a few decks around because I know that eventually I’ll play it again, especially Commander. I think I kept three or four commander decks around because that style of playing can be expensive, but you only need one of each card in the deck. And it allows you to deck build in more interesting ways.

Status: Played

Mansions of Madness: Second Edition

I like my Arkham games from Fantasy Flight, but Mansions of Madness: Second Edition is my favorite. The game play is really enjoyable as you are playing through an app guided scenario. Since it’s app guided, it means that the game will be different each time that you play it, or could be, which is a lot of fun as well. And the scenarios are really different, some have just trying to stop a summoning in a mansion while others have you running around trying to escape a town that’s been already taken over, and there’s a scenario with time travel as well. Fantasy Flight has done a lot of things with the game which gives it a lot of replayability.

Status: Played

Mariposas

Last years big hit of a game was Wingspan from Elizabeth Hargrave, and she followed it up this year with Mariposas. Mariposas is a game about butterflies and their migratory patterns, which doesn’t sound that interesting, but the game play itself looks very interesting. You push as far north as you can all while sill needing, in the last season, to get all the way down to warm weather again to score more points. So it’s a push and pull of which objectives you want to get and which ones might be worth passing on because of how you’re set-up. It seems like clever game play and is an interesting theme, though not the only butterfly themed game that I have.

Status: To Be Played

Marrying Mr. Darcy

Sometimes you just want to play a light filler game about finding your ideal suitor in Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice. And sometimes you mix in the undead expansion if you want to play Pride, Prejudice and Zombies. This game is one that my wife actually picked up on Kickstarter, and it’s been a hit at the table. The game, I will say overstays it’s welcome a little bit considering how simple it is, but it does always provide good laughs as you try and set-up your best match and hope not to end up an old maid. The humor in the game is solid as well, it is just a bit too long for what it is.

Status: Played

Marvel Battleworld

Marvel Battleworld is kind a game. In a lot of ways it is more collectible than anything else, but not really being collectible. You are rolling dice to defeat enough locations before Thanos gets them. But the game is mainly about these Thanos Stones, something made up for the game, which are basically just a blind bid pack. You crack them open when you beat a Thanos Stone location and you have a new hero that you can play with. The heroes do look great, and the game play is meant for kids, so it’s not a knock on it, it’s about getting you to buy more packs for the kids in hopes that they get their favorite character, like frog Thor or cat Captain America. And there are rarer packs to sucker in the adults. But it’s a fun five minute little game thing, which is what it looks like.

Status: Played

Marvel Champions

Continuing the run on Marvel games we have the game that if I split it up into expansions as well, it could have been it’s own post. Marvel Champions is a deck construction card game where you are taking a hero up against a villain in a scenario, or multiple heroes in multiplayer. This is another Fantasy Flight game and is a living card game, which means that they are releasing new things for it all the time. I have 11 expansions for it, but you don’t need them all, or really any, there is a lot to play with in the base box, and after that you can just pick and choose your favorite heroes to get. What I really like about this game is that you go back and forth between your hero and alter-ego side, so Spider-Man and Peter Parker, for example. If you are in the Peter Parker form, the bad guy won’t attack because they don’t know who you are, instead they’ll scheme a way. But on the flip side, they attack and scheme less, so you need to balance it out so that you can beat them.

Status: Played

Marvel United

The final Marvel game on my list, this one is a simple cooperative game (all the Marvel games are cooperative). But Marvel United has amazing Chibi figures. This game has a ton more expansions coming with it sometimes in 2021, but just the base game is enough to get started with. This is a very straight forward game of dealing with a bad guy who is scheming away. But it has a really cool twist. On your turn you play down a card and use it’s actions and the ones from the card played before you. So it is that super hero team-up feel that people think of from the Avengers films.

Status: To Be Played

The Mind

The Mind was everywhere last year. It was a simple game that showed up and was very polarizing. Some people consider it less a game and more of an activity while other people say it’s a great game. For me, it’s an okay little bit of filler. In the game you play down cards in ascending order, not that tricky. But you can’t speak, so you have to be in everyone else’s head trying to guess what they have and wait it out before you play. I’ve only played The Mind a little bit, and I don’t need to play it that often. It’s an okay sitting around and drinking game, but overall just an okay time and it will fall flat at times.

Status: Played

Munchkin: Zombies

If you asked a lot of people what some of their first games to get into board gaming were, I’d expect a lot of people to say some version of Munchkin. I played base Munchkin first, but the version I got was Zombies. In Munchkin, you are kicking down doors and fighting monsters while everyone one else is trying mess you up. The game is very much a take that game and for that reason isn’t going to be for everyone and really isn’t even for me anymore. I keep it on the shelf because it is a good introductory weight game, and nostalgia at this point.

Status: Played

Alright, that’s all of the games that I own which start with M. There are a number of them, though not as many as starting with L. What is your favorite game that starts with the Letter M? What game should I add to my collection starting with M?

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Is this big Kickstarter a Back or a Brick for you?
(What does this mean, basically, would you back this or is it a pass?)

First, I’m going to break down the pros and cons of the project.

Pros

• The theme is Marvel and I love Marvel
• The game is cooperative
• CMON is a big company and it’ll get made
• Game play is simple looking
• Game looks like it plays in a reasonable time
• You get a ton of characters with it
• The retail version will pale in comparison to the Kickstarter version
• Reasonable price for base game

Cons

• CMON has a backlog of games to produce first so it won’t come for a while
• Too much PLASTIC
• Game play might be too simple
• FOMO for the add-on, Thanos add on that is Kickstarter exclusive
• FOMO of Kickstarter exclusives
• Possible limited variety in the game
• Shipping costs might be higher

Thoughts on Campaign Page
It’s CMON, this is a well put together campaign with a ton of worry about FOMO for it because there are so many stretch goals being unlocked that are going to be Kickstarter exclusive. This is a downside to the campaign because, I don’t like to feel like I’m backing based out of FOMO.

But, with that said, they do a good job of laying out how the game works and the fact that they do that and they give you a rules book that you can look at means that you know what you’re going to be getting with the game. I feel like the game makes sense in terms of it being a family weight feeling game, which is something that intrigues me. It means that I’ll be able to get it to the table with more people, which is always nice.

Verdict
Right now, I’m going to wait until it’s later in the campaign to make up my mind. How much is going to be unlocked, how much is going to be Kickstarter exclusive, and how much is going to be add-ons. I’m leaning towards Back because I love Marvel and because it’s cooperative, though.

What is this for you, a back or a brick (meaning pass because alliteration)?

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Vintage Copies of Books – So, books will show up multiple times on the list in different ways, but I think that there are different types of books you can pick up for that fantasy fan. And one of the cooler ones is vintage books. Getting an older copy of Lord of the Rings, even if it has a little bit of wear and tear on it is going to be awesome for a fan of Lord of the Rings, because the vintage covers and just the feel of the books is different. Or, it could be any other vintage sort of fantasy book, but there’s just something about having that almost collectors type book, that fantasy book lovers will really like.

Box Sets of Books – Here’s the other book thing. Box sets of books are also that other book lovers collectible thing. Again, box sets are the pieces that you can put on the shelf and show off. It also means that you can give them something they might not buy, for example, if they were picking up the Harry Potter books as they went along and they were published, they could have a mismatched set, but most book lovers will spend their own money on more books, not making a consistent collection, so you could give them that as a box set, so it is consistent, and it’s something that they’ll likely love.

Fantasy Themed Artwork – Now, this is a bit iffy to put on here, simply because, while Superhero artwork you can know has a recognizable superhero on it, fantasy artwork is all over the map. So, I would lean towards artwork that is based on something. So, Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter are good examples here. There’s going to be artwork that has been done depicting both of those stories, and if someone is a fan of that story, they’ll appreciate the artwork more so. That said, maybe the person has some obscure story that they like and there isn’t artwork on it, I’d be hesitant to suggest picking up large artwork, but postcard size stuff that is work appropriate and they can put up in a cubicle, that would work. Just don’t go with anything too large that they might not like because it’s just not their style.

Fantasy Themed Magnets – Fairly specific with this one, but I’ve found that a lot of people have pretty boring magnets, if they have many magnets on their fridge. Or they might again be using them at work in a cubicle. This is where you can go with the more generic fantasy, because, again, it’s smaller. And especially going with a cute art style or maybe a chibi art style, those work for a nerdy person’s fridge. If the person has a beer fridge or a wine fridge you can put magnets on, getting the hobbits drinking pints in chibi form would be great, in my opinion, for something like that. Or maybe, the person doesn’t want chibi but loves Dungeons and Dragons fantasy, get them dragon magnets. This also has the advantage of being something if you get a magnet that you can use as a stocking stuffer.

Lego – Yup, there are plenty of fantasy Lego sets out there, some generic, and then Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Sorry for you Game of Thrones fans, no Lego sets. This is another display type thing, or if they are younger kids, something that can be played with. But in our house, we have a Hobbit Lego on one shelf and a Hogwarts up on top of another shelf. So, you can go small or big with this, but Lego is a bit on the spendier side of things with the larger sets. It is a lot of fun to put together, and if someone has time off over the holidays, it gives them something fun to do through their time off.

Video Games – Woo, another generic category, but there are a lot of fantasy games out there. You can go retro if they have an older system or a Retron system and get them things like the original Zelda or Final Fantasy. Or, there are middle aged games (not games in the middle ages) like the original Dragon Age that have been ported over to the newer systems, but if someone still have an XBox 360, you could find it for that. There are so many fantasy games out there, figure out if the person you are giving the gift to like the more sword and sorcery style games, more story driven games, fighting, whatever it might be, and you’ll probably be able to find something unique for them. And if they are already a video gamer and have a lot of them, you can look towards more of the indie titles and there are a lot of interesting fantasy games out there.

Classic Fantasy Movies/TV Shows – When I say classic, I more so mean old ones. Find the fantasy movies or TV shows that people might not remember from back in the day. I’m sure there are plenty of good lists out there, or you could find the B-Movie classics in the genre as well. Definitely a lot of them you can check out, and if they are more of a classic one, the cheesy nature of them works better versus a modern cheesy story. Now, you still end up with some of them being too cheesy or dated poorly in other ways, so do a bit of research, but you can probably find bluray or DVD collections of them that would have a good variety as well.

This list is a bit more generic, so I apologize because it’ll make you do more work tracking stuff down. But fantasy is a bit broader than the board game topics and even broader than superheroes, because, while there are indie superheroes out there, most people think Marvel and DC. I tried to suggest some ideas that are a bit more specific for Lord of the Rings fans or Harry Potter fans, but there’s so much in the fantasy realm that it’s hard to cover some of the broader stuff. For that reason, if the person loves reading, books is always a great option, next time you see their book shelf, look at it and find what books might work there.

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