Thoughts on Star Wars Unlimited

I’m not going to put in too many thoughts here. Why, I already gave them, and I haven’t played it since then. But I will say, I’m excited to play it. And I’m excited to bust into my other box, like I said, possibly streaming it tonight. I want to see what other cards I get and to start building decks.

If you want to see my Star Wars Unlimited thoughts, you can do so here.

And I can’t do it justice at least compared to Rodney Smith and Watch It Played as how to play the game. If you want a good overview of all of that, checkout the video below.

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I stream at 9 PM Central. That is sometimes a bit hit or miss, but that’s the goal. And I do small solo game plays. The schedule is, right now, going to look like gaming every other Monday. A chance to see people in person came up for Monday and as much as I like streaming, it’s good to socialize as well.

On Wednesdays, well, I said that I plan to play at least a few more games of Mythwind. This is going to continue how I play my solo campaign games on the channel. The reason for that is with how many campaign games I can play solo, I want to try more. That is at 8 PM Central time for the campaign games.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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How To Play Star Wars: Unlimited

Let’s start by going over some details on it because how will you know what it’s about if I don’t do that. Star Wars: Unlimited, in the form I played it, is a two player head to head card battling game. You each can build a deck, they had decks for us, that you use to try and knock the other players base down to zero hit points. So it is pretty standard for a head to head battling game that way.

Star Wars: Unlimited is broken into two parts of a round. There is a regroup phase and an action phase. During the regroup phase you either draw your initial hand, six cards, and play two of them face down as resources, or you draw two cards and optionally play one down as a resource.

The other part is the action phase. In the action phase players take turns doing single actions. There are five things you can do. You can play a card by spending resources for it’s cost. This is either an unit card or an event card. You can attack, either an enemy unit or enemy base. You can activate an ability on a character, generally your epic characters. Another option is pass for that action, and you can play more after that. Or you claim initiative and pass for the round so you can be the first player to activate next round.

What I Want To See More Of

Cards and Deck Building

I don’t have lowlights for this. A demo event is going to show you a curated sample of the game. And the sample that I saw, spoiler, was fun. But I think it’s worth talking about what I didn’t see as well. The big thing, and it’s one thing, but very big, is I didn’t see the pool of cards and deck building.

You show up to a demo there isn’t time to build a deck. I totally understand that. Nor is it useful to show you a lot of cards that you won’t use. But that is a question to the game. As I play more, how do I deck build, is it easy or not? And what abilities are there or combos on cards that I might not have seen? I expect a fair number.

My one knock might be that it wasn’t that full of combos and it is pretty simple. Then again, so was Magic the Gathering when it first came out. So I think it’s fair that it should be.

Epic Actions

One of the big things about the game is that you get heroes with epic actions. Kind of the hero that you build your deck around. They start out in play but only doing a basic action. For Darth Vader it is pinging away damage at the base. For Luke Skywalker it’s shielding your units so they can be attacked without taking damage.

This does tie into the deck building or construction aspect as well. I thought that Luke’s action worked well with the deck building. Vader’s a bit less so. But when you got your hero into play, it is not fully satisfying, or at least they don’t stay on the board long. You put them into play and they are a target because they hit big. So you bring them in, take out a troop or do a big swing on the base and they die.

I think that there is a timing element for it. So I think there is more to explore. But I wish they felt a bit more epic or stuck around a little bit longer. On the upside, when they do die, you get them back. Not to put into play again. But to do that basic action still. So your main hero is still influencing the board.

What I Liked

Resources

Let’s start out with resources. Because I think this is one of the smartest things about the game. If you play Magic the Gathering you know it is possible to have all the resources in a hand or none. It is possible to start out strong and then never get another land if you got a bad shuffle.

Star Wars: Unlimited makes sure that it does away with that. You always can play down a resource. A resource is just a unit or event card that you play face down. So you give up something in order to be able to play out more. Sometimes you look at your hand and you don’t want to give up anything because that’d mean that you lose a card you really want to play. When you play it as a resource, it stays as a resource.

Action

The action economy is another area that I liked. It is much simpler than Magic the Gathering. There is no, I play X, you play Y, I counter Y, you play Z and we resolve them in order. I take an action and resolve it and then you take an action.

This really makes the game move faster. It is also a lot faster because if I want, I can ignore your troops. You also can ignore my troops. I attack your base, you don’t get a choice to block. My attack is at your base and your base takes damage. If you attack a troop, I don’t declare a block to help that troop, we both just take damage and you likely knock out my troop.

For some, this might be too simple. As a Magic player I kept on thinking I needed to play or react to more. The answer is no, it is not something that I need to do. The downside is there isn’t anything I do to save a unit if it’s being attacked. Upside is, actions are quick and the game moves.

Game Length

The game moves fast, let’s just say that. In an hour we played two games and got taught the game. I like that speed for the game, I sit down and knock out a game. I think that it might take longer as you build decks with more bigger threats in it, but overall, it is going to keep being a fast game.

Keywords

Finally, let’s talk about keywords. Right now there are not many keywords. That makes the game simple to play. Even as more are added, you don’t need to use too many on a single turn. Most characters give you one thing to do while they attack. Again this is an area that I think is going to be expanded upon. Eventually units will do two things when they are more epic.

But the big thing that I like is I read off one thing and that is it. I don’t need to spend a ton of time explaining anything. I read off my ability when I use it and you can learn it. Or if not the first time shortly there after. It’s a very smooth system, thus far.

Initial Impressions on Star Wars: Unlimited

I like the game. I expect to play this one when it comes out and to collect it some. The system is very accessible. I think between Star Wars: Unlimited next year and Lorcana this year there are good TCG’s to get into. The Star Wars theme is just way more exciting for me.

What I wonder a bit about is the variety in the game. I expect that there is going to be a lot of variety. But when it comes to how it played at the demo, it felt like there is less variety. The two games that we played, the light side, me, won. Now, is that a flaw with the game? I don’t know about that, it is possible it was just players. But I want variety in a TCG, so hopefully I can get that in the game.

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What Is A Trading Card Game

Let’s start out with the basics of what a TCG is. Because it’s important to understand some elements of it. A TCG is a game where you build a deck to face off against opponent or opponents. In standard Magic the Gathering and Pokemon, you will face off against a single opponent. There are formats where it might be team vs team or a free for all with multiple players, at least for Magic the Gathering.

But that’s only part of it. The other part is the blind buy system that these games employ. To create a market for trading cards, there are certain rarities for cards. In Magic the Gathering you see common, uncommon, rare, and mythic rare. Pokemon has a similar system. When you buy a pack, most of the cards you get fall into the category of common. Then uncommon being, well, less common. And you get a rare, but you might not get a mythic rare.

This is done to drive up the value and scarcity of some of the better cards. Hence making the game a trading, or it used to be called collectible card game.

Getting Cards

For getting cards, there are two main ways to do so. And I mentioned one above, or really both. But the biggest way is that you can buy packs. The downside to buying packs is that you don’t know what you will get. TCG’s use blind pack buys which means that it’s a random set of cards, the commons, uncommon, and rare or mythic rare, in that pack.

If you open enough packs you can find most of the commons pretty easily. Again, those make up most of the pack. But the mythic rare cards are much harder to find and would require a lot of hunting for them. That means that you, most likely, won’t pull the cards you want, or the number of them you want, without opening a substantial number of packs.

The other way is to buy singles. There are plenty of card shops, and often board game shops or comic shops will also have cards, which sell single cards. That way you can search down the specific card that you want. This method likely will cost more to get that card or playset of cards than buying a pack. But it is going to be cheaper than buying the number of packs needed to complete getting those cards.

Deck Construction

The final big element of the TCG’s is building your deck to play against someone. I don’t plan on going into all the details here. But each system has specific rules about how to build your deck and utilize cards. You use the cards you buy, either from packs or single cards, to complete decks.

You look for synergies between cards when creating a deck. What card will benefit from another card being in there to create an interesting combination. There is a lot that you can do in a good TCG to create many unique deck types and strategies. Some will be better than others, but building your deck, sometimes, is as interesting as playing a game.

Final Thoughts on Trading Card Game

Trading Card Games can be great. There are a lot of cool elements to them. Also trading card games can cost a lot of money. The decks that win tournaments are not cheap and actually a situation where you might be better off buying packs versus the individual cards, at least sometimes.

And one element I didn’t talk about yet is the addictive quality of TCG’s. The idea being that you buy a pack, you pull a great card. Now that $5-8 pack gave you back value of $15-100. Or, in the case of the Lord of the Rings set, I want to get certain artwork or certain character cards. So I might not get the value, but I am still chasing certain characters or cards. It is something that pulls people in to keep buying packs for that dopamine hit.

But the game, themselves, is a lot of fun. I don’t have experience playing Pokemon, but I played a lot of Magic the Gathering. And it’s a great system, sometimes rules heavy, but with a good flow. And I want to play more, it’s a matter of finding time and people to play it with. But Elves vs Hobbits, yes please, or maybe Hobbits vs Warhammer 40k? With the Universe Beyond sets, you play anything you want. And that is the fun of getting into these games. And what is keeping me from getting away from them completely.

Have you gotten into any TCGs? Which is your favorite?

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Pros

• Aesthetic
• Quick Game Play
• Price
• Quality of Components
• Pedigree of company
• Theme

Cons

• Two player only
• Collectible Card Game feel

The Page

Roxley knows what they are doing when it comes to Kickstarter, I have Dice Throne Season One, all the duel boxes for season 2, the Treant and Ninja for Season 1, and Dice Throne Adventure from them. Their quality of game is not something that I’m remotely concerned about, and they have my interest every time that they create a Kickstarter.

The art on the page and in the game is just amazing. Manny Trembley, who did Dice Throne as well, is one of my favorite board game artists. He and Damien Mammoliti did an amazing job on the page and on the game creating artwork that really evokes this Mad Max or Warriors almost setting.

And Roxley always does a good job of highlighting their quality as well. The Synth cards are really cool and I want to know what they feel like. Beyond that, having seen their other games, I know that the tokens will be good quality and that box seems really nice. I even like the playmats a lot, though that’s mainly for the artwork versus because I think that the game needs them.

The Game

So, like I said, when Roxley makes something, I’m going to be interested. And I am interested in Radlands because I like how quick the game plays. I’ve watched two playthroughs over on GloryHoundd’s YouTube channel and it plays really quickly both of the times, and the games play out differently through multiple plays.

I put it in a con, but I like that it’s two player, kind of. If it were more than two player the game would take a lot longer to play because there would be more bases to destroy, players would be trying to slow down whomever was in the lead, and things would just kind of pass around and people would have more time to build up defenses and such.

I’m less thrilled with the CCG feel of the game. Now, thankfully it’s not a collectible card game. Everything you need to play the game is in that one box, and while I’m sure they can expand, I wouldn’t imagine that they’d ever consider doing something like Magic: The Gathering. However, the comparison is there a little bit as to how the game plays, and for me, that’s a hard sell. I can tell that the game is balanced and interesting to play from what I have seen in playthroughs, but is it one that I’d play a lot?

Back or Brick

But that was getting into the area to answer to my question down here, is it a Back or a Brick? For me, unfortunately, this game is a Brick. Not because I don’t think it’s a good game, I’m guessing I’d love the game. However, as a two player game that can feel a bit like a CGG, I don’t know when I’d played it, or who I’d play it with. The game would probably hold resale value, but I don’t want to get a game to then just sell it in a couple of years after it’s been sitting on my shelf looking pretty and maybe getting played a couple of times. I highly recommend this game for most people, but I’m not sure I have space for it on my shelf.

How about for you, is this game a back or a brick?

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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 – N, O, and P’s – Q and R’s

S’s

Sagrada (and Expansions)

I wish that I had backed Sagrada on Kickstarter, not because there is anything special with that edition really compared to what I have, but because I like the game that much. This dice drafting game just works and looks amazing on the table. The theme of stained glass windows appeals to most everyone, even non-nerdy gamers. And the concept of taking a die and placing it into your stained glass window makes sense. Add in that the dice look amazing in the windows because they are translucent, it sells the game even more on the table.

Status: Played

Santorini

I don’t always love abstract games. But Santorini looks great on the table, and that counts for a lot in a game, in my opinion. Especially for a game that is abstract. The simple game play helps the game be even more appealing. You are just moving a piece and building a level. The goal is to make it to the third level of a building, which is simple enough. And when the game becomes too simple, you can add in god cards which give players powers.

Status: To Be Played

Say Bye to the Villains

I like extremely tough cooperative games. Say Bye to the Villains fits that mold perfectly as I have yet to win it. But for me, I don’t see that as a negative, mainly because we are always close to winning. None of the games feel like we’re too far away which is saying something considering how many times I’ve played it. It also helps that the game play is simple enough. You are just playing cards that eat up time, and the game isn’t too long either. For some people it would be a negative, but for me, it’s a good thing. It feels like there’s always just one more thing to do in the Say Bye to the Villains than you have time for.

Status: Played

Scattergories

I have a game from 1988 on my list. And yes, I play Scattergories still. Scattergories is a party game that works well since it depends on the players creativity but not on in-jokes. It also works well over Zoom which has gotten it played several times this year. The game is simple and everyone understands what is going on when played. Scattergories isn’t a game that I’ll pull out all the time, but people have fun when it is pulled out. And it’s a game that everyone knows because it’s been around so long.

Status: Played

Scrabble

If you thought Scattergories was old, think again. I have Scrabble in my collection as well. Scrabble being published in 1948 might make it the oldest game in my collection. I still enjoy playing Scrabble, though. I prefer regular Scrabble to the “quick” Scrabble or Banagrams. The main reason is that Scrabble has more strategy and tactics than those do. In Banagrams it is purely pattern recognition and while I am good at it, it isn’t as fun. I prefer to think about how I might be setting up my opponent in Scrabble and the strategy that comes with that.

Status: Played

SeaFall

I wanted to like SeaFall so badly. And it’s funny that I do have a copy of it still. I was gifted a copy that a friend got for cheap. SeaFall promised that it was going to be an epic seafaring game where the story unfolded as you explored. Instead, we got a story that was a mess and complicated but only because it didn’t unfold in order. Compared to other Legacy Games, story happened much more randomly and the games themselves took too long. I wanted a game that told epic punchy story about adventure on the high seas. And, I think that is possible within SeaFall, how the story works, though, needs to be reworked.

Status: Played

Second Chance

I like flip and writes as I’ve said many a time before. Second Chance is a simple flip and write. You try and fill as much of your square as possible and that’s it. To do that you are putting in polyomino like shapes onto your board. If you can’t place one of the two shapes, you get a second chance card, a card only you can use. If you are able to use it, you stay in the game and continue playing. If not, you are out and count up the empty spaces you have left. The game is that simple. But it works well because it gives a chance for people to be creative in how they fill in the shapes. You doodle on them so you can tell what is filled and what isn’t, or create patterns. And that part of the game is really a lot of fun. Plus, the game works for everyone since it is so simple.

Status: Played

Sentinel Tactics: The Flame of Freedom

Honestly, I ordered this game on accident. I thought I was ordering another expansion for Sentinels of the Multiverse, but I ordered Sentinel Tactics. Thankfully I ordered a standalone game, not an expansion for Sentinels Tactics. Sentinel Tactics still takes place in the Sentinels of the Multiverse world, but is a tactical game, as the name implies. You move chits around a modular board playing through scenarios that have you trying to beat a villain. I hope it’s good, I know one person who said it was interesting, if not, I got it on a steep sale, so I can always use it to get store credit at my FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store) for a game I want.

Status: To Be Played

Sentinels of the Multiverse (and Expansions Galore)

What, this game comes after Sentinel Tactics alphabetically, who’d have guessed. I picked up the base game used from my FLGS. Sentinals is a game that I’ve wanted to try for a while because of the superhero theme. Then when Tom Vassal played it on a What’s Appening stream for the Dice Tower, I decided it looked good enough to pick up. Then, Black Friday rolled around and Greater Than Games had a massive sale. So I picked up a ton of expansions for it, almost a literal ton. I believe it was 17 expansions for it, plus Sentinel Tactics. I still need to get it to the table, and I plan on starting just with the base game, but I love the superhero world and the comics that come with some of the boxes.

Status: To Be Played

Shadowrun Crossfire: Prime Runner Edition

I picked this one up recently as well. Shadowrun Crossfire first came onto my radar when I played it at Fantasy Flight Game Center off of their demo wall. I knew when I played it that I’d pick it up eventually. I really like the world of Shadowrun. A world where big corporations are running things, and hackers go on runs to try and get data and take them down. The cyberpunk setting works really well for me. I know there are some knocks on the game with how slowly characters level up, but I am still excited to play through it’s campaign.

Status: Played

Shadowrun: Sprawl Ops (with Cooperative Expansion)

This game was a bit of a mess getting it from Kickstarter. The shipping company messed up royally, and while we did get cool extra boards, the creators who were doing updates were not professional about everything. I don’t have any issue with the publisher Catalyst Game Labs, but with Lynnvander Studios, I’d be hesitant to back any of their projects again. The game looks amazing and has a great cyberpunk aesthetic, though, so I am excited to play it. And the game comes in a massive box, where even the box looks awesomely cyberpunk.

Status: To Be Played

Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients

I have some beefs with this game, though it is still on my shelf. The main beef I have is that it sucks to put together. All the little minis come in a lot of pieces and are not easy to put together. This sounds like it’s been rectified to some extent in other prints of this box. However, the game itself is a lot of fun. It’s a weird west game where you are pushing deep into a mine to try and complete objectives. But there are monsters in there, and you might stumble into a whole other world if you aren’t careful. I want more time to play it, but I have to reassemble my minis first, which might be a good winter project, assuming I remember how they go together.

Status: Played

Shadows of Kilforth: A Fantasy Quest Game

I have mentioned a few places that have caused me to pick up games and Shadows of Kilforth is one of those game. This fantasy game with an Eastern flare to it, was one that I saw the original, Gloom of Kilforth played on the Rolling Solo channel on YouTube. The game play looked interesting, so when a sequel showed up on Kickstarter, it felt like a good game to back. I still think it will be, I just need to get it sorted and ready for the table. This game is one that I should be able to play solo on Malts and Meeples in the new year sometime.

Status: To Be Played

Shakespeare

I’m ashamed of how long this game has been on my shelf without getting played. My wife picked it up for we as a gift, and as a game that she’d also like the theme of. But it’s euro game, so I don’t get those off my shelf as much. I am interested in it as I like the theme of putting on a play. Getting costumes, actors, sets, and more ready sounds like a lot of fun, I just haven’t played it yet. I am excited to try it still, I just need to sit down and learn the rules so we can get it to the table.

Status: To Be Played

The Siblings Trouble

I picked this one up off of Kickstarter because of how much I had enjoyed Lift Off! from the same design and company. This one is a light RPG like game that is targeted for families with kids. It is meant to be a way to get that RPG feel without having as much of a ruleset as something like Dungeons and Dragons does. I’m waiting until the toddler is old enough to play it with us because the game looks very cute.

Status: To Be Played

Silver: Amulet (and Coin, Bullet, and Dagger)

Silver: Amulet was a game that I got to try at GenCon in 2019. The game has a puzzle feel to it as you are trying to score the fewest points in your village. The twist comes with being able to swap out two cards for one card, if the cards are the same number. Add in a lot of powers on your cards, and you have an interesting puzzle. And then to top that all off, you don’t know what most of your cards are at the start of the game. The amulet, coin, bullet, and dagger all do different things, so depending on which version you play there will be a unique special power. And the cards you play with between the games can be mixed together, you just need one set of each number to make it work.

Status: Played

Silver & Gold

Roll and write, you know the drill. I like them, and this one does something cool. You fill in spots on cards, which seems bad. But the cards are dry erase, so you can play with them over and over again. It is a clever twist as you start to do set collection with them and score points off of which ones you have filled in. You still make combos though. If you cross of a treasure spot, that allows you to fill in another spot on any of your cards, and there are palm trees that are worth points as well. Super small sized game, but looks to pack a lot of game into it.

Status: To Be Played

Skip-Bo

The section of old games apparently. Skip-Bo is a classic game that I grew up playing less than I’d want in some ways. Fairly often for a simple card game Uno would be the game picked. But Skip-Bo had more interesting game play to it than Uno does. I like figuring out how to place your discards in the most optimal way possible, and sometimes stopping early to try and lock an opponent from being able to play easily. Now, the game can drag because of poor card draw, but it is generally quite fast.

Status: Played

Skulk Hollow

A two player game that was on Kickstarter. Again from the same company as Lift Off! Skulk Hollow is an asymmetric two player game. One person plays as the fox kingdom and the other as the old guardian that has awakened. The fox player needs to get onto the guardian, since it is to too large to beat otherwise, and take out it’s different actions. The monster generally has it’s own objective, but can by taking out the fox leader. The game has simple card play but is very tactical in nature and the box comes with multiple leaders for the fox and guardians for a ton of replayability.

Status: Played

Skull

The first time I played Skull, I wasn’t sure how much I liked it. It had weird coasters that you played with, and it was a push your luck sort of game. However, the more I played it, the more interesting it became, how did you successfully bluff someone into picking from your pile which has a skull in it, when that will bust you if you get stuck with the bid. The bluffing is what makes this game, it doesn’t have a lot of strategy to it, but if you can bluff and read your opponents you’ll do well in this game. And the coaster shaped “cards” are still weird.

Status: Played

Small World (and Small World Underground)

Small World was one of the gateway games for me that got me into the hobby. I like how it has Risk elements, but it’s actually fun. It has a lot of attacking and defeating your enemy, but in a fun way. You aren’t rolling die like in Risk, the battles are determined just by if you have enough pieces of cardboard to beat an area. The powers and races make this game work though, because something like undead ghouls or flying halflings are just silly, and you can get some great combinations, like commando elves or flying sorcerers that can put a bit of a target on your back. Game is a lot of fun every time I play it, which is about once a year.

Status: Played

Sonora

I’ve talked about roll and writes, and flip and writes, even a draft and write, but I haven’t mentioned my flick and write. Sonora is a combotastic [blank] and write game. To start your turn you flick disks around a board which determine who much you get to put in certain areas. Some of them are simple race to completion, others have you putting pieces in like they are Tetris, or filling in dots, or closing off sections of the board. It has a ton going on, and if you get the right things, you then get more to fill in other areas and it can repeat even more. It is extremely satisfying.

Status: Played

Specter Ops

A game that I picked up used, but that was on my radar for a long time. Spector Ops is a one versus all game, but the one is hidden. They are moving around to various objectives trying to get them all. The concept is so interesting to me. I want to play both sides of it, see how well I can hide where I’m at and see how well I can deduce where someone else is going. It feels like it should be a good and challenging experience.

Status: To Be Played

Splendor

Splendor is a light and small engine building game. You are collecting gems to get cards that have permanent gems and sometimes points. And you can use those permanent gems to get even more cards which games on them and the process repeats until someone has 15 points. The game is really simple to play, the theme is not there, but that’s okay. It is meant as an introduction to engine building and it works for that. Not one I want to play all the time, but I keep it on the shelf for what it is.

Status: Played

Star Wars: Destiny

Fantasy Flight Games foray into collectible card games. It was a fun game because it wasn’t only card it was nice chunky dice as well. And I like the Star Wars theme better than say, Magic the Gathering. The issue is that the game isn’t quite as good, and people didn’t get into it as much. Destiny is now a retired game, but one that had a good following and people were sad to see leave. What I think worked well was that none of the cards were rarer than the others. So you got good stuff all the time. That was part of what killed it as well, Magic works because it has a massive secondary market for it for FLGS’s, Destiny had none.

Status: Played

Star Wars: Imperial Assault

The Star Wars dungeon crawl. This game does one thing that I really wish the Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth did, and that is that it is adjacent to the main story and the main characters. But I can’t play as Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader, those are characters who just make appearances. But out of the base box, you are still playing around the original trilogy storyline. The game also has an app, so it can be one versus all, but it can also be fully cooperative. I need to play it more because I’ve liked the plays I’ve had.

Status: Play

Star Wars: Unlock!

The unlock games are basically escape room games in in a box. And the Star Wars: Unlock! game is a game that is an escape room in a box with a Star Wars theme. I like these games because they are very puzzly and can give you an experience while you play them. I’ve heard that the Star Wars: Unlock is a bit easier than some of the other ones, but I’m fine with that as it’ll be more accessible to more people. I want to play this over the holidays, and that’s the one downside, once you’ve played an unlock game once, you can’t play it again because you’ll know how it goes, still $30 for three hour long experiences in a group isn’t bad.

Status: To Be Played

Stipulations

I talk about this game a lot, mainly because I really like it was a party game. Stipulations asks the question, what horrible thing will your friends come up with. If you have the super power of flight, what’s the stipulation, or the dream job of being a movie actor, what is the stipulation. This game does what most party games do, it ends up with a lot of in jokes, but it is a fun time and compared to something like Apples to Apples which is basically always clean or Cards Against Humanity which is always dirty, Stipulations can be tailored to those whom you’re playing with.

Status: Played

Super Fantasy Brawl

I’ve decided that I really like games that Mythic Games puts out, or at least in concept. Reichbusters looks like a fun twist on a dungeon crawl, and Super Fantasy Brawl seems like a really accessible two player fighting game. The game has chunky minis that look great, and simple but interesting card play. I like that you play three cards on your turn and those cards have to be of different colors, but each character, of the three you have doesn’t correspond to a color, so if you get a red and a yellow card for one character, you can activate that character twice, from my understanding. I really want to give this one a whirl as it has an epic table presence for a fairly simple seeming game, rules wise.

Status: To Be Played

Super-Skill Pinball: 4-cade

You know the drill, I love my roll and write games. And I like the theme on this one a ton. I like the idea of playing a pinball machine and seeing what the high score is that I can get on it. I like the mechanics of how the ball can bounce around and how it will only bounce certain ways and generally down. You are also trying to bounce it up higher and complete combos on things, just like in real pinball to get even more points. And it’s called 4-cade because there are 4 different machines that you can play.

Status: To Be Played

Sushi Go Party!

This was another early game for my collection as it was on Wil Wheaton’s Table Top show. It is a card drafting game, a mechanic that I quite enjoy, with set collection as well. The game works well, even though with new players you sometimes have someone get off on what they are drafting. Sushi Go Party! also gives you ways to change everything up, so that you can have different combinations of foods on the menu. The game has a very cute table appeal and is just a hit basically all the time.

Status: Played

Sword and Sorcery (plus Expansions)

Sword and Sorcery is a classic dungeon crawl game. This one is pure Amerithrash dice chucking fun. I like how much mitigation you have, but only mitigation in having multiple symbols to use on the dice and being able to reroll dice. My knock on this game is that it is almost a little bit too easy at times. You get great weapons for completing things and now you are hitting really hard and can take down monsters fast. Granted if you roll poorly no matter what you’ll do poorly. I wish it had a bit more of a story to it, but overall, the story isn’t too bad and the game is meant to be mainly a dice chucking dungeon crawl anyways.

Status: Played

Sword Art Online Board Game: Sword of Fellows

I love Sword Art Online, one of my favorite anime, and I’ve watched it multiple times. I am also working on a game idea based off of some of the isekai themes from it. But this game is a bit sad, the anime is big and epic, this game is tiny. it does get some things right, mainly the combat of switching in and out and not letting the bad guy go feels like it matches the theme. I need to play this one not solo, because I think it might be better that way and have less upkeep for one player. I’m hoping some day we’ll get a truly epic Sword Art Online board game.

Status: Played

So that’s all of the S’s, there are ton of them. I hope that you were able to stick it out, hte rest of the list will be a lot shorter. There are so many good games in the S’s as well and a lot that I need to play. Which one should I play first? Do I have something that seems like it’s missing to you? I’m guessing people will say Scythe, which I owned, but got rid of.

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In those games, you would build your deck of cards, however many that might be, from cards you had bought and collected. You were looking for interesting interactions and synergies between cards. That is something that still definitely exists in modern deck builders. But the modern deck builder doesn’t have you create your deck ahead of time. In fact, everyone starts out with the same cards and then you can build and expand your decks beyond that.

That is what makes the mechanic interesting, in a lot of the early deck builders, you would customize and try and develop your own strategy for the game based off of a set of cards that were available to everyone in the game. Dominion, the first popular deck builder, created an economy where you would search to combo cards to the point where you could buy victory point cards, in particular the high cost victory point cards which were one way to end the game.

While I do appreciate the mechanic in Dominion, Dominion does have one serious flaw to the game. There will always be a best strategy because everyone is purchasing from a static market of cards. This can lead to a run away leader problem in the game, or if the cards don’t synergize well, the strategy is then just to buy more money, so you don’t actually end up using the combinations. Also, the game has a medieval theme that could literally be any sort of economy, so it’s very very themeless. Toss in inconsistent art throughout the game and expansions, and I’ve moved on from my copy of Dominion.

But Dominion was the one that started it for deck builders, maybe not the first, but the first big one. From there we’ve moved on to a few different ways of deck building.

The first big advancement is the rotating market. The game Marvel Legendary is a great example of this. While the market is limited more so than in Dominion, the market rotates as people buy a card, you flip a new card down. This means that the market is constantly changing and there isn’t a way to create a specific strategy as clearly that is going to be the best. This helps solve the run away leader problem. It also provides more strategy for creating your deck as the option of just buying money isn’t going to fix your problem in the game of figuring out card synergies.

In a cooperative game, like Marvel Legendary, you can still make your decks highly focused as you’re talking about what is out there and who might want what card when it comes around to their turn. But in Clanks! In! Space!, you are playing a competitive game with a rotating market. This means that someones you might buy a card that isn’t ideal for your deck, just because you don’t want anyone else to have it.

There are also interesting ways that they fixed the fixed market issue in Dominion in other games without it being a rotating market. Xenoshyft: Onslaught is a good example of this. In the game you are working together to defend your base, but I might have the role of the science department while someone else might have the barracks. Because we have different roles we have different powers that make our strategies unique. If you are the science department, you have the two unique cards in your deck from the start, and you can get a discounted buy on science cards each round. That means your deck is going to lean a certain direction because it’s easier for you to load up on a certain type of good card than it is for other people. Variable player powers cover over a lot of issues you can run into with deck builders by actively making people build their deck in different ways or they won’t be building it the most efficient way using their resources.

Xenoshyft: Onslaught also has another interesting mechanic that helps. One issue with deck builders is that as the deck gets larger, you can either get a deck that is too big to really get the cards you want together, or gets too full of early game cards that you don’t get enough money at the same time to purchase more. Xenoshyft: Onslaught fixes both of these issues in unique but good ways. The first thing it does is you area always gaining money to your hand each round of the game, in the first three rounds, you get an extra xenostatham (money unit), in the next three, you get a three xenostatham card, and in the last three rounds, you get a six xenostatham. Now, this means you are never short money, but it adds bloat into your deck. Xenoshyft: Onslaught realizes this, so in the middle rounds, you can trade three one xenostatham cards for a three xenostatham card, and in the last three rounds, you can get your threes to sixes. This keeps the deck cleaner. It also allows you to use troops that you can buy in the first three rounds as discounts on troops in the later rounds, this helps keep the deck thin and focused.

One thing that all the games that I’ve mentioned thus far do better than Dominion as well is that they’ve added theme back into a deck builder. The cards that you are buying and using make sense in the game for the ultimate goal of the game. Wen you’re recruiting heroes to fight against a super villain in Legendary, it makes sense. When the cards have certain abilities on them, they make sense for the hero. That was a huge move forward from what we had been previously seeing in Dominion, and while Dominion might still be the most popular, it gave people a lot more options for games.

There are now some other interesting things that have been added into deck building that make certain deck builders unique.

A game like Cry Havoc, while not a pure deck builder, has some deck building in the game as you add in various terrain cards to your deck. It uses a draw two and pick one methodology of building up your deck. So depending on where you are locate don the board will determine what you want to take, and whom you might be fighting.

Aeon’s End (a game that I’ll have the legacy version of the game on it’s way, but this one does something unique as well. It’s interesting because instead of shuffling your deck like you do with every other deck building game I can think of, you literally just flip your discard pile. However, when you discard cards on your turn, you can sort the order that they go into your discard as long as they are used in the game time in the game. That means that you can stack your deck in an interesting way and specifically create hands, especially earlier in the game.

Deck building is definitely a mechanic that has been extremely popular and I think will remain popular, though we’re now seeing less pure deck building games. A game like Cry Havoc has deck building, but that’s fairly secondary in the game, and you’d actually be able to play the full game without doing any additional deck building if you wanted (if I remember correctly), but it’s fun to see a fairly familiar mechanic showing up in a diverse cross-section of games that wouldn’t always seem like deck building games. It’s also led to some interesting games that have hand building that can work similar to deck building, but you have access to all the cards from the start and then lose them as you play them.

So, to wrap this up, if deck building seems like an interesting mechanic, where would I start?

That’s a tough question, Dominion is probably the purest deck builder out there, but there are a ton of expansions, so it might seem a bit intimidating to get into. It’s also not the easiest game to sell to people to play, because the theme is very bland. But if you are playing with less gamer-y people, I would start with Dominion.

If you’re playing with people who are used to playing games, just not deck builders, I’d probably start with Xenoshyft: Onslaught. The game has some very interesting choices in it, and it’s fun to face off against a bunch of alien bugs. Marvel Legendary is good as well, but there are so many expansions, I wouldn’t consider it a great starting deck builder. You could look at Legendary Encounters games and just pick the them that works best for you, whether that’s Alien, Big Trouble in Little China, Firefly, or one of the others. These games all offer more to do with your cards and a lot more depth of strategy than Dominion while still keeping the focus on deck building.

What are some of your favorite deck building games?

The first thing that I think of is reading books to our kid and getting them into those worlds are make-believe and encouraging their creativity. For me growing up, my parents read to us kids a lot of books, and I’m excited to start doing that with a kid as well. And this is something that you can do even before they really truly understand it, but will be more fun when they do. The Swallows and Amazons series is the big one that I’m excited to read to them, it’s the one that I remember most fondly from my childhood. And there are plenty of other series, Harry Potter is one of the series that I want to read as well, something that my parents couldn’t have done for me because of how old I am. But I remember them reading Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and Chronicles of Narnia as well. I have to imagine with how much Kristen and I read that it’ll rub off on the kid, but it’s something that we really want to encourage.

Then there are RPG’s. I actually think that most kids should play RPG’s. One, it’s a good form of play that they can do and really stretch imaginations. It’s also a good outlet for creativity, and is in some ways what kids are doing when they play make-believe. The other thing is that it puts yourself in a situation that you aren’t used to, it’s outside of the norms of social interaction and can be a good way to tease out those social interactions. As you can see, focusing in on that creativity is something that important in my mind for the development of a child, which I don’t think should be surprising.

I’m also really excited for teaching board games. I’m probably going to have to get a few simpler board games like My Little Scythe or My First Carcassone to start with, and actually on Board Game Breakfast from The Dice Tower, there’s a segment on games for younger kids that I’ll probably mind for information as well. But games like Ice Cool are already on my shelf that a kid is going to be able to play. Then as they get older I can introduce games like Tsuro and Splendor that are simple but have more strategy to them. This is there I’m looking to start developing the logical side of our child.

I also want to teach them Magic the Gathering or Star Wars: Destiny or whatever the newest CCG (collectible card game) is. The reason for that is that I really want to teach the deck building and the logic that goes into those things. It means that right now I can’t totally fall of the Magic bandwagon even though I don’t get to play much. But deck building in those games is very much logic and very much finding the fun combinations that you can play. Plus, if they get into Magic or any CCG, they don’t have money to spend on anything else, as the joke goes. However, these deck builders are clearly further down the line, as they are very logical, but I want to introduce them for that reason, to help build that logic and reasoning skill that you can get in both CCG’s and board games.

Now, there are a ton more things that I’m excited to introduce at the right times. The first time that they see the Lord of the Rings movies or the original Star Wars movies. Taking them to Universal Studios when they are old enough to appreciate Harry Potter world. And it’ll be interesting to see what nerdy things that they’ll get into that will be coming out for them. What will be there Harry Potter or Hunger Games?

What nerdy things are you excited to introduce a child to? Is there some particular area that you’re really excited for?

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