Artisans of Splendent Vale

This is a game from Renegade games that is coming up on Kickstarter in September of 2021. This is a cooperative story driven game with a diverse cast of characters. There was a lot of attention placed on characters that you might not see in a normal fantasy setting.

The Designer, Nikki Valens, has worked on a lot of different games that I like. They have led the designs on Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition and Legacy of Dragonholt, both which are very good games. And this looks like they have taken some of both of those and created a cool and unique world. Not much on game play in the video, but one, because of Nikki Valens pedigree as a designer that I’ll checkout on Kickstarter.

Skybound Announcements

Tidal Blades 2

Tidal Blades 2 coming to Kickstarter this fall. It is going to be more of a dungeon crawl. It takes the characters from Tidal Blades and then now they are coming on a dungeon crawl adventure. It’s the same designers but not the dice building, dice progression system. More of a deck building style of game. Tidal Blades didn’t interest me too much, but a cooperative dungeon crawl set in that world, I’m very interested. The universe is really interesting for sure.

Kim-Joy’s Magic Bakery

And then a game Kim-Joy’s Magic Bakery. It’s an interesting thing because Kim-Joy is a baker who was on the Great British Bake-off. She definitely has a nerdy flare to herself and her life, so Skybound and James Hudson have met her and are working to create a game with her. It is a cooperative game, a bit of The Crew but also a bit of Kitchen Rush without a timer to rush you.

Boruto: Naruto The Next Generations The Board Game

So this is based off an anime, Boruto which is the sequel to Naruto from Blacklist games. Another cooperative game, and this one is a boss battling game. You get to play as characters who are senior ninjas and the junior ninjas so you can have a wide variety of combos to play with. And you are spending energy, shakra, and the cards you play give you as a group more shakra to spend to play more cards and stronger cards.

Unmatched Battle of Legends Vol 2

This is a continuation of what is showing up in Unmatched. This game has been put out by Restoration games. They are known for taking old games and modernizing them, and Unmatched has been massively successful for them. This is a tactical battling game where you are playing out cards to move, attack, and defend against another player. It’s a game that I haven’t played yet, and I think it looks solid, but I do want to try the game before I buy it. This includes Bloody Mary, The Monkey King, and more. Coming out later in 2021.

Flamecraft

Card Board Alchemy is announced a new game about dragons who are baking bread. This is a dragon placement game as they placing dragons around town. It’s small dragons who are making food, at the forge, or brewing potions, it could be a lot of different places. The artwork on this game is amazing. I feel like I know it from where, but I would need to look it up. This looks like a super cute game and it’s coming to Kickstarter in August, definitely looks like a cute game. I hope that it’s easy to play because that aesthetic is amazing.

Galaxy Trucker

This is getting a new version. They are putting out a free expansion, Rough Roads that was out before. But they are making it for the new version as well. They have been putting out small and free mini expansions that can be downloaded for a lot of their games throughout 2020 and 2021 to give more small content to their games. This seems like a nice refresh.

Portal Games Announcements

Million Dollar Script

This one is a party game from Portal games. I am not super interested in this one. While the theme is interesting, I just don’t know about making movies. You are trying to come up with scripts for movies, which I like, but I’m not sure how well it’ll work. I think that it could be funny sometimes, but it feels pretty standard. But you are creating the movie really well. I think that it looks like one which will be great sometimes and bad others, which is the type of party game I pass on.

Dune: House Secrets

This one I am super excited for. It is a Dune game that uses the Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game. I love that system because it can offer so much. And it means that they can tell a really interesting story. Dune is an interesting theme for me, because I like the book pretty well. I think that the world of Dune is very fascinating. This is one that I’m pretty sure I’m going to pick up. I’m waiting for Portal Games to do their pre-order. I could order it from a store, but Portal tends to do pre-order bonuses. July 12th is when the pre-order opens up.

Queen’s Dilemma

Horrible Guild is announcing something super generic, but they are teasing the Queen’s Dilemma. They came out with The King’s Dilemma, a legacy game that I really need to play. It is a fascinating sounding game where you are making decisions trying to influence the king and it’s highly story driven. You play around the table discussing and making deals and trying to pitch things. This is one that I really need to play, like I said, so that when the Queen’s Dilemma comes out I’ll be able to play that one as well. It looks like they are building upon what they’ve already done. Also, I love Horrible Guild’s stuff that I’ve played thus far.

Paint the Roses

Another Wonderland based game. This is a theme that has been done a lot because, well, it’s free for public use. This is a cooperative game all about building the perfect garden from North Star Games. The art doesn’t look too bad. It sounds generic to me. But of course with the Queen of Hearts as your employer, she is going to be executing you. So she’s only handing out pieces of the puzzle to how to build the garden out.

So there is an element of cooperative deduction which is interesting. This seems like a try before you buy for me. You can’t discuss what your secret card is. But it is fun because you can discuss what you think other people’s whims, the secrets, are openly. And the whims might change throughout the game. The Queen of Hearts is very fickle.

Detective Rummy

This is a game from WizKids. It is a successor of sorts to Mystery Rummy. This is not a game that I know anything about. But it is a series of cases that you can play, so I am interested. I like games where you are trying to solve something. But the word rummy just throws me off as to what it is. I’ll need to look into Mystery Rummy to see how that plays and keep an eye out for more information on this one.

Machi Koro 2

I like Machi Koro pretty well. However, I got rid of my version of the game because I want to play the legacy version. It seems like a simple game that I and my wife could play as a legacy game for a little bit. Machi Koro 2 is interesting, however, I have Space Base, a game that uses similar mechanics that I need to play. This will likely be one that I want to try before I buy. Though, if you haven’t played Machi Koro, it is a great gateway and family game. This is coming out from Pandasaurus.

They are saying that this should be a bit more challenging for people who want to find a little bit more. The big change is that they have added in a wide variety of landmarks to build in the game. That means that you will have a different set than I will. I really like that because in Machi Koro you might be building too much that is just the same. The variety wasn’t there for me. This seems to be a simple change that just adds in more variety. And they will be in the market versus in front of a player.

Power Plants

This game comes from Kids Table Board Games (KTBG from here on out). I actually haven’t played anything before from KTBG but people tend to like their games a lot. And I am interested in their game Creature Comforts. This game isn’t about power plants producing electricity, but powerful plants. The style looks pretty nice and coming to Kickstarter this fall. Not much more about it in the video, just a visual tease.

Pegasus Spiele

Fire & Stone

This game is from the creator of Carcassonne, which is a great gateway style game. If you haven’t tried it, I definitely recommend it. This game has you trade resources and expanding across the globe. This doesn’t seem like my type of game completely, but I am interested because of the designer, Klaus-Jurgen Werde. I am thinking this will be a try before I buy.

Carnegie

They are bring this game to retail. It originally was on Kickstarter. Another Euro style game that isn’t high on my list of games to play. This one, though, being more available will make people who missed out on the Kickstarter happy. I’d play this one but I doubt it’d ever make it into my collection because it is a heavy weight Euro game.

Bonfire: Trees and Creatures

This is a modular expansion to Pegasus Spiele’s game Bonfire. In fact, there are three modules in there. Yet again another Euro game, this is one where if you already like the game, it’ll give you more to play with. Another that I’d play but it’s not up the alley for me as a gamer. It also lets you play a 5th player which is always a worry to me for a bigger Euro game because they can sometimes take way to long between turns depending on players.

Arcane Wonders

Onitama – Light and Shadow

This is an expansion for Onitama. It adds in a ninja. The ninja can move in secret which is a big change. I kind of still want to get Onitama as a simple abstract game, but I also know that I don’t play abstract games all that often. For fans of the game, though, this is going to be cool for you. The shadow play version has the ninja, and the light play version gives you an asymmetrical starting position.

Viral – The Hive

This is an expansion as well for Viral. Viral is a game where you play as disease that are going throughout the body. It basically adds in more viruses that you can play and viruses that are asymmetrical and can grow as you go. Viral is one that was interesting for me to play, but it kind of fell off my radar. I’m not sure that this pushes it back onto the map for me, but if you want a silly themed area control type of game, Viral might be a good one to checkout.

ALS: Critters at War

A new version of the game is coming out of Air Land and Sea. Not one that is on my radar. War themed games aren’t all that interesting and adding in critters isn’t all that interesting to me. The artwork does look nice, but a two player push and pull on three battlefronts could be fun, but isn’t really for me. Another one that I’d probably enjoy if I played it but won’t be one that I pick-up.

Picture Perfect

You are trying to set-up the perfect photograph. It’s an interesting sounding game about trying to set-up the perfect picture where each character has three things they desire to have in that perfect picture. You are trying to figure out the information but events keep happening that might give you more information or mean that you need to share some of the information that you’ve found. In the end you snap an actual picture with your cellphone. The concept is interesting but a try before you buy just from the sounds of it for me.

Mortum

This has a lot of things that I like. It is a cooperative storytelling and deduction game. All three of those things are really cool for me. It’s a grim setting in medieval Europe. The base game has 3 scenarios that all tie together. I probably will end up getting this one because, like I said, it has three things I really like. I hope that the game works well, and with a lot of Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game left to play from expansions, I might wait for reviews on this one.

Leylines

This one is further out from Arcane Wonders. The artwork looks quite cute on this game. It sounds like a resource gathering game and then getting victory points. In terms of the look, this seems way better than most euro style games, but for me it probably won’t be one that I pick-up.

Dune Imperium: Rise of Ix

Dune Imperium from Direwolf was one of a few worker placement and deck building games to come out last year. I have Lost Ruins of Arnak on my shelf waiting to be played, and I didn’t get Dune Imperium just because aesthetically this didn’t look as interesting. Now, they are both getting expansions. But I’m talking about Rise of Ix here. This one should be an easy buy for Dune Imperium fans as well as some just Dune fans who I know. While Portal is putting out the Dune game for me, this is one that I want to try and maybe own.

Wild Tiled West

Another game from Direwolf. This one is just a little sneak peek. We can safely say it’s an old west themed game, a tile laying game. And well, that the artwork is cute with it’s animals in hats. Beyond that not too much information on the game as this was just a little bit of a tease. This one is coming sometime in 2022.

What Am I Looking Forward To?

So what am I looking forward to most out of all of these? Dune: House Secrets has to be high on the list because it’s based off of a Top 10 game for me, or at least Top 20 game for me. Plus the Tidal Blades 2, the world is so cool in that game, and a dungeon crawl is more my speed. And then finally Queen’s Dilemma, yes, I do need to play King’s Dilemma first, but I love a good legacy game and I’ve heard nothing but great things about King’s Dilemma.

Which are you looking forward to most?

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The Euro Gamer

This gamer is all about the mechanics. If a game has really interesting mechanics, focuses on those mechanics, and allows them to strategize a lot, they’ll like this game.

I think another name for this gamer would also be the strategy gamer. This person likes to pick a strategy and be able to build towards it throughout the game without having to change and deviate from it much at all. It’s all about taking the set of inputs at the start of and throughout the game and implement a long term strategy that can get them the most points.

The Amerithrash Gamer

Also known as Ameritrash, Amerithrash just has a nicer ring to it and also sounds less derogatory to the gamer. This gamer likes their big games that have a lot of theme but a lot more randomness. For an Amerithrash gamer, theme is king and they are more willing to overlook mechanics if the game has a lot of theme.

So, another name for an Amerithrash gamer would probably be a theme gamer. This gamer is going to be fine with a whole lot more randomness, less laid out rules, and changing states of the game and events shaking up the game, as long as it is thematic.

The Party Gamer

This one is pretty simple and probably not reading an article about different types of gamers. This is the person who might dip their toe into a game like Monopoly or even Ticket to Ride, but they really only play party style games. For them, the point of a game is to make them laugh. The funnier they find the cards or a theme of the game, the better that game is going to be for them. They look at board games as another form of entertainment like a movie or television show where it is the entertainments job to provide the fun, not incumbent at all upon the person watching, reading, or playing it.

The Omni-Gamer

This gamer likes all games whether they are Euro or Amerithrash, they are going to be willing to sit down and play most any game and probably find something fun with it. They’re even cool sitting down and playing a party game.

I think that a lot of gamers almost fall into this category of being an Omni-gamer. Most, however, will have one way that they prefer, whether it’s the more strategic Euro style sensibilities or the heavily involved theme of Amerithrash. But they’ll be willing to play most any game, at least once.

The Experience Gamer

I think that all of them that I’ve written to up to this point are gamers that most board gamers would find to be pretty normal. Euro and Amerithrash are two very accepted styles of board games and games that gamers often have strong opinions on.

I think that there is a fifth type of gamer, and I think that I fall into this one. I will say that this might skew a little bit more towards the Amerithrash side, but not completely there. While I don’t mind dice chucking madness like you get in a lot of heavy Amerithrash games, I prefer games that give me an experience. A lot of Amerithrash games do that because they have heavy amounts of theme and theme as king gives a lot of interesting experiences.

But I think of gamers like Gloomhaven and Lords of Hellas, two games one that has a story running through it and another that doesn’t, but both aren’t just your standard dice chucking game with minis. Then again, both of the games do have some minis. Gloomhaven does have some randomness with a modifier deck, but you are able to tailor that as you play so it’s less random, or more random, or more randomly better. And the card play in Gloomhaven and how you build your deck is definitely strategic. With Lords of Hellas, sure you can go fight giant monsters, but it’s done through card play again, and you can pick various strategies from just building temples to fighting lots of monsters to beating up on other players to building statues. The main thing about those two thematic but not really Ameritrash games that drew me in was the experience I had playing it.

So I think there is a fifth gamer option, and that is the experience gamer. This is the gamer who doesn’t care about the mechanics, if they are great or bad, doesn’t care about the theme, if it’s dripping with theme or non-existent, they care about the experience of the game. This is also made trickier by the fact that experience can depend on the other players at the table as well, but most of the time I can separate that player experience from the game experience.

What type of Gamer Are You?

Let me say, while some board gamers might look down upon other types of gamers, all types of gamers are good board gamers and true board gamers. Just because ones taste doesn’t match with someone else’s or because party games are easier to learn and play than other games doesn’t make them worse or better. I really want to hammer this home because often gamers look down on other types of gamers, and I want to see the hobby grow.

So let me know in the comments below what type of gamer you are, or over on Twitter and Facebook.

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Now, both have benefits in terms of your game collection. So I’m going to talk about the pros to both, and probably some cons as well, but when it comes to gaming, for me getting more games you can play is never going to be a bad thing.

The Argument for Exapnsions

So the argument for getting an expansion or starting to focus more on getting expansions is that you’ll probably play their content more. For a lot of games, Small World, Pandemic, Sagrada, and others, you’ll often just find yourself always having the expansion in the game. So if you are playing those games often, you’ll get more use out of that content.

It also can increase the replayability of those games. Stuff like Pandemic and Small World are great for introducing new people into board gaming. But it can end up feeling like you are playing the same game over and over again. So getting new roles in Pandemic or getting new monsters and abilities in Small World that can create combos or new strategies to try, those things will freshen up a game for a player who plays those games a lot.

Sometimes you can also not increase the number of boxes for the games by getting expansions. If the expansion can be stored with the base game, or vice-a-versa, you don’t add any new boxes to your collection that take up shelf space. Now, this isn’t always the case so sometimes you’re just adding boxes like normal, but if you are tight on space, that’s one reason to consider an expansion over a new game.

The Argument for New Games

With a new game one of the big selling points is that you can try something new. Sounds obvious, but it might allow you to find a new type of game or a new favorite game by trying out something new. Or you might find an improvement upon a game that you already like, if you like something like Splendor, trying Century Spice Road or Century Golem Edition might give you a game that you like better or that people in your group will like better, even though the feel of the two can be similar.

A new game also allows you to fill in gaps in your gaming collection. Now, everyone will have different types of games that the prefer, but sometimes you might need a party game, and you might need it so that you don’t get stuck playing a party game that you really don’t like. Or maybe a euro or deck building, or whatever it might be. So filling in some of those areas that you might not have enough of for your gaming group and to keep it interesting is important as well.

The Arguments Against Expansions

While I talked about the added variability, one thing to be slightly concerned about with adding more is the addition of complexity to a game. So you might take a game that is relatively easy to get to the table and make it harder by adding in additional rules or roles to explain. So while technically the game has more replayability because of those things, it will see the table less because it’s harder to pull out with a group of new to the game players. I have a friend who has several expansions for Galaxy Trucker, but because it’s harder to teach with those in the box, they raretly get played with.

Also, an expansion might not add in that much more to a game, so kind of the opposite of the one above, but if it just adds in a few more cards or a modular board, or something like that, it might not feel like it changes up the game that much, so it doesn’t add to the game play or it getting back to the table again.

The Argument Against New Games

The most obvious one is that you might not like the game, as simple as that. It’s an unknown commodity to you and there’s a risk/reward to factor in to it. Now, the more you’ve played games and played a variety of games, the odds of finding a complete miss aren’t that high, though it might not be something better than you already have on the shelf.

Speaking of shelves, space is also a concern. Because it is something completely new, it could take up a chunk of space and if you are limited in how much space you have, it might be the case where you won’t have room to store a new game. Now this can be rectified by getting rid of a game, but you might love all the games that you have, so then you have to make a choice if you decide to get any new games.

So, is there a better option, getting expansions or a new game? I don’t really think so. I think expansions can breath new life into an old game if you get them, but if you’re enjoying the base game, there’s no reason to. I think that new games can help you find things that you love and new favorites but probably have a higher chance of being a dud. It depends on how people play their games. Normally, I’m writing this mid Covid-19 Pandemic 2020, I play a lot of new to me games and a lot of different games, so having a good variety is great and something I really enjoy. But if you’re with a group who likes their handful of games, expansions are a great way to keep that feeling fresh.

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So what I wanted to think about, is there a better way to play games or is there a time for both things?

I think that the simple answer is that there is a time for both old favorites and trying new board games.

There, the article is done. But not really, because I think there are traps that we can fall into as board gamers that we should be aware of with old and new games.

With new games, I feel like it’s pretty simple. As they have put it on the Dice Tower and other places, it’s the cult of the new. The idea for that is that whatever is new is clearly a lot better and everything that came before it is bad. Obviously there can be several issues with this. The first being that you buy games faster than you can play them. I think that is inherently an issue, depending on the type of game that you like to play. If you just play euro games, you can probably keep the games on the “shelf of shame” to a minimum, because playing the game once is a separate experience. There are a lot of games now that have a campaign in them, and with that, now you need to play through several games to either get the idea of the story or to complete the game. So you can end up with a big shelf of unplayed games. The cult of the new can also lead to buying games faster than you can play them, not just because of length, but in general, and in that case, you’re never going to get to them all, and I think for some people that’s fine, but for others, it can be an issue. It goes back to hobby versus collection. Finally, the issue with cult of the new is cost. One groups like The Dice Tower and Rolling Solo Facebook groups, people are always talking about new games. So there are so many games that seem interesting out there, and that is spendy.

Now, I talked about that as a negative, but I think sometimes people push back on it too much. This can be one of the issues with the old favorite. There’s nothing wrong with Dominion, a game that I’m not a fan of anymore, but if you are excluding playing other deck builders because you like Dominion so why bother, that’s a bad attitude as well. There are a couple of issues with this mindset. The first being that it’s possible you’ll be alienating yourself from your play group. They are probably going to put up with playing Dominion for a while, but if that’s all you’ll play or if you only have a handful of favorites, they might want to branch out and that will mean branching away from inviting you to game nights. Also, it’s going to keep you from finding other good games. I can, again, understand not wanting to have to learn new games all the time, but doing that to the exclusion of other games is an issue.

Tied into that, but another issue can be treating the game like something more than it is. The idea is that because something like Dominion was the first big deck builder and now is liked less, you feel better because you still like the original. This comes with not being willing to try new games and keeping you from finding new good games because it might be a deck builder and Dominion is a deck builder so why do you need more. However, there are many deck builders out there that do a whole lot more than Dominion, so the elitist attitude that there is no reason to try more keeps you from being able to branch out into more interesting games. Let me quickly clarify my last sentence, while personally think there are deck builders that provide more interesting choices and themes than Dominion, what I meant there was additional interesting games.

Finally, I think that people often stick with old favorites because of the amount of board games in the market. If you got into Dominion, Catan, or Ticket to Ride when they first came out, the board game market was much smaller. So some people keep from jumping in further, because they don’t know where to jump in. Instead, they just defend the old favorite and only want to play that. That can be because of the number of games or a bad experience with the wrong new game. If someone liked the idea of Legacy games after playing Pandemic Legacy and then played Seafall, they might not want to play another legacy game after that, but don’t let that color all future legacy games. I think, now, we have enough resources to keep the overwhelming number of games or a bad experience to keep you from trying new games. I feel like that is more of an excuse than a reason. With top 10 lists on different types of games from The Dice Tower or The Brothers Murph, and tons of other locations, you can see what games other people like. Also, there is Board Game Geek that has all games listed there, and you can search either by an mechanic that you like, or by a name and you find out information on a game. So yeah, you are still going to find a dud, but between those things, you’re going to be able to find games that are more likely you’ll like. Board Game Geek even has a nice resource now that recommends games if you like one game, so that helps you find more games as well.

Right now, we live in a world where some people hang onto old things too much and other people are too happy to rush forward and never look back. This is a trend in board games as well. For board games, and for my collection, I feel like I need to walk that line, being discerning about adding new things, and being willing to try new things, but at the same, coming back to the old games again from time to time. And again, this depends on whether you want it to be a collection or a hobby. So for that reason, I want to go back to old games, because I want to walk that line, where I have a hobby, but also a large number of board games.

Where do you fall with this on board games? Are you into the new board games? Do you only want to play old favorites? What are some new games that look cool, that you want to try? What are your old favorites?

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There is a grand-daddy of all area control games, and that’s Risk. Probably as I was describing area control, that’s what popped into a lot of peoples heads, trying to control the continent so that you can get the bonus troops. So while you might be getting the two bonus troops from Australia, how do you get out of Australia so you don’t have to try and take over Asia, because that will never work. However, if that’s what you’re thinking of for area control, you might not be a big fan of area control games. Risk has one major issue that cropped up in it and other older area control games. That being the one that I might have one troop and you might have twenty, but because I’m the defensive players and win ties, I might be able to deplete your troop if I get lucky rolling the dice.

Risk also has one more fairly large issue besides the dice, and that’s the length of game and the fact that a player can be eliminated and then might have to sit around another four hours if they want to see how the game ends. Thankfully, that’s a part of a lot of area control games that has since gone away. In every game I mention below, if you are knocked off the board, you are always able to come back, or in the case of Star Wars: Rebellion, if that was to happen, that would likely just end the game, especially if the Empire did that to the Rebels.

Modern area control games do several things to try and mitigate die rolling, though some of them still use that as the luck for the game so that doesn’t because a complete strategy game.

Star Wars: Rebellion is a game that has more going on in it than just area control, but there is that aspect where if you have more planets and certain planets you’ll be able to build more ships. The combat is based on a die pool that you build with the troops you have. There are a couple of things to make this not just a die roll to see who wins. First, you have the ability to negate hits by playing cards or add in additional hits by playing cards. You have a limited number of cards, but you can possibly get more as you go through combat. Also, the ships or troops you bring in do damage of certain types, depending on the color of dice, and same with how ships take damage. While there is some universal damage, it means you could easily out number someone, but if your troops can’t hit their troops as well, they can come in and wipe you out. This is one that is still primarily die rolling through, but it’s not longer just pure luck.

Smallworld is probably the most Risk like in terms of area control on the list, because the game is purely area control. You get points for controlling certain areas and any skills that you might have. But Smallworld removes basically all luck from the game. The luck comes from correctly using your race and special ability and being able to find one that is working well. However, when taking over an area, the rule is simple, you need one more piece of cardboard, the troops are cardboard, than is on the spot you are trying to take over. Where there is a tiny bit of luck is that you can push for a final take over at the end of your turn. So if you have one guy left and you want to take over a spot with one guy on it, you can roll a die that hope to get two or better. The downside is that this isn’t a normal six sided die so there are multiple blanks and multiple ones that are going to stop it from succeeding most of the time.

There are some games that just do away with die rolling for area control. Blood Rage and Cry Havoc are two examples of how this can work very differently. In Blood Rage you have an action point economy that is helping you put troops onto the board into areas. The areas have a certain number of spots for troops, so you can try and totally control and area, but if you out number your opponent in the area or you have good combat cards, you can try and take over an area to get the reward while it is contested. The luck in this combat comes from playing a variety of combat cards, though only one per combat. Some of the combat cards just add a large combat value, others may cancel other combat cards or steal some of their rage, which are your action points. So while winning a combat is generally the best, there are strategies where you can play without controlling too many areas.

Cry Havoc, a game about collecting gems on a crazy planet. In fact it reminds me a lot of Avatar. This is extremely unique area control. So you score based off of having the most gems at various times, but to have gems, you must control the areas with the gems. So you’re in conflict with the other players over the areas. Instead of doing a straight swap of troops or rolling to see if you kill, there is a combat board. There are three areas of the combat board, you can control the area, kill the other persons troops, or take prisoners. What’s interesting with this is that even if your troops in the control the area are killed later in combat, if you have the most there, you still control the area. So the combat has a bit of a puzzle feel because of the order of combat. Then there are cards you can play that allow you to adjust combat once you’ve seen what your enemy is doing as well. It is an extremely unique combat for area control and one that seems fairly polarizing.

Now, all of these are games where area control is a huge part of the game and you are looking to keep control of areas throughout the game. Area control does go into other games as well.

An interesting example of this is a combat game still, but is handled differently than most games like it. The game is Sword and Sorcery. It’s a pretty standard dungeon crawler, but it looks like a lot of fun. I haven’t played it yet, but it’s a game that I might track down for live streaming at some time. In the game there are a couple of different options for controlling spaces while fighting an enemy. If you have more characters than the enemy does in the area, you might get a special bonus, if you have twice as many characters, then you get an even better bonus. However, the same is true if the enemies out number the troops. This means that you have to go in with force yourself, and you may not want to divide and conquer in some situations, but you might also want to divide and conquer in others to keep the troops from all rushing to a single injured party member.

Area control is a mechanic that can show up in a number of games. Clearly I have it focused more on combat games. I think that there are some games with area control that might have more of an Euro aspect to them, but a lot of them are more the Ameri-thrash games. The reason for that is that a lot of area control does rely on luck, so it is less planned than a lot of euro games are. However, there are likely some games out there that are handling it in a Euro game, and even Cry Havoc has some Euro tendencies for a combat area control game.

What are some area control games that you like? For the most part I like all of the games I’ve talked about with the exception of Risk, and even Risk I’ve had plenty of fun times playing it. Area control games can be fun, but you have to be willing to be cut throat.

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Story games are interesting because they care as much about the story and theme as they do about the mechanics a lot of the time. But for a long time there weren’t a ton of story games. Games, for a long time, were pretty straight forward either luck or logic games. A game like Chess or Go doesn’t really tell a story because it’s all been abstracted away. Even though you have two armies facing off in chess, they are just pieces that have specific movement rules, not like they are tied into the different types of characters and why they move the way they move.Or you would have luck based games. A game like Monopoly seems like it has some more story that is going on, but the game is so random that you can’t really tell a story in it.

Then there started to be some story games, but they weren’t your regular board games. RPG’s were the first games that really told stories and really focused in on story telling. There was story in some games prior to that, war games for example told the story of a battle, but D&D and RPG’s were the first to really create those story gaming moments. But even they had a lot of rules at the beginning, now we’re seeing the loose story based RPG’s that don’t care nearly as much about the rules or have abstracted most of the rules away into a single, simple roll of the dice for anything.

But in board games there were games that tried to delve more so into story, and we’ve actually seen the idea of story telling board games really take off as of late. A lot of this can be attributed to the growth of the hobby, but some of the earlier ones also helped the hobby grow. While games like Catan or Ticket to Ride have abstracted away all of the story and are some of the biggest ones for growing the hobby, story based games helped the hobby continue to grow into the big hobby it is today. Finding that sweet spot of where people could play a game the way that they want while still having some rules and structure makes gaming a lot more appealing to a lot of people.

There are a number of different story telling games. There are some that are basically light RPG’s and some that are board games that tell you a story. We have a number of interesting examples to look at though in board gaming.

Tales of the Arabian Nights and Near and Far are two interesting games where you are going out exploring. There are plenty of game focused parts to what you are doing and you have some skills, but the main focus of the game is going out exploring and getting a little bit of story. So that’s what most people are playing them for, being able to make those few decision bits in their story. Now, I personally enjoy both of these games, but they do have a bit of a flaw to them. That’s in both games the story while being loosely connected at items, especially in Near and Far, are random bits of story that you are reading from a book. The story isn’t cohesive as it goes along so while it starts to feel like a story game, it is missing a little bit.

Take that in comparison to a game like Sword and Sorcery. Now I haven’t played Sword and Sorcery, but it is one that I’ve seen played. In that, and in Tainted Grail, you are finding story events for various scenarios that unfold the story for you. A certain card or a certain place might trigger a different bit of the story. So while you don’t have to find the story in a specific order, always, you are figuring out the story and what’s going on in the world as you go. These games are newer than either Tales of the Arabian Nights or Near and Far (though Near and Far is quite new), and they can get away with it, because you are playing through chapters and scenarios.

That leads us into other scenario games. In particular, I’m thinking of Legacy games here. I don’t know that you’d consider Pandemic Legacy to be a scenario based game, but as you play through and find out more information about the story, it feels like it’s a scenario based game for how you have to win each game. In this case, they are handing out specific story points at very specific points in the game. And that works really well for a game like Pandemic Legacy or even a game like Gloomhaven which isn’t a true legacy game or is the new wave of legacy game where you can play it repeatedly without buying a new copy.

Seafall in comparison gives you a different story feel. While in Pandemic Legacy you can make choices that will affect the game, you are following a pretty linear story. In Gloomhaven you can go further afield from the story, but you are still focused on the story and you get the main story to unfold in a certain order. What Seafall tried to do was too ambitious in creating a story that unfolded in whatever order you read it. The issue is that it doesn’t really work, because you have to be so vague about it. That turned the story into a bit of a mess.

So, what other ways are we seeing stories besides these scenario games?

We’re also seeing story in games where the game is about making up your own story. Once Upon a Time and Gloom are two examples of this. In Once Upon A Time you are trying to create a fairy tale by playing cards while telling a story and eventually leading the story to your own ending that you got at the beginning of the game. This works okay as a game, but does run into a run away leader problem and the rules are just very loose, so it isn’t going to work for everyone. Gloom on the other hand is a depressing story as you try and kill off your family of characters while they are miserable. But the more miserable they are, the more points you get, so you are playing a card each turn and telling a story as you play the card as to why your character is more miserable or someone else’s character is less miserable. These games take the story telling away from the game itself, and mechanically add the story telling element to the game with what the players need to do. The downside to this is that if you don’t have a creative group, or more so, if you don’t have a group that is just going to be silly, the game isn’t going to work as well.

On the opposite side of things you have games that basically are only story. I did an article on them recently with RPG Lite. But two great examples of this are Legacy of Dragonholt and Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger. Both of these games are really just Choose Your Own Adventure, with a couple of mechanics added in so that you can’t quite just only do it as a book.

On the opposite side of things you have games that basically are only story. I did an article on them recently with RPG Lite. But two great examples of this are Legacy of Dragonholt and Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger. Both of these games are really just Choose Your Own Adventure, with a couple of mechanics added in so that you can’t quite just only do it as a book. That takes away the pressure of the story or the pressure of learning a lot of rules from the players and puts it back onto the game designer, but when you strip away most game mechanics, you can basically just worry about writing a story, it works well.

So, where do I fall with story games?

For me, if a game doesn’t have an interesting theme, I’m less apt to enjoy the game. There are some games where the look is nice enough or the mechanics are good enough, that I like it without having an interesting theme. But most of the time I want theme, and because of that, it means that I want heavy story as well. The story is one way to get a lot of theme into the game. So you’ll see what are commonly called Ameri-trash games showing up on my reviews more likely than a Euro Game because Euro Games tend to be pretty themeless. Even Euro Legacy games, like Charterstone, the story is 100% outside of the game and doesn’t impact what you do or how you play the game at all.

I also think that story is something that is important to games in terms of getting new people into games. There are some games that are simple enough that they don’t need story, but it’s easier to pitch a game to someone where they get to be a hero fighting against the evil corporation, versus a game where they are collecting gems. Even if the second game is a better made and balanced game, it’s still harder to get people to play it.

So, let me toss it out to you, what are some games that are story focused that you really like? How much story do you need in the game?

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For our most recent game night out, we took it back to a classic and went with Carcassonne as our game of choice. Peder’s played this one quite a bit, but I had only played it once, over two years ago, and was due for a refresher course.

In addition to being a real live (and extremely old — we’re talking pre-Middle Ages) city in France, Carcassonne was one of the first European-style games to be released. Many, many others have followed in Carcassonne’s footsteps since its release in 2000, and the style is in large part responsible for the board game renaissance we’re happily experiencing these days. In spite of its many descendants, though, Carcassonne is still one of the best-loved and well-known Euro-style games out there.

The beauty of Carcassonne is in its simplicity. The gameplay style reminds me a lot of Tsuro, just with several more elements involved. Using tiles that represent areas of land, the players (numbering from two to five) build a map around a central river, piece by piece. There are several different types of tiles — the principal river pieces, monasteries, sections of towns, and road pieces being the main ones. And just like in a lot of other Euro-style games, Carcassonne players use meeples (small, wooden, vaguely people-shaped markers) to claim tiles, and thus rack up victory points.

Points can be won in a few ways. You can put a meeple on a monastery tile to act as a monk, and you get points when the monastery is completely surrounded by other tiles. You can put a knight meeple in a partially completed city, and when the city is walled in from all sides, you take the knight out and score some points. You can place a thief meeple on a road, and remove them for points when their section of road is intersected at both ends. Or you can set a farmer meeple in an area of empty land between roads and cities and such, and then score points based on how many completed cities are connected to your meeple’s land area.

In true Euro fashion, you can kind of tell who’s winning based on who’s ahead points-wise, but it ain’t really over ’til it’s over because some types of points aren’t scored until the end of the game. This is my favorite Euro-style game mechanic — it means you have to employ at least some strategy, but regardless of what strategy you choose or how well it works out for you, it’s basically anybody’s game until the very end.

Carcassonne is a great game for those new to Euro-style games and who want to try them out. It’s also an excellent choice for evenings when you want a game that’s fun and fast-paced but that isn’t too involved or strategy heavy. It was certainly a great game for a relaxing evening at a favorite brewery!

Have you played Carcassonne? What do you like about it? What other Euro-style games are you a fan of? Let us know in comments!

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Five Tribes

Five Tribes is probably quintessential Euro Style board game. It focuses on victory points, and having lots and lots of ways to get them, in fact, you don’t know how many points you or anyone else has until the end. With all these different ways of getting victory points, it allows players to focus in on different areas where they are getting points.

Five Tribes uses the world of Alibaba and the 40 Thieves and 1001 Arabian Nights. You vie for workers in a town using a very unique mechanic where you take workers off of one tile and then move them around to other tiles, finally matching and removing the matched color of meeples from the tile. This is the part of the game that requires the most strategy as you look at the combination of meeples, what color you want to remove, and pull down victory points.

However, each round starts in by bidding for turn order. Different spots cost different amounts of gold, ranging from 18 at the highest, and 0 at the lowest. So if you have a move, worker, resource, or Djinn that you need to have, you can bid accordingly to get what you need. Or you can sit back, save up your gold coins, which are worth victory points, and hope to gain your points that way.

There are some other unique things, while some workers give you resources or money, there are others that just give you points at the end of the game, there are assassins who can kill meeples, and Elders who you can use to buy Djinn. However, there are only specific spots where you can buy Djinn, so they are a powerful but limited resource.

While there are a lot of different things going on, the rules are actually very short and very simple. Once you get a grasp of the rules, you can implement so many different strategies and hope that they work. The game really can get moving as you go as well, since it isn’t overly complex. Kristen and I, while learning to play the game and half watching the Olympics, were able to play the game in just over an hour, I would think with a group of people who know the game, you could get a four player game done in about that same amount of time.

I definitely want to play this game again, and it’ll probably get put into the rotation of games that we play just Kristen and myself, as well as bringing it to small group game nights.

Overall Grade: B+

Gamer Grade: B

Casual Grade: B+

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A great example of this type is Ticket to Ride. In Ticket to Ride, you are trying to complete different  train routes across the United States (or Europe, Scandinavia, or Africa, in other versions of the game). Between different cities, you have to build rows of connecting cars to complete the routes you’ve drawn by playing a different number of cards. These cards are different colors, and each color matches different sections of the rails on the map. So, there is luck involved in Ticket to Ride based on getting the color of train cards you need to complete a route. But there is also skill — you have to know your routes. and know how you can connect them in an attempt to get the longest route. You get points for playing down sections of train cars, and you also get points for completing routes. The first lets players accumulate points that are known to all players during the game, and everyone is chasing each other in that scoring, but the person who has the most points from the routes they’ve completed can change the outcome of the game in an instant, once everything is tallied up at the end.

So Who do Euro Games Target?

Thinking back to the article on board game groups and knowing your group dynamic, Euro style board games are great for a wide variety of groups. They allow the more serious players to really try to come up with a strategy and find a slight advantage (possibly) doing that. At the same time, very casual players or people who are new to board games are going to be able to pick up these games quickly and not feel like they are ever falling too far behind.

How Easy are They to Learn?

This really depends on the game, but a lot of them are quite simple. Ticket to Ride limits the amount of things that you can do on your turn, so you are deciding between just three different actions. Settlers of Catan has a very specific order for taking your turn, and that really doesn’t ever change. Those games are examples of simpler ones, but even the more complex Euro style games really do focus in on a repeatable turn so that new players are able to pick them up quickly. And unlike Party Games from the first episode of this series, they tend to remain playable over and over again, even with the same group of players.

What Would You Recommend?

The first one that I would recommend is the one that I’ve used as an example. Ticket to Ride is a very simple Euro Game that holds up to multiple plays. It is great for beginners, it is great for family, and for a more serious board game, it is great for smaller parties, because you can talk while playing it.

Settlers of Catan is another classic option. With a board that can change each time you play and the randomness of die rolls, Catan holds up multiple plays. Catan, when it starts to get repetitive, has plenty of different expansions which you can play with, and the game will seem fresh again.

Smallworld is probably my personal favorite. I have a TableTopics article up about it, if you want to know a lot more detail. What makes it a good game, though, is that it is a fast-moving game. Also, it is a more competitive game at times, as it encourages and actually forces conflict. That might seem like a negative, but since the game does force conflict (rather than the players doing so themselves), people generally don’t end up with hurt feelings. It is also another game that has many an expansion.

Finally, King of Tokyo is another one that is a lot of fun to play. This one has more strategy involved with it, but there is a wide variety of strategy. You play monsters who are vying for the most points and to be crowned the king of Tokyo. But there are multiple ways to do this — you can simply try to take out all your enemies, you can try to roll the most victory points, or you can try to buy the best cards and collect victory points. This game also goes by very quickly.

So now that you have a list of a bunch of different Euro Style board games, what are some of your favorites?

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Thankfully, board games have moved forward since then into the world of what is called “European style” board games. This type of game balances strategy by giving you many ways to win, hides who is leading, and sometimes even involves cooperative play. The original example of this type of game is Settlers of Catan. This game really created a new style of tabletop gaming, which has been expanded upon greatly since.

Welcome to Table Top Games 101.

There are many different types of board games to jump into, and it can seem like an overwhelming sea. Whether you are a new player or someone who grew up playing games, there can be too much to process. What I want to do is simplify the different types of games out there and give you a starting point so you can really enjoy playing games as a social experience (which will be an upcoming post in the board game curriculum).

Types of Games

Classic Games

Image Credit: Hasbro

These games tend to be either logic- or luck-based, and the winner is either the one who knows the best strategy for the game or the person who ends up being luckiest.

Some of these games are:

• Monopoly
• Clue
• Scrabble
• Uno
• Phase 10

These games can still be enjoyable, and are nice to play when you want to stick with an old classic.

Party Games

Image Credit: BlackLightGames

Party games are best when played with large groups. They are more meant for a good laugh than actually determining a winner or a loser and are generally fairly fast-paced.

Some of the better ones of these are:

• Scattergories
• Catch Phrase
• Wits and Wagers
• Stipulations
• Cards Against Humanity (NSFW)
• Fluxx

These games tend to get played out fairly quickly, and if you play them too often, you start to learn the answers to the trivia, or start to see cards more than once. On the other hand, there are a lot of party games out there, so if you are fine buying several, they won’t become too repetitive.

Euro Games

Image Credit: Days of Wonder

What makes the “Euro” games different is that they tend to have more than one way of scoring–for example, both during the game and at the end of the game. This means that someone who doesn’t appear to be close to winning can come from behind in the tallying of the final points. These games also do a good job of giving the players a variety of ways that they can play and win the game.

Some examples of Euro games:

• Catan
• Ticket to Ride
• Five Tribes
• King of Tokyo
• Carcassone
• Smallworld

Cooperative Games

Image Credit: Z-Man Games

This category is pretty straightforward–instead of playing against someone, everyone plays together to try to beat the game. These games tend to be more story-based than traditional ones are.

Some cooperative games:

• Pandemic
• Forbidden Island
• Forbidden Desert
• Lord of the Rings
• Castle Panic
• Elder Signs

These games are great to play with a less competitive group, as no one will feel like they are getting ganged up on since you’re working toward a common goal.

Semi-Cooperative Games

Image Credit: Wizards

This category is similar to the one above, but instead of everyone working together, there is a player or a group of players working against the objective of the team, often hidden from the rest of the players.

Some of the best semi-cooperative/traitor games are:

• Resistance
• Betrayal at House on the Hill
• Shadows of Camelot
• Dead of Winter

Just be warned–if someone in the group is really good at lying, there could be hurt feelings at the end of these games, but since the traitor(s) are randomly chosen, that does help in that regard.

Deck-Building Games

Image Credit: Upper Deck

There are two types of deck-building games: one where you have a pre-constructed deck that you are playing from and one where you build the deck as you go. The second type is the most common. You add cards to your deck to be able to play more cards and perform more actions to get you closer to winning.

Some deck-building games are:

• Magic the Gathering (preconstructed decks)
• Dominion
• Legendary

Role-Playing Games

Image Credit: Wizards

This is a category that is hard to define, but the best way that I can put it is that these are cooperative storytelling games. They’re often directed by one person who sets the scene for the story while the other players fill in details.

Popular role-playing games include:

• Dungeons & Dragons (check out our Dungeons & Flagons Podcast for what playing sounds like)
• Pathfinder
• Fiasco
• Shadowrun
• Star Wars

You can tell many different stories in many different ways giving a very fun experience for those playing the game.

Now that we’ve had a quick summary of the different types of games that are out there, you might be thinking, where do I start?

The one game that I’m going to single out is Ticket to Ride. It is fast to learn and light on rules. It really isn’t a game that ever causes hurt feelings, and can be played completely in about an hour, so it isn’t as much of a time investment. It’s a good introduction for those who want to check out games beyond the standards from 30 years ago.

Class Dismissed.

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