CoolStuffInc

Dungeons and Dragons: The Yawning Portal

I don’t even know that much about this game. But it’s a theme that I like a lot, Dungeons and Dragons. And from what I know of The Yawning Portal, that’s a portal in a tavern that leads to a lot of different adventures. It’s part of the Sword Coast and Forgotten Realms setting for Dungeons and Dragons. I’m hoping for a fun, lighter, adventure style game.

TIME Stories Revolution: Cavendish

I still get basically everything for TIME Stories. This is one the new cycle now so I need to get through the first stuff, first. But it’s been a game that we’ve enjoyed a lot. And if I figure out a better storage solution, I can make it take up a whole lot less space on my game shelf. But I’m curious to play more. And even if it isn’t the most loved thing, it should be fun for my group still. We’ll see when we get this far into the series.

Jurassic World: The Legacy of Isla Nublar

Next up we have a legacy game with mixed reviews. But mixed reviews was enough to keep me from running out to get the game. I think for a lot of gamers it has been. I wonder as it goes on sale more, if more gamers or people will buy it. It’s a Jurassic Park/World park building game where you are avoiding dinosaurs and basically playing through stories around the movies, not really the movie stories. It looks like light fun, which is why it felt like the right price to get it when it was pretty heavily on sale.

Reload

Finally from CoolStuffInc we have Reload. I’ve heard very mixed things about this game as well. But I like what it is in concept. Kind of that battle arena like a Fortnite or PUBG style of game. You run around, the area gets smaller, you want to be the last person standing. It sounds like a fun time with some complexity and decision making, if you make it through the rules.

Miniature Market

Rome and Roll

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but in a short chunk of an evening you can build it up in this roll and write game. Or at least build up your gladiators, warriors, and I believe civilization as well. It’s a heavier and crunchier roll and write game. One that I want to play to see if it’s a good game for me. That, Hadrian’s Wall, and Twilight Inscription might be my heavy roll and write games.

Stranger Things: Upside Down

This one should be arriving today or so, but it’s a Stranger Things board game. And one from the designer of Pandemic. Now, it’s not just the Pandemic system. But it is a light to mid weight cooperative game. And kind of follows some of the things you expect. You do things and then bad things happen. But how the bad things happen and how many is determined by what you do. So it adds this element where you need to push to complete things. but that can cause more bad things to happen.

Lucky Numbers

Lucky Numbers is a game that I don’t know too much about. But it looks like a tile, or number, laying game where you are trying to fill out a grid in a specific way. It looks light, it has a solo mode, so one that I want to try out and see what it’s like.

My City: Roll and Build

You saw this one, potentially, already because I just played it on Malts and Meeples. Let me drop the video below, but it’s a roll and write version of the legacy game My City. I still enjoy it this way, and it makes a nice solo game.

The Quest for El Dorado

Kind of a classic game at this point, and a deck building game. I do like deck building a lot. To go along with that, it’s also a racing game. As you try and navigate a path to El Dorado as efficiently as possible. From what I’ve heard, it has some fun twists on it, which I’m here for. I like deck building a lot, but I don’t need all my deck building games to just be deck building, this one adds in more.

Arkham Horror LCG: Winifred Habbamock

I’m going to have to do a part 2 on this because this article is getting long. And there will be more Arkham Horror LCG character packs on this. I’ve started playing some with a friend, and it’s been a grand time. So I picked up some of the character packs because that is where you get some of the best cards.

Joan of Arc Expansions

This one come from Mythic Games selling off the rights to this game. It’s a bummer because I’m not sure Mythic Games is sitting in that much better of a spot. But for me it’s been a chance to grab more expansions. It’s still a game I need to table. But I like the idea of it as a miniatures style game, but with less overhead.

Omen: Heir to the Dunes

Another one I can’t say that I know that much about. I picked it up because it was on a good sale. It’s a two player head to head game. So the type that might stay in my collection. But it, and Radlands are games that I want to see how they play and if they’ll dethrone my favorite head to head game, Dice Throne.

That’s a Question

Another good sale game. This looks like a simple party game. I’m not sure it’ll be for me, but if I remember correctly it was $3 or $4 so cheap enough to take a flyer on. I don’t know that I need more party games, but I also find that party games are the ones that I rotate the most.

Robots

Robots was another game from that sale. It’s a kids type of game from what I can tell. But in a small box with cute artwork, another one where I look at it and think, why not try it. It might be a fun filler game about making silly robots. If not, it cost $3, so not a big deal.

Skytear Horde

Another one that you’ve seen on Malts and Meeples. So the video will again be below. But this is a tower defense, lane defense game. I like it because it’s just a fun experience that as you start to get into the swing of the game, it moves quickly. Yes, the learning of all the steps can take a bit, but once you’re in, it’s not too bad.

D&D Dungeon Scrawlers: Heroes of Undermountain

Finally another roll and write game. This one with again a Dungeons and Dragons theme. I want to play it, and I want to play some of my other dungeon crawling or scrawling roll and writes, but two of them, this one included, don’t have a solo mode. That’s my only bummer about the game. But a D&D based roll and write game is a theme and style I’ll gladly give a try.

And like I said, more to come. But those are some of the games that are entering into my collection. There’s been a lot coming in, which means that I need to have a decent number of them leave soon as well. Which is what will be happening this weekend.

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The Gen Con Haul

I know that people don’t always have time to watch the videos, so I’m going to do a quick write up as well for the games that I picked up. This is not the list of everything I played, expect that tomorrow. But it is everything I bought and stuff that has come in as well.

Kingdom Rush – Not from Gen Con

This actually came in a bit ago. Kingdom Rush is going to be a tower defense game where you cast spells and try and stop waves of enemies from reaching the end. Classic tower defense, and based off of an app, I believe, that I should maybe checkout. This one I got because I got a code from Lucky Duck Games for 20% off, and it’s one I’ve wanted to try, but wouldn’t have without a discount.

City Chase – Not from Gen Con

Korea Board Games sent me City Chase to cover. I haven’t had a chance to play it yet, but this is going to be a family weight hidden movement or deduction game as you take helicopters around trying catch a car, from my understanding. And the car can hide under buildings, so a bit of a deduction and trying to narrow down and trap where the car can go.

Arcadia Quest – Not from Gen Con

This is another game that I maybe wouldn’t have picked up except that it was used. Arcadia Quest is basically a go into a dungeon, complete objectives, knock out your opponents sort of game. Tons of minis and expansions for it, I only got the base game, but I figure I can add more later if I want to it. Seems like a solid light game with some good tactics and fun minis.

Oathsworn – Not from Gen Con

And then we have a big game from Shadowborne Games. I backed this one on Kickstarter quite a while ago and it came in the day before I left for Gen Con. I am excited to get this campaign to the table. Two cool things for me about this game is the cool down track for abilities. You need to play cards out to cycle abilities back, down this track to your hand. So there is a puzzle with that.

Plus then you can roll as many dice as you want or draw as many cards as you want. But if you get two blanks, you fail. So there is a push your luck element to it. But, there is a less luck in the cards. The cards don’t reshuffle until all of them have been drawn. So the deck remembers and players know, you might have a hot deck with the blanks already out, or it might be cold with blanks left and just a few cards to draw.

Batman: Everybody Lies

I talked about this one yesterday, and Paint the Roses in my Highlights from Gen Con. As I said in that, I split the cost of the game with some friends, so I’ll probably be playing it tonight again. This is based off of Portal Games Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game series and system. But it has a Batman theme to it, it was a lot of fun. And it’s cool that we got the designer, Ignacy, to sign the cover for us.

Burncycle + Expansions

Burncycle is a post post apocalyptic cyperpunk world where corporations have taken over, granted this is after humanity took back over from the robots. You play as robots trying to hack into the system as well as complete objectives on the physical map. The game play seems like a lot of fun, and the production quality, as it is a Chip Theory Games is amazing. Probably one I’ll at least learn solo, if not play that way mostly.

Long Shot The Dice Game

This is a roll and write horse racing game. It’s one that I got to play the last day, and because it was the Kickstarter copy they were selling, decided I should pick it up. In this game, you are trying to buy horses, put bets on horses, and end up with the most money at the end of the game. It’s a good time, I like the artwork, and I like that there is a board, which is dry erase so you can mark it up with one of the expansions. I think it’ll be one that gets to the table pretty often in my sea of roll and write games.

Hero Realms + Expansions

Hero Realms is another one I got to demo, in fact I demoed it and got stomped. But I really liked what it was doing. And I decided to go in on it to the point where I could play it solo as well. Wise Wizard Games had a bundle you could buy to get the coop game play that allows for solo. Normally this is a head to head deck building and battling game that plays fast and you feel like you ramp up quickly.

Cartographers Expansions

No surprise here with new expansions for Cartographers that I’d grab them. This is three new map packs as well as then a bonus little hero pack for Cartographers heroes. I’m excited to see what different the maps do. And I need to play with all of the maps that I have now, because, well, there are six map packs, plus the base map which is double sided, so 8 different map options.

Paint the Roses

The other one I talked about in the highlights. Paint the Roses is a deduction game as you try and figure out what card a player has in front of them currently. You do that by putting down a tile, and then all players put down cubes on that tile if it creates a match. So if I put down a rose and my card is rose rose on it, if I put down that rose tile so it touches two other rose tiles, I’d put two cubes on it. Then everyone else would try and figure out what is my combo on my card. Simple but a ton of fun and pretty thinky.

Marvel Remix

Marvel Remix is a retheme and reskin of Fantasy Realms. In Fantasy Realms, from what I know, you are building out your best hand of cards to score points. It did it with a fantasy theme first and now with a Marvel theme. I believe that there are slight changes to the rules, but not sure what they are, and won’t really know as I haven’t played Fantasy Realms.

Lost Ruins of Arnak Expedition Leaders

Another game I got to play was Lost Ruins of Arnak. I even played it twice. Expedition Leaders is the expansion for it. It adds in some new items and relics. But the big thing that it does is it gives you, as the name would suggest, an expedition leader. They have unique powers and you start out the game with just that little bit of variability. I like that in a game, so seemed like an easy expansion to add.

NFL Five

Free game for demoing it. It’s basically a little football themed game. Not much going on it. I describe it in the video as rock, paper, scissors but harder. There is no tie and try again. It is just put down a play and hope that you match. But or something that’s football themed and from a football card company, it’s basically what I expected. And I don’t think it’s that bad, it’s just very basic.

Pocket Paragons

Finally, another game that I got handed, a little duel set demo of Pocket Paragons. I know nothing about this game, I’m assuming it’s a head to head battler, probably deck crafting, though maybe more like Dice Throne (just cards only) where you have stuff already set. I’ll have to learn it and give it a whirl, see what it is like.

Upcoming Streams

So, Wednesday, the plan is to play Stars of Akarios. I was hoping to get to rules read in the evenings at Gen Con and while I had some evening time free, I didn’t get to it. So it might get pushed back a week, depends on how well I can learn the rules today. If it does, I’ll be playing some other game solo on the stream.

Next Monday I think I’ll be doing a Top 10 list. Not sure what the list will be on. But I think that’ll be the plan. I of course, do have some games, like Long Shot the Dice Game, Cartographers, Hero Realms or Lost Ruins of Arnak that I could set-up and play solo as well. We’ll have to see what I end up wanting to do.

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CoolStuffInc Board Games

The Faceless

This is an interesting one and originally was a Kickstarter game. It mainly caught my attention because it is on a warehouse clearance, or was. So the base game and two mini expansions, terrain and another compass basically, cost all of $15. And this isn’t that simple a game. Now, I didn’t just buy it because of the price, the concept is also interesting.

The Faceless is a game where you are trying to avoid this goat monster, and how the monster moves is determined with how an arrow on a compass is facing, I believe. So as you move around the board trying to pick up things, or complete objectives, the magnets in the character bases are going to affect where The Faceless is going to go.

Is this going to be a good game, I don’t know. But the gimmick of the magnets was cool enough I wanted to try it. And a terrain expansion for $3.99 seemed like an easy pick-up to make the game look even better. If nothing else, this game is going to be fun to try and then pass on and let someone else try it.

Pioneer Days

Now we come to the company, Tasty Minstrel Games (TMG) that is going out of business for sure. And CoolStuffIn was handling their liquidation of their products, and while a number interested me, this is the one I pulled the trigger on. Pioneer Days is a euro game that has some nice artwork on it. And for I believe it was $25 or so, it was worth the try.

Normally, I don’t gravitate towards Euro games because the mechanic just isn’t that interesting to me. But, this one looks more interesting than most, and it was a good price. It isn’t that I dislike euro games, it is just that I am less apt to buy them for myself. So when a good deal came along, it was worth me looking at it.

All Systems Go

I also went past my local game store. Now, no shock there, but I went by because they moved to a new location. The space is a little bit bigger, I believe, but mainly, it has a parking lot. Street parking isn’t horrible at the old location, but not great either. And while the new location’s parking lot is very tight, it is a parking lot. Plus the store is a little bit closer to me, which is clearly important.

Village Green

I didn’t pick up much while I was there, just a used copy of Village Green. This is one that I’ve been keeping on eye on because the game play seems interesting in it. You are drafting and filling out a grid that will score you points in a lot of ways. The two things you draft are green cards and scoring cards. The scoring cards go on the outside of the grid. And the green cards fill out the rest of it.

What seems like an interesting challenge is that you score the scoring cards based off of the columns or row that they match up with. It is a bit like Criss Cross in that you need to think about your scoring in both directions. This, however, offers way more depth to what you are thinking about. The challenge of this excites me, also the complexity of game play doesn’t seem to high. That means it is a game that is easier to get to the table.

Kickstarter

Catapult Feud – Hydra Expansion + more

Yeah, it is a silly game, and it is one that I need to play, but it is a Kickstarter exclusive expansion. Is that a good enough reason to buy it, the answer to me was yes. You can see my Back or Brick on it here. I think if nothing else, this can be a great toy to play around with, and i suspect that I’m going to like the game as well. Just the nature is so light and silly.

I guess I didn’t explain too much what the game is. Catapult Feud is a game where you try and knock down your opponents castle. But you don’t do this with clever card play or worker placement, or even chucking dice. You actually are launching rocks or beehives, at the actual castle your opponent built. The goal is to take out the guys on the castle, first one to do so wins. And there is card play, but we’re here for launching attacks and building castles really.

Point of Sale

So only one item, which is why it isn’t it’s own article. And I didn’t actually sell it. But it did leave my collection and I’m really happy that it did. Why, because I gave it to someone who is going to play it now.

Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

Why is an easily accessible version of my favorite game of all time leaving my collection? So it gets played. I don’t think I am going to play it anytime soon. I have Frosthaven coming in sometime later in this year. And I am playing through Tainted Grail, right now, as my campaign. And my streaming campaign is Sleeping Gods.

Plus, I learned about a couple of kids from a family I know who loved the idea of Gloomhaven. Now, I did have to warn their dad, who is playing with them, that it can get intense. I gave it to them on Sunday and they are already playing it. I played through the starting scenarios and I liked it. But I knew I wasn’t going to play it. I also know I can get it back. When I want to play it, when I want to introduce someone to Gloomhaven, it is easy enough for me to buy it again and play it then. But right now, I have more shelf space.

That’s get, those are the games that I’m adding to my collection and the game leaving my collection. And I must say, I’m happy with all of them. Will they all stay in my collection or having left my collection long term, who knows. But I’m excited to try all of the new ones, especially Village Garden which I hope to play this weekend, or maybe even solo sometime this week.

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GameZenter Sale

There’s only been one spot that I’ve bought from and that was the GameZenter. They did a Holiday Sale much like they have done as the Fantasy Flight Game Center, but they had even more games that people would want to buy. Yes, there were stacks of games such as Gen7 from Plaid Hat Games that didn’t do well that they are trying to get rid of. I almost picked it up because it was so cheap. But I got a number of other games.

Journey: Wrath of Demons

This is a game that I feel like I should know more about it than I do. I’ve been looking at this one for a long time because, we’ll it looks cool. I like the Asian theming on it, and I believe in particular Chinese, so what keeps on drawing me to it is the look of the game.

The game itself, I don’t know that much about, besides I keep seeing it on sale. The ratings on BGG (Board Game Geek) are solid at a 7.0 but there also aren’t a ton of different rankings. But the theme and and cooperative nature of the game are interesting. Plus you enhance your characters skills and I’m always for a game that you can level up your character as you play.

Starship Samurai + Expansion

This one was in the category of it’s just too cheap to pass up. The game was on sale for $10 plus the expansion was $5. That just meant that I was going to grab it because it has mechs in it, and if nothing else the mechs are cool looking. Another one that I mainly got because the box looks cool and the minis look cool. It’s an area control sort of game, which I do like at times. I hope that there is enough going on besides that, but if not, it was cheap and I can trade it in.

Mesozooic

This one I also didn’t know much about until I read the back and knew that I wanted it for sure. Mesozooic is a drafting card game, I like drafting games. Something like Blood Rage uses it in a bigger game but Ohanami and Sushi Go Party use it in basically card games. But this has a twist on it, you draft cards, and then you build a dinosaur park in a timed limit to score the most points possible.

That seems like a completely chaotic game and is going to be a blast. I hope that the game is very light and I imagine that it will be. Because this is a theme of game I can see playing with a lot of people. And at this point in time has everyone made a dinosaur park themed game?

Keyforge

Now, for the game that I know the most about, at least of the ones that I haven’t played, I’ve kind of played the last things on the list. Keyforge is a head to head almost collectible style of card game. But it isn’t like Magic: The Gathering, in that you don’t buy packs for cards and build a deck. You just buy a deck and all the decks are unique. And you aren’t trying to lower a planewalkers life total, you instead are trying to forge keys.

This one I’ve wanted to try for a long time. But at $12 per deck, it’s harder to get into than Magic because Magic while being way more expensive in the long run, is also way cheaper to grab a pack of off the store shelf. But on sale I got two decks and the starter box that has the tokens for tracking things all for $20, I figured, might as well do that and try it out. I want to see how it plays since all the decks are different.

Clank: Upper Management + Adventuring Party

Now, this last one, I’ve played Clank before, and I like the game. Clank is a fun push your luck deck building game that feels like it has more going on. The Upper Management Pack can be used with either regular Clank or Clank Legacy. It is based off of the Penny Arcade characters of Acquisitions Inc. I just wanted to get those characters I love from their D&D game.

The Adventuring Party is kind of a similar feel in that it gives you more characters to play in Clank. But it does one thing that I kind of like in deck building game. In a lot of deck building games you start with the same deck and it’s only as you add in cards do you become unique. Xenoshyft: Onslaught does this well with a unique couple of cards. The Adventuring Party gives you a unique starting deck which can influence how you play, so I’m curious to try it.

That’s It So Far

So I say so far, why, because I’m looking at a Black Friday Sale right now on Miniature Market. Companies like Ludus Magnus Studio, Lucky Duck Games, Pandasaurus Games, Eagle-Gryphon and more that I’ve seen. And I know that All Systems Go, another local game store is going to be having a sale as well. I might try and swing out to there on Small Business Saturday. So if you are looking for a board game for the Holidays you might want to check out the sales that are happening now.

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Shipping Problems

So, like I said, I’m going to start with the big issue that is happening in board games, and generally just shipping period. Getting onto a ship or even into a shipping container costs a ton of money, way more than a lot of companies were planning for. This has especially hit Kickstarter companies. If a game as Kickstarted in 2019 and is shipping now, the amount charged for shipping would be vastly different. Along with that, manufacturing costs can also be higher.

Needless to say, this has hit some of the board gaming companies hard. There is one company that I know of which is asking people to pay additional shipping right now. They’ve already collected but the options are pay additional shipping, only be able to ship part of it, or wait on shipping until prices come down. Another has said that they will cover the shipping but gave a PayPal account. And another asked people buy/order from their webstore. Mainly because they make a standard profit on that, so it can help offset shipping costs.

Roll Player Promos

Thunderworks games as the company that asked for people to buy from their webstore if they could, to help offset shipping. While I already have most of what I want from them, all or Roll Player and Cartographers, plus getting Roll Player Adventures and the Cartographers expansion via Kickstarter. But I didn’t have the two extra character for Roll Player. They don’t really add much to the game, it is just more characters. But like I said, this was a way to help offset some of the shipping costs for Thunderworks.

Cartographers Playmat

Now, the promos were very cheap, I think $6 per promo, so I decided it’d be good to add something bigger. Had Lock-Up, their worker placement game set in the same world as Roll Player been available, I might have gone with that. But that was sold out, so I decided to get a playmat. This isn’t needed for the simple roll and write that Cartographers is, but it does help. Like with Welcome To the playmat just helps lay out the cards that everyone is using nicer. Plus the artwork and look of it is cool, so they not.

Now onto the expansion order:

Terraforming Mars: Turmoil

Turmoil, surprisingly, doesn’t make the game easier. in Terraforming Mars: Turmoil you now get planetary events, like sandstorms that can come in and mess stuff up. Plus there is a governing body that you want to control or at least influence so things that happen are good for you. Terraforming Mars gives you a lot to think about and this one just adds in a little bit more. I feel like with that and Prelude I now have two interesting expansions that I can mix into the base game.

Folklore The Affliction – Fall of the Spire

An expansion for an RPG in a box. Folklore The Affliction really tries to be that game that has you rolling dice, dealing with encounters and world events and finding a story. This just adds in more story and more game content. Folklore is a campaign game that I really need to get to the table sometime soon. Though, honestly it’ll be a bit because I have Aeon’s End Legacy to play through and we’ll see what I get to after that.

Tiny Towns: Villagers & Fortune

Finally, two expansions for Tiny Towns. Now, I like Tiny Towns, I think it’s a fun simple game, and that’s really why I got more of it. There a ton of different combos but when you’ve played with all the different buildings you’ve played with them. Even if you can mix them together differently. So what I’m hoping is that Villagers and Fortunes will both add in a little bit more content that’ll be fun to play around with. I don’t need them to keep playing TIny Towns, but I think without them the shelf life of Tiny Towns would be shorter.

Dune: House Secrets

This is one that I just pre-ordered today. While the others are either already here or will be shortly, Dune: House Secrets will get here in Q4 of 2021, so a few months from now. Why pre-order it? Good question, Portal Games does a great job of making sure that there are plenty of copies of their games. But with the pre-order that means that I’ll get some extra bonuses. For Vienna Connection, that was wooden tokens, some design diaries, and more. Just stuff to add to the experience, they are doing something similar for Dune: House Secrets, so I just wanted that extra little bit.

Plus, Dune: House Secrets is based off of the Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game system. I really like that system. It creates interesting stories and I love the deduction aspect that it gives you. So, I’m hoping that they’ll be able to leverage that into an interesting story of intrigue set in the Dune world. I like the Dune world/universe that is in the books, so I think that it should work well for me.

Which Do You Want To Play?

I have to be patient for Dune: House Secrets, so I’ll set that one to the side. Right now I think that playing Terraforming Mars is at the top of my list. I know it has a solo mode, but it’s a long game. Maybe I can get it set-up say this week after Aeon’s End and then leave it up and play it over a few evenings. Let me know which one you want to play.

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