I’ve clearly done this a few times before as I have done my end of the year plans. And I will say, with moving I’ve had a long time where I haven’t done anything. That’s because my set-up hasn’t been able to be used for a while, but now we’re getting back to being able to do that, I have a room that can be closed off to keep games set-up as much and as long as I want.

First will be the video types. We’re going to continue focusing on game play throughs. We’ll be doing two different types. One off games and then the bigger campaign games. I want to try and intersperse the two so that it’s not always a campaign and people feel like they’ve missed out on something. Along with those, we will be doing more unboxing videos, mainly highlighting games that I will likely play coming up. This is to be able to highlight those games that might not show up for a bit because of whatever campaign I’m on and to highlight Kickstarter games as they come in. The goal will be one video per week and if I can get into a good rhythm, I might start looking at doing two, a short weekend unboxing and a game play. The game play will likely be a Wednesday stream.

The next thing is determining streaming platform. I’ve done both YouTube and Twitch for streaming, and while Twitch has some very nice features, I’m leaning towards YouTube, because the videos will all live there eventually and it makes it easier for me. I won’t have to wait to post them so that it isn’t dinged in algorithms because it was on Twitch as well. And I don’t have to record it as well as stream it which should free up some resources on the machine, and I don’t think we’ve had hiccups, but it should reduce them if there have been any.

I’m also going to be running Twitter polls as to what game to play solo as a one off next. Whether it’s something like Marvel Champions, Marvel United, Calico, and more games that I have for solo play that I need to get to the table.

I’ve also considered doing some other videos. Kickstarter videos like I’ve done before, but limited it to 10 projects per month to talk about that are out that I’m interested in. This wouldn’t replace the Back or Brick articles, just be a way to cover more Kickstarters. Or I might use the time to talk about new game releases coming up based off of BGG’s New Game Release section. I’d be curious as to what people would want. I don’t plan on doing reviews, just because that’s a pretty saturated market already. But other content, let me know what you’d want to see.

Finally, thank you everyone who has checked out the videos. It’s been a long time and with Covid and social distancing I’ve struggled to play games and with the drive to play them. I’m using this move to launch me into playing more solo games again and I hope that I’ll see some of you in the chat when I get going with the plan to start next week.

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It’s been a couple of weeks, but I’m back again with more Tainted Grail. Last time I had said that I was considering playing ahead to the point where I had lost last time, but I decided that I was going to take more time and head a different direction, so I should play it through on camera.

If you’re not familiar with Tainted Grail, that’s great, and this is a great jumping off point because we’re getting going in Chapter 1 of the story again. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon is a big exploration and story driven game where players take on the roles of citizens of the town of Caunacht. Arev, the person I’m playing, isn’t a hero, but was a mercenary before running away to become a farmer. I’m going out adventuring not because I would be the first choice, but because those who would have been the first choice have gone missing in their expedition to keep the Menhir lit and stop the land from falling into Wyrdness. This is grim dark fantasy setting where everything is out to kill you and most of the things probably can.

I’ve taken on the start of the game a couple of times before but I haven’t made it too far, once due to bad luck, the next time do to rushing through the first chapter. This time I’m spending more time, with Arev, in the first Chapter, so you’ll have to see which way I go and if I can make it through the first chapter.

Last nights beer was Good Behavior form O’Dell. O’Dell makes my favorite beer, St. Lupulin. Good Behavior is their “Crushable” IPA. It is a lower ABV IPA and it certainly makes it nice and drinkable, while still maintaining a good hop profile. Definitely an IPA that I enjoyed a lot and as it gets warmer, between that and St. Lupulin, I have two really good summer beer options from them.

If you are enjoying the content that I’m putting out, please Subscribe and give the video a thumbs up. I am trying to put out content every other week. If you want to catch the videos live, you can do so on Twitch, look for maltsandmeeples and give me a follow there.

Bottoms up!

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Join me in the lands of Avalon again, I’m still on Chapter 2 for a little bit longer of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon. How do I fair this time, do you I keep on getting myself stuff in combats that I shouldn’t? Should I run away more often (I should). Will Arev make it? He won’t.

I’m debating, though I did talk that I was going to, if I should stream again from the beginning. I’ve been playing generally for about an hour at a time, and that’s been getting me through slowly. And while I’ve been loving the game, I don’t want to show the same thing over and over again. So I might play through chapter 1 and hopefully chapter 2 this weekend and start at the beginning of chapter 3 when I play.

Last nights malt was Orange Dream State from Tinwhiskers out of St. Paul MN. Not my normal type of beer, and not my favorite beer. With the orange and vanilla it’s definitely a novelty beer, and for something like that, it wasn’t horrible, but I wouldn’t call it great either. I’d probably skip it if you’re ever in the Twin Cities, t here are better options out there, including from Tinwhiskers.

Bottoms up!

Arev travels further into the world of Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon. I continue my journey into the grim dark fantasy setting that is the land of Avalon and the Wyrdness that is pushing humans off of the land. Can Arev figure out where to go next now that he’s found the secrets of driving back the Wyrdness, with Menhir, if only for a short time?

Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon is a giant story driven game by Awaken Realms where you are struggling as an almost hero against the lands, the monsters, and the wary people who make up the land of Avalon. To do this you must hunt for food, but more importantly explore many a location in search for answers to the problems that are facing you. In exploring you delve into an Exploration Journal and make choices that will affect your story going forward.

I, also, always have a beer on hand. So last nights beer was Size 7, and IPA from Steel Toe Brewing in St. Louis Park, MN. I like it a lot because it’s a bigger IPA checking in at 7% ABV and 77 IBU. With it having a slightly higher ABV than some IPA’s, it isn’t too malty though, but unless you’re in MN, probably not an easy beer to get your hands on.

Finally, if you are enjoying the content that I’m putting out with my solo game plays, please consider giving me a follow and a subscribe. The first is for Twitch and the second on YouTube. For YouTube views, comments, and subscribers can all help more people find my videos and hopefully help more people learn about new games.

Bottoms up!

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Back with some more Tainted Grail by Awaken Realms. This time, I have a better plan for what I was going to do in the grim dark world of Avalon. Can I keep the Menhir lit and keep the wyrdness at bay, or will I fail again to save the people?

Tainted Grail is a massive story driven exploration game set in a grim dark version of Avalon and Arthurian Legend. King Arthur came to the land a long time ago, and now things are going bad. Your town had sent out a team to be able to fix the problems, but they have gone missing. Now I’m part of the B-Team in hopes of saving the land.

If you are enjoying the stream, you can find me on Twitch or on Youtube. Subscribing or Following will let you know when new videos go up. The plan is for play every Thursday for a while until Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon has been beat.

The drink of choice was Xtra Extra Pale Ale from Surly Brewing. It’s a good hop forward EPA with a nice amount of bitterness and a good citrus/grapefruit flavor. I’m not a huge fan of Surly, but the this one really stands out as one of the best.

Bottoms up!

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I was back last night with a live stream of Tainted Grail on Twitch. And now the video is also up on the Youtube channel. Thank you to those who checked out the stream. I don’t tend to announce too far ahead, but my plan is going to be every Thursday for the next few weeks as I’m really liking Tainted Grail from Awaken Realms, and after this last game, I need to play through some more. For more specifics on time, you can follow me on Twitter at @TheScando and I tweet out when I’m going to be going live, or follow me on Twitch to get notifications when I’m live.

Tainted Grail is a massive story game where you take on the roll of a back-up plan for a group of heroes and you’re going through a grim dark Arthurian fantasy world where everything is out to kill out and the wyrdness is barely being held back by some Menhir that are going out. Will you be able to save the land of Avalon and find out the mysteries of the land?

And my beer last night was from Elysian. Dragons Tooth Stout, a great stout in my opinion, it has that big stout dark taste that I really enjoy during the winter. But there is a good hop profile that really drives home bitter counter point to what could be a too sweet beer, giving it a coffee and dark chocolate flavor.

Bottoms up!

It was a long holiday break, mainly because it’s also generally a Kickstarter deadtime so I didn’t do a Kickstarter show, but I’m back to streaming a game. This time it’s Tainted Grail by Awaken Realms. This is a massive and immersive story set in a dark Arthurian legend.

I’m playing as Arev, a resident of Cuanacht Farmhold. I used to be a mercenary, but no more. Now I’m just a simple farmer. When the Menhir in the town started to fade, the best from the town went out to find a way to save us, but they haven’t returned. Now, even though I’m not one of the best, I’m going out to explore in hopes of savings my town and all of Avalon.

Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon is a story driven game where you explore various locations, meet people, and try and survive the wyrdness that is creeping across the lands by keeping Menhir lit. In the first chapter my goal, thus far, is to find out how to light Menhir. I’ve made it two days in, and thus far, I still don’t know.

You can join me again probably next week as I’m going to continue the story again. I plan on streaming every other Thursday around 7:30, but, because I’m really enjoying the game thus far, it might be more often than that.

And, of course, it’s Malts and Meeples, and while there were no Meeples showing up in the episode, I of course had a malt. That is, I had Dragon’s Milk White Stout from New Holland Brewing. This is a very enjoyable beer. It has a good flavor to it, but I do think that compared to regular Dragon’s Milk which is a very big beer, 12% or so, barrel aged beast of a beer, the White Stout, while barrel aged doesn’t quite hold up.

Bottoms up!

In addition to having the well-known combat mechanisms of Gloomhaven, Frosthaven will feature much more to do outside of combat, such as numerous mysteries to solve, a seasonal event system to live through, and player control over how this ramshackle village expands, with each new building offering new ways to progress.

Board Game Geek

There is some information on BoardGameGeek, but more information in a panel that Tom Vassel led at Pax Unplugged with the creator of Gloomhaven and Frosthaven, Isaac Childress. So I’m listening to that now, and I”m going to be taking notes of what we know thus far. So this might be a bit of a scattered post, but it’s important stuff for the fans of Gloomhaven, and now you don’t need to watch the whole video that is up on Pax Unplugged’s Twitch Channel.

First, Tom asks about if you need to play Gloomhaven first, and can you use Gloomahven characters.

• No, you don’t need to play Gloomhaven first, this is completely stand alone
• Yes, there are ways to use characters or items between games, but Frosthaven is a different much smaller location, so you don’t have access to all of the Gloomhaven items, and you even have to craft your own items.

The Six Base Characters:

• Banner Spear – Tank character. Noble character, mostly melee, and something called a formation attack, which is like an area of effect, but allies need to be in a certain locations.
• Necromancer – Has summons that aren’t lost, because of course they do. An Aesther character, summons undead, obviously. You lose health when you summon them though.
• A lot of characters have extra resources that you have to keep track of, like the Necromancer with her health.
• Stepping up the mini game with them having more dynamic poses.
• Deathwalker – She creates shadows on the board. Shamanistic type classs, who ushers people into death. Can manipulate shadows to deal more damage and usher monsters into the after life.
• Drifter – Inox character. Survivalist character who loves living off the land. About keeping himself alive as long as possible. Persistent abilities with chargers that can then recharge
• Geminate – Harrower Character – Split conciousness sort of character. Two different forms, melee and ranged, and two separate decks of cards 7 in each, and you change forms and the cards can force you to change form. Can choose to switch on long rest.
• Blink Blade – Quatryl character, can manipulate time. Can slow down or speed up time, and runs around and stabs and then runs away. Time token resource, faster is better, but needs to recharge. Bonuses or detriments on cards if you are going fast or slow.

Different races in this area, 3 new races. They actually start out as threats in the game, and you can become their friends or subdue them, and you unlock them. Augox, cousins of the Inox. More primitive and bigger, ice yeti. Have two separate sects around religion, ice or snow, so I’m assuming we’ll get two playable characters one from each? Lurkers are another character. They are ocean creatures, Northern Sea, they invade from the sea. Whole Lurker civilization, a wave thrower. They are psychic. Robots. Eventually you can play as robots, they are wandering around the north.

Basic story

• Frosthaven is outpost in north, north west of Gloomhaven.
• Have to pass through between Copper Neck Mountains and Imperial Mountains. Gets cut off in the winter.
• Initial story is that you are trying to protect the town, find ways to keep the town safe.
• Frosthaven is a very small outpost.
• Big thing in the game is building up the city, and using resources to do so. And unlock new things in time.
• Craftsman is big thing, and Alchemist. Craftsman can make items and combine items to make them better. Alchemist can create potions, trial and error. You can make bad potions.
• And you’ll have to build up the defenses of the town. Town has a defense rating.
• Calendar system, as you come in the summer and then in winter things start freezing over.
• Every time you go to a scenario the calendar progresses.
• Winter event deck is all bad things.
• Depending on defense rating bad things happen or you fend them off.
• You can still find items.

Loot system has changed.

• Still collect tokens, but they aren’t money.
• At the end of the scenario you can exchange them for a card from the loot deck.
• Build a loot deck for each scenario.
• If in a forest, loot deck might be money or resource or herb or something else, like items or special items.

New map with world map, top half is traditional map of the world, bottom is town. There are bigger stickers that help explore what the world actually looks like. Lots of space to build up buildings in the town, but you decide how it’s all built.

More monsters to talk about.

• There will be some repeat monsters.
• Undead monsters, frozen undead.
• Frozen Corpse – like a living corpse, but frozen.
• New status effect, brittle, next time you suffer damage, you suffer double damage.
• Living Doom – Most powerful undead
• Living Doom can summon living spirits based on his health
• New status effect called Bane. Solution to instant kill mechanic. If you don’t remove it by healing, at the end of next turn, you take 10 damage. Way to deal with instant kill cards.
• Instant kill was considered overly powerful.
• Polar bears, because bears.
• The Abale, fishmen characters. Spelling is probably wrong. Fish king from his original game.

Puzzles as well:

• Kind of complicated to explain.
• At some point in the game you get something similar to the town record.
• Extra side story, get more lore into the game.
• There will be cool things it unlocks.
• How you go through the book is by solving puzzles that you do through the course of the campaign.
• Give you clues that’ll lead you to various aspects of the game.
• Limited details, because spoilers.
• Series of puzzles, that are informed by everything else in the game.
• Not sure what to do, play more.
• There is a big puzzle in Gloomhaven, there is no feedback in the puzzle, so he wanted to give a puzzle with more feedback in the game.

What’s the learning curve from Gloomhaven?

• Similar to Gloomhaven, it’s going to throw you in there.
• The combat mechanics are all the same.
• The town mechanics are introduced over time, so not much overhead.

How have things progressed from the first to the second one?

• Puzzles changing.
• Forgotten Circles, breaking up scenarios into various sections, successes and problems with it. So you don’t always see everything up front, and they can hide things better.
• Taking that and giving more information up front, but still doing section system.
• Forgotten Circles, set-up in the middle, here they are not doing that.
• Surprises, but no surprise set-up.
• Same length of campaign.

How do you get it?

• Coming to Kickstarter in March 2020.
• Ideally, if it goes according to plan, delivered in less than a year.

Questions from the Audience:

• Is Frosthaven too cold for Ooze? Don’t make that assumption.
• Can you be bad and get rewarded? There’s always moral ambiguity.
• Reputation system, evil and good, don’t feel tempted? Working on events to make them more dynamic and give them better options.
• Where is Frosthaven compared to Gloomhaven? Extending the world, North and West of Gloomhaven.
• Will there be a pie eating video if Kickstarter game is a success? It’s not out of the question.
• Coming from Gloomhaven, what are you taking away from that, that is biggest learning point? Main thing, more town building, town management aspect.
• How come bears haven’t destroyed Gloomhaven? Bears can’t climb walls.
• Trading Items going to be a thing? Still can’t trade items. When you create a potion, you decide who gets it.
• Necromancer in this one not the small box one like they were planning? They realized it was too complex, summoning was too complex for an introductory sort of game for more casual gamers.
• Bane Mechanic going to be put back onto Gloomhaven? Maybe
• Loot tokens represent resources, more of them on the ground, money on the ground doesn’t make sense, wood does? Might be a little more
• Is charging elements still going to be a big part of the game? Elements are still going to be a big part of it. Still going to keep the elements balanced.
• Why did you transition from being a physicist to board game designer? Got tired of physics. Decided to make it more of a career. Kickstarted first game in grad school.
• Any tweaks to combat rules that are interesting? Besides new status effects, combat mechanics are generally the same.
• Will there be a 3 damage token? Yes
• Do you get more cards or health, since this game seems like difficulty has been ramped up? No. Necromancer starts with 6 health.
• Any changes to achievement quests? Didn’t feel like some of retirement goals were tied together? Any more customization for the decks? Personal quests are going to be changed, not going to be random. Going to start with a much smaller deck of things you can accomplish, as you unlock things, you unlock more. Because you’ve unlocked it, you can get it done in a reasonable amount of time. Perk system remains. Not much more customization for characters. Not much more unique backstory. Events will be a similar system, and outcomes might be tied to character with some sort of trait versus just character types. Battle goals will be more balanced.
• Summons don’t scale well, any change with that? Some of summons that can resummon which is a change.
• Is Enhancement system going to remain the same? Enhancement system will remain the same, will be unlocked over the course of the game.
• Where does Frosthaven take place timewise? Set afterwards. Doesn’t matter for the most part, not much interaction. Finally going to get cypher to solve thing without the cypher at the end of Gloomhaven, probably?
• Equally as difficult to get in as Gloomhaven? About the same difficulty. Might introduce tutorial system. That’s what Jaws of the Lion is for.
• Gloomhaven was more semi-cooperative, can’t trade or sell between, is this going to be more collaborative? Town building is more collaborative. But still more semi-cooperative. Still dark brooding jerks.
• Any plans for recharge pack? It is something they are talking about.
• PVP? Toyed with idea with original one, but going first was so much better. Didn’t work out balance wise. Hasn’t be revisited and don’t plan to.
• Mind thief plushy? Longer project, but working on it.
• How does Calendar work? Just one year, just those two seasons? There are multiple years. Go through cycle of summer/winter, summer nicer things, winter worse things.
• How far does it progress each scenario? Every time you finish a set of scenarios will progress one time unit, and 15 time units per season.

Wooo, that’s all the information, I can catch my breath again. But that’s Frosthaven. Sorry for the wall of text, but not much for images thus far, and I’ve spent some time with this, so I’m not going to track them all down.

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New video up on the Malts and Meeples Youtube/Twitch channel. It is a bit shorter game than some, but it’s also not game play, it’s just an unboxing of Tainted Grail.

Tainted Grail is a big story driven game from Awaken Realms who have done games like Nemesis and Lords of Hellas. In Tainted Grail, you play as not that heroic characters who are pulled into adventuring as the Menhir (statues that drive back the wyrdness) are starting to go out. Can you keep them lit in order to complete the quests? It’s a story game, but also a survival game as you are dealing with diplomatic and combat encounters. I don’t spoil any cards in the video, don’t worry, or the adventure journal which really drives the game.

The beer last night was from O’Dell Brewing Co. A big barrel aged beer, I really enjoyed Barreled Treasure Imperial Stout. It’s barrel aged as I said with cold brew coffee as well. I think it’s a beer that is better a bit warmer because you get more of the flavors. It’s also sitting at 11%, so a good beer for a cold winter night.

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Almost forgot to share this, it was a rush, but I go through nine different level 1 characters for Dungeons and Dragons. I was hoping that I could knock them out fast, but it took a little bit, but I got them done. And I demonstrated how you can use D&D Beyond to create your characters as well.

These will be a characters that I’m going to be using in a one shot. So I created a good variety of characters. I had a question asked that I missed last night, but basically, I didn’t go with two personality traits because I wanted to keep the characters more generic for a one shot.

The beer last night was from Indeed Brewery. Mexican Honey Light Lager. It’s a good beer and a nice light one. Not the best winter beer, but I wasn’t feeling a big and heavy beer last night.

Bottoms up!