This is an Abomination! (Playthrough of Zombicide: Black Plague)

Ten heroes.  Just ten warriors brought together to defeat a common enemy.  A variety of motivations and backgrounds follow each of these warriors as they entered the deserted town with a single purpose: find the abomination and destroy it.

The quest began with a bang as doors to supposedly empty buildings were hacked down.  Within were monsters right out of every child's nightmares.  Theo, the quickest of the warriors, runs off alone from the group to check another building.  Fortunately, he finds nothing.

The Game That Slays (Review of Zombicide: Black Plague)

Zombicide: Black Plague is the successor to the popular Zombicide games, now set in a medieval/fantasy world.  The game is basically an RPG-light dungeon crawl.  You gain experience and level up within a game session; your skills and abilities don't carry over into subsequent quests.  You and your friends take 6 or more characters I went withon your adventure, divvying them up among the players, and tackle a horde of zombies.  

Each quest provides you with a goal to accomplish that could involve getting to a certain location, finding items, defeating a certain enemy, or leveling up to a specific level.  Along the way you will find new weapons and armor to assist you as you kill wave after wave of zombies.  This is a game where you feel strong!  You don't waste a whole turn trying to kill one enemy.  No, each turn you are trying to figure out just how many zombies you can take out.  Four?  Five?  Ten?  Twenty?  My best this last playthrough was one character taking out around twenty, but my best was thirty-seven (there was an enormous dragon fire involved). 

A Sneak Peak

As you may remember, or at least noticed, I'm playing through all of my solo games to rank them for the upcoming 2017 People's Choice Top 100 Solo Games on boardgamegeek.com  Also, it was a way to resist buying new games (failed that - three new games were shipped today...).  

This week I pulled out Zombicide: Black Plague.  I'm not done yet because I made a crazy choice.  I decided to play a solo game using all ten characters that come in the base game plus the Wulfsburg expansion.  Here's how my table looks.

Fire Photon Torpedoes! (Review of Star Realms)

Star Realms is a deckbuilder where you are building up an army of space ships and space stations.  You can play the game cooperatively against others or cooperatively/solo against an enemy card.  You collect resources to buy new ships/stations and try to build up your attack power (called "authority") to destroy you foes.

Total Plays: 50 solo, 10 cooperative, 600+ digital

COMPONENTS
I’m not a card game sleeve-er, but if I had to sleeve one, it should be this game (but I won’t). It is looking a little shabby, but I don’t believe it’s from a lack of quality but due to a large amount of shuffling. I usually play this game on my tiny iPhone screen and so I often forget how much I love the artwork until I pull out the physical game and play it. 4/5

RULES
To be honest, I don’t know if I have ever read the rules to this game before. My brother-in-law introduced the game to me and after he taught it to me, I just knew it. It is a very simple game and all of the different actions and abilities are fairly self-explanatory. Even the solo/cooperative rules that change the gameplay aren’t difficult to figure out. I’ve also found this game extremely easy to teach other. 5/5

Pursuing Happiness (The Pursuit of Happiness)

Had an awesome double date with my brother and his wife on Friday night.  First we went to a new place in town, Town Square Brewery.  I drank the most beer I've ever drank in my entire life - five sips!  I'm not much of a alcohol drinker (the smell makes me want to vomit) but it's okay, because they had homemade root beer.

And

it

was

amazing!

I can't go back to A&W after this.  I've never liked root beer before.  Now I'm hooked.  I think technically it was root beer tea, but whatever it was, it was good.

The Great War (Playthrough of The Grizzled)

On February 21, 1916, the Battle of Verdun began, one of many battles that would rage across Europe during The Great War.  It would last until December 18 of that same year.  377,231 French soldiers went into battle against the Germans and 162,440 never came home.  Here is the story of three of these soldiers.

Charles and Gaston had grown up together and were lucky enough to end up in the same unit.  They became fast friends with Gustave during training, bonding over their common, small town upbringing.  Gaston's younger brother had already died during the war and Charles and Gustave's friendships are what got him through this.  Before the first shots were even fired, they had a bond that would last the rest of their lives.

"No peace 'till victory." (Review of The Grizzled)

The Grizzled is a hand management, press your luck game, set in a World War I theme.  The focus is not on fighting and battling, however, the focus is how soldiers can work together to survive the dangers of war.  The game asks the question: "Can friendship be stronger than war?"

The game has two decks.  The threat deck is the deck that you want to get rid of.  You get rid of it by playing cards during the missions you go on.  The more cards you can play in a mission, the more you can get rid of from the threat deck.  When this deck is empty, you win!

The second deck is the morale deck.  After each mission, cards move from the morale deck to the threat deck.  You want to try and deplete this deck as slowly as possible.  When this deck is empty, you lose!

Death by Jaguar (The Lost Expedition)

What to teachers do when they're waiting for parent-teacher interviews to start?  They play card games with their student teachers.  Today we tried to make it to the lost city of El Dorado playing The Lost Expedition.  Some parents arrived too early and we had to clean up before we had finished.  Luckily we were about to be eaten by a jaguar, so instead we could just call the game on account of work.

This is a fun little puzzle-y game.  I'm not always in the mood for it, but it was easy to play at school.  Plus, the art is amazing - by far some of the most beautiful and vibrant art I've seen in a game.

"Hi, I'm Theo, and I play board games alone."

As a mainly solo board gamer, I feel quite misunderstood.  When I tell someone that I play board games by myself, they can't hide the surprised look on their face fast enough.  Okay, surprised with a hint of disgust and pity.  It's a strange look.  

But, who cares what they think, right?  Board games have replaced video games for me as my hobby and I love it (although I have been loving my new SNES Classic).  Lately I've been going through all of my solo games, one-by-one, and doing playthroughs and reviews of them.  The main reason for this was to stop me from buying any new games (BUY ALL THE THINGS) and appreciate what I already have.  This has been a great experience!  Some of those posts are here and some are on boardgamegeek.com, although I'm transferring them here as posts.

Last night I took a look at my games and realized that I've managed to get a good chunk of games played!

"May the force (wall) be with you." (Playthrough of One Deck Dungeon)

I descend down into darkness.  Never would I walk into the constricting darkness of this dungeon if it weren't for the promise of riches and adventure.  My skills with the bow had been honed over years of practice, of days spent firing arrow after arrow after arrow.  I can almost feel the right shot to make without even having to see it.  Now it is time to put those skills to use.

Dice, Dice, Baby! (Review of One Deck Dungeon)

Total Plays: 20 solo, 2 cooperative

This was a game I picked up because it was making a lot of noise on the solo guild at boardgamegeek.com.  This is a dice pool building game - you start with certain dice and as you play the game you add new dice to your pool.  You use this pool of dice to perform various actions.

In the case of this dice pool building game, you will be venturing into a dungeon and encountering two types of cards: monsters and traps.  You will choose to open a door and then you will have an encounter.  Whether its a monster or a trap, the encounter card (along with the dungeon card that is a part of every encounter) will identify what type of dice you need to roll to defeat it.

"Nobody tosses a dwarf!" (Playthrough of Lord of the Rings: The Card Game)

"You have been sent by the White Council to Moria, to deliver a message to Balin and his Dwarven colony.  No one has heard from him in a while."

Why Can't I love You? (Review of Lord of the Rings: The Card Game)

Total Plays: 20 solo, 1 cooperative

I have tried so hard to love this game.  I've only been a board game geek for two and a half years, but I was born and raised a Tolkien nerd.  My parents didn't quite give me the middle name Gimli, but we loved the books and then (most) of the movies when they came out.  A Lord of the Rings game that I could play solo?  It was like a dream come true.  At least, it was a dream that I tried to make come true.  Did I succeed?

Lord of the Rings is a living card game and so there area a zillion expansions you can.  I'm playing with the following:
- base set (duh)
- Return to Mirkwood
- Across the Ettenmoors
- Khazad-dum
- Shadow and Flame
- The Long Dark
- The Hobbit: Over Hill and Under Hill
- The Hobbit: On the Doorstep

"We will all burn together!" (Playthrough of Hotshots)

"If this is to end in fire, then we will all burn together!" - Thorin Oakenshield

This game has absolutely nothing to do with The Hobbit, but it is all about fire!  Last night Logan invited me to over to play his brand new game Hotshots (which, coincidentally, comes from the same people who brought us Castle Panic), a forest fire fighting game.  Castle Panic is a solid game and I really enjoy Flash Point: Fire Rescue, another fire fighting game, so I was pretty excited for this one!

The premise of the game is pretty simple.  You are firefighters (four to choose from with different abilities) trying to put out a forest fire.  The hexagonal tiles are set up randomly and each tile is a different location with unique abilities.  If certain locations get "scorched" your firefighter might lose his ability.  Each location has a unique set of dice rolls that you need to get in order to put out fires and build fire breaks.  There is also an airplane, helicopter, and off road fire truck that you can put to use once per game.  The wind changes direction and spreads the fire and you need to keep it under control before eight locations get scorched!

We played two games and here is my playthrough of the first.  I apologize for the tiles being upside down.  It was at Logan's house and Logan's new game so he wanted the tiles to be facing him.  So selfish, right?

But before we begin - look at these amazing fire miniatures!  I want these for Flash Point!

"They have a cave troll." (Review of Castle Panic)

Total Plays: 10 solo, 20 cooperative

Castle Panic is a tower defense style game (there are many digital adaptations of this found on smart phones, such as Fieldrunners and Kingdom Rush) where you use cards to defeat your enemies. An assortment of monsters such as orcs and goblins start at the outer ring (the forest ring) of the board and progress through the archer, knight, and swordsmen rings until they reach your castle in the middle of the board. If they do that, they will smash it apart.

As they progress through the ring, you will have cards that attack certain rings and colours (the board is split into six pizza slices: two green, two blue, and two red). For example, I could play a green knight to attack an enemy in either of the green sections of the knight ring.

Whoops!

  We recently purchased The Dice Tower Essentials Game 'Viral', from Arcane Wonders. When we opened the box we discovered that the board was not only sticky, but the print itself was lifting off the board.

Huh?

I reached out the Arcane Wonder's customer support with my concerns. Not only did I received a quick response, but they sent me a new board for the game within a couple of days. Well... Unfortunately the new board had a similar issue. So I contacted customer support once again. I received a quick response, explaining that they were now aware of a manufacturing issue and that they are expecting new boards in stock in the coming weeks, which they will email me the tracking number when my new, new board is on it's way. 

Well to my surprise a package came a week later, and it was from Arcane Wonder. A random assortment of items were inside, all of which was not related to Viral at all.

Random Box of Mystery

Mage Wars Arena Premium Board

  Once again, I reached out to customer service from Arcane Wonders, asking if this was intentional, or a mistake. Arcane Wonders confirmed it was a shipping error and not to worry about returning the product.  Sweet! Free stuff, yah? Well...you see I don't actually own Mage Wars Arena. Although, I must admit, I felt an obligation to impulsively purchase Mage Wars Arena to validate my possession of my newfound loot. But now I'm not sure what to do with these promotional items. Do I give them away? Do I try and find a copy to buy? Or see if my local board game cafe has one in stock to play? 

In Review

We don't REALLY know what we're doing.  We hope we'll be of some interest to somebody, but mostly we just want to have an outlet for our love of board games.  As we go along, though, I will be doing some reviews of games because it helps me to know which games to keep and not to keep.  It would probably be helpful if you knew what my reporting categories were and what they meant.  Hopefully I can help you save (and spend) your hard earned money.

A Formal Introduction

  Hello internet! My name is Logan, and I am very excited to be starting this new adventure with my brother in-law, Theo. First off I want to clarify something before we start getting questions on this. Yes, I look young, but I assure you I am probably a solid decade older than what you're thinking (Thanks genes). Now that, that has been addressed, onwards!

  I remember very early on in my childhood playing games such as Monopoly, Don't wake daddy (which is when I first experienced heart palpitations), and Mouse Traps... which mostly devolved into us kids playing with the cool plastic components (I still don't know how to play the game). Generally, as a family, our time spent around a board game would turn into an argument between our parents or my siblings, which in the case of Monopoly is just a part of the experience, but for us this was every game. Except one, PAYDAY!

  Yes, this was perhaps the only game I have fond memories of playing with my family growing up. This simple roll and move game not only created great memories, but also taught us children the importance of spending our money wisely... No not really, it was mostly just good memories. At some point in time, we put the game away for the last time and it's whereabouts is a mystery only Sherlock Holmes himself could solve. 

  Although the good memories of PAYDAY remained, it was not enough to salvage the potential hobby from flourishing in my youth. In fact I actively avoided board games for the next decade or so. It wasn't until I started dating a girl in my mid-twenties, that I played a 'modern' game. I remember the experience vividly. We had just started dating, and I was still getting to know her family. The suggestion was made to play a 'board game'. Which translated meant, 'you wana fight?'. The internal recoil that preceded lodged firmly in my throat. 'Sure', I said. My girlfriend walked down the hallway and opened the closet door, which was filled with horrors from my wildest dreams. Board games... dozens and dozens of board games! She took a moment to ponder the flavour of my impending torture, and grabbed a small box. So small, and innocent, but I was not going to be played the fool, I knew what lurked within. 

  Citadels, by Fantasy Flight Games, was the name of my jailor, for the evening. The rules were explained, and the first move was made. Then another. And another. And then something happened... My sweet-hearted girlfriend turned into something from beyond the abyss. A poker faced sweet talking, back stabbing creature. The game concluded in my defeat, and was placed back into the closet of horror. My girlfriend returned to her normal, kind spirited self, and I realized something. I enjoyed myself. A lot. The next day I was thinking about the game we played, the laughter with her family, and memories made. Even through the intense moments, there was a pure sense of enjoyment. We were all, actively engaging in something, not passive, but intentional, pure, interaction. It was at that time I opened my computer, typed in youtube 'board games' and found The Dice Tower and a reviewer named Tom Vassel. 

  It's been over five years since that day and as you can see, things have changed a bit. My girlfriend, is now my beautiful wife, and is a preschool teacher. I am a  first responder, in the city I grew up in. We enjoy board games with friends, each other, and family (on both sides), on a regular basis.

  Many view board games as a simple means of entertainment, and they are valid to do so. However, for me, board games are so much more. Board games represent intentional focused interaction, in an age that is filled with distractions. It represents community, joyful memories, and momentary pause in an otherwise busy world. It is my hope, that by writing reviews, thoughts, and our gaming experiences on this blog, Theo and I can help bring the joy we have found in board games, into other peoples lives.

Crashin' the Boards

In the last two and a half years my collection has continued to grow, I've continued to learn about the hobby (is there a better word than hobby?), and I've done some posting of reviews and playthroughs on boardgamegeek. My brother-in-law Logan (you'll learn about him soon enough) and I decided to put our thoughts and ideas in a blog.

Hello there and welcome to our little board game haven! My name is Theo and I am one of the creators of this blog. I've been married for six years and have two kids; a four year old and a one year old. I am an elementary school teacher and feel that I have about the same maturity level as the students I teach.

My family was always into games growing up. We'd play lots of the Crainium acting/guessing games at holidays. There were some epic international battles playing Axis and Allies and Risk with my older brother. I'll also add that there were quite a few Monopoly boards flipped back in the day, and it was usually done by yours truly. In my teenage years a friend of mine and his family introduced me to Settlers of Catan. I mostly just sat and watched this family explode around me as they pouted, whined, kept track of who traded with them, yelled, and stormed out of the room. It was very exciting. Especially when I won. During our dating, engaged, and now married years, my wife and I would play some light games with our friends. We liked Bohnanza especially, but BANG! was another favourite.