While the term ‘Spin-Off’ might inherently sound like a lesser version of its source material, movies such as Creed (Rocky) and Logan (X-Men), TV shows such as The Mandalorian (Star Wars) and Better Call Saul (Breaking Bad), books including The Lord of the Rings trilogy (The Hobbit) and the Wax and Wayne Series (Mistborn), and video games including Super Mario Bros (Donkey Kong) and Super Smash Bros (Nintendo) would beg to differ.

The world of board games is also rife with spin-offs, whether a publisher is milking the cash cow of a popular IP or a designer is exploring their clever concept from another angle, or both!  Our consumerist society lives and dies by a constant blend of nostalgia and novelty.  The benefit of a great spin-off game is that often it can end up being even better than the source that inspired it! 

In celebration of our upcoming publication, Trailblazers—which is itself a spin-off of the critically acclaimed Pipeline—we’ll explore my Top 10 Spin-Off Games and how they iterate on their parent designs.  And be sure to stick around for the end where I’ll reveal new juicy info and images on Trailblazers by Ryan Courtney!

7 Wonders Duel

7 Wonders is a card drafting, civilization building game that took the gaming world by storm in 2010.  It went on to win dozens of nominations and awards including the coveted Kennerspiel Des Jahres.  Players love how quick and crunchy the decisions are as well as the various strategies one can pursue from crushing military to crafty science.

Five years later, the designer of 7 Wonders (Antoine Bauza) teamed up with another prolific creator (Bruno Cathala) to bring us a 2-player dueling version of his classic in 7 Wonders Duel.  Duel takes the core civ-building formula and turns the experience into a more tense, cut-throat, and interactive competition.  It’s why I haven’t played regular 7 Wonders in years.  While one player threatens to end the game immediately with a military victory, the other might be sneaking their way to a sudden science win.  Every card you draft from the pyramid display opens up another opportunity for your opponent.  And the expansions to this one add even more juicy layers to the strategy.

Blitzkrieg/Caesar

Staying on the topic of 2-player versions of beloved concepts, Blitzkrieg is a 2 player Paolo Mori design that shares much in common with his older 3-5 player game, Dogs of War.  Both games explore an interesting combination of worker placement tug-of-war where you’ll commit your piece to a region to pull a region marker in your direction, and the space you place your piece on top of will often grant an immediate bonus.  

Dogs of War remains one of my favorite games, but it really only works with 4 or 5 players.  Blitzkrieg manages to offer me a similar tension of dangling carrots and shifting momentum in a lightning fast 20 minutes that only requires one more player.  That’s why both of these games ended up right next to each other on my most recent Top 50 Games of All Time post.  We’ll see if 2022’s Caesar—the spin-off of this spin-off—manages to also reach such lofty heights, but so far it’s looking very promising.

L.A.M.A. Dice

L.A.M.A Dice is a 2021 release that is based on the popular card game L.A.M.A., yet it hasn’t officially made its way to North America yet.   Hopefully that will change soon, as we’ve found L.A.M.A. Dice to be a hoot at the table.  This is a particularly surprising redemption story for L.A.M.A. considering my initial impressions of the card game weren’t too enthusiastic.  I’ll be sharing my full thoughts on this game soon, but here’s a teaser for now:

While L.A.M.A. Dice plays out similarly to L.A.M.A. the card game, it also has some key differences that make it the more lively, loud, and laugh-inducing game of the two.  Where the card game is more about quiet, subtle, and private hand management, the dice game is about clackety rolls, foolish decisions, public humiliations, and occasionally glorious triumphs.  While there is of course a big old dollop of luck to the game of L.A.M.A., the dice game transforms that luck into a collective experience of laughs, groans, and cheers.  And because it comes in at a breezy 20 minutes, that means that you can get in, have a colorful little riot, get out, and be on to the next game in the blink of an eye.

Patchwork

One cannot discuss board game spin-offs without discussing the legendary duo of A Feast for Odin and Patchwork.  The legend goes that while esteemed designer Uwe Rosenberg was crafting and polishing his magnum opus—the dense and sprawling polyomino worker placement game A Feast for Odin—he began to toy with a smaller 2-player design that focuses solely on the polyominoes.  

In this case, the spin-off ended up releasing a whole two years before its source material, but the end result was the same.  We got two excellent games from a master chef who went on to craft many more polyomino designs.  While Patchwork and A Feast for Odin cater to very different crowds, you never know if these two might be the gateway drug for polyomino lovers into the realm of heavy Euro games.

Pandemic: Iberia

Pandemic is an industry phenomenon that likewise has a cornucopia of spin-off titles thanks to its monstrous popularity and approachability as a cooperative game.  While many Pandemic spin-offs would be great options for this list, I opted for my favorite of the bunch.  This one features the opportunity to develop rail lines for faster travel plus a preventative buffer action of distributing water.

2 new actions, a different board, and a few rules tweaks doesn’t seem like it would make a big difference.  Yet Pandemic: Iberia is the best version of any Pandemic spinoff or copy-cat that I’ve ever played.  The stakes are raised, the strategy is deepened, the tension is thickened, and our love for Pandemic is rekindled. 

Schotten Totten 2

I see many folks point to Battle Line / Schotten Totten as their favorite 2-player game and/or favorite Knizia design of all time.  Who can blame them?  This clever 2-player card game of forming poker sets across a battle line is ripe with tough choices, narrow defeats, and tight victories.  

So what does a sequel to this masterpiece possibly have to offer?  Surprisingly, a lot.  Schotten Totten 2 approaches this tactical card game with a few interesting wrinkles that dramatically change the overall experience.  Both players have asymmetric objectives and abilities as one defends their wall while the other tries to break through.  Furthermore, each section of the wall features a unique formation requirement to keep you on your toes.  This one continues to grow on me with more plays, which is why it’s absolutely worthy of this list.

Brass: Birmingham

Here we have another spin-off that seemingly split it’s fanbase right down the middle as to which one they prefer.  But more than anything, I typically hear that fans of Brass are happy to play either Lancashire (the original) or Birmingham (the spin-off), and that’s the mark of a great spin-off based on a solid classic.

Birmingham offers a few twists to the Brass gameplay including a new scout action to obtain wild cards, several new industry types, and an additional commodity—the ever precious beer.  It seems that folks who like more flexibility opt for Birmingham while those who glutton for punishment prefer Lancashire, but you really can’t go wrong either way.

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea is perhaps the only spin-off on this list where many fans claim that it makes the original game obsolete in their collection.  That’s only because Mission Deep Sea possesses a more elegant mission structure that provides infinitely more possibilities.  This is another one I’ll be discussing further soon (in an upcoming first-impressions post), but since you’re here I might as well spoil my conclusion:

Much more than The Quest for Planet Nine, Mission Deep Sea feels like a game I can endlessly revisit (even after beating all the missions) because I’ll never see the same combination of objective cards.  Essentially, you can astutely consider Mission Deep Sea the Toy Story 2, the Spider-man 2, or the Shrek 2 of card games.  It takes a bona-fide classic and does it even better.

Yellow & Yangtze

Tigris & Euphrates is one of my favorite games of all time thanks to abyss of layered strategy and brilliant interactions that exist in its box.  While T&E has existed as a holy grail game for decades now, Reiner Knizia boldly decided to create a sister design to it only a few short years ago.  

While I consider the original to be a perfect experience, it seems as though every T&E complaint that someone might have regarding luck of the draw, value of the tiles, usefulness of leaders in the late game, brutality of the conflicts, etc., has been considered and addressed in one way or another here in Yellow & Yangtze.  Between the low-key enormous shift to hexagon spaces (from squares) and the shocking addition of yellow tiles (providing wild points), there’s an entirely new pool of possibilities to explore.  It’s so brilliantly distinct that I consistently have a commitment crisis just deciding which of these two favorites I should play next.

Tournament at Avalon

Some designs just understand how to embrace chaos and capture its essence within a ruleset that still manages to make you feel strategically clever.  Tournament at Camelot is one such design, and this trick-taking card game is further improved upon with the spin-off: Tournament at Avalon.  I haven’t even played the original game, but I understand enough to know that what Avalon adds to experience is something I couldn’t live without.  These improvements include more strategic flexibility for when you can play your wild cards plus even wackier powers that help make the most of this zany premise.  Check out my full review of this spin-off here.

Honorable Mentions

• Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
• Pandemic Legacy
• Ra: The Dice Game
• The Quest for El Dorado: The Golden Temples
• Undaunted: North Africa
• Curious Cargo

Trailblazers—An Exciting New Spin-off

During my Most Anticipated Games of 2022 post, I shared how Trailblazers is to Pipeline as Patchwork is to A Feast for Odin.  Some might cry that I’m doing Curious Cargo a disservice by not including it in this comparison, as it is technically another spin-off of Pipeline that is even exclusively a 2-player game (similar to Patchwork).  That said, designer Ryan Courtney approached the design of Trailblazers in a dramatically different way from how he designed Curious Cargo.  So let’s explore a little bit more of what makes Trailblazers unique from its windy pipe siblings.

From day one, Ryan has approached the creation of Trailblazers with two priorities in mind:

1. Make the game rules as simple and approachable as possible (contrast this to Curious Cargo which was intended to cram as much brain-burning, decision-making complexity into a small-box as possible)
2. Develop compelling solo modes to make this a solo-friendly game as much as it is a family-friendly game

These two design goals have been like a guiding North Star through the entire development of Trailblazers.  We’ll save the discussion of that second priority for next month, but for now let’s explore what makes Trailblazers approachable for anyone yet satisfying for everyone.

Many folks will point to the spatial puzzle aspect of Pipeline and Curious Cargo (the windy pipe domino tiles) as their favorite element of those designs.  That’s because there is something inherently satisfying about finding and fitting the perfect tiles together to establish an elaborate network of routes.  Pipeline utilizes this puzzle to fit into a larger economic challenge where the spatial puzzle aspect simply becomes: “build your pipes as long as possible to help you refine oil.”  Curious Cargo cranks the spatial brutality up to eleven by giving you less flexibility in your tile options and more demands in what exactly needs to connect to where in order to ship and receive cargo of the curious kind.

Trailblazers features the same type of domino tiles (albeit these are cards, not tiles, and trails, not pipes or conveyer belts), yet this time the game steps completely out of the way and gives you a wide open field of endless possibilities.  Gone are the economic considerations and shipping demands.  Cast aside are the brain-melting conversions and pesky rules restrictions.  Here, you’ll simply be drafting two cards from a hand of options and arranging and layering them however you’d like.

The other side of the coin that really gives Trailblazers a distinct flavor is the objective of the game: to construct loops that start and end at a campsite of the matching trail color.  Like I mentioned previously, Pipeline asks its players to build long networks, Curious Cargo demands that they establish very specific and deliberate connections, but Trailblazers simply requests that your adventurous routes return back to their square camp card eventually.  Yet between that time period of now and eventually (or more specifically, before the end of the game), you can blaze your trails however you’d like.  

It seems almost too loose and free to be interesting, but the tension of the game is quickly uncovered when you must decide how far you wish to push your luck.  How long and elaborate and winding are you going to make your trail before you focus on connecting it back to camp?  How many loops are you going to invest your precious turns in before the final round of the game sneaks up on you and demands you complete them all?  A loop that is 99% complete is a loop that will score zero points at the end of the game.

Yet this push-your-luck pillar of Trailblazers is exactly why a game with rules as simple as “draft two cards and place them however you want” is still satisfying for more ambitious and experienced spatial puzzlers.  I consider myself a relative veteran, having played Ryan’s spatial puzzlers—including Trailblazers—many times.  Yet I’ve managed to lose the game to complete newcomers because I flew too close to the sun and got burned by my lofty ambitions while my opponents played smarter and safer.  And for a game that is over in the blink of an eye—usually about 30 minutes—I’m able to laugh at my failures rather than painfully regret my poor decisions or resent a stroke of bad luck.

That’s the beauty of Trailblazers for me.  It provides all the juicy spatial puzzling and brain-burning strategy that Ryan Courtney fans (such as myself) have come to love, yet it’s also a game that I can introduce to anybody and not completely crush them at thanks to its press-your-luck simplicity.  For a hobbyist who still can’t get enough of Pipeline (and its zesty new expansion) and Curious Cargo, Trailblazers is absolutely my kind of spin-off game.

Want to follow Trailblazers all the way to its Q2 Kickstarter launch? Be sure to subscribe to the Bitewing Games newsletter where we’ll continue to reveal more art, components, and details over the coming weeks.

Article written by Nick Murray. Outside of practicing dentistry part-time, Nick has devoted his remaining work-time to collaborating with the world’s best designers, illustrators, and creators in producing classy board games that bite, including the upcoming Trailblazers by Ryan Courtney. He hopes you’ll join Bitewing Games in their quest to create and share experiences that, much like a bitewing x-ray, provide a unique perspective and refreshing interaction.

The post Top 10 Spin-off Board Games appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Nick is joined by his lovely wife, Camille, as they discuss their Top 10 Board Games for Couples.  Whether you have a SO, a friend, or a stranger willing to play a 2-player game with you, we think you’ll find some killer suggestions within this discussion.

1:29 – Meet Camille
5:57 – About this list
7:53 – Cami’s 1st pick
11:29 – Nick’s Best Huge Sprawling Game
16:29 – Cami’s favorite no brain required game & Nick’s Most Prized Possession
20:46 – Nick’s Best Cooperative Game
23:43 – Cami’s next polyomino pick
25:08 – Nick’s Most Addictive Game
28:48 – Cami’s Chess-style preference
30:43 – Nick’s Most Polarizing Game
34:43 – Cami’s go-to card game
37:08 – Nick’s Best Non-Confrontational Game
40:31 – Cami & Nick’s Endlessly Entertaining Pick
44:17 – Nick’s Best AP-Inducing Game(s) + Cami’s similar alternative
50:13 – Cami’s favorite classic
53:21 – Nick’s Old Reliable Choice
56:03 – Cami’s final pick
59:00 – Nick & Cami’s Favorite New Game
1:06:11 – An exciting upcoming reveal… (Click here to follow along)

The post Top 10 Board Games for Couples — Podcast Exclusive appeared first on Bitewing Games.

With some hot games getting a second print run and others making their initial splash, I’ve been able to try a fresh handful of new releases. It’s that time again to get candid with the cardboard by sharing my first impressions…

The Search for Planet X

1 Play

The Search for Planet X is not going to change anybody’s mind about this entire genre of puzzly deduction games, but it just might be the absolute best of the bunch.

This is one of the few tabletop games in the market where the required mobile app deserves more complements than complaints.  As we’ve observed in other great deduction games like Cryptid or Loot of Lima, the entire game can be broken for everyone if a player accidentally gives the wrong information.  In this case, nobody has the opportunity to ruin the game for everyone, because the app does all the hard work of dispensing information to each player individually.

The mechanisms are very clever as well, as you have a few options for what kind of information you want the app to give you, but they come with varying costs.  Cost in this case translates to time, and the more time your chosen action requires, the longer it will take for your next turn to arrive.  Time is spent by moving your observatory marker around the circular board, and the player at the back is the one who takes the next turn.

To reduce AP, the board also has a rotating shield that covers up half of the spaces and limits your options for which sectors you can investigate.  An exciting aspect of this rotating shield is that every time it reaches a theory symbol, players can each publish one theory which remains secret for a few rounds before flipping face up and being proven for points or disproven for penalties.  The game urges you to take leaps of faith and cut some corners in your deductions, because the benefits of correct theories far outweigh the punishment of incorrect ones.

In fact, the points from well-timed, accurate theories can potentially be enough to win the game without ever discovering Planet X.  Where most deduction games only reward the first deducer with the victory while everyone else is declared a loser, The Search for Planet X rewards all players constantly throughout the game.  The victory comes down to a tight margin of points that represent an accumulation of each player’s brilliant discoveries throughout the game.

Don’t be mistaken, The Search for Planet X still succumbs to the usual genre tropes of being a low interaction, brain-burning logic puzzle.  But for those who enjoy a good mental challenge, this one is the cream of the crop.

Current Rating: 8.5/10

Red Rising

1 Play

I wouldn’t call myself a Red Rising superfan, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading the original trilogy back in 2018.  I probably gobbled all three books up in less than two months.  Unfortunately, three years is plenty of time for me to forget all but the major plot beats.  To oversimplify things, I felt it was a better version of the Hunger Games.  Actually, let’s desimplify a bit… I don’t remember as much now, but I dug up my non-spoilery remarks on the first book that I posted on Goodreads after reading it: 

“Basically if you liked how the Hunger Games trilogy started (let’s be honest, book 3 was a let down), then there is no reason you won’t love Red Rising. It has a dystopian society with different classes of people (sort of like Hunger Games), but beyond that you will find an entirely different beast of a novel.

Red Rising is a brutal, blazing journey through an imaginative sci-fi world of futuristic Mars with an unstoppable force of a main character and his quest for justice against an all powerful organization—a story that I couldn’t put down.”

So with a New York Times Bestselling Trilogy as its theme, and the Stonemaier Games as its publisher, Red Rising is a juggernaut of an IP-based board game.  Despite my history with the IP, I typically don’t come into these types of games with many expectations.  What I appreciate most is when a design can evoke the feeling of its theme to where they feel inseparable.  And to me, Red Rising the book series is a story of passion, brutality, vengeance, and thrills.  Ironically enough, Red Rising the board game evoked the exact opposite feelings from its source material–namely apathy, gentleness, sympathy, and drudgery.

Those who are familiar with Stonemaier Games shouldn’t be surprised to find a low-interaction, conflict-averse design here, even with its conflict heavy source material.  And I don’t take offense from the gameplay actively rebelling against its inspiration.  All it means to me is that the theme can simply be tossed out the window like the core of a once-tasty apple so I can focus solely on driving the mechanisms at play.  Sure, maybe keeping both the red EO card and other gray cards in your hand is a bad idea because EO and gray people don’t get along well in the books or something… but at the end of the day, we’re just min-maxing points here.  Points points points, baby.

Players start out with five cards each and they spend the entire game perfecting their hand of cards to maximize their scoring potential.  Typically, you’ll deploy a card into one of four columns to trigger its deploy ability, then claim a card in another column and trigger the column bonus.  Column bonuses include moving up a point track, adding a point cube to a rectangle, taking a point gem, or stealing the point token.  Additionally, final cards in your hand are worth flat points at the top and potential bonus points at the bottom.  Those bonus points are usually positive, but occasionally negative.   Points points points, baby.

If you don’t want to lose a card from your hand by deploying it, you can instead take the scout action which has you reveal a new card from the deck to place in any column and gain that column’s bonus.  This action is basically the unwanted child of the game.  But boy did I become well acquainted with this little guy.

Most the cards I was able to acquire into my hand contained deploy abilities such as, “Move an orange card from this column to another column” or “If you deploy this card on top of a red card, then gain it.”  Yet I found these abilities to be so situationally specific (especially considering the deck contains at least eleven different colors) that they were relentlessly useless.  My most frequent decision made in this game was as follows:  Do I cling onto this card for another turn in hopes of its deploy ability becoming useful by mere chance, or do I trash it now to pick up something else that I don’t care about?  

I also found the very act of reading these cards—spread across my hand and sprawling across the board—to be quite the chore thanks to the text-heavy deploy abilities and bonus point objectives.  With all of these colorful, wordy cards, it’s a bit like gathering around fresh vomit from a sick unicorn who confused the library for a buffet.  Only, that actually sounds more interesting than Red Rising.

I can’t recall any standout moments between my opponents and I… probably because we were too busy reading, squinting, craning, calculating, and peeking.  And what was all that hard work and strategery for anyways?  The last player simply used his final turn to steal the point token—you know, that certain special way to score points we were talking about—and cause a 70-point swing from an opponent to himself.  Of course, this thief had no way of knowing that the cards in his victim’s hand where set up to score this poor sap 45 points by possessing the special token at the end of the game, plus another 10 points from the token itself.  Nope, this victory-stealing decision had nothing to do with the winner’s brilliant play or the victim’s costly mistake.  Instead, it had everything to do with plain, simple chance.  But in the end, we all got tons of those juicy, sweet points points points, baby.  And that’s all that matters, right?  Oh, and those fancy game pieces, of course.

As usual, Stonemaier Games does a pretty production with the Red Rising components here.  Our friend treated us to his deluxe copy which features dense metal player tokens, colorful individual card stands, and a custom plastic insert.  Although it’s worth noting that the card holders are flimsy enough that all of us knocked our entire stand of cards over at some point during the game (some of us more than once), and two sets of the player colors are nearly identical shades of gold.

To be clear, I appreciate the folks at Stonemaier Games for their unmatched customer service, community support, and genuine passion within the industry.  I don’t begrudge them, their games, or their fans.  I think their fearless leader, Jamey Stegmaier, is a standup guy and a brilliant businessman.  With my ever-changing preferences, I’ve simply found that Stonemaier’s style of games has lost its luster for me.  Viticulture + Tuscany remains the only Stonemaier survivor in my collection, and Red Rising claims the title of being my least favorite of the bunch.  Is Red Rising a bad game?  Who can say? I imagine it’s probably great for most Stonemaier fans. All I know is that it’s bad for me; but I can heartily recommend the books to any who are interested!

Current Rating: 3/10

Blitzkrieg: Nippon Expansion

1 Play

I love the Japanese faction (mainly due to Godzilla) and adore the new map included in this expansion to one of my favorite games of all time, Blitzkrieg.

The US map completely changes the flow of the game in a fascinating and unique way.  Instead of having multiple “campaigns” or rows in a particular theatre of operations where the top campaign must finish before the next one down opens up,  this new board has oodles of theaters with only one campaign each.  The tug of war tracks are thus shrunk down into tiny but furious battles where a big knockout carries its momentum forward into the next theatre (the cube starts out 1-3 spaces in the direction of the previous theatre’s victor).  The winner of the theatre also gets to decide where the cube goes next, thus opening up more space bonuses and giving their opponent first dibs on them.  I really dig the huge ripple effect that one theater victory can have.

My only complaints are about the special weapons tokens: 

First, why don’t these two new tokens have their movement values on them?!  Put “1/3” on the Partisans token and “1” on the Inspired Leadership token.  Simple as that. 

Second, the rules don’t clarify how the Scientist should be used on the new map, but we just assumed that the Scientist can be played onto any theatre of operations (including those that haven’t been started yet) as long as it hasn’t be won/closed.  

Third, the Partisans token is the worst special weapons token in the entire game—it’s basically an army token with either a value of 1 or a value of 3, both of which are worse than every other token which either has a higher value or a unique effect added.  So I’m not sure what the point was of adding The Partisans to the game.

Despite my wordy complaints, they are ultimately minor gripes to a worthwhile addition.  The Nippon Expansion is still a MUST OWN because of that insane map (and Godzilla, obviously).

Current Rating: 9/10

Railroad Ink Challenge

3 Plays

The new Railroad Ink Challenge won’t change anyone’s minds about Railroad Ink or roll & writes in general, but it is a noticeable improvement to the original games.

In particular, the special buildings allow for some nice small combos and incentives while the objective cards add in a little hint of competition and variety. When a route is drawn onto a space with a special building, that building triggers an immediate use-it-or-lose-it benefit. Residences grant points, Universities grant an extra free special intersection, and Factories grant an immediate duplicate of one of the white dice. The objective cards award more points to those who complete them first, and they range from filling in an entire row or column to connecting a specified number of exits with a single network. There are also 3 objective cards specific to each set of expansion dice.

Lush Green and Shining Yellow each have two unique expansions: one simple, one complex. For my tastes, the simple expansions (making forests for Lush Green and spreading cacti for Shining Yellow) are a bit too simplistic and similar to really stand out. Especially when compared to the River and Lake expansions of the Railroad Ink: Deep Blue Edition, these new ones somewhat pale in comparison. Yet with the added complexity that the new “Challenge” features provide, perhaps these toned-down expansions are justified.

On the other hand, the Canyons expansion of Shining Yellow provides quite an interesting wrinkle where players are allotted 12 total canyon bridges and must be careful not to get too ambitious over the 7 rounds of play, or they may find themselves boxed in by their own greed. We’ve yet to try the second expansion for Lush Green.

Ultimately, there’s no compelling reason to fork over the asking price for another entire set of Railroad Ink, yet here we are owning everything (thanks to the enticing Kickstarter), so we’re trying to enjoy the expansions and variations until they grow old. While my wife continues to enjoy the challenge that Railroad Ink provides, I find myself growing increasingly tired of roll & writes in general.

I find the act of playing a solid roll & write enjoyable in the moment yet forgettable and borderline regrettable after the game has concluded. Even with the competitive objective cards that Railroad Ink Challenge adds to the formula, I find these types of games to be the least interactive experiences in my entire collection. Each play of a roll & write feels like a lost opportunity to engage with everyone else at the table within a more compelling game.

The expansions are the main thing keeping Railroad Ink alive for me. They keep me from getting too bored with the formula and motivate me to try the ones I haven’t yet played. Yet the roll & write fatigue is getting real after roughly 70 plays across a dozen or so games in this genre.

Current Rating: 6/10

Barrage

1 Play

After being taught Barrage and playing through it once, I still don’t know what some of those resources are called, but I sure had a great time!

Barrage is hits the sweet spot for heavy-complexity gamers who love to roll up their sleeves and wrestle in the mud of cutthroat interaction.  The rules themselves aren’t too unwieldy or overwhelming, rather the struggle to achieve objectives efficiently is where Barrage starts to cook the brain.  Like many tight Euros, you’ll spend most of your turns trying to scrape every last morsel of progress out of your stuff; only in Barrage, everybody has their clawing fingers reaching into the same small, barren barrel all at the same time.

You may spend an entire meaty round (out of 5 total) building up a gloriously lucrative dam only for an opponent to come in next round and start rerouting all the water that was flowing into your energy cash cow from upstream.  When water is in short supply (and money, and resources, and action options, and workers, and building locations), every move you take can have devastating effects on opponents.

Barrage certainly isn’t as punishing of a game as something like Age of Steam or Bus, though.  There are plenty of paths one can take to accomplish their goals.  Players can seek to increase their recycling resource pool, speed up their resource washing machine, fulfill contracts for bonuses, purchase wildly powerful construction upgrades, restock their money supply, load up on more water to trickle down now or later, and more.  But every action, every decision, comes with a heavy opportunity cost and often a steep entrance fee, so you’ll frequently have to plan out multiple upcoming turns.

Beyond the solid asymmetry, tight economics, and deliciously brutal dynamics, Barrage carves out its own special thematic niche with the stacking dam tokens and overflowing waters and spinning resource wheel.  These standout features are the frosting on an exquisite cake.  Just be aware that this is a rich cake indeed, and those who prefer games that are gentler on the brain and feelings may struggle to get through this dense slice of strategy gaming.

Current Rating: 8/10

Article written by Nick Murray. Keep an eye out for his first published design, Social Grooming, which will debut in a Kickstarter bundle alongside two games from critically acclaimed designer, Reiner Knizia! Don’t miss out on this killer filler bundle coming in 2021! Subscribe to the Bitewing Games monthly newsletter to stay in touch.

The post Candid Cardboard: 1st Impressions of Red Rising, The Search for Planet X, Barrage, and more! appeared first on Bitewing Games.

It’s been nearly a year since we received the last of 2019’s thousands of board game releases.

I waited until nearly May to make my top games of 2019 list, and I’ve since discovered loads of great games, some of which would have even made my top 10 of the year. The sad truth is that there is simply not enough time to keep up with all the best new board games that are constantly pouring down on the industry. Especially not if your FONYO (Fear of Neglecting Your Own) keeps you coming back to your under-played collection.

I recently heard some content creators squirming over their top 10 games of 2020 lists due to the overwhelming amount of great designs. I’m always surprised when content creators are declaring their best games of the year when that year hasn’t even ended yet. Unless you are Tom Vasel, you likely haven’t played every noteworthy release of the year, even months into the following year. A quick glance at my want to play list on BGG reveals that I’ve only scratched the surface of 2020’s bangers, and it’s going to take me many months yet to even come close to trying everything that has caught my eye.

So rather than make a premature 2020 list, I feel inclined to revisit the many board games of 2019 that I’ve tried. I considered updating my top 10 games list, extending it to top 15 or 20, or even ranking all of the games I’ve tried against each other, but none of those options had a strong appeal to me. Instead, we’re gonna separate all these games into 5 different categories: Lovers, Keepers, Dumpers, Flingers, and Seekers. Let the fun begin!

Lovers

Games that I’m still CRAZY about.

I’m a bit of an explorer when it comes to my hobbyist gaming habits. This is mostly due to the curious designer within. Sometimes it results in me playing hot potato with certain games (see Dumpers below), but it’s all worth it when I find an absolute gem that I love. The following are my cream of the 2019 crop (in no particular order):

• Pipeline– I recently talked about how Pipeline made a poor first impression at our table, but eventually we came around to its brutal economics. What can I say? I guess I’m a glutton for punishment. But with a little practice and a lot of thinking, you’ll go from scraping oil out of the bottom of the barrel to drowning in gallons of that greasy goodness.

• Blitzkrieg!– Paolo Mori is quickly becoming one of my top designers. His quick and accessible Ethnos has long been my favorite gateway game, and his difficult to obtain Dogs of War is what I asked Santa for this Christmas. Blitzkrieg deserves a spot among his greatest hits thanks to its elegant back and forth battles between 2 players at war.

• The King’s Dilemma– I finally tracked down a copy and can happily report that it was worth the wait. If you enjoy bluffing, bidding, and negotiation all wrapped into a light role-playing package, and if you can track down a group of 5 people to join you, then this is a must-play legacy game.

• QE– I now own a crap-load of auctioning games. It’s a testament to QE’s uniqueness that it firmly remains a title that I get excited to play. I love myself a golden opportunity to mess with other people’s heads and sneak away with the victory.

• Watergate– A zesty but simple tug-of-war 2-player game, certainly in the same ballpark as Blitzkrieg. I love ’em both. If you’re a big fan of this game, then the Geek Up bits coming in Q2 2021 might catch your interest.

• Babylonia– If you’ve got a soft spot for Knizia tile layers, like me, then you really should be getting yourself a copy of Babylonia. This one feels like a hybrid between Samurai’s tense tile majorities and Through the Desert’s dangling carrots and snaking connections. The big differences here are that points are constantly/instantly awarded, unique abilities/bonuses are up for grabs, and decisions have a much wider ripple effect.

• Maracaibo– This is the sole lover of 2019 that I don’t own. I had a blast trying it out for the first time. Yet Maracaibo fills the same niche as Great Western Trail, and I don’t even give GWT enough table time. I would recommend this one to anybody who appreciates an epic heavy Euro.

• The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine– This game probably deserves a spot in my top 10 games of all time. That’s how addicting and delightful it was to play through its 50 cooperative missions. I still stand by my review and declaration that this is one of greatest card games of all time. Thank goodness Kosmos has announced a sequel for next year!

• A Feast for Odin: Mini Expansion 2– Before this expansion, I looked at the shorter (6-round) version of A Feast for Odin as a joke. Why would somebody shorten this sprawling game by a single round and miss out on the big 7th round climax? This expansion changed that entirely. It essentially trades the uneventful first round of a 7-round game for an interesting, highly variable setup with an exciting head start for everyone.

• Inis: Seasons of Inis (expansion)– Inis is one of my all time favorite games, and this expansion was well worth the investment. Particularly the extra Epic Tale cards and area tiles, the harbors and islands, and the 5th player addition.

• Mandala– Mandala is as good as simple 2-player cards games get. I rank it right up there with the likes of Jaipur, Lost Cities, and Battle Line.

• Pax Pamir (2nd Edition)– Between you and me, Pax Pamir might just be my #1 game of all time. After plenty of plays at a wide range of player counts, it is still that good. This is a deluxe strategy gaming experience in a deservedly deluxe package.

• Age of Steam: Deluxe Edition– Speaking of all time greats, Age of Steam is a newer title on my radar (with only two plays so far) and it’s already knocking on the door of my top 10. That’s right, if you’ve been counting, we have three releases from 2019 that are worthy to be among my 10 best! That’s a good year, my friends. Of course, I may be cheating considering that Age of Steam and Pax Pamir originally released in years prior. At any rate, this is the perfect blend of punishing economics and crafty interaction for those with a blood-thirsty appetite and thick skin.

• Undaunted: Normandy– My wife and I finally closed out our campaign of Undaunted: Normandy, and it was the bomb. This is the kind of deck builder that made me realize I didn’t need Dominion anymore. We’re looking forward to diving into the next one, Undaunted: North Africa.

Keepers

Other games that have survived the purge of 2020.

Now, obviously the Lovers mentioned above are Keepers. But there are plenty of other 2019 releases that I enjoy breaking out when the setting is right. The following games are great options that have thus far survived my purging ploys.

• Aerion- I’m not much of solo gamer, but Aerion eliminates all of my personal barriers to entry. This puzzly little game has a quick setup, minimal bookkeeping, and addictive gameplay loop that I intend to see through to the end of its several included expansions.

• Cairn– Cairn is one of those abstract games that is good enough to keep around yet forgettable enough to not get to the table. In other words, we’ve only played it once so far, but it was solid.

• Caylus 1303– This updated classic absolutely pummels your average worker placement game with its refined balance, deep interaction, and juicy tension. Just don’t set your expectations for something exceptionally unique.

• The Quest for El Dorado: The Golden Temples– I would not recommend this standalone expansion to somebody who has never tried the excellent Quest for El Dorado, but it does make for an interesting change of pace on its own and an epic journey when combined with the base game. More thoughts here.

• Azul: Summer Pavilion– I’ve weighed and measured Summer Pavilion against its siblings and found it to be a more gentle, gamer friendly version. At the end of the day, vanilla Azul is my go-to thanks to its more dynamic player interaction.

• Dice Forge: Rebellion (expansion)- I haven’t played Dice Forge in over year, which tells you a lot about how it fares against the rest of my collection. Rebellion does add a whole lot of interesting variety for fans of the game, and I’m hoping to explore the rest of it soon.

• Horrified– There are far too many Pandemic copy-cats out there, but Horrified remains one of the best. It’s a fun one to break out with non-gamers that presents an undeniably charming theme.

• Men at Work– I always get a kick out of Men at Work whenever we break it out. Nothing beats Crokinole as far as dexterity games go, but Men at Work is an excellent option that puts Jenga to shame.

• On Tour– While it isn’t my favorite roll & write, On Tour is one of the easiest to break out and teach others. It’s a nice, easy way to start out a game night as players discover how far they can stretch their strategies.

• PARKS– I suspect that if I was forced to play PARKS enough, it would get the boot from my collection. There’s just not a ton of meat here that I frequently crave. But as a gorgeous, pleasant game, I’m ok with breaking it open every now and then.

• Trophies– A quick, simple, and pretty party game of quick thinking. This is the kind of solid stocking stuffer that I would recommend to anyone. That’s why it landed a spot on our Holiday Board Game Gift Guide.

• Unmatched– This series becomes more and more fun as you explore the variety of characters and pit them against each other. Who wouldn’t want to see Bruce Lee take on 3 raptors?! I’ve talked about some of the newer sets here.

Dumpers

Games that I dropped like a hot potato.

Many of these games made a strong enough impression for me to purchase and enjoy them for several plays. Others were a train wreck right from the get-go. Either way, I eventually found myself ok with never playing them again, and those that I owned were traded or sold away thereafter.

• Point Salad- Like a well-made salad, this game is tasty, addicting, and not completely filling. After a few plays, it doesn’t provide much incentive to keep returning for more. But for $15, it was fun while it lasted.

• Res Arcana– This is a solid design that any engine builder super fan should put on their radar. Unfortunately, we didn’t love it because the game feels like a ho-hum resource converter. Res Arcana was ultimately unable to escape the shadow of its own genericy.

• Wingspan + European Expansion– The presentation initially knocked our socks off, but our many plays over time demonstrated the law of diminishing returns. Wingspan contains a pretty narrow track for decisions and strategy; most turn actions will feel on-the-rails, for better or for worse. As a gateway engine builder, I can’t deny that I enjoy playing it. But as a game night go-to, it now struggles to do more than mildly amuse.

• Tapestry– I wish Tapestry had spent more time in the development oven. The fun factor of a session of Tapestry can vary just as much as the strategies and Civilizations themselves. Cutting certain elements, balancing others, and increasing players’ abilities to truly interact with each other on the map could have gone a long way to make Tapestry a consistent hit. Ultimately, I’d rather not roll the dice on how fun a 3-hour game will be.

• Tiny Towns– A solid bingo-style spatial puzzle that lost its luster after five plays. My City is also a quick, accessible Bingo-style game about building a town for points within the confines of a spatial puzzle… and frankly, it blows Tiny Towns out of the water. But to its credit, Tiny Towns can be played with up to 6 players!

• Jaws– An amusing, highly thematic experience that gets bogged down by an excessive setup, rules-to-depth ratio, downtime, and duration. Act 2 especially dragged on and thereby felt weaker than Act 1. Played it once and had no desire to play it again. But I still respect that shark meeple.

• Bruxelles 1897– I enjoyed how compact and dense Bruxelles 1897 is for a strategic, Euro-style card game. It makes me wish more games would follow suit by trimming the fat and getting to the juicy center. My only complaint is that the game lacks legs to get it beyond more than a few interesting plays.

• Cartographers– This award nominated flip & write lacked the tension that I love to experience in my favorites of the genre. More thoughts here.

• Dead Man’s Cabal– Some interesting decisions, a fairly solid production, but the turns with many steps (simple as they may individually be) are prone to regular AP leading to longer down time and slower turns. The game also seems to lack any true sense of progression or change over the course of its long playtime… what you are doing on the first turn is practically the exact same as what you are doing on the last turn. This makes Dead Man’s Cabal feel as though it overstays its welcome. It quickly got the boot from our collection.

• Era: Medieval Age– A hefty price tag for fancy parts and pieces amount to a glorified spreadsheet roll & write polyomino Yahtzee game. I admire its production ambition but can’t get past its clumsy execution. Too much time is spent reading spreadsheets, moving pegs, or arranging dice and not enough time is spent playing a game.

• Funkoverse– Shameless cash grab of an unimaginative game with an IP pasted on top. There was absolutely nothing in the game design that made it feel like the IP we tried (Batman). The gameplay of Funkoverse itself consists of mind-numbingly basic dudes-on-a-map mechanisms and offers no reason to exist. The bland design is just veiled behind colorful funkos and meaningless variety. Unmatched is a much better version of this.

• Rune Stones– A generic resource converter. While the deck building aspect of the game certainly works, it doesn’t fully embrace any of the mechanism’s strengths. Rarely do you feel rewarded for slimming your deck or punished for bloating it. Most of the differentiating traits between the cards just blur together into a dull, samey mush. Not for me, but I can see why others may enjoy it. Kyle has a very different opinion from me on this one, so it’s worth giving his video review a look!

• Tricky Tides– I was quite impressed with Tricky Tides. The artwork and presentation is what drew me in, but the interesting combination between pick up/deliver and trick taking is what really sold me on the game. My main downside would be that the game takes way longer than advertised. We would simply rather play a meatier game if we are doing a 4 player game for 90 minutes.

• Tussie Mussie– A simple, beautiful game of I Cut, You Choose that doesn’t provide a compelling reason to keep coming back for more plays. That’s obviously a tough ask for an 18 card game, but Sprawlopolis (from the same publisher) manages to pull it off.

• Welcome To: Outbreak Thematic Neighborhood– This one is a hot mess. Deep Water Games was clearly going with quantity over quality on these expansions. It seems they were in such a big hurry to crank these out that they didn’t bother to properly test, polish, and streamline this expansion. The rulebook is unclear, the added gameplay poisons the base game’s fun, and the graphic design muddies the visibility of your writing.

Flingers

Games that were amusing to try at least once.

I’m blessed to have some good friends who possess solid collections and a knack for teaching their games. Most of these are games they’ve introduced me to that made for a fun night.

• Paladins of the West Kingdom– A nearly solitaire game from a publisher I’m lukewarm on… all the more impressive that enjoyed this play. While the novelty of Architects and Raiders felt overshadowed by their blandness, Paladin’s blandness is overshadowed by its juicy arc. Not one I would buy, but I wouldn’t mind playing it again.

• Taverns of Tiefenthal- I can see why this is thought of as a spiritual sibling to Quacks of Quedlinburg. Taverns largely benefits/suffers from the same strengths/weaknesses as Quacks. On the other hand, Taverns quite possibly beats out Quacks for me because bad luck is much less punishing, strategic options feel more numerous, and the theme is even more charming.

• Animal Kingdoms– Solid, simple gameplay. Very easy to teach, but enough meat on the bone for interesting decisions. The kind of game you can play with anyone. Not sure if it would hold interest beyond a few plays, but it was fun to try at a convention.

• Last Bastion– Improves on the rulebook, production, and gameplay of Ghost Stories, yet still feels largely the same. Last Bastion/Ghost Stories is an engaging cooperative game that plays best at a rapid pace with experience players, but doesn’t reach the heights of my favorite co-ops because so much of the game comes down to luck of the dice.

• Tuki– From the publisher of Azul. Tuki is an amusing real-time dexterity game we tried at a convention, but not exceptional enough for us to throw down money on.

Seekers

Interesting games that still elude me.

Whether they haven’t hooked me enough to convince me to open the wallet, or they require a ideal setting that my current situation can’t provide, these are the games that hover over the fringe of my radar and elude my reach.

• Isle of Cats– This is the big game that was missing from my Battle of the Polyominoes comparison. Drafting + polyominoes + psychedelic cats certainly sounds interesting!

• Detective: City of Angels– We weren’t huge fans of Chronicles of Crime. While amusing, it was ultimately not as satisfying as a board game without a screen; and it honestly feels kind of pointless to play with other people. Detective: City of Angels appears to be the game we wanted out of Chronicles.

• Dune- A heavy, Shut Up & Sit Down approved war game that works best at 6? Sign me up! ….Anyone?….No? *Sigh*

• Nova Luna– I’m sure I would enjoy this one, but it seems so similar to Rosenburg’s Patchwork (aside from the polyomino tiles) that I struggle to justify the purchase. Can anyone convince me to bite?

• Rail Pass– A real time cooperative dexterity game where you pass trains that are carrying physical goods to each other causing a jumble of brains and arms. Best of all, when you want to pass a train along, you have to communicate by saying “Toot toot!”

• Barrage– A heavy, nasty economic game of controlling water flow with dams for power. The overwhelmingly positive critical acclaim surrounding this one tells me it is certainly worth a go!

• Shobu– An elegant, abstract game of pushing stones off wooden boards. I’ve heard good things about this one, and the presentation is just classy.

• L.L.A.M.A.– A simple Knizia card game is always going to catch my attention. If I were in a supremely casual setting perfect for a light card game with kids and/or grandparents, I imagine this would hit the spot.

• Medium– While I usually opt for something with at least a hint of strategy, this appears to be a light, funny party game I would enjoy. Two players hold a unique topic card and must simultaneously blurt out the same word that connects the two topics, that is if they are on the same wavelength.

This concludes my walk down memory lane of the best board games of 2019! Can you think of a Lover, Keeper, Dumper, Flinger, and Seeker from 2019? Share them with us in the comments below!

Article written by Nick Murray. To learn more about his tabletop gaming tastes and preferences, check out his blog series: Tabletop Tastes: My Favorite Flavors in Board Games. To follow his designs as they come to fruition, subscribe to our newsletter and follow Bitewing Games on social media!

The post Revisiting the Best Board Games of 2019 appeared first on Bitewing Games.

I’ve recently started playing these new-ish releases. Here are my current thoughts on them:

Super Skill Pinball 4-Cade

Take all your roll & writes and toss them out the window because Super Skill Pinball 4-Cade is the new king of the hill!

…Okay, perhaps you can still keep your other games, but what makes this one the best of the bunch? It’s simple. This game captures the essence of pinball unbelievably well. You’ve got the brilliant half-pinball tokens that slide around your over-the-top thematic table (player mat). There’s push-your-luck nudging and tilting, there’s bumper combos, there’s flipper aiming, there’s objectives within the table, there’s multiball bonanzas, you name it!

Super-Skill Pinball 4-Cade doesn’t circumvent the main weakness of the roll & write genre—zero player interaction—but it does raise the bar for the genre as a whole. Everything I love about a solid roll & write (satisfying combos, good variety, tense decisions, evolving strategies with more experience, etc.) is here with a beautifully tailored glove of pinball wrapped around it. It forces every other game in this crowded realm to scramble to justify its existence. The biggest weakness you’ll see in this roll & write compared to others is that one player’s game of pinball can end earlier than another’s. We almost never play roll & writes above the 2-player count, so this isn’t much of an issue for us.

Yet the game is so much more than our “favorite roll & write”. It’s freaking pinball the tabletop game. The design/publishing team’s love of pinball oozes from every nook and cranny of this box. The core gameplay here is so solid, and the thematic tables are so diverse and fun, that this is the kind of game where I won’t hesitate to purchase every single expansion they throw at me. That said, if you don’t love pinball, or you don’t like roll & writes, then I don’t see this game changing your mind in any way.

So many designers/publishers are tossing their old, stale fruit of existing IPs and/or half-hearted efforts into the roll & write blender for a generic, flavorless game smoothie. Meanwhile, Geoff Engelstien and co. have been toiling away to grow their own fresh, ripe, exotic fruits and plucking them to concoct the most flavortastic blend of roll & write and pinball your taste buds have ever encountered.

Current Rating: 9/10

Pan Am

Pan Am is a solid choice among many lesser games on supermarket shelves. You get a solid worker placement, auctioning, economic experience with a crisp presentation and unique theme.

My favorite aspect is most certainly the combination of bidding for worker placement actions. Players must decide how valuable a worker placement spot is to them and others and place their tokens accordingly. Sometimes you may get away with a cheap action because nobody else wanted it that round, but often you’ll find yourself getting bumped out because somebody else was willing to pay more.

The requirements to obtain landing rights and options for accomplishing this provide another handful of interesting tactical routes. There are costly options to build airports that can make for a great long-term investment or easy options to spend cards that you can quickly regret discarding when you need them later.

I just wish Pan Am wasn’t so long and slow. The 4 phases of the 7 rounds seem to keep crawling long past the game has outstayed its welcome. The gameplay struggles to keep a brisk pace with too many steps, too much interruption of plans, and too many decisions. Contrast this with much more complex games like Brass: Birmingham and you’ll quickly see why Pan Am takes just as long, if not longer.

Brass flows elegantly from one round to the next with players playing two cards to take two actions. The 3 steps of a round are simple: 1) All players take two actions 2) Rearrange turn order 3) Collect income. Only 1 of these 3 steps requires analytical thinking that can mostly be planned out before your turn, the other 2 are quick and easy. Meanwhile, Pan Am has roughly a dozen steps with each round, with about half of them requiring strategic planning, and this kind of planning often can’t be done until it’s your turn to take the action.

If the downtime and playtime could magically be cut in half, I’d be all for more Pan Am. As it is, I’m content with sticking to my better-paced collection of Euros.

Current Rating: 6/10

Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

Alright, it’s true…. This is a stinking good co-op game. Jaws of the Lion just gets better with each play.

Scenario 1 is too mindlessly easy to judge the game by, but I was interested by the framework that had been laid. Scenario 2 added some interesting layers, but seemed to reveal that we had a problematic setup.

Our biggest issue up to that point was the Voidwarden being significantly underwhelming in a 2-player game. This character seemed to thrive best on a map with more players and monsters. In our first couple scenarios, we had several rounds where the Voidwarden’s turn was completely worthless due to ending up too far away from her only teammate who was able to mow down all monsters within reach.

Fortunately, this issue has seemed to balance itself out in Scenarios 3 & 4. Things improved for our experience due to three main factors:

1) The difficulty increased (thus Voidwarden was more needed each round).
2) Voidwarden’s deck improved (more cards get added or swapped between each tutorial scenario).
3) Our communication and cooperation has improved. Now that we understand the Voidwarden’s strengths and weaknesses better, we have seen much more interesting cooperation with her.

Our most recent scenario transformed my wife from a reluctant teammate to an engaged and entertained schemer. Voidwarden’s abilities ended up being instrumental to our fun and critical to our success.

All this talk and I’ve only scratched the surface of what I predict to be one of the most influential and important games of the past decade. Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is a masterclass in board game accessibility. It takes a game that I would never dare touch and kicks down every wall that was keeping me from joining in on the fun.

For us, Gloomhaven is too expensive, too fiddly, too huge, too complicated, too long, too intimidating, too stuffy, too exhausting, etc. etc. etc. Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, is NONE of those things, and yet it is still Gloomhaven. Outside of the general streamlining that the gameplay received, the tutorial and spiral-o bound scenario books are brilliant features of what has to be the all-time best tabletop game found on Target shelves. Instead of sorting through mounds of tiles and laboring to piece and stack them together only to later organize them apart, you simply flip open the book to the next page and WAM, there’s your map with the scenario description and helpful icons ready to rumble.

Don’t get me wrong; this game is no walk in the park to setup, tear down, learn, and play. It’s still an option we’re only going to break out on game nights where our energy level is above average. It’s still a strenuous, uphill hike (with beautiful vistas, of course)…. but now it’s on a smooth, paved path with comfy benches, tasty snacks, and cozy restrooms along the way. Bravo, Isaac Childres and Cephalofair Games! Everybody else, take notes.

Current Rating: 9/10

Unmatched: Cobble & Fog / Jurassic Park / Bruce Lee

When I first tried Unmatched, I was lukewarm yet amused by the series. The stellar art and production helped me to see past the somewhat simplistic, shallow gameplay and appreciate it for the light fun it provides. Fortunately, I stuck around for more because each new offering has only gotten better.

From ganging up on your prey as a pack of clever-girl raptors to unleashing a combo of fury as Bruce Lee, Unmatched has become an enjoyable mashup of zany head-to-head showdowns. While I appreciate any game that puts my boy Sasquatch to good use (from the Robin Hood vs. Bigfoot pack), I would rank all three of these latest packs as the best of the bunch.

Cobble & Fog is an especially good place to jump in, with 4 classic characters that provide highly thematic decks. The Invisible Man essentially teleports from one fog token to the next, keeping opponents swinging and missing. Sherlock manipulates his opponent’s decks to his advantage. Dracula seeps life from his prey while Jekyll & Hyde flip-flops from one strength to the other.

Unmatched will be one to keep an eye on in the future. Expect to see more Jurassic Park (including an XL T-rex), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and an extremely creative 4-character fan pack that will result from a design contest with over 500 deck submissions. I’ll be gunning for my boy, Paul Bunyan, and his trusty companion, Babe the Blue Ox, to make it to the finished product. My wife and I had a blast designing and testing a deck rampant with giant axe swinging, ox plowing, and tree chopping.

Current Rating: 7-8/10

Blitzkrieg!

Alright, alright, I know this isn’t necessarily a “recent” release. But Blitzkrieg is under a year old and perpetually out of stock, and I feel it my civic duty to inform you that this one deserves your best efforts to acquire a copy at the next reprint.

I’ve always been a fan of Ethnos, despite it’s exhaustive attempts to repel me with it’s looks and production. As it turns out, I’m simply a big fan of designer Paolo Mori.

Blitzkrieg! had a similar first-impression effect upon me as Ethnos did. I saw the box cover, I saw the board, I saw the pieces, and I didn’t see a reason to look any further. It wasn’t until I heard the stellar reviews from multiple sources that I finally steered myself around for another look.

Thank goodness I listened, because Blitzkrieg! is an excellent 2-player game! The rules are easy, the game is quick, the decisions are agonizing, and the fun is instantaneous. This feels like a nice mixture between Watergate’s tug-of-war gameplay, Air Land & Sea’s theatric struggle, and Samurai’s shielded tile placement strategies.

This one is self-dubbed as “the perfect wargame for non-wargamers,” and I’m inclined to agree. Now if I can just track down a copy of that Godzilla expansion…

Give me more of that Paolo Mori, please!

Current Rating: 9/10

This concludes my latest new release 1st impressions, but if you missed the previous one, you can check out my thoughts on Pendulum, Calico, Fort, Spicy, and Ride the Rails. Have you tried any of these games yet? What are your thoughts on them?

Article written by Nick Murray. To learn more about his tabletop gaming tastes and preferences, check out his blog series: Tabletop Tastes: My Favorite Flavors in Board Games. To follow his designs as they come to fruition, subscribe to our newsletter and follow Bitewing Games on social media!

The post Candid Cardboard: New Release 1st Impressions (October 2020) appeared first on Bitewing Games.