Episode 82: Levelling Up

After hearing on social media about how to get new board gamers to play Lacerdas in quick progression Adrian conducts a light hearted thought experiment on how this "could" be achieved through different genres and styles of board games.

FIRST PLAYER: Adrian
OTHER PLAYERS: Becky & Tambo

In this episode you'll learn:
- that JP has sneaked onto Let's Talk About Hex to chat about his recent play of Andromeda's Edge: Genesis expansion by Cardboard Alchemy 
- about war and what is it good for by Adrian in Quartermaster General by Griggling Games
- whether Becky has lost all hope destroying the one virus (ahem) ring in Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship by Zman Games
- that Tambo has gone back to the 90's in Console Wars: The Card Game by Booth Babe Games
- all about Adrian's thought experiment about progression through light to heavy board games

LINKS REFERENCED IN THE SHOW
Andromeda's Edge: Genesis Gamefound - https://gamefound.com/en/projects/cardboard-alchemy/andromedas-edge-genesis
NinjaGeekGames overview of Andromeda's Edge: Genesis - https://youtu.be/l8aqHuCGD1w?si=Yhmy9iHfHS4tiQLs

EPISODE CHAPTERS
0:00 - TURN 1 - Player Count

2:35 - TURN 2 - Let's Talk About Hex

3:29 - JP - Andromeda's Edge: Genesis

12:10 - Tambo - Console Wars

17:57 - Becky - Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship

22:49 - Adrian - Quartermaster General

30:17 - TURN 3 - Main Event: Levelling Up

32:31 - CO-OP GAMES - Marvel United > Pandemic > Spirit Island

44:23 - NATURE - Barenpark > Wingspan > Ark Nova

56:53 - WORKER PLACEMENT - Lords of Waterdeep > Caverna > Anachrony

1:04:13 - A ROAD TO LACERDA - Splendor > Viticulture > Kanban EV

1:11:15 - ANOTHER WORKER PLACEMENT - Lords of Water Deep > Lost Ruins of Arnak > Septima

1:15:48 - DUNGEON CRAWLER - HeroQuest > Mansions of Madness > Gloomhaven

1:21:23 - TURN 4 - Konn4ct F4ur

1:26:21 - TURN 5 - Penultimate Turn: What's Coming Up?

1:31:20 - TURN 6 - The Final Turn

You can check out JP's new podcast called Just Play right here https://www.justplaypod.co.uk we'd love to have you and also on the new YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@JustPlayPodcast

ENGAGING WITH THE SHOW
- Join us on Discord

Transcript

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TURN 1 - Player Count
0:00
[Music]
0:18
Hello and welcome to Whose Turn is It Anyway, a podcast all about our board gaming group and of course the board games we play. I am Adrian, your first
0:25
player and with me I have Becky. Hello. And Tambo. Hello. And a special guest to be revealed
0:32
later. In this episode, we will be talking about progression or leveling up in games, working from entry level to more
0:40
complex games. Just a little bit of light-hearted something. We'll talk about it in a bit.
0:45
Before we get going with that though, how is everybody doing? I had a migraine today. Oh,
0:50
yeah. But I'm all right. I just feel a bit lobomized now. But I got through it like a big brave boy.
0:56
Okay, that's good. And you weren't lobbomized. You just No. Yeah, migraine tablets make me feel a
1:01
little bit sort of labbotomized, but that's fine. It's It's all good. Nice. And I'm going on holiday soon, so it's
1:07
all good. Yeah. Where are you going? We're going to Disney World. Yeah. Yay. Yeah. Only for a week this time, but
1:13
just me and Mr. Curly, everybody else. So, it'll be a different trip. It will be a different trip. You are
1:20
still planning to pack like a whole suitcase full of board games, though, I'm guessing. Well, I've already packed
1:25
cuz I'm Cuz I'm Cuz you're that person. I'm that person. Yeah. Um, currently going in there, little bit of excitement
1:31
is Fetching Feathers. Oh, the lovely Chris Prriscott from Unfringed Games has sent me a promo copy
1:37
of Fetching Feathers and also the top super secret do over time game, which
1:44
yeah, he hasn't mentioned much about yet. So, we're going to play those on holiday. Nice. You and Spudel love that.
1:50
Yes. T, how are you? Yeah, I'm all right, thanks. I had a fun day. You don't sound like it, mate. I did some washing.
1:56
Oh. Oh, a household my food delivery in and then actually no I had to play games most of the day so good. What did you play? Anything exciting?
2:02
Um well I got one I'm going to talk about Hex in a minute and then I played Mansions. Nice. With niece and nephew and we played the
2:07
new scenario which was good fun. Oh yeah. We died. Oh but it was hard. It's a fivestar so it's
2:13
hard. But we played that all day so it was good fun. Yes. Well I'm last day before holiday so
2:19
yeah. Yay.
2:28
Let's go on to our next section where we talk about you and me and all the good
2:33
things and the bad things that have been as we talk about Hex. Let's introduce
TURN 2 - Let's Talk About Hex
2:38
our very special guest. It's JP. Hello.
2:44
Not so special, is it? Special. Well, special, but it's not a surprise, is it? Really? Look, it's JP. He just appeared in the
2:50
room. I'm hoping that that might have get got people just to hang on for an extra 30 seconds an extra sort of
2:56
clickbait. Yeah, that's it. Just special guest. They'll they'll hang on in there just to listen to what it was.
3:01
Realized it was me and now you can turn off. You can turn off now. You can turn off. It's all good. So JP has has
3:09
recently played a game which he'd like to talk about and do a bit of plug and then he's going to disappear while we look after the rest of the episode.
3:14
Yeah. So, I um I thought I'd just jump on and uh talk about a game uh that I played recently, which is uh Andromeda's
3:20
Edge Genesis the expansion. So, by the time this is released, the
3:26
the game found uh page and everything will be live, I believe. So, I thought it's a good time to to talk about it and
JP - Andromeda's Edge: Genesis
3:32
tell you what my experiences were. So, I'm not going to go into Andromeda's Edge. I've talked about it on previous
3:38
episodes. Go and check those out and uh yeah, just search it up and you can learn more about it. But generally it's
3:45
space worker placement dwellings of elderale 2.0 and it's fun and it's just
3:50
crazy madness. So, what happened was um Mark Monk from Ninja Geek Games um had
3:57
kind of chatted to me and said, "Look, uh he's got Rosie from Cardboard Alchemy, who's also Rosie from Cozy
4:04
Board Games, which is who's a yeah, massive kind of presence on the
4:10
the social media, socials, the interwebs, and all that kind of stuff." Um, and uh, yeah, she
4:16
was coming over to to to Ninja Geek HQ, Mark's house. Uh, and Martin, he lives
4:22
literally from my house, 5 minutes away. So, it's so weird, isn't it? It's weird and it's convenient as hell.
4:28
So, um, yeah. So, on a Thursday, I pop around, I met Rosie, had a good chinwag
4:33
and all that kind of stuff. And she had the expansion, and we played a full game. There was only space to play the
4:39
short game, which is 50 victory points, but we were kind of zipping around
4:44
because we me and Mark played the game before. We know what we're doing. So, we said, "No, let's make this the full long game at 70, which is how I play anyway.
4:51
Always play 70 cuz you get your engine going and all sorts of stuff." So, I'm going to go for the expansion and kind
4:57
of what it covers. And to my surprise, the Genesis expansion isn't like this massive um big box of stuff. And in my
5:04
head when I heard about it, I thought, "Oh, this is going to be a massive load of content and um it's going to be, you
5:10
know, $80 and D and actually surprised at what this is." So really, you get
5:17
some more stuff expansion. Um so it kind of gives you more more different avenues to go. Um it kind of uh switch for those
5:24
that know the game. If you don't know the game, this is not going to make much sense, but I'm going for the people that do know it cuz you know it's expansion
5:30
for a game. So, it kind of switches one of the alliance bases up, which is just basically makes it a bit more powerful.
5:37
Um, and it it it kind of introduces a new card type into the game called
5:42
exotex, right? So, for those that know, you have tactic cards that you play and they're bonkers anyway, right?
5:48
Y, these things are even worse in in the best possible way. So, I called them um
5:53
these were proper filth, right? When I was playing and Rosie's laughing, she What do you mean? They're just they're
6:00
like filthy like you know like dirty fries when it's something filthy like super excessive.
6:06
It's really like this is mad and you can come and dear um raiders on
6:12
the board so you can kind of take them over and mess with people. There's just some bonker stuff. I won't
6:18
spoil it but you'll have fun with them when you get them but they're a bit harder to get. Um so they were really
6:24
good fun and yeah a lot of uh shenanigans a foot. There's some new factions that you expect. I think I
6:30
think there's only three, but uh we only saw three uh in there. And I was playing one called the Precog Hybrids,
6:37
who are all about kind of seeing the event deck. I can look at the top card of the event deck whenever I like, which
6:42
is very nice cuz that's, you know, part of the scoring that kind of happens. Pretty huge that. Yeah. You're like, "Oh, it's red that's
6:47
going to score." And then when people change it, I go, "Oh, what have you done? Oh, it's now blue." And I can kind
6:54
of um switch it around. And also you got progress tracks when the event triggers. So you kind of want the events to to
7:00
kind of spin around as faster and faster. And they were a lot of fun. And Mark was playing as the wood elves,
7:05
which is kind of weird cuz these are space. I was just about to say, isn't this space? It's got a lot of callbacks to dwellings
7:11
still fantasy setting. So you kind of got space wood elves and they were using
7:16
damage that they repaired as resources and that's quite good. And and Rosie, I cannot remember. I think she was the
7:22
Mars Terraformers, right? Nice. and they build little habitats on the the map to help you develop. Makes
7:29
it cheaper. So, in some cases, it was just, you know, cheaper, if not free to develop, which is pretty pretty bonkers.
7:35
Um, you've got corrupted stars now that sit in the um the map in kind of two
7:41
central locations that you can kind of use your repair actions to repair on on those stars. And then when you do repair
7:47
them, they kind of explode, damage a lot of things, but they then buff your developments all around them. and they
7:53
give extra VPs. So again, placements of developments have become more pertinent
7:59
to to basically score off those victory points. They were good fun. Um, what I liked to like actually was the things
8:04
called shrines. So shrines, so if you see the board, you'll see that you kind of got hexagons, but they're like
8:10
elongated and on the edge of the boards, you just got these little gaps on the side cuz you get half hexes, right?
8:16
So these shrines fill in those gaps. It's very satisfying. So now you kind of have a full board of stuff being filled
8:22
out. And these shrines um basically allow you to kind of go there and you
8:28
get an extra leader um and then you can basically put the the leader onto the progress track where you are cuz it's
8:34
related to a color and then you'll score those additional victory points at the game. So it's kind of a bit of a race.
8:39
You can do it early but you're not likely to be high up on the track. So you're probably going to get like four victory points with or if you leave it
8:46
till you get to 20 at the top, you're going to get double bubble, but will it still be there? So that's the the kind
8:51
of thing that's going on. And they also buffed the developments around it as well. Um so yeah, you get new events,
8:57
new events, uh another event deck. So in the base game, you've got your standard one, which is nicey nicy, you've got
9:03
your noby one, which is knobbyby knobbyby, and then you've got this uh new one, which gives you uh persistent
9:10
effects when the events trigger. So, normally there a thing happens, you move on with life. This is kind of an event triggers and
9:17
now this thing will happen until the next event triggers. And I like those because it kind of bends the rules
9:23
around a little bit and you've got kind of got to deal with it. But yeah, you got new raiders as well. One of them is a cosmic frog.
9:30
Of course it is. This is bonkers. Is it from the game Cosmic Frog or
9:35
No, I don't believe so. Oh, okay. There's a game called Cosmic Frog. Is it? Yeah. Okay. I don't believe so, but
9:42
don't quote me on it. But it's this massive green frog and it leaps around the board and it it starts with like
9:49
four modules in it. So modules are the the little cards that you you buy to build your engine in your space station
9:55
and uh yeah, when you defeat it, you get to take one of those modules out. So that was a lot of fun. And there is a a cube which looks suspiciously which
10:04
looks suspiciously like a Borg cube, but it's not a Borg cube. um which literally
10:09
just rolls like a 65 43 2 1 every time. So you kind of know what it's like predetermined attack roll so you can
10:15
kind of get around it. So yeah, it's it's an expansion that kind of throws a lot of stuff in. Um so if you want more
10:22
things, uh it gives you a few more avenues to to kind of progress your VPs
10:28
and things like that, but it doesn't change the game. Are these modules or is it an all I was going to ask the same thing?
10:33
Modules. Modules. So you can kind of like I'll have a bit of this and a bit of that or actually throw it all in,
10:39
have a have a bit of fun and all that kind of stuff. And I was surprised actually because I think the price point
10:44
it's coming in at is $29. So I was like reasonable actually for extra content. That's really
10:50
it's extra content but I think people who love Andromeda's Edge and maybe you go what's this going to turn into? It's
10:57
still Andromeda's Edge. It's just Andromeda's Edge with some more bits and bobs. And yeah, for $29, I think it's
11:04
it's great value, to be honest, for what you're getting. Um, and I think if you back, you'll get the 3D Raiders. So, if
11:11
you've got the deluxe pledge of Andromeda's Edge, everything they promised will fit into that box. So,
11:17
there's not like another box on top. If you got the retail, I think you won't, but that's just standard anyway. So,
11:23
yeah, I just thought I'd come and talk about it. Um, we had a great day. Uh Rosie was a great uh kind of hosting
11:30
that she taught us the game and yeah, we had a good good fun uh and a good bit of a laugh and you know, Mark's always good
11:36
fun to play games with anyway. So yeah, massive thank you for me to to them um
11:41
for yeah, inviting me along. I had I had a blast. Nice. So yeah, that's all I wanted to say.
11:46
All right. So I can leg it now. You can sort of leave you to UF. What's this one again?
11:52
What's this one again? I don't know. Bye. So T, what have you been up to?
11:57
Okay, so today I played a game that I bought at the expo um this year and it was called Console Wars. So it's a very
12:04
lightweight card game. It's one of those games you probably want to play on a convention between big heavy ones. You think just want to put about a half hour
Tambo - Console Wars
12:10
45minute game. Um so basically what it is is your console companies and you're
12:17
trying to make these games to get fans, get a real big fan base. And so, so what
12:23
you got to do to win the game, you got to get four different a set a complete set of four different genres of games,
12:29
right? So it could be fantasy games, a shooting game, there's the difference of genres they've got. Um role playing, all those
12:35
sort of things. Um there's there's quite a lot. I think there's about eight to 10 different kind of um genres of games.
12:41
And but if you don't know games, you can just go by colors because they're all different colors. So but um some games
12:46
have a set of two to make or some have a set of four to make or three. Um, so the winner is the first person to on their
12:52
tableau in front of them have four sets of complete genre games. Um, and then
12:57
you get so on your turn you draw two cards on the main deck. You'll have five to start and then you draw always draw
13:02
two cards and then you have three turns actions which is just basically you can either play a game from your hand in onto the table or you can play an action
13:10
card which does some cool funky stuff or stitch other people up or you got a fan-based card which means say on the
13:15
fan you got 10 million fans and you put it sideways in front of your tableau. It's kind of acts like a little barriers. So when people steal fans off
13:22
you, you got money to pay, okay? Cuz other people will play cards that steal your fan base. And if you can't play, if
13:28
you haven't got any fan base in front of you, each game you have on your tableau has a fan base value in the top right.
13:34
So you have to start paying your games. Oh, I see. You see? So then you sne off other people. And when you get set, you can't
13:40
destroy a set. And then you get these other big cards, which are fan base. If you have like one card, it's worth 30
13:46
million fans. If you have two of the set, it boosts it to 50 million. If you have three sets, if it's a three set one, it goes like 60 million and you
13:53
play a card that matches the symbol in your hand that says it's a it's a company fan base stealing thing and you
13:59
got the you got the same symbol in your tableau. You can every player has to pay you like 60 million fans and it's a bit
14:06
like that and then it's the first one to set force which makes this game really fun. If you're a fan of console games and I know Becky probably not too many
14:12
games, Adrian, do you know games? Yeah. Yeah. So the funniest thing about funniest thing about this, they can't do
14:17
it copyright. So they got to pay the card name on the cards are called like Call of Duty. Yeah.
14:22
Yeah. I prefer that than if they could actually not Doom is gloom or and stuff like that. They got these little phrases on
14:28
the bottom of the card and if you're a big fan of consoles, it's so funny. We were reading me and niece and nephew were just reading them out and it was hilarious.
14:33
No, that makes it really good fun. Um Yeah. And it was played in about I would
14:38
play the first game took about an hour. It was longer than I thought it would be, but it was a learn a bit of a learning game. Um yeah, it's good fun.
14:43
It's backstabby. You steal off other people. Um, it's all that fun. You can do like bit like exper kittens. You can cancel people's effect when they're not
14:50
return. Stuff like that. Um, there's this Pac-Man one which you can just steal a complete set of someone which is
14:55
horrible. Yeah. And you get these hardcore fan cards that you put on to a complete set which
15:00
boosts the millions. So you could have if you get the right card you could everyone knows you like 150 million fan base. But it's really good fun. We
15:07
really enjoyed it. There's a lot a lot of yelling don't take my cards. This sounds nice like you say as a good
15:12
little kind of filler just kind of easy to pick up. Absolutely. It's a very lightweight game but to be fair the rules in it and when
15:18
I read I was like how does this work and I was like yeah I got I lost interest. I had to watch a video still lost interest but I got there eventually and when you
15:25
learn how to play it's actually a piece of piss but um yeah it's really really good fun. I I don't know why you were talking then
15:31
and you it reminded me of a game called Nuclear War which I don't know if you've ever played this or not but it's a game from like the 1970s or ' 80s or
15:38
something like that. ancient and uh mildly racist as well. So, you each play
15:43
like a country. It's got a little description of the country you're playing and they're all very stereotyped. Oh, no.
15:48
About a country that might have nuclear arms. But the bit that reminded me that is clearly not the racism. Um the bit
15:54
that it reminded me of was that like someone will nuke your hand and then it'll be like you have to give up 50
16:00
million and you've got to hand over 50 million or put it in the discard pile like a card that says 50 million population. And while you were
16:07
explaining that, I was like, "Oh, so it is like nuclear war, but it's not actually not really because it's not got the set collection."
16:12
No, no, no. But um yeah, just reminded me of that cuz it's like, "Oh, give up 50 million people." And you're like, "Um, okay."
16:19
I think I like the sound of te's better than the sound of your Again, it's like 1970s or something like that. But it's just all tongue and
16:25
cheek, but it's aged horrifically. But it is definitely that thing of, oh, I just want you to lose as many people out
16:30
of your hand as possible. And it's always in like chunks of like millions. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. So yeah, that's exactly
16:36
what it's kind of sign. Yeah, definitely. You all get like a little perk card as well, which is nice. And there's these um global events that
16:42
happen through the deck. Once you hit one, you've all got to do it instantly and it could be like a everyone has to do it. Like you swap your hand to the
16:48
person to your left, stuff like that. Yeah, it's really good fun. Much of your table space or is it quite
16:54
a small No, I mean it it can take about that quite quite a lot, but you can probably squeeze it any way you like really. But
17:00
um yeah, you do need a bigish table if you have six players. It's two to six players. Okay, we played with three player which was
17:06
good. I think it'd be better with more. Okay. But it might take longer with more cuz you're you're stubborn enough. You just got to watch each table. So if people's
17:12
getting close to complete set, you really got to try and get that. Everyone's got a pile in on them. Yeah, you're going to try to anyway.
17:17
As you said, I think it sits in that sort of exploding kittens, unstable unicorns, that kind of
17:22
Oh, definitely that genre. That sort of genre, but with a bit more of a defined theme on it. Bit more of a
17:28
niche. I mean, if you got people who love played consoles growing up playing games, you're going to love it cuz you're going to love the little phrases.
17:34
You're going to know to what they're going to know to so it's going to be good in our group I think definitely when I bring it. Yeah.
17:39
Nice. Sounds good. Good. Cool. Uh so I have mostly been reading Dungeon
17:45
Crawler Carl. I know this is not a board game thing but yeah if people haven't read it or
17:51
heard of it seriously it's 99 p on Amazon Kindle. This book series is amazing. Anyway, I'm
Becky - Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship
17:59
not talking about that although obviously I am. So I've done nothing but read that really. the last about two
18:04
weeks I suppose. Previous to that, um the game I want to talk about is The Lord of the Rings, Fate the Fellowship.
18:10
Nice. Yes. Very nice. Really enjoyed that game. Good. Um hadn't really played a pandemic game.
18:17
I don't think I've played Pandemic Pandemic. I've played World Warcraft one. Yeah. Which is really good. Um this
18:24
I think was more interesting possibly because of the theming which you know I was really interested in.
18:29
Um I like the fact that you're controlling two characters. Yeah, that's really cool. Are they separate pawns that move around
18:35
the board? So, you can move them completely, you know, different directions.
18:40
Interesting. Yeah. Um, if you're in the same area as someone else, you can do certain stuff
18:45
like swap items or boost like everybody's got a special ability and sometimes they only like
18:52
peel off if you're in the same space or whatever. Fairly stand on your turn you one one
18:58
character you do one action with and the other character you do four actions with. So you have to choose which one you do.
19:04
That's a really interesting thing I found. Yeah. So you're trying to always that kind of constant balance of oh well that
19:09
that power was really good but I need to move loads with this person. So it's a really good um sort of push and pull
19:16
kind of thing. And actually the the game we played um was actually really sort of
19:21
close to the story kind of line. We all ended up in front of Mordor. Our kind of hope kind of disappeared. We we did win
19:28
the game but we had one hope left. And if you get hope zero that that's the end
19:33
of the game. So it was a real close scarily hope I hope was full at the time
19:39
and when you did the end one and this is the easiest way one. This is like the opening scenario they should tell you should do when you first play it and and
19:46
it was hard but it was it was good. I don't think we made any particularly bad decisions. I think we did roll some quite sort of
19:53
it's not exactly luck based because you're you make a decision of how many you're going to roll or whatever but a
19:59
couple of times we got literally the worst possible outcomes on our roll. So um Nazgal are attacking
20:05
okay or moving um and you roll for your combat. So you might lose one of yours
20:12
and none of theirs. You might lose one of each and they might lose one of theirs. or if there's a nuzzle in the
20:19
area, you lose it. It's like extra stuff. Yeah. So, there was a couple of times that we literally like got the
20:24
worst possible sort of roll that we could be six stars. Like everything was absolutely terrible, but you pay you
20:33
take your choices and you get your reward, don't you? Or absolutely hoofed, which is what happened to us a couple of
20:39
times. But yeah, it was a really good game. Would definitely play again. Yeah, enjoyed it. Yeah. what I've seen of it. There's like
20:46
there's some base pandemic in there. There's some fall of Rome kind of stuff in there as well. Um I've seen some sort
20:53
of bits that I think are a bit more like Star Wars and um World of Warcraft. So it certainly seems like they've sort of
20:58
amalgamated quite a few games together. But the as far as I'm aware, I don't remember anything where you get two
21:04
separate meeples and you get cuz you normally just get four actions whereas this one getting five but one's with one
21:10
and five with the other. That feels like that feels like the new edition cuz everything else sounds similar to other
21:16
games. The way that the enemy move is quite interesting. So there's lots of different it looks kind of like a tube
21:22
map like a London under So that's Fall of Rome where they follow certain routes across the board.
21:27
So you kind of have to be quite make sure that you're doing that correctly. Yeah. because it could make a humongous
21:33
difference if it if it you didn't sort of follow the direction of the arrow, which sounds really simple. But yeah,
21:39
it's we found it easier to go back to front. So yeah, you do on Fall of Rome, you sort of start at where they start,
21:45
find where you're going to end, and then work back, which worked really that worked really well. But yeah, it was a really good game. Um, I built the uh
21:52
Barador before we played, which comes in the box. Actually, that's really nice. Really good quality dice tower, I have
21:59
to say. again the w the the ice throne for the witch king. Uh not the witch king for the uh whatever the world of
22:06
Warcraft wraith lord wraith king whatever he's called. Lich King. Lich King. That's the one.
22:12
Um the the tower that came with that that he sits on or whatever. That was pretty good.
22:17
I've got literally no recollection of that whatsoever. Again, it there's apart from that 4 in one, there's a lot of iterations of
22:23
previous games that they seem to have sort of cherry picked a lot at least from and put them together. But I know it's getting a lot of love. So, I'm
22:29
intrigued to try. Yeah, it was it was good. I would definitely play again. Nice. So, uh last weekend when everyone
22:35
else was playing Game of Thrones, I played a couple of games which was also sort of similar war gamey sort of stuff.
22:42
So, but the one I'd like to talk about is called a Master General. So, this was one I picked up two years ago at Essen
22:47
when we first all went out to Essen and there was a big bundle deal on it. So, I picked it all up and I'd been trying to
Adrian - Quartermaster General
22:53
get in on some other games, but quite often they were already full or people sort of say, "Look, we want to whiz through this quickly, so we want
22:58
experienced players, all that kind of stuff." So, I never kind of got around to it. So, I finally got it to the table
23:04
and it's World War II. Um, it's very it's very Axis and allies light, I
23:10
suppose. It's not you don't really need to have any major interest in in World
23:16
War II. you kind of just need to know roughly what each nation did in the war and that will give you an idea. Um, but
23:22
it is very very light on the war game front. So you got a map of the world.
23:28
Um, and each person takes a nation or if if it's like six players each person takes a nation. If it's less than that
23:35
then you divvy them up as necessary and you've got the as expected the axis and allies side. On your turn, you've just
23:42
got a deck of cards. Where most of these war games are very um like they'll let you do anything within this construct of
23:49
massive rules. These are really rules light, but everything is done from your cards. So, it'll be like, oh, build an
23:55
army or build a navy, and you can just build an army or navy next to where you already have an army or navy, and you
24:01
have to get adjacency either back to your home nation or back to a little symbol, which is a star, which is a
24:06
supply point on the map. So, that's all that is. you can attack, which is an attack card, which will just be
24:12
something along the lines of um you remove the unit adjacent to one of yours
24:18
that belongs to an opposing nation, and that's it. You don't move into it or anything like that, unless you have a funky card that does that. But for the
24:24
most part, it's just you remove it. So then you can build into it next turn. You don't ever move any units. You just build into that region if you want to.
24:31
And then all the other cards are just different type of kind of either gotcha cards or whatever. So it'll be like, oh,
24:37
so there's some status cards which permanently sit on the board which will be like, oh, for England, if you have um
24:44
if you control like the North Sea and you have uh someone in Canada, like a tank force in Canada, you get extra
24:51
victory points. Or if you're Japan and you control like half the Pacific,
24:57
you'll get extra victory points. Or Germany has one where if you if you take an army off the board, you get to
25:02
immediately replace it with one of your own. And there's loads of status effects. you play it and that just stays
25:07
down. And then everything else is kind of either action or reaction cards which will either stop people doing things or
25:13
it'll be like um I can't think sort of what some of them were. Um I had one
25:18
which was just like place an army in Australia. Now I still need supply. Luckily Australia was already a supply, but it just allowed me to put a tank
25:24
straight there which sort of defied all the rules. And on your turn, literally all you do is play one card, follow what it does out of those sort of six
25:31
options. Um, and kind of keep going round. And each
25:36
turn you score a very basic number of points. So for each star you control, it's basically two points unless you
25:42
share the star in which case it'll be one point for each person that's there on their turn. And then plus additional
25:49
points you get from whatever else there's on the board. These different cards will give you different points. If
25:54
at any point after there's up to 20 rounds I think it is. If at any point one at the end of the round one side 30
26:01
points on war ahead of the others then that side wins. Or if not it just goes to 20 rounds and it's the one on the
26:06
most points that wins. It's so simple for a war game. If you've got people who just want to do a bit of World War II or
26:13
just want to play a bit of a war game or something like that. Um it is really simple. It's probably one of the most
26:18
simple. It kind of reminded me about Blitz Creek in its simplicity is it's not really doing necessarily the normal
26:24
war game thing, but it is summarizing that sort of pushpull and that area control that comes with.
26:29
So would you say it's good for someone who was wanting to dabble into war games or is it good for someone who likes war
26:35
games already and just wants like a a short, easier, less thinky? Yeah, I know
26:41
I know people who play this who don't care for war games because it's just it's no different to most other area
26:47
control games where you know whatever dudes on the map sort of thing. It's very it's very light all say all the
26:52
nations are very pointed. So it's like if it's Japan you're controlling the Pacific. If it's America you're trying to build everybody up and then you're
26:59
going to probably make a late surge across the board like they did in World War II. If it's Germany it's, you know,
27:04
expanding out towards Russia, towards France and into Africa. So, they're all very pointed with their decks as to what
27:10
they do. It doesn't mean you have to follow it perfectly. It just kind of pushes you in a direction. And so, yeah,
27:17
it's very I think if you took the World War II theme off it and completely rebranded
27:24
it, no one would notice. Okay. It's that kind of it's it does give you
27:29
a little flavor of World War II, but it's not a typical war game in that sense. It's very, as I say, it's just
27:35
very dudes on a map feel, but yeah. and very easy to get into. I think I did the teach in about 10 minutes.
27:40
Oh, wow. Okay. Which normally I spend about an hour starting to teach off. Sure. So, that's been the thing that's put me off.
27:46
I mean, war just doesn't what is it good for? I mean, but the idea of sitting
27:52
there with dudes on a map being told that I have to do that just No, it's very it's very simple. Um, and
27:58
it's got the axis and allies thing where you're trying to help each other. Obviously, you're two teams and you're trying to help each other out, but you
28:04
kind of if you know a little bit about World War II, okay, it's not a lot you have to know. Um, but if you know a little bit
28:09
about World War II, you you know roughly what your like your friends are going to kind of probably be able to do on their
28:15
turn. Um, but you are dictated by this card, these cards. And the other thing that's quite odd is that you have a
28:21
limited deck. So, when you get to the end of the deck, every time you'd be asked to discard cards and everyone's
28:27
got things that make other people discard cards, you lose victory points. And of course, when you got no cards in your hand as well, every turn you'll
28:33
lose a victory point. So, if they can, one way of sort of getting victory is to kind of to control the map and and sort
28:40
of get ahead. Another way is just to blitz through your opponent's deck with discard stuff. Wait till they've got no
28:46
cards to play and they'll be able to do so little. Once they've got like only three or four cards in hand, you
28:51
normally have seven. Once you've got only three or four cards in hand, the likelihood is they're not going to be able to do anything productive and then they're going to start on but they have
28:57
to play a card or discard a card. And then every time you make them discard cards, it comes from the top of their deck and they're getting minus points.
29:03
And you can kind of um what's the term? Starve them out of the game almost. And
29:10
they can sort of lose points that way just cuz they've run out of juice to stay. It's like it's like an economy
29:16
designed to be around economy. You've run out of money sort of thing. You've run out of and each nation has a slightly different sized deck. So some
29:22
are more likely to run out of economic stability and stuff like that. And again, it's just they're all so clean
29:29
and so simple and say 10-minute teach. I think we'd wound up in about an hour and a half. No, thoroughly enjoyed it. I've
29:34
got the expansion ready to go as well, which adds a couple of bits and pieces. Um cuz I think probably with the base
29:40
game, I think you might have eight or nine games in it before everyone's learned, if you play with the same group, where everyone's kind of learned
29:46
what's in everyone's decks and what they're going to do and all that kind of stuff. And then the expansion adds some
29:51
stuff in which can mix it up. Um, so yeah, so I had loads of fun with that.
29:56
Um, and can't wait to play again. But yeah, quarter master general. Yeah, nice.
30:03
[Music]
30:10
So, the main topic um of this episode I've called like progression or leveling up or something along those lines cuz I
TURN 3 - Main Event: Levelling Up
30:17
couldn't really think of a a snappy title for it. But the initial idea for this came about because on Facebook I
30:23
saw a post which I've seen a few times now and to take take it to its ridiculous concept. Basically someone
30:28
was like my 5-year-old just learned Connect 4. How do I get them into board games so they can potentially play a
30:34
lassera with me in like five years time? You just think to yourself, really? Is that really just let them
30:41
enjoy their games at whatever speed and progression or you know quite often it'll be we got a new starter in the
30:46
group but all we ever really play is Twilight Imperium. Yeah. Massive multiplayer like or or
30:52
just massively complex game. How do we get them there? And it was five and four. I was playing Snakes and Ladders, weren't I?
30:59
It was It was just one of those posts where I was like, I just let people if they're happy with the level of games
31:04
they're playing, maybe they just just leave it there. Either you play games with them or they just won't be part of the group because you won't get any
31:10
games in with that sort of group, you know? But either way, just let them be if that's where they want to be. But it did spark an idea of an episode which was if
31:18
you did decide to sort of bend to those whims, how would you go from if someone said, "Oh, I really like this game or I
31:25
really want to end up playing that game." How would you get them there? So each of us has picked um basically three
31:33
three games that progress from entry level through sort of midweightish into
31:39
upper midweight or heavy complex games that kind of add a layer each time or
31:44
add something that makes it more more difficult. And so if you wanted to for instance cajol someone from going from
31:51
their lightweight game that they might be enjoying to a heavyweight game that they might also enjoy but may not um how
31:56
do we get them there? So we've each sort of picked themes and and mechanics and stuff like that that
32:02
we're going to do that for and uh yeah hopefully it has a bit of fun and a bit of a light-heartedness. Again this is
32:10
all supposed to be lighthearted. Please take it that way. And some ideas to start people gaming. Yeah, exactly. So, I thought I'll kick
32:17
it off and then sort of you guys can can follow on. So, so for mine, I've gone
32:23
with a co-op game. So, I think co-ops is a big genre um out
32:29
there that to be fair isn't everyone's, but quite often you'll find that they're
CO-OP GAMES - Marvel United ＞ Pandemic ＞ Spirit Island
32:34
good for families or new starters or, you know, just people who like co-ops. So, I've gone from uh from sort of entry
32:41
level co-op all the way up to one of the more complex co-ops. So, my entry in is
32:46
Marvel United. So, Marvel United has got Marvel, so
32:51
quite often enticing to lots of people, not everyone, but to lots of people. It's got cool, cheapy little miniatures,
32:57
which is again enticing to some people. And the mechanics in it are a great way
33:04
to introduce someone to a lot of the tropes that are in co-op games. So, the
33:11
bad guy has a card that comes out every few cards that are played and will sort of tell you what they're going to do.
33:17
So, it's it's going to move around the map. Um, which is just a circle. Um, but so it's going to move around locations
33:23
and then it will pow or it will do something on that location which does something. then you'll get a couple of
33:29
turns and then it's going to do a a thing which is quite a common thing in co-ops where it's like you get a few
33:34
turns or you know you each get a turn and then the bad guy or whatever you're fighting
33:41
gets a turn. So it introduces them to that. It also introduces them to the idea of
33:47
discussing what they've got coming up or what they need or what do other people need in a way that I think is
33:54
sometimes necessary in the game. But quite often if you're sort of playing with a like you know kids or something out who maybe don't want to listen or
34:00
don't want to take on ideas they you can kind of get away without doing too much of the co-opy stuff. So for instance if
34:06
I've got a handful of cards which none of them have movement on but I need to move. I'll say to someone the person so
34:12
on your turn you get the symbols of the person before you and yours the card you
34:18
play. So if I need a move I'll say to the person who goes before me don't suppose you've got a movement card that you can play cuz then I'll benefit from
34:24
it. Same as if the person after me needed to move, they might say to me, "Have you got a move?" if they haven't got one. And so it introduces that sort
34:32
of that co-op aspect of talking about what you've got without maybe being too prescriptive because a lot of card game
34:38
a lot of card games won't let you say exactly what you've got in hand. So it kind of introduces you to that that very basic element and it's not too
34:45
impactful. If for instance you didn't ask, have you got movement? Quite often
34:50
you can still do something or there's still a way out or whatever. And there's also some variability. So there's like
34:56
different levels. And what it what it sort of says is I'll remove the wild card certain number of wild card symbols
35:02
from your deck. Well, if I want a bit more of a challenge, I can remove the one with all of like loads of symbols on
35:09
it. If someone's new or or sort of might struggle with the concept a little bit more, you can just tell them to remove
35:15
the one with the least wild card symbols on it. And so we're all playing the same game but might have slightly different strength decks and therefore it might
35:21
make it feel a bit more even. So, there's loads of stuff in there that I think helps out a new starter, but it also teaches people the basics that are
35:28
in a lot of co-op games. And I think some of those is let's all talk about what order we should do the
35:33
things in. Yes. Because you can kind of like you were saying with the whole you get to choose your previous person's symbol symbols.
35:40
Um that kind of I think is a real common thing in in co-op, isn't it? And it can
35:46
lead down that very nasty path of of sort of quarterbacking or alpha gaming where someone's telling you what you're
35:52
going to do, but it's nicer if you can have that conversation of, "Oh, well, I can move. So, why don't why don't I do
35:58
that first cuz I'll probably help you. Will that help?" You can kind of talk about it rather than someone just saying
36:03
what's going to happen. And Marvel United is quite hard to quarterback. You can kind of point at a location, say, "We should be dealing with this really, I think." But because
36:10
it's all hidden symbols in your hand, if someone really wanted to quarterback, you just shut them out of their hand.
36:15
You wouldn't show anything, which so it is a real easy way to kind of it does prevent a lot of that quarterbacking in
36:22
co-ops. Um, but yeah, so then the one my next game is of course Pandemic. So
36:28
Pandemic also kind of leans on that even more. So the pandemic system in general
36:35
is, you know, you'll take a number of cards off the top of the deck and something in that region will get worse
36:40
or and then what will happen is something will come out like an ep epidemic card or whatever it's called in
36:45
that game. You'll shuffle all of those cards in the discard deck and it will go back on top and therefore you and then
36:52
you'll start drawing from that again. So you're teaching the players to be mindful of what's in the discard pile,
36:57
what's in the draw deck. They'll have seen probably quite a bit of what's to come. Um, so it it kind of does more of
37:05
that, getting people used to the idea of what's coming up in the deck, what have we seen, what haven't we seen, all that
37:11
kind of stuff. Um, which again, as you play more co-ops, that is definitely a theme.
37:17
It's more like your discussions have got to be more intense. There's more discussion discussion in pandemic%. It might be, am I going this way or that
37:22
way? And you'll sort of go, well, we've already had that card out this time, so you don't really want to go that way. You probably want to go this way if
37:28
that's the question sort of thing because we've already seen it in the discard deck. And so it becomes a bit bit more mathematical. It becomes much
37:35
more open for um analysis and sort of seeing what there's there's definitely
37:41
better roots that are visible. And I think it's it's that kind of thing where you're in a lot of the basic
37:46
games, you're just looking at your stuff, are you? And I think when you level up to a different sort of weight
37:52
game, you have to have a bit more awareness of what either other people are doing or in a game like co-op, it's
37:59
like what the the game the the you know the enemy is doing. What's the state of the board, you know,
38:05
have a much more of a look at it. That was definitely something that I have previously struggled with. Yeah.
38:10
And still do if I'm honest that having to focus on other people's strategies or
38:16
Yeah. Yeah, like I say, in this instance, it's the the B, you know, the enemy strategy cuz I just like looking
38:21
at my thing and just not having to have that kind of I don't know the board state.
38:27
Yeah. And it's like it's like having another layer of thinking going on. And sometimes that's great, but sometimes I
38:32
don't want to do that. And it's with Pandemic, it's so if you think about Marvel United, like the
38:37
decks are kind of similarish. There's only three symbols. There might be some extra rules here or there, but really
38:43
it's like the Hulk has a few more Smash symbols. the uh Ant-Man will have a few more move symbols, that kind of thing.
38:50
There's nothing world changing in there. Whereas by the time you've got to pandemic,
38:55
you know, one person is going to move other people around the board easier or move people to to match up with others
39:01
and stuff like that. So, actually, do I want to waste all of my action points on
39:07
moving around when someone can do my movement for me more efficiently? And so, you have to have those conversations
39:12
because you need to be more efficient. And Marvel United starts you off on that path, but you can ignore it entirely. By
39:18
the time you get to pandemic, there's no Yeah. You've got to be using that kind of collaborative.
39:23
I can do this for you. And it's not exactly bartering because you're not really sort of getting together, aren't you? So, it's not Yeah.
39:29
But it is that I look I really if I could do this myself, but I could really do with you push pulling me over here.
39:35
Can you do that on your turn? And if they kind of go, no, I need to do this instead, then you'll have a bit of a conversation about which is better. It's
39:41
not sort of as transactional as some games that are, well, I'll swap you this for this. No, cuz
39:48
it's for the greater good. Yeah. So, anyway, so yeah, so that was Pandemic. That's sort of my midweight
39:54
game. And then anyone who's probably listening to this is probably screaming out the name of my next co-op, which is the top end one is Spirit Island. So,
40:02
Spirit Island then takes all of that completely up a notch. And the way that I think there's a couple of ways that it
40:09
does this. The main way though is again it's that seeing what's coming next. So
40:14
I can see from the card where there's going to be colonization, building and ravaging. And so I need to be quite
40:21
often one or two turns ahead of what's on there as well as working to see what my friend can do or can't do or say I
40:28
mostly play Spirit Island two-player but you play three or probably four I wouldn't recommend but I've played fun
40:34
four player games so why not? But yeah, you really kind of got to pay attention to and some spirits just aren't designed
40:41
to do certain things. So some spirits can only work in coastal regions or they're more powerful near their shrines
40:48
or they're more and so it really impacts the reach that especially the more complex ones of what they can actually
40:54
get to. So quite often one spirit will end up being sort of filling the gaps
40:59
and trying to you know if someone can only do coastal the other one will be you know doing fear or something like
41:05
that to try and fill in the gaps and so they have to kind of you have to continue to work together but stick to
41:11
very specific roles and unlike pandemic where quite often there's a better way and a
41:17
worse way in spirit island sometimes there's a no way that spirit has no way of dealing with it and therefore you
41:23
have to fill the gaps in andortgest get round them. And I think also one of the thing that puts it at that high level,
41:28
but doesn't really add in that co-op is that fast speed, slow speed thing, which I think trips up a few people, but
41:34
certainly adds to that element of, okay, I was waiting until next turn, but I
41:39
forgot this card is slow speed, which means everything will happen before I get to play my card, which blah blah blah blah blah. So, there's a lot of,
41:46
okay, I need to see exactly what's happening in what order. But as in most good co-ops, I can see or guess what's
41:52
coming up based upon what I've seen. You got the clues. Have you played Spirit Island? I played it twice when it first came
41:58
out. I think we were like, but that's it. I can't remember. It's been years since I played. I kind
42:03
I think I played it too early. I don't think I was ready at all. But I'm not saying I am now.
42:08
You've never been a fan of looking too far ahead. Same as me. It's just not something that is in my
42:14
house skill. I just Yeah, you do. And I only play I play the same if I ever play
42:19
it, I play the same spirit that makes everything fast cuz then I don't have to think about Yeah. because then I don't have to have
42:25
that, wait a minute, no, hold on, that happens first. So this hasn't happened yet and I
42:31
just I I can't operate on those different levels at the same time. I just I don't find it fun or enjoyable.
42:38
It's stressful and it's But again, the whole co-op thing is you work together to do this. I can, but then I just feel like what am I even here for? I might as well just
42:44
let Curly play cuz he's he's having to tell me what to do because I don't not I don't understand it. I do understand it.
42:50
I'm I'm not stupid. But it I just don't find it pleasurable or a nice puzzle. I just
42:56
find it stressful and irritating that I can't I think by that level everyone has to be
43:01
on their own game sort of thing. And if you're struggling with a core part of it, it's definitely leveled up. Yeah, it is. I think that is one of the
43:09
one and it's, you know, it's rightly got a bit of a what's the term? It's got a sort of
43:15
reputation. It's got a reputation as being one of those top end if you want to co-op or solo solo. It's a top end
43:23
sort of game for complexity where you really have to think about it. And if you play with some of those, I've started
43:29
dabbling with some of the more complicated spirits and man, they are tough. Yeah. because
43:34
you're doing very specific things and if you don't get it right whereas the those
43:39
level ones there's a little bit of wiggle room or quite often they're pointing in a direction by level two level three man if you've not got it
43:46
right you are letting that entire island of down for me again enjoy or not I think
43:52
that would be a good route to show someone if they were like right I want to try the next level and I want to try
43:57
the next level so which is kind of what I was trying to go for here was what would you show someone who's got to that
44:03
first level or who wants to get involved then who wants to go to the next level then the next level. So yeah Becky what
44:10
have you gone for? So uh I have gone for a nature theme. No surprises thereoop.
44:15
Uh so my first one was Baron Park. Nice. So although it is nature based cuz it's
44:21
about bears and a zoo for bears, it's really just polyomino tetris score point
NATURE - Barenpark ＞ Wingspan ＞ Ark Nova
44:27
scoring, isn't it really? So I think it's it's very easy to understand. It's really easy to teach
44:33
because you're just putting shapes and you know, you can quite clearly see the score you're going to get. It's on
44:39
the front. Yeah. It's whatever you've covered, you then get the next piece. Like it's it's very very simple. You could explain that to a
44:45
5-year-old. And it's got cute pictures of bears. So, what's not to like? But I think and some pretend bears.
44:51
Yeah. Well, is it the goi bears? Is that the ones you're talking about? Koala bears, isn't it?
44:57
Oh, yeah. Koala bears. Yeah. But they are bears. They do look like I know they're not. Pretend bears.
45:02
Mhm. I prefer the chip bears. Although they're they're not chips. They just look like they're on piles of chips.
45:08
Like as in fish and chip chips. What? The the bears that are Oh, gone down a
45:14
route here. Oh, on Baron Park. Yeah. Oh, okay. It's like, what kind of bear
45:19
just sits on chips? The best kind of bear. Whatever.
45:24
No, the the the bears that the backgrounds are yellow. Yeah. Go. Yeah. or something. They look like they're sitting on chips
45:29
with covered with curry sauce. I've never noticed it before. Well, you will notice it now. I've sold it. So,
45:34
well, whenever you come around my house and look at it, you could see they're like they're on chips. Um, so it's a really really simple game. Yes, it's
45:40
nature themed, but it's not really. It's shapes, isn't it? Um, and I think you could get anybody interested in that
45:46
really quickly. Again, it does the thing of that nature does, which is it feels accessible. You understand what the theme is.
45:53
You're making a nice zoo. Yeah. And apart from the fact that things don't like the the rivers and that don't
45:59
actually have to join up and neither do the pathways or that's that was always my one little bit that that would be
46:04
cool if there was some way to do that. But apart from that, everything else kind of makes sense. Yeah, cuz it'll be put them together or don't
46:10
put them together or whatever. Fill the spaces, get the points to get the group things. It'll always be
46:16
like play four of these or whatever. It's just okay cool. I need four panda bears. It's Yeah, it's easy to do, but
46:22
still quite satisfying that you've completed the the shapes or or whatever. So, I think
46:27
I think I could sell that to anybody of my friend group that would even sit down for 20 minutes and play a game. That's a
46:33
nice simple one. Um, my next level up is Wingspan, which
46:38
is not at all about puzzles and shapes, but you could be either. It's not about bears. Yeah, this is it.
46:45
So I think that like we said earlier that IP of I know it's not a specific you know intellectual property of a
46:53
genre but just nature and foresty stuff and and animals really
47:00
calls to people. It's approachable. Yeah. And people understand it and they like it and it's it's attractive.
47:05
So yeah, Wingspan is my next one up. I think would you would I have thought I'd
47:12
sit there playing a game about birds? probably not. No. Um,
47:18
but it's easy to to understand. Yeah. It uses very sort of easy and
47:24
understandable terms like birds that live in water, birds that live in trees, birds that live on pl like that. It
47:31
doesn't have to be water, planes and trees. Like in we in worms, it's caverns, whatever it, you know, the
47:39
crimson caverns and the whatever it is. So, it it doesn't matter really. It's just which layer does it live on? Yeah.
47:44
But with with the kind of nature theme, it's understandable. Immediately understandable. Yeah. Eggs and wingspan and stuff, all
47:51
terms that whether we use them regularly or not is a different thing. But they're all terms you'll have heard of probably.
47:58
So as long as you can understand, right, you can either play a bird or you can get food. Yeah, that's kind of all pickup cards. That's
48:04
kind of your options, isn't it? So the the iconography is really easy to
48:09
understand. Yeah. But you still have toward
48:14
this first. So it takes it up a notch
48:20
does that does that shape fit in this place here? Yeah. But like Baron Park kind of does a similar thing in the fact of you're
48:25
thinking about what you want to cover normally more than what you're thinking about what space do I leave but quite often you're thinking just as much about
48:32
what do I want to cover cuz what do I want to get? Yeah, that's it. And and Wingspan's kind of doing a similar thing where quite often it's what row do I want to be in
48:39
or what how many eggs or food do I need to play in that column or whatever it is. So it kind of does a little bit more
48:44
of that as well. You're full planning to a degree, but I think definitely it it sort of ramps it up with with Wingspan.
48:51
And I like the fact that the you get a decreasing amount of turns each
48:57
like round because you're spending actions each round. Yeah. So, you know, it's a kind of you start learning how to
49:04
prioritize a little bit more, I think. Um, and sort of because you've got the bird table there of of the birds that
49:10
are free for everyone to pick. That starts kind of teaching you, right, well, if you've got your eye on something,
49:15
yeah, it's an open market, you need to get it. So you need to prioritize your picking up cards action rather than so it make
49:22
it helps make you decide what is more important which I think is something that I definitely
49:29
uh struggled with when I started playing games. I think finding efficient ways of
49:35
doing stuff was okay for me but I would never had to do that sort of
49:41
um against someone else. Yeah. Sort of in competition with someone else. So, I think starting to put things
49:48
in like there's a a shared area for something is quite helpful to teach people actually,
49:53
do they want it? Does my opponent want it? Do they not? Yeah. You don't have to look at other people's boards and tables.
49:59
Definitely need it. So, like if a bird's got a grub or wheat, whatever it is, oh, I can probably hold off a bit cuz
50:04
there'd be a chance one of those comes out. If it's only a grub and it's the last thing you need to play this one card, that's it. And you think your opponent might want a
50:11
grub, then you'll probably take a grub. Yeah. you start learning that not sort of it's not exactly hate drafting that
50:18
you're doing but you are making sure that you get your Yeah. Beat them to the punch.
50:23
Yeah. And I think that is definitely something that I had to actually learn rather than it
50:28
just coming automatically. Fair enough. And I think Wingspan's quite good for that. Nice. I'd agree with that. And it's nice with birds.
50:34
It's the same with little cool eggs. Exactly. It looks stunning. Always does. The wingspan stuff is awesome. Stuff is
50:40
good. Yeah. mini eggs. But your husband won't let you paint speckles on them.
50:46
Just buy the wooden speckled egg upgrade. Well, you Yeah, I could. But it's like 25 quid, is it? It is.
50:52
Oh, no. I could. Yeah, but I could make my own speckled eggs. True.
50:57
Never thought I'd say that. I could I could speckle my own eggs, but he won't let me. You didn't think you would say that at
51:04
You never thought I could make my own speckled eggs, but you didn't think I could speckle my own eggs. That would be a comment that you might say. So yeah, I
51:11
think Wingspan is something that I have been able to teach people that aren't particularly gamers and I like the fact
51:18
that it intro in introduces those um turn taking tableau builds like some of
51:24
the mechanics of that game. My friend Katherine can sort of Oh, that's like in
51:30
Wingspan when you're collecting that. So it it starts introducing those common things like resource kind of selection
51:36
and and that kind of thing which is which is helpful. Nice. And then your final My final one of course Arnova. Of course
51:44
it is. Of course it is. Um which we have now done a 180 and then
51:50
another 180 about whether we're going to buy the 3D edition. Oh, cuz you were about to We were We
51:56
were not going to. Yeah. And then you were Yeah, I know. And then we looked at the
52:01
Sundrop version and then you figure out 20% tax tax. Yeah. And then you're like, "Holy
52:08
crap, this is getting up over 300 quid now." You got delivery on that as well. Well, the on top. Yeah, I know. So, it's
52:16
rapidly becoming just a bit ridiculous. Yeah. I've spoken to several people now who
52:21
are really on the fence and they seem to be coming down on the let's not.
52:28
I can't say anything bought massively blinged up too many
52:35
basically a 60 game dressed up in 400 packaging. We've all played or own those
52:40
games I'm sure but there are so many people who like Ark Nova who are like I might buy this
52:47
and I'm telling myself I shouldn't but I might. Yeah. I mean when I first saw it I was like you know what I don't think it's
52:52
going to add anything. Blingmeister Becky herself says, "I don't think I'm going to buy the bling." And then I
52:57
listened to Curly's um the episode a few weeks ago and he was like, "Yeah, we're not going to buy it." And I was like, "You just said we were two minutes ago.
53:04
We were looking at it and and now when we were actually adding it up, we're like, do you know what? I I don't think
53:09
I can." How often do you play Art Nova with Curly? We play BGA a lot. Not recently
53:14
actually, but we are about to go on holiday and I almost guarantee we'll be playing it. But do we actually get the
53:20
board game actually out from the Kax? a reason to give. I know. I know. Anyway,
53:26
that's that way of looking at it. Why is this your top? This is my top game because I'm about to
53:33
drop 400 bloody quid on stupid sundrop painted minis, but whatever. No. Um,
53:40
it just levels it up again. So, you've got a lot more forward planning. A huge amount more forward planning. You have
53:45
to do this to do this to do this to do this. you are constantly trying to get to somewhere else before the other
53:52
people. Yeah. You've really got to think about now, do they want that? Do I want it a little bit, but I might want it? They might.
53:59
Right. I've got to go. You You really have to kind of sometimes completely not quite sabotage your own plans, but hold
54:05
off what you were going to do in order to stop them doing the thing that will absolutely nudge it up.
54:10
And plus, you got to do one side of scoring and then get the other side of scoring on the board. T does not like the scoring of his own
54:16
do. No, I'm just saying the leveling up part that is that is huge. It is a crazy me. It's a crazy scoring
54:23
method. I mean actually I think you just almost got to forget the numbers. It's just when it crosses and measure the
54:29
distance with a tape measure rather than try and go with numbers. That would probably be easier. I know I hate the scrolling part. It's not the scoring part. It's the part
54:34
where you got to think about getting people coming to your zoo to go at one side and you got to get what's it called? The other side. It's
54:40
conservation track up. Doing two sides of a game. Actually, it broke me. And that's the leveling up part is hard.
54:46
Yeah. And I think for me you you can ignore one. Oh, I don't Oh, you play longer than I
54:51
have. So, you can almost ignore completely ignore one, but you can really go heavy one
54:57
equal or whatever. But I think you do have to have that
55:02
yin and yang balance of appeal and you have to go strong on appeal to start with because you need that money. That's
55:09
the only way you've got of getting more money in. But the big points come from the conservation. Yeah. Isn't that the conversation? You
55:15
get your G gaming tokens out onto the end gaming cards there, isn't it? Yeah. So, yeah, you've got your kind of shared conservation uh plans,
55:23
achievements, uh availability. So, you're constantly looking at other that is where playing it on BGA is a bit
55:30
more helpful because you can just look how many how many Predator icons has Curly got? He's got four. Oh crap. Well,
55:37
rather than have to like be peering at their car though, that's one of the real on top of that. Yeah, it's the cards, the action cards, and how far are they
55:43
away from the start, the lesson on your board, all that kind of stuff. Balance. You're spinning a lot more plates.
55:49
Now, I think I've probably got a slightly uh skewed view on how difficult that game is because I play it all the
55:56
time. So, I don't think it's as difficult as all that, but that's because I've played it to death. It's
56:02
just repetition, isn't it? Yeah. And I think that's what I have to do in order to level up of any kind of
56:07
game. And I think that's the trouble with our gaming group. One of the and it's a great trouble to have, but
56:13
because we play so many different games, you don't often get the repetition of the same game. And I I know myself, I
56:20
need that repetition in order to gain any kind of uh not mastery, but any kind of good
56:28
understanding and kind of solid chance of being able to I'm not saying
56:33
win, but actually perform well and do what I need to do. I need to get that repetition in. Thank you, Becky. On to
56:39
tea. What have you got? Okay, so I'm gonna go down with the mechanic of worker placement.
56:44
Yeah, that's standard. So, to introduce people to worker placement, and I know the agent have to take a deep breath.
56:49
No, there's so many better ones. I don't see again there might be there
WORKER PLACEMENT - Lords of Waterdeep ＞ Caverna ＞ Anachrony
56:55
might be other ones that are easy, but I'm going to go Lords of Water Deep. Oh, mate, you I'm I'm with you on that. That's my
57:00
That's the first worker placement that I would do is definitely Lords of Water Deep. It's simple. You get given a lord
57:06
which gives you a directive where to go and what to get. Um you literally put me we'll do the no expansion is just the
57:11
base lord to water deep. That's definitely right. Even though it's better with the expansion but to put people in the first level I would say
57:17
just the base and you just got to you explain workplace what it is. You put a meatball on the table on the on the
57:23
board and you get this the color cube. Yeah. Which repation and then you got to meet these color cubes to make your missions.
57:29
Yeah. You swap those. Swap them around. Swap them around for this. And it's extremely simple. And then you score your VPs and you go up
57:35
the track. You can make it a little bit more fun by playing intrigue cards which you introduce a card into it. So you can
57:41
do this little action double actioner and you can sniff up other people obviously with the mandatory quest which is annoying but it's gives a a taste of
57:50
what you know competitivity isn't it? and a small one. And um yeah, I think WS
57:55
Water Deep would definitely be the first level I think. And you got shops as well.
58:00
Obviously, you can build up so you can build up other worker spots for people. So it doesn't look the stunnest games.
58:06
I'm not going to lie. It's just color cubes and the theme is you say someone's Dungeons and Dragons,
58:11
it might put them off. So you don't say that. You just say a game called Loyal to War Deep. Or you might say it is Dungeons and Dragons if you're trying to entice them
58:17
and you know that's going to work. Yeah. say, "You play board games or you play Dungeons and Dragons." Like, "No, there's lots more stuff." Dungeons and
58:24
Dragons. There's lots more stuff. Play this game about Dungeons and Dragons. We don't have to dress up as wizards or
58:29
anything. You're right. You can if you want. Yeah, but you can if you want, but yeah. So, um, yeah, I don't really know what else to explain, but it's that simple.
58:35
Yeah, it gives you a directive, swap it, put it down, and then you choose more, look ahead a little bit, and you get ongoing abilities as well, I suppose,
58:41
when you play certain quests. So, yeah, simple game to explain there, that one, Lord War Deep. So, pretty
58:48
straightforward. Um, the lava leveling up one I would do. I'm going to say Cavverna.
58:53
Oh, that's an interesting choice. Yeah, because now you've got your own little table and you have to build farms
58:59
and you have your own little caves and you got to breed and you got to make sure you feed your family. So, there's
59:04
other things you got to think about um for worker placements. Again, it's one
59:09
of the simplest ones. You get your little dwarf man, you put it down, you get the resources or you build a cave where you bake a farm and then you got
59:16
different phases in this now. So your vegetables will grow and all sorts of different things. You got to make
59:22
barriers for sheep and you get all your dogs and it's also cool and fun to keep people enticed. You're building your own
59:27
little Yeah. It makes it more personal, doesn't it? Cuz you've got your playerboard in front of you that you can control. It
59:33
doesn't doesn't really matter what someone else's looks like. No. But that might give you a hint as to
59:38
what they might choose next. So if you need it, snap it before they get there. Yeah, correct. And it's I know in Lords
59:45
Water Deep, it's quite punishing. If someone goes on a spot you want, you're done. But this one, there is another spot you can go on. It's a bit more expensive, but you you can repeat
59:51
another person's spot. So it's not too forgiving on that. But obviously, it still is a little bit work placement,
59:56
isn't it? Um uh yeah, and I think the fact that if you don't meet your criteria at the end by feeding your family, you're going to
1:00:02
get punished and get minus VPs always gets me. Every every damn time I starve my family.
1:00:08
Yeah, you did on the game. Yeah, that was a griff. But every time I was doing this is why I don't have children. See, I can't be trusted.
1:00:13
Yeah, exactly. And then you got to think about you want more workers. So you got to breed the families. So it's just that extra leveling up I think worker
1:00:19
placement for that scenario on that side. And then and obviously at the end of the game you get VPs for
1:00:26
all your sheep and or all your resources and all this and you you buy little you got to do your own cave to your own
1:00:32
little rooms as well. So you got to think about I'm going to make this room for us an endame scoring room to give me points. There's a lot more going on.
1:00:39
I think that's where it does ramp up is that that end game scoring thing. I know that some of the lords in Lords of Water
1:00:45
have a for this kind of quest get points or whatever every three extra three Vs for every quest you complete.
1:00:50
But I think you're right in Civera there's a whole you can Yeah, you can go down a route of all different rooms that give you all
1:00:56
kind of different VPs at the end which you can go for. Yeah, I'm not going to maybe focus on the just the farming bit, but I'm going
1:01:02
to go for what is it? rubies or rubies. So, you can really heavily go down one kind of
1:01:08
route to victory hopefully. Yeah. Also, there's other rooms which give you ongoing abilities. So, for instance, you can make two pumpkins and
1:01:14
a I can't what it's not a carrot, but it's something else. I can't It's been a while since I played it. And then you can make four food and it's only worth
1:01:19
normally like two. So, you got other abilities rooms that do cool stuff as well. You have a cuddle room.
1:01:25
Oh, yeah. I remember the cuddle rooms you know, it's all just fun stuff. And at the end of it, even if you lose, when I first played Kavverna,
1:01:31
even I lost and I didn't do very well, I was happy with my little board cuz I bought you achieved the thing. Yes.
1:01:36
Yeah, I completely agree with that. So, it keeps people interested, I think, in a way. So, that's the more second one I would do for next leveling up.
1:01:42
Um, now the third one, what's the big boy? The big boy is probably Anacrony. Okay. I haven't ever played this, so
1:01:49
yeah, I know it's going to be difficult. Um, so I'll do my best. Basically, you're a company that goes back in time
1:01:57
and then you know there's going to be a big meter that hit. So, you got to you you have to kind of go back in time to
1:02:02
sort it out. It's it's it's very confusing already. Y it already sounds these little eco
1:02:08
suits that go out and then you put your little scientists in. You got to have different member of staff. You got engineers, scientists. Um and there's
1:02:14
another one. I can't quite remember. I was I was just thinking that. And the third Oh, there's the wild one. It's the wild
1:02:19
guy, isn't it? He's um he's the he's the brainy guy. Um he's he's got a brain symbol, so he's a genius. That's it. Oh,
1:02:25
okay. Yeah. As a genius, so he's wire, so he's everything. So, I guess you're already adding in kind of levels of complexity of choices,
1:02:30
aren't you? 100%. Yeah. So, yeah. So, you you get resources in one timeline, but you got
1:02:35
to make sure you go back at some point in the game into that timeline to get so you don't get punished at the end of the game. So, you got to think, right, I've
1:02:41
got to make sure I pay that back. Um you got your own tableau of building your
1:02:46
own little worker spots. So you buy you put your um eco suit down and then you
1:02:52
can get a shop to put into your own area so you can give other scientists can go into that one. There's a lot more going on. I mean I'm not doing any justice
1:02:58
here. It it sounds I think a common thing that has sort of cropped up is this aspect of forward planning
1:03:05
that seems to be a common yeah in those kind of higher I don't want to say higher echelon like they're sort of
1:03:12
better but in that kind of more heavyweight group you've got this you have it seems there has to be this
1:03:18
aspect of forward planning and and preparation I think we talked about it quite a while ago but the the two things that make
1:03:24
things more complex is interlocking things and forward planning. Yeah, you have to
1:03:32
get naturally. So that's the natural way to push things into heavier weight games, isn't it? But yeah, I think
1:03:38
Anacron is a great shout for for the top end one because it's got it's got certain goals you have to
1:03:44
achieve and things you have to do in a kind of a certain order. Yeah. Um but at the same time, it's got a lot
1:03:50
of options of just things you can do. There's kind of a bit, not too many, but there's a lot of
1:03:56
different options in front of you. Um, for my next one, I decided to do that
1:04:01
the reverse engineering of this thought experiment of what happens if I want to get someone to a Larda game. So, my
1:04:07
teaser is we're going to end a LERA game. And if you want to play along, you can decide which Lerta game we're going
A ROAD TO LACERDA - Splendor ＞ Viticulture ＞ Kanban EV
1:04:14
as I describe the different games. So, what I started with is Splender. So, in
1:04:21
Splendor, you're kind of doing two things, which is you're building up your pool to make other cards easier and cheaper to buy. So you don't have to
1:04:29
chips as you need to. You're making those decision on what resources you need to collect. And then you are also making decisions on what parts and what
1:04:37
um like what those gems or whatever they are or I play Marvel so it'll be what
1:04:42
super power symbol um you want to collect, right? So you're then getting those and then that makes everything
1:04:48
else cheaper and then the final goal and of course they go up through the level. So, you're slowly building up and sort
1:04:54
of progressing to get to normally a final goal of trying to grab one of those main Renaissance boring people.
1:05:02
Yeah. Or if you're playing Marvel, it'll be like Yeah. It'll be a a location or something that you want.
1:05:08
So, and there are there is there's a Pokémon one that I really want, but you can't get it in this country.
1:05:13
Um, but either way, that's kind of what you're doing. It's a very entry-level way into getting people used to the idea
1:05:20
of collecting resources and again picking their time to go and get the next thing they want off the board and
1:05:25
building it up that way and aiming for a sort of an end goal that they need to
1:05:31
sort of collect things in certain orders with what's available in front of them to then get that last part. So that's my
1:05:37
entry level game. my then level up and this is probably a
1:05:43
big stretch if I'm honest because it's just over I've gone from very lightweight to just over midweight at
1:05:49
this point and this will probably give the game away as to which lardra I'm going for but my next one is then viticulture
1:05:56
so viticulture and again I'm going from like 1.5 or whatever it is to 4
1:06:02
something so I want to have about five games in between those two really to get the right leveling but based on the the
1:06:08
three game principle we're going with. I'm then going to go with Viticulture. So, Viticulture teaches you a few
1:06:14
things. You will have goal cards that you need to go for and you might need to swap out those goal cards if they're not
1:06:20
going to work in your way. So, you'll draw and I'll say you want three a three red and an eight red and you're like, "Well, I've only got white grapes, so I
1:06:26
need to go digging for the right thing that I want sort of thing." So, it teaches you that and to plant the right grapes. It also teaches you that
1:06:35
sort of big spoiler production line of that production line of okay, I've got
1:06:42
to plant the seeds. I've then got to pick the grapes. I've then got to turn
1:06:48
those grapes into wine to then fulfill the contract. And it very much teaches
1:06:53
people, and there's loads of games where you have this kind of production line or sort of I must do a couple of things in
1:06:59
a set order. and we'll be all slightly at a different order cuz the game forces you into that. So I might be sort of
1:07:05
fulfilling contracts while you're already planting your next field or whatever it is. So we'll all kind of be doing slightly different things. But
1:07:11
again, you got to keep an eye on those worker placement spaces to make sure that people aren't taking what you want
1:07:16
or they're not going to stop you while keeping your production line moving. And the reason why I think viticulture is
1:07:21
also a good um a good midweight is
1:07:26
and I've never understood this so maybe wine makers will tell me different. I understand if you keep your wine in a
1:07:32
seller made it will grow in value because that's what alcohol does right when you when you've got it in an
1:07:38
alcohol form it ages correctly or whatever. So therefore it becomes more valuable. When it's a grape on a crush
1:07:44
pad it also ages. But for me, surely a grape should go away basically if you
1:07:51
don't turn it into wine. It should go moldy. But in the Yeah, exactly. But in the game, they also progress in their value
1:07:56
of grape as once you've picked them. And I think it's a nice way of producing
1:08:02
something that's production lines are quite a stiff and sort of um they
1:08:07
provide maybe a bit too much structure for some people. And if they come off of that structure, unyield, yeah, that's
1:08:12
it. They're unforgiving definitely. So by having the ability to age the wine
1:08:18
like as grapes I think is a bit forgiving and it allows people the chance that if they miss their opportunity to make grapes uh to make
1:08:25
wine then because their grapes go up in value as well actually when it gets to the wine stage it's being a little bit
1:08:31
more forgiving. So I think that teaches you that. Um and then finally the lera is camban which is about making cars. So
1:08:38
again, production, you need to go get your blueprints, you need to test them out, you need to get the car parts, you need to build the car, you need to test
1:08:44
the car, and then you need to fulfill contracts and stuff like that. So, and it it all of that is again that
1:08:51
production line, but it's so much more unforgiving. So, if you haven't visited all the areas, Sandra, I think her name
1:08:58
is, turns up with a notepad and says, "Who's the least trained in this area?" And if you're the least trained, you're going to take minus points.
1:09:04
Damn, Sandra. I've heard about Sandra. Yeah. And so she'll move down so but she only moves down to the next available
1:09:10
spot in the next department. So if that department you can be mean and fill up that department with spots and then
1:09:15
she's going to move on to the next one after it. So if you're the lowest trained again that sort of least optimal
1:09:21
optimal thing is you might want to get the car parts but actually you need to do the testing bit or whatever it is at
1:09:26
the top so that she skips over your department because you're the least trained in that one and then goes to the next department where Becky or Tambo's
1:09:33
the least trained sort of thing. And so it's got all of that horribleness in it
1:09:39
as well as keeping that basic production line which again if you go back to Splendor you're kind of building that up
1:09:44
and up and up and that's more of an engine builder but it's teaching you the very basics of production line. It's a real tenuous grasp I've made here
1:09:51
trying No, I think absolutely the engine builder kind of and that's exactly highlighted the kind of games I don't
1:09:57
like. But but I'd not really thought about it in that in that sort of way before. So, I think Splendor absolutely fits in that
1:10:04
category of games you don't like. Well, I don't I don't mind Splendor now. I have realized because it's I think
1:10:10
it's engine building to the degree I want to play. Anyway, that's my second one. Yeah, I think that's a good a good
1:10:16
journey. Yeah, it was it was hard to get something before Vita Culture, but the like
1:10:21
No, I think Splend I I want to like Vit Culture, but we all
1:10:28
know that I don't. Oh, but I think until now I couldn't really quite put my finger on why I blamed the
1:10:34
fact that you can make blush out of one drop of red and 50 vats of white. I mean, that's annoying. That is how wine making works. I hate to
1:10:42
not with one teaspoon. But I think yeah, now you've kind of so eloquently
1:10:48
described it like that. That's exactly what I don't like that you're on a complete fixed track. But if you jump
1:10:55
off the line a bit, I find it very difficult then to get back on. Yeah. And I don't enjoy that. Fair enough.
1:11:00
So mine was also work placement. I've kind of started off in the same place as tea though. So no, no, it's it's
1:11:06
interesting because I've started from Lords of Water Deep as my absolute basic because it is
1:11:12
put your thing there, get orange cubes, all my cards as I need five of them. Now I've done it, cash it in, let's do it
ANOTHER WORKER PLACEMENT - Lords of Water Deep ＞ Lost Ruins of Arnak ＞ Septima
1:11:18
again. So it's very very easy to explain. So then my next choice I went down the lost ruins of Arnack route.
1:11:26
Oh, nice. So it is still very, you know, worker placement, collect your thing, but you've also got that added mechanic of
1:11:32
upgrade your thing. Building. Yeah. And there's Yeah. So you deck
1:11:37
building in there, but also, you know, if you've got those turns that you can turn your
1:11:43
uh tablet into a flint or then a flint into a ruby. Is that the next one? Yeah.
1:11:50
So you've got that kind of oh hold on I need to spend a turn to upgrade that. So you you kind of you are planning forward
1:11:56
a little bit more. You're having to think oh I I really want to get those resources next time but I know that
1:12:02
they're looking at so it is more of that forward planning but there's usually something else you can do if someone goes on your spot like we were saying in
1:12:09
Lords of Water Deep kind of unless you've got buildings that kind of replicate that spot. Lost Runes of Vanak
1:12:14
you don't really have that but there is usually lots of other stuff you can do. So, it's it's not quite as tied as it
1:12:22
might be. You've you've got lots more options and yeah, you you're starting to introduce mechanics such as discard
1:12:27
piles and well, playing a deck of cards as a mechanic. Yeah. You got to play cards to be able to put
1:12:32
your psych. So, you've got to use those two things together. Yeah. A car.
1:12:38
A what? A car. Oh, yeah. The car, the plane, and be able to have the symbols that go onto that spot. You're starting to look at iconography.
1:12:44
You're starting to look at decks. starting to look at put your little me but you're still have you got a little mele of your color and you go in a place
1:12:51
so it's still it still uses those yeah it still uses those kind of basics
1:12:57
and I like to think that there's lots of different ways you could try and get your points but I always seem to have
1:13:02
about the same amount of points every time whether I think I've done loads of fighting or loads of going up the sort of research track like it doesn't seem
1:13:08
to change very much with me again it's bring that mechanic in you got to look far a little bit ahead not too far ahead but a little bit because
1:13:14
you got to look at you need these resources to move up the track. Absolutely. So there is so you can push yourself up that track. There is that forward
1:13:19
planning element but it if someone does a different thing forward planning element is yeah it
1:13:24
doesn't necessarily make your entire thing crash which I quite which I quite like. So you've got the asymmetric
1:13:30
abilities if you're playing with the um expansion the expeditions um leadersy
1:13:36
stuff. Yeah. So that's kind of interesting because it makes you play in a different way but it's still the same game. you're still
1:13:42
putting a thing down, getting stuff, swapping it for things, but the way you do that does change quite dramatically
1:13:49
depending on what character you're playing. So, I quite like that variability in with it. Um, and then my next level up, and it's not a massive
1:13:54
leap, I'll be honest, is Septima. Not quite worker placement, but you are
1:14:00
moving around a board getting to certain areas. That's how I kind of I couldn't think of a really complex worker placement that I
1:14:06
like. And I think with so Septima isn't you've got lots of meuples, you're putting them down. You've got one mele
1:14:13
and you're moving it around and around into different areas, but there is that blocking element. There is that kind of
1:14:20
you're not you're not playing workers, but you're playing your cards. So you've all got the same
1:14:25
batch of nine cards. You're all playing one at once. You're deciding not where you're going, but
1:14:31
what action you're doing with that. And with that you can intentionally mess people up.
1:14:37
Yeah. I think it's kind of work place. It's not place it but you move it to be able to get the resources around. Yeah. That's it. When when you do your resourcing bit,
1:14:42
right? Yeah. So there is that kind of working out right in a minute when I'm there. It's going to be that season. So I can't
1:14:48
collect that but I can collect these. So again it's that and watching out for those damn witch hunters.
1:14:53
Watching out for the Yeah. So it's it's a kind of mixture of what will the board state look like in a
1:14:59
minute which is something I'm mentioned earlier I'm not very good at and don't enjoy that kind of ponderous
1:15:06
thing because I always realize too late that I haven't and I don't want to be that kind of oh can I just take that
1:15:11
back cuz that's just gets boring doesn't it so yeah there is another level of what
1:15:19
having to think about something else at the same time nice and I really like it and I felt like I felt like put my big
1:15:24
girl pants on when I first time. You can see it. I've not even played it. I've watched a couple of playthroughs
1:15:30
and you can see that it's great game. I love it. Yeah, it is really good. So, T, your last your last progression.
1:15:36
Okay. By progression, I'm going to bend the rules a little bit. Okay. All right. So, I'm going to go dungeon crawler, but I'm going to go more cuz dungeon
1:15:42
crawlers can't be really that more complicated. They can be a little bit, but more how it's involved.
1:15:47
Okay. Okay. For for leveling up. So, my first one's going to even be the remake is going to be obviously hero quest.
DUNGEON CRAWLER - HeroQuest ＞ Mansions of Madness ＞ Gloomhaven
1:15:53
Yeah. your basic dungeon crawler. Yeah, exactly. You got your basic dungeon master. You got all your little
1:15:58
cool little goblins and little miniatures and all that, but you got also got your basic roller move
1:16:03
and you got your barbarian, you got your your wizard with spells and then you got um the dwarf, right? Your
1:16:10
basic. Yeah. And it's good fun. Well, at a time it was good fun. And we played a couple times on Curies. It was all right. But
1:16:15
then it Yeah, that's still all right. It's had it time, hasn't it? Had it time. You still got your little cool chest and everything you put on the
1:16:21
board as a dudger master and stuff. So you know I would start off with hero quest as an in first level easy in it.
1:16:27
You don't spend any cards. You roll dice to kill goblins get a higher number. Job done isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So it's very basic as as a dungeon
1:16:34
crawler comes. So the second one as an involvement I will say mansions of madness second edition. So now you're
1:16:39
getting a m a whole new kind of app involved. Mhm. You're doing um it's more of a mystery.
1:16:46
Yeah. Plus you got actions now you got to think about not just rolling a dice anymore. Yeah. So now you got more actions to think
1:16:51
about. So you um and you got you discovery as well, isn't it? It's all about discovery now. So you flip a
1:16:57
what the app tells you to do. You obviously flip the tire, you move, and you got to work as a team by doing a lot more cool stuff, not just move and roll
1:17:03
and fight basically and spend a card to do a spell. And and as you say that discovery does teach you when is a good time to move on
1:17:10
and when is not. If you get that discovery time timing wrong, when everyone's unprepared,
1:17:16
then it suddenly your house is on fire and you got nothing. Yeah. Whereas I've seen in Hero Quest where someone's like, I'm just going to bungle into this room with loads of
1:17:22
stuff and all I have to do is run away as quick as possible and I get away with it sort of thing, you know? Whereas with this kind of next step, you've got
1:17:29
a thing that's teaching you, okay, well, you've got to be a little bit careful and a bit mindful of where everyone else is. Flip over and spawn monsters or
1:17:35
something. Not maybe in a mansion so much, but but yeah, but it can. And I think one
1:17:40
good thing with mansions is it it kind of introduces that you can only do so many things because
1:17:46
then it'll be a mythos phase and it's all going to ramp up. So you you can't just infinitely you wander about doing
1:17:52
stuff. You've got to prioritize what you do because you've only got, you know, a fixed amount of turns before
1:17:59
it all gets horrific. Yes. Yeah, definitely. And you got obviously you find cool items. You can
1:18:04
um you got the insanity mechanic goes in there which obviously doesn't people don't like like Adrian doesn't really like it but some of the insanity cards
1:18:10
but I my niece absolutely loves the insanity mechanic and she thinks it's brilliant but it can be very annoying and I had the one you can't speak it's
1:18:16
stupid it's just ridiculous thrown out of the game. Yeah, but um there's that kind of mechanics that all show
1:18:21
different kind of things and the mysterious it's not all just fighting monsters in that one either. So you don't there's other people you can get
1:18:28
interested in it because you got to figure out puzzles for a start. There's puzzles on the game. So you got to do that. It's like a murder mystery, isn't it? Yeah, it can be. Some of them are really
1:18:34
murder mystery. So it's completely different to a a dungeon crawler, which which it can be. And now for my next level up. I mean, I
1:18:41
know you know it's not going to help with this, but I think Gloom Haven's probably the next top level as a dungeon crawler. Yeah. Yeah,
1:18:46
I agree. because it now you got campaign, you got a huge campaign, you got about 10 different characters. I
1:18:52
think it's more than that, but I'm just guessing, but to choose from, you got debt building, you've got you got to do
1:18:58
prosperity in your own town, you got town building, you got everything going on in that game, which is makes the dungeon craw up to the next huge level.
1:19:05
And again, you fall out of a book, discovery still in it. And yeah, and then you got all this cool IO mechanics,
1:19:11
how the the bad guys move, and you've really got to work well as a team. And you got to do the, you know, what how quick am I going?
1:19:18
how am I
1:19:24
with a right there's a better order to do things you have all those options yeah
1:19:31
at any time it's not like oh I've only got two discover actions and two of this whereas with gloom haven you have
1:19:38
sometimes I only have one of these actions but it's the card I don't want to play this way round I want to play it
1:19:44
the other way round it's exhausted you can't ever play it again So you got to Yeah, absolutely 100%. That's what also makes that hell
1:19:50
of a It's like the margin of error is just massively massively narrower, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. That's my progression
1:19:57
from that's the way I would do dungeon crawling. So hopefully for those listening, you know, we've sparked some thoughts. Maybe
1:20:04
you're on one game and you thought, "Actually, maybe I now will try that game." Or maybe you thought, "Well, that's not what I would do." And you can
1:20:09
let us know what you would have done cuz that's what we all feel like sometimes, isn't it? I wouldn't have done it that way. Um or maybe you know we there's so
1:20:17
much we haven't talked about. I was I was thinking of things like drafting mechanics or deck building and bag
1:20:24
building. Yeah, I had a deck build while I was doing a good time. Yeah. Yeah. I was going from I was doing like
1:20:30
um Quax Quedlinburg and then I was trying to think of a good like midweight sort of like it's Wonderful World drafting or something like that and then
1:20:37
I was thinking of like by the end like Oons or something like that is a little bit more sort of up. There's loads that
1:20:43
we haven't covered. So, if there's something, if you want to have a go at this yourself, please just let us know on the socials cuz I'd love to see what
1:20:49
people think from that entry level to that. And again, doesn't have to be mega heavyweight, just that slightly more complex end cuz I think it's a
1:20:56
fascinating thought experiment. Say all all born from silliness and people being silly on the internet. But I think it's
1:21:01
a great just works the brain a bit as to what would you do in what order. So, yeah. Bill, hope you've enjoyed that
1:21:06
section. On to the next.
1:21:18
Right. So, on to our next section. So, as mentioned, we have put aside the
TURN 4 - Connect Four
1:21:25
leave, leave, receive, whatever order anyone decided to say it in. Partially cuz it's just difficult to say.
1:21:31
It's just Yeah, just they all sort of You can kind of put in any order, can't you? So, you just say whatever order. So, we put that to one side for a little
1:21:37
bit and we're just going to try something else. If this section doesn't work, we'll move on to another idea. If it does and people like it, then we'll
1:21:43
stick with it for a while, I'm sure. So, um, I have in front of me a deck of cards. Shuffly, shuffly, shuffly. Bit of
1:21:50
ASMR. Shuffle, shuffly. Um, and on that are different themes, different mechanisms, stuff like that. And what
1:21:57
we're going to do is we're going to lay out four cards on the table, and we're going to look at those four cards and try and put at least two of them
1:22:03
together and come up with a game that we want to sell. If you can put three or four together, great. And again, if you
1:22:08
to get all four together, please stick it in our socials cuz some of these combos are crazy. And if you can find
1:22:14
all four of them together, then then good on you. But yeah, so we're going to just give it a quick shuffle and then
1:22:19
lay them out. We'll let you know what they are. So we have the first card out is dexterity.
1:22:25
The next card out is miniatures. The next card out is dice. And the next
1:22:33
card out is farming. So you don't have to have all four of them. So, think of a game you want to
1:22:39
give that 30 second sales pitch for either good or it does doesn't have to be great. Like if if what you're thinking of there is a terrible game,
1:22:45
give us a 30 second downell. And yeah, we'll just go through a few of these. So, Becky, you've got clearly. So, what
1:22:52
ones are you using? What card? I'm using Dexterity Miniatures and Dice. Mhm. And we're going with Flick Fleet.
1:22:59
Yes. By Ursy Games, uh, with their expansion Xeno Wars also. So, you have got really
1:23:05
cool I mean, are they miniatures? Uh, I think I think it's questionable. You've definitely got dexterity and dice
1:23:10
there. Let's go with that. And then, well, you've got little mini spaceships. Come on. They are
1:23:15
little acrylic flat pieces. Yeah, but they're they're miniature because they're not real life size.
1:23:20
Sure. That's how that works. That's miniature. I think you'll find. So, yeah, you've got really cute um And
1:23:27
they're not cute, but Well, I think they're quite cute because they're miniature. See? Definitely miniature. It's an acrylic.
1:23:32
That's not what it is. It's an acrylic cutout of a spaceship which you are
1:23:38
dextrously flicking to like attack other people and you're using dice to act as
1:23:45
your kind of um you're using dice to act as your power
1:23:51
or or whether you actually achieve the the hit or whatever. Yeah. Um and it's just great fun. Great fun.
1:23:57
Uh you play on I guess any kind of size table, but a bigger table is better. Um,
1:24:03
and yeah, you're just, it's a bit like kind of sabutio, but so much better. Nice. So, dexterity and dice then
1:24:08
and miniatures. Come on. I don't think we should let you have that. I was thinking of men at work and immediately went,
1:24:14
"Oh, you just don't want one." But they're meeples. They're not minis. They don't use dice either. They're meeples.
1:24:19
Right. They don't use dice. You go next. You don't have to have all of them. Well, I'm still claiming three
1:24:25
cuz it just is. I mean, I've not played it yet. It's on the shelf of shame because Curley sold it to me from his shelf of shame which
1:24:32
is dice realms which has a farming like you have farmland as one of your dice
1:24:38
sides. Um so it's one that I'm really intrigued to play. I think Curley bought it and sold it to me for for pennies on
1:24:45
the pound basically cuz he was like I just want this off my shelf and then I saw why is because it basically turned
1:24:51
up in a big bag of pieces that he didn't want to organize. So, I will get to that at some point, but yeah, it's not one
1:24:57
I've played, so I can't give you the sales pitch on it. It looked like there was lots of bits. Yeah, there is. Yeah, there is.
1:25:03
Definitely. I mean, you've got Zombieside. I don't know why you didn't mention Zombie. Yeah, you got loads of dice and miniatures, didn't you? That's
1:25:09
it. I'm trying to think of dice and farm cuz I swear there's one. That was it. Dice and miniatures. I thought of a thousand instant. Like,
1:25:14
every dungeon crawler ever has dice and miniatures. What about What about Mansions of Madness? Because it does use dice and it
1:25:20
does use miniatures and there is a dexterity stat. You're not being dextrous,
1:25:26
but sex as a stat. Come on. I still feel like it's two out of three. You didn't clear what dexterity was.
1:25:32
You didn't. It's a dexterity game, is it? I don't know. So maybe I'm still going for three. You can either pick Mansions
1:25:38
of Madness or you can pick Flick Fleet. Nice. I'm still claiming it as a win. So I got dice farming and miniatures and
1:25:45
that's Dino Genenics cuz you roll a dice miniatures and you farm goats. Yeah.
1:25:51
Yeah. We can get a farm specifically that says you farming goats, you produce a goat every time. Well, I think Den you're kind of farming dinosaurs like you're you're creating
1:25:58
them. Yeah, you could do it that way as well. I think you're probably right there, too. Nice. The fact it says goat farm, I think it
1:26:03
just wins. Yeah. There we go.
1:26:10
[Music] Right on to the penultimate turn where
1:26:16
we talk about everything we are looking forward to. Maybe not everything, but what board games are we looking forward to, Becky?
TURN 5 - Penultimate Turn: What's Coming Up?
1:26:23
So, I did allude to this earlier in the episode. I'm really looking forward to actually playing Fetching Feathers properly. Uh, and Difference Over Time,
1:26:30
DOT, the secret release from Unfringed. So, yeah, I'm really looking forward to actually playing Fetching Feathers. The
1:26:38
artwork is beautiful. It's from the the stables of Unfringed, which, you know, I
1:26:43
love Chris Priscott's stuff, so I've got really high hopes for this. I think it's going to be great. He absolutely sold
1:26:49
out every single day in the UK GE. He was selling I think it was something like 30 a day.
1:26:55
What's that? Sorry. Fetching feathers. Yeah. Limited stock, didn't he? And he sold out within the first, you
1:27:01
know, few minutes. Yeah. So, this is a hot ticket item. Nice. So, I'm excited to take it on holiday
1:27:07
with me. Nice. I've got Apex Legends with JP. There's really small players now. There's no
1:27:13
one's really coming. That's I'm just looking now. I I I c I kind of can I need to see whether or not I can fully
1:27:19
make it or not. It's kind of one of those where I think there's potentially other things I need to do, but I'm
1:27:24
trying to push him aside. And I've signed up with Rob's game, Gloom of Killfor. He says I'll enjoy it. So he said in in future past things
1:27:30
we've talked about I'll enjoy it. So I thought I've signed up for that. So nice. Yeah. Gloom of Yeah. Gloom of Killforth. I know Rob's
1:27:36
passionate about that. So hopefully you enjoy that. Yeah. Hopefully. I don't know if he knows where I'm going yet. I put my name down for it though. But yeah, me him and
1:27:42
Mark Monk. So it should be good. Nice. Yeah, just trying to see what other games are coming up. Roth, really keen to play
1:27:48
that. Playing that um end of September. Yeah, I didn't get in on that unfortunately. How about you?
1:27:54
Um yeah, how about you? Nothing. Yeah, how about me? What about you, Adrian? I don't have anything new specifically
1:28:02
coming up. I say I'm on holiday, which I'm looking forward to. Um a few friends have been talking about camping a lot
1:28:08
recently. It's kind of given me the itch to want to go camping again. Is it? Yeah, you get itches when you go
1:28:13
camping. It doesn't it doesn't make you the itch to go. I used to I used to do quite a bit of camping and then I sort of did some
1:28:19
military sim stuff where you'd have to sort of it'd be like three or four days of military simulation. You'd have to
1:28:24
camp overnight, but you would never do it in a tent. It would always be like in a like in a warehouse or something. So, it
1:28:30
was never like in a tent. It was always just like put up your camp bed and all that lot and have 80 sweaty
1:28:37
airsoft players like Yeah. trying eating curry and trying not to fill up a
1:28:43
warehouse with farts sort of thing. Um, and so I a few of friends have talked
1:28:49
about it again. I just thought, you know what, it is something I'm interested in, but I always got a bit annoyed by just turning up to a campsite with 90 other
1:28:55
campers and watching their dogs run over and in front of your tent and all that long.
1:29:00
Whereas the more I look, the more there is the ability to kind of find little secluded
1:29:07
campsites. I'm finding out about something called wild camping, which is where you in most parts of England. It's illegal to wild
1:29:14
camp, but because they can kick you off of it, but you can't be arrested for it. It's a civil issue.
1:29:19
Okay. So, it's naughty, but not too naughty. Yeah. So, if people tell you to move on and you say no, then they can arrest you. But if you kind of go, okay, fine.
1:29:25
Normally, there's nothing sort of more that can be done there. But in Dartmore, it's perfectly legal to wild camp. Um,
1:29:31
and you can just kind of pitch your tent up on a random side of a hill and just sort of enjoy the evening. Yeah, you
1:29:38
have you can only stay for a day or two, I think it is. So, I am working out what board games I
1:29:45
can take with me while I do a bit of camping. So, I need to test out my gear. So, I'm not going up Dartmore just yet.
1:29:50
But, um, my plan is to I found a couple of sort of secluded campsites. So, my plan is to take a tent, go and camp
1:29:58
there for at least a night, maybe two. do some terrible camp food because
1:30:03
that's always fun. And just see if I can play some board games and do a bit of hobby stuff and stuff. Barbecubes.
1:30:10
Yeah, but it's going to be windy and not have a flat surface most of the time.
1:30:15
Wait, as long as you can put the tin down. My first thought is just like I'll take Railroad Ink and a couple of other like rolling rides and stuff out. But I am it
1:30:22
has kind of got the mind working as to what can I get away with. But I did write off dexterity games because
1:30:28
outside dexterity games tend not to work very well. Is this solo camping or you planning on going in a group?
1:30:33
Well to start off with bit solo camping, get used to it and kind of all that. And then as I've got a couple of friends um
1:30:39
who have been interested in it or done it here and there, but again they haven't done it as a group. So I'm hoping we can kind of get out at some
1:30:45
point as a few of us and do that. But yes, that's kind of what I'm looking forward to. That's not really very gamey
1:30:50
stuff. It could become gamy though, could it? But yes. So, um, so yes, that's why. Nice.
1:30:56
Nice. Yeah, very nice. Wouldn't do for us all to be the same. I don't think I can think of much worse than I love my bed too much.
1:31:02
Yeah, me too. So, that is us done. Thank you very much for listening. As always, as always,
1:31:08
please reach out on social media. Um, you got anything to say about this episode? Um, then please do catch us on
1:31:14
our socials. So, we now have as well as our social medias, we now have Discord channel. we've opened up link is in the
1:31:19
show notes below and on there's just a chance to catch up and talk about games and just another another place where you
TURN 6 - The Final Turn
1:31:25
can sort of talk to like-minded people. We also have coffee. Um, so if you want
1:31:31
to, you can send us a few quid. Um, and that will
1:31:36
just help us, but also it will now give you access to our coffee supporters only
1:31:42
section of the Discord. And with that, the only question left to ask is whose turn is it anyway?
1:31:51
[Music] Heat.
1:32:00
[Applause]