Our September 4 session will be a request night – what games did you miss? What games have our table leaders recently added to their collections? Email Steve with your requests. Sean will lead Power Grid, Steve will lead the new Foundations of Metropolis (cardboard version of Foundations of Rome – and easier to transport), Cities and Agueda. Tim wants to lead Rock Hard 1977, Cities, Wilmot’s Warehouse, Furnace and Harmonies. Reimi and Zach have requested Furnace. More table leader and/or member requests will appear in our Monday email update.

Sky Team (led by Tim)  2024 German Game of the Year (SdJ) winner and the first time that prestigious game went to a 2-player game. Players are a pilot and co-pilot at the controls of an airliner. Their goal is to work together as a team to land their airplane in different airports around the world. To land their plane, players need to silently assign their dice to the correct spaces in their cockpit to balance the axis of the plane, control its speed, deploy the flaps, extend the landing gear, contact the control tower to clear their path, and even have a little coffee to improve their concentration enough to change the value of their dice. If the aircraft tilts too much and stalls, overshoots the airport, or collides with another aircraft, players lose the game…and their pilot’s license…and probably their life. The plane landed safely.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/373106/sky-team

Harmonies (led by Tim)  2024 abstract pattern game, with simple rules, and a beautifully implemented nature theme. Players optimize by synchronizing, but at the same time try to outbalance luck by diversifying their scoring options, while growing a beautiful 3D habitat in front of them. Landscapes are built by placing colored tokens and creating habitats for their animals. To earn the most points and win the game, players must incorporate the habitats in their landscapes wisely and have as many animals as they can settle there.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/414317/harmonies

Wilmot’s Warehouse (led by Tim) 2024 storytelling game where players work cooperatively to organize the warehouse, using memory, imagination, and silly stories the group makes up. Players draw product tiles from the stack, discuss what they look like, and place them somewhere they’ll remember. After each tile is placed, it is flipped over and can’t be looked at again until the end of the game. As a result, the team has to remember where previous tiles were placed as the group decides where to place new ones. At the end of the game, in a five-minute rush, the team has to match all 35 face-down tiles with customer cards. Consult the team’s performance review to see how well you did! Our intrepid quintet was 35 for 35 !!!

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/424975/wilmot-s-warehouse

Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition (led by Tony)  2022 trick taking card game that turns the genre’ on its ear – all 45 numbered cards (1-9 with 5 of each) are black and suit is determined by the card led. Players decide whether to follow suit or declare that they are void. Trumps can be led only after they’ve been broken. A round ends after all cards are played or a paradox is created (no legal card plays) Players predict and record the number of tricks they will win. Players place their color on the community research board as they play their hand and try to connect large groups of tokens to score even more points. Players should plan their tricks carefully as they cannot claim the color of a card with the same number that has already been declared, as doing so would create a round-ending paradox.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/345972/cat-box-deluxe-edition

Fox in the Forest (led by Ethan)  A 2017 unique 2-player trick-taking game with trump and characters that have the special abilities to change trump or have the loser of a trick lead the next one..The game penalizes greed with its scoring system. Incidentally this was the first game that Ethan led when he joined our group in December 2021.

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/221965/fox-forest

Brian Boru:High King of Ireland (led by Sean) 2021 combination of trick taking with area control/majorities. Players strive to unite Ireland under their domain, securing control through might, cunning, and matrimony. Join forces to fend off Viking invaders, build monasteries to extend one’s influence, and gather support in towns and villages throughout the land. To become High King of all Ireland, one needs to navigate a web of shifting alliances and outmaneuver enemies. The first part of each round actually proceeds with the leader of the trick deciding which area is being fought over and the winner of the trick taking control of it, with the cards that players use for the current trick being drafted beforehand. Players who lose a trick still get to do something though. Each card has both a primary ability (reward for the winner) and secondary ability (reward for the losers). Most of the secondary abilities involve advancing along one of three tracks which correspond to the three suits of cards. The further along each track you get, the better rewards one receives. The highest card in the led suit will win the trick, but the lower the number, the better the reward.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/337765/brian-boru-high-king-of-ireland

Tiger & Dragon (led by Tim)  2021 beautifully produced shedding card game played with chunky tiles. Players play tiles from their hand to participate in waves of attack and defense. Be the first player to empty their hand to score points based on whichever one of ten scoring cards are in use this round. The game contains 38 tiles: 36 numbered tiles with one 1, two 2s, etc. up to eight 8s, along with a tiger and a dragon. The tiles are shuffled face down, then each player takes tiles based on the player count, with the round’s starting player taking one additional tile.The start player attacks by playing a tile from their hand. The next player can either pass or defend the attack by playing the same tile. Note that the dragon defends against any odd-numbered tile and the tiger against any even-numbered tile. After defending, place a tile of your own to attack. If a player passes, the next player either passes or defends. If all other players pass on your attack, place a tile from your hand face down, then choose a new tile to attack again. If you attack with the dragon or tiger, a player can defend with any odd- or even-numbered tile, respectively. The first player to empty their hand wins the round and scores points based on the last tile that they played and the specific scoring card for that round. They score 1 bonus point for each time an attack of theirs went undefended. At the end of a round, if a player has scored 10+ points, they win.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/349992/tiger-dragon

SCOUT (led by Ethan) One of the 3 finalists for the 2022 SdJ award for best family game. It is a shedding/climbing card game with unique double numbered cards that can be flipped. Cards have two potential values, players may not rearrange their hand of cards, and players may pass their turn to take a card from the current high set of cards into their hand. More specifically, cards are dual-indexed, with different values on each half of the card, with the 45 cards having all possible combinations of the numbers 1-10.  Once each player has been dealt their entire hand of cards, they pick up that hand without rearranging any of the cards; if they wish, they can rotate their entire hand of cards in order to use the values on the other end of each card, but again they cannot rearrange the order of cards in their hand. On a turn, a player takes one of two actions:

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/291453/scout

Maskmen (led by Armando) 2014 Japanese shedding/climbing card game about Mexican Wrestling. Think of it as a mirror image of Cat in the Box. Maskmen has suits established but play determines rank each round whereas Cat in the Box has rank established but suit/color to be determined each round.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/159581/maskmen

Bohnanza (led by K-ban) 1997 Uwe Rosenberg bean trading classic game that has been reprinted several times and expanded even more. There’s a recent re-theming , Dahlia’s, with flowers instead of beans (Sean has that edition) In the game, players plant, then harvest bean cards in order to earn coins. Each player starts with a hand of random bean cards, and each card has a number on it corresponding to the number of that type of bean in the deck. Unlike in most other card games, you can’t rearrange the order of cards in hand, so you must use them in the order that you’ve picked them up from the deck — unless you can trade them to other players, which is the heart of the game. On a turn, players must plant the first one or two cards in their hand into the two “fields” in front of them. Each field can hold only one type of bean, so if a player must plant a type of bean that’s not in one of their fields, then they must harvest a field to make room for the new arrival.  Next, two cards are revealed from the deck, and the player on turn can then trade these cards as well as any card in their hand for cards from other players. After all the trading is complete — and all trades on a turn must involve the active player — then the turn is ended by drawing 3 cards from the deck and placing them at the back of one’s hand. When you harvest beans, you receive coins based on the number of bean cards in that field and the “beanometer” for that particular type of bean. Flip over 1-4 cards from that field to transform them into coins, then place the remainder of the cards in the discard pile. When the deckruns out, shuffle the discards, playing through the deck two more times. At the end of the game, everyone can harvest their fields, then whoever has earned the most coins wins. The key to this 45-minute classic is the trading. If you haven’t played it, give it a try.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11/bohnanza

Trendy (led by K-ban) 2000 Reiner Knizia set collection card game (with a twist , of course) of fashion designer trends that has been re-themed twice (Whale Riders and Crazy Race) but the original is still the best… but out of print (in German). Each turn, players lay a card face up to the table and draw a new card. When as many cards for a designer have been laid face up as the number on that designer’s cards, that designer has a “breakthrough” and players who played that number save those cards for scoring at the end of the hand.  All other played cards are discarded. There are 2 special cards for each designer in the deck:

With 4 players, we played 4 hands with everyone dealing once….the alternative is to play until someone scores 100 points.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1412/trendy

Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest (led by Zach) 2022 revision of 2012’s Libertalia that includes all-new art, 40 characters per player, a reputation system to resolve ties, deluxe loot tokens and more. It is a pirate themed set collection, hand management and simultaneous card selection card and board game where the objective of the game is to be the person who earned the most coin over the course of play. It takes place over three rounds, each consisting of 4, 5, and 6 turns respectively. In each round, players will start with the same cards in their hands, playing and revealing only one every turn. These cards are numbered and have different abilities which are activated at the different phases of a turn. When revealed, the cards are ordered from lowest to highest. And certain abilities will activate in ascending order. Then certain abilities activate in descending order and players get to pick out their choice of loot – if there are any remaining by the time it is their turn. Each piece of loot can then be used to do further actions.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/356033/libertalia-winds-of-galecrest

Trio (led by K-ban) 2021 part memory and part set collection card game (same Japanese author, Kaya Miyano, as Panda Panda) in which players are looking for three of a kind. The deck consists of 36 cards, numbered 1-12 three times. Players receive some cards in hand, which they are required to sort from low to high, and the remaining cards are placed face down on the table. In turn, players choose any single card to reveal, either the low or high card from a player’s hand (including your own) or any face-down card from the table. Then, do this again. If the two cards show the same number, continue your turn; if they do not, return the cards to where they came from and end your turn. If you reveal three cards showing the same number, take these cards as a set in front of you. A player wins if they are the first player to collect three sets, two linked sets or a single set of 7’s.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/352515/trio

Panda Panda (led by K-ban) 2024 Japanese mini card game from Allplay’s new line (think boxes about the same size but half the depth as Oink games like SCOUT, Maskmen, None Tiles, Fake Artist, etc.) where players carefully manage their cards to try to make specific hands. On a turn, players can discard a card, draw from the deck, or draw from an opponent’s discard pile. If a player discards an “A” card, everyone has to pass one card to the left. Winning two hands wins the game. The trick here is to figure out what your opponents are going for, and time the “A” cards correctly. The unique aspect here is that players control the size of their hands from 2 to 7 cards.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/408542/panda-panda

Faraway (led by K-ban)  2023 runner up Light Game of the Year as voted by BGG users. Players will play square cards as a row of 8 in front of them, from left to right. These cards represent the regions they will come across while exploring the lands. Characters on these cards will grant players victory points, but only score VPs if later cards fulfil the conditions they demand. At the end of the game, players walk back the same way, scoring cards in the opposite order you played them. There lies the heart of the gameplay. Throughout the game, the cards you play will serve both to set new objectives, and to meet the ones you played previously. On each turn, players select one region card from a hand of 3 and a clever priority system governs replenishment drafting. The first play in this 30-minute gem of a filler will likely make your head implode, as you wrap your brain around simultaneously thinking both forward and backward on your journey to score VPs.

Steve