game night

Shelf of Shame: Guildhall

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This is my continuing series on clearing games off my Shelf of Shame (games I own that I’ve never played). 

I’d heard that Guildhall had excellent card play in spite of its bland artwork. After I scored a copy of it and its expansion Job Faire, they went unplayed as other games grabbed my attention. Then my buddy Daryl demo-ed the Guildhall: Fantasy re-theme and it inspired me to get my copy off my Shelf of Shame.

Guildhall is a card game of set collection with a bit of “take that” that’s easy to play once you figure out the iconography, which is the biggest obstacle to learning the game. Some of the icons are not intuitive and I find myself referring to the rulebook more than I like to.

Each card represents a worker (Historian, Dancer, Assassin, Farmer, etc.) and has a special ability. Players are trying to reach 20 victory points first by playing cards for their special abilities before moving them into their guildhall. Each worker from each profession is moved into a guildhall as players try to collect a set of five different colors. These are converted into victory point cards, which sometimes have additional abilities.

Like other card games, it’s interesting to see how to use the cards’ abilities in different combinations. Since each player is limited to two actions per turns and a few other restrictions, you’re constantly trying to maximize your turn to get as many workers into your guildhall while preventing your opponent from doing the same.

There are “take that” cards that allow you to discard single or whole sets of cards from your opponent’s guildhall and this certainly won’t appeal to those who don’t like to see their hard work destroyed thanks to a lucky draw from their opponent.

AEG did the right thing with The Guildhall: Fantasy re-theme; not only does it look better, but the icons are a bit easier to understand (or maybe I’m used to them after a few more plays?).

Overall, I liked, but didn’t love Guildhall. I’ll play the Job Faire expansion and see if it’s enough for me to keep the game, but probably not.

I’ve now played 9 of the 49 games on my Shelf of Shame!

Shelf of Shame 2017

  1. Agricola
  2. Amerigo
  3. Cheaty Mages!
  4. Chrononauts
  5. Cypher
  6. Dice City: By Royal Decree
  7. Dice City: Crossroads
  8. Doomtown: Reloaded
  9. Dungeon Fighter
  10. Eminent Domain: Microcosm
  11. Epic Card Game
  12. Formula D
  13. Get Bit! Sharkspansion
  14. Guildhall
  15. Guildhall: Job Faire
  16. Hanafuda
  17. Harbour
  18. Imperial Settlers
  19. Lost Legacy: Flying Garden
  20. Machi Koro: Harbor
  21. Marvel Dice Masters: Age of Ultron
  22. Mottainai
  23. Munchkin Legends: Guest Artist Edition
  24. Munchkin Zombies Deluxe
  25. NBA Interactive Card Game
  26. Ophidian 2350
  27. Pack of Heroes
  28. Pandemic: On The Brink
  29. Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords Base Set + Expansions
  30. Pingo Pingo
  31. Portobello Market
  32. Quiddler Mini Round
  33. Rampage
  34. Sail to India
  35. Sans Allies
  36. Santorini: Golden Fleece
  37. Seventh Hero (Doomtown edition)
  38. Space Base Mutiny
  39. Steam Torpedo: First Contact
  40. Suburbia
  41. Sun Tzu
  42. Tiny Epic Kingdoms
  43. Travel Blog
  44. Valley of the Kings: Last Rites
  45. Viceroy
  46. Vikings on Board
  47. Viticulture Essential Edition
  48. Wok Star
  49. Yahtzee: The Walking Dead Collector’s Edition

Every Night Is Game Night: Stone Age

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I’m playing a board game every day this month and blogging about it (I did a similar challenge last year). Feel free to join me during my Every Night Is Game Night: My Daily Play & Blog Challenge. And tweet me with what you’re playing these days!

Last weekend at Kingdom-Con I scored a copy of Stone Age in a trade with my friend Rick. He’s a lifelong gamer and ever since I dove into the hobby I’ve been able to hang out with him more, thanks to our shared love of board gaming. It’s fun chatting with him and learning about games.

I actually first played Stone Age with another gaming buddy also named Rick at his birthday gaming get-together. Even though I lost badly in my first attempt I knew it was my type of game: the game flowed quickly and intuitively, with not much downtime between turns, and there were multiple paths to victory.

Stone Age is a classic (are games nearly 10 years old considered classics?) worker placement game. Players are trying to grow their tribes and acquire victory points by advancing their technology, gathering artifacts, and building up their little corners of the world. The meeples represent members of a player’s tribe and on each turn they’re sent out to one of the spaces on the board.

The workers/meeples can be used to improve a player’s tools (basically, extra pips for future dice rolls), add workers (everybody starts with five and if they visit the hut, aka The Love Shack, they’ll add a meeple to their tribe), or improve their farming (used to feed your tribe). They can also go to the various areas to gather resources, including wood, brick, stone, gold, and food. The final two options are cards that are bought with resources which yield immediate and end-game benefits and/or points, and tiles (buildings) that give victory points.

Players take turns placing one or more meeples on the board, cards, and/or tiles, depending on how many open spaces are available. After everyone has placed their meeples, they take them back and perform the action; for example, if I placed one of my workers on the tools space, then I’d take my worker and a tool chit, which allows me to add a pip to future dice rolls (only allowed once per turn). Then, my opponents would take one of their actions before I take my second. This continues until all of our workers have taken their actions and have been returned to our player board.

Some people have complained about the dice in this game, but I think it fits in thematically: not every expedition for food or resources will yield something. Players receive one die per worker in an area for resources. For example, if I put two workers in the wood area, then I would roll two dice. If I rolled a lucky 12, then I would divide that by the resource’s number (wood is 3) and take that many resources. In this example, my 12 would produce 4 wood. Each resource has a different number based on its scarcity; wood is the easiest to produce while gold is the toughest.

At the end of each round players must feed their tribes. One food per meeple is required; however, if you’ve been building up your farm, then you won’t have to use as much food to feed your tribe. However, if you do run out of food, then you can use any one resource to feed them (no, your people aren’t eating wood; you’ve used that wood to trade for something more edible). If you don’t have enough food or resources, then they’ll starve this round and cause you to lose 10 points.

There’s more to Stone Age than this, but that’s the basic gist of the game. The civilization cards are a clever addition to Stone Age: they bring the set collection mechanism to the game as players try to collect the most different icons for an increasing end-game bonus. There are also cards that give bonuses based on the number of meeples, farms, and buildings each player ends the game with.

Today I broke in my copy of Stone Age with my friend Daryl. It was his first time playing it and he enjoyed it as much as I do. It scales down nicely with two, but I think it’s best with three or four. It’s currently out of print, but the rumors are that Z-Man Games will be bringing it back soon. I hope so: being a caveman or cavewoman has never been so much fun.

 

 

Every Night Is Game Night: Loopin’ Chewie

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I’m playing a board game every day this month and blogging about it (I did a similar challenge last year). Feel free to join me during my Every Night Is Game Night: My Daily Play & Blog Challenge. And tweet me with what you’re playing these days!

I haven’t been able to game with my Thursday night gaming group lately so it was nice being back tonight. I got to play games with a few of my regular buddies as well as some of the newer regulars whom I’ve only met or played with once. From backgammon to Clank! Sunken Treasures, it was a fun evening of old and new games.

Of course, I had to bust out Loopin’ Chewie in honor of Star Wars Day. I scored two copies last year and found a guy on BGG that sold a 3D-printed extension that allows six budding Jedis (or Siths) to play at once. Just like every other time I’ve played this, it’s hard not to start cracking up as Chewie flies around in the Millennium Falcon trying to knock down your stormtroopers. It may be a silly kids game, but I’ve never heard one adult complain while playing it.

May the 4th be with you!

Every Night Is Game Night: Rolling America

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I’m playing a board game every day this month and blogging about it (I did a similar challenge last year). Feel free to join me during my Every Night Is Game Night: My Daily Play & Blog Challenge. And tweet me with what you’re playing these days!

Tonight was my weekly game night and four of us had just started a game when I had to leave due to a family emergency. Thankfully, everything worked out and a few hours later I was back at home so I decided to play a solo game of Rolling America. I wrote about this roll-and-write game for Geek & Sundry recently:

Everybody receives a multi-colored map of the United States, then seven different colored dice are placed in a bag then drawn and rolled one at a time. For each die rolled, all players must write that number in the corresponding colored region of their map. After six of the seven dice are used, the dice are put back in the bag and the next player starts a new round. 

Placing the numbers is where the tension lies in Rolling America since numbers cannot be more than 1 above or below an adjacent number. So, if a player rolls a yellow 3, they must write it in a yellow state and it must be next to a 2, 3, or 4. If there are no available spots, then the player marks an X in that state. After 8 rounds, players tally their Xs and the lowest amount of Xs wins the game.

Each player also receives three special powers that allow them to protect a number (thus allowing it to be adjacent to a non-conforming number), duplicate a number, and use a number in a different region.

I’m not much of a sodoku fan, but I like figuring out the right spot to place the numbers in Rolling America. It’s fun with multiple players and makes for a nice, mellow solitaire affair: it was the perfect respite from the earlier events of the day.

Every Night Is Game Night: Pandemic

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I’m playing a board game and blogging about it every day this month (I did a similar challenge last year).

Feel free to join me during my Every Night Is Game Night: My Daily Play & Blog Challenge. And tweet me with what you’re playing these days!

Pandemic

Every Tuesday afternoon for the past six months I’ve volunteered at a local high school as the facilitator of a board games club called Tabletop Tuesday. I bring games for the students to play for an hour and it’s been a lot of fun. There are five regulars and another seven that rotate in and out, depending on their class schedules (it’s an independent studies program, so their free time depends on whether or not they’ve finished their work for the day).

It’s been a privilege to share my passion for board gaming. The students are all sharp young people and it’s cool seeing them dive into some of my favorite games the way I did when I first started playing. Outside of Magic the Gathering (which a few of them play), none of them had played any other games outside of Monopoly, Sorry!, and Life.

It’d been a few months since we played Pandemic, the classic cooperative game of fending off diseases around the world. The club really took to the game when they first played it and I even let one of the students borrow it for a week.

Today I brought back the game for them, but with a little surprise: it was a brand new copy that I donated to the school, thanks to my winning a contest on RGBtv, a youtube channel covering analog and digital games. My wife and I have donated a few games in the past and recently Grant Rodiek sent me a copy of Hocus for the group.

The students were excited to have Pandemic in their small-yet-growing games library. They lost the game today, but it’s nice to know that they have the game so they can work on their disease-fighting skills whenever they want.

As long as they get their work done first, of course.

Epilogue

After watching the students play Pandemic, I went home and dug up my copy for a solo game. I played the Operations Expert and the Dispatcher on Heroic mode. After an early Epidemic, I was able to cure Red and Black when an ill-timed Epidemic card (aren’t they always?) caused a string of Outbreaks that led to my demise.

Pandemic will always have a space in my library. Although I prefer Pandemic: The Cure (the faster dice version), the base game is still a solid co-op game, especially for new gamers. The alpha gamer/quarterback problem won’t ever go away, but as long as players are respectful of each other, then it’s easily resolved.

By the way, here’s the list of games the club has played so far:

  1. Dominion
  2. King of Tokyo
  3. Get Bit!
  4. Splendor
  5. Pandemic
  6. For Sale
  7. Splendor
  8. Lanterns: The Harvest Festival
  9. Takenoko
  10. Sushi Go!
  11. Love Letter
  12. Paris Connection
  13. Qwixx Deluxe
  14. Nexus Ops
  15. Settlers of Catan
  16. Carcassonne
  17. Imhotep
  18. Smash Up
  19. Magic The Gathering
  20. Qwirkle
  21. Rolling America
  22. Red 7
  23. Onitama
  24. Karuba
  25. Patchwork
  26. Hocus
  27. Wits & Wagers: Party
  28. Ascension

Harbour

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I’m an unabashed fan of Scott Almes’ games, especially his Tiny Epic Series (I own and enjoy Kingdoms, Galaxies, and Western; I Kickstarted the Galaxies expansion and Tiny Epic Quest). I appreciate how he uses some of my favorite game mechanisms in games that play in less than an hour, like worker placement in Western, dice allocation in Galaxies, or 4X in Kingdoms. It’s also cool how he includes solo rules for most of his games.

I bought Harbour from my buddy Oscar last year and it sat on my Shelf of Shame until recently, when I solo-ed it using the 20-move solo variant rules on BGG. It was an easy way to learn and play the game.

A few of the reviews of Harbour have called it Le Havre Lite or Tiny Epic Le Havre since it has similar worker placement and resource management mechanisms, but in a smaller package. Players race to buy four buildings from a common pool first. Each building has a cost payable by one or more goods from the current player. On their turn, a player will send their worker meeple to a building and perform the action(s) listed on it; often, it’s to trade for more goods, which can then be used to buy a building. Players have a home base that they can return to for more actions, as well as travel to an opponent’s buildings to perform their actions (although this costs one good).

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What makes Harbour so much fun is the economic mechanism in the game. Whenever a player buys a building, they must “ship” enough goods to pay for it. So, if the player has 5 fish and 3 lumber and the current market has fish at $5 and lumber at $3, then the player can ship those goods for $8 and buy any building up to $8. Then, after the purchase has been completed, the market shifts, with the fish and lumber being worth less, while livestock and stone go up in value.

It’s a neat part of the game, trying to time your purchase just right so that you get the most money for your goods. More often than not, an opponent will buy something and change the value of your goods. Thankfully, there are buildings with powers that allow you to adjust the market to something more to your liking.

I enjoy Harbour, even if it usually ends more quickly than I prefer. It’s a great warm-up game, a filler with a bit more meat on the bones.

I’ve now played 8 of the 49 games on my Shelf of Shame!

Shelf of Shame 2017

  1. Agricola
  2. Amerigo
  3. Cheaty Mages!
  4. Chrononauts
  5. Cypher
  6. Dice City: By Royal Decree
  7. Dice City: Crossroads
  8. Doomtown: Reloaded
  9. Dungeon Fighter
  10. Eminent Domain: Microcosm
  11. Epic Card Game
  12. Formula D
  13. Get Bit! Sharkspansion
  14. Guildhall
  15. Guildhall: Job Faire
  16. Hanafuda
  17. Harbour
  18. Imperial Settlers
  19. Lost Legacy: Flying Garden
  20. Machi Koro: Harbor
  21. Marvel Dice Masters: Age of Ultron
  22. Mottainai
  23. Munchkin Legends: Guest Artist Edition
  24. Munchkin Zombies Deluxe
  25. NBA Interactive Card Game
  26. Ophidian 2350
  27. Pack of Heroes
  28. Pandemic: On The Brink
  29. Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords Base Set + Expansions
  30. Pingo Pingo
  31. Portobello Market
  32. Quiddler Mini Round
  33. Rampage
  34. Sail to India
  35. Sans Allies
  36. Santorini: Golden Fleece
  37. Seventh Hero (Doomtown edition)
  38. Space Base Mutiny
  39. Steam Torpedo: First Contact
  40. Suburbia
  41. Sun Tzu
  42. Tiny Epic Kingdoms
  43. Travel Blog
  44. Valley of the Kings: Last Rites
  45. Viceroy
  46. Vikings on Board
  47. Viticulture Essential Edition
  48. Wok Star
  49. Yahtzee: The Walking Dead Collector’s Edition

Travel Blog

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After bringing Travel Blog to my weekly gaming group for the umpteenth time, I was finally able to get it on the tabletop. It seemed like every time I brought it, there was always something else that I wanted to play.

I’d never heard of this geography game until I saw it listed at $5 during the last Strategicon flea market. I did a quick search on BGG and learned that Vlaada Chatvil was the designer. Yes, the same Vlaada behind Mage Knight, Through the Ages, Codenames, and so many other popular games.

For five bucks I’m willing to take a chance on nearly any game, especially one whose designer has such a fantastic track record, so I placed my bid and before I knew it, I was the proud of owner of another Chatvil.

In Travel Blog, 2-6 players are trying to earn the most money by blogging about their travels. Don’t worry, there’s no actual writing involved, but it does help if you know your geography.

The game can be played on either the U.S. or Europe map and players get 100 Euros (paper money alert!), two tokens, and a player aid. During each of the seven rounds there will be state (or in the case of Europe, country) cards placed face up in the middle. Next, one (in later rounds, two) card is flipped up and players quickly place their token (in later rounds, both tokens) on a state.

What determines the state that a player chooses? In the first two rounds, the middle state is the beginning of each player’s journey and their chosen state is their destination. Each player will be scored separately by placing markers on the two states. To score, the player counts the number of state lines they cross during their trip from one state to another. Each line crossed costs 10 Euros and is immediately taken from that player’s money.

One twist that I liked: if you pick a state that borders the state of origin, then you lose 30 Euros. So, you want to be close to that state, but not too close. Another option is to place your token on the 40 space, which means you pay 40 Euros and don’t do any traveling. This is useful if you know that none of the states are close to the state of origin.

Finally, since state selection is done in real time, there’s a penalty if you’re too slow. If another player’s token is already on your desired state, you can still place yours there, but it will cost you an additional 10 Euros.

For rounds 3-4, players receive additional money (it’s easy to burn through your cash in Travel Blog) and place both of their tokens on two different states, with the state of origin being a middle point between their choices.

For rounds 5-6, players again received extra dough, and place both of their tokens on different states. This time, however, there are two states of origin so players must find the shortest route among all four states.

Finally, the seventh round is where players make money. All of the cards are reshuffled and players go through the same process as rounds 5-6, but instead of paying for each state line they cross, they earn money for each one. In other words, instead of wanting to be close to the state of origin, players want to be as far away as possible so they can go cross as many state lines as possible.

Travel Blog is a decent game that I liked, but didn’t love. It’s a good 20-30 minute filler that I’m sure will remain in my games library, thanks to its unique combination of geography, real-time selection, and route optimization.

I’ve now played 7 of the 49 games on my Shelf of Shame!

Shelf of Shame 2017

  1. Agricola
  2. Amerigo
  3. Cheaty Mages!
  4. Chrononauts
  5. Cypher
  6. Dice City: By Royal Decree
  7. Dice City: Crossroads
  8. Doomtown: Reloaded
  9. Dungeon Fighter
  10. Eminent Domain: Microcosm
  11. Epic Card Game
  12. Formula D
  13. Get Bit! Sharkspansion
  14. Guildhall
  15. Guildhall: Job Faire
  16. Hanafuda
  17. Harbour
  18. Imperial Settlers
  19. Lost Legacy: Flying Garden
  20. Machi Koro: Harbor
  21. Marvel Dice Masters: Age of Ultron
  22. Mottainai
  23. Munchkin Legends: Guest Artist Edition
  24. Munchkin Zombies Deluxe
  25. NBA Interactive Card Game
  26. Ophidian 2350
  27. Pack of Heroes
  28. Pandemic: On The Brink
  29. Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords Base Set + Expansions
  30. Pingo Pingo
  31. Portobello Market
  32. Quiddler Mini Round
  33. Rampage
  34. Sail to India
  35. Sans Allies
  36. Santorini: Golden Fleece
  37. Seventh Hero (Doomtown edition)
  38. Space Base Mutiny
  39. Steam Torpedo: First Contact
  40. Suburbia
  41. Sun Tzu
  42. Tiny Epic Kingdoms
  43. Travel Blog
  44. Valley of the Kings: Last Rites
  45. Viceroy
  46. Vikings on Board
  47. Viticulture Essential Edition
  48. Wok Star
  49. Yahtzee: The Walking Dead Collector’s Edition

Sun Tzu

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What a wonderful surprise Sun Tzu was!

Sun Tzu is a two-player war game of area control, hand management, and bluffing. It’s psychological warfare in ancient China, with thematic The Art of War text on the cards.

I scored my copy last year in a math trade and I liked the theme and premise, but it collected dust before I finally got it off my Shelf of Shame, thanks to another meetup with my buddy Daryl.

In Sun Tzu each player attempts to control regions in ancient China by using cards numbered 1-6. These cards are part of players’ hands throughout the game, but they also receive special one-time use cards after each turn: the numbers 7-10 and modifier cards like +1, +2, and +3.

For each round cards are played face down for each region, then they’re revealed one at a time to resolve battles. For example, in the Qin region Player A plays a “3” and Player B plays a “5,” then Player B places the difference (2 armies) on the region and they now have control of Qin.

Each round is made up of playing cards and resolving battles. There are nine possible rounds to a game, with scoring after rounds 3, 6, and 9; however, if a player ever reaches the maximum 9 points after rounds 3 or 6, then the game immediately ends. This is the basic gist of Sun Tzu.

But there’s so much more.

The special one-time-use cards are fantastic elements added to gameplay. For example, if I was trying to gain control of a region that contained a lot of my opponent’s armies, then I could play my “10” and hope that my opponent played a low card. This would allow me to take some of their armies from the board and replace them with mine. However, if my opponent had played their “+1” card, then my “10” was all for naught. Their “+1” card basically negates my 10, since it’s used as a +1 to anything I played. Thus, my 10 is trumped by their 11 and they get to add 1 army to the region.

Another cool one-time-use card is the Plague card, which, when played, cancels the battle in the selected region. It also calls for half of the armies in the region to be taken off the board. Since armies are limited (each player begins with 18 in their reserve, with a few more available via certain card effects or actions), this is a good way to gather your forces for future turns.

There are also one-time-per-game Warlord cards that can be used at any time. During our last game Daryl busted out a Warlord card to tip the final region to his favor, which led to his single-point victory.

Finally, there are event cards that can trigger other changes to the game if their conditions are met at any time.

I’m ecstatic that I was able to get this off my Shelf of Shame; Sun Tzu is a tense battle of wits between two tabletop generals. It’s become one of my favorite two-player games and one that I highly recommend (for a more in-depth review, check out the iSlaytheDragon.com review).

I’ve now played 6 of the 49 games on my Shelf of Shame!

Shelf of Shame 2017

  1. Agricola
  2. Amerigo
  3. Cheaty Mages!
  4. Chrononauts
  5. Cypher
  6. Dice City: By Royal Decree
  7. Dice City: Crossroads
  8. Doomtown: Reloaded
  9. Dungeon Fighter
  10. Eminent Domain: Microcosm
  11. Epic Card Game
  12. Formula D
  13. Get Bit! Sharkspansion
  14. Guildhall
  15. Guildhall: Job Faire
  16. Hanafuda
  17. Harbour
  18. Imperial Settlers
  19. Lost Legacy: Flying Garden
  20. Machi Koro: Harbor
  21. Marvel Dice Masters: Age of Ultron
  22. Mottainai
  23. Munchkin Legends: Guest Artist Edition
  24. Munchkin Zombies Deluxe
  25. NBA Interactive Card Game
  26. Ophidian 2350
  27. Pack of Heroes
  28. Pandemic: On The Brink
  29. Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords Base Set + Expansions
  30. Pingo Pingo
  31. Portobello Market
  32. Quiddler Mini Round
  33. Rampage
  34. Sail to India
  35. Sans Allies
  36. Santorini: Golden Fleece
  37. Seventh Hero (Doomtown edition)
  38. Space Base Mutiny
  39. Steam Torpedo: First Contact
  40. Suburbia
  41. Sun Tzu
  42. Tiny Epic Kingdoms
  43. Travel Blog
  44. Valley of the Kings: Last Rites
  45. Viceroy
  46. Vikings on Board
  47. Viticulture Essential Edition
  48. Wok Star
  49. Yahtzee: The Walking Dead Collector’s Edition

 

Tiny Epic Kingdoms

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I recently crossed off another game on my Shelf of Shame: Tiny Epic Kingdoms, a 4X game from Gamelyn Games. I’m a huge fan of Tiny Epic Galaxies, so when I came across Kingdoms on sale last year, I couldn’t resist. I was excited to see if it was as good as Galaxies and it joined my stack of unplayed games. I brought it to my weekly game night a few times, but there was always something else to play so I started to look for solo variants in order to get it played.

Thankfully, my buddy Daryl said he’d be down to try it with me. Like Galaxies, Kingdoms packs a lot of game into a small box. I usually agree with Tom Vasel’s game reviews, but this time I felt like he focused too much on the “Tiny” and not enough on the “Epic” of this game. He isn’t enamored with the “tiny” part of this game series; he’d prefer these games in normal-sized boxes with normal-sized components.

Tom’s reasoning, though, is exactly why I love the Tiny Epic series: the game play far exceeds its price point. Most of us can’t afford every game we want and Gamelyn’s Tiny Epic series is an outstanding way to add solid games to our collections at reasonable and affordable prices (to be fair, at the end of his review Tom does point out the excellent value of TEK).

Tiny Epic Kingdoms is a solid 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) game that plays within a half hour. The 4X mechanism is typically found in longer, meatier games so it was nice to have it in such a compact format. During our first play it took some extra time to grok the rules, but it was pretty smooth sailing after a few turns.

Each player controls a faction with its own unique characteristics and abilities. They also start on their own territory card.

The active player chooses one of several actions:

  • Patrol: Move from one region to another on your territory card.
  • Quest: Move from one territory card to another territory card.
  • Build: Spend resources to increase the size of your tower.
  • Research: Spend resources to increase your magic knowledge.
  • Expand: Add one of your meeples to your territory.
  • Trade: Trade one of your resources for another.

After a player has chosen an action they place the shield token on the corresponding spot on the action mat. This signifies that the action cannot be taken again during this round.

The active player executes the action and the other players may follow and do the same action OR they may collect resources from their meeples on the various regions. Note: the active player MUST do the action. They cannot collect resources on their turn.

Meeples produce resources based on the regions they are located on:

  • Plains: Food
  • Forests: Mana
  • Mountains: Ore
  • Ruins: Player’s choice

After the active player has completed their action, the next player chooses from the remaining actions. Play continues until all actions have been taken, then the action mat is reset and all actions are available again.

As the game progresses, players will build their tower, increase their magic knowledge, and control regions. Each of these factors will earn Victory Points. The game ends when a player places his final meeple on a region or builds the final section of his tower. The player with the most Victory Points wins.

The most interactive part of the game comes during war, when a player moves into a region controlled by another player. Each region can only be controlled by one player, so at this point each player takes a 12-sided die and secretly allocates the number of resources they are willing to commit to war. The dice are revealed simultaneously and the highest number wins the region. Both players, win or lose, pay the amount of resources shown on their dice.

Another option during war is the flag symbol on the dice. If both players set their dice to this flag, then they form an alliance, which means they will both earn resources from this region. Peace is beneficial to both players, but that peace may not last as they try to gain control of the region for the final tally of Victory Points.

I liked the two-player game; there’s a third territory added to the game called the Lost Kingdom (basically a random territory card) that both players can fight over, but it seems that Tiny Epic Kingdoms will be better with three or four players as more opportunities for wars and alliances are possible. While there isn’t an official solo game, the Heroes’ Call expansion adds one and the base game is good enough that I’ll probably buy it at some point.

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UPDATE: After I wrote this, I played a three-player game with Daryl and our other gaming buddy Graham. We also included the Search for the Crown of Valor variant, which added random tokens to regions in our home territories: treasure icon for resources, bandit icon for losing resources, and the crown icon for an additional two VPs at the end of the game. The three-player game moved quickly and there were two battles before the game was over, so I preferred it to the two-player version.

I’ve now played 5 of the 49 games on my Shelf of Shame!

Shelf of Shame 2017

  1. Agricola
  2. Amerigo
  3. Cheaty Mages!
  4. Chrononauts
  5. Cypher
  6. Dice City: By Royal Decree
  7. Dice City: Crossroads
  8. Doomtown: Reloaded
  9. Dungeon Fighter
  10. Eminent Domain: Microcosm
  11. Epic Card Game
  12. Formula D
  13. Get Bit! Sharkspansion
  14. Guildhall
  15. Guildhall: Job Faire
  16. Hanafuda
  17. Harbour
  18. Imperial Settlers
  19. Lost Legacy: Flying Garden
  20. Machi Koro: Harbor
  21. Marvel Dice Masters: Age of Ultron
  22. Mottainai
  23. Munchkin Legends: Guest Artist Edition
  24. Munchkin Zombies Deluxe
  25. NBA Interactive Card Game
  26. Ophidian 2350
  27. Pack of Heroes
  28. Pandemic: On The Brink
  29. Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords Base Set + Expansions
  30. Pingo Pingo
  31. Portobello Market
  32. Quiddler Mini Round
  33. Rampage
  34. Sail to India
  35. Sans Allies
  36. Santorini: Golden Fleece
  37. Seventh Hero (Doomtown edition)
  38. Space Base Mutiny
  39. Steam Torpedo: First Contact
  40. Suburbia
  41. Sun Tzu
  42. Tiny Epic Kingdoms
  43. Travel Blog
  44. Valley of the Kings: Last Rites
  45. Viceroy
  46. Vikings on Board
  47. Viticulture Essential Edition
  48. Wok Star
  49. Yahtzee: The Walking Dead Collector’s Edition

Shelf of Shame 2017

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Pictured above is part of my Shelf of Shame: games I own that I haven’t played. It’s grown since last year, thanks to the great deals I’ve scored at each of the Strategicons‘ flea markets. At the start of this year I had 49 games (I’ve included expansions) on my Shelf of Shame, which are listed below.

I’ve crossed out the ones that I’ve played this year. And to be honest, there is one that I have no intention of playing: the Yahtzee: Walking Dead Collector’s Edition that I bought on clearance at Barnes & Noble. I just wanted the cool zombie-head dice cup to store my copy of Zombie Dice.

My goal is to play all of these games by the end of the year and to write about my experiences. Wish me luck!

Shelf of Shame 2017

  1. Agricola
  2. Amerigo
  3. Cheaty Mages!
  4. Chrononauts
  5. Cypher
  6. Dice City: By Royal Decree
  7. Dice City: Crossroads
  8. Doomtown: Reloaded
  9. Dungeon Fighter
  10. Eminent Domain: Microcosm
  11. Epic Card Game
  12. Formula D
  13. Get Bit! Sharkspansion
  14. Guildhall
  15. Guildhall: Job Faire
  16. Hanafuda
  17. Harbour
  18. Imperial Settlers
  19. Lost Legacy: Flying Garden
  20. Machi Koro: Harbor
  21. Marvel Dice Masters: Age of Ultron
  22. Mottainai
  23. Munchkin Legends: Guest Artist Edition
  24. Munchkin Zombies Deluxe
  25. NBA Interactive Card Game
  26. Ophidian 2350
  27. Pack of Heroes
  28. Pandemic: On The Brink
  29. Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords Base Set + Expansions
  30. Pingo Pingo
  31. Portobello Market
  32. Quiddler Mini Round
  33. Rampage
  34. Sail to India
  35. Sans Allies
  36. Santorini: Golden Fleece
  37. Seventh Hero (Doomtown edition)
  38. Space Base Mutiny
  39. Steam Torpedo: First Contact
  40. Suburbia
  41. Sun Tzu
  42. Tiny Epic Kingdoms
  43. Travel Blog
  44. Valley of the Kings: Last Rites
  45. Viceroy
  46. Vikings on Board
  47. Viticulture Essential Edition
  48. Wok Star
  49. Yahtzee: The Walking Dead Collector’s Edition