Welcome to the first episode of our new podcast, Wooden Cubes & Iron Soldiers!

In this inaugural episode, we get to know our hosts Marco Arnaudo, Lance Myxter, and Joel Eddy. They discuss a variety of games and topics. For the main portion of this episode we hear about their motivations for doing video reviews. aka: “What’s wrong with them??”

They also discuss a giant swathe of board games, new and old: Friday. Outpost, Ora et Labora, Drum Roll, Forgotten Heroes: Vietnam, 1812: The Invasion of Canada, Dragon Rampage, Pandemic, Phantom Leader, Viva Topo, Go Away Monster, Ascending Empires, Caveman Curling, Imperial Crusade Armada, Liberty Roads, The God Kings, Enemy Action: Ardennes, Coney Island, Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan, Letters from Whitechapel, 1989: Dawn of Freedom, Free At Last, Wiz-War, Rex: The Final Days of an Empire, Bios: Megafauna, High Frontier, The New Era, Troyes, Village, Seikagahara, Strike of the Eagle, and Band of Brothers

Wow! That’s a lot of games!

~ Joel Eddy

Disc World Ankh-Morpork

In a distant world, and far from what you know to be true. There is a dusty littered-filled city full of inconspicuous characters roaming dimly lit streets, and each seemingly planning their secret lives as if no one is mindful of their actions.  This is the City of Ankh-Morpork, people live, and function in their hazy scattered dreams seemingly marching to the drum beat of an invisible master.  Staring down from above like an overlord to these ancient streets you influence the habitant’s lives. You may try to control their movements but other invisibles will deny your will in and the battle begins for these twelve divergent districts.

The Board

As your eyes follow every little ally and flowing river, your mind would want to quickly race to the thought that this is just another area control game. You would be wrong into thinking this but as you ponder other possibilities, your thoughts are interrupted by someone asking “Is this like Risk” Uttered quietly from the person sitting across the table. This game seems foolishly easy to win at first glance. Too often the game ends before you realize you’ve lost, but still your play and are caught  in a dance of every changing complexities. Controlling a district only offers a small reward. Control many districts may make winning easier, but often not necessary to finalize a win of a game.

The Twelve districts: The number of each district is simply there for the random events, and the dollar amount is the price you have to pay if you have a card that allows you to build. Building isn’t easy because you have to have a minion in the district, and there has to be no trouble.

• The Shades: Allows you to place trouble makers
• Dolly Sisters: Allows you to place an extra minion for $3
• The Scours: Once per a turn you can discard a card for $2.
• Dimwell: Allows you to place an extra minion for $3
• Nap Hill: You $1 from the bank.
• Longwell: You $1 from the bank.
• The Hippo: You $2 from the bank.
• Dragon’s Landing: You $2 from the bank.
• Isle of the Gods: You can pay $2 to remove a trouble marker
• Small Gods: when you are affected by a random event pay $3 to negate (This is a late game benefit since only one two events happen in the early game.)
• Seven Sleepers: Makes the most money at $3 a turn.
• Unreal Estate: Allows you to draw an additional card then discard one card.

Two luck driven elements of the game:

Cards:

The cards you draw can determine how well you play sometimes, and you may find yourself waiting for a specific command while your progress looms in the balance. You can keep playing cards, but drawing cards sometimes doesn’t get what you need like a build command to put a house on the board of the district you have been trying to own. Of course specific cards are never too far away, and  so this is only a small inconvenience.  Smart game play allows you to befuddle your opponents while you wait to achieve what you  want to happen.

Cards have symbols on them to dictate actions. There is handy player-aid to guide you for the first few games, and then they become second nature. The trick is that there are only five cards per hand and you must play one card a turn (but like cards in deck building games there are some that allow you to play more than one a round). Cards are played once, and then go into a discard pile. In some rare cases they can become untombed and played again.  The only rule of thumb is that you must do the actions from left to right and you may or may not choose to do every action of the card (the only action you must perform is the random event). Some cards have text that gives it specific special abilities that may break rules and some cards are simply useless like the “salted nuts”.

Events:

The other is the Event deck which is totally random. The events only happen when a card dictates such. There are 12 different random events. They all spell disaster in one way or another for different elements and players of the game.  You can bring down a fiery dragon to destroy one district on the board being determined by the roll of a 12-sided die. Trolls and Demons can also inhabit the city, or there could be many mysterious murders. My favorite of course is when I was playing with my hometown group in La Crosse, Wisconsin (Shout out! Holler!) I was playing with my friend Bill Johnson and I played the “Bloody Stupid Johnson card”. It was amusing to watch his face to think that I had just made up such a card, until I got to show him the actual text!

Good:

The hidden agendas adds a level of suspense to the game, and the fact that you still  have to be considerate of total points too in case the game is called early. This is a fine point that has to be clearly explained to new players. Three personalities (Lord Selachii, Lord Rust, Lord de Word) are area control and the number changes with the number of players. Chrysoprase is a money oriented agenda, Dragon King of Arms is a trouble placement agenda, Lord Vetinari is getting minions in so many districts, and Commander Vimes  goal is to have the cards run out so he becomes the master of meddling causing the game to run it’s course.

I love the duel stacked cards; a regular Martian Wallace concept of making you play out a set early set of cards, and then a  late game set cards (The only problem is if people make mistakes, and then forget the stacks duel nature and shove the cards into the wrong area while you cringe and remind them the deck is divided into two colors green and orange). There is no clear path to any one action; in order to build you must remove trouble. When you move a piece in you cause trouble. You can only take out another player’s minion if there is trouble in the district. Of course the cards with text can break any of these rules, and then the game continues.

Bad:

It really doesn’t play as well as a two person game. I have played many times as a two person game and it is fun, but really there isn’t enough card interaction to stop many of the goals to win. One goal in my opinion is practically unattainable in a two person game and should be removed with the other suggested cards (Personality card Chrysoprase,  and The Hubert and Cosmo Lavish from the draw pile) is “Commander Vimes” because I feel it would be practically impossible to go through the entire deck with just two players.  More people means more cards, more cards means more possibilities. In every way this game is meant to be played at full capacity and is at its finest, a four person game.

Conclusion:

A Four person game is when this game is in its prime. It has been a universal hit with almost everyone I have played with and tends to surprise more than often. At first not knowing the books I had hoped for some flavor text to give a small introduction to this land filled with rich characters, but watched Martian explain in a Spiel interview his dislike of  flavor text due to it’s enjoyment as a  one time event by nature.

Another great testament to the game is that many of the players who came away from the game wanted to go back and reread the books, or read them for the first time. All the art work on the cards captures the tremendous love and attention that Mr. Wallace gleamed  from the books.

Game winning possibilities tend to happen fast and sneak up on you so be very wary. When I was out to exact revenge I found myself losing before I could even cause the trouble I was planning.  I suggest that this game is certainly worth a try , and you should go and cause trouble at your local game store by picking up a copy.

~ Kevin Wenzel

2D6 “Not so much a winter” Celebration!

Have you ever ventured with party of heroes to conquer dungeons, gain pride, experiences and of course rich treasure? And has it ever occurred to you how hard it actually is to build and manage such underground complex filled with corridors and creatures? No? Well now you can try. Put yourself in role of the master of underground, summon your servants, dig complex of tunnels and rooms, set traps, hire creatures and try to stop filthy heroes from conquering and plundering your precious creation. We can guarantee you will look on dark corners, lairs and their inhabitant from completely different perspective!

Dungeon Lords is 90 minute long game for 2 to 4 players. It’s a rather complex game enjoyable mostly for experienced gamers.

~ Z-Man Games

Walnut Grove could be also described as a light mashup between Carcassonne and Agricola. The goal of the game is to develop your own ranch. Better the ranch, the more points you will score at the end of the game. Players can improve their ranch during the game by adding new land tiles to it, hiring more workers, building improvements, etc.

The game play is divided to eight Years, and each year is divided to Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter phases. During Spring, players add land tiles to their ranch. During Summer, players place their workers to gather resources from the fields. When the Autumn comes, all players get to visit the city. Finally, during the Winter phase, players need to feed their workers and heat their homes.

In the city you can hire workers, trade goods to coins, build improvements, and so on. Each player may do only one action in the city though. The city is kind of a rondel that is divided into halves; each time you cross the midline, you have to pay a coin. Therefore it is wise to move as slowly as possible on the rondel, but then again, you have consider what actions you want to take!

The land areas will produce resources, when you place the workers there. Also, the tiles do not need to match, but you want them to, as larger areas of the same type will give you greater production.

Spring, Summer and Winter phases can be done simultaneously, providing fast game play. The game works also nicely as a solo game.

~ BoardGameGeek.com

Component Quality:

Biblios stinks! If you haven’t heard already, the box for Biblios smells fiercely like glue. That smell may only be present in the IELLO English edition that I have, but I have heard more than one other reviewer mention it. The smell will defintely die out over time, but it’s stark when you first open the box!

Putting the smell aside for a moment, the components are a bit of a mixed bag. The game comes with a deck of cards, five six-sided dice, and a board. All of this is contained neatly and compactly in an awesome box. The box lid actually snaps shut via magnets and illustrated smartly to look like a book. It’s simply one of the favorite game boxes in my collection.

The board and dice are both very good quality. The game comes with five oversized dice. The dice are hefty and vibrant, and unlike any other six sided dice I have seen. They are very chunk and delicious looking. The board is nicely illustrated and has a spot for placing each of the five dice. The deck of cards is a different story. The artwork and layout of the cards is very attractive and professionally done. However, the card stock is extremelystiff and thick. Considering the difficulty of shuffling these cards mixed with the black borders, players should sleeve their game sooner rather than later.

Gameplay Impressions:

Biblios is a very unique game. It was unlike any other I had played until that point.

The game is broken into two phases: a Drafting Phase and an Auction Phase. During the Drafting Phase, players will take turns drawing and choosing cards to either keep, “gift”, or set to be auctioned later during the Auction Phase. Once players have drafted through the initial deck, they will each have an assembled hand of cards to use during the Auction Phase, where they will bid to win any of the cards set aside.

The Drafting Phase

Biblios has the simplest, most refined, and streamlined form of card drafting I have come across in recent memory. On a players turn they will draw cards equal to one card plus the number of players. But, you don’t draw all the cards once! You must draw one card at a time and make your decision right then and there. You have three possible places you can put the card. You can keep one card for yourself. You can put one card in a pile to be auctioned off later in the Auction Phase. Or, you can place a card in the center of the table to be “gifted” to each of the players, starting with the player to your left.

However, you can never keep more than one card, or put more than one card in the auction pile. You can also not put out more cards to be “gifted” than there are other players in the game. Combine this rule with the fact that you can only see one card at a time on your turn, and you have a recipe for many interesting decisions throughout this phase of the game.

There are three types of cards that will be you drafting in a game of Biblios.

Category Cards

First, we have the Category Cards. These are the cards you are trying to collect and score at the end of the game. There are five categories (colors) matching the five dice placed on the center board. Think of it as five suits similar to what you would find in regular deck of playing cards. The category cards will range in value from one to four. At the end of the game you are going to score each category separately. Whoever has the most total value in a particular category is going to win points for that category. The amount of points that each category is worth is determined by the number shown on the die of the matching color at the end of the game. Each of of the five dice start out showing three points, but that can be changed throughout the game.

Gold Cards

There are Gold Cards in three values: one, two, and three. During the Drafting Phase, players will want to make sure they have enough of these cards to use in the Auction Phase. In the Auction phase, these Gold Cards will be used to bid and win any of the cards that were set aside in the first phase.

Church Cards

Finally, we have the Church Cards. The Church Cards are the best part of the game for me. Church cards will depict one die or two dice showing a modifier of “+1″, or “-1″, or both. When a Church card is selected during the Draft Phase, it must be played immediately for its effect. If the current player chooses to put it in the auction pile, where it will sit until someone wins it during the Auction Phase, at which point they must immediately play it for its effect.

Church Cards are used to modify the dice on the board. Playing a Church Card showing a die with a “+1″ on it will let the player change any of the dice they wish and move its value up by one step. If the Church Card has a “-1″ on it, you can move its value down by one step, and so on.

These cards are awesome! Player will need to manipulate them carefully as you don’t want to give too many clues to the other players regarding which categories you are trying to stack your hand with. But, they are also very powerful and should not be ignored. One of the most satisfying (or heart wrenching) parts of the game is when a player has a clear advantage in one of the categories, but that category ends up being worth only one or two points at the end of the game.

The Church Cards are also largely responsible for the replayability of the game. Sometimes, they get used up early and the points for each category are set in stone. At this point the game almost becomes a game of pure card drafting, with players focused on keep certain cards away from other players. However, if the Church Cards are buried away until later in the game, players will need to be much more cautious and alert so as not to be left in the lurch at the end of the game.

The Auction Phase

After players have drafted through the inital deck of cards, they will each have a hand of cards to be used in the Auction Phase of the game. The player who started the Drafting Phase will reveal the top card of the auction pile. Starting with the player to their left and going around the table until everyone but one player passes, players will bid on the revealed card. If the revealed card was a Category Card or Church Card, players will bid with any Gold Cards they have in their hand. Any Church Cards that are won in this phase must be played immediately by the winning bidder. Category Cards that are won go into the winning bidder’s hand.

However, any Gold Cards that may come up during the Auction Phase are going to be bid on by discarding cards. Players will bid round robin around the table, in the same manner as before. But, instead of offering gold up for bid, they will simply offer the number of cards they are willing to discard in exchange for the Gold Card currently up for auction. They can discard any type of card they wish if they win the auction and do not have to reveal what cards were discarded.

After the current auction is finished, the auction pile passes to the left and a new card is revealed to continue bidding around the table.

Winning the Game

When the Auction Phase is completed, players will reveal their hands. Whoever has the highest total value in a category will take the matching die of that color. Everyone adds up all the points shown on their dice and whoever has most points wins. Easy!

Was It Fun?

Biblios just might be the best quick filler on the market! Players will need to be shrewd in both the Drafting Phase and the Auction Phase. There are a few things that players will have to take into account. Depending on the number of players, you will want to be strong in a reasonable amount of categories. You will also want to be strong in categories that are actually worth a decent amount of points at the end of the game. But, you will also need to have enough money (but not too much!) to have an effective Auction Phase, especially if the Church Cards have not made a significant appearance during the Drafting Phase.

Now. Pack all of that decision making process into deciding whether or not to keep, gift, or set aside a single card and you have yourself a delightfully “filling” game of drafting and bluffing.

Is It Still Fun?

Absolutely! Biblios is no longer something I break out at every game session, but that’s only because I have played it at least thirty times. I’ve probably played it more than For Sale and I like For Sale quite a bit. Honestly, I think Biblios is better than For Sale. For Sale gets a bit too automatic. There’s no room to experiment in For Sale. There’s a right move and a right bid for just about every occassion.

In Biblios, you can bluff! Once you discover how to effecitvely bluff, you’ve found the secret to unlockingthe next level of the game. This has made the game much more replayable for me than something like For Sale or even No Thanks!, which I also enjoy.

There also some sublteties that I won’t go into for this review regarding the distribution of cards in each of the different categories that will make the game a challenge as players become more experienced with the game.

Conclusion & Rating: (8.5/10.0)

Biblios is simple and stream-lined enough that I can introduce it to novice gamers, but really shines when playing with “Biblios veterans” whom I can unleash my inner gaming jackal upon! I could probably rate this higher than an 8.5, but there are games that are few and far between, where you feel like you didn’t have any effect on the outcome. But, these occurrences are very few and very far between. Honestly, if anyone tells you this game is “all luck” and “too random because you can only see one card at a time”, it’s only because they had a poor attitude going into the game to begin with, and probably don’t enjoy a sense of adventure when playing board or card games. That sounds a bit harsh. However, this game is still very overlooked I think.

I will not be getting rid of Biblios.

“Draft Killer”:

I originally sub-titled the Video Review as “Draft Killer”. Biblios is one giant twist on the whole field of card drafting. At the beginning you draft your cards like you do in any card drafting game, but with one wrinkle. You draft them one at a time! How awesome and daring is that! One card at a time? Fiendish! Even better, during the entire process of the game it is possible to change the value of each of the categories as players are drafting and auctioning. This is also amazing! I have to wonder at its sheer simplistic genious sometimes. So, let me get this straight. Not only are players watching for your traditional drafting queues like which cards players keep or don’t keep, but players also need to keep keen eye out on which dice other players are changing and which direction they are changing them? And, you don’t want to tip your hat too soon when choosing to rotate a die up or down?

That’s just awesome.

~ Joel Eddy

If you enjoyed this written review, please feel free to check out the Video Review.

In Last Will, each player starts with a certain amount of money, an individual player board, two errand boys and two cards in some combination of properties and helpers. At the start of each round, lay out cards from the appropriate decks on the offering boards; the four regular decks are properties, companions, events, helpers and expenses, with special cards forming a deck of their own. The particular mix of cards varies by round and by the number of players.

Each player then chooses a plan for the round, with each plan indicating the number of cards the player draws (drawn immediately from the four regular decks in any combination), how many errand boys he can use later (one or two), the number of actions available to him that round, and his spot in the playing order that round. In the playing order for that round, players then take turns choosing an action with their errand boy(s), with those actions being:

• Take a card on display and add it to your hand.
• Draw a card from any regular deck – This can be chosen only once by each player.
• Visit the opera and spend $2.
• Adjust the value modifiers in the property market.
• Take a player board extension, thereby giving you room to play more cards.

Players then take actions in the playing order for that round, with each player having as many actions as indicated on his plan. Actions let you play one-time events (which have a cost, possibly variable); helpers and recurring expenses (which are placed on your individual player board); and properties (which cost money and may depreciate over time). You can often play companions with events or recurring expenses – of course you should bring a date to the opera or a horse on your yacht! – to increase their cost. You can also use actions to activate cards on your player board, possibly with one or more companions and always with the goal of spending money. Helpers and special cards can provide you with unique powers to further boost your profligacy.

At the end of each round, you must discard down to two cards in hand, and properties that can depreciate do so; this is good as a player cannot go bankrupt if he owns properties, and the only way to get rid of properties is to sell them, which regretably puts money back in your hands unless the depreciation was intense or you manipulate the market.

If a player has no money and no properties, he declares bankruptcy and the game ends at the conclusion of that round; otherwise the game ends after seven rounds. The player who has the least money (or even who is most in debt) wins.

~ Rio Grande Games

Gazala was a resounding victory for the Desert Fox, Irwin Rommel, although at an extremely high cost in the DAK’s tanks. Because of these losses, Rommel lacked the armored forces in subsequent battles to decisively defeat the Eighth Army as it retreated into Egypt. This led directly to the end of the Afrika Korps pursuit, when they were directly defeated at the First battle of El Alamein.

Players will be challenged to do as well, or better, than their historical counterparts. Fox’s Gambit represents the first in a line of operational level games in High Flying Dice Games’s new Blitzkrieg in North Africa series.

~ High Flying Games

The game is for 2 to 4 players, age 8 and over, with a play time of about 45 minutes. If you’re a fan of Dominion and think this is another deck-builder, it’s  not, in any sense; nor is it card drafting or hand-management as you only get 1 card at a time; nor is it area control, worker placement or pick-up and deliver. There are no stocks to invest in, no trading or betting or bidding. The mechanics listed on the Board Game Geek page is “route/network building” and that’s close but still misses. You’re just making points the best way you can manage given 3 random cards that set the parameters, and four random abilities provided by the map layout. And that, it turns out, is more than enough.

Here are the 8 boards that come in the game. You can’t build on the grey mountains at all, and only on the water with a special ability chit.

On your turn you show your card and place 3 of your wooden houses (settlements) on that type of terrain,adjacent to previous houses if possible. The “adjacent” rule is very important, limiting where you can go and possibly making your opening move a critical one. If you have built next to a location where the various ability chits are placed, you can use each of those abilities once each turn either before or after building your settlements. Then you draw a new card. That’s it; that’s your whole turn. Doesn’t sound like much, does it?

The secret is in which locations with their special abilities you build next to.  The abilities are:  place a new settlement on a desert (yellow) hex, move a settlement two hexes in a straight line, move a settlement to the terrain type on your card, place a new settlement on the edge of the board, place a new settlement on  a grass (light green) hex, place a settlement on a hex of your terrain card type, move a settlement to a water hex, and place a new settlement at the end of a row of three or more of your settlements.

When you add 4 of these abilities to your placement options, it can open up your choices nicely. But if you choose poorly, you can find them totally useless in helping you achieve points as dictated by the scoring cards drawn for this particular game.

There are 3 scoring cards (out of 10 that come with the game),  dealt randomly each game. You can be trying to place settlements adjacent to mountains or water, on many horizontal lines or vertical lines, or adjacent to castles and locations. You may be trying to create one very large settlement area or as many areas as you can. Maybe you’ll have to build settlements in each of the four map sectors, or connect locations and castles. Sometimes the combination of scoring cards work together but sometimes they are such that you have to choose which ones to concentrate on.

Here are the 10 scoring cards with lovely artwork.

When a player puts his last settlement on the board, that triggers the end of the game–scoring occurs at the end of that round. You add the points you earned for the three scoring cards, and three points for each castle next to which you placed a settlement. The winner is the player with the most points, of course. In case of a tie, you’re all equally brilliant!

The components are nice, as you would expect from Queen Games. The colors and artwork are clear, making it easy to see across the game table, and the cheat sheets for the locations’ abilities are a nice addition. I like that the back of each map board has a score track, making it useful as well as eliminating the need for VP or money tokens to keep score.

Each time I’ve played, I’ve had a good time even if I lost. Although the game is simple in theory, there’s a puzzle-like aspect to finding the best way to accomplish the goals set out by the scoring cards. How do I get across the board or build many small areas when I am required to place adjacent if possible? Which ability tile is going to help me the most? Where should I start when I want to make one long horizontal line but the board is full of rivers?

The game may take 45 minutes to play, but it doesn’t feel like that much time has passed because the turns are quick for the most part. There is very little confrontation except when someone builds in your way, which could be on accident or deliberate, depending on the people with whom you’re playing. Around here, you can assume it’s deliberate!

~ Mary Weisbeck

Cities have fallen, cities have stood, but outside of those protections, humans must face the creatures of darkness on their own terms. In the lawless countryside of Nightfall, the beast within can wreak havoc like never before.

Nightfall: Blood Country, an all-new expansion for the deck-building game Nightfall, features new vampires, werewolves, hunters and ghouls.Blood Country also introduces innovative abilities for your wounds, creating new effects beyond those just on the card!

Each card has a main color and two linking colors. If you can match the main color of a card to one of the linking colors of the previous card, you can chain those cards together. Once a chain is started, players all get an opportunity to link additional cards onto the chain during that turn. Cards in the chain resolve in reverse order: first in, last out. Instant effects fire off as cards come off the chain, doing damage to your opponents or bringing characters into play to defend you and attack your opponents.

The object of Nightfall is to put wounds into your opponents’ decks and end the game with the fewest wounds in your deck. But beware: The more wounds a person has, the more enraged they become and the faster their deck works, meaning more cards and bigger chains will come your way!

Blood Country is an expansion and requires Nightfall or Nightfall: Martial Law in order to play.

~AEG