The Evergreen Collection: An Introduction

If there’s one aspect of my personality that has been most often misunderstood, received the most scrutiny, and drawn the most frustration, it’s that I am, at fault, a regimented individual. Many of the actions or hobbies that I enjoy are dictated by a certain manner or way that I believe I should compose myself and live my life, an attitude that can be misconstrued as an air of obnoxious presumption. I don’t often like… things, at least, no as much as everyone else, and that has often led to arguments over why I can’t just “turn off my brain and enjoy ___” or if there’s anything I actually do like.

And I do. I do enjoy things. I’m just very particular in what I choose to invest my time, money, and energy into, and board games are no exception.

By far my most passionate of hobbies, board gaming has brought me a new lease on life in a way that I cannot begin to explain here. It’s brought me countless friendships, a community of amazing people, work opportunities, love, and a venue to channel my creativity into. Due to this perspective, it’s only fitting of me to want to hunt down and celebrate only the “best” of what the hobby has to offer, that is to say, what I find to be my personal line-up of favorites. In this vein, and due to my anxiety when it comes to clutter and the amount of space board games can take up, I have for many years dedicated myself to a 30-games policy.

As the name suggests, I have, up until this point, maintained that only 30 games can be in my collection at any given point in time, forcing me to trade away and rotate out games that aren’t seeing enough attention, that don’t have enough variety or replayability, or that have simply lost their spark. Most people are astounded by such a proclamation, stating that they couldn’t imagine not having their 100+ games, and while it may not be a system that works for everyone, it’s by far the best method for me.

Moving into 2019, though, I chose to step back and really think about what that mantra really means; why 30 games? Why not 31, or even 21? What does it mean to be in my collection? How do I count games that I haven’t played enough times to be considered “in the collection”? And what about games do I find earns them passage into my collection?

I laid awake in bed night after night, heavily pondering these things, sometimes simply sitting in front of my Kallax and staring, looking for answers amidst the shining box lids. And after much consideration, I think I’ve finally concluded, more or less, what it means to be a part of what I now call The Evergreen Collection. But rather than simply make the statement and go about my business, I intend to document the progression and evolution of my collection to keep myself accountable, and to entertain those who might find this process to be informative and interesting. And who knows, maybe I can inspire others to try some of these methods for themselves and rediscover what makes the hobby so special to them.

The Goal

At its heart, The Evergreen Collection is intended to help me discover those games that will never grow dull for me, titles that I can return to time and again and not worry will become stale. While, in the past, I’ve limited this to 30 games, I don’t intend to do that moving forward… though I highly doubt I will ever find 30+ games that will meet the criteria. As you’ll see below, I’ve only ever found 6 games up until this point that I feel may fit the bill.

That being said, I do intend on limiting the games in my apartment to 30 games at any given point in time; at most, 25 of those games will be in my collection, sitting on my shelf and at least being considered as one day becoming an Evergreen, with the remaining games acting as challengers to my collection and even my perspective as a gamer. I always want to be trying new titles, even if I don’t hold on to them forever. And how else am I supposed to find new games to add to the collection if I’m not trying more and more every day?

The Criteria

There are a few factors that, in my eyes, help to better clarify and understand why I include certain games within The Evergreen Collection over others, aspects that I feel make for better games to maintain within a smaller, more compact collection:

Individuality - Many of the games I tend to be drawn to have some unique aspect about them that makes them stand out from the rest of the pack. Whether it be a theme, mechanic, or narrative, the game needs to have something about it that resonates as being wholly its own thing within the medium.

Variability - A big aspect of having a small collection is getting to replay and become more intimate with those games you keep, and because of this, variety can be an important factor. This can be as simple as having a game that features card counting, providing you with the same puzzle but different pieces each game, or it can be as complex as having new board set-ups, goals, and character powers each time through.

Accessibility - As much as I enjoy growing intimate and invested in complex and involved games, certain games have a knack of outright handing the most experienced player the victory. This isn’t always an issue, but I find that having highly strategic experiences with simple rules tends to be the most rewarding kinds of games for me and my gaming groups.

Length of Play - As much as I love gaming, spending too much time with a single game can make me fidgety, and makes it all the harder to find time to get it to the table. Have too many of these, and a good portion of your collection can’t be played unless you’ve got half a day to kill. There are exceptions, but I usually don’t care for games that last longer than 2 and ½ hours for these reasons.

Fun Factor - Obviously, board games need to be fun for you to want to hold on to them, but it’s important to consider how much fun each title provides you. I’ve played very good games in the past that, when the experience is over, left me feeling hollow and uninvested. It’s important to recognize good games while also acknowledging that you don’t need to own every good game, just the games that are most fun for you to play.

A Collection Under Construction

Before I expound upon what games are currently crowding my Kallax, I feel it’s worth noting that, like anything good in this world, the Evergreen Collection is always changing, growing, shrinking, shifting this way and that. It’s an ever-present thought in the back of my mind every time I sit down with a board game, new or old. Some titles have left my apartment only to return years later when I came to better understand them, to fully appreciate them for what they are. And, much like myself, this collection is young and still working through the many growing pains that come from life.

So while these are the games that happen to be here now, I can’t say for sure how long they’ll remain there. I can simply hope that one day I’ll reach the point where the Evergreens far outweigh those games that are here for a brief vacation.

Note: Games below are listed in no particular order; thus, all titles is a section are considered to be equals in my eyes.

The Evergreens

These are my timeless games, the titles that, for me, never gets old, and will hopefully will remain so. There’s something about them that’s entirely unique, they create memorable stories, and are fun to a fault, engaging the players around the table with straightforward gameplay and involved strategies. There’s enough variety to make each playthrough fairly fresh, encouraging me to return to them time and again, and none of these games are so daunting to teach that they make bringing newcomers on board a chore. At the end of the day, you could refer to these as my favorites, but I look at them more as the pinnacle of my above stated criteria, each an example of a game that transcends the limitations of its genre.

The Castles of Burgundy - A classic through and through, Castles exemplifies the simple impulse I have to operate efficiently; encouraging me to erect the most prolific collection of buildings as quickly as possible. There are a variety of strategies at play as to what buildings to prioritize and how to spread across your player board made all the more enticing by varied board layouts, forcing you to try new ideas each time. And with 10 mini expansions that include co-op and solo modes, you can play this game however you want.

Tokaido: Deluxe Edition - The journey across Tokaido brings about a calm for many, presenting players with an artistically unparalleled venture through unfamiliar roads. The goal? To have the best vacation possible, with all the scenic views and pit stops you can imagine. It’s a game of silliness and self-reflection, a warm title that, along with its expansions, is a simple affair with enough bite to keep the more tactically minded at bay for a time.

Mysterium - One of my first reviews for the Cardboard Herald presented Mysterium as a shallow, awkward co-op game that substituted smart choices with luck-of-the-draw. How times have changed, and my perspectives with it. Perhaps the best asymmetric co-ops I’ve had the pleasure of playing, Mysterium builds on the basis of classics like Dixit and Clue and creates an individual journey through the minds of each player as they try and piece together what cryptic clues are passed their way. What the base game suffers in variety can be fixed by adding the expansions, as well as the cards from any edition of Dixit.

Scythe - If I’m asked what my favorite board game is in a given moment, chances are the answer will be Scythe. Threading interesting yet open-ended alternate history narrative with a system that tasks you with building your nation from muck to mechs, Scythe is everything I look for in a game. Every element presents pros and cons to be considered and used smartly when confronting opponents, knowing the sometimes the costs far outweigh the rewards. In terms of expansions, Invaders From Afar is, in my eyes, essential to maintaining more replayability, and The Wind Gambit provide smart and subtle twisted to the already well-tested structure. While most people swear by Rise of Fenris, I find it to be the least interesting and most easily skippable addition to the game.

Abyss - Who knew that in the murky depths of the sea, a grand civilization of fish people barter over pearls as they plot to take control of an underwater government that may function better than our own? With a simple yet rewarding play loop, gorgeous art, and two well-made, though hard to obtain, expansions, Abyss is an intelligent, fast-moving, and at times funny experience that introduces a number of different lords to collect, each with their own playstyles and effects.

The Saplings

These are the games that show promise, that might one day become Evergreens, but haven’t seen enough table time for me, in good conscious, to declare them as such just yet. Their smart and still brimming with the excitement of newness that can, at times, blind one’s better judgment. Still, these are those titles that have blown me away as of late in a very oversaturated market.

Broom Service - One of the funniest games in my collection, players organize your team of witches and druids to deliver generic potions, but how efficiently they can do this all depends on the risks they must take. If your witches are cowardly, they get you a measly sum of resources but help you on your way. If your witches are brave, however, they can help you make some significant progress… assuming another player doesn’t cancel your action, claiming to be even braver. The art is surprisingly compelling and the theme is reminiscent of a certain Studio Ghibli film, making for my go-to 5-player game.

Arboretum - Puns aside, it just makes sense that this game would be considered to be an Evergreen. The card play is deceptively simple and stunningly smart, every action you take is agonizing in the best ways, and Renegade Games’ updated art does this classic justice. Definitely a game everyone should at least try.

Hanamikoji - A surprising game of wits and deduction, this small-box game of winning the favors of geisha is fast at 15 minutes, yet simultaneously a brain-burner, with players limited to using the same 4 actions only once each. While the game itself isn’t terribly varied, the replayability comes from learning your opponents well enough to read into what cards they’ve secretly set aside, while also considering that 1 card is randomly removed each round. Beautiful, svelte, and intimate, there’s nothing else out there quite like it.

Cryptid - Another fantastic 5-player title, this quiet game of deduction presents players with a puzzle; find the only legal location on the board where the mysterious Cryptid can be nesting. The problem? Every player has only 1 piece of the puzzle. By asking other players whether or not the Cryptid can be at certain spots, you have to figure out what everyone else’s clues are and find the hiding place before anyone else can manage to put the pieces together. And with a variety of set ups both facilitated by cards in the box and an online app, the replayability is surprisingly high, making this a game worth coming back to.

Gaia Project - While having a less interesting theme and art style, this sequel to Terra Mystica is better in every other way; the mechanics are more refined and intuitive, the race abilities more interesting and diverse, and with so many variables at play, this is a title that has a ton of replayability. Perhaps the heaviest game on my shelf, though, Gaia Project doesn’t get played nearly often enough to warrant its inclusion as an Evergreen just yet.

The Buddings

These titles show some potential and are on the verge of being excellent, but something about them just doesn’t sit right with me. I may not have found the best way to play them, or I just struggle to find a reason to play them, but they’re still games worth revisiting and playing, at least now and then.

Keyforge - My most played game of the year thus far, this revolutionary title of card play has dragged me by my throat onto the hype train. It’s easy to get to the table and something I find myself growing invested in as I discover my favorite decks to play with. But with a lingering concern of how long this game will last, knowing Fantasy Flight’s tendency to toss great card games by the wayside (*cough* Netrunner *cough*), I worry that, once the dust settles, Keyforge will go the way of the dodo a few years down the road.

The Grizzled: Armistice Edition - The Grizzled is a thoughtful and downright inspired co-op game that tackles a lot of serious themes and ideas without ever feeling overwhelming or preachy, with gorgeous art and gameplay that is simultaneously depressing and hilarious. The campaign leaves much to be desired, but once I’ve completed my first runthrough, I hope that the original game’s charm plus new mechanics are introduced here will skyrocket this title to bigger and better places.

Santorini - Greek gods have always been a point of excitement and fascination for me, so when you combine that with an intelligently designed abstract game with impressive table presence and replayability and you’ve got my attention. Unfortunately, the time it takes to set-up the game is what holds it back from being played more often, not to mention it being a 2-player game (even if the box says otherwise).

Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation (Deluxe Edition) - Another large 2-player title, this game takes Stratego to new heights, acting as one of the best asymmetric titles I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing, but the same issues that apply to Santorini hamstring this game as well.

Champions of Midgard - Infusing my love of worker placement with the excitement of dice manipulation, Champs’ chunky dice and tense decision-making is unlike anything I’ve played to date, pushing you to press your luck to the brink in hopes of coming out on top. While I have both expansions, The Dark Mountains takes away the tension and makes the game a little too easy at times, and Valhalla, while dealing with some stark issues with the original, adds some complexity to the title that it could have done without.

Wildlands - An interesting take on the dudes-on-a-map genre, this game took me by surprise a few weeks ago, offering a few ways to play, well-made minis, and the promises of expansion after expansion. Analysis paralysis can be a little much for some, and everyone’s first turn can feel a bit samey, but I have hope for this game as the year progresses.

Ethnos - I’ve had something of a love-hate relationship with Ethnos for a while now, having designed some fan-factions for the game and earnestly found the simplicity of play a neat icebreaker for a game night. That being said, set-up is a bit of a chore, and having to shuffle the massive deck of cards 3 times over the course of the 45 minute runtime makes me second-guess pulling this game off my shelf constantly.

Whistle Stop - A brain-burner of a title that improves on the tile-laying genre, this train-totting title will push you to think long and hard on every action you take as you build a machine to get your machines to the end of the train tracks as best you can before the game ends. Unfortunately, the board set-up is one of the most annoying and time consuming yet, and it’s a game that asks players to understand its minutia and strategies before you start playing, lest you fall behind in the first couple of turns. Oh, and piling onto the lead player is a very real thing that the game almost encourages, especially in the last couple of rounds. The more I talk about it, the more I think this game will likely leave my collection before the year is done.

The Transplants

These are those games that are, in my opinion, not truly a part of my collection, though I do own them. Rather than sitting on the shelf, they are relegated to the closet due to not having been played for some time now or needing to prove their worth before being considered for the collection. Rather than go into much detail about them, here’s a list of those that are currently “on-deck” if you will:

• Colony

• Coimbra

• Imperial Settlers with all expansions

• Pandemic Legacy: Season 2

• Secret Hitler: Deluxe Edition

• Telestrations

• Cyclades with various expansions

• Codenames: Duet

• Xenon Profiteer

• Azul

• Vast: The Crystal Caverns with all expansions

• Between 2 Castles of Mad King Ludwig

30 Games… For Now

So yes, my collection, technically, sits at 30 games, though I’m positive this will change as the year goes on. Looking over the stats I’ve been logging for the year this far, I see some interesting trends occuring in my gaming attitudes already, making me excited for what’s to come.

Moving forward, I intend to publish an update at the end of each month, talking about my gaming trends for the month (ie what I played the most, the weirdest title I played, etc.) as well as how my personal collection shifted and why. If any notable switch-outs do occur, I plan on writing reviews on those titles talking about the logic behind my decisions.

If you have any thoughts/recommendations for me regarding this moving forward, feel free to leave me your thoughts below. I know that my collection maintenance isn’t for everyone, nor the titles I keep, and it’s always refreshing to hear different perspectives and thoughts on the topic.

Interested in these games? We’ve reviewed many, which you can check out in the scroll below or find in our archive.

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Happy Birthday Mr. Tolkien

Happy Birthday Mr. Tolkien
By Jack Eddy - January 3rd, 2019

JRR Tolkien died 13 years before I was born, yet I can’t think of a single creator who has had such profound and intimate impact on my life. I mean, he doesn’t get all the credit, the orcs and elves and goblin grenades that have captured my imagination since early childhood have been told and retold by numerous creators that I love, but he is the progenitor of modern fantasy, and the catalyst through whose work (and adaptations of his work) set me upon this nerdy journey.

Who knows. I might have been really into baseball or something if it weren’t for my uncle and his damn VHS player.

An Unexpected Interest

Spending my early years overseas, coming to the States meant visiting family. I’d spend a couple days with my grandparents, hop over to my aunt’s, then best of all, go hang out with my uncle on his houseboat. Steve Eddy, like myself, was the weirdo among his siblings and parents. Into sci-fi, fantasy, technology, and the squishier things that are less grounded in reality.

During one visit, when I was about 3 or 4 years old, we ended a day watching a movie, which just so happened to be the 1977 Rankin & Bass adaption of The Hobbit. It blew my effing mind.

I’d seen He-Man, I knew what was up with The Wizard of Oz and The Never Ending Story, but this was like a fully realized world the likes of which I had never seen. It was just taken as a given that Middle Earth worked a certain way, hardly deserving exposition because the characters felt so real; and if the characters believed in their world, I could believe it too.

Lines like “I know that Sword! It is Glamdring, the Foe-Hammer!” or “I am Gandalf, and Gandalf Means Me” were permanently etched in my mind, and I was hungry for more.

It wasn’t until years later that I finally read The Hobbit, being that my dad (who did his best as a loving single parent of a very strange kid) had little to no interest in fantasy. For him, Star Wars was OK, but that “force” nonsense really brought the whole thing down, and The Beatles were a much better band when they weren’t trying to be so “weird”. Thus, it wasn’t his guiding hand that led me to fantasy classics, sticking largely to traditional modern adventure stories at bed time. But when I was old enough to do my own research and ask for them by name he indulged me by getting me the classics, or more often, getting me access to TV and video games featuring the stuff I craved.

Redwall, Flight of Dragons, Thundarr The Barbarian, Secret of N.I.M.H., these were my rockstars. Soon, this led to HeroQuest, which was both my entry point to tabletop gaming and the idea of actually creating worlds of my own through it’s fantastic “create your own map” page in the back of the campaign.

HeroQuest led to Magic: The Gathering, Magic led to the Brothers War novels (based on the Urza / Mishra Artificer Wars that set the stage for much of Magic’s early setting), then finally, I went after The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

To Dungeons Deep & Novels Old

I ate up the Hobbit. Given that I already knew the from watching the cartoon about a billion times, I was ravenous for the details, and Mr. Tolkien indulged (Or I guess I should say “Professor Tolkien”, though that feels too stuffy for the man). One of the best things about the Hobbit is that Tolkien set out to tell a fun fairy story narrated as an oral tale, full of embellishments and asides conveying his whimsy and delight. But in spite of himself, Tolkien could not let his fascination with myth and lore stay by the wayside.

Though he never intended for The Hobbit to be part of his Silmarillion Mythology, Tolkien self-indulgently made hints to it. From referring to Gondolin to the Arkenstone itself, which bears striking resemblance to the titular Silmarils. It was only later that he went back, in one of the first notable instances of “retconning”, did The Hobbit fit implicitly within the Legendarium. This massaging for canonical cohesion was largely due to the difficult process of writing The Lord of the Rings, when he found that the myths and legends of the world had transformed into concrete history within the universe, and thus The Lord of the Rings and to a lesser extent The Hobbit, were officially part of the tale of heroes like Turin Turambar, Earandil, and The Lady Luthien.

Flash back to me. I couldn’t get through it. My first 3 attempts at reading the Lord of the Rings failed miserably. No, it wasn’t too slow, no it wasn’t to formal. Honestly, it was too big. Every single page is full of layers to explore, hints of hidden depth both intentional and unintentional, such that my 13 year old brain could not fully grasp it. The surface level story was enchanting, but I was too distracted by the layers to explore, and I’d dig deep and greedily, until the motivating plot that propels the reader forward lost all momentum.

Yet I treasured them. The Lord of the Rings sat on my shelves throughout my early teens as though they were dictionaries to be referenced from time to time. I’d open random pages, dive into the appendices, and sit at my built-in-desk drawing ring-wraiths till the cows came home.

The Hobbit though, was another story.

It Is Precious To Me

My first copy of the Hobbit came from a scholastic book fair. Those familiar with book fairs from mid 90s may even recall my paperback edition, with a lifelike illustration of the Riddles in the Dark chapter set against a black background. Interestingly, the depiction of Bilbo (maybe it was even a person modeling for the role?) looks less like a hobbit and more like Marc Addy in Viva Rock Vegas.

Anyway, as I said, I tore through this book again and again, to the point of destroying it beyond the point that any mortal tape could mend. Enter my mom.

My mother was largely out of the picture in my life. Tragically, she battled with mental illness and addiction for the majority of her adulthood, though there were periods of sobriety where I could and would visit her.

As I said, I felt like misfit my family. I didn’t look like them, I didn’t talk like them, and my greatest passions were at best mild curiosities. But the first time I visited my mom as a teenager, which was also the longest extended period that I had spent with her since my parents divorced when I was 6 years old, I found her shelf of books. On it, low and behold, was a copy of the Hobbit.

This beautiful, notebook sized hardcover featured incredible illustrations, both the original illustrations by Tolkien and fantastic “new” interpretations of his work. I was astonished that that my mom had read the book, let alone cared enough to own a copy. This created a bond and a level of understanding with which I could better understand and relate to her, creating room for empathy in the heart of a lonely child bitter about his mother’s absence.

I wish I could say that this was the blossoming of a tight relationship, but over the following summers, her struggles consumed her, and between the ages of 15 to 17 she was not stable enough for me to visit. At 18 years old I saw her for the last time, choosing to go as an adult of my own volition, taking my wife (then girlfriend) to visit her. It was a good visit, though a brief distraction from the mutual sadness we held for the state of our relationship.

Shortly after that she went off the grid, occasionally reappearing in fits of madness, calling from homeless shelters or strangers’ houses, refusing help and offering no information. Her paranoid delusions, schizophrenia, and drug addiction caused her to repel anyone who offered to help, and she died alone. My brother and I scattered her ashes in Alaska, the last place where we were all together; the last place that for her resembled home.

Outside of the photographs saved by relatives, I have three mementos of my mother. The ID which she had on her at the time of her death, the brass tag used to identify her ashes, and a hardbound copy of The Hobbit, inscribed on the inside “July 3, 1998 To Jack With love, From Mom.”

Battered and worn from read-throughs and panic attack comfortations, there is not a single physical possession that I hold more dear.

The Whole Story

Well, after that tragic story that I didn’t expect to write when I set out to post a nice little summary of my experience with Tolkien’s works, we need to go rewind to just after my mom gave me her copy of the Hobbit.

It wasn’t long after that, maybe 2 or so years, that I heard rumors of an upcoming live-action adaption of The Lord of the Rings, from the Dead Alive guy no-less. I didn’t really understand what that meant, because it really felt impossible to tell the story in a single movie. Stranger still, I heard that I could watch the preview (this i long before they were called trailers) on the internet.

Ho-ly-Shit.

The Fellowship of the Ring trailer is perhaps the first thing that opened my eyes to the power of the internet, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. No longer were websites just a source of Final Fantasy 3 rumors, now it was a means to consume media. But that pales in comparison to when the film came out.

I think I saw Fellowship 3 times in the theater. It was wonderful, of course, but also strange. I knew the characters so well from reading the Hobbit and referencing lineages in the Lord of the Rings, but truthfully, I didn’t know the thrust of the story. I mean, of course by this point I had seen Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings and the Rankin & Bass Return of the King, but those are disjointed works, again, acting as little windows into the world rather than a continuous narrative. It was the movies that contextualized the tale, which finally convinced me to read through the books from beginning to end.

Including a single listening of the audio book, I’ve read through the Lord of the Rings three times since then. While this may be less than some, it’s generally more than others. Additionally, I dived into anything else I could even tangentially related, from the incredible 1981 BBC Radio Adaption, to the Lord of the Rings SNES game where Gandalf struts like a 1970s pimp.

Pimp-walk Gandalf images unavailable. You’ll just have to trust me on this one.

But more than anything, I became enamored with the man himself. Tolkien’s letters, his struggles, the accounts of his peers, the story of the inklings, all of it felt as important to the creation of this universe as the hints within the text are to it’s fictional history.

Most recently, I’ve started engaging with the Mythgard Academy and listening to their fantastic Exploring the Lord of the Rings podcast, along with it’s associated ilk. These sessions are hosted by Corey “The Tolkien Professor” Olsen, an unparalleled resource who leads his lessons with purpose, whit, and charm. Suddenly, I was engaged in hours upon hours of open ended seminar style discussion both about the work, its creation, and its author; I found a welcoming home.

There and Back Again

As I alluded to earlier, this post was never meant to be this long. I really just wanted to sit down and write a nice summary of the importance of Tolkien to my life, and yet it became something altogether quite different, but here we are.

I can’t think of any creator that has been so persistently felt throughout the many different chapters of my life. Not only did he directly create some of the most meaningful stories that I’ve read, shaping my views on charity, adventure, compassion, empathy, pity, and the importance of a good troll-song, but his impact on the multitudes of other creators that further informed my character is immeasurable. It’s hard to imagine HeroQuest, Magic: The Gathering, Harry Potter, A Song of Ice and Fire, hell, even Led Zeppelin, without some of the foundational DNA leading in some way back to Mr. Tolkien's works.

And now, as of the time of writing this, I am reading the Hobbit to my son for the second time,  the first being when he was an infant, as a way of gently soothing him to sleep, and now, as a boy of four years old, it’s an adventure story full of perils, mystery, and magic.

Some people tend to deify Tolkien, viewing him as some self-serious and altogether crabby stick in the mud, who must be given the same sort of reverance that would be given to a religious leader or a particularly strict, but altogether brilliant, professor.

Instead, I think of him as a warm, principled man who loved to laugh over a pint with his friends, who read created fairy stories for his children, and had a thing or two to say about that Snow White movie he saw with his pal C.S. Lewis. Because that’s who he was to me; a warm presence inviting me to experience things that I couldn’t find at home, who gave me a sense of belonging to a woman who I desperately sought a connection to, and who narrated a story with whit and character akin to the way that I delight and entertain my son.

He died 13 years before I was born, but more than any other creator, our relationship through his work is real and important. He has served as a mentor, a leader, and a friend. Happy Birthday Mr. Tolkien.

Want to see more? Check out some of our recent written reviews:

The Endless March - Campaign Fatigue

The Endless March - Campaign Fatigue

One of the most frequently talked about subjects in board gaming forums is the shelf of shame; games laying around unplayed. Often this is the result of kickstarter enthusiasm that died out months before the game even hit your doorstep, or the buzz on the latest hotness that you are just waiting on the right people to play with. While games of all types remain neglected, I noticed a couple recurring themes. These games are often A) Very big, and B) Require a dedicated group.

Oh, and C) (Pursuant to A and B) These games often involve campaigns.

Campaign games, that is to say a game played over many sessions with aspects carrying over from one session to another, are more popular than ever. The rise of Legacy mechanics have contributed to this, but also the ease in which these games can be played cooperatively has led to a new level of accessibility, allowing many more people to involve themselves in lengthy adventures protracted over time. But these grim marches into gaming servitude are popular with publishers, too. Campaigns suggest a lifestyle, a game that has its own ecosystem, where players are enticed to buy expansions and hesitate to trade in games, encouraging more retail purchases. After all, it’s easy to slip into a state where your hobby isn’t board games, it’s Descent, and you might as well fill out that collection because you are a Descent player now.

The thing is that I want that, too. I dream of a fanciful world with unlimited time and the enthusiastic buy-in of all my friends who are just dying to play 80 games of Gloomhaven. But someone this imaginary world provides enough time so that my campaign doesn’t interfere with my Pandemic: Legacy sessions. Oh and I need to make sure that my wife and I’s Near & Far playthrough keeps going… Speaking of, the latest expansion to Scythe is really neat since the content unfolds over eight sessions. Aaaaand I’ve been meaning to dive into some sweet, sweet HeroQuest with my older brother when he comes back to town. Dangit! Rob will kill me if I forget to prepare for our next 5E session…

Forget it, not even in this far-fetched fantasy realm can I imagine a world where I’m able to fit everything I want to play in without succumbing to fatigue and anxiety.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not throwing blame at the publishers, I don’t think this is some sinister plot to make gamers miserable because of the abundance of awesome stuff. But the reality is, many gamers are sold on the dream that they could play these games. In truth, for many people a big game like this is much more likely to sit safely on a shelf, because the act of breaking it out requires so much dedication and buy-in from your friends, not to mention playing it may come at the expense of checking out the other games you know and love.

So, what is my point? I just want to call out my own behaviors, and that of my fellow gamers. We have an embarrassment of riches in this hobby, with so many good games, and good campaigns, to choose from. It’s easy to be seduced into buying into the dream that you’ll be able to play it all.

Campaign games in particular are among the most enticing but also the most difficult to get to the table, requiring commitment by enthusiastic players that can be able to show up consistently and wish to plumb the depths of game. That means that for us inhabitants of the real world, with responsibilities and competing interests, who don’t live in this fantasy land of unicorns and infinite time, we’ll have to be selective about which games commit to. So the next time you are about to throw your money at the next big thing, campaign or otherwise, just make sure that you aren’t selling yourself a dream.

Written by Jack Eddy, TCbH Founder & Editor

The Cardboard Herald is funded by the generous support of readers, listeners, and viewers. If you'd like to help support, you can find our Patreon here.

Recent Written Reviews

Snitch - The Etiquette of Being a Rat

So, let’s get this little bit out of the way up first. This is not a review. Or a preview. Or whatever view that you expect out of tabletop gaming media commenting on a kickstarter. This is merely me talking about a game that I was shown a great deal of and my reaction. I have not played Snitch.

But you know what? I dig it and am excited about it.

See, Robert Crowter-Jones of The Elusive Meeple is a co-designer on this game and he and I have collaborated on a couple projects and supported each other’s mutual sites from time to time. I actually discovered Robert through the strength of his awesome reviews, critical analysis, and strategic breakdown in games. I trust the guys judgment, and he asked if he could do a presentation of the game and get some honest response and feedback. This is the result.

What is Snitch

Snitch is a 3-5 player semi-cooperative bluffing game where players are gangsters and crooks, collaborating in a series of bank-jobs, trying to pick when to snitch on their team. If everyone works together, the players who helped in the heist get an equal breakdown of the loot; if it fails, anyone who “snitched” gets to split money for the round. The problem is that players only have 3 snitch cards, and once a card is played for a round, it’s gone.

The remaining cards make up the various rolls and obstacles in the heist. If the table shows “muscle” and “lock pick” for the round, players need to collectively match these rolls in order to succeed. With each player only playing one card facedown per turn, only revealed once all cards are selected, it means that you are gambling on whether your friends are telling the truth, whether they plan to snitch, and what you think you can get away with.

What I Dig

Here’s the deal. You’ve heard of games like this before. Tonally, this might sound like some other hidden traitor or bluffing games, but trust me when I say that this one feels unique. With the language independent cards, simple iconography, and multi-use cards, this seems like one of the lowest-barrier to entry social games that I’ve ever seen. Snitch appears to distill the best and most high-impact parts of these games into really streamlined package.

The best thing about social bluffing games is the nuance and “meta” that develops from people playing repeatedly, learning each other’s ticks, applying their bias from each hilarious loss and devious victory. Snitch seems to capitalize on that, and get you up and running in a short time frame able to have those repeated plays right away.

Look, I’m not saying this is the game is a completely new paradigm in the hobby, this is not the new go to game and reason to meet up with your friends, but Robert and his co-designers appears to have made something really special. Snitch looks easy to teach, fast to play, and a great platform for you to have some hilarious fun, perfect for breaking the ice at a meeting, or closing out the game night with friends.

Are Board Games Really Better Than Ever Before?

Yes.

This article is sponsored by every flippant cynic that replies to an article online by saying "If the title ends in a question mark, the answer is always a no".

Happy Thursday!

Jack

Board Gaming on a Budget

By Luke Muench

Whenever I suggest someone consider delving into the rich and varied hobby of board gaming, the one factor that deters most is the seeming large cost that comes with it. Board games range from $10 to well over $100, each title customizable to an absurd level. From upgraded components to various expansion packs, any one game can change a $30 affair to something far more extensive and costly. Yet, even if we assume that someone isn’t ready to “bling” out their games, each game tends to be available for, on average, a $50 or $60 price tag in my experience. And when you already aren’t sure where you should start, this can become a deal-breaker quickly.

We live in a day and age when board gaming is on the rise, yet there are very few resources made explicitly for people just getting into the hobby.  So, for those of us who do take the leap, it's important in our starting days, months, even years that we find a way to make it manageable monetarily. Fortunately, this is a subject I consistently explore in my YouTube show, Budget Board Gamer.

So whether you’re new to the game or a veteran of the hobby, I thought I’d share some advice to make things easier on your wallet. No matter who you are, saving a couple bucks is never a bad thing, and while this subject does cater to newer members of the board gaming craze, I think the following can be helpful to anyone throwing cash at their unwieldy and ever-growing collection.

1. Be Selective

As of writing this, there are 92,094 board games registered on BoardGameGeek.com, the internet’s central hub for all things board gaming. So if you’re going to be picking out a game for yourself, make sure it’s one you REALLY want to play. Is the theme something that excites you? How much strategy are you looking for? How much luck should play into who wins? How nice are the components? These are all factors that need to be heavily weighed and considered, and some of this will come with time and experience. Don’t expect that the first few games you get will be your favorites. My first, Small World, now adorns my apartment wall as an art piece, a reminder of where I started this journey and how far I’ve come. So pick something that you think looks mind-blowingly cool, just make sure to-

2. Do Your Research

There are a lot of factors to consider when looking at any game, and you won’t have the answers to most of them by simply looking at the box. BoardGameGeek.com is a fantastic research tool and should not be wasted on you. Find a game’s page, see what people are saying about it, what game mechanics it contains, a handful of price quotes. But don’t stop there; find some recent reviews to see how the game has held up over time. If you’re going to spend the money for it and the time to play it, you should have a pretty good idea of what to expect from it well before the box arrives on your doorstep.

3. BGG Rank, BGG Spank

When I first started getting games, I was pretty attached to the BoardGameGeek ranking system, scouring the top 500 games every few days to see if there was anything I missed, if any games had risen or fallen, what titles jumped out at me on a given day. While seemingly helpful, this can be a big waste of time. BGG’s list is about the overall ranking, not about the best games for you. It can be easy to see positive ratings and be swept away by the idea of a complex and involved game like Terra Mystica. But, more often than not, the most complex games are the most expensive due to how many components are involved. And without having experienced the game at least once beforehand, you could be dropping a ton of money on a game that you may not even enjoy. Rather than focusing on the games everyone else is talking about, look for games that you know you like, then use resources like the BGG forum, geeklists, or the countless videos and articles on the internet to find games that scratch a similar itch. So yes, a game’s rank can help to indicate an overall quality of a product to the masses, but it shouldn’t be a number that you rely on to measure if a game will be good for you.

4. Dealing With It

There are deals for anything on the internet if you go looking for them, and board gaming is no exception. Various websites will hold big clearance sales when they become overstocked, with a sale showing up on my newsfeed and email every couple of days. In a day and age when you can get just about anything you set your mind to, make sure it’s for the best price you can find.

5. Stay Informed

I’ve set up my Facebook, Twitter, and email to bombard me with notices regarding sales, contests, and more to help me be aware of what new things are headed to store shelves and how cheap I can get them for. While I’m not saying to make your accounts become a pile of ads, consider following or subscribing to those publishers that produce games that really appeal to you. It could save you a lot of time and money in the long-run.

6. Support Your FLGS (Friendly Local Gaming Store)

To some, this will seem to contradict my previous points; going to a store to pay full price for my games? How will that save me money? In order to compete with online giants like Amazon and Cool Stuff Inc, local retailers have come up with various reasons as to why you should stop in. Many have back rooms of games for people to freely play, allowing you to try out a ton of games before you buy them. Some will even give you a discount if you attend an event featuring the game before purchasing. Most have some sort of loyalty program, providing better discounts the more you support the store. And for those who are newer to board gaming, having someone there to walk you through what games are worth your time and money is well worth the price of the game itself. Sure, not every store will be staffed with good, honest folk, but any worth its snuff will have someone who can direct you to a selection of options worth considering.

7. Giveaway Galore

Now, I’m not trying to say you should rely on giveaways and the promises of free stuff to actively build your collection. More often than not, those contests won’t be featuring games that you have any interest in. All the same, there’s no harm in entering these contests; most of these contests are free, and you’ll educate yourself on the types of games being released in the process. There’s a list of such giveaways on BoardGameGeek.com, but some Facebook pages specialize in informing its followers of such deals and events.

8. PnP (Print and Play)

Some publishers, in the hopes of allowing more budding gamers to grow, have provided their works online as PDFs. Those interested can print off the necessary cards or components and, using card sleeves and dice, can experience some fantastic games for relatively cheap. No, these won’t be the prettiest things to look at, but it helps inform players as to what they like, allowing you to grow your collection early for little to no money down. And if you end up liking the game enough, you can always go out and buy your own retail copy down the road.

Here are four of my favorite Print and Play games worth checking out:

Tiny Epic Kingdoms:

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/98240/tiny-epic-kingdoms-free-print-and-play

Deep Space D-6:

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/125403/deep-space-d-6-print-play-eng

...And Then We Held Hands:

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/100307/print-and-play-files-game-jam-2014-version

Elevenses for One:

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/106017/cards-v11-uploaded-publisher

9. Your Board Gaming Buddy

At the end of the day, you won’t be able to afford every game you’ve ever wanted to play, and it’s a rookie mistake to buy everything you want to try. Fortunately, this hobby is rife with people with huge game collections just looking to hang out and play. Whether it’s through your FLGS, conventions, meetup.com, or word of mouth, you should be able to find someone with knowledge, experience, and a wealth of games to play. Now, I’m not saying you should go looking for these people just to leech off their games; go to make friends, to hang out, to hopefully join or establish a gaming group (After all, games are only as good as the people playing them). As long as your friendship is mutual and everyone is respectful of one another, there’s no reason not to use your friends as a resource to learn more of what you do or don’t like.

There you have it; 9 solid pieces of Budget Board Gamer advice - your wallet and I thank you for reading. That said, if you are hunting for deals, just keep an eye out for sales or use price trackers like camelcamelcamel.com. Like anything else, stores sometimes buy too much stock and end up selling games at sometimes steep discounts. In no particular order, the following are board games that sell for $40 - $80 retail that I’ve managed to find for $30 or less over the last few years - happy hunting!

• Splendor

• Ethnos

• Libertalia

• Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

• Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

• Samurai Spirit

• King of New York

• Machine of Death

• Pandemic Legacy

• The Big Book of Madness

• Elysium

• Discoveries: The Journals of Lewis and Clark

• Flash Point

• Kingdom Builder: Big Box

• Tokaido

• Seasons

-----------------------

Board gaming is something you invest in, in every sense of the word, so I hope this article helped alleviate some of the struggle I know all too well. If you liked this article and want to see more like it, please comment below and let us know what subjects you’d like us to cover in the future. From the size of your collection to the size of your boxes, Budget Board Gamer and the Cardboard Herald will have you covered.

Luke Muench is a freelance writer and the founder & host of the youtube series Budget Board Gamer.

2017 Hype with Jack and John

We talk a lot about the past around here. Past games, cultural heritage, the legacy of certain designers. But the past can only get us so far, and in light of the world climate right now, let’s talk about how cool the future will be; lets get HYPE!

What is there worth getting HYPE about? CleganeBowl for one. But there are other things to get excited for, movies, books, video games, and yes, board games; especially board games. On episode 15 of The Cardboard Herald podcast, Jack and John talked in depth about the games they are most excited for in 2017; here is that list:

Jack: Legend of the Five Rings LCG - David Seay, John Zinser, and David Williams - Fantasy Flight Games

There was a period in my life where all of my gaming was in the L5R tournament scene. Frequently playing 2 tournaments per week, I equally loved the intensely strategic gameplay and the mystical setting of Rokugan. I’m leery of diving into an LCG model if the base set doesn’t feel complete, and I don’t know exactly what FFG has in store, but I’m excited and cannot wait to see what this new game looks like.

John: First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet - Ignacy Trzewiczek - Portal Games

Mars is the “in” planet these days and 2016’s smash hit Terraforming Mars is just one of many new games to jump on that train and I am %100 ok with that.  I’ve had plenty of great and not so great viking games, pirate games, wizard games, and even space empire games, but I’m oh so ready for a dash of that spirit of frontier-style adventurism that Mars evokes.  This is Ignacy Trzewiczek’s follow up to Robinson Crusoe; a co-op game I personally enjoyed, but felt didn’t quite scratch that “roughing it” itch for whatever reason.  This should be that same desperate struggle for survival with the benefit of being set in a place that hands down wins the award for most hostile and some new or updated gameplay to maybe push it to the next level..

Jack: Yamatai - Bruno Cathala / Marc Paquien - Days of Wonder

I love Days of Wonder Games. Something about their business model and company ethos is endearing to me. They make one really solid game per year that is enjoyable and satisfying to a broad audience, and then fully back it with their considerable promotional and developmental power. While not every game has been a success, almost all of their releases have been memorable and fun. Yamatai captures the same mystical asian lore that I loved about L5R and combines that with the somewhat abstract and strategic gameplay Bruno Cathala is known for. How can I not be intrigued?

John: Dark Souls - Mat Hart / Richard Loxam - Steamforged Games

I don’t typically “pull the trigger” on licensing alone. If you want a company that takes its licensed properties and lovingly develops them then look no further than Fantasy Flight Games and if you want an example of how it can be done with...let’s say a little less devotion to actual gaming content, then look at Cryptozoic.  This was an exception for me in that I jumped on board after getting into the “Dark Souls” games last year and I’m truly hoping it ends up in the FFG end of the spectrum.  The rules seems promising and should deliver on a tough but rewarding co-op experience that feels very true to the source.  The true test will be whether the game offers a rich experience for both gamers who praise the sun and those who have absolutely no idea what I’m on about.

Jack: Charterstone - Jamey Stegmaier - Stonemaier Games

I like legacy style games, but I’m not ready to ditch my traditional “one and done” style of gaming yet. That’s why I’m happy that Stonemaier is releasing a city building legacy game that is meant to be played continuously after you are “done” with the legacy elements. I’m also a big fan of the “fit and finish” of Stonemaier’s games up until this point, always a smooth and beautiful production (even without those upgraded resources). So I’m definitely going to check this sucker out.

John: Chronicle 1: Origins - Rob Daviau / Dirk Knemeyer - Artana

This is an odd duck for me and one that Charterstone almost took the spot from.  Artana games isn’t a huge publisher and Dirk Knemeyer isn’t a name I see everywhere like the Bruno Cathalas and Erik Langs right now, but the premise of this one caught my eye and having Rob Daviau attached is the best and only legacy-gaming pedigree at the moment.  The rough idea is a civilization building game that spans multiple game entries using a legacy game format combined with a new “echo” system that carries over some details from each game released in the series to the next.  Sadly this was supposed to launch a kickstarter last year and was delayed and my attempt to contact the designer for the inside scoop was unsuccessful so far, but if the BGG page is to be believed this will be a 2017 release and I have high hopes that this could be more of what I loved about legacy-gaming so far.

Jack: Kingdom Builder: Harvest - David X Vaccarino - Queen Games (Expansion)

I really love Kingdom Builder. It fits a niche that few other games do, both mentally stimulating yet also so incredibly soothing. There is something almost therapeutic about the game. One of the big things that I love is that expansions integrate so seamlessly and rarely with any conflict. I’m really looking forward to more challenges, mechanics, and especially (hopefully) new scoring conditions.

Both of Us: Pandemic Legacy: Season 2 - Rob Daviau and Matt Leacock - Z-man Games

John: One of my top 10 greatest gaming experiences of all time will undoubtedly be Season 1 of this franchise.  I sat down every week with the same group of players and we participated in something that delivered more than just a one-and-done game session.  We cared about our world.  We cared about our characters.  And best of all, we had influence and ownership of how those things fared.  That game, to me, was the best mix of strategy board gaming blended with the story and investment of a book or television series that I’ve had outside the realms of the traditional RPG.  I’m working on a project to frame my first board to hang in my board game room and I’m already expecting that I’ll need room for a second season to hang alongside it.

Jack: Does anything really need to be said about Pandemic Legacy? When I said that 2015 gaming discussion was dominated by Blood Rage, what I meant was that all non-Pandemic Legacy gaming discussion. PL Season 1 took the world by storm and defined what a legacy game could and should be. Playing through Season 1 was among my favorite board game memories of all time, and I cannot wait to see what clever mechanics and cool story unfolds before us in  Season 2.

Jack: Unannounced 3rd game in the tile laying trilogy - Ted Alspach - Bezier Games

According to designer Ted Alspach, he is busy working on the follow up to Suburbia and Castles of Mad King Ludwig that will be the best of the three. That’s a bold claim, especially since Suburbia is one of my favorite games of all time. I’m eagerly anticipating this “new challenger”.

Both of Us: Rising Sun - Eric Lang - Cool Mini or Not

Jack: Probably the HYPE-ist game of all, this is the follow up to the kickstarter mega-hit Blood Rage. Eric Lang has been amazingly prolific in the past couple of years and Blood Rage dominated internet gaming discussion in 2015, blending european “point salad” gameplay with american style aggressive confrontation. Again, between the setting entrenched in Asian lore (Onis are so hot this year!), and the proven capability of the Blood Rage team (same designer, artist, sculptor, publisher), there is a lot to get HYPE about here.

John: Japanese inspired fantasy is such a refreshing break from fairly common fantasy in the “elf-on-orc violence” and “my old bearded guy fights a dragon” traditions.  We’ve also seen a lot in the way of mythology from Greek, Viking, and Egyptian pantheons so something with just a touch of Shinto or a dash of Tao might be nice from time to time.  Theme aside, I’m excited to see what comes next after last year’s Blood Rage in terms of taking area control and conflict and mixing them with things like drafting and resource management.  Erik Lang has been seemingly everywhere lately and going back to an old favorite of mine, I can already say I really liked his much earlier Chaos in the Old World and loved that Bood Rage seemed to take elements of that style and push it in a totally different direction.  I’m hoping Rising Sun keeps pushing.

Bonus Unannounced / Semi Announced Expansions!

Jack: Next Five Tribes big box expansion - Bruno Cathala - Days of Wonder

Know how I said I love Days of Wonder? It’s the consistent design, approachability and polish of their games that really attracts me to them, though admittedly I don’t consider most of their games as top 5 or 10 games of all time. Five Tribes is the exception. That game is my jam. I love everything about it. And while I was talking with designer Bruno Cathala for the podcast, he let slip that he is working on a big expansion due out this year. I cannot wait to see what comes.

John: All the Arkham Horror LCG! - Fantasy Flight Games

This this this!  I can’t get enough of this experience and I would compare my approach to it with the same approach I have to great television; I’m waiting for the whole first season to finish so I can binge.  I opened up a core set and immediately knew I wanted to pursue this blend of co-op strategy and Arkham-family story (tragedy mostly).  That first campaign is a fun experience, but one that teases so much potential that it feels incomplete without more to play after the first 3 games.  I’m afraid to purchase any more just yet for fear that it really will continue to deliver great experiences for me and I’ll be left waiting again for more.  So instead I’ll sit patiently while the product line develops a bit, but make no mistake, I will be diving into this one later this year to see where it goes and I expect good things for gaming and not so great things for my wallet.

Jack: Champions of Midgard expansion(s) - Ole Steiness (?) - Grey Fox Games

Grey Fox has been pretty coy on the BGG forums, but they have let on that a kickstarter will be up very soon (next week or two from me writing this) for Champions of Midgard Expansions. They haven’t clarified if this is one or many expansions, something that’s modular, who is designing, whatever. But I really need/want to know because I consider Champions a good game that needs just a little bit more. I think the mechanics are better than the game itself, and it just needs a few more strategic options to elevate it and give the game the punch it needs. So I’m really eager to see what they have in store.

***Breaking News Update*** Since originally recording the podcast and writing this article, Grey Fox has announced the names of the two expansions for Champions of Midgard; “Dark Mountains” and “Valhalla”. No details further details so far.

***Breaking-ER Breaking News Update*** The Kickstarter for the two new Champions of Midgard expansions, including full details of what you are getting, is now live and can be found here.

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That’s it! Are you feeling the HYPE!? Were any of these off your radar but now you are frothing at the mouth for? What games are you most excited for in 2017? Send us an email at cardboardherald@gmail.com or tweet to us @cardboardherald to let us know!

John's Favorite non-2016 Gaming Experiences of 2016

The turn of the year is always a convenient break in time between the moments that make up the tumultuous pace of our lives.  It grants us a convenient excuse to look back on the most recent chapter of our stories and decide how we feel about certain aspects of it and examine the moments from the passing year that will become our most cherished memories.  As gamers our thoughts naturally turn to the experiences our hobby has brought us and with the gaming renaissance still in full swing, it’s easy to find a score of new games to fill your highlight reel for the year.  2016 has been no exception to this, with new releases conquering ranking lists on every review site and forum available.  While the releases this year have been many in number and varied in design, who can yet say if these games will stand the test of time and breed even more memories in years to come?  Instead of taking part in the top ten list building that inevitably sings the praises of the new, I would instead like to take a moment to share 3 of the games published in prior years that created some of my best gaming moments of 2016 and did in fact hold value for me well after the smell of new cardboard wore off.

Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2nd Ed.) (2012)
Descent is hardly a new game and hardly new to me, but this year was a renaissance year for the venerable game, both for me personally and for gaming as a whole.  The “Road to Legend” app ratcheted up the team and story elements of Descent up in a big way and undeniably opened up the game to a whole subset of players who might have been turned off by the now common one vs. many “overlord” format.  I have enjoyed a game or 2 of cooperative Descent since the advent of the app, but this year was all about 1 on1 adventure for me.  When my girlfriend said she was tired of my nagging about playing dungeon crawls, she followed up by telling me she had set up a play date for a friend of mine and I.  Since then I have played no fewer than 20 individual Descent scenarios this year and finally finished the core set campaign after 4 long years of starting and restarting.  Rediscovering how much I enjoy the game was absolutely a highlight of my year and playing it as an overlord against 3 heroes under a single player added an edge of competition that combating a team sometimes lacks.

Big Book of Madness (2015)
The genre of deckbuilding games is one that has lived its life in dog years an aged more rapidly and less gracefully than many other core designs.  The explosion of such a simple type of game design was akin to the CCG bubble of the 90’s and these days it takes some interesting mechanics for a deckbuilder to catch my attention.  Big Book of Madness is a lovely co-op experience tied to very basic deckbuilding frame with some interesting new mechanics bolted on for good measure.  I especially appreciated how it punished players for playing like a standard deckbuilder and drawing as many cards as possible in a turn.  This one found its way to my 2016 roster when I was asked to teach it at our local gaming convention in January.  It’s not a game that redefined the industry, but its a very solid entry with a fun theme and it came along at a time my girlfriend was just entering the world of tabletop gaming.  As a cooperative game the interaction levels are high, but players have their own decks and can easily avoid “quarterbacking” (which I am guilty of) which helped it become a date night favorite at my house this spring and a game we both bonded over.

Cthulhu Wars (2015)
My first foray into Kickstarting board games began with a bit of madness induced by the whispers of dark gods.  Those whispers were all the more potent because the elder beings in question were plastic miniatures of immense size that positively wriggle with detail.  The last of Cthulhu Wars’ vast swarm of extra content made its way to my collection in 2015, but this year saw a resurgence in play for me.  This game is a centerpiece in my collection and I was extremely happy to see it be in the top 20 most frequent games I got to the table this year.  What makes this game special to me is the size of it all, and yes I literally mean the so called miniatures.  The gameplay is fantastic and would fit a smaller game, but the extravagant scale of this game makes the experience a grand one.  Every time my group sat down to play we walked away with a story of immense beings of unimaginable power wreaking havoc on the table/earth and everything about the art and design of the game lent itself to that story.  This year was the year Cthulhu Wars rose from the depths of my collection and saw massive play, proving that that which is dead cannot die and in strange aeons (and 2016 was strange) even weighty games might see play.

2016 was defined by the people I played with more than the games.  I began a new relationship in 2015 and by January of 2016 she was fully engaged in her gaming indoctrination;  I reconnected with several close friends over the gaming table; I even began my first attempts at bringing tabletop adventures to the world of my 8 year old daughter.  2016 was a year full of great new designs, but these 3 games found a fresh audience or renewed vigor this year in my house because of their ability to create experiences that I could share with the people whose company I enjoy.

-John L.S. Foster

Jack's favorite old but new games of 2016

How often do you play new games? And of those new games, how often were they released in the same year you are playing them? Don’t get me wrong, I love playing the new hotness. Sinking my teeth into a new game fresh in our hobby’s collective consciousness is among my favorite gaming experiences; though by far my exposure“new games”  are most often older gems or games that hit wider availability in the year following release. While much of the discussion this season will be dominated by new releases, let’s honor some of the older games that were new to me in 2016.

Suburbia (2012):
I’ve gushed plenty about Suburbia on the site. We picked it up in a trade early in 2016, and wow, what an impact it’s had throughout the year. Time and time again, month after month, my wife and I would find ourselves passing other games up for Suburbia. Not only does it have an incredibly satisfying set of mechanisms, the theme is really strong. You really get engaged with the operation of your city, and see it come to life. Set up is relatively quick, the pieces are of high quality, there is tension and player interactivity through the market, this isn’t just one of my favorite games new to me in 2016; it’s one of my favorite games of all time.

Concordia (2013):
Catan was my entry point into modern tabletop gaming. I existed on the fringes for a long time, playing CCGs and occassional tabletop miniature games, but it was Catan’s city development and adding abstract little wooden pieces to a board in a non-confrontational (but secretly EXTRA! confrontational) manner that hooked me. My lust for Catan has waned, but I still long for that feeling of development and investment that I first had so many years ago. Fortunately, Concordia delivers. This game is has incredible strategic depth while maintaining a solidly middle-weight approach. Perfectly balancing limited choices with a wide breadth of options, Concordia is one of the games that I feel most satisfied after having played. Like a good stew, a game of Concordia sticks to your bones.

Pandemic Legacy: Season One (2015): *no spoilers*
I’m still undecided on the whole Legacy thing. I can’t tell if a few years from now I’ll look back on destroyed games and feel like my time with them was as satisfying as the many more games I played of more traditional games. But there is no doubt that I had an incredible time playing through Pandemic Legacy during 2016. Along with my wife Christina and our friends Sarah and Mikko, we played through the campaign over the course of the year. At the beginning of each month, we’d contact eachother, schedule a game session, figure out who was making food, and try to save the world. Tension was high as we ripped cards, marked the board, and fretted over each strategic decision. The weight of each action and it’s consequences added such stakes that I’ve never felt in a game, it was really something to behold. So while I can’t say Pandemic Legacy is my favorite game that I played in 2016, I can easily say that it facilitated some of my favorite gaming experiences of the year.

That’s it! What are your favorite new-to-you-old-games-of-2016?

-Jack

Enjoying Descent; Or Dude, That's a lot of Pieces

By Casey Kelley

I have a confession to make. I love Descent. Almost as much as I love beer. I love the game enough that I spent precious beer money on tons of the game’s expansions. Lots of beer money. That could have been spent on beer. But it wasn’t. Because it was spent on a board game.

Should you spend your beer money on Descent? I can’t answer that for you (how can one quantify another’s love of beer?), but here are some of your other questions that I can answer (as an overlord and professional DM, it is my right to assume you’re asking these questions):

“How do you expect me to get into such a dense game? There is so much here! There must be a ton of rules. Let’s just go get some beer and forget the whole thing!”

Fear not! Descent is actually fairly simple. Descent believes in keywords. Keywords make everything easier. Easier is better. Better is good. Good is… I lost my train of thought there… Anyway, keywords are what take so much of what could be an incredibly complex game and boil it down to a handful of rather quick steps. Every action, reaction, or thing you could possibly do is governed by some very simple rules centering on key words. The rule book*, sorry, the rule pamphlet breaks everything down into easy , digestible chunks. Everything is organized in such a way that is flows from one action to the next, simple to complex, players turn to Overlord’s turn, so that when you DO have to look something up, it’s fairly easy to find what you need. Oh, and there is an index, which is amazing.

*[Editor’s note: call it a pamphlet; that sounds less intimidating]

“Yeah, but… but… all those pieces! It just looks so fiddly… so… upkeep intensive. You sure you don’t want to get some beers?”

Of course, I would love to** …but not right now. Right now is where I explain to you that your argument is spot on and completely wrong at the same time. See, Descent actually doesn’t really hammer you on upkeep. Yes, there is a fair number of moving parts and close to a metric ton*** okay, not a ton, but a lot of little pieces, minis, cardboard chits, and cards (soooo many cards). The great thing is 90% of them are used between games. You don’t need new shop cards, quest cards, skill cards, Overlord cards, or  travel cards during a game. That crap can all go straight back in the box. Those 30 different types of monsters? A few are chosen for each game then everything else goes back in the box! So  yes, there are a ton of pieces, and there is some upkeep… BUT… it is all **** AHH! OK! mostly between games. The worst you have to manage while playing is your health and stamina, and that involves removing health when you get hit, and stamina when you use skills. Most characters only have between 8-12 health and 3-5 stamina, and you have little tokens to represent both health and stamina, so your upkeep is usually quite simple.

**[Editor’s note: No you wouldn’t, sit back down and keep writing]
***[Editor’s note: please don’t use measurements you don’t actually understand]
****[Editor’s Note: Don’t lie to them, it’s only mostly between rounds, there STILL is upkeep during the game and you know it!]

“Okay, so it’s not that upkeep intensive, but you didn’t address the fact there is figurative ton of pieces!”

Yeah… there are a lot of pieces. You say that like it’s a bad thing. What do you want me to say? Pieces make the game interesting. Don’t like a lot of pieces?  Go play Candyland! *****Look, pieces are what make a game re-playable. There is no way you will see even 1/10th of the possible combinations of characters, classes, monsters, skills, items, quests, missions, and encounters in a single play through. The possibilities are nearly endless, and that’s just the base game. If you ask me, you’re getting a lot of game for your beer money.

That said… I highly suggest some sort of storage solution other than “just throw it back in the box.”****** Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I told you to throw stuff back in the box, but now it’s time to grow up and get yourself a storage solution. Like you said, there are a ton of pieces; proper storage and filing will make managing the game so much easier. My personal suggestion is a fishing tackle box, preferably one never used for fishing tackle because, you know, fishy smells, but there is no one single solution that I have ever found that is perfect. Whatever you choose, find a solution that works best for you (as long as it’s not “throw it back in the box” like some savage). Figuring out your storage solution is almost another game unto itself. So, see, two games for the price of one!*******

*****[Editor’s note: Don’t antagonize the readers!]
******[Editor’s note: Didn’t you just tell them to throw everything back in the box?]
*******[Editor’s note: That’s not actually game. Don’t try and sell the most frustrating part of Descent as bonus. Nobody will believe you.]

“Okay, so I think I am ready to give up my precious beer money and buy the game. There is so much Descent out there! What do I need to buy? Please tell me I don’t have to buy it all!”

Start with the Base game. That has everything you will need to play, and all the other expansions are built on it. The great thing is, as I stated above, there is enough in base game to keep you busy for a literal ton of games. ********* Seriously, a bunch of games. In a single campaign, you only play about  1/3 of the total missions, so you’d have to play at least 3 full campaigns just to play all of the missions, and that’s not taking into account the almost infinite combinations of possible monsters and player character/class combinations that can completely change up how those missions work. The Base set will keep you entertained for years. Months, if you get bored easy.

Once you actually do get bored with it though, there are 3 large expansions with campaign booklets the exact same size as the original and (at the time of this writing) 4 small expansions with 2 separate 2 part side quest missions. Most come with at least 2 characters and 2 classes (the big ones come with 4 new characters and 2 new classes), new Overlord cards, 3-5 new monster groups, numerous new items, new mechanics, and new map tiles. Start small, work your way up to the big ones. They expansions are all modular, meaning you can add the ones you want to play with, ignore the ones you don’t, and everything works smoothly and fits together perfectly. It also means you can add the characters, classes, item, monsters, and side quest cards to any of the campaigns without causing any problems.

********[Editor’s Note: figurative. And you can’t measure plays in weight. That doesn’t make sense!]

“Okay, you talked me into it! I bought the game!”

Good for you! Enjoy! I’m sorry for the lost beer.

“What do I do now?”

Well first you have to open the box, pull out all the… *********

*********[Editor’s note: Don’t be obtuse! Nobody likes that]

You are obtuse. ***********

***********[Editor’s note: I’m not obtuse, you are being a child]

I know you are but what am I? ***********

***********[Editor’s note: … we’re done here…]

Enjoy the game and happy questing!

Casey Kelley is a contributor to the Cardboard Herald, and co-founder of Paper Heroes; a D&D live play podcast. You can find more Casey at www.paperheroescast.com or on iTunes and Stitcher by searching "Paper Heroes". 
Casey was also on episode 6 of the Cardboard Herald podcast, which can be found here or on your favorite podcatcher.

Interview with Melissa Benson - Original Magic: The Gathering Artist

Shivan Dragon; one of the most iconic illustrations from the original run of Magic: The Gathering.

In 1993, Wizards of the Coast released Magic: The Gathering; a game that would forever shape the tabletop gaming landscape. The game's popularity spread like wildfire; attaining a massive and dedicated international fanbase, ranging from casual collectors to professional competitors in worldwide tournaments.

The success of the game is in large part due to the incredible game design by math-professor-gone-game-designer Richard Garfield; balancing simple approachability with deep, complex strategy. But design alone isn't enough to catch the eyes and inspire the hearts of generations of gamers. I strongly believe that without the incredibly talented and stylistically diverse set of original 25 artists, Magic would have never succeeded. These artists showcased mysterious and strange worlds, simultaneously paying homage and subverting classic fantasy tropes. The art gave context to the cards; attracting players and encouraging them to learn the how to play (and purchase more!) "Magic Cards". 

Melissa Benson illustrated more than 60 cards between 1993 and 1998, including many iconic creatures from the original release. I can still remember the first time I held in my hands my brother's Shivan Dragon. I didn't need the text on the card to tell me that Shivan was one bad mother. I am so proud and honored to be able to present the following interview with one of my absolute favorite Magic: The Gathering artists, Melissa Benson.

Melissa, you've illustrated some of the most iconic cards in Magic: The Gathering, including Shivan Dragon and Nightmare for the original set. How much art direction were you given by Wizards of the Coast when you first started producing art for them? 

We had free reign to do what we wanted to do. Jesper, who was the art director in the beginning, had a list of titles that he would read off to you over the phone. You picked the ones that appealed to you, made a sketch and faxed it over to him for approval. Yes, I said faxed. This was 1993 remember. The sketch was approved, the art was done and the original mailed in. No email attachments then. Easy-peasy.

Did your relationship with Wizards of the Coast evolve over time as you became more of an established artist in the medium? 

Yes, it evolved. I became more discontented with the way the company did many things but I don’t believe that’s what you are asking. Artistically, after a while, there were specific pieces they wanted me to do, which I usually did. And once I faxed in the sketch, I didn’t usually wait for approval before I started. There was only one Magic card that was rejected outright that I had to do over. That was “About Face”. I never did get an actual answer as to what the problem was.

Lord of Atlantis; from the original run of Magic: The Gathering

It's my understanding that you originally wanted to make book cover illustrations, but you decided to contact game publishers after seeing some game artwork in a comic store. What was that process like? Did you find it easy or difficult to break into the industry? 

I thought my art was best suited to illustrate fantasy novel covers, but I contacted every sort of company that I thought my art was a good fit for. It was the gaming industry, Jesper in particular, who gave me work so that’s where I went.

It was extremely difficult to get traction of any sort in the beginning. I spent a lot of time lugging my portfolio (my samples were oil paintings on masonite) into the city (New York) on the train; sending out query letters that included three 4 x 6 inch photos of my work with a pre stamped response postcard; and signing up with an art placement agency for companies that had temporary jobs. Sometimes there was work for a day, sometimes a week, occasionally more. I worked for the WWE assembling boxes for a couple of days; and I painted resin "master casts" of castles, lighthouses and Peanuts characters that were sent overseas for other artists to copy using my piece for reference. My first paying job was for futuristic lawn care equipment.

Like Dungeons & Dragons before it, the artwork for Magic: The Gathering served as inspiration for countless kids to pursue fantasy artwork hobbies and careers. What are some of the iconic images of your childhood that inspired you to pursue art?

That’s an interesting question. I don’t remember any particular image, but I read a lot and would see images in my head. Especially the creatures. When I couldn’t find an existing image of it, I would draw it myself. I also found it was easier to explain things with pictures, like maps, or how something works. There are many artists whose work I enjoy in general, but I can’t single out any one piece. I do enjoy the artwork of Frazetta, Mucha, Alma TaDema, Roy Kernel and the like.

Wine Glass Half Full; a surrealist piece by Melissa Benson

Is there any one person that helped guide and mentor you artistically, either during childhood or in your adult life? If so, who and how? 

Ken Davies and Joe Funaro of Paier College of Art were by far the most influential. Both were fantastic artists themselves. Ken Davies gave you a taste of how the business actually worked and what you could expect as a professional. He also taught the merit of discipline. You can see his art is on Wild Turkey bourbon labels although he is best known for his trompe-l'œil work.  

Joe Funaro was an extraordinary portrait artist. He hammered home the importance of simplifying gestures, of ratio and proportion and of paying attention to the temperature and edges of shadows. A man of few words and no nonsense. He was great.

Describe your process. If someone commissioned you for artwork today, how do you begin? Does that change when you are creating non-commissioned art? 

The process is pretty simple. Let’s say you want a role playing character. I’ll ask you to tell me about the character, and give you estimates for various sizes based on what you want in the picture. If you have some reference material, let me know that too. The idea is modified until we agree on cost and content. After that, I create a loose thumbnail sketch and if something needs to be further clarified, there will be a loose sketch for that as well. Finally, a tighter sketch is done and a color study if one is needed, and your part of the work is done.  I’ll let you know when it is ready.

The biggest difference between commission and non-commission pieces is the time I spend amassing reference and creating small sketches. The thumbnails may change radically from the initial idea. The actual painting is more fluid as well because I can regroup and make changes at every stage which I often do. And I can experiment without guilt. I have to watch that because I can spend way too long exploring options that don’t warrant that kind of time. 

Nightmare; one of the most recognizable pieces of fantasy art from the last 30 years. Come on! Look at that thing! Who wouldn't want to play a game with that artwork!?

What is your preferred medium? 

Graphite pencils, colored pencils, oils, and colored pencils mixed with oils. That being said, the Magic card art was done with Dr. Martin’s dyes and Berol prismacolor pencils. Magic art in the beginning had to be roughly 6 x 7 inches to fit in a scanner. I needed the dyes for color saturation and the pencils for details. I can’t paint well in oils that small.

Is there a type of visual art that you wish you were more adept at? 

I would like to be adept at sculpting. I know some comic book artists and envy their mastery of rendering in ink. Setting up an actual object to paint from is so much better than using a photograph. And because it would get me more work, digital art would be helpful.

Many professional artists find other creative outlets to pursue as hobbies during their off-time. What are your interests outside of visual art? 

I read. I have an awful lot of books. An AWFUL lot; in every room in several bookcases. I have a collection of Ivan Rebroff albums and mineral spheres. I listen to all kinds of music, mostly classical (really dislike rap and country). I’m getting into gardening. I watch British crime shows. My interests are pretty eclectic in scope.

What projects are you working on now? 

I have a Nightmare/Mesa Pegasus yin/yang design on the easel now. Plus the first illustration in a deck of Tarot cards. This deck has graphic design elements within the illustrations. It feels like a good way to get a lot of the symbolism across. There are a couple of field guides for fantasy creatures I want to do, several stories I want to illustrate, and jewelry to design. There is never a lack of things to put down on paper. I’ll doubt there will ever be a lack of things to do, just time to do them.

The Nightmare/Mesa Pegasus idea came from a commission that was done in black and white several years ago. While I was doing it I knew that I wanted to do it in color at some point. It is a large piece (for me it is anyway) at 20 inches in diameter. The pose is different than the first time around and it is the subject of the “works in progress” section of my website. You can see the first commission here.

Work in Progress; The beginnings of a Mesa Pegasus and Nightmare combination piece.

Where can people find you if they want to contact you, commission art, or buy prints? 

I’m glad you asked! My website is www.melissabenson.com. Email: melissa@melissabenson.com. There is a section on the site for commissions where you can get more detail about how to have a commission done, and how to get a ball park price for it. There is a testimonials page and gallery of previous commissions.

I also have a section on my site where you can purchase original art and prints directly, as well as links to several of my Print on Demand shops. Magic has a section to itself.

Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions. As a final thought, do you have any advice for any aspiring visual artists? 

Never discount the value of luck and timing. Do not neglect the business side of art. Have a good grasp of bookkeeping, and understand your contracts. Cultivate a relationship with an attorney. That is every bit as important as knowing how to draw a wagon in perspective. This is what they do not teach you in school, but what allows people to take advantage of you. And NEVER give up you copyright without a huge amount of money in return. 

The Holly King and Oak King by Melissa Benson

Interview by Jack Eddy & The Cardboard Herald - Dec 16, 2016

Three Perfect Expansions

By Jack Eddy

Expansions are not a new concept. The first one I ever owned was “The Return of the Witch Lord” for my brother and I’s beloved Heroquest. Somehow we scored a copy of what is now a highly sought after collectors item. Regrettably, ours was lost to the abyss that has eaten oh so many childhood  treasures. The expansion contained exactly what young adventurers wanted, more miniatures, more stories, more maps, if anything it felt like a sequel than anything else.

Like dwarven miners, we dug greedily and deep into the new content, always taking turns with who played the heroes and who played the forces of evil, my wins were probably more to do with the benevolence of an older brother than any skill on my part. In the days when we had only one or two “cool” board games, the expansion perfectly augmented the base experience, fleshing it out enough to make the game feel new even after playing the original quests a hundred or so times.

I can’t speak to the perfection of The Return of the Witch Lord, as my current copy of Heroquest is sadly lacking any expansions. But there are many excellent expansions that I do consider pretty much perfect for their admirable augmentation of the base game. To recognize these small twists that make great games even better, here are three expansions that I love so much that I would almost never consider playing the base games without them, even when teaching new players.

---

Five Tribes: The Artisans of Naqala
Designed by - Bruno Cathala (Ca’Thal’a, Ca’Thal’a!)
Published by Days of Wonder - 2015

What’s New: Five tribes get’s a 6th tribe, the purple artisans. They earn you face down treasure tokens, which are either points ranging from 5 to 9, or one time use powers! To accommodate the extra meeples, there are a few more board spaces including an impassible pit, and three tiles that have tiny wooden impassable mountain ranges placed on two of it’s sides. Also there are are a few more Djinns that play off of the treasures and artisans.

Why it’s so good: In base Five Tribes, you either saw optimum moves or you didn’t; there was never much risk in the game aside from turn order bidding and leaving good moves for your opponents. The treasure tokens entice you to consider risks when evaluating your turn, never knowing the exact reward they will net. Fortunately the artisans are inherently worth points, the treasures are never bad, and you get your choice of those drawn, so it never impacts the strategic core of the game. The impassable terrain also present interesting obstacles, causing you to migrate meeples in more interesting ways, making the board feel more dynamic and alive. Also the little wooden mountains are visually striking, making the otherwise drab board pop a bit. Plus, purple is the best color for board game pieces, so I’m happy to play with the artisans.

Suburbia: Inc.
Designed by Ted Alspach
Published by Bezier Games - 2013

What’s New: Bonuses, Challenges, and Borders! Awesome, jaggedy borders!. One bonus and one challenge tile are drawn randomly at the start of the game and placed face up on stacks B and C. Players fulfilling the bonus or challenge when those stacks are available are given rewards. Borders are like super-tiles that function like any other city tile, but you can only build off their interior jaggedy edge, meaning that your city will begin taking strange, OCD defying shapes. Oh yeah, you also get some extra scoring objective circular token thingys, and really interesting city tiles to add some variety to the base set.

Why it’s so good: The bonuses and challenges are an elegant little twist that gives everyone a clear mini objective to follow, or not follow, as they so choose. It nudges them in a direction and helps add value to different city tiles each game.And the borders. Oh boy, the borders. These puppies are what give your city life and character, it tells the story of what your city is, and how it came to be. Not only will it make your burrough thematically different, your city shape will change to become unique and unlike anyone else’s. Overall the expansion just adds so many cool options that are intuitive and consistent with the rules and spirit of the base game; which is amazing because it does that while ALSO enhancing the thematic imagery of expansive, sprawling, unique cities. Now that I own Inc., I can't imagine playing Suburbia without it. 

Lords of Waterdeep: The Scoundrels of Skullport
Designed by Chris Dupuis, Peter Lee, Rodney Thompson
Published by Wizards of the Coast - 2013
 

What’s New: Tons of stuff! An extra meeple for each color, tokens for a 6th grey player, and 2 separate modules that can be combined or played separately. “Skullport” and “Undermountain”. each add new Lords, quests, intrigue cards, an additional location board, and buildings that get mixed in with the base stack.

Skullport adds the corruption track and most of the new content revolves around gaining and losing corruption. The more corruption tokens that are taken from the track by the end of the game, the more negative points each token is worth. lf all players are “dipping in”, these little smurf poops* can be up to -9 points each. Why not avoid corruption you ask? The problem is the skullport locations and buildings and quests provide awesome rewards, and many chances to return corruption to the track.

*corruption tokens are supposed to be blue skulls, but we can all agree they are secretly smurf poops. I bet Gargamel is behind this...

Undermountain, perhaps the less interesting of the two, adds new PHAT & FAT quests and big actions. I’m talking 40 point quests, or quests that put all buildings in builder’s hall into play under your control. Undermountain doesn’t change the fundamental play of the game, other than adding the option to go after really explosive actions that require high investment for high reward.

Why it’s so good: First off, this kit is modular without the hassle. Too often modular expansions are a hassle to deal with if they don’t integrate with each other. Not so here. The insert is beautiful and easy to manage and  the components for each module are clearly identified, so integrating and separating is a breeze. Both modules compound the interesting options you have in the game.

Skullport adds a risk and reward element which alters the flow of the game in a really cool way. Early on, you amass a pile of corruption, rarely thinking about the consequences, but later you are desperately searching for opportunities to get rid of it. Or maybe you avoid corruption altogether, and try and find ways to force other players to take more? I almost never play without Skullport EXCEPT when I’m playing with Undermountain.
 

Undermountain is fun for a change of pace, because completing your aforementioned PH/FAT quests feels really, really good. You’ll relish the-deer-in-the-headlights your friends give as you zoom forward on the point track, only to witness them soon do the same. The lack of corruption doesn’t mean Undermountain is without risk, either; there’s a balance in completing a variety of quests, and not getting bogged down with too big of quests with not enough turns or resources left in the game. The big difference with Undermountain’s risk is that it isn’t punitive like Skullport.

For advanced gamers, or those who want more strategic meat on  Waterdeep's bones, Skullport has you covered. Alternatively Undermountain adds more variety and tactical options while keeping the barebones, new-player-friendly nature of the base game intact. For those who just want a sandbox to play in, they can play with both. What’s not to love?

---

Well. That went well. Now I want to play all three of those games! And, in writing this article, I’ve found my new expansion review format. What are your favorite expansions? What expansions destroy what you love about the base game?

Look forward to more expansion mini reviews in the future!

-Jack

CCGs, LCGs, Expansions, oh my!

By Jack Eddy

It’s 4:30 in the morning. You have work today. Maybe you could make a go of it if you just get up and make some coffee, but your bed begs you to stay, promising an hour or two of sleep, sleep which you will desperately need to make it through your day. So you continue to lay there, trying to empty your mind, but it turns plodding, pulsing warmth. Have you slept at all?  In the delirium, your only company is a singular thought that you always return to; Is your copy of Suburbia complete without the 5 Star expansion? Sure, the experience is nearly perfect with the base set and Suburbia Inc, and sure, 5 Star sounds like it may even detract from the purity of the game; but it exists, and you don’t have it, and ordering online is just a click away. After considering this a few thousand times, you look at the clock, it’s 6:52am.

Expansions are a funny thing. When you buy a game, the publisher is trying to sell you a complete product worth your time, money, and energy. They painstakingly craft this delightful box of a goodies, honing it to it’s purest and most perfected form, and yet, inevitably, an expansion comes along. Does this mean the base game was incomplete? Or is it there for people who want to dive in deeper? Perhaps it fixes some issues that the designer and publisher overlooked during playtesting. Or maybe, just possibly, an expansion was created because they know gamers, who have a tendency to be completionists, will feel obligated to buy it.

I don’t truly believe that publishers are as insidious as that. Most of the people in this industry seem to be good natured gamers who want to make game that they’d enjoy playing. Many companies have extremely good customer service, they want consumers to feel like they got value out of their purchase; but you better believe that many publishers are now considering their games as content platforms rather than standalone products. If Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) can get you to feel so invested in Descent, or Imperial Assault, or Netrunner, or Lord of the Rings, or X-Wing, Arkham Horror, or (insert massive product line here) that you feel somewhat obligated to buy the next expansion, then they have achieved their goal.

This parallels a similar trend in the video game industry, where additional downloadable content (DLC) can be purchased for most new game. The best case scenario is that the game feels complete without the DLC, and those who want to dive deeper have the option; this empowers consumers to have the experience that they want, and they won’t feel cheated out of the core game experience. More egregious examples like Mass Effect 3 and Resident Evil 5 (both games that I love), house meaningful story content or game modes on the disc you already purchased, but you have to pay extra to unlock them. Some may argue that you can still play these games without that extra content,  I’d argue that there would be a massive prothean-sized hole in the experience. It’s a difficult thing to put your thumb on because value is so hard to measure in the entertainment business. Affordability, artistic impact, and level of entertainment are all extremely subjective, but it does seem like both video game publishers and their cardboard cousins see much better return when they get gamers to buy into small expansions down the road.

In 2015, FFG was credited as publisher for 130 listings on Boardgamegeek; of these, 11 were standalone games. Compare that to 2010, with 99 total and 20 standalone listing. In spite of FFG’s massive success over the years, they are making fewer and fewer new games. And it makes sense too.Each new game has to compete in a massive field with tons of great products, but an expansion is safe, publishers know they already have an audience for that product, and suddenly the value proposition goes out the window. Star Wars: Imperial Assault is usually found in the US for around $70-$80, and it comes with about a billion miniatures, tons of cardboard, cards, gorgeous art… But the mini character pack expansions released at the same time usually come with a single miniature, a couple cards, instructions, and costs $10. For the same price as 8 character packs, you could have a complete game with way more than double the content.

Fantasy Flight is an extreme example, but most publishers want games that have room to expand. If the base game proves to be a success, they will have an install base eagerly awaiting content for their favorite game. Unfortunately, expansions are not always great, and can sometimes bog a game down with needless mechanics and bloated content, making the game a much less focussed experience. Remember, it didn’t get to be your favorite game of all time because it was missing something, sometimes less can be more.

Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of expansions for my games, and there are some that I would say are so good that it fundamentally transforms a game into a better experience. And yes, a few of those may even be from Fantasy Flight Games. I just want gamers to feel empowered to make smart decisions. Consider what you are spending your hard earned money on, be informed of what you are getting, and make sure that it brings value to you. If you are the person who wants to play every mission in descent with the most character options available for an uber epic campaign experience, by all means, do so! Just don’t buy every expansion released for the games you own simply because they exist, lest you end up with a pile of unplayed plastic and paper, reeking with the stench of regret.

In light of how overwhelmingly negative this article turned out, we’ll have something up soon highlighting some of my absolute favorite expansions.