Brew | Check It Out (Episode #27)

yeah i feel like in our household there's a lot of apologizing in this game because we're we just look we're like i'm so sorry this is what i have to do hello my name is ilya and my name is tyler together we make up cauvery a couple that loves to play board games and potions if you're new here hit that subscribe button and stick around for more videos this is our check it out series where we showcase various board games to you and on today's check it out we have brew [Music] this 2-4 player game is designed by steve toros published by pandasaurus and the art is done by jake morrison and andrew thompson the time is broken and shattered the seasons are all scattered and the creatures are running amok it is your role as magicians who brew potions to bring all the chaos back to order and the player with the most victory points at the end of the game wins yay now let's take a quick look at how to play the game like always you'll begin by setting up you'll place the village board the forest deck the potion market creatures and the supplies all in the center so it looks something like this each player will get a character six dice an energy token and a reference card if they need the objective of brew is to strategically place your dice so you can gather potion ingredients gain control of forests train helpful creatures with magical powers and collect victory points the person who has the most victory points wins now there are several ways to score victory points in this game through brood potions claimed forests released creatures vp tokens and leftover ingredients brew is played over a series of four rounds at the start of each round all players will roll their dice and put them to the side where they will later start placing them one at a time on your turn you must place one die from your dice pool you may also brew one potion from the market and you may drink one potion from your hand now there are two places that you can place your dice in the village or in the forest if you place in the forest you'll collect resources train creatures and battle it out to claim control over the forest in the village you can place your dice to get special actions that will help you along your way or hinder other players now sure you have these forage dice but you also have element dice as well which help you do various actions in the village board or if you place them in the forest area they have their own special actions which can be seen here now ingredients are useful for buying potions which you can get one of each turn and you can drink one each turn and they give you bonus various actions such as letting your reroll dice move by scorch spaces or do various other actions while training creatures allows you to pick one of the creatures on the side and add it to your trained board which gives you various actions now each creature is associated with a season and each season has a certain theme with the actions fall creatures allow you to gain various resources winter creatures help you gain victory points spring creatures give you those energy berries while summer creatures help you do some scorching and that's right i said scorching some potions and creatures allow you to scorch spaces so your opponents and yourself can go on to them in the future so eventually you may just end up burning down the entire forest no save the animals now once everyone's done placing their dye the round is over at that point you will take a look to see who has majority control in the forests and they will claim those cards with the associated victory points now the seasons of the cards matter because you may release creatures that you've trained onto them later for more victory points if there is a tie or if there's more element ice than your own dice nobody gets the forests now you'll flip the village board over you'll deal a deck of new forest cards and you'll play three more rounds now after the four rounds have been completed you'll take a look at the brewed potions and the victory points associated with them both in your hand and the ones that you've played the claimed force you've got over the course of the game released creatures if they have a force to go to there were three if they don't they're only worth one and any victory points and unused berries or ingredients that you have in which you get one victory point for every three of will you be the most magical being so what do you think i really like this game it's very cute looking however it is very take that in a sense and i really appreciate that in a game it's very cool because you just wouldn't expect it from a game like this but it brings out some fun tyler always scorches everything and it makes me sad not not unless everybody is scorching because then it doesn't make sense as a strategy what i really enjoy about this game is there's so many different strategies to approach like you can begin training creatures and focus more on how the creatures the combinations that can be done with the creatures your characters also have asymmetric powers so you can really lean in on those and some of them are really strong if you utilize them the proper way and there's also potions so like th that whole balance you can really dive in and try to try different strategies there's really different ways to approach this game and i feel like every game we've played hasn't really been the same yeah it hands itself to its right replayability um because you have those characters the different strategies it's just very replayable yeah it flows really well too there's the whole balance of like in order to do all you have to do a little bit of everything which makes it really exciting so why should you check it out well if you enjoy a little bit of asymmetric powers in the characters a nice blend of mechanics with a bit of area control dice rolling card drafting then this may be the game for you and of course if you want hints of take that then this game will surprise you this is a very competitive game in my opinion so if you enjoy a competitive setting that tense tension at the table this game is definitely for you yeah so why shouldn't you check it out well leaning into the take that thing i think if you aren't really a fan of that then this game might not be for you area control and random chance do play a factor in this game as well so if that just isn't your vibe then i wouldn't recommend it and if you're more of a collaborative and less of a competitive person then yeah this game may not be for you overall what do we think i really enjoy brew it's i'm not often too too much into really competitive games where you're really trying to sabotage the other player but i really enjoy this one because i think the theme of it makes it really fun like it's fun to scorch a little bit area of the force so they don't get that forced card and then try to last second remove an element dice so you can sneak your dice in there and try to claim that force that's worth nine victory points it leads to some very exciting moments and definitely some laughs around the table yeah oh yeah or some hatred but no hatred no usually it's usually it's pretty like friendly take that so i don't feel so bad and it makes sense because a lot of the times you can see somebody that will be like ahead so so to call it but um everybody just notices that and you're like you have to stop so and so from getting this and you just end up ganging up on people but because of that um and the random chance i find that it's not too brutal it's it's partly unintentional take that you're trying to benefit yourself yes there's never really that like moment in games where you gain up on one person just to purposely target them you're always trying to look out for your own benefit and that may be at times hurting the other side yeah i feel like in our household there's a lot of apologizing in this game because we're we just look we're like i'm so sorry this is what i have to do yeah yeah and the last thing i'll say is i really like the element dice i think that's a nice little twist you've got like those four force foraging dice but the element dice add a nice little um twist and different synergy that you can kind of use um and the creature arts oh yes they're beautiful i love the creatures you can name them when you train them too that's we do yeah it's been our house rolls when you train one you have to give it a name yeah some funny names out there well for the question of our well for the question of the day what's your favorite season and why mine would have to be the fall because it's not too cold it's not too hot and i love wearing long sleeve shirts and sweaters i feel like mine is either the fall for the same reasons or the spring for the same reasons i feel fall makes more sense because i'm definitely more like i i always say with heat you can't take off your skin but with the cold you can always put on more layers so i i don't do well in the heat it just and it does not like me and we have a very non-healthy relationship i think i choose fall over the spring because fall also has beautiful colors yeah so very pretty i think i'm team fall too well let us know what your favorite season is down below in the comments and as always if you liked what you saw here give us that thumbs up hit that subscribe button or the bell notification to get notified when we release new videos and if you play brew let us know what your thoughts are we'd love to hear your experiences your stories and how often you may have had to apologize in your gameplay until next time this is us checking out bye [Music]