Games Leaving & Being Added: January 2026 - Barcelona, Recall, Tea Witches, Emberheart & More!!!

0:00 Hey, I'm Alex Mackle from Board Gameco and this is the first games leaving my collection video of 2026. This is games leaving my collection for January of 2026 as usual based on the month before. So, we're looking at December. And also, there's a change to the way this series has been done in the past because I said that this year I'm going to be combining the games leaving my collection and the games being added to my collection in one video. And the format I'm going to be taking for this is the first part of the video is going to be me talking about the games that I'm adding to my collection and specifically which games I'm replacing with those games. If you've been following my collection purge uh series that I did towards the end of last year, uh I'm trying to do a set of 200 games. I'm trying to limit my collection to 200 games and just 200 games, which means everything I add to my collection needs something in exchange that's leaving in order to keep that balance. It uh it makes the decision as to whether I add something a whole lot more significant as well as makes me for it's forced myself to examine which games are really getting played and which ones I just am idealizing playing those games. So that's the first part of this video. The first part of this video is going to be the games being added and specifically the games that those games are replacing. From there I'll dive into the games that are passing through. Usually these are review copies, games that were unplayed that I chose that I played and chose not to keep. But I'll be going through all of those in the second part.

1:18 As usual, timestamps to everything down below. You can just scroll the list of timestamps because they'll be everything. I'll be you'll see them all. Every single game is going to be timestamped down below. Before we dive into it, we're going to go ahead and shout out to our sponsor, AllPlay. Allplay is the sponsor of the channel, and it's where you can find a variety of things from board game shelves to board game tables to board game bags to board game playmats and a whole lot of other things. If you are watching this video when this one goes up, they do have an upcoming crowdfunding campaign from Mountain Goats Plus other games. You should go ahead and check that out. Specifically, specifically Mountain Goats Legacy. Uh that's the new version with some art by Sara Tyang. There'll be a a crowdfunding campaign, a Kickstarter campaign for that going up, as well as other games. You can check that out down below. But with that said, let's go ahead and dive into it. The games leaving and being added to the collection. And let's talk about the games. I just realized I just realized I meant to have these off camera and I didn't. These are all on camera. So, these are the games. These are the games being added. Let's go into them one at a time. and specifically talking about the games that they are replacing as well because again I'm trying to keep that collection count to 200 games. The first one I'll talk about is one that I don't have on camera and it's being added that is going to be Kuka Kuka a game that I believe is published by a company in the UK if I'm not mistaken. Uh the board I have is from Tracy Boards. I'll link down below if you want to check out the video I did on that. Uh but I I think I did a video on that. I'm pretty sure I did a video. Tracy Boards Tracy Boards fantastic company. I'm Did I do the video yet or did I push it off and it went up later? cuz I think I think I may have had it set to go up Christmas day and I was like, you know what, we're just going to have no videos Christmas

2:49 day. So, the video may not have gone up yet or it may have gone up up depending on when you watch this. But either way, I have a Kuruka board from Tracy Boards uh that is being added and nothing is leaving in place. And you might ask yourself why. And the answer is because Kuruka is basically like a Crokinol variant. It's like having Zombicide and Zomicide White Death. I have Kuruka and I have Krokinol. Shuffleboard I do count as its own game. Kuruka and Crokin are taking up one spot. And if you're like, "Alex, you're cheating." Maybe my collection, my rules, for the most part, I'm going to be pretty fair about games coming in and games going out. But there are certainly times where I'll just allow something to go in and say, "This counts as another version of that thing." That's going to happen. And in the case of Kuruka and Krokinol, I'm I'm counting Kuruka as just another variant of Krokinol. Granted, a very large variant they have to find place for, but nonetheless, that's being added. Kuruka, by the way, is absolutely fantastic.

3:37 Really enjoying that one. I think for me, Karuka is now my go-to two-player game, and Crocol is now my go-to four-player game in the dexterity world. Three players, you could play Krokon three players. I don't think it's the best, but you certainly could do so. Kuruka, probably less so. Anyways, that's going to be Kuruka. From there, we have Barcelona. Now, this one does have the asterisk that I do need more plays of it. In general, I'm adding games to my collection. I'm making a decision based on where I am when I'm doing this video series. For right now, Barcelona is being added. I really enjoyed it. I do want more plays of it. I also want to play it with the expansion as well. So, I want to I want to I want more time with this one. And the the the tricky part with that is sometimes I will add things to my collection knowing that they're less certain and a little less stable. The good news there is if I change my mind when I uh add something in the next month, I might say, you know what, I played Barcelona twice more and now it's leaving the collection instead. That's always possible. For right now, Barcelona is being added. I think this fantastic. There will be a review coming at some point. I just want more plays of it first. I want to really lock that in.

4:34 So, right now, this this current impression is based on the current hype based off of a few plays, but needing more plays. So, like, don't don't read too much into it. Just know that I'm currently enjoying this one, and I really want to play it more. I love the way you are um the way you're trying to choose between different ways to build up all your actions in your tableau. You're kind of torn in so many different directions with what you do, and you're choosing on this grid of of multi-actions from a row and column. Very fun. I really enjoyed it, and I want to play it more. And that one's going to be replacing uh let me just check over here. It's gonna be replacing Galactic Cruise. Now, this by the way, this is a which game replaces what is sometimes just making space one for one. Other times, it's me choosing something that's a little thematically similar. Uh or not thematically, more mechanically similar. It gives me the same vibes or feelings. I really enjoy Barcelona. I also really enjoy Galactic Cruise. Both of them have that multi-aspect action to it. By the way, to be very clear, I'm not going to be like, "Oh, this has multi- action, so let me get rid of something with multi- action." But when I look at the games that I'm on the fence about anyway, that's where decisions are going to be made. I I really enjoy Galactic Cruise. I've continued to play this one. I just finished a game yesterday, two days ago.

5:42 I I just finished another game of this one, and I realized the more I play Galactic Cruise, I thoroughly enjoy it, but I do feel a little bit guided as far as what I have to do in Galactic Cruise. I mean, it makes sense. You are launching a cruise ship. There's a set of steps you have to take. You have to get the components. have to build the components. You have to uh you know advertise to the cruise. There's a whole set of sequences you have to do. But I feel that Galactic Cruise is often about looking at the board and the actions and optimizing your pathway through that. But then once you've done that, you're kind of just going through the homework. So yes, you have to build up your connections. You have to choose your technologies. There's a lot of amazing things going on here. Make no mistake, Galactic Cruis is a great game, but in general, when I am adding something to my collection and getting rid of something because I only have 200 games, they're all going to be great games. So, I'm just doing the best I can to uh choose what I think makes the most sense. As much as I love Galactic Cruise, I feel a little bit more constrained by the decisions that are happening there. And so, that one is unfortunately going to go. And Barcelona is going to be added from there. Let's go ahead and do a smaller box one. Let's do Leaders. Leaders over here. This is a fantastic two-player game of uh building up your asymmetric army. I really enjoy this one very much. I will say I I have I played this a lot on Board Game Arena and then I've also played it a lot in person. I really enjoy it, but I the difference between playing it four times and playing it like 12 times, it is a big difference. And I have I don't know exactly how many times I've played it, but I feel it's somewhere in that 10 to 15 range. And I do think that that 10-15 range has made me a little bit less excited for it. I still very much enjoy Leaders and it still is being added. I guess the way I'd put it is I still am

7:12 excited for every game I play and I still think it really is excellent. Again, I I reviewed this. The review probably hasn't gone up yet, but I've already reviewed this and uh I've continued to play it past the review. I'm still enjoying it. I still think it's excellent, but I do think this is one that I can see the potential for it leaving at some point. I mean, that's true of every game. When I say I see the potential of something leaving at some point, what I mean is I see the potential of it leaving like in the next year as opposed to four years down the road. But I'm not I'm not sure. I could see it going either way. I just know that more plays, again, the difference between like five plays and 12 plays has gone down a little bit for me in the excitement and some games that doesn't happen. In the case of leaders, it has happened. That said, it is replacing another two-player game that is going to be Pillars of Fate. Pillars of Fate is an excellent game from Ivy Studios. I thoroughly enjoy the lane battling aspect to it. This is my favorite game from the Fate series. Scales of Fate, Baile Fate, Pillars of Fate, all of that. But at the end of the day, as much as I thoroughly enjoy pillars of Fate, when I'm looking at lane battling games, I do think that I'd almost always choose games like Hanamokoji, Hanakoji. No, Han. Yeah, Hanukkoji. Hanukkoji. Uh, Airland and Sea. What's the other one that I always think of? There's another lane battler. There's another lane battle that I think of. I'm not sure off hand, but even just Airline and San Makoji. Pillars of Fate would come in at a third or fourth as far as my favorite lane battling experiences. And that does mean that when I'm looking to add a two-player game, Leaders Leaders is one that feels very different from other games I have. And Pelis Fate is another lane battler. Granted, a very good one with a kind of like a little bit of a bluffing mechanic. Thoroughly enjoy it, but I think I'd rather just play games like Airline and Sea over it, which does

8:43 put it a little bit lower for me. And then lastly, the last one we're going to be adding is going to be recall. Now, recall over here, this is one where I, you know, as much as I say Barcelona is subject to more plays and might go, recall is also subject to more plays. The review still hasn't gone up. Again, games like this I want to get a bunch of plays and I can't always get them in rapid fire. So, sometimes I'll be telling you how much I enjoy the game well be well before the review goes up, but recall is one that I am still thoroughly enjoying and I will have a review for you sooner rather than later, but I don't think it's going anywhere. as opposed to Barcelona where I still have that wiggle room aspect of who knows. I mean Barcall still has that. Any game has that until I get locked in. But I I I really enjoy this one. Really really really enjoyed this one. This is very high in my top 100. And I think it would be even higher had I gotten more plays of it that really cemented it in.

9:30 Again, still in that experimentation aspect like we saw with leaders. The difference between five plays and 12 plays has tempered my excitement a little bit with recall. I don't think that's going to be the case, but we shall see. Revive I absolutely adore and I think recall is very similar as far as the vibes overall while being very vi very very different. It's very different games like you know I cheated with like Kuka and Kroganol calling them the same game as far as counting as one. I would not do that with recall and revive. They are very very much different games but the one I'm going to be replacing there is Kivera. Let me grab this box over here. Kverna over here. This is one that I I really like. But the problem I have with Kverna is another one that's similar to Galactic Cruise. I just played another game of this recently. And I do find, by the way, sometimes when I play a game more recently, it is sometimes a little easier for me to decide to get rid of it because playing a game again usually does one of two things. it either cements in my mind how much I like that game or when I'm comparing it to new things I'm like thinking well this is why I really like recall and kerna has that one thing that I don't like and it does have that one thing I don't like which is much as much as it improves the feeding your uh people over a grile as much makes a little more flexible I still find the pressure of like every other turn having to worry about the harvest and feeding I don't like the timeline of that when I compare it to other games that are giving me this like fantastic euroye experience I think that I prefer something like for Avidel where I feel a little constrained by how much I can do but I'm not devoting so much of my time to doing the thing that the game needs me to do just to keep the pace going.

10:55 Converta I think is a big improvement over Gricola although I am intrigued because I know Awaken has the whole special edition of Gricola coming and that does have me interested like I know they changed my mind on Puerto Rico at least. So we'll see what happens there. Uh Kivera is in that interesting camp. I I mean this is a game like that I haven't even played the expansions for this. There's two expansions for it. forgotten folk and something else. And they add like asymmetric clan powers and different things that I really enjoy, but I think the base of it is still you have to constantly every other turn you're focusing on feeding your people. And as much as I love a feast for Odin, I I adore a feast and I still have that one. It's not going anywhere. I find the feeding of people in that one feels so much less restrictive as far as how much of your time, effort, and energy is going towards just making sure you have the infrastructure in place that you need. I like it when a game helps me feel like I'm doing the things I want and not that I have to get those things to satisfy a requirement. I'm sure there are exceptions. I'm sure there's games I love that do have that, but again, great game. Anything leaving is a great game, but I I feel comfortable with the swap from McCall to Civera. So, that's where we are as far as these. We have four games being added. We have uh Kuruka, which is just kind of being an extra one, so to speak. And then we have Leaders is replacing Pillars of Fate. We have Kverna is being I recall is replacing Kverna and Barcelona is replacing Galactic Cruz. Those are the swaps I am making. My collection size remains at 200 using my own personal accounting system that sometimes allows me to get extra games in there. That's going to be the games. That's going to be the changing of my collection which means from there we're going to move into the other categories of uh different different categories. Let's start with there's two more categories

12:25 in this one. Let's do the review copies. Review copies are basically these are games that I have reviewed on the channel. Some of those reviews are already up. Some of those will be going up. So you can you might get spoilers to things coming up, but they're games I already reviewed, which means you might already know my thoughts on them, but I'm just going to go through them quickly and telling you brief thoughts as to why they're not staying. These are not entering my collection. They are simply passing through. We have over here Copus. Copus is I don't think the review for this one has gone up yet, but Copus is a abstract strategy game. Uh it's fun. It's charming. It didn't wow me, unfortunately. It felt a little bit too sequencing as far as how the game operates, as far as how it kind of slides into place. I didn't feel super clever the entire time I played. I felt like you're more kind of checking boxes as you go through it. We have Seven Wonders Dice. I really enjoyed my first play of this. Fortunately, I do not review games after one play. My first play had me really excited, but also hesitant as to how multiple plays will continue. And multiple plays showed me that's very much the same thing every time you play. It's fun. I will happily play this anytime you want to play it, but I don't think I feel the need to play it. I don't I'm not like I I I saw everything I need to see after like three plays of it. It was already like the third player is already the same as the second play, which is already the same as the first play. It's fun. It's charming, but it's kind of very straightforward what it's doing. I'd rather just play Seven Wonders. We have Seashells from KTVG. Very charming game.

13:37 I I I think this actually very charming. I don't think the reviews got enough for this one either, but it's a charming game of collecting seashells with a bit of patterns and trying to be paying attention to other players. It does what KTBG what KTBG does very well. It's very accessible, very straightforward. I think it's a great kid familyfriendly game. Uh, for me, I usually let my kids decide which ones are staying or which ones not. And they enjoyed this one, but they weren't as uh this wouldn't be as wowed as some of their favorite games. That's going to be Seashells. We have Tea Witches. Tea Witches is another one that likes Seven Wonders Dice. I really enjoyed my first play. The problem is my first play was a two rounds of a four round game where I got a kind of taste of what the game has to offer. And then as I played it more times, I just found the full four round game just feels too long. It feels it feels too long for what it is. It feels a little drawn out. There's things I like about it, but there's things that are a little bit slower, a little paced. The pacing is just not great. I was very excited after my first play and subsequent plays was just like, you know, I'd rather do something else with the amount of time it takes to play this game. Still not bad, just way too long for what it is, unfortunately. We have Ember Hart. Ember Hurt was fun enough. I mean, this is a good game. I give it a 3.5, I believe.

14:37 Oh, rating wise, I believe I give someone as a three. T- W, I believe, is a three. Seaells is always tricky with kids games because for me, it's going to be a three, but I think as a kids game, it's probably a 3.5 or a four. But it's I I grade based on my own personal perception of how I want to play games. It's very hard to abstract it outwards. And Ember Heart, I think it was a 3.5. Uh, this is a fun, very straightforward game. Great art, great production. Overall, really enjoyed it. But I do find that similar to 71 is Dice, there's kind of a syiness game to game. There's some things, it's not as bad as One is Ice, there's more things that mix it up. Uh, the various heroes you you recruit, that's going to give you a lot of abilities that change the way you engage with it. But again, this is one that a few plays felt like I had seen everything that I wanted to see in the game. It's very great. It's a great intro to worker placement game. Just don't need to keep it. We have uh I think that's all the review stuff which means we have these two are kind of more uh not games I recently reviewed but games that I've had around for a bit. We have Horrified and Captain Flip. Uh these are both leaving as well. I don't know if they were my big game Purge, I don't remember. But uh Horrified Greek Monsters, I like Horrified a lot, but I find that it's not my favorite cooperative system. And as much as my kids enjoy Horrified, they rarely asked to play it. So um it's a good game system. I still have the new Horrified D and D. I'll be playing that at some point and covering that, but I don't imagine it'll be staying. Horrified is a great game system that I just think I have better cooperative systems. And Captain Flip is another good one that uh I always enjoy playing this one, but it rarely gets asked to be played. It's very straightforward. It's very fast.

15:58 You're basically populating your board of tiles. It's a good game system. Uh these are just like culls of incidental games that are not really getting tabled. And then lastly, we have a stack of games where I will not be giving you a lot of thoughts on them because I'll be explaining as to why I will not. But we have this big stack. Let me push everything off to the side over here. We have a giant stack over here of games that these are all going to be in a single video because I had a challenge in 2025 at a challenge of 35 games I wanted to play and they'll there will be a full video of me giving all my thoughts on those games. Some of them will be full reviews, some of them will be round of reviews and some of them will just be in that video. So, I'm going to be telling you the um 1 2 3 4 seven of these games that are leaving. Seven of these games are leaving. Some I have left throughout the year. But here's seven that I cuz I I got a lot of them played in the last two months of last year. I really try to focus on the challenge. So, we have a bunch of games that are leaving. I will not be giving you extensive thoughts on them now because I will be doing a full video on the 35 games that I played. Well, I played 29 of them on the 29 games that I played and giving you my thoughts on those games there. So, we have Delta from Game Brewer. This one I played it.

17:02 We'll talk more about it later. It will be leaving. We have Hamburg. Hamburg over here. I played it. Oh, was this I don't think this is in the roundup. This is actually not in the round. This should be in this pile over here. Hamburg from the Queen Games City collection. This one will be leaving. I'm going to move it over here where it's not balanced. Well, because it's not actually part of the this this uh this list of games. Well, I guess I can tell you in that case. Hamburg over here. The reason this one's going is I prefer Bruge. Bruge is fantastic. Hamburger is great. I prefer Bruge overall. I will have a full review covering that a bit more detail. A few games I'll be going over that'll be in there. Then we have Undaunted 2200 Kalisto. Uh this is well more Undaunted. It will not be staying. It was part of those 35 games I wanted to play. We have a guest for Robin Hood. Uh, this will be leaving as well. We have Bloodstones. Bloodstones from Wallace Designs. Another one that will be going. We have Arari. Irari over here. This is another one that will be leaving. And then lastly, we have Rally Man Dirt. Another one that will be leaving. These over here, these six games will all be covered more in detail as to the wise, like what worked for me or what didn't work for me. Does not mean there are bad games. Some of them I did not enjoy.

18:08 Some of them I did enjoy. Some of them were more medium for me, but these will all be leaving and I'll be covering them more in a um thought process around those 29 games. A dedicated video on that. And so that's my collection roundup. Games leaving the collection, games being added to the collection, games passing through, the games I reviewed if you want quick thoughts on them as to why they're not staying, and the games that you'll get quick thoughts on later. But this is kind of everything leaving and being added to my collection for January of 2026. I almost said 2025 because that's still intrinsically in my muscle memory for January of 2026. In any case, until next time, I'm Alex Radcliff from Board Gameco. I hope you enjoyed this video and as always, I hope you have a good one.