Our Top 5 New-to-Us Board Games | June 2026

0:11 Hi, I'm Sarah.

0:12 And I'm Drew.

0:13 And we're back today for Let's Table It. And today we've got something a little different. Today we're going to talk about our favorite games that were new to us that we played in June. And so, um, we've got, let's see, we had about 11 11 games that were new to us in June that we played. It was a little bit of a slower month for us.

0:31 Yeah, a little bit. I mean, we were kind of on the go to to uh begin the month. And uh

0:36 and I think our just our teacher brains kind of shut down a little bit and we took a little bit of time off. And if I'm honest, June, like I didn't feel like there was anything really maybe in June that really knocked my socks off.

0:48 Yeah. I don't think it necessarily was, you know, I don't think any of these will appear on a a top 10, you know.

0:57 Yeah, maybe one. Maybe one, but yeah, it just was a little bit of a slower month for us. But

1:02 let's see what our top five games from June were.

1:07 First up, we've got Sprout. So, Sprout is currently on Kickstarter right now,

1:13 and it is a theme that really appeals to us. We really enjoy, you know, plants, house plants. And this one, you are growing and growing your collection and also growing your plants

1:24 along the way, taking care of them. And it's very bright, colorful, fun.

1:28 Yeah, the art is really pretty. Um,

1:30 there's a little bit of a push your luck, not a little bit, there is a big push your luck element at the beginning of each round. Yeah, it definitely has a little bit of a feel of planted where you're trying to garner resources so you can

1:43 get those plants out and uh be able to score with them. But again, the difference there is that push your luck aspect.

1:49 Yep. So, um this one was it's fun. You definitely have to be able to deal with the push your luck aspect of it.

1:56 Go in knowing

1:57 there will be some rounds where you feel like you can't do anything because you busted and so you just have to be able to deal with that. But it was a fun one. Okay, our next one is round one.

2:07 One round.

2:07 One round. Sorry. So, this is from Dve. It's one of their small little games. Um, definitely more of a party game, which doesn't always hit for us, but this is kind of fun because you're trying to figure out where you should put a or where somebody might put a certain number, a certain item, however.

2:26 Start with three items on the board. And it's like it's always number 0100 um like 30 and 60 or something like that

2:35 and something around there like 33 and 66. I don't know what it is exactly but then you have to figure out what by the tile that you draw

2:45 will be a number in between in in one of those gaps. And so then you have to look at the n the words on each side of those gaps and connect it with a word that you are going to tell the group. And then the group has to figure out where in the circle that tile will go.

2:59 And so

3:00 it's a fun one. Yeah,

3:02 definitely. If you like those word association games, if you like being clever, giving clever clues,

3:07 and I I think the good thing about this is compared to some others that we've played and done and that are out there, this one is really an interesting one as far as trying to come up with that perfect clue, it definitely has a bit of that um so Clover

3:21 aspect and some some other things like that

3:23 and like Edido where you're kind of ranking, ranking, giving clues, that kind of thing.

3:28 But it it's a fun little game. the the kids played it and we all enjoyed it.

3:31 Yes. So, that was another fun one for this month. One round. Next up, we've got Eosphera. And this was kind of an impulse buy. I bought this used when we were um on our trip this last month. And I've always loved the art. I've seen the cards for this and like that looks really cool. I don't think I even realized when I bought it that it's a cooperative game and a cooperative deck builder, which usually hits pretty well for us.

3:56 Yeah, definitely. Um, we did find that when Drew and I played, the first time we played, we really had a hard time, but we had a couple rules that we didn't have quite right. The second time was a little easier.

4:07 Was was better, definitely.

4:08 Yeah, there's some strategy still to it. And then the third time, I played with the kids. The two kids wanted to play with me and that that felt pretty easy actually. Yeah, it felt a lot I don't think we had any of the desert tiles.

4:20 That's interesting. Well, and that's just the it's definitely one of those if you're going to play two player. I thought it was definitely had a challenge to it. I didn't feel like it was a pushover, easy, simple,

4:31 you know,

4:31 but you definitely have to be willing to help out your your um your teammates is what I'm trying to say.

4:38 It's a true cooperative.

4:39 So, if you if you have a card that you know you feel like you've worked really hard for, but then you have that opportunity to give that card to another player and then they will then be able to get that combo that will really push you to the next next tile in your ecosystem. You have to be willing to give those up. And if you're going to be someone's like, "No, I just I really want that card, it's going to be a lot harder. It's not going to fly." So,

5:02 Eco's favorite is beautiful. And we had fun with the deck building and it's sticking around for a little bit.

5:08 Okay, so the next one is Planet from Blue Orange.

5:13 This is one that's got, I would say, a neat little gimmick,

5:17 but it really works. It's not very often that you get a quote unquote gimmick that brings more because of it. Sometimes they're just plastered on or, you know, whatever. This is one you're just building out your little world, um, you know, a 12sided world essentially and trying to get things to match up to reach certain goals and stuff like that. It's almost like tile placement, but

5:40 a little bit, but it's a 3D aspect to it. So, you have a little globe. It's a 12-sided die basically. And then you're going to draft these magnetic tiles.

5:49 And then you're trying to kind of create large groups of the same

5:54 terrain.

5:55 But sometimes you want them bordering.

5:56 Yeah. Bordering stuff or not bordering certain things.

5:59 And so this one really rewards you for looking ahead and seeing what's coming up as you go because if you can bank a lot of those animal cards, that's going to really boo boost your score. And I think almost all of us at the table got caught on our we were doing our own little goals that you get which didn't really pay off well for points. So I think there's a balance there that you have to kind of really either go for one or the other to get the payoff.

6:25 It's definitely a unique game. Um but again it's like like you said it's tile placement but 3D a lot of fun.

6:32 Yeah.

6:32 Yeah. I think it's neat.

6:33 I think we're happy to play this for now. I think it might be one that as we play it more and more maybe we'll have seen everything it has to offer. But we are definitely excited to continue to explore this one. Yeah, plan it. Sticking around.

6:46 And then our top game for the month, and this is one that I could see being on a list at the end of the year, especially as we dig into it a little bit more.

6:54 If we if we're talking top plays or top games, we played new ones this year.

7:00 There's a good chance it'll be there for

7:01 one. Well, this is Kingdom Crossing and um I have posted about Kingdom Crossing on Instagram and so many people commented that like it looks so cute, but it is deep. Like there is some strategy. There's a lot going on with this game.

7:14 Yep.

7:15 And so on your turn, you're going to move um based on some action cards that you have. You'll move a few. You have to cross so many bridges and then you're going to take a card from that area. And so sometimes you have to pay for those cards, sometimes they're free, but those are either going to build up your engine that will get you income in between rounds or sometimes there's um some building bonuses that you can get at the bottom. And so

7:39 you're really trying to optimize that engine,

7:43 build your buildings down below. You're trying to place out your um what are those called? Your houses in different areas. There's a lot of scoring opportunities to keep track of. And on top of that, once you cross that bridge, you can't go back over it correct for that round. That that really you've got to plan out where you want to go and how things are going to go. And if somebody takes that card that you're going to try to take the next time, you've got to figure out what's the alternative now that you've already made a move or two.

8:10 Exactly.

8:10 So, it's it's an interesting one. Um

8:13 the production's really great.

8:14 Oh, it is.

8:15 There's some dual layer boards. There's some screen printed meeples. It's it's a fun one. Yeah. I really enjoyed it and I'm excited to bring it back to the table and dig in cuz I think we both got to the end of the game and we were like, "Oh,

8:27 that's how that scores. That's I should have done this differently because I just didn't realize as I was going through that this was how this was going to work."

8:35 Yeah. And I would say it's definitely, you know, for a first time play, what it take us a little over an hour.

8:39 Yeah, an hour to 90 minutes somewhere in there.

8:41 That's a first time play. I could see this next this next time being closer to that 60 minute mark, you know, and some stuff like that. But it's really cool.

8:50 It is. It's And again, we love a good production and it's cute and it's got strategy. I think that hits a lot a lot of things for us. So, Kingdom Crossing.

8:59 So, those were our top five games that were new to us that we played in June. If you have any suggestions based on these games of games you think that we would love, we'd love to hear from you. Please make sure that you like and subscribe because you don't want to miss any of our reviews or our collection curation project that we're in the middle of right now. And we'd love to see you at the table.