Board Game Highlights Episode 10: Have We Just Found Our Game Of The Year?

0:00 Hi everyone. I'm Tally. This is Farrell. And we're Bor of It. And welcome to the latest installments of our board game highlights.

0:07 Yes. And today we have six games to talk through and some very strong ones indeed. And I have to say that you really should stick around for when we talk about Yonder and Deco in particular because these are games that you may not have heard of yet. Uh but they're very exciting and we're really excited to talk about them. And in fact, let's just start right away with Deco because that is the one we are most excited to talk about.

0:39 As promised, we're going to begin by talking about Deco. And this is a poker inspired board game. So the the premise of this is essentially it's Bolatro the board game. And if you know about Blatro, then you should be excited.

0:57 I do not.

0:58 And if you don't know what Blowro is, although you've heard me talk about it a lot.

1:01 That's true. I know from you going on about it.

1:03 Yeah. So, what BLO is is it is it's a solo video game that is poker, but it turns poker into a deck building game. So, you can do crazy stuff like have a deck full of fives and kind of make hands that don't exist in real poker. It's a lot of fun. It's very addictive. has taken the world by storm and this is quite clearly heavily inspired by it and is trying to make the board game version. So this is two to five players and at the core of it what you're doing is you're just playing poker. So, you play a classic poker game in that people are going to call, they're going to raise, they're going to fold, you're going to bid, there's blinds, but the the first twist comes at the start of the round when it's your first turn in a round. And what you can do is you draw five cards and then you can burn one of those, which means to discard it permanently from your deck into your burn pile and then you can draw another one. So, it lets you thin out your deck and you also get to um kind of redraw and gamble a little bit that you'll get a better hand.

2:11 Then you'll kind of have a very normal round of poker and eventually you'll reveal and you'll see who has the best hand and they'll take all the chips in this case, which is what you're playing for. And the player who wins the game with the most chips is the winner. However, once you get the chips, you're then out of the round and that round goes on. And this is the second twist that you are able to go to a marketplace if you kind of stayed to the end of the round but you didn't win and then buy things from this marketplace. Namely cards which represent the normal cards in the standard deck but with special powers such as they might count as a six and a seven. or they might have two cards in one or they might give you chips or they might give you more money to buy things with as chips and money are distinct in this game and you can put those in your deck and then obviously you can also buy the cards you want to make the poker hands you want like only buying cards of a certain suit or a certain number and so on. Also, if you fold you get to take one card from that market for free otherwise you you kind of buy it at the end of the round. And the most important thing of all is if you're in this buying round, you get access to jokers. And if you're familiar with Batro, obviously you're going to be very excited now because jokers are what break the game.

3:32 And here, glad to say they do the same. So the jokers are associated with different things you can do such as call um drawing cards at the beginning of the round, raising, folding, and they have powers that trigger. So, it might be that every time you raise, you can look at the top card of the market deck and keep it if you want. Or it might be that when you draw, you can draw your first card from the marketplace before you draw from your deck. And all kinds of things like that.

3:59 Yeah.

3:59 So, I knew what to expect coming in, but I didn't know how it would implement it. And I'm really impressed by it. But why don't we go to you knowing nothing about

4:12 unbiased. Yeah, I think this is absolutely brilliant and I'm going to go as far to say I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up in one of my maybe top 10 of the year. I'm quite enamored with it. Whatever it is at the moment, I'm really enjoying games that like take something you're familiar with and twist it

4:32 in a way.

4:33 Yeah.

4:33 Um goes for one of the games that we'll talk about in the rest of this video as well. just being familiar with something and putting like a fun cool twist on it.

4:43 Yeah,

4:44 I'm just really enjoying that type of game at the minute. What I really like about this is you don't particularly need to know how to play poker. I will say I had to keep getting the reference card out to know what the remind myself what flush and straight is and all of that, but yeah, I think I've got to grips with it now. But it's just it's just so fun the way that the Jokers can just really swing the game.

5:10 Um, and just different elements going in to try and obviously

5:16 beat your opponent, but you have to make this decision sometimes like should you just fold and get a card from the marketplace so you're not not wasting more money raising.

5:24 Exactly. And actually you want to be the one to lose maybe in the beginning especially because then it gives you access to the jokers and then maybe you can come back at the end and have a really big turns or maybe you just want to go I think the first game we played I was actually winning the hands quite a lot in the beginning

5:41 you were yeah then you were able to buy more at the market so

5:48 there's different kind of strategies you can go with and just the way that the the jokers kind of break the rules of the game some of are like really crazy.

5:56 Yeah.

5:56 Um you have to pay uh chips to buy them, right? So the ones that are really kind of have really strong powers are more expensive. You can take some that actually cost zero chips, but maybe it's not coming into play so much. And just building the deck, building your kind of set of jokers of what you want to be there.

6:16 It's just it's just really fun.

6:17 Yeah,

6:18 it's so fun.

6:19 No, it's it's really great. So it it has everything that's great about Blatro in a board game form, but also it works really well because you're just playing poker at the core of it. And I mean poker is a timeless game. There's a reason it's very popular.

6:35 And I think, you know, the biggest improvement is making on poker is that if you lose, you still get something very important out of it. Yes. In fact, you end up having more fun than the winner because, you know, okay, they might be closer to winning the game now, but you're the one getting all the goodies. And I think that's really cool as well.

6:56 Yeah.

6:57 Something that's very exciting.

6:58 And again, it can even be part of the strategy to like deliberately like lose in a way or not try to optimize your hand because you want to get something from the marketplace specifically in that round to help you build for the next round. And that's just quite an interesting like fun concept to play around with. Yeah, I think it's an excellent example of deck building. And one of the things for me that I often hate about deck building games is that they let you deck build, but then they tend not to give you ways to thin out your deck. And it's a personal thing, but my favorite thing in any deck building scenario is being able to thin your deck.

7:32 You do love doing that.

7:33 I just find it so satisfying to get to the point where, you know, like here,

7:38 no fluff coming up.

7:39 Yeah. I'm just playing like four of a kind every round because I only have like fours in my deck or whatever, you know,

7:47 and I really love that. And this lets you do it by letting you burn every single round and then sometimes you get the chance to do extra. Obviously, you might not always want to if you have a good hand, but

7:56 yeah,

7:57 I find that so I just really like how it implements it. The jokers are all really cool and varied. The marketplace cards are all really cool and varied. Um, and honestly the I would say the only negative uh is sometimes a lack of of clarity in the rules. But the biggest part of that is I think they fall at the first hurdle with the rules by they give you reference cards and it has a ranking of poker hands but it doesn't show you what the poker hands are.

8:30 Yes. Yeah. And I think that is like the the first thing that if I made a poker related game, I would make sure is in the box of like something that people can look at.

8:41 Yeah.

8:41 I mean, they'll say it's on the back of the rule book, but you're already passing around the rule book all the time to look at what the different marketplace cards are and the jokers clarifications.

8:50 When you're asking for the rule book as well, it means that you've probably got something which is a little more advanced and you're giving your hand away as well. I was quite conscious of that. I just want something in front of me to for me to be able to reference rather than saying to you, well, you pass me the rules for no reason at all.

9:04 And the other thing is that uh the first thing you did when we played this is you went to

9:10 our copy of the gang to get out the the reference card from that game because they do show you what the poker hands are. Yeah.

9:16 You know, and showing you what a royal flush is or whatever. I just think it's a bit of a shame because that's always the biggest barrier to getting someone who doesn't know poker into something pokery. Yeah. Just trying to like figure out what the hands mean and how to get them.

9:29 Exactly.

9:29 So, yeah, that was the only negative. Everything else is brilliant and we've uh mainly played it two players at the moment and we've really loved it, but I have no doubt it's going to be more zany and wild and incredibly fun with more and

9:43 later this week we're hoping to play with a few more.

9:47 Yes.

9:47 So, yeah. So, we'll move on from Deco, but I I cannot recommend this enough, honestly.

9:59 Next up, we have Tempo Survival on the Savannah. And this is another game from Sidekick Games who started doing a lot of these animal related games. So, they did Aqua, which we or I didn't like particularly. You I think

10:15 thought it was okay

10:16 okay on it. Hutan, which I thought was brilliant.

10:19 Yes, big fan of that.

10:20 And now we have Tempo, and this time it is a cooperative game. It is quite difficult. Uh, and it's for one to four players. Um, quite light in rules generally.

10:31 Yeah.

10:32 Yeah.

10:32 And what you're trying to do here, I should say this is a review copy from the publisher. What you're trying to do here is you are essentially trying to get this herd of elephants across the savannah and you're trying to have them visit six um I can't remember what they're called.

10:49 Landmarks.

10:49 Landmarks. Yeah.

10:51 Uh while avoiding them being eaten by lions slash running out of energy slash running out of cards before you get to the end. Mhm.

11:01 And what you're doing is you kind of have this config preset configuration of six boards that are kind of randomly turned and twisted with landmarks on. And on your turn, you're either going to play one of your cards to the uh like quadrants of the board and then that'll get some bonuses, usually you or another player elephants uh into your pool. And you'll also kind of have um

11:27 make a pathway.

11:28 Yeah, exactly. Because the paths are these little circles that you put elephants on and then you kind of lay out a trail and then every now and then you'll play a matriarch card which is a different type of card

11:38 and that will kind of reset all of them except for the matriarch and give you like a save point if you like because

11:45 they can get eaten by lions

11:47 and then you lose the elephants from the kind of pathway you've made.

11:50 Um or on your turn you can just place elephants. Um, but the trick is every player, they orientate their cards the way they're sitting.

12:02 Mhm.

12:02 So if Tally's holding a card, it's upside down to my card because she's on the other side of the table. And so that limits the configuration you can place the elephants in or that you can place the um past in because you have to think and that's a little bit of the puzzle.

12:21 Yeah, exactly. Um, no. I think we both really enjoy

12:26 I was very pleasantly surprised.

12:29 Yeah,

12:29 I went in hearing good things, expected it to be very like mid to me personally,

12:38 but I I really I think it's really engaging.

12:41 Yeah. No, I agree. I think in the first game because they give you like a baby mode basically

12:46 and we managed to do it quite easily. I was sort of thinking, yeah, okay, it's fun enough that you have to cuz the crux is trying to figure out you have three cards in your hand at all times, right? And like you said, the configuration is limited for the majority of the time. The crux is trying to figure out what card to play when. Should you just play this card now with this sub-optimal configuration for a pathway or try to do something else in the meantime and hope that you pull a a better card? But we were yeah managed to do the first baby scenario quite easy and I was like okay there's a bit of decision space in here with the card and when you play elephants and when to use the matriarch to kind of save as you say.

13:28 Um but I was like okay but then when you move on to the actual proper mode where the lions are encroaching on the herd. Yeah,

13:37 basically at all times then yeah it's adding a lot more jeopardy to it and I just think the decision space went way bigger because sometimes you're in a situation where you very close to the landmark but the lions are getting closer and closer and you're like should we just run in there with the elephants and just try to put as many elephants down as we can in the hope that the lion card doesn't come up and trigger the lions to move.

14:02 Yeah. or try to go around somehow, maybe come back to the landmark. So, yeah, it's just a good fun decision spaces with with not that much, if that makes sense. And I think the the difficulty level with the lions coming at you all the time turns very simple rule set into something very challenging.

14:23 Yeah.

14:24 And it is Yeah, it's fun to navigate that challenge.

14:27 Yeah, we found it quite a challenging co-op and there's different levels. So there's different pathways or different kind of map configurations you can make that get harder and there are other little elements that you can add to the game or remove from the game to make things like harder depending. So there's a lot of variety on that sense uh in terms of maps. But one thing I really liked is that because of the random order of cards you get and the random configuration of the map tiles even within the map that you set up

14:58 like playing the same setup is still different every time and it's a different puzzle. And it's interesting because you would think on the surface it's a game that you might get bored of because you're doing very much the same thing game to game, but the puzzle is very very engaging

15:14 uh every time. And that's something that really impressed me.

15:18 Yeah.

15:18 Um yeah, I think leading on from what you said about the different like it does a lot with like a little rule set, I think it's good at spinning plates. So

15:30 yeah,

15:31 one of there's a lot of pressures that you know it's not complex to understand them but managing them is quite difficult.

15:38 So for example, you have an energy track and to play matriarch cards, matriarch cards, you have to spend energy. But if it so happens that you draw two matriarch cards and you have two in your hand, you have to do double which costs more energy than just playing like the one and the one.

15:54 Yeah. And you're forced to move the matriarch in doing it when you choose. And that puts you in a worse position. And then even just to to kind of get rid of all the matriarch cards normally, you have to keep like uh eating trees, which is like another problem. So there just is a lot of little considerations. The lions uh the order to go about landmarks, if you should kind of like leave an elephant off to like sate the lion. Yeah.

16:23 Which is always quite depressing.

16:24 Yeah. I don't like that part.

16:26 Yeah. Sometimes you can lose a lot of elephants in this game and it's quite sad.

16:30 It is. They look very cute on the front, but it is low-key a little bit savage. Yeah, just FYI. Yeah, because you have to uh like you said, a lot of the times the way to manage the lions of them coming closer towards you is actually sacrificing an elephant because if they get triggered and the lion moves onto the or is on the space where there are elephants, then they will

16:51 eat them and then they rest and lay down for until the next time it's triggered when it stands back up again. It's a way of holding them back.

16:59 Yeah.

16:59 So, yeah, like you say, it's also a consideration. Sometimes you're just playing a card and putting an elephant down just to put a lion an elephant, sorry, where the lion is is going to be.

17:08 Um, but then you lose lions completely.

17:11 Elephants. I keep getting swished around. Lose elephants completely out of the game. So, making it harder as you go. So, if you're kind of quite far away from the end, you might end up running out of elephants. Yeah. It's It's pretty brutal, actually.

17:24 Yeah. But Yeah. So, I think not so much more to say here, just that it is very good. We both very much enjoyed it. So, if you're looking for a reasonably like tricky co-op that is animal focused and is something like a little bit different, then we really recommend this. Really enjoyed it. Going to keep playing.

17:46 Uh, want to try the other map setups and there's like a campaign mode and events and all the stuff we haven't even tried yet. Yeah, maybe just aside because this is important for me when it comes to co-op games is about like quarterbacking. Um because your cards are hidden from your opponent. You're allowed to talk about them. You're kind of allowed to talk about what you have, but the exact like configuration what you have. You're not allowed to talk about them.

18:09 And I I like co-op games where I feel like I can make my own decision with my own um resources or whatever you want to say. So yeah, not everything's completely open.

18:20 Yep. Cool. So with that, we will go to our next game. Here we have the new starter decks of Star Wars Unlimited. So Star Wars Unlimited is a two-player head-to-head card game, much in the way of classic kind of two-player card games like Magic the Gathering, things like that. uh but with the Star Wars lean and they've been releasing starter sets uh which give you kind of two pre-made decks uh and generally they've been pretty good. So, we've reviewed them before, some of the kind of older decks, and this is just a new set called A Lawless Time. And one starter deck is Java the Hut, and the other starter deck is Leia. And it's kind of simulating Return of the Jedi when they go to Java's palace and they're fighting, and it's all characters from that scenario. And Tally is going to tell you how much she enjoys this game.

19:18 Uh, listen, I don't hate it. I just cannot win it. I'm really poor at it.

19:26 Yeah. You've never won it.

19:28 I've never won it. Don't Don't know why I'm so bad at it. No, I do. Games like this. I always get a little bit hesitant when you get them out. You're like, "Come on, let's play Star Wars Unlimited." And I'm like, "Oh, no. Don't make me." And then when I start playing and get into it, it's okay. I just I I just find them incredibly frustrating sometimes. Right. You definitely were frustrated when we played these ones.

19:52 Yeah. Well, specifically, I can't I can't from my memory.

19:56 You just got really mad cuz you thought you were doing quite well in the second round.

20:00 Yeah, true. I thought I had a chance and then

20:02 Yeah,

20:03 I didn't.

20:03 Did it make you more mad that because you didn't really want to play anymore? I went and played it with a friend and then he beat me twice.

20:10 Yeah. Unbelievable. I thought it was just

20:12 He had never played before. He just beat me twice like first.

20:14 Yeah. You played it a bit more than me cuz I think you played it with another friend. Yeah, I played a bunch more than you.

20:19 Maybe he just played it more. That's why I haven't won yet. But no, it's it's just it's just me.

20:25 Yeah. So, should say this is a review copy from the publisher and installers unlimited in terms of turns. You have a hand of cards and you will do one action on your turn and then your opponent will do one action and back and forth until you kind of can't do anymore because all your cards are exhausted and you've spent all your resources. So you'll either be playing a card by spending resources and they if they're units they come in exhausted uh and will yeah get ready at the end of the round or you can attack which will exhaust your unit and you can attack other units or the opponent's base and the whole point of the game is to destroy that base by dealing damage equal to its health. Um and yeah there's a lot of little tricky things. So there's a lot of sub mechanisms going on. And in terms of the starter decks, what it is doing is uh Leia's deck is very much about upgrading your units. So she gives out a lot of experience or shields and they tend to grow stronger and stronger and stronger. So it can be important for the other player to try and kind of stop them before suddenly you're looking at something that does eight damage and has eight health.

21:41 uh v uh on the other side of the deck you have Java and what his deck is doing is has this concept of credits. So his power is that you can kind of exhaust one of your resources to bring someone out of play to your hand and then you get a credit for that. And a credit is like a temporary resource that once you spend it is gone. Whereas generally resources will reset every round and you kind of get more and more as the game goes on and play more. So, what that does is it allows you to buy uh more expensive units quicker than you otherwise could by the normal rules of the game. And on top of that, a lot of Java's units are all about when played abilities. So then you can pick them up and put them down again to trigger their when played abilities in the same round almost.

22:37 Uh so yeah, so that's kind of what that's about. And I I really liked both of them. I thought they were some of my favorite card decks I played. Although, I must admit, it's been a while since I played the old ones, so I can't really remember that well. But I did really have a lot of fun with these. Uh, if you're interested,

22:55 I would recommend it.

22:57 Uh, Tally might point you in another direction.

23:01 There's nothing for these sets specifically. I feel the same way about the all of the game, but um, [snorts]

23:09 but yeah, anyway, I think it's really great game. I think it's very quick. It's very snappy. I like the one action, one action, one action. I like that there are some very obvious big plays in each deck that you can work towards. For example, in the Java deck, you can kind of set it up so that you can bring the Slack in and then like decimate uh your opponent.

23:33 I'm getting angry.

23:34 When I played uh when I played with our friend, I was one turn away from doing that like both times when he beat me. Yeah. See, it's annoying.

23:43 Yeah, it was very annoying.

23:44 So annoying. I can't say.

23:45 But I still enjoyed playing.

23:47 So, yeah. So, that is uh Star Wars Unlimited, a Lawless Time starter deck. And if you want to check out our other reviews of the other starter decks, just search for them on our channel. Next up, we have First Giants, which is a I guess you could say tableau building game for two, five players. Yeah. Set collection

24:15 uh to blow building.

24:17 So, here you're I guess playing archaeologists who are essentially looking for different types of dinosaur fossils and you're collecting them. They're going in your study. you're studying them and then eventually you're going to put them on exhibit in a museum. But people don't want to see any old boring dinosaur. They want to see sets of dinosaurs. So you're trying to gather sets and every dinosaur will belong to one type of family which depends on it color. And then every family has three sizes which will be like kind of level one, two and three. And essentially on your turn you can only do one of two things. You will either put a token out on these boards.

25:03 Uh, and each board will have two potential fossils on it and you'll pick one of those fossils with the rule being that you can't put your token on a board where you already have a token. So, you get li more limited Yeah. as or yeah, you have more limited options as the game goes on.

25:21 Uh, or if you're not doing that, you can kind of bring them all back. Um, and this will let you get some amber, which is kind of a resource, and exhibit them in the museum. So, when you take them normally, they're going to sit in your study. And these all have a power, and they can be an instant power, such as giving you points and amber when you take them. They can be an ongoing power, such as every time you take a green, you get some amber, or you get some points or something. Uh, and there's a lot of different varieties of powers of what they can be, but essentially what you're trying to do is you're trying to get them and then you're trying to create sets by exhibiting them. And there are two types of sets. The family set where you want the size one, two, and three of a color. Or you can have a size set where you kind of have every two level dinosaur in a row. One of each color.

26:15 Yeah. One of each color for every two dinosaur. Um, and that kind of gets you some points and you get more points if you complete the set. You get points as you go along. Then you can also generate points through your tableau building as well. Uh, yeah. So, what do you what do you think of First Giants?

26:33 Yeah. No, I really enjoy this. Obviously, is a more lightweight if you want to call it filler game. So,

26:39 yeah, it's pretty quick.

26:40 Not like blow anyone's socks off necessarily, but very enjoyable little game. What I particularly like about it is this whole mechanic of taking the fossils, putting them in your study, but because they have powers, sometimes you don't want to put them in the exhibit, even though the exhibit is a thing that actually gets you points. So, like you said, one of them might be every time you take a green fossil from the board, get something.

27:09 Yeah.

27:09 But you still need to put that dinosaur into your exhibit. and then the power you can't use it anymore once it's been exhibited. So, it's a nice little decision space there about keeping them in the study, but at the same time because uh some of the set collection, the first one to get the most of a certain type of set gets um some points. Yeah.

27:30 So, you also want to be the first one to do it. So, maybe I want to be the first one to get the full blue family or whatever. But maybe my blue dinosaur in my study is generating amber for me a lot, which I need to then exhibit them.

27:44 So, I think that's a really nice little mechanic there. It's like a nice little twist on

27:51 this sort of game in a way where you're not just taking the cards and putting them directly in the tableau. There's that step in between and making that decision about when you put them in.

28:00 Um, yeah. And also when you recall, you can for every I don't know if you want to call them workers. They're kind of workers in a way, right? They let you take the fossils from the board.

28:11 For every one you take back, you can either get an amber or exhibit a dinosaur, but you need the amber to exhibit. So that decision of should I just recall all four that's out on the board and just get amber for now and not exhibit anything in this recall turn because some of the powers from the dinosaurs that you take will let you make an exhibit like in your turn. Yeah.

28:30 So, there's all these nice little twists where the game's not going to be, you know, completely different every time. You're still collecting the same sets, but you can go about it in different ways. I think one of the games I went more after just generating points, like in-game points whenever I could um by taking the right kind of combination of dinosaurs and leaving them in my study and making sure that I only put them into the exhibit when, you know, I was kind of

28:58 done with them in a way. Whereas another game I went all about like trying to take things that would generate the most amber for me to get the most amount of dinosaurs kind of in the exhibit. So yeah, I think there's it has some nice replayability for the size of game that it is.

29:13 Yeah. So I think it's a really sharp game. It's it's really well produced. It's really sharp. I do think though that I to be honest I don't really have any criticisms of it besides maybe the marketplace can be a bit random sometimes.

29:30 Yeah. in terms of sometimes the spread of cards. they can all be very sy and then nobody really wants them or

29:40 the fact that maybe you really need an orange too and you just don't see one for

29:46 like you know 10 minutes of the game and then it's a bit

29:49 but what I kind of like about this game is you can still get points from if you need an orange two let's say if you've got an orange one and three

29:57 you don't need to complete the set so you're still getting

30:00 I'm talking about if yeah if you're trying to complete the set

30:03 yeah of course But I like that you it's not like boom or bust. Yeah, that's true. That's a good point.

30:08 You still get points and you could just take a dud one from the market again because it gives you a power. Maybe it just generates an amber and just take it just to kind of get rid of it. So I don't feel like it goes Yeah. It can be frustrating, but I think it puts nice things in place that it's kind of still useful.

30:23 Yeah. And I mean it generally does take like 30 minutes or less to play this. Yeah. And I think you get a lot of engagement and gameplay out of that for a very light rule set. Um, and yeah, if we didn't say it's for two to five players and it was a review copy from the publisher, but I think it's kind of one of those games where it does everything it's doing really well, but it also isn't doing anything unique. M

30:55 and I think it sits for me in something that I would never ever ever say no to playing. I'd very happily play it,

31:02 but I don't know if I personally would be like jumping to pull it off the shelf if I had a selection of games basically.

31:10 I think it's just it's it's only suffering just because um uh you know there are so many kind of tableau building set collection type games out there and uh this is another very good one. Basically, I think also, funnily enough, for me, what hurts it a little bit is the production.

31:28 Yeah.

31:29 Because it's quite a heavy box. And I think if it was like less well produced,

31:35 I'd be more likely to be like, "Yeah, this actually really brilliant for taking, you know, when you travel or something or to the pub, but because it's quite heavy and like, yeah, it's like becomes a bit more uh if you're flying, you could say it's less of a proposition." Maybe you could I think it's the amber that makes it heavy, right? So you maybe you could just substitute some other tokens from another game.

31:56 Yeah. Yeah.

31:56 Instead of the amber that was a bit lighter.

31:59 Yeah.

32:00 But yeah, so if you're looking for a kind of filler game, family weight game, set collection, and you like dinosaurs, recommend it. It was a really good time.

32:08 And that was First Giants. Just like last episode, we're back in this episode with some more coverage of Twilight Imperium as we ended up having another game of it with our friend that we introduced it to for the first time last time.

32:28 Uh we didn't actually end up properly finishing that last game. So, we said we're going to do it.

32:32 Went on too long.

32:33 Yeah, we're going to do it and we're actually going to finish, which we did this time. We only played to 10 points, which was the I think first good decision.

32:41 Yes. Uh but obviously everyone's a bit more familiar with the game. So yeah, this if you don't know it is the Epic Space Forex game. Uh it's it's indescribable in many ways. It's it's a massive space opera. And yeah, it was actually for the most part a very friendly game. There wasn't too much conflict. Even though our friend took the faction that gives her war sons

33:10 from the beginning.

33:11 Yeah. So she was flowing around with and if you don't know war sons are like death stars.

33:16 So she was kind of flowing around with them but never really

33:21 Yeah. It was more using them as a kind of cold war threat and you um set the pace of the game cuz you took me rags first.

33:30 Yeah. which not really usually my style, but I saw an opportunity and I took it. Yeah, it was quite satisfying actually.

33:39 Yeah. Uh was the what faction was I? The one where you get the flagship from the off as well.

33:46 The Nomad.

33:47 The That's it. Yes. Um yeah, I wasn't here to talk about the game. You did the ball game highlights cuz I was away last time, right? Um, but yes, this was a very good game that we played the other day because we won. I won. I won. I won. I won.

34:05 Talking about yourself in the third person.

34:06 Yeah. No, what I really like about Twilight Imperium is I do feel like for the most part it is like all to play for in a way.

34:17 I don't know if that's just been our games, but nobody's falling so far behind that, you know, someone's like racing out in front. I kind of went out in front at some point um towards more the beginning of the game, but then you caught up with me and just the way the objectives work is quite well balanced. I think that everyone sort of has a shot at doing them and catching up and

34:42 no, it's just it is it is really epic when I tell people, "Oh, we're playing a game at the weekend." And sometimes it can take 10 hours. Oh my god, you sat there like waiting for it to end. Not at all. It goes by so fast. it does go by

34:56 engaged and there's all these little moves that you can pull, right? So, you have little action cards that like other players might not know that you have. So, somebody might try to make a move on your system and then you can go bam, now I play this and I cancel what you're doing and it's just totally epic. Yeah, that was the most annoying thing I think in this game because from like the beginning of the game I had the tech cuz I was the uh the University of Joel Na which is like the tech faction. So they start with like four techs already and then it's really easy for them to get technology

35:31 and you so yeah I had two action cards like all the time from beginning. So, I drew so many action cards

35:40 and then you got a few, but then all of yours were like crazy good and all of mine were like cancel two hits in combat.

35:48 No, I did have those as well. That's

35:50 Yeah, but you were just playing all these crazy ones. I was I've never I literally had five that were like predict the outcome of an agenda in the like voting phase and then the other were like cancel a hidden combat.

36:01 Yeah. And actually, [snorts] wasn't it pretty much the I got predict the outcome of an agenda like right towards the end and that's kind of how I managed to win, right?

36:12 Yeah. In a sense, it was close anyway. I think

36:15 cuz Yeah, because you and Me Rex, we me and the other player delayed too long and we could have got you out of there and we just kind of delayed too long um cuz we're busy doing our other stuff.

36:27 Yeah. But I think really the trick was that um we had a bit of conflict and you were like kind of threatening cuz you needed to have a control the planet where I also controlled the planet.

36:44 Oh yeah.

36:44 So you were trying to kind of be imperialist and come in.

36:47 No, I wasn't. I just I just wanted to rent the planet.

36:52 Yeah. But nobody trusted her. But nobody trusted her. So, you're being very confrontational and coming into my systems. And so, then I was like, "All right, do you know what? Your home world is completely undefended. I'm going in there."

37:04 Oh, yeah. This was

37:05 and taking it out. Then it turned out Tally had a secret objective, which was lose a home world. And that's that basically like won the game.

37:13 You were You kept threatening me like, "If you do this to me, I'm going to come in and take your home system." And I was like, "No, no, please, please don't. Please don't."

37:21 No, you didn't. You just do it. Do it. You never begged not to do it. No, no, no. But I don't care.

37:26 No. I was trying to pull off like nonchalant. Oh, like please, please don't do that. I didn't want you to be suspicious. That that was um I wanted you to do it.

37:33 Yeah,

37:33 that was so satisfying when you were like, "Oh, take your home fish." Haha. Bam. I got a point.

37:38 That was really annoying. So, the moral of the story is don't let anyone sit on me Rex. I think we've learned. Yeah, we were too friendly in that game. We should have just uh messed mess things up a little bit, I think. Yeah, it's just that sometimes if the objectives Yeah.

37:55 are you don't need to combat because it's more about getting different technologies or whatever, then it just, you know,

38:02 you focus on that more than combat. I suppose you don't obviously know what is going to come out towards the end. The objectives are revealed round by round. It could be that you need to have certain control or whatever. So maybe you should prepare, but

38:15 you can only sort of go on the objectives that are visible in the moment. So sometimes

38:20 sometimes just feel like if you wanted to combat, you're just doing it for the sake of it. It doesn't actually further your objectives.

38:26 Yeah.

38:27 Um I guess you never know. Yeah. It's just it's

38:31 it's it says on the box, an epic board game. And it really is so epic. A lot of table talk as well. Right. Again, like we saying, we were trying to

38:41 negotiate a little bit and

38:43 I just wanted to come in and

38:45 sit on your planet for a little while for, you know, no real reason.

38:49 Yeah, we know.

38:50 You didn't let me. So then I was threatening.

38:51 Well, I did originally and then you screwed it up because your

38:54 No, you didn't let me. You were fighting me. You moved all your little

38:58 The first time it you would you couldn't be patient. And it was quite funny because you you couldn't be patient and like set up to bring more than one troop in there. You were like, I got to do it now. And then you didn't end up doing it until like the last round of the game, which is like five rounds later

39:14 because you kept failing.

39:16 Oh wow. Still one. So

39:17 And then Yeah. The first time you did it, you brought in one troop. And then even though I get like a minus one to my roll cuz I'm fragile, I just decimated your one fella.

39:26 Yeah.

39:26 Yeah.

39:27 Anyway.

39:28 Yeah. So, we have a another game in the calendar for like two months. So, really looking forward to that and you'll probably hear us talk more about that session report. But for now, we'll go to our final game.

39:47 Finally, we have Yonder, which is subtitled a fantasy worker placement game,

39:53 and that is what it is. But also that kind of does it a bit of a disservice because it makes it sound much more standard than it is.

40:01 Yes.

40:02 So this is for one to four players and in many ways it is a very standard worker placement game. Uh but there's a twist and funnily enough this is actually by the same designer as Deco

40:15 and we also think that this game is brilliant. So, it's been a really good three weeks.

40:20 Yeah.

40:21 Uh of of playing these games. So, in this one essentially, Yeah. Yeah. So, the theme is that you're kind of fantasy refugees and you've been given a grant of land in this like the edge of the city on a river and you're basically building a city up from nothing. And there are so there are different elements and you say the first core element is workers.

40:51 So people will start with different workers and you'll probably always have different workers than other people. So there are five types of workers uh all fantasy creatures. So you have skeletons uh well actually maybe we should step back. So there are kind of three places you can take worker placement actions. One is on the buildings you have built. Two is on your opponent's buildings

41:18 and three is on buildings or well just spaces on the board basically which are pretty generic. And then the buildings you build and your opponents will build get like more weird you could say they become like engine building and you begin to get into your own little grooves.

41:33 Yeah. Try and make some combinations with them.

41:36 Exactly. So if so, first worker, skeleton, and skeletons you want to place on your own cards because at the end of every round, you have to feed everyone who's in your area. And skeletons, since they're a skeleton, they don't need feeding, so they're great. They just do a normal uh worker placement. Then you have goblins, and these are just like your bog standard workers. So they they just do the action and they require one food at the end. You have elves who they will essentially uh have the ability to go to a space that's taken. So generally it's obviously the rule that once the work uh a work is on the space, nobody else can go there. But uh elves can break that as long as there's not another elf on that space. Dwarfs give you discounts. Uh so if you're kind of completing contracts or building, they'll give you a little discount to what you're putting into that. Uh or not contracts, sorry, but kind of other things that you might need to pay uh resources for. Then finally, you have the ogres, and these get you double the resources on a work placement space, but they require double the food at the end of the round. Um, and it's quite interesting because when you send workers on the board, they are lost and when you send workers to your opponent, uh, they gain them, but then they also have to feed them. So, you can almost

43:07 play offensively if you get it at the right moment by not only taking their space, but by

43:14 uh, making them then feed that worker basically. Cuz resources are a bit tight in this game. It's usually a struggle to feed everyone. Uh, and generally what you're trying to do is you're trying to get these building cards and in the first kind of uh round they're about building re like getting resources. Then in the second round they're about making like weird little combos um or giving you ongoing powers. Then in the third like four rounds they become about scoring basically uh uh yeah like endgame scoring. And then you also have these contracts that are going on which you want to do throughout the game where it's quite interesting because you do them if you don't do them that you kind of lose victory points. Uh but once you take them you have to fill them every single round. So it's like an ongoing contract. Um, and generally they also give you like resources on top of or bonuses on top of um top of the kind of victory points as well.

44:15 Yeah.

44:15 Yeah. So, what do you think?

44:17 I think this game is absolutely brilliant.

44:21 When I said at the beginning of the video, really enjoying games with a twist at the moment, I was also referring to this. Maybe it's just the designer, but like you said, kind of from the face of it seems a bit bog standard worker placement, but the way the workers work, like you described, the fact they all kind of can do something different. You can use them all technically as normal workers, but the fact that they all do something slightly different, either kind of positive or negative, and you can use them in different ways, is what really gives it the twist. Um, and especially towards the end of the game because like you said the the buildings that you build maybe towards endgame scoring and for example one of them could be if you keep the ogres back which are the ones that need double feeding you keep them in your area you score x amount of points at the end of game for everyone that you have in the end of the game

45:12 but you kind of need to have worked throughout the game to maybe create a bit of a production of a food source to be able to feed them but you want to keep them

45:22 uh or yeah, I you can there's just so many different combinations that you can make with the building cards that come out and the contracts as well. So, I had a little bit of a thing going one of the games where

45:34 I think I had to pay hay or something and then that would give me a goblin worker if I fulfilled it. But then my other contract that I had to fill, I had to spend a goblin and then I would get something else. So you can create these big

45:48 chains with it,

45:51 which is just obviously that's fun and satisfying to navigate all the while

45:57 trying to make the best of the workers that you kind of keep behind because you'll get different workers every round.

46:03 Yeah.

46:03 So when the round ends, like you said, all of the ones that are on the main board or in your opponent, you'll lose, but then you would get a different set of workers. So you when you pass you choose a a ship tile

46:16 and then that might give you two dwarves and two goblins that round, but in the next round you might choose a ship with an ogre and two skeletons. So you're always getting in these different types of workers also navigating

46:31 what do I need and when.

46:33 Yeah,

46:34 it's just it's so fun. And another little thing about this game that just always adds an element of kind of extra joy is the little touches of humor on here and the the way that the cards are described. For example, I can see one on the back here. One of the buildings is like the Goblin Brewery, for example, and then you need to spend

46:55 hay in there to get something out of it.

46:58 Huh.

46:58 Grain.

46:59 Oh, yeah. Grain.

47:00 And then you get like money basically on the card. Just the little touches of humor just bring this all together to be funny, kind of light-hearted, good production, but kind of challenging, satisfying. It's brilliant.

47:17 Yeah, I mean, it does everything right. So, I think it's brilliant as an engine builder because there are so many different cards and combinations that you you and workers as well because again like people are going to have completely different sets of workers which means they can do completely different things.

47:36 Um, and that creates like really different game states game to game especially because you have some cards that are or buildings that are ongoing powers. Yeah. Then on terms of on top of that, what contracts you take, like you said, you can get contracts that give you workers, you can get contracts that require workers, but give you loads of resources. Uh, and that's very interesting. And then how you set yourself up for Yeah. scoring in the end. Um, and so it's really strong gameplay. It's really interesting engine building, really interesting worker placement.

48:10 Yeah. And particularly what elevates everything is this like thread of humor running through it. This like tongue andcheek element that it just makes it so much more and so much more interesting to play.

48:24 A joy to

48:27 see what the next card that's going to come up is because like it's going to be something funny or even the way that the ships where you take the workers at the end around have like funny little names.

48:37 Yeah. like they're like soft for like those kinds of things in in games because

48:44 Yeah. Why not add a little bit of humor to something that could otherwise just be dry?

48:48 Yeah. And the ships end up giving you powers when you fulfill contracts and these like funny little names

48:54 go into the the power. Then it's just like the cards like uh buildings. For example, there's a skeleton maker where basically you can give like one of your normal workers at the end of the round instead of like having to feed them, you put them into the skeleton maker and you basically kill them, but Al pops a skeleton and food and then you can use that to feed your other workers,

49:16 which is like quite dark but quite funny.

49:18 Yeah,

49:19 there's, you know, the first game I had a goblin soup boat, which is basically I was just giving soup to the goblins. So then at the end of every round, I got to like lure two in from the main board into my supply.

49:31 So I always like had two extra workers, you know, and I could send them out without worrying about losing them.

49:36 And that was interesting because I then didn't want to play my goblins onto the main board cuz I knew that it benefited you. So that was also like another thing to think about when it's, you know, I could keep my goblins on my player tableau.

49:49 Yeah.

49:49 To keep them away from you, but then I've got to feed them.

49:52 Yeah. And I think it works quite well more than a lot of other games which try and do this like inevale I think it never works where you can go to other people's buildings because it's like so small and so far away and like so infrequent that people have these buildings.

50:09 I can't be bothered to like the table.

50:12 No one's ever using those. And uh here because it's like the cars are big and colorful and

50:17 graphic

50:18 graphic like you can see across the table. Um, and also because some of the cards will then pay off, which I think is interesting because it makes it much more interactive game. Like in our last one, I got I can't remember what I got, but I got something for using your spaces like money or something

50:37 to then add an incentive to go.

50:40 So yeah. So that's Yonder. It's absolutely brilliant. Also, another game that's for sure going to be in my top 10.

50:50 Yeah,

50:51 I don't know if you feel the same.

50:53 Yeah, usually we're hiding our list from each other, right?

50:58 But where will it go?

50:59 But, um,

51:01 yeah, we're in July. Yeah, it's going to have to something big's going to have to come to knock this out.

51:06 Yeah, I think it would have to be the craziest last couple of months of the year to knock like this and Deco out, I think.

51:12 Yeah, I agree. Obviously, it can change, but uh but this is it's so good. I really recommend it. If if you get the chance to play it, play it. If you like worker placement, if you like engine building, it's it's for you. Uh yeah, so we'll end there. That is our board game highlights for this month or period, whatever you want to say. We really appreciate you watching. We hope you will consider subscribing and thanks and we'll see you next time. Time.