Episode 381: Realm of Reckoning and Devious
Transcript
pickaxe. Hey y'all, it's time for Rolling Dice and Taking Names. In this episode, the guys review realm of reckoning and devious. And we'll hear about some fun games played over Independence Day like cockroach poker and Got Five. Did y'all know cockroaches could fly?
Wait, cockroaches can fly?
You need to go to Mississippi sometime.
Hello and welcome to Rolling Dice and Taking Names. This is episode 381 titled Macho Man. My name is Marty.
I'm Tony.
Not Randy Savage Macho Man. No, Macho Man. The song from the Village People as the lead singer of The Village People passed away. And I don't know about you, Tony, I was into The Village People, man. YMCA, In the Navy, Macho Man, Go West. I liked all their pop songs.
I only knew a few of them. though. You hit them all. Other than that, I mean, this was the disco ages, right? This was the time when
when and and the biggest time I heard them was when I was roller skating at Kate skating.
Yes, baby. I was going to say it was skate songs. All their songs were skate songs.
I couldn't skate anyway and I could not turn and I'd hit a wall.
You couldn't do the crossover with your feet.
I could not skate. I barely could ice skate. So, I could not roller skate. I I was a train wreck. I was Oh, it was not pretty. It was not pretty. I wasn't the best, but I did it enough to where I could do things like, you know, crossover. I could backwards skate a tad, but not for long sort of deal. But, you know, if they had had the walkers in the skating ring back then, I could have probably done cuz back then all we had was you had the rail or the wall. So you you'd go along holding the wall skating and then you then you get to the area where there was no wall and you were like, "Oh crap, I got to go from here to there without falling down. Okay, this is not going to go good for me." And then they then my friends came up and said, "You know, just go over on the carpet and just practice." And I finally by the end of the night I could stand up and I could go around the rink periodically. But there were many a tumbles and I think I went maybe twice and I was like, I'm done with this. Oh, I went a lot. So, I had a lot of friends that uh went to one uh near my high school uh that we went to and you know you did the all right couple skate. All right, reverse skate.
When was the last time I went skating? I don't know. I may have taken my kids to a skate party when they were young. I remember the last time I just kind of went on my own was in in uh NC State.
I remember there's a group of us that went to a rink in NC State. That's my senior year actually. I remember my senior year.
Well, the senior year you always had that we did and we didn't do roller. We did ice skating our my senior year at NC State. That was the big senior get together.
So So we went over to the ice house at NC State or whatever it's called and said, "Hey, let's go ice skating." Donna's like, "Hey, let's go ice skating." I said, "No, let's not. I've never done it." She goes, "This will be fun." She was she was so sore at the end from having to hold me up. I told her, I said, "This is not going well for you. I know this. I Well, I have no coordination on that." But you skied. You know how to ski. I don't.
You need strong an angles ankles. Ice skating. It's like, you know, your your those blades are really thin.
Well, so our skis bunch of Let's strap wood to our the bottom of our feet and go down a mountain real fast. What?
Oh, yeah. [sighs] So, yep. Uh, village people. So, there's there's old blast from the past and uh and roller skating. So, we're just wrapping up our July 4th weekend. I just got back from a trip to Oregon to see my son and his family. Here we're dealing with a heat wave of pushing upper 90s, close to 100. And there the high was 64. So that was a major thermal shock when I got off the plane Friday morning. And the low was 74 that day, which was 10° higher than what I've been used to for the week.
That's Yeah, bet it was a shock. I mean, you miss some really good temperatures here in the Carolinas as it was just blistering. Okay, you and I grew up in the Carolinas. We are not unaccustomed to these type of temperatures or these type of humidity, but as the older I get, I'm like like I needed to go do something in the yard. And I went, screw this. I'm not doing it. You know, I was like, it's just too hot out here. Holy cow.
Yeah. So, I read something the other day from one of our local weathermen talking about I thought 100 degree days were somewhat common around here. They're not.
There they said there was over the past I can't remember how many decades there's four times as many days of measurable snow here than there are 100 degree days. And I was shocked by that stat.
Yeah, I read that too. Mr. Brad Panovich, he
Oh, there you go.
Yes. Everybody follows in our local news around Brad Panovich is the weatherman to go to. Keeps people entertained.
I never would have guessed that because I thought, oh, we have 100 degree day a couple times a year and it's like I guess we really don't. It feels we've had a lot of feels like but not true 100 degree days.
Yeah. And I mean I follow the weather very very religiously due to my post job or my past jobs and my current job just to know what's going on. We're going to get to experience a 100 degree days together probably in Las Vegas when we go towards the end of the month for the Star Wars Unlimited Galactic Championships. We're not playing in them, but we're going as guests to do some events and stuff like that. So, hey, at least it's not humid.
No, it is. It's a dry heat.
Is that what they say?
They say it's a dry
It's a dry heat.
I remember being in Vegas for a conference and I I don't know. Um, it was a user group conference for some software. We were out there and it was god it must have been like October or maybe November. It was it was late in the year and it was pushing 95 degrees and I'm like it should not be this hot, you know. I mean, it's just it was just so incredibly hot out there. But yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Star Wars Unlimited. Um, you and I are definitely casual players looking forward to the next series that comes out. having a big time with our our buddies here in Charlotte and a new store or a store has changed ownership and they are offering up uh at 1 p.m. that's 1300 for those of you who don't know what 1 p.m. is they're going to offer some structured play on Saturdays and hopefully hopefully I'll be able I mean I don't see it happening this month but maybe next month we can get over there and play some.
That'd be fun. Yep. Yep. And it's uh so there's another store I've been going to a lot, but this other store is closer to all the ones in our play group who play. So I would like to see what the environment is. I love the environment at my other local store. I think the owner there super great. Uh he runs a great store. I'm curious to see what this environment is. We went there many years ago. The environment kind of got
a little rough. So with new on
look, it wasn't sketch. It was just very loud. I mean, it was like always loud in there. And maybe it's just because the way the place was built with the the tile and the floor and everything like that. Anyway, anyway, so with new ownership, I'm curious to see is have they made any changes within the store? And this isn't a new owner like I've never owned a game store before. He owns a couple other game stores and a large one north of Charlotte. We just never been to it.
Is it the one up near Concord Mills? Uh, is that one?
No, it's not. That's Mighty Mele. But it's it is in Concord, but it's another location.
Okay. All right. Thank thanks for straightening that out for me. Well, I hope he has success there. Wish him luck. And Rob, who opened that store up in Pineville, great landing spot for so many, you know, that is awesome that he was able to sell it to someone who is dedicated and is not going to turn it into a yarn and knit store. Nothing wrong with that, but
nothing wrong with that. My wife would be like, "Let's go." So would mine.
So, I was talking about, you know, going to Oregon. Uh, a couple things I want to mention while I was there. Uh, one took Vanessa to an In-N-Out. You know, the big conversation about, uh, what's better, In-N-Out or Waterburger? And we throw in around here our local chain, Cookout. These are all value hamburger joints, you know, with everybody have their own little flavors of things. I've been to a Cookout once many, many years. I mean, In and Out once many, many years ago. So, Vanessa and I said, "Hey, there's one in there's one in Oregon." No, there's two in Oregon. Anyway, there's one in Salem. I said, "Let's go back to Portland through Salem and let's go to In-N-Out."
So, we did. And uh we did that. We did it with the, you know, I did got my burger animal style. I got my fries extra crunchy. Vanessa got hers underdone. What do you prefer? Do you prefer underdone, perfectly cooked, or over or crispy fries?
Dang. I thought they only came one way, cooked.
You have a choice in and out, which is kind of cool.
Oh my gosh. I prefer crispy on the outside, soft in the inside. So, you probably prefer just normal middle middle of the road because the undercook's a little flimsy and the well done is is crunchy all the way through.
Yeah. I want my fry to be able to hold the ketchup. That's why I love waffle fries from Chick-fil-A.
Yeah. So, we went there, had a great experience. It was dirt cheap. I mean, both two burgers, two fries, a drink for $15, which nowadays is pretty darn good.
Mhm. But here's our ranking, y'all. And then y'all can get us on the chat, Discord or whatever. So, our ranking was Cookout number one, In-N-Out number two, Water Burger number three.
Okay. All right. Very good. What about where would Bies fall into this with their burger? And all you've never had a Bies burger, I bet.
I've never had a Bies burger. That's not kind of what they're known for.
Well, you they're big. Maybe you should branch out. Just not get beyond the brisket. Okay.
I'm just saying. Well, that's not a it's not that's a different comparison, though. These are like dedicated burger joints.
Yeah. See, which one did we go to in Atlanta? Which one did you have me try in Atlanta?
What a burger.
What a burger. Okay.
And now now there's one in South Carolina. There's actually one that There's actually one close to you. There may be one in Belmont now. Have you been to that one?
No.
Okay.
But I can't get to it because of the freaking line. Mike, this this place is packed.
All of them are packed and they're all packed late. So, we drove by late when we arrived uh in Oregon and the the line at In-N-Out was insane. It's right beside the interstate. So, we saw the line was insane. But if you go to get any cookout around here at 11:00 p.m. at night, there's a huge line for cookout, too.
Okay.
And then while I was there, I went and hung out with Chaz Marlor one day.
Oh my gosh. You found out where he actually lives.
He lives in Eugene, Oregon. My son works down towards his way. So I took him to work, saw where he worked, dropped him off, and Chaz came up. I came down and we met in Corvalis, Oregon, which is the home of the Oregon State University. Beavers, Badgers,
is Oregon State Ducks. The Ducks.
No, it's just Oregon Ducks.
Oregon Ducks.
What is the Oregon State? That's sad. What is is orange? Oregon. I should know this stuff. They're not exactly the main school there. Oregon State is the
fighting woodchucks.
Beaver. The beaver.
Beaver. Beaver. Beaver. Beaver. Beaver. Okay. Um, so anyway, so we met at a game store actually, which is kind of a really nice game store in downtown Corvalis. He taught me Veil of Eternity. Now, I don't know if you remember this game. This was a big game from Intergade that came out last year. We never played it, but a lot of people loved it. And I regret that we don't have a copy because it's actually pretty darn good. It's an engine builder, which I love engine builders.
Collect cards, put them in a tableau, collect points. Cool. But it's how you get to that point. At the beginning of the round, uh, cards are ded on the table in a market. Everybody has markers. And in a snake draft, you put your marker on a top of a card that you want to claim.
Mhm. And then after all cards have markers on them, you go around the table and you start taking your actions. Your action could be on a card that you have a marker on. You could take the marker off and put the card in your hand. Sweet. Or you can turn in that card for money. Each card has a certain value to it that you can earn back in chips or or money and you use that money as the last thing you could do on your turn is pay the cost of that card to put it into play. Some have instant actions, end of round scoring, etc. End of the round, do some scoring, person most points wins. But it's it's one of those games that flows so quickly and so smoothly. I really understand why it was such a big deal.
Oh,
like I just said, I gave you the entire rules. That's all you need to know. And like literally, you could start playing, but it's one of those thinky games. It's like, if I could put this card with this card and this card with this one, oh, that's a big point generator sort of deal.
Okay. Well, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Go get us a copy.
Why is it always me? Why didn't it [gasps] be like Why didn't it be like That sounds great. I'm going to go buy a copy, [snorts]
man. You go get a copy.
Oh, well, we'll talk a little bit about this. What else did you do with Chaz? Anything else fun?
He wanted to learn Pagan. Uh, you and I have talked about Pagan before on the show. Uh, we talked about last year. Go look up in our show notes. We did a review on it. He was always interested in it. Pagan um is the worker placement as asymmetric game from Capstone games. This still is the game that feels the closest to Netrunner of anything that I've played since Netrunner.
It doesn't play the actions you take aren't like Netrunner, but the bluffing, the one side bluffing, the one trying to sus out the bluffs of the other person is 100% baked into this game like Netrunner was. And Chaz loved it. He said, "This was good." And I said, "Yeah, I told you before we started this was going to be a really interesting game of cat and mouse."
And I was basically the uh the mouse, right? So, I was the witch
trying to do all the bluffing and then he was trying to figure out, all right, what you know, it was the shell game. Where's where's the P? Where's the P? Where did Marty put the P sort of deal. So, Pagan still way up there on one of my top two player games over the last few years.
Okay. Well, I'll let you keep going. Anything else you want to talk about? I'll tell you my July 4th was game day, but we'll get to mine is not nearly as exciting as yours so far.
Oh, well, okay. Let's jump to it because my next two are from July 4th. What games did you play on July 4th?
On July 4th, friends invited us over for a cookout and then we were going to go watch some of the most disappointing fireworks I've ever seen in my life at Carowinds. Um, Wow.
So, so they live down in in Fort Mill in an area we call Prune Acres. And anyway, you leave their house, you can go right next to our new gaming store, Zachby's Restaurant, and where we meet to play games on Thursday night. And we parked so we could watch Carowinds, which is a amusement park here in the Carolinas that straddles both states. And we were going to watch their fireworks. So, I said, you know, hey, we went down, we had we had some lunch, we did the cookout, things like that. We played games. I then brought everything back out, had some dinner, and played some more games until it was time for fireworks, and then we we headed out. These people, um, they enjoy when I bring them new games. Um, but this time, I really I've gotten to the point now, nothing against them, I just don't want to introduce hard new games or games that are a lot of strategy. I'm just going to kick with pick with this. I'm sorry, stick with the games that they know and that are fairly quick to teach and they can quickly grasp that take some time. For instance, we played Sky Joe. Okay. But I was playing one rule wrong and they did not like the fact that I changed the rules on them. I said, "Well, the rule I was playing wrong is when you take the column down, it goes on top of the card. They go on top." And I said, I thought it went the other way. So, we're going to play it the correct way.
Hold on. Wait. Maybe I've been playing it wrong. So, let
Yeah.
So, you scrape all the cards.
Mhm.
You put them on top of the deck. And then there's another card on top of that, right?
Wrong.
Are you serious? Then I've always been playing it wrong. I thought the column that you put on the deck was inaccessible to anybody else.
It's the other way around because [sighs]
most people will be getting rid of twelves, 11s, and tens. So you put that on top of the card that that you know, hey, I drew this card and I I'm going to Oh, look. It replaces. So, whatever card you're replacing there now goes on the bottom and the column the three go on top.
I don't know how simple this game is and I keep playing it wrong.
Well, I mean just I mean Donna even reread the rules cuz she was yelling at me. We've been playing this game wrong. What do you mean we've been playing this game wrong? It's it just seems to me that the column cards would get buried and the fresh card that was replaced off of yours would be accessible to other people. Ah, that's weird.
And that's what I heard in an argument that evening as we were playing it the other way, but it lets people also gauge, oh, look, he's building a column of 12. I know that he will turn a 12 over to me.
So maybe I can also build a column of 12 and I don't know what that other one is.
So that adds a little bit more strategy to it.
Okay.
I was like, "Okay, all right. That's good." How about that?
Yeah. And then of course we played Opash um because I I taught them that because you taught it to me 30 plus years ago and we still play Opasha. They absolutely love Opasha. And I had a terrible game of Opa. I had a run of four misses in a row because I hate I hate Trump leaders. Oh, they piss me off so much. So, you got two aces. One of them is the ace of trumps. Okay.
Okay,
that's one. The other ace, and you only have five cards in your hand. You got another ace, but it's a single suit ace, right?
Mhm.
That's counts. That's worth two. Oh, look. And you got another you got another high card.
Oh, I think I can probably get three. three.
Mhm.
But you only have one.
That's a good bid. [clears throat]
That's a good bid. Good bid. Good bid.
So the person makes their bid. Very first round makes their bid. Second card they play is a trump card cuz they want to bleed Trump so that they don't get stuck with two. And now I'm like, "Okay, that one's now out." And then suddenly I have to play, okay, I'm going to get my other one. Oh, come to find out someone else has two trumps. And now I'm I'm like, "Oh." So I just had a run of bad luck. But anyway, we played Oprahaw and of course we played Five Crowns and then we played a new game that you and I are going to get to play this week and we will talk about it later. It's from OP Games and we'll it's their newest one that people were able to pick up free off BG if they happen to be on the site when they offered it. And that is of course
is it tap 4?
Tap four. Mhm.
Yeah.
So cool. I look forward to that. Yeah. A lot of people on our Discord channel have been talking about getting that in the mail. I put out for one but just haven't got it yet. So, all right. So, uh and then two games we got to play. So, while I was in Oregon, a game I've always needed to have in my collection. Cockroach poker. You ever play cockroach poker? Yes. Okay. Uh, didn't have it. Um, that is one of those, hey, when we're all done, everybody's tired. We're going to play cockroach poker. Great bluffing game. It's like try to deceive the other person. Hey, this is a rat. I bet it's not a rat. Oh, it is a rat. I got to keep the card. And you got to keep it face up in front of if you get four of the same animal. You lose. Everybody else wins. It's It's silly. Taught it to my family. It went over. Eh, okay. I I don't know why Vanessa said, "Maybe just people don't like lying to each other." I said, "Well, it's not necessarily a lie. You can always tell the truth. This is a cockroach and it could be a cockroach, but somebody will eventually figure out that you're always telling the truth."
And you go, "Yeah, that is a cockroach. You just keep it, you know, sort of deal." Um, [snorts] but man, the other favorite I reached out to my sister. I said, "Okay, I've taught you a bunch of games recently. What you want to play?" She said, "Bring that game with the numbers where we got to figure out the sequence." I said, "You talking about Got Five?" She said, "That one."
We played that game twice. Vanessa and Tori, my sister, had become huge fans of that game.
They really like that. Come to find out, Tori really likes deduction games. I said, "Okay, I need to pull out Touring Machine again," which is the more mathy uh version. I said, "I need to pull that out again and let you play that." But I I too like GO got Five. It was [clears throat]
it was it's good. And so we tried to teach my dad, my poor dad, my dad's a smart guy, but man, I could we were trying to we're trying to teach him
how to deduce things like at the very beginning of the game. There's a lot you can deduce. Not only what's on the table, but because you know that if the if your blue dye is the highest one, that means that blue dye can't be the four lowest value. So you can immedately mark those off. So we're telling him there's probably 15 to 20 numbers you can cross off before we even play the game. He's like but how so we're trying to walk him through if this is here then it can't be this one this one or this one sort of deal. So he should play play with me and then both he and I can sit there and just look at each other and like yeah whatever. Y'all figure this game out for us. We'll lose. I'm fine with that. I'm surprised you also didn't play that silly Temple game that we got. That's also I think it's from the same designer
now that I know they like it. Uh deduction games, I'll bring that out next. That one I think is a little bit you have to teach how to read the cards.
Uh there is a little bit of learning. It's like understanding how the cards match up and line up and stuff. But that's another good one to uh teach too, especially because you're affecting what other people do because you can draft numbers making sure somebody else didn't get a card that they want sort of deal. So, there's more player interaction in that game,
which they may like. Well, I know I was out last week, but we did get to play a couple uh new games before I left. And uh so, you want to jump over to our new formatted reviews? Y'all y'all haven't said anything about our new format. What do y'all think? Do you like them with values? Do you like the fact that we're trying to cons get them a little bit quicker? Let let you know what we like, dislike without going heavy into the rules. Uh we haven't had any feedback. I don't know if that means this still sucks or I'm okay with what you've done. I don't know.
Or is is this thing on? Is this thing on?
That's true. All right. This episode we're talking about Realm of Reckoning and Devious. Head over to shop portal gangs.com where you can read about the newest release from Portal that's coming to Gen Con. That's right. And if you're at Gen Con, hey, would you pick me up? One, two, cuz I unfortunately won't be there. But
all aboard.
All aboard. Going all aboard. Chevy's going to be there. Say hi to Chevy at the Portal booth. Head over to that portal booth immediately to pick up a board. Ignazi's been on the interwebs again and he's been telling you all about this amazing game. So go check him out over on YouTube. Europe awaits you in a board and you need to figure out how you are going to make the most of your opportunity to travel to see the sites. You start with a hand of seven location cards from a deck of 240 as well as a postcard with an in-game goal and start your journey through Europe. If you head over to shopportalgames.com, you can pre-order it now for $49.95. That's a 28% savings. And this game will be available come July 2026. Oh, and don't forget Niroshima Hex.
So, the first game we got on the table, Realm of Reckoning, designed by Zack Dixon, Austin Harrison, and Max Anderson from IV Studio, is area control game. Sort of kind of,
but I mean, it's fair. That is fair.
It's a card- driven game that's area control. I mean, it's it's a lot of different things. And I think that's what got all of us. All of us kind of, okay, most of us read rules or watched videos. And I remember all of us came to the table going, there's a lot going on in this game and it feels like it's too much.
And by the time we were done, four out of four people sitting at this table going, that was good.
It wasn't as it wasn't too much like we thought it was going to be. because everything is driven towards actions that you're taking that can either award victory points or every action you take can be used to potentially do some bidding. And Tony probably this is an action game, but it's also as much as a bidding game.
Mhm. Yeah. And and it's got it's got these dual action cards which you enjoy. Anytime we get a game where cards have multiple functions or make decisions challenging, I mean straightforward, I mean you will be playing an action card and you will perform the action shown on the center of the card and there's only four things that you can do with these action cards. You can deploy a follower or an acolyte which is putting people on the board that from your group so that into an area that allows you to have control not control majority.
So the board is uh split up into different colored regions and you deploy things to regions.
You can gain wealth which is just basically getting coins. You can hire a mercenary action which is get just getting another card, but these cards will come in much later um when when we're using them for battling out in an area and recruit a warden. And a warden is just a highpowered acolyte that you will use later when we have was it called? A reckoning.
Realm of reckoning. I get it.
Oh, there you go. Another thing really enjoyed about this game was you're passing cards. You get a hand.
Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. You're not You're not done. You take the main action on the card and then you have to tuck it under your player board. True. This is where the second function of the card comes into play. And when you tuck it, it will either have some icons that are on the card that might be used might might be used for scoring at some point in the game or it dries up your influence token on one of the colored regions on the board. Like I said, there's multiple colored regions on the board and there's a little tracker in each region where you little move up your marker, your influence marker. the acolytes, the gold that you get, the influence might be used for determining victory points for scoring, or they could be used for bidding.
Mhm.
And Tony, the bidding comes into play in this reckoning that you talked about. But before we get there, what you was getting ready to say was another thing I love. Everybody's dealt a hand of cards. Take one. Simultaneously everybody put the card down
and basically the first player goes and resolve around the table. Take that hand of cards and pass it to the left or pass it to the right depending on what round it is. So it is a it is a take and pass style game which I love because you can kind of plan ahead of going I don't know if I want the person to the left to have this card. I better keep this one for myself and then pass the rest.
Right. And there's three rounds in this game, but in the rounds the when you set up these cards, you place in it two reckonings. And these reckonings are relevant to the colors on the board, the land masses on the board, the areas on the board. So you may open up a fan out those cards and you're like, "Oo, so we're going to have a reckoning in yellow." Okay, that's pretty important knowledge to know. So I can position, but I don't want that to occur because when someone plays a reckoning, we have to do a reckoning. and we'll talk through that. But I'll let that one go on by so that maybe the next person passes, I can see what other reckonings coming cuz some people may know exactly which reckonings are coming and some may not just how the cards end up and how they are passed. And deciding when to play this reckoning, I felt Marty was a huge strategy in this game. I did it so that I could get them done quickly, especially if I knew what the um if I if I had majority or I knew that I could have a good result from that.
So the the other card plays very straightforward. It's the reckoning that puts a little twist in the game and the reckoning is important because a reckoning will determine victory point conditions not only for that particular round but for every round afterwards. So, in that very first round, uh there's two reckoning cards within the deck and then one final reckoning. So, there's going to be three reckonings every single round. That means each of those reckonings will determine a victory point condition that will now be used the rest of the game, which is extremely important because if you're the one that triggers a reckoning, you get to do something really cool right off the bat. So, when the board is set up, uh there's these different color regions around the board. And in each region, two claim tokens of the same color are put into that region. So the pink region has two pink claim tokens, blue has two blue.
You kick off a reckoning, you can pull any color claim token from off the board into the region that you're going to have the reckoning. Any claim token in that region, whatever color it is, those colors can now be used for bidding. And remember I talked about earlier everything that you have can potentially use to bid and we secretly bid on a dial how much we're going to commit. Your bids can be paid with by removing acolytes off out of the region that's on the board. It could be paid with influence that you've moved on a track that matches the claim color tokens that's in that reckoning region that's happening. If you have a warden of a same color of that region, it gives you points. You can spend gold to give you bids. Those mercenary cards you can spend if they match the color of the claim tokens can be used for bids.
Everything you do in this entire game can be used towards a bid. And if you're the highest bid, lots of times you can select the reward that allows you to select the victory point condition. This can be anything, y'all. Whoever has the most influence of a particular region, whoever has the most acolytes in a particular region, whoever has the most money, who's in dead last,
and we're going to come back to that one in a minute cuz that kicked my butt [snorts] towards the end of the game. All these victory points all over the board. Only nine of them are going to be scored. and you're trying to position yourself to where maybe I'm the one that can cause a triggering of this particular victory point condition because I'm leading in it right now.
Right. And and the bidding is very important on how you're going to resolve it. Ties are based on who's in last place and that kind
oh
that that was kind of a sticking point for the group. But one but one thing the on the influence tracks for each of the region if you are the leader you get special artifact abilities and so when these artifacts come into play like when you collect wealth you will gain additional wealth or when you collect mercenary cards you will gain additional mercenary cards. They may not seem like a lot but they are some of them are huge. Yours was put out additional alkalytes when you did.
Mhm. No one went after my mercenary cards and I'm over there. The mercenary cards were the unsung heroes for me because if the claim tokens were matched up, both colors matched up in a region. I got to count them both.
Mercenary cards had two colors on them
and it was like, "Oh, this counts two for my bidding. This counts one for my bidding. Oh, I see what I'm doing here." But if you ever tie someone with influence or drop below, you lose it and they then gain it.
Yeah. And each reckoning card has four conditions, four reward conditions. One, one of them is you get to determine the victory point. The others are random stuff. It could be put out some additional acolytes, get some money, get some victory points, but the person who comes in last has a penalty penalty that they must pay. It may be giving up an acolyte. It may be giving up some gold. There is just some penalty for whoever comes in last. So, it's like, oh, I don't want to ever come in last. Or do you, Tony? cuz that's one of the things I kind of liked about this game is maybe I had a huge bid and I wanted to really determine what the victory point condition was going to be. But say Tony, you beat me. You get to claim because you had the highest bid. You get to go first and go, well, I'm going to take this. Marty, you're next. I'm going to go like, you know what? I'm going to take the the pen penalization reward. If you take that reward, you don't have to pay your bid. And uh when that clicked for everybody, that became a strategy.
It's like, "Oh, I'll gladly sacrifice a few coins if I don't have to pay off this huge bid that I just did because I don't really get what I want."
Mhm. Yeah, I I agree. And then you can also say, "Huh, I wonder if that is something that maybe they will try to force the bids up, you know, and there there was a lot of gamemanship in that. The bidding was was the game. All right. For all of us and you could see where it was driving because the reckoning cards were right there in the deck and the rewards, you knew where you would be playing. It was pretty fast. I mean, we it our learning game was, you know, we took a little little while, but I mean, turns were very quick. Boom, boom, boom. This is what I pick this card. Yeah, I'm done. Let's go. Next thing. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Oh, we're getting near the final reckoning. We better Oh, maybe slow this slow this down a little bit so I figure out what I'm doing.
Yeah. And so when we're done, you do have that final reckoning. And the person with the least amount of victory points executes the final reckoning. Now, let's go ahead and get to one of the sticking points that some of us had. The person with the least amount of points had a lot of catch-up mechanics. They get to turn the final reckoning. They broke all ties. And that was critical in some situations. I'm just going to jump to the end of one of our games to where on that final bid for the reckoning, you're kind of cashing in all your chips. There's no need to carry anything over. Make a huge bid if you think you need to. Now, you can't bid everything, right? Because you have nine things you're going to score on. And let's say, for example, one of them is majority in the blue area. And right now, you have majority. Well, then you don't want to spend your acolytes out of that area to use for bid because then you lose majority and then end up losing victory points. So, you can't go necessarily all in, but you are go ahead and try to do as big as you can. And that's what happened in the final bid.
Tony, you and Bert were in last place.
I was in first, but you were only behind by by three. Bert smartly chose the victory point condition that says whoever's in the last place in the third round gets 15 points.
That's right. And if there's a tie, we share.
It's not even a share. It's a friendly tie. Both of you get 15 points.
Mhm.
So you two guys jump way ahead of me and then we go to scoring and end up coming in last place. And I'm like, that just doesn't seem right because we were all clumped together and there was this huge catch-up mechanic for the person who was in last. If that 15 points hadn't been there, you still would have won cuz you played the game really well. Alex would have come in second at that point. Yeah.
And not dead last.
But you should have bid better so that you could have picked that monument.
I did. I bid a lot.
But you didn't bid enough.
I didn't bid enough. I didn't bid enough. So, I I will say I appreciate the catchup mechanic, but boy, it was there was Let me just tell tell you this. If y'all if you play the game, don't jump out to a huge lead. You actually it doesn't hurt kind of stay in the pack because sometimes breaking ties, especially during reckoning bids is huge. and certain things that you can get points at the end of an age kind of help guide you on what you may want to do depending on um how you're what what you're leading like my I had this mercenary one that said hey for every mercenary card you get victory points okay I always stayed in the I don't know why I never because this was our first time playing I was like man I am getting killed here I am not making any points but I was like okay now wait a minute if y'all are going to go put your monuments over there. Maybe near the end the third round I can catch up on those points or maybe I can start gaining some areas where I am strong where I have the the majority like hey whoever has majority in the southern regions here will get victory points. Well, I'm going to put the little monument there and I'm just going to sit there and be still because I know what reckonings are coming up and it's not in the southern region. So, I know I'm going to get victory points down there. So, a lot of this was going on.
Yeah. you use the term monument, which we hadn't used yet. Monument marks on the board what victory point conditions are going to be scoring the rest of the game. That's the term that's used as placing a a monument. But what's cool is is once a monument's been placed, now you know, okay, well, the rest of the game this is going to score. I need to put some of my resources and effort into that scoring opportunity. So, it also drives the game, which is why every game will be different. Every single time you play because different victory conditions will be chosen at different times. So, a game will never play the exact same way. This game has a lot of player interaction, which I love. You're fighting over territories. You're you're doing the bidding of the reckoning. The simultaneous card play. Everybody choose, play, resolve, pass cards, continue until you end the round. Yes, the game does take 90 minutes to two hours for four players, but Tony, to me, this was a fastm moving 90 minutes to two hours because there's never really any downtime.
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. It was constant. The only time that we had downtime was waiting on people to select their bids.
You do have to math that out because a lot of people are going, "Well, if I spend this," cuz remember, like I said, you could spend everything to help you make a bid. Acolytes, gold, mercenaries. So you're trying to add up how much can I dedicate to this without really screwing myself in the future. So you're right that did take a little bit of time, but all of us are doing it simultaneously.
Yeah. All right. Some So we've talked about the various things we liked and some of the cons from from that standpoint. I do I did enjoy the game. I was very pleased by the fact that it was a constant battling between people on area majority where we're battling and and you know having wars and and trying to gain uh the lands. It was all about being very strategic in how you laid out your acolytes to help you gain reckonings and your bids. That's where this majority stuff came in. That was probably the biggest plus for me. No big battles between us. It was on us to decide how we were going to resolve area majority, not because you came in with a bigger army,
right? And not every area scored based on area majority. So some of you didn't even care about.
Mhm. You know, you know, it's like, okay, so I don't have area majority in that area. Who cares? We're not scoring it right now anyway. Sure, somebody could place a monument there to trigger scoring in that for area, but for right now, it's not happening. So yeah, let's I I mean I I kind the negatives. I don't know if it's really a negative. I I just think you got to be conscious of this catch-up mechanic from Dead Last and Bert who said, you know, I think the the the catch-up mechanic I think is really where it will seem unfair is if towards the end of the game, everyone is really clumped together and that that person in last place gets to make a play that just really alters the game and puts them in a big lead that it's hard now for everybody else to catch up because the game's over, sort of deal. And you just have to then think about that from the bidding. We don't want that person to be able to score the last monument to put it there, right? Yeah.
But but how are they what and maybe there's that pause, you know, that final reckoning when everybody's sitting there going, "Okay, how many points are you going to score? How many points are you going to score? Where's that going to do? You know, what's that how's it going to adjust the board?"
Now, to be fair, uh that a monument could have been put in that last place scoring in round one.
Mhm.
In round one, last place gets five points. In round two, they get 10. In round three, they get 15. It's just nobody put it there. So, in another game, somebody may select that right off the bat. Then everybody knows, oh well, I being a last isn't necessarily a bad thing anymore.
It will [clears throat] just depend on the game you play and where the monuments are passed.
Tony, final scoring. What do you think?
Overall, quick gameplay, very interactive. I'm going to go with a I'm going to go seven this time. Seven.
Seven.
Seven nuts. I'm giving it seven nuts.
Seven nuts. I think I liked it a tad more than that because it's one of those games I couldn't stop thinking about. It's rare that there's a Euro style game. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I couldn't stop thinking about what what if I done this or I love how this mechanism works. I love the fact that sometimes you just want to go ahead and select the worst reward and not have to pay the bid. There's a lot of little things going on. And when I first read the rules, I thought it's too much. And after I played that first game, I went, "Nope, I get it. It all makes logical sense why it's there. I'm going eight.
I'm going eight. It's really one of the best experiences I've had in a Euro, especially this year.
All right. Well, there you have it. Age of Reckoning from IVC.
Age of Reckoning.
That's the Warhammer MMO.
The Days of Reckoning. Did I get it right that time?
How about Realm of Reckoning
from IV Studios.
Hey, another game from IV Studios is Tend, where players take on the role of a pioneer working for the Zenith Corporation to start a homestead on a new alien world. And by gosh, if you like flipping right games, then you will possibly oh, you're going to like this game because you're going to be building up your own farm and collecting the greatest selection of goods to send back to the Zenith headquarters for study. As the game progresses, new cards will be added to a shared deck, changing what actions are available for the whole table throughout the course of the game. Hey, replayability, variability. Players earn victory points for collecting badges, completing season objectives, and being the best neighbor. A and filling up their cargo manifest with goods to send back to the Zenith headquarters. Got to tell the man, here's our good stuff. In addition, you like flip, right? This has flip and stamp. It has scratch. It has roll. I mean, it has all these interactive elements going on with this game. And y'all, this is a little bit heavier game. This is not your typical like quick rolling, right? No, this is a 60 to 90minute game. Plays one to six players. So, it's a little bit more meaty than those other games. Maybe you want something with the with that flipping, right? The scratch and is it scratch and sniff? Just they should put scratch and sniff in there. I don't know. That's what I'm saying. Put some sniffing in there.
The markers are all different colors. I hope the blue is blueberry and the red is strawberry and the green is lime and the uh yellow is lemon and the red is tomato.
So you this game has received many game of the year awards and top 10 nominations over 20 so far. There's also an online component where you can challenge your friends across the world who is also playing this game. This game is coming out in limited quantities right now. You can head over to shop.ivv.studio studio in order to order 10. While you're there, I really think you should check out Realm of Reckoning, which of course we did like with the card drafting, variable scoring, big reveals, simultaneous play. It's available right now, too. Tend Realm of Reckoning. You can get both over at shop.ib.studio. Check it out. We recommend it. And Tony, I'm kind of looking forward to trying out Tind for ourselves.
All right, time for another card game because we love card games. Y'all know that. This game's called Devious from Glen Carter from Smirk and Dagger Games. This is an anti-sacket collection game where you're not trying to get the necessarily the most of the same thing instead. In fact, sometimes the best is to only have a single of the same thing. But the best thing about this game is how you get your card. So, all right, start off. There are 13 different tribes, Tony. 13 different types of fairies. In this game, you're going to select six to mix together and make a deck. Going to play over five rounds. Each round, each person is given three cards of fairies. Okay, I got three cards. I see three cards in my hand. I know I'm going to want this card or this card or that card. Okay, I'm I'm excited. Okay,
not necessarily. Each of these cards uh have ranks from one to five, but Tony, you don't It's not like the card you're going to keep for yourself. No, no, no, no. Instead, you're going to stack three cards and pass them off to your neighbor face down.
So, I can't look at them.
I You can look at them and decide before you pass them to your neighbor. Then your neighbor and all of you at the same time will take the top card of the deck and look at it and go, "Hm, do I want to keep this card and play it or do I want to discard it and go to the second card?"
Now, [clears throat] what is your neighbor trying to do? Your neighbor's trying to get you to take the worst card. Is the worst card on the bottom of the stack of the three? Is it on the top or maybe the second? Tony, that's the fun of this game is trying to look at what your neighbor's doing and what they're collecting. Stack those cards strategically and go, "Here, now you decide for yourself. Fate is in your hands, my friend."
That's right. Cuz when you pick that one card, you have to discard the rest. You're you're out for that round. And I mean, some of these tribes, some have in-game scoring, some may negate certain rules, but like Mari said, it's anti- set collection. So, you're going to score points based on suits. Or if you have two of one, two of the same tribe, and three of the same tribe, then it's uh if I remember correctly, Mario, I think it was almost negative points or zero.
After five rounds, you're going to look at each of the fairies that you have. If you have a single ferry, you score points based on it its rank. Mhm. If you have two of the same fairy, you score zero. If you have three or four, you score negative points of the highest rank. But if you shoot the moon and have five or more of a same tribe, all scores of your other tribes are canceled. Instead, score the sum of all the cards in this particular tribe. So, if you can try to collect as many as you can, you actually come out on top. So, it is kind of like shooting the moon, right? It's like I'm going all in on this one, but if I only get four, I just screwed myself.
That's right. And you So, it's going to require you to do some card counting, and it's simple card counting because there's not that many cards that you can't keep track of it. Um, and that that's one of the things with your name. Well, I'm just saying
the reason why is because the cards that are discarded, you don't get to look at.
Crap. That's right. You don't, do you?
No. If I keep the top card of a deck, the other two I have to push to the discard pile and never see what they were. Oh, that's right. Oh, man.
We had a lot of fun with this. All right. Straight.
We played multiple times, y'all. Yeah. I mean, cuz you can mix and match. Out of the 13, we just kept mixing six different ones to see how plays. And but each fairy does something different, like Tony said. For example, dismiss a fairy from any alliance, including your own. So, you can look around the table and go, "Oh, I'm g disc card that card." Or, "Oh, I've got two of this one. I'm gonna discard one of mine, so I can only have a single. So, now it will score points." or steal a fairy from somebody else.
You need to shoot.
Swap a fairy.
Boom.
Yeah. Swap a fairy with somebody else. 13 different abilities here. The player interaction in this game is so good because of the stacking of the three cards and passing to your neighbor. And then you pass clockwise, counterclockwise, back and forth over five rounds.
Yeah. And and Smirk and Dires gives you some options for the various sets to build or you can randomly do it by just dealing out six of the cards that they give you of the tribes. So, a lot of fun. We We did I've already said this. It was a lot of fun and really enjoyed the passing of the cards, trying to set it up so that there was some bluffing involved to watching to see, okay, is is he going to take is she going to take that second card or does do they think I put the best card on top and they don't realize maybe there's something better based on what they're building and they pass it up and you kind of giggle to yourself. Go,
you're screwed now, buddy. Mhm.
And sometimes the cards you pass, all of them are good.
Yeah.
It It's just like you then you try to like, "Oh gosh, I got to make sure he just doesn't keep the best one of the three good ones,
right? So, how did he how did they stack this on me? Do I take the chance? Roll the dice?" No, that's the entertainment of this game. Quick, reset, play again. A lot of fun.
Uh, I'm going to give this We play a lot of different card games. Seven. This is This is This is a solid seven for me. Every time you play is going to be different because you can use six different packs. Like Tony said in the rule book, they have ones it's like, do you want to be really mean to each other? Use these six, you know, sort of deal. Or if you want a just fun, familyfriendly game, use these six. So yeah, solid seven for me. I agree. Goes up to six. Hard to find games, you know, good quick card games that go up to six. So I'm going to give it a seven as well. Um, the only downside of this, it doesn't go up a little bit more, is I think having to explain how certain cards work. We'll slow it down with with my larger play group, the ones that I talked about already, but only play Opa or Five Crowns. This is one of those that I don't know if I could get it to the table to them. I think it would be a blast once I get it past how the cards work and I don't have to constantly remind them. So, what does this do? If I can get past that, this would be another fun little game to put in the um rotation. Devious from Smirk and Dagger Games.
Hey, talking about a bunch of Gen Con games coming out. Where's the best place you can go get those pre-ordered? That's over at miniaturemarket.com. The pre-orders for these new games are starting to show up. Even before they get stocked, you can go out there, put a pre-order in. Soon as it's available, you can go and have it shipped to you or put it on hold. Get a bunch of pre-orders together. Put them together, one cart, get that free shipping over a hundred bucks, have them all sent to you. Tons of games coming out. I'm sure everybody's been looking at the Gen Con previews and say, "Ooh, that looks good. I've heard about that. That looks good." Well, head over to miniaturemarket.com. Check out the pre-orders for all these new games. Get them in there. Really good prices, cheap shipping. Miniaturearket.com.
And we're live from the living room as Doug eyes up the match spread. He's reaching for the Buffalo wing. Perfect. Hang on. WHAT'S THIS? OH, HE'S GONE FOR A CAN OF PEPSI, TOO. INCREDIBLE. WHAT A FINISH. SENSATIONAL COMBINATION. LOOK AT the delight on his face. There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match days deserve Pepsi. Food deserves Pepsi. Grab a pack of Pepsi Zero Sugar for today's match. It's poetry in motion.
Oh boy. Uh let's go ahead and let me warn you when we in September get together with Chris and Dan to talk about our summer movie. Oh, congratulations, by the way, on winning uh to get together for our summer movie finale.
Uhhuh.
Dan is so mad at me cuz I did not like Supergirl.
Oh, really?
Okay. I did come out hot and give the movie a four out of 10.
Yeah, you did kind of trash it down a little bit, didn't you?
Because I just read the book. The movie is based on Woman of Tomorrow
and the book is a thousand times better than the movie.
Um, the theme of the book was totally altered in the movie because the author, the writer of the movie admits, I read the book and this happens at the end of the book. The author of the comic, this is from 2019, so it's not like it's been around for decades. The author of the book comes out and says, "You misunderstood. This did not happen in the book." And I was like, "Oh, well, we did it anyway." What? Really? And so, and so Dan was getting on me. It's the same theme. And so, we were going back and forth and stuff. So, here's the thing is it's an opinion. That's my opinion. He liked it. I didn't care for it. That That's cool. I don't begrudge anybody for liking something, but you know, so I don't know how hot and heavy it's going to get in September when it comes.
I'll tune y'all out. Y'all y'all can go as long as you want. I'll just tune y'all out. I'll take I mean I know um Devil Wears Prada scored big for me. Spider-Man's going to be huge.
Congrats. And and honestly, we Oh my gosh. So, get this, man. I don't think Chris and I could have drafted any worse in the first round than what we did.
Okay.
Uh Disclosure Day and Supergirl are total 100% flops. They are losing a ton of money. And I passed on a Christopher Nola movie again. Again, this is the third time I've done this. Not I don't I don't know how well it's going to do, but you know what's going to do better than it's going to do better than an opening of like $40,000 or whatever $40 million of whatever disclosure they did, which was horrible.
Which was a Spielberg and you're like, "Ah, this has got to work." I mean, even John Williams came out of retirement to do the score for this thing for him. Come on. It had to be that good.
Disclosure Disclosure Day sucked.
Oh, bad movie. It was a bad Yeah, don't watch it. It was a bad movie.
Well, I streamed my first one uh recently.
Yeah.
And it was Sheep Detective.
Sheep detectives.
What' you think?
I loved it.
Yeah.
I thought it was hilarious. I The voice actors I was like, "Oh, man. That's the guy from Ted Lasso. That's perfect." Doing the two Rams. Oh, I was like this Brian Cranston. I was like, man, you know, and it had a little tyranny moment. I was like, a. So, even even Donna, she's like, "How stupid is this going to be?" And I go, "Well, let's give it a try." But it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed watching Sheep Detectives. So, I didn't give any money to the studio, but I did stream it. So, there you go.
What would you watch next that comes out to the stream that you're interested in came out in the summer? Summer summer movies.
It'll be Prada.
Yeah. Be That's not out yet, is it? Yeah.
Uh, you can rent it.
Okay. Yeah. Dude, that's that's doing so well. Good lord.
I told you it would.
You You are winning this. It's not even close. I mean, Dan took Toy Story, which is doing well, but Spider-Man's going to do better than Toy Story,
plus you have Odyssey, plus you have Prada. I mean, it's
I forgot what I drafted. I knew I thought it was Spider-Man and um Prada.
No, you drafted Prada in the third round.
Oh, that's right. Cuz y'all don't have any faith in it. I'm like, y'all just giving up on Prada? Really? This this movie is so going to be so huge. It's a playback. It's a combat.
Oh man, really? I didn't know I had Odyssey. Okay, cool.
Yeah. So, congrats. Congrats on your You'll get to pick last next year. So,
that's where I belong. I'll finally win one. Okay. I like that.
What stinks is um Gez, the weekend that Spider-Man comes out, you and I are are gone.
So, I'm gonna have to You're going to be at your at your daughter's. I'm going to be in Atlanta for Southern Pride. I'm like, I'm gonna have to try to avoid spoilers. I'm just going to have to stay off the internet because that is going to be a spoiler heavy movie, I assume.
Oh, yeah. I was enjoying watching Homecoming again. Just the the cuteness of Homecoming. I'm like, "Oh, man. These are so good." What What was my um dark horse? Do you remember? I I was I'm looking for this.
Yes, sir. I do. Talk amongst yourselves.
I got it pulled up right here. Dark. My dark horse was Paw Patrol Dino. I have no idea even if that came out.
I don't know.
But you got Young Washington. It's gotten a lot of talk.
You know what I passed up on for Young Washington?
What
I said in the show, I said, you know what, Back Rooms could be cool, but instead I'm going to pick Young Washington. What an idiot. What an idiot. Back Rooms is destroy Back Rooms is going to beat Supergirl on Disclosure Day.
It's going to beat two first round.
Okay. So stupid.
So stupid.
[gasps]
All right, with that, keep rolling dice. So mad. So mad. Yeah, y'all don't get so supergirl. I'm just telling you right now, if you want just to stream it, don't watch it in the theater. It's not worth it. Okay. And taking names. Hey y'all, thanks for listening. Make sure to go over to our website, roll dice take ns names. Where did that come from? Roll dice take names. And join our Discord channel from over there. Join our socials. You can follow us on X Instagram. I'm trying to post more on Instagram cuz Vanessa said that's where you need to be posting again. You can find over all all that over at world ice techname.com.
381 episodes. You'd think we'd be better at this.
Maybe I should release the blooper edit somewhere for us trying to record a simple commercial, y'all. It was sad. Sad.