The Big Black

Shiney! I finally got Firefly the Game back on the table recently and got to mosey in the ‘verse again with a few stalwart fans. I brought all the expansions like usual, and we ended up playing the base game like usual. It’s a lot of card piles to take in and I’m always reluctant …

Counting Dubloons

We gathered last weekend to scourge the skies with Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest. This is a very approachable game and you generally get the basic mechanics after the end of the first round, but it’s also got enough variation in possible card selection to keep it interesting too. I was familiar with standard Libertalia, so …

Master and Commander

I played a game of Commander with my nephews yesterday, it was the older one’s birthday and I’d given him some upgrades for his precon so they were all pumped to play. Unfortunately I didn’t have a ton of time, so I showed them my Rakdos “Watch the World Burn” deck. They are now familiar …

We are Wolves

Over the Thanksgiving break I dropped in to a board game cafe in Asheville called Well Played. They have a suitably impressive array of games available to while away an afternoon or 400. We ended up selecting a game called The Wolves, partly because it satisfied our need for a 5 player game, but mostly …

Taluva

Taulva is a beautiful little game that is quick to set up and easy to explain. Watch I’ll teach you how to play right now. Each turn consists of two actions 1) place a tile and 2) place a building. If you are unable to play a building you are out of the game. That’s …

A man, a plan, a canal = Peloponnese Island

I recently traveled to Greece and had taken to cruising Wikipedia for interesting bits of information. I will now relate them to you. Greece is located at the southern tip of the Balkan Peninsula.  Drilling further down, Athens lies on the Attica Peninsula, and to the west Corinth (red pin) sits at the gateway to the larger Peloponnese …

The Palace Root

Palatine Hill in Rome is a well known area featured throughout history and called “the first nucleus of the Roman Empire.” It is the centermost of the seven hills that fostered settlement near the Tiber River long ago. Palatine Hill housed an array of Palaces, starting with the Palace of Domitian in 81 CE. In fact, …

Games Got Rules

SailGP is exciting, there’s no doubt about that. I mean, you start with 50-foot foiling wingsail catamarans and then add in the best sailors in the world. Top it off by plonking TEN of them down on a single racecourse and the result is entirely predictable: Close calls, collisions, protests. Oh, did I mention they …