Each month the Tabletop Together Team gets together to compare notes and talk about what board games we got to play. In this article series, we share the highlights of the last month with you.
Peter H. Møller
It’s been a great month for me. Not only did I get to play some of my “older” favourite board games, but also got to try out a bunch of new to me games. I’m glad I got Grand Austria Hotel on the table again. This fantastic dice drafting game never disappoints, and it’s even better with my new “blinged-out” tokens (I know it’s silly, but it meant more to me than it should have).
I was on a 1-week tour of Denmark (my home country) with my wife, and I, of course, brought a lot of small 2 player games along. I’m so glad I did because I got to play 3 great games I never tried before: Schotten Totten, Tea for 2 and Opale. All fantastic games that I would highly recommend, and all very different. Tea for 2 is great, silly fun. It’s the children’s game War evolved. A little deck building, a little variable end-game goal and a great Alice in Wonderland theme and art. Great fun to play on vacation along with a nice cup of tea (or in my case coffee).
Jacob
Just like Peter, July was also a great month for me. I was able to play a grail game in Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit, as well as a bunch of games I wouldn’t normally get to play. Two that stood out to me this month were Marvel Champions: The Card Game and Forgotten Waters.
Both are cooperative games and play well in the format, but what has gotten me the most excited about these games is how easy they will be to get to the table as solo games. I love the idea of pairing up a superhero with different aspects to create a whole new experience when taking on the villains in Marvel Champions. Should I use a Captain America Leadership deck, or maybe Cap was having a rough day so he will be Aggressive. For Forgotten Waters, the story is engaging, the “rounds” are interesting and varied and there are several different scenarios ready to play, but you can even play a scenario multiple times and still not feel like you are repeating everything. I can’t wait to have to manage multiple pirates to try and utilize their abilities to maximize the rewards.
Eline
Last month I was beyond excited to get It’s a Wonderful World by La Boîte de Jeu to the gaming table again. This card drafting and engine building game pits 1 to 5 players as rivalling empires. The goal of the game is to develop your empire faster and better than your competitors. I love how tight this race for supremacy feels. Every decision matters as the game only last 4 rounds. It’s always tough to decide which drafted cards to recycle for immediate resources and which ones to slate for later construction to produce resources each round and victory points. My boyfriend and I met up twice with 3 friends to play the “War or Peace” campaign. Storywise, the campaign is predictable but it’s a great experience nonetheless. Some small and easy implemented tweaks in gameplay cause every chapter in the campaign to feel unique.
Sadly the joy of getting together again for game-night didn’t last long, as a 2nd COVID-19 wave is now imminent where I live. Contacts outside your household are extremely restricted and even a curfew is enforced. Last time Belgium had a curfew was during WWII. So very fittingly my boyfriend and I are now spending our evenings playing Undaunted: Normandy by Osprey Games. In this 2-player deck-building game my boyfriend is commanding the allies and I command the German forces. We relive the battles following the D-Day landings in the summer of 1944 and control our units by playing cards from our deck. Each of the 12 missions can be played as stand-alone or you can opt to chain them into a campaign. We scout our surroundings, claim control of vantage points, shoot at each other and bolster more forces. Reckless is my middle name and it’s proving to be catastrophic as every casualty, a player takes, removes a card from their deck. Currently, the allies are waltzing through my German defensive line. Funnily that doesn’t feel all too bad. It’s an amazingly smooth and swift war game that I highly recommend!
Peter van der Helm
This month I was on my summer holiday and brought some games to play with my family. The kids love Tales & Games: The Hare & Tortoise so we played that a lot. It is still a super fun race game. I packed 7 Wonders Duel and Watergate to have some good 2-player games to play with my wife during our trip. My wife insisted on playing the New York Times again in Watergate, so I still don’t have a feel for that side in this asymmetrical game. Back home we played The Quest for El Dorado again, which is a family favourite at the moment.
I’ve been inviting friends over for games as of last week, which had been a long time since COVID-19. I had the opportunity to play 1942 USS Yorktown, which is a clever dice game about sinking a Japanese battleship. It’s quite the dice fest, but the theme comes through. Last game of the month was Castles of Burgundy. It was my second go at this classic and I even managed a win this time.
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