Taking an early lead in a board game, I know it’s not a good idea but I will do it every game. Even when there is no way an opponent can directly influence my situation I will pull off some sort of fun combo that will convince others into trying harder while I’m just enjoying a nice early lead! I didn’t even know it was so obvious this is my constant pitfall until Rachel came up with this comic and she said “You know, you are the character in this comic”.

This week we didn’t play a lot of games together because I went to Bristol for some family business but in Bristol, I met up with our friend Russel who is better known on the internet as For Chits & Giggles. We met in the new location of Chance & Counters board game café where Russel is responsible for buying the games and running their social media. We talked about what we’d been up to and played some games and ended up having such a good time I almost missed my bus! We played Town 66, Paris: La Cité de la Lumière, and Village Rails which I lost after taking an early lead… All the games are great two players that hold a lot more depth than it small boxes make you believe. I think Paris: La Cité de la Lumière was my favorite and I might need to hunt down a copy.

I also got to finish my game of Voyages while taking the train to the airport. While my opinion stands that the first map is pretty reminiscent of Guild of Merchant Explorers (thanks Eres, for pointing out the right name!), I didn’t realize the different maps all come with different rules! (just like Guild of Merchant Explorers…) We just started the second map, so we’ll see how much it switches up the game. Speaking of playing games while traveling, Rachel and I played quite a bit of the new Paperback app this month while sitting on different trains and it’s a great implementation of the classic word/deck builder. We can highly recommend it if you are looking for a great board game app.

Lastly, Rachel and I got to play the new Undaunted: Battle of Britain and it is a really fresh change to the infantry-based Undaunted games that have come before. Battle of Britain is about air battles which means that for every action card you play to activate a plane, you automatically have to make a move action. This not only makes the game much more dynamic it also makes winning the initiative so much more important. In the previous Undaunted games it would be annoying to lose a card from your hand after getting hit but now losing the initiative could mean your whole turn falls apart because enemy planes are suddenly in completely different spots on the map. While the first scenario was a simple skirmish, the second scenario is a German bombing run on some British ships, so we’re very keen on seeing how that one plays out.

Tomorrow our copy of Heat will arrive, so that is something to look forward to. We’ll also get to continue our Artisans of Splendentvale campaign on Friday, and we might play some games on Thursday as well! So here’s hoping it will be a nice game-filled week.