Star Wars Risk is a game that suprised us completely. We had heared that is wasn’t really like Risk (which is a good thing because I’m not a big Risk fan), but it turns out that it REALLY is nothing like Risk! The board is shaped as a TIE Fighter and divided in three parts. The middle of the board is the big epic space battle and the two sides of the board are for the fight between Luke and Darth Vader and the battle for the shield generators of the Death Star. The components are of a slightly lesser quality than most games have nowadays, but if you get it for a right price, that shouldn’t be too much of a bother.

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This weekend was our big game day! Eightstravaghanza! It started out with us wanted to play Captain Sonar and sending an invite to a bunch of our friends… with the idea that a lot of people already had things planned that day and we would end up with 8 players. But no! In the end about 20 people came to play games at our place! We had eight players playing Captain Sonar downstairs in the kitchen, people playing Tricky Towers on the Playstation in the livingroom and we had another group of people playing other games upstairs in our working room. Other games that were played  that day are Cash ‘n Guns, Tokaido, Secret Hitler, King of Tokyo and Formula D.

It was a great day with a lot of our friends and it’s even greater to see people having a great time together even though they don’t all know each other.

Since Rogue One has just been released… 

What’s your favorite Star Wars board game

Playing in the comforts of your own home and pets can have their advantages as well…

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Chris suggested to play Chinatown one evening and it was, no surprise, a lot of fun! Most games we play lately are very good or interesting, so it seems. Chinatown is a bargaining game, but not a too agressive one. This is also due to the random tile and lot number drawing. The tricky part comes when you add money to a bargain! We’ve heard people lose the game with a difference of just 40 000 dollar (which is really nothing in this game) – that’s how close it can get in the end.

Yesterday we went to friends and played a lot of board games. We’ve played Evolution, Codenames and Glen More and on our way back in the train we played Star Realms, Ascension and Forbidden Desert on a tablet. Pfew, that be a lot of games for one day, good times!

Santa news! We received a gift from our BGG Secret Santa last week. It’s the Arkham Horror card game! We were already really psyched about this and then we received a message that this was not the only gift… what?! So exciting! 😀 We’ve played the first scenario and my character isn’t doing too well. Poor guy was frozen in fear – constantly. We can’t wait to continue and see what happens next this week.

When it comes to playing board games, would you consider yourself to be a very competitive player or not?

(What, you don’t know Dork Tower? Go check it out!)

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Santa has delivered our gifts to our target in BoardGameGeek’s Secret Santa! We hope our ‘target’ likes them. I wanted to add something nice to the experience without directly reveiling our identity – so… we added an image of NOT the Dork Tower! Our target might find this and knows that we are his Santa or not, we’ve had fun nonetheless. 😉

Our Santa is tons of fun! He or she has put a lot of work into organizing everything and keeps us up to date of the progress. We’ll probably receive our gift somewhere this or next week. So exciting!

It was Heinze’s birthday Saturday and he got War of the Ring! It’s a biiiig game. And the (Dutch) rulebook is hard to figure out, but we’re excited to play it as soon as we actually know how to play it. Does anybody of our readers have a good suggestion (video/site?) for learning War of the Ring (1st edition)?

We’ll keep you up to date what games we get from our santa!

Have you ever participated in BGG’s Secret Santa?

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So we finally played World Without End! The game in which you can receive cloth (blankets in the Dutch version) as a reward after helping a plague victim. Well, that does immediately explain why that plague keeps spreading throughout the game. 😉

We really liked the game and we were a little surprised that it’s so good, since everybody is always talking about Pillars of the Earth being the better game (we haven’t played that yet). World Without End is a relatively light Eurogame. It has just the right amount of random events that can change the game around and that can create some tense and hilarious situations but it does pay off to think about your actions.

Our friends told us that the game is terrible with two players,  they were thinking about selling it – but luckily they didn’t yet.

What’s your favorite Eurogame?

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Warning, programming joke!  Making the  phrase “Hello world” appear on a screen is often the first bit of code people write when learning a new code language. Mechs vs Minions is a programming game so … ah, you get it! 😉 

We’ve played the first three missions of Mechs vs Minions and it’s a lovely game. No regrets that we took this gigantic box into our house.

In the first mission it felt like we were just twirling around the board aimlessly, but that got better in the next few times we played it. I’ve read some compaints that the game is too easy, but since we’ve lost the first three missions the first time we’ve played it and then won them when we tried again the second time: it feels balanced just fine (so far). Maybe there’s a difference when you play the game with more than two players though, we haven’t tried that yet.

What do you think of so called ‘programming’ board games, love it or hate it?

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The comic speaks for itself. It was inspired by (recent) events in the world and by this amazing video of Actualol.

We received our copy of Evolution: Climate! We’ve only yet played it with two players and noticed that the climate track wasn’t really swinging to any extreme temperatures. We’ll play it again soon with more players to see what happens then. The new trait cards are cool though and we’re excited to try the event cards.

We also got our copy of Captain Sonar! We had to wait for a reprint since the review of Shut up & Sit Down. 😉 We’re planning to organize a nice 8-player games day around it with friends. Can’t wait!

What are the best games to play with 8 players (that don’t take up to 3 hours)?

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Small World! A ‘new’ classic. I still think it’s a great gateway game thanks to its pace, lovely art and general sillyness. 🙂

Yesterday there was another Netrunner tournament! I was asked a few months back if I’d like to design a custom Netrunner card of The Supplier, displaying our FLGS Comicasa as a sort of thank you for the store and as a cool little price for all the participants. Of course I said yes and it was ‘released’ yesterday. The owners of the store got a very nice large print to hang at the wall and I received a lot copies of the card.

>Click here to see the original image of the card.<

(If you would like some Supplier cards to give away as a price at a local Netrunner tournament, send me a message and I could send you some. If you’re in The Netherlands: you can visit the Comicasa and ask them for a copy of the card!)

We’ve been interviewed by DadMostlyLoses and it was published last week! You can read it by clicking here.

What do you think is a great gateway game to get people interested in board games?

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Happy Halloween! This comic highlights two of the bigger fears of board gamers. Cheeto fingers and the card bending. So if you’re still looking for an easy, cheap and really frightening outfit for your Halloween night with board gaming friends: these two are viable options! 😉

In other news : we’ve signed up for BoardGameGeek’s Secret Santa event this year! We’ve had some disappointing experiences with the Reddit board game Secret Santa, but we’d like to try again with the BGG public. Giving and receiving gifts is just so much fun. Especially if they are board game themed of course.

Since it is Halloween tonight, we’ll be playing Ghostel again. We received a prototype of the game of Tinkerbot Games earlier this year and it’s surely a game you might wanna check when it’s available. It was a lot more puzzly-tactical than we first anticipated, which is a good thing.

What (thematic) game will you be playing on All Hallows’ Eve?

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Yaay, last week we received our copy of Mechs vs. Minions and it is such an impressive box in the in- and outside. And it’s huge and heavy, filled with loads of miniatures, cardboard, cards and even metal coins.

We’ve both been too busy to play it yet (alas) and this weekend we went on a little holiday (it can be so pretty here: impression 1, impression 2) and Mechs vs. Minions is not the sort of game you take with you in a suitcase to play at your hotel. 😉  What we did take along is the printable first case of Arkham Investigator, which we still have to finish, so’ I’ll discuss it another time.

Back to the giant box that’s filling up the screen. We did manage to play the tutorial last night and that was kind of hilarious. My mech in particular felt like it was whirling and twirling around while it was blasting fire around and… not hitting anything. I’m sure I’ll get better at it in the first mission. … I hope. 😀 If you want to know more about Mechs Vs. Minions, I’d advice reading the review by Shut Up & Sit Down.

What’s the biggest game box you own?

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So. Many. (New). Games. At. Spiel 2016. (Really, here’s a PDF where all the games are listed in – it’s 115 pages long)

It’s a shame I really had no time to go to Spiel due to multiple deadlines this week – but even if you were there: where would you start? With that many cool games being presented there, how would you make a choice what to check out? The games listed in the comic are only a faction of all the games on the list of all the games. It’s fascinating and so many of them looked fun or interesting. I hope that the people who did go to Spiel in Essen had a great time. Let us know in the comments which games really stood out to you.

We’ve also made another time lapse video. This time of Android Mainframe, the game has a nice buildup that works really well on camera. This actually was the first time that we managed to completely fill the board and we both made a terrible mistake, but luckily the timelapse goes far too quick to really see them. 😉  If you want to keep track of what we’re playing you should follow us on Instagram!

Do you go to board game conventions? Why (not)?
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