Rocky Mountain Meeples

I had just set up and started to learn CoLab (partially seen in the background) from @theportaldragon … when this beauty arrived unannounced! No email or shipping notice, but it’s here and looks amazing 🤩 Thank you @aegminions for Let’s Go to Japan!! The Furoshiki bento cloth is such a wonderful touch 🥹 Ok back to CoLab! I have A LOT of content saved up and ready to go soon here PLUS a “don’t call it a comeback” Giveaway coming! But first I need to earn your trust again that I haven’t fallen off the earth 😅 What was your latest surprise arrival?? 👀

As if I didn’t already have too little time to play games recently, now I’ve gone and started this little hobby 😂 Grey minis in games have always made me sad to see, but I’ve never liked the fully painted versions either due to various reasons. Awaken Realms have that very nice “Sundrop” technique to add depth and a color wash, but it’s also very expensive to keep buying (so says my $[REDACTED] pledge in Nemesis Retaliation). 💸 So realizing my goal was just to add some depth to my lifeless minis, and color them appropriately for ease of distinction, I watched a few vids, researched some paint brands, and… did nothing about it. 😳 But then my wonderful partner, who had been listening to my ramblings, did her own research and bought exactly what I wanted, and more, for the best Christmas presents I’ve had in years. 🥰 so I had no more excuses to not give it a try 😅 These Unsettled minis were already colored, but I wanted them to have some depth and a more grim look, so I primed them black and tried out this “slapchop” style that I’m really liking. I painted Luna as well, but not quite done with that one, and now I’m eyeing the Anachrony mechs for my next project 👀 More games coming soon, I promise 😆 😬

Stonemaier Games holds a special place in my heart, with Tapestry being among the first games I bought, the most played game we own, and the only game that my player 2 has reviewed on this account. I’ve always been intrigued by the world of Scythe, but I just didn’t like the game mechanics. Despite this, I’ve always been excited when a new game was announced by @jameystegmaier 🤩 Red Rising and Euphoria are among my top solo games, and we’ve already played Apiary twice now. 🐝 (that post is coming!) So, when I heard about a new game in the world of Scythe? I immediately became cautiously optimistic 👀 so though I’m a bit late to the hype train, Expeditions is here and it is AWESOME. 👏🏼 Production-wise, this game is just huge. A Lacerda size box holds massive tiles, incredible mechs (so glad I sprung for the Ironclad!) and beautiful artwork across all the cards and player boards. Then there’s the MASSIVE optional playmat (kudos to the customer service team, as mine got lost in transit and they quickly sent a new one!) with guidelines for your game on one side, and untarnished artwork on the other. The solo mode follows Stonemaier tradition of being easy to handle, adjustable, and truly feeling like another player. I had a ton of fun with this game and will definitely be playing again soon. I’ll have a more in depth post then 🧐 Thanks for stopping by! 🤗 What are your thoughts on Expeditions?

Uprising: Curse of the Last Empire! Titans of the First Age! Deluxe Resources! Full color Curse Minis! Who could ask for more?! Hello hello! Let’s talk about this INCREDIBLE new content for a game I liken to eating honey chipotle hot wings, a punishing experience but too sweet to quit trying! 😅🥵 Uprising has been one of my favorite surprise hits in gaming. I missed the original campaign, but lucked out finding a new copy last year, and I’m so glad I did. My few plays of this game left me beaten and battered, but I knew I had found something special. Now with the latest campaign adding new factions with new mechanics, mercenaries, and a trove of deluxe upgrades, Uprising now solidly sits among my top games I own. Quick recap. This is a coop game for up to 4 players. There’s no dedicated solo mode, but it’s easy to manage multiple factions (I played 3 in the game shown here). You’re up against not one, but two enemies, the Empire and Chaos, who will attack your armies as well as each other. You will never feel like “I got this”. Every round will have you weeping as you set out the new enemies that you know you have to fight or die trying. But every faction has their own specialty, their leaders have ways of turning the tide in battle, and if you persevere… you will push Chaos back into the wastelands and topple the Imperial capital. ⚔️ With advanced versions of both positive and negative effect cards, the game gives you several ways to adjust its difficulty. And now with the deluxe wooden resources, metal activation tokens, and fully painted curses that really pop among the already impressive acrylic standees, this game has a table presence to match its epic gameplay. 🤩 Sadly, the quality of the game is what makes it so hard to find, as this has yet to see a retail release. But if you ever come across a copy, I can’t recommend it enough. Nemesis Games is a team of people who you can tell truly love board games. As far as I know, they’re still not on Instagram, but I suggest searching for the website, as they will try to sell any leftover copies soon, if they haven’t already. Out of space again! More detailed posts of this game to come!

Stickers, inserts, and sleeves, oh my! This is my zen 🥰 It can arguably be said that I spend as much, if not more time prepping, upgrading and protecting my games, than I do playing them 😳 These are the 3 things I love doing almost as much as playing the games I own. My @folded_space order arrived with 3 of their latest inserts (I’ve already assembled the one for Beyond the Sun ☀️). Age of Innovation obviously is in dire need of storage, and a full color insert for Earth! Which will undoubtedly do a better job storing the game than its original Kickstarter add-on (but kudos to them for making one available). The Pursuit of Happiness Big Box and all expansions, that’s roughly 840-ish? Cards 😅. I had a blast sleeving these cards over two evenings while watching Netflix 🤗 And finally! So many months later 😂. I have finally applied all 300+ stickers for my Everdell collection 🥹 Talk to me about your board game rituals and moments of zen! What happens to all those extra baggies and punchboards? Tossed, or something unique? 👀 Upcoming posts! Fist impressions on Expeditions Ironclad edition (with playmat!). Uprising all-in with painted curse minis! Barcelona! And possibly the best new Stonemaier game yet… Apiary 🤩 🐝

Happy Halloween everyone! 🎃 Different monster-type players growing and harvesting candy? Well it doesn’t get much more Halloween themed than that! @arkusgames went all in on the theme of Dreadful Meadows, a recent Kickstarter arrival that I just had to get to the table for this week’s #tuesdaybackedchat (yes that’s a new hashtag that I’m going to try and use to make me post more regularly 😅) 🍬 In this game, 1-4 🧟‍♂️ are building meadows and sending out their sugar sprites to sprout candy! Candy is used either as currency to buy more meadow tiles and harvesters, or to fill “concoction” request cards for endgame points. Sending out a sprite to an empty meadow tile will sprout one candy one each adjacent empty meadow. Eventually, harvesters can be bought to increase production of sprites and are essential to scoring endgame points (but don’t slack on those concoctions!) 👻 Colorful tiles and wooden candies, dual layer player boards and acrylic standee harvesters all show the love put into this game. Family weight actions with a midweight endgame scoring system that requires a scoring pad was a surprise, though I still enjoyed the decision making and bonus actions from asymmetric player powers and retrieving your sprites from the meadow. But a barely usable main board (literally nothing in my photos is where it belongs), a lack of core game options (buy this expansion! That only has cutthroat modules to make your friends hate you) and an insert that just annoyed me, (a removable resource tray you don’t use in-game, and only having 4 slots for 5 sets of player pieces…) just kept this game from being fun for me. 🌙 I feel like this was partially due to a rush to get the game out before the holidays, because it feels like some things were just not well tested. But I also think there’s still an audience that will enjoy the “take that” expansion modules and overlook my issues. This is a good game! But with my limited time and perpetually growing collection, games I keep need to be great. I’d love to hear your thoughts, whether you’ve played Dreadful Meadows or not. And I’ll be back soon with more posts than you can wave a broomstick at! 🧹 🧙🏽

Happy Halloweekend! 🎃 don’t you hate when a day we all wanna party falls on a Tuesday?! I mean… I haven’t “partied” in decades, but I can still sympathize. 😳 @finalfrontiergames I’m using this ghoul-filled time to finally get some spooky themed games to the table 👻 and Monsters on Board fits this like Freddy Krueger’s glove. Dice drafting, bone chilling combos, and building up terrifying endgame bonuses are all on the menu here, as we gather Spook Juice (points) to welcome the Order of Spider Jack to our party at Spook Manor. 🧟‍♂️ Monster lords arrive as dice that we draft, having multiple uses, first moving our grunts and minions through the town of Startleton, gathering screams and bonuses alike. These dice then fill our swamp, stronger numbers generate more juice, but come with less actions (the weaker lords try harder), while we keep a sharp eye on our drawn prophecy card, which rewards those greatly who follow the pattern of numbers and/or colors of dice that it foresees 👀 🌙 Ok so! I seriously had a lot of fun with this game. The decision making in the dice drafting is key, along with using each round to try and grab a new archlord card from the manor board, giving yourself more endgame goals (try to grab some ghosts for extra action bonuses as well). I played solo against Spider Jack and let me tell you, that AI gains points early and often, and will make you think you don’t have a chance to win. But! The vast majority of your Spook Juice is gained in the final round and at game’s end, once your swamp is filled with dice. I thought I missed a rule somewhere when I went from 30 to 240 points in the final round. 😱 My favorite part was moving my monsters through town. The small minions can fill empty spaces so that your bigger grunts (the colored minis) skip over them to grab bonus actions faster. It was a fun puzzle to play with, while building the dice tableau to fill my prophecy. There’s also a Monster Mixer expansion that includes 4 modules that each completely change the game objectives, and I’m very excited to try them out. As a Kickstarter, this is not an easy game to find, but hopefully will see a reprint campaign? Here’s to hoping 🎃

Hello beautiful meeple! I do love a game that has an easily accessible solo mode. Let’s take a look at Discordia, shall we? Developed by @bernd_irongames , this 1-4 🙋🏻 game has been on my radar for a while now. So when I saw this 2nd printing had released, with upgrades such as dual layer boards and an insert? I knew I’d waited long enough. 🎲 🎲 Dice powered action selection and building a city for your unending influx of workers are the main factors here. Gain instant or ongoing bonuses through development, journeys, privileges, and fulfilling decrees. 🏠 🎲 Back to those workers I mentioned. You’ll quickly develop a love/hate relationship with them, as you need them to fill your buildings, but the first player to have no workers in their reserve immediately wins the game. If no player can achieve this in the 4 “years” of play, then the player with the least workers in reserve wins. ⚔️ 🛡️ Each round of play, the first player rolls 3 dice, and chooses one for their action and removes it from play. Remaining players use the other 2 dice to decide their actions. Players compete for buildings, and bonuses from decrees and privileges. This is why I love the solo AI. It’s an easily managed deck of tiles that can take any of the above out of play. Otherwise the goal is the same. Empty your reserve of workers before the end of the 4th year. I managed to achieve this, one turn before the end of the game. It was an intense balance of placing workers and meeting the various requirements every round. And it’s a relatively quick solo game as well, since the AI’s turn takes all of 5 seconds. And even thought I won my first game, I’m intrigued enough to keep playing, to try new tactics and win even earlier. I do hope to play this in 2p some day, but regardless, I am happy to keep it in my collection 😊 Thank you for reading and I hope you all have a great week!

Let’s take a first look at the Kickstarter hit, I C E! 🧊 @thiswayice 1-5 🙋🏻 For these first impressions, I played a 2-handed 2p game and it took about 2 hours with rules checks. The stylized art and fairly simple table presence was the first big win here. The subtle UV enhancements on the 2 layer player boards really pop, solid metal renown coins are easy to differ, and absolutely no cardboard waste is handed to the customer, as all tiles are precut and sorted. So… that board!! 🤩 a 4 piece, SIX layer board with powerful magnets to keep it held together, holds 5 layers of tiles perfectly (after a little nudging of the sections). Once together, the board is solid enough to even slide across the table, fully loaded of tiles. This setup does take some time, and take down is a bit fiddly as well. I can also see the tile edges won’t last long before showing wear after picking at them for a few plays (especially the first tile of a new layer). But that’s a minor thing that probably won’t ever get bad enough to be noticeable. But is the game any good?? 👀 Absolutely. With asymmetric leader powers, personal hidden goals, as well as global objectives, and a “logbook” that adds an event to each round, replayability is a non-issue. All players can control the common archeologists, and even though you may try to start your own dig, as you can see in my play, some unconscious collaboration becomes a must, to get down to the bottom layer before the end of the game. This layer consists of “edifices”, that are an endgame trigger when revealed AND can influence the next game played 🤩. Another feather in the caps of the devs for unique features. As you dig, you collect artifacts to unlock free abilities on your board and to fulfill requests. The basic type of these are known before taking them, but they also hide unique traits that can affect endgame scores. I can’t wait to try the solo “race” mode, and hope to get my player 2 @cristina_paredesco to the table soon for some competitive AND coop games 🤗 Did you back I C E 👀? Does it sound like something you’d like to try? Thank you and keep on gaming! 🎲

My COOLEST Kickstarter of the year has arrived!! 🥶 I cannot wait to chisel into this beautiful block of I.C.E. 🧊 @thiswayice has made something truly special here. First impressions coming this weekend! 🤩

Return of the Shelfie!! 🤩 This took an entire day, this last week and was so much fun 🤗. Over the last two years, as my collection grew (and shrunk, and grew again) I was basically buying a shelf and putting it anywhere it would fit. I soon had a shelf on all 4 walls of this room, and it just kinda started to stress me out. Now that I have a WFH job starting next week, I needed an office space in here. So I moved literally every piece of furniture in this room and reorganized every game I own 😳. Now I have this amazing , cohesive collection that I can see all at once! Well, except for one shelf of my small box games, but that’s temporary and ok 😅 This was a huge help in re-sparking my interest to play (I haven’t played a board game in probably 3 months now 😩) and I will have the mental health to start playing again as well 💆🏻‍♂️ Let the gaming begin again!! 🎲 🥳 🎲 Anything in particular catch your 👀?

Hello you beautiful meeple, I’ve missed you!! 😩 This was definitely NOT the first photo I wanted to post after such a hiatus (forgive the late night low quality), but I wanted to make it known I am alive and well. Life had been throwing more lemons at us than we could handle for a while, and gaming just had to be put on hold, but the tides and tables are turning and the future is scary, but oh so bright 🤩 Here’s just an idea of what’s been arriving in the last few months and that I’m dying to get to the table! I’m currently reorganizing ALL of my game shelves 😳 so I will post a new “shelfie” soon, and regular posts shall resume henceforth! 🥳 So where the heck to start, here?! I’ve got a good mix of Kickstarters and retail releases, and can’t wait to dig in 🤗 Leave a comment to say hi 👋🏼🥹 . I hope you’ve all been well, so far this summer and have avoided any extreme heat or weather 😳 thank you for staying with me and for reading! 🤗