The 500th Post – The Lost Sessions

In the years of doing this blog, some games have fallen through the cracks…

Time to catch up…

When I started, I only wrote about other people’s games I played on organised game days. Games my friends own that I play at their house I didn’t write about.

Also, I didn’t write ‘First Impression’ posts about games I owned ’cause I would eventually go on to do a full review instead.

But, my friends have some great games and a lot of my games didn’t stick around until I wrote a review so they were missed…

So, here they are, the missing ones in alphabetical order with a box image of any game I recommend. The scoring system I use is the Board Game Geek one and goes like this…

10 – Outstanding. Always want to play, expect this will never change
9 – Excellent. Always want to play
8 – Very good. I like to play, will probably suggest it, and will never turn it down
7 – Good. Usually willing to play
6 – Fair. Some fun or challenge at least will play occasionally if in the right mood
5 – Average. No significant appeal, take it or leave it
4 – Below average. Slightly boring, but could be talked into it on occasion
3 – Poor. I likely won’t play this again although could be convinced
2 – Very poor. Annoying, I plan to never play this again
1 – Defies description of a game. You won’t catch me dead playing this. Clearly broken

51st State: Master Set Review

A decent tableau builder with nice pieces. This is an updated version of the game but I prefer Imperial Settlers.

Although, both are too mean for me!

5/10

Ace of Spies Review

A Spy-themed Ticket to Ride clone from Kickstarter. Instead of laying track, you collect sets of cards including Spies, Locations and Information etc for points.

Well, you COULD collect sets, or just take a ‘Steal’ card and take someone else’s set.

One of the worse games I’ve ever played

1/10

The Agents Review

A Spy-themed game where you assign Agents from your hand to Missions that site between players on either side of you. The cards are double-ended with points on one side and ability on the other. Depending on which way around you play it decides if you get the points or the ability… The opponent you point towards will get whatever is pointing at them.

Nice idea but is really dependent on what you draw.

Also, the plastic cards were nice but a nightmare to shuffle.

2/10

Agricola Review

Classic farming, worker placement game. It has a very harsh ‘feed your people’ system which I’m not a fan of.

This has been surpassed by Caverna.

3/10

Archer: The Danger Zone! Board Game Review

Take a character into one of the many rooms and insult your opponents.

It’s random but it’s fun and fits the Archer universe VERY well.

6/10

Archipelago Review

Fantastic (almost) 4X worker placement game with a tonne of mechanisms that all work together really well.

It’s a semi-co-op as you need to balance the native population… If there are too many unemployed Natives they will turn on you, revolt and take back the Archipelago from the invaders. Game Over, everyone loses.

Sadly, it suffers from the issue these games have where players can try and tank the game if they’re not winning. Of the 4 games, I managed to play, (it was hard to get to the table due to its length and complexity) 3 of them had attempted ‘tanking’. That affects my rating big time.

Apart from that, it’s a really good, beautiful game. One of my top worker placement games.

6/10

Assassin’s Creed: Arena Review

Sneak around the rooftops, stealing treasure,  avoiding guards and stabbing other players.

There is a variant where you can’t kill a guard if he is in the LoS of another guard, this makes the game better.

It’s a very backstabby, treasure-stealing game with a lot of back and forth.

5/10

Blood Bowl Review

Fantastic sports game, one of the only good ones!

Great tactical play with great lore, teams, and star players and levelling up over several games is a lot of fun.

But all that is also the negatives, you need to play seasons which is hard and it’s quite expensive.

But, one of the better games 🙂

Check out my Blood Bowl: Team Manager Review if you like Blood Bowl.

6/10

BraveRats Review

A fast two-player card game by the master of fast card games, Senji Kanai.

It is essentially a spin on the card game War, Each player has a set of identical cards and you play one each face down, reveal and the higher number takes the ‘win’ 4 wins gives you the game.

Of course, each card has an ability, Love Letter style, to mix things up a bit.

5/10

City Tycoon Review

A tile laying, city-building game where you are building routes for power and water to move cubes.

It might have lasted in my collection BUT, I got this from the UK Games Expo at the same time I got Keyflower and Suburbia… They were both similar and better so they got swallowed up immediately.

2/10

Descent: Journeys in the Dark Review

1 vs many minis game that came in a massive box… It’s a reimplementation of Doom: The Boardgame, which I also owned at one point. I thought the fantasy theming would suit me and my group more.

I think I only played it once and I didn’t enjoy it.

2/10

Dice Settlers Review

I only played 3/4 of a game of this so I didn’t go a full review.

It’s a deck building, area control game which is interesting. Instead of a deck of cards, you have a bag of dice.

The area control part is on tiles you put into play that you can settle.

The reason I’m putting it here and not playing it again and doing a video is that I don’t want to 🙂

4/10

Doom: The Board Game Review

This is the original 2004 game, reimplemented by Descent.

Descent fixed a lot of issues but it was still just average, the new 2016 version of Doom: The Board Game is better.

2/10

Epic Death! Review

A card and dice game where you’re trying to collect treasure and die in the most epic way possible while the other players try and prevent you from doing so. A fun take-that game that is basically ‘Munchkin done right’.

5/10

Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia Review

Fantastic and beautiful worker placement game. I had the deluxe edition so had some amazing components for extra bits to enhance the game.

The theme of the game is great and there are several paths to victory. You win by placing your 10 influence tokens… but I’ve mentioned a lot before… I don’t like games that race to a finish.

3/10

Fairy Tale Review

A very nice drafting game with a set collection and different ways to score points by collecting fantasy beats.

The scoring is COMPLEX so it’s difficult to teach…

4/10

Final Lap Review

A quite fun Kickstarter where you have a row of car cards and you play cards from your hand to alter their position. Of course, you’re trying to be first… but you can make quite evil moves like sacrificing one of your cars to take out an opponent.

It’s very similar to a pre-existing racing card game which I can’t remember the name of and plays similar in a way to games like Guillotine…

4/10

Flash Point: Fire Rescue Review

Co-op where you play Fire Fighters rescuing people from a burning building.

Nice… but other co-op games are much better.

3/10

Four Elements Review

A flicking game where you each play one Element made of plastic. Each element is weighted and shaped differently to act in a unique way.

5/10

Game of Thrones: Westeros Intrigue Review

A puzzle game that is a re-theme of an older game about Penguins.

Nice images from the TV show which can be a good way to learn the names of the Game of Thrones TV characters 🙂

5/10

Give it to the King Review

A scramble to deliver a letter to the King.

Roll a die and move any messenger but your own but try and get to the King first. You can hold onto the die and take turn after turn, can someone wrestle control from you?

4/10

Infinite City Review

A tile-laying city-building game where the city changes and moves as you build it. You’re trying to play tiles next to each other to create large areas of control while playing point-scoring tiles.

You’re also trying to break up your opponent’s influence on connecting tiles. Nice theme, average game.

3/10

Jungle Rumble Review

A VERY cute action selection game (along with the lines of Puerto Rico I’m told) where you’re using Kitty Kat workers which are adorable.

You collect resources, build farms and collect food to feed your workers. When you use them they go to sleep and you need to be able to wake them up…

Very cute and a very good game… But there’s something in the game length and weight which doesn’t feel right but I can’t really describe what it is… I like it, but I don’t. Weird I know!

6/10

Keyflower Review

An interesting mechanism where you ‘bid’ on tiles with meeples, then add those tiles to your play area.

These tiles produce and move resources around your town to score points.

I really like this game, however, you never know which tiles will be in the game and some scoring tiles don’t come out until the final round. How can you plan for that? Brings it down for me.

6/10

Killer Bunnies Review

I like this, the base game anyway. You’re trying to find the magical carrot and you do this by programming cards… The card you play this turn won’t activate until 3 turns in the future…

But expansion after expansion overcomplicated it to the point that it wasn’t worth playing it.

2/10

Libertalia Review

You’re pirates collecting treasure from those available, some good, some bad. You do this by selecting and simultaneously revealing role cards each with an activation order.

It plays 6 players and each set of cards plays rock, paper, scissors against another. So image red beats blue, blue beats green and green beats red… for example.

Yellow may also beat blue. Now imagine playing blue with the other two players using Red and Yellow… sucks right?

So if you’re not playing with 3 or 6 players that game is quite unbalanced.

The new version of Libertalia fixes it!

3/10

The Lord of the Rings: The Deck Building Game Review

A deck-building game which plays the same as the DC Comics Deck Building Game.

The Lord of the Rings theme appealed to me more but the game is HARSH in comparison. Lots more attacks, less defence and the enemies attack with a lot of power. It took away from that basic fun and game flow.

3/10

Lost Temple Review

Draft roles and play them in order, a la Citadels. This game has you moving around a board collecting things…

I was hoping it would fix Citadels which I found very slow and boring, but it didn’t.

3/10

Mage Tower, A Tower Defence Card Game Review

An interesting Tower Defence-style card game where you draft a deck and get going. It’s a lot of fun but the designer made a free app for the game which was a lot smoother than the real gameplay.

I enjoyed the app so much that the card game became superfluous. The designer must know this as they went on to Kickstart a full app version of the game…

2/10 (App version, 6/10)

Nightfall Review

A Werewolf/Vampire-themed Deck Building game where you attack each other to make other players have more damage than you.

I bought the game after playing the app a lot, but I preferred the app… but I don’t play it much now.

3/10 (App version, 4/10)

Paranoia Mandatory Bonus Fun! Card Game Review

A very funny game set in the Paranoia universe.

You’re trying to complete missions to please ‘The computer’ to gain higher clearance levels.

I don’t remember much about this game other than a big rule dispute that we never resolved. (Although I know I’m right!)

4/10

Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 Review

This is Pandemic played over and over… You’d have to REALLY dislike Pandemic to dislike this game and not enjoy the story that unfolds.

But, it’s a Legacy game so I’ve played three-quarters of it and will never know how it ends…

5/10

Pathfinder The Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords Review

A very fun RPG in a card game where you are essentially flipping a card and rolling dice… that’s it.

Your character progresses by changing their deck based on the cards you’ve picked up and by ticking boxes on your character sheet by completing missions.

I was enjoying this but the group I was playing it with stopped… I tried it solo but it’s not the same.

5/10

Prime Wars Review

Great artwork on a terrible game. It’s Uno, but not as good. For the art, it’s worth it, for the game… no.

2/10

Quarriors Review

A deck-building game using dice where you attack the other players. This is a decent game with nice cards and dice but it seems just buying the best one you can afford each round works very well.

Replaced by Dice Masters.

4/10

Say Bye to the Villains Review

A little combat game from the designer of Love Letter.

You have a hand of cards and you’re building up the abilities of your Warrior. You do this in turn order but each card you play costs ‘time’, but you also add time by playing a face-down card onto your character to play an ability.

But time is also spent playing cards on the bad guys. They have a bunch of face-down cards that you need to check so you know if you can beat them or not.

Once you have all this information each player picks one Baddie to fight against. One failure and your whole team will lose.

The whole game is very good… but it’s VERY random. Quite often you’ll find you maybe couldn’t have won due to one bad guy being super-powered… oh well. If you don’t mind this randomness it’s worth a go.

6/10

Seasons Review

Draft cards, take dice, play abilities, and score points.

This game is VERY pretty but didn’t keep my attention for long. However, I would play it again.

5/10

Secret Moon Review

A hidden role game from the creator of Love Letter.

This one discourages talking as you try to work out who is the Princess and the Wanderer, or who is the Minister and his team. You ask questions to people and depending on their role they have to give a specific reply… Of course, some roles are lying.

Too complex to be fun as precision in speech makes these games quite awkward.

3/10

Seventh Hero Review

Trying to collect a set of Heroes without picking up duplicates. You do this by passing one around the table face down and players can either pass or recruit.

You can get information about the card by using the abilities of your Heroes and/or cards from your hands.

A good game but needs the right people… Some have an ‘I Might as well recruit’ attitude which kinda kills the game… You need to tactically recruit, or just pass it on…

4/10

Shinobi Clans Review

A betting game essentially where you tactically choose to defend or assassinate some targets based on your hand of cards…

Your cards will allow you to ninjas that attack or defend or even equip weapons which will buff or de-buff these ninjas.

Card play is simple really… You play Ninja’s Face up or down depending on the card on top of the target card. Weapons are placed in slots on either side of the target where the Ninjas will appear when the cards are being resolved.

Another game that is clunky and quite hard to explain. It leads to a lot of mistakes being made.

It was my hope it would replace Cheaty Mages but it didn’t work out. The artwork is PHENOMENAL though.

4/10

Space Hulk: Death Angel – The Card Game Review

Don’t really remember it.

I know it had some good ideas but I played one solo game and ditched it.

2/10

Spyrium Review

A VERY good game of playing Meeples in-between cards laid out on the board. Then, tactically remove those Meeples to buy those cards and gain money.

Although I like it, it’s quite nasty. You can really choose to screw someone over and leave a bunch of their meeples stranded on the board.

Still, good game.

5/10

Star Realms Review

A very quick and simple deck-building game where 2 players fight each other.

The game is fun, and the art is great but Hero Realms has a better theme for me.

6/10

Templar Intrigue Review

Another hidden role game that requires pinpoint accuracy from players.

They generally don’t work as you require large groups and someone will get it wrong.

2/10

This Town Ain’t Big enough for the 2-4 of Us Review

A tile-laying game unsurprisingly for 2-4 players.

It didn’t cost much but I didn’t like it, I could just play Carcassonne without expansions for a better experience.

3/10

Thunderstone Advance: Towers of Ruin Review

A fantasy-themed deck-building game where you have to balance going to the village and buying cards with going to fight monsters.

The cards and theme are great and it’s a game I really enjoyed.

There is an issue where the good cards can be bought meaning some players got more powerful and others couldn’t catch up. There is an Epic variant that mixes a bunch of cards together to solve this problem, I wish I knew about it at the time.

3/10

Tiny Epic Defenders Review

Fantasy themed game where you flip a card and move a token…

That’s literally it. Plenty of better co-ops are available.

2/10

Tiny Epic Kingdoms Review

Fantasy-themed 4x type game. It’s not bad, it’s cute enough and the pieces are cool.

It would be a keeper if it was 20 minutes rather than 45-60.

3/10

Tontine Review

The definition of an undeveloped Kickstarter game.

1/10

Valley of the Kings Review

A quite nice deck-building game where you buy cards laid out in a pyramid and cause the pyramid to collapse.

Like a lot of games, it’s too harsh with a lot of ‘screw you’ cards. But I do like it.

5/10

Zooloretto Review

A cute set collection game where you’re trying not to collect too many of a set, but you might be forced to!

It’s a larger, themed version of Coloretto which comes in a nice compact box and as shelf space is at a premium… the cuteness of Zooloretto had to make way.

5/10

Jesta ThaRogue