Statistics:
Total plays in May 2016 – 74
Total unique games played in May 2016 – 23
New games played in May 2016 – 4
New games acquired in May 2016 – 1
New expansions acquired in May 2016 – N/A
Most plays of a single game in May 2016 – 34
Designer – Kane Klenko
Publisher – Renegade Game Studios
New to me
First play – 5/2/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 34
Okay, so this is the game that crushed the numbers of all
other plays this month. As a matter of
fact, our plays of FUSE were almost more than all of our other plays
combined. This is a small, quick, dice
drafting, real time game that is just fun and tense. Em and I don’t really tend to like super
tense games but this one really hits a sweet spot with us and has become out
go-to filler game! Love to roll those
dice!
Designer – Fabien Riffaud/Juan Rodriguez
Publisher – Cool Mini or Not
New to me
First play – 5/5/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 5
Here is another new game for us and in second place! This is a co-operative, hand management card
game where you are playing as a group of World War I soldiers who have promised
to make it through the war alive and get back together as a group of
friends. This is a fairly mean co-op
(although it’s not quite as punishing at two players) that is a ton of
fun. I have always loved a good card
game and this is definitely one.
Designer – Ignacy Trzewiczek
Publisher – Portal Games
New to me
First play – 5/10/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 4
Well, the top three games are all new to me! This is a game that I’ve been looking forward
to for quite some time. Ignacy mentioned
last year that he was going to rework his games 51st State and The
New Era into one new master set. This
got me very interested as I love post-apocalyptic settings and Imperial
Settlers is one of my favorite games.
When the pre-order went up I jumped at it and we just received it this
past month. I love it. This game will go up on my list of favorite
games with more plays, of that I have no doubt.
It also has beautiful art and amazing components. Bravo Ignacy, bravo!
Designer – Rob Daviau/Matt Leacock
Publisher – Z-man Games
Last play before May 2016 – 4/20/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 4
Oh man do I love this game! We have fought through the epic scope and
grandiose nature of this game and have completed the epic narrative
journey. We were able to do really well
during our journey and had twelve wins to only three losses. Our final score was 755 points and we were
quite proud of it. Lainey was actually
the only one in our group who had previously played Pandemic so we were quite
happy with our final score…although we were only on destroyed military base
away from scoring over 800 points! I
highly recommend this game…it is just amazing!
Designer – Carl Chudyk/Chris Cieslik
Publisher – Asmadi Games
Last play before May 2016 – 4/20/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 3
We only got three plays of this game in the month of
May. That just goes to show how popular
FUSE was with Em and I this past month.
While we tended toward FUSE where we would have previously played Red7,
that in no means lowers the game in our estimation. We still love this one and pretty much carry
it wherever we go as it is so quick to play and just a lot of quick, card-based
fun.
Designer – Mike Fitzgerald
Publisher – Eagle-Gryphon Games
Last play before May 2016 – 4/18/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 2
Oh man do we ever love this game. I could definitely see this one rising up further
on our personal top 10 lists. We love
theme, the mechanics, and the look of the game.
It certainly doesn’t hurt that we are huge baseball fans! Also, as an interesting note, this is
probably the game that frustrates Em and I the most out of all of our
games! I just think it is because we
enjoy it so much and really want to win!
This is an amazing game and we’ll end up getting all of the expansions
that come out for it.
Designer – Vangelis Bagiartakis
Publisher – Alderac Entertainment Group/Artipia Games
Last play before May 2016 – 4/9/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 2
We were able to get two plays of this fun dice-placement
game in May. We brought it out with a
couple of friends of ours and played a four player game. This was a lot of fun although I do think the
downtime may be a little high at four players.
We didn’t mind too much however as we just hung out and drank and
chatted during the downtime. The second
game was a super-quick two player match between Em and I and she took me out
with a heavy trade ship strategy. This
is becoming a go-to for dice rolling games.
Designer – Carl Chudyk
Publisher – Asmadi Games
Last play before May 2016 – 4/27/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 2
We got two plays of this brilliantly designed, multi-use
card game by the fantastic Chudyk. This
is the spiritual successor to Glory to Rome and I find it to be an amazing
game. This is one of the go to games on
our Wednesday coffee/breakfast dates and it is awesome! We had our second play of the month on the
final day of May and I was able to win with a Haniwa strategy where my most
played helper type scored me three points for every individual helper. This got me the win 24-23 and was an amazing
game!
Designer – Alexander Pfister
Publisher – Lookout Games
Last play before May 2016 – 4/27/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 2
No surprise here.
We got a couple more plays of this wonderful little, multi-use card game
and they were awesome! Em is really good
at this game and tends to win it more often than not and this month’s plays
were no different as she won both of them!
This is a go-to, filler length game that we have over twenty plays in
already in about four months.
Designer - François Gandon
Publisher – Days of Wonder
New to me
First play – 5/2/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 2
Another “new to us” game played this past month was
Quadropolis. This is a Days of Wonder
production (actually, my first Days of Wonder game) and it has an absolutely
wonderful table presence. We have only
played it twice so far but I’ll admit that it is one of those that I
consciously want to bring to the table.
I loved my first couple of plays and hope to play it a bunch more!
Designer – Thomas Lehmann/Wei-Hwa Huang
Publisher – Rio Grande Games
Last play before May 2016 – 1/28/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 2
No! I realized
that it had been since January since we broke this game out and that is
sad. Roll for the Galaxy is such an
absolutely amazing game and it is a bummer that it took us over three months to
get another couple of plays in. I hope
to get the Ambition expansion sometime in the next couple of months and I think
that will get this game back to the table more often!
Designer – Antoine Bauza/Bruno Cathala
Publisher – Repos Production/Asmodee
Last play before May 2016 – 4/6/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 1
We got one play of this game in during May and it was a
super close one. Em and I are very
equally matched in this wonderful take on its big brother, 7 Wonders, and this
one was no exception. I was able to just
barely edge her out by three points.
This is an amazing two player experience and I would highly recommend it
to anyone! I’ve heard they are working
on the first expansion and it possibly has god powers in it. I can’t wait!
Designer – Isaac Vega
Publisher – Plaid Hat Games
Last play before May 2016 – 4/27/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 1
Em and I got in a play of Ashes this month with the two
new characters, Rin Northfell and Brennen Blackcloud. This game wasn’t even close! She drew into her best cards (as Rin) and I
just couldn’t get the allies that I needed to start a good combo going with
Brennen. Em made pretty short work of
me…but that is totally cool because I adore this game!
Designer – Maxime Rambourg
Publisher – IELLO
Last play before May 2016 – 3/30/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 1
Em and I were foolish young magic users and we decided to
pop down into the bottom floors of our magic school in order to open The Big
Book of Madness. Mistake! Actually, it was totally okay because we
crushed it! We moved on to a medium
difficulty and opened the book. The
evocative art of Naiade popped off the cards as we flipped each page of the
fearsome book. We really built our decks
and spell books well in this round as we were able to beat the dragon on our
final round and third turn. It was an
awesome game and I can’t wait to play again!
I am really starting to love this co-op!
Designer – Marco Pozzi
Publisher – Placentia Games/Post Scriptum
Last play before May 2016 – 1/25/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 1
Em suggested we pull Bretagne off the shelf to play it
for the second time. I was all about
it! We played it and I realize how much
I enjoy this form of worker placement.
You will place your workers right away and then decide if you want to
pull them right off and score some small points or leave them on to possibly
score a large amount of points later.
This is another game where Em and I seem to be very evenly matched as I
beat her only by one point. This is a
fun game, but I could see it being punishing if you make a wrong move, so be
careful!
Designer – Filip Głowacz/Ireneusz Huszcza
Publisher – Board&Dice/Stuntkite Publishing
Last play before May 2016 – 11/11/15
Total plays in May 2016 – 1
We pulled this fun dice-chucker out and had a good
play. We always enjoy our plays of this
one but I definitely seem to have Em’s number in this one. It is funny that Em usually takes me down in
Oh My Goods! when multi-use cards is one of my favorite mechanisms and I
usually take her down in Dice Brewing when dice-chucking is one of her
favorites! We always like chucking the
dice and brewing some beer. I would love
to get the upgrade kit but still haven’t been able to get my hands on it. I also look forward to the expansion that the
designers have spoken about a few times. On a side note, I would love to get Board&Dice's new game, Multiuniversum, but don't know if that will happen any time soon! Sad Face!
Designer – Uwe Rosenberg
Publisher – Z-Man Games
Last play before May 2016 – 2/10/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 1
This is a game that we need to get to the table more
often! I absolutely love the sandbox
nature of this game. It is a ton of fun
to play this with my wife and see what different paths we choose. It is a game that I love winning but honestly
don’t really mind if I lose because you get to look over what you’ve done and
it is awesome! Fields of Arle is a GREAT
two player game and I’d highly recommend it!
Designer – Uwe Rosenberg
Publisher – Lookout Games/Mayfair Games
Last play before May 2016 – 4/27/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 1
Yay for getting in another play of Patchwork! This is definitely one of our favorite two
player games. This is one of those
perfect amalgams of a simple rule set and deep decisions. We bought this game in October of last year
and have played at least one game of it every month since. This is a game I would buy for anyone as it
is super simple to teach and anyone could enjoy it.
Designer – Hisashi Hayashi
Publisher – Gamewright
Last play before May 2016 – 3/12/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 1
Em randomly wanted to play this fun little dice game the
other night so we pulled it out. I quite
enjoy a puzzle and that is what this game basically is. You roll the dice and put the numbers on your
little “board” in an attempt to completely cover the boxes with numbers and no “x’s”. It is a super simple game but nonetheless
quite fun. Em and I tied on our play!
Designer – Régis Bonnessée
Publisher – Libellud/Asmodee
Last play before May 2016 – 2/8/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 1
Em and I pulled out Seasons to play a round in May. This is still one of my favorite games and I
don’t think I’d ever turn down a game of it.
This was an odd round as I had a really good card engine rolling and was
able to beat Em 189-127. It isn’t very
often that our games are this big of a difference but it was nice to win as she
had been on quite a game winning roll!
Designer – Christopher Badell/Paul Bender/Adam Rebottaro
Publisher – Greater Than Games/Sentinel Comics
Last play before May 2016 – 2/10/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 1
I pulled this game out for a solo play and used The
Scholar, Guise, Fanatic, Chrono-Ranger, and Absolute Zero against Wager Master
in Insula Primalis. This was a super odd
game and I completely loved it! Wager
Master is a somewhat complicated villain but he has some really cool gameplay
involved in playing him. I also chose
some of the more difficult heroes and was able to beat up on Wager Master
before he sent the world in disarray!
Designer – Helmut Ohley
Publisher – Lookout Games/Mayfair Games
Last play before May 2016 – 3/30/16
Total plays in May 2016 – 1
We were able to pull this little, two-player card game in
May and as always it was a great time!
This is one of our go to games when we just want a card game. This uses one of my favorite game mechanisms,
multi-use cards! Ohley did a great job
with this design and I hope he does future, small card games to add to his
design credits!
Designer – Masato Uesugi
Publisher – IELLO
Last play before May 2016 – 11/23/15
Total plays in May 2016 – 1
Technically this wasn’t a complete play as we were
interrupted while we were in the middle of it.
We had gotten to a point that I had a point and a wound and so did
Em. Sadly we needed to leave before we
saw who ended up winning but that’s okay, we’ll pull it out sometime in June to
make up for the incomplete play!
New game acquisitions in May 2016:
51st State: Master Set
Well, there you have it.
It was a pretty packed and very fun month of gaming for Em and I. As you can see we only had one new
acquisition in 51st State: Master Set. We are pretty much out of high numbers of
gaming additions until Gen Con and Essen Spiel games really start hitting the
market. There are a few I’d like to pick
up but nothing that is pre-ordered. I do
have a couple of Kickstarter games that I hope to see in the next month or
two. The two that should be here by Gen
Con at the latest are New Bedford and The Networks. Both are very high on my interest list and I
look forward to them getting here. Keep
your eyes on the blog as my next series will be Em and my top games list
revisited. We did this last year and are
looking forward to the exercise this year to see what stayed on the list and
what is new. As always, thanks so much
for reading! I always love to see that
people are enjoying the blog! I think
that is all for now. Until next time,
game on!
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