Obligatory End of 2015 Post Part III: Top Interests of 2015: Honorable Mentions

So 2015 has rolled on by and it was a fantastic year of gaming.  I must say that I was able to get the majority of the games that really interested me.  However, that being said, there are some out there that are at least somewhat interesting still!  The next three posts in my “End of 2015” series will be my top interests from 2015.  These are all games that I am still interested in that I have yet to play and/or buy.  These are all games that were available in some way, shape, or form in 2015.  For these to make this list they have to have been available in some way to buy easily from a game shop, Amazon, or a game online retailer within 2015.  Before we get on with this list I will leave links just below for the first two posts in my “End of 2015” series.  The first of them is the final statistic from my 2015 game plays and the second is my Late-ie awards.

Obligatory End of 2015 Part I: Final Statistics from 2015

Obligatory End of 2015 Part II: The “Late-ies” Awards(Best of 2015)

Okay, now with that information out of the way we can move onto the main event.  There are five games that I will talk about in this post (as well as a few at the end that just missed this post) that are essentially my 11-15.  These are the games that just barely missed the top 10 but that doesn’t mean that they don’t deserved to be mentioned…and thus the honorable mentions post!  Read on and enjoy!

The first game to make it onto my honorable mentions list for the games I’m most interested in trying from 2015 is Forbidden Stars, designed by Corey Konieczka, Samuel Bailey, and James Kniffen and distributed by Fantasy Flight Games.  This is a very cool looking area control, dice rolling, hand management game that is set in the Warhammer 40k universe.  

Each of the players takes control of a different race (the Ultramarines, Eldar, Orks, or Chaos Space Marines) and fight to gain control of the Herakon Cluster.  One of the coolest parts of this game is where you choose tokens and put them upside down in an area and then resolved them in a specific order when it comes around to that phase.  This is apparently a similar mechanic that was used in StarCraft: The Board Game.  Then, you have very cool card play when resolving battles along with the dice rolling.  This game looks very thematic and like a ton of Ameritrash fun!  Also, bonus, it is apparently just as good with 2 players as with the full cadre!

The next game to roll its way onto my honorable mentions list is Dice City, designed by Vangelis Bagiartakis and distributed by ArtipiaGames and Alderac Entertainment Group.  This is a dice rolling, worker (dice) placement, city building game with some very cute but still very cool artwork.  You take turns rolling your five dice and putting them in the matching color and number spot on your board.  You are then able to mitigate the dice rolls by throwing out unneeded dice, taking resources, and buying other, more powerful buildings during your turn.  

This just looks like a fun city builder along with dice roller that would be a great game to bring out with newer modern board game players.  This is also a very cheap game and has an expansion coming out soon called All That Glitters which looks to expand the coolness of the game.  We are looking forward to trying this game out!

The third game to the miss the top 10 list of 2015 interests is Elysium, designed by Matthew Dunstan and Brett J. Gilbert and distributed by Space Cowboys and Asmodee.  This is a card drafting, set collection and tableau builder game that has a Greek gods theme with outstanding art.  This game was nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres for 2015 along with Orleans but they both ended up losing out to Broom Service.   

In this game you are drafting cards that you will use for their abilities before you get them into your Elysium.  This is where the set collection comes into play.  You are trying to get certain runs of cards and types of cards into your Elysium in order to score them.  It is very cool because you are taking eight decks of cards (each one aligned to a specific god) and from them use five to create the deck for the game.  I find this very interesting as it would change the feel and the combos that are available throughout the game.  I’m very much looking forward to trying this game as I think it will appeal to my love of good cards games!

Next game up on the block is Nippon, designed by Nuno Bizarro Sentieiro and Paulo Soledade and distributed by What’s Your Game?.  This is an economic, Euro-style game that uses some area control and trading as its primary mechanics.   

The buzz around this game has been very good as it came out of Essen Spiel 2015 with a ton of fans.  Sentieiro and Soledade have been on a roll as they’ve created such hits as Madeira and Panamax.  This one has some interesting ideas of how you take meeples and place them and when you take them away can lose more points if you have a greater amount of colors.  I think the strategy in this game looks fascinating and hope I get a chance to try it this year.

The final game (thus making it the game that just missed the top 10) up in my 2015 interests yet to be played is Potion Explosion, designed by Stefano Castelli, Andrea Crespi, and Lorenzo Silva and distributed by Cool Mini Or Not and Horrible Games.  This is pattern and set collection game that has a very cool gimmick involved in the game.  It comes with a marble dispenser that gives this game an element to create a similarity to app-style games like Bejeweled or Candy Crush.   

You are able to take these marbles which causes them to slide down and make runs that you are then able to take.  It is a very cool element that has moved this game into a must-buy for me as it would be great to get others into our hobby with something different.  I can’t wait until Cool Mini Or Not releases their version of the game later this year.

These are the five games that just missed my top 10 interests that I haven’t played from 2015 as of yet.  They may not have made the list proper but I still feel they should be looked at and given some love as they look very cool.  There are other games that deserve a look and below are twelve more that I considered but just missed the honorable mentions.

Adventure Land

Blood Rage

Discoveries

Favor of the Pharaoh

Grand Austria Hotel

 The Grizzled

 

Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King

Mombasa

Simurgh

Star Wars: Armada

Steampunk Rally

T.I.M.E. Stories

And there you have it, my honorable mentions from the 2015 games I haven’t yet played but really want to!  Keep an eye out as in the next few days I’ll have up my top 10 list starting with games 6-10 and then going on to games 1-5.  After that I’ll have out a few posts on my top 10 games I’m interested in coming up in 2016.  As always, thank you so much for reading and feel free to comment below or at BoardGameGeek with any questions.  Until next time, game on!

Obligatory 2015 Kickstarter Post Part I: Honorable Mentions

Okay, I have finally broken down and created my 2015 Kickstarter list!  This will be the first in a series of posts that will feature the Kickstarters that I am interested in.  These games are ones that haven’t been shipped out to their backers as of the writing of this post.  This means that their campaigns may be still going on, completed, or even haven’t started yet.  Also, for this list I didn’t look at any date for the campaigns as all I’m really looking for are games that haven’t been shipped.  One of the games on the honorable mentions has been rumored for a couple years and still hasn’t even had its Kickstarter!  This first post will focus on 5 honorable mentions (as well as some other cool looking ones that didn’t quite make the cut) that just missed out of my top 10 list.  Without further ado, here are my Kickstarter honorable mentions.

The first honorable mention to make it onto my Kickstarter list is Consequential.  This game is designed by Chris Cieslik and will be distributed by Asmadi Games after the (supposed?) Kickstarter.  This is a co-operative game with an app portion that will be used heavily for the story portions of the game.  Cieslik has been working on this game for quite some time as it was first mentioned around Gen Con 2012.  Here we are 3 years later and there are just some tenuous mentions of a Kickstarter coming up soon.  I hope that this game will be up soon and will do well because it looks quite interesting and could be another game that integrates applications with success.  The only reason it is so low is because my interest seems to be waning further as this game continues to taunt without any real substance behind it.

The next game that is interesting on the Kickstarter front and gets an honorable mention is 7^th Continent.  This game is by Ludovic Roudy and Bruno Sautter and will be distributed by Serious Poulp after its Kickstarter.  This game has really been going around BoardGameGeek with its very interesting looking mechanics and theme.  This game is inspired by the Fighting Fantasy series of gamebooks which really creates a game that will be much like a choose-your-own-adventure experience.  I find this idea to be very fascinating and am looking forward to see how it works.  I will hold off on this game until it hits retail because I really want to see how it plays and what others are saying about it before I take the leap.  So far the buzz is great and I love different themes/mechanics in games so I think this could be a winner.  They are obviously looking to have a successful Kickstarter (which starts 9/29/15) as they already have at least two slated expansions entitled The Forbidden Sanctuary and The Icy Maze.

The next Kickstarter game to receive an honorable mention is Above & Below.  This is a game designed by Ryan Laukat and distributed by his company, Red Raven Games.  This is a game that uses set collection, card drafting, and storytelling as its primary mechanics.  Ryan is truly a triple threat as he has designed this game, done all of the art for it, and is releasing it himself.  This game looks absolutely beautiful and it seems to really do a great job in marrying storytelling with an actual game!  I’ve seen other games that use storytelling as a primary mechanic but don’t seem to have any actually game along with it.  Above & Below will hopefully be one of those rare games that uses storytelling and is a fun game as well!

The fourth game to make its way onto my Kickstarter honorable mention list is Shadows over Normandie.  This game is designed by Yan & Clem (they also designed Heroes of Normandie) and distributed by Devil Pig Games and Iello.  This game is a war style game that uses grid movement, dice rolling, and hex-and-counter mechanics.  I am not normally interested in these types of games but this one really grabbed me.  The mechanics are interesting and the theme is awesome!  This game finds a group of soldiers who got split from the main army and find themselves fighting a cult of Nazis who are bringing up Cthulhu horrors.  I like the mashing of the World War II theme with the Cthulhu theme.  It appears to be a great game with a sweet theme and that is enough to make this list.

The final game to make it onto my Kickstarter honorable mention list, and thus just miss the top 10, is Millennium Blades.  This game is designed by D. Brad Talton, Jr. and distributed by his company, Level 99 Games.  This game wasn’t one I knew much about when it first popped up on Kickstarter but it quickly became incredibly interesting to me.  This game takes the idea of collectible card games and turns it on its head.  In this game you’ll draft cards, use hand management and set collection in an effort to gain victory points during card battles.  This makes the game essentially a commodity trading game that strives to be a CCG-simulator.  This idea is very interesting and I can’t wait to see the final product to see if Talton was successful in his ambitious Kickstarter.

These are the 5 games that just missed my top 10 but I felt deserved honorable mentions.  Below I have the names of 12 other games that just missed the honorable mentions but still look very cool.  Check them out if they sound cool to you!

- Apocrypha Adventure Card Game

- Blood Rage

- Foe Hunters

- The Guardians: Explore

- The Others: 7 Sins

- Posthuman

- Prime Time

- Raiders of the North Sea

- Rome: Rise to Power

- Salvation Road

- Super Dungeon Explore: Legends

- Zombicide: Black Plague

Thanks so much for taking a look at my blog!  This is just the first in this series and the next one will feature games 6-10 of my top 10 Kickstarter interests.  Stay tuned to find out what they are.  As usual, if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them.  Until next time, game on!

Obligatory End of 2014 Post Part IV: Top Interests of 2015: Honorable Mentions

Now we move on to my greatest interests of 2015. These are the games that I am so very interested in for some reason or another, whether it be theme, mechanic, or even designer. If you haven’t seen them yet, check out my previous three posts from my “Obligatory End of 2014” series. These handle my top interests from 2014 that I haven’t yet been able to play. Check out the links below if you’re interested, and if not just skip on ahead and check out my honorable mentions for my interests of 2015.

Honorable mentions of 2014: http://www.alittlelatetothetable.blogspot.com/2015/01/obligatory-end-of-2014-post-part-i-top.html
 
Games 6-10 of 2014: http://www.alittlelatetothetable.blogspot.com/2015/01/obligatory-end-of-2014-post-part-i-top_13.html

Games 1-5 of 2014: http://www.alittlelatetothetable.blogspot.com/2015/01/obligatory-end-of-2014-post-part-iii.html

Before I go through my honorable mentions I think it begs repeating how I chose to label games either from 2014 or from 2015. Even if a game had a 2014 release date I didn’t put it in that category if it wasn’t readily available in the United States. Most of these games technically have an official 2014 release date but haven’t been distributed in the United States as of yet. That being said, on to my honorable mentions list of 2015!

The first game to make its way onto the list is Scythe, designed by Jamey Stegmaier and Alan Stone and published by Stonemaier Games. Technically this game already has a 2016 release date because it is going to be a Kickstarter a little later this year. Even though it has a later release date, I’m still putting it on my list because it sounds that amazing! This game has been explained as a mixture of Agricola (i.e. farming elements) and Kemet (i.e. area control) by the way of asymmetrical factions. If this doesn’t hook you on a game idea I don’t know what does! Plus, it has a card driven mechanic that keeps the action moving along smoothly. I can’t wait to see how this game rolls along as Stonemaier Games arguably puts on the best Kickstarters of any publisher. If their previous games like Euphoria and Viticulture are any idea of the future of this game and it’s Kickstarter, then I think we’re in for a treat! This is why I’ve “broken” my own rules and put a 2016 game on my list. 
 

The next game on this list is Between Two Cites, designed by Matthew O’Malley and Ben Rosset and published by Stonemaier Games. Another Stonemaier Games release! This is another game that will soon be making its run on Kickstarter and knowing their pedigree, it will be perfectly managed. This game is a city-building game where you partner with other players to create two cities and manage them between both players. You have to work together in order to make the cities the most livable and in the end it is the player with the most points that wins overall. This game has elements of co-op, card drafting, and tile-laying, all of which I love! This game is looking more and more interesting as it gets closer to its February 25th Kickstarter. 

The next game on my list is one of the few games I have pledged to on Kickstarter. The game is Super Dungeon Explore: Forgotten King and it is designed and published by Soda Pop Miniatures. This is the follow up to the popular game Super Dungeon Explore. Now, this stand-alone expansion will add more mechanics to the base game and well as a ton more models! I jumped on this one because of the stretch goals that were reached. I’m not sure that I would have pledged had the Kickstarter not hit the levels that it did. That being said, I’m very pleased with the way the company has handled the project. While the original due date was in December, they have been keeping those who pledged updated with weekly posts on the Kickstarter site. As of now they have received their first full copy of the game and seem to be pleased with the way it looks! We are now looking at a March due date and I am excited for the Arcade mode (fully co-operative!) that has been created to go along with the release. Can’t wait for my copy to come in the mail…and expect a full unboxing when it happens!

The fourth game to make the list, and just miss the top honorable mention spot, is La Granja. This game was designed by the team of Andreas Odendahl and Michael Keller and published by Spielworxx. Thankfully, Stronghold Games has picked the game up for United States distribution as this game really looks like a winner! This game has often been described as the lovechild of an Uwe Rosenberg game and a Stefan Feld game. To be honest, I’ve never played either of those designer’s creations before (although you may see one on the top ten of2015 list!) but I understand the pedigree is impressive! This game looks awesome because you are able to take the cards you are dealt and use them in many different ways. I love games where the cards can be played more than just one way, it is just one of the reasons I love Imperial Settlers. La Granja lets you use these cards in order to gain points in order to beat your opponents. This is a very good looking, mechanically-sound game that will see its release in the United States in 2015.

The final (thus my most interesting) game to make the honorable mentions list of 2015 is Elysium, designed by Matthew Dunstan and Brett J. Gilbert and published by Space Cowboys. This game has been picked up for distribution in the United States by Asmodee and should see its stateside release in the next month or so. This game is set in mythic Greece and uses card-drafting (easily one of my favorite game mechanics) and set-collection as its main mechanics. I love how each of the gods has their own cards that act and react differently than each other. Your goal is to please the gods by transferring their cards into Elysium and thereby gaining enough points for victory. Card games are probably my favorite and thus this one has just enough to get me very excited about its release.

There you go, my honorable mentions of 2015. These are just five of the games that I am excited to play, but there are ten more to come. Check back here soon for games 6-10 of my top 10 list. As always, if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them here or at the posting on BoardGameGeek at my handle name, LateToTheTable. Thanks for reading. Until next time, game on!

Obligatory End of 2014 Post Part I: Top Interests of 2014 - Honorable Mentions

Another year has passed us by and, with that, it is time to roll out “best of 2014” lists. Instead of doing a “best games of 2014” list I have decided to go another way with my next series of posts. The first will be three part series focusing on games that came out in 2014 that I still really want to play and/or own! Almost all of these games have been mentioned at some point during my Gen Con and Essen Spiel posts, but there are a few that have jumped up and become more interesting over the past few months! The second series will focus on games that will/may be released in 2015 that I am most interested. Finally, I will probably do a final wrap up post making seven in all. The final post will cover the entire year and also will cover what my first “real” year of gaming was like!

Before going on I will explain how I separated the 2014 release dates from the 2015 release dates. Some of you may be thinking as I go over my 2014’s, “where is so-and-so game?” If a really good-sounding game isn’t on the 2014 list it may yet show up on the 2015 list. This is because I am separating games by English distribution. For instance, a game may have made a showing at Essen, but if it doesn’t have an easily obtainable English version through an American distributor, then I am putting it on the 2015 list as it will probably be released widely this year at some point. As an example, Viceroy, a game released overseas by Hobby World, will be release in the first or second quarter of 2015 in America by Mayday Games. I hope this clears up my decision-making somewhat. That being said, on with the honorable mentions of my top interests of 2014!

The first game to slide its way onto my most interesting games of 2014 honorable mention list is Doomtown: Reloaded, designed by Mark Wootton and Dave Williams and distributed by Alderac Entertainment Group in the United States. This is a card-driven game in the style of Fantasy Flight’s Living Card Games or LCG’s for short. These LCG’s (which is technically a trademark by Fantasy Flight Games) are games which are released as a base set and then have regular expansion packs to add onto the number of cards in the game. These games are widely used as tournament style games as they usually focus heavily on a 2-player, combat-heavy style of play. Doomtown: Reloaded, while not technically an LCG, holds true to this type of game as they have already released two expansions with many more on the way. This game looks like a ton of fun and the deck building in it actually interests me. If anyone is curious, The Fourth Ring would be my faction of choice!
 

The next game to be mentioned is Kingsport Festival, designed by Andrea Chiarveslo and Gianluca Santopietro and distributed by Passport Game Studios in the United States. This is a re-implement of Chairveslo’s 2007 hit Kingsburg. This is one of the first games to really use dice as the “workers” in a worker-placement style game. Kingsport Festival uses the same basic game-play mechanic of Kingsburg but themes it in the Lovecraftian mythos. Instead of being heroes protecting a city from attacking monsters, you are a cultist attempting to raise the elder gods from their slumber in order to destroy the world. While it is a darker theme, there are a few mechanics that are most interesting and cement it as an honorable mention in my 2014 interests list.

The third game to make its way onto this list is Arcadia Quest, designed by Thiago Aranha, Guilherme Goulart, Eric M. Lang, and Fred Perret and distributed by Cool Mini Or Not in the United States. This game didn’t really hit my radar or even crack it until after Gen Con. Even then, it took seeing quite a few reviews and video play-through’s until I became somewhat interested in the game. Arcadia Quest takes chibi-styled characters and throws them into a 2-player game where each person takes a guild and attempts to move through campaigns while getting more points/honor/gold than the other player. While appearing to be a dungeon-delver, this is actually quite a different game altogether. The two players go through campaigns using their guild characters against each other to complete missions and win the round. When complete the players take the same characters and are able to get them better equipment and spells and such before they go into another round of the game. Each campaign has roughly six rounds in it and the character progression goes the whole way throughout. A very interesting idea that appears to be good dice-chucking fun!

The fourth game on the list is Battle Merchants, designed by Gil Hova and distributed by Minion Games in the United States. This is probably my biggest surprise for the list as I didn’t know much about this game at all when I did my Gen Con and Essen Spiel posts. Battle Merchants is an area-control and card drafting game where you take on the role of weapons crafters/dealers who are selling to different fantasy races in order for them to wage their wars. You are able to create stronger weapons and sell to the different races in order to gain their favor during the war. It appears to be quite an interesting game and nothing that like other games I currently have in my collection.

The final game and the one I’m most interested in on my honorable mentions list is Hyperborea, designed by Andrea Chiarvesio and Pierluca Zizzi and distributed by Asmodee in the United States. This game has been on my radar for some time and it just continues to interest me. I so badly want to try this game out! It uses a “bag-building” mechanic where you pull your cubes out of the bag pool you are building and thus make your particular race/civilization stronger and more able to take over the kingdom of Hyperborea. This is another wonderful idea of a mixture of the European-style and American-style of games that is become more popular. Can’t wait to try this one!

This concludes my honorable mentions for the games released in 2014. Stay tuned to my page during the next week to two weeks as I will be doing my top ten interests of 2014 and then my top ten interests of 2015. Enjoy the gaming goodness and as usual let me know here or on the same post in BoardGameGeek if you have any questions or comments! Until next time, game on!