OPENING

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There's a very specific kind of joy when a new game arrives: the smell of the cardboard, the punching of the tokens, and that dread when you realise you've got to learn it before the game night. Today we unpack the whole beautiful process.

PHASE 1: PULL UP A CHAIR

SPEAKER_00 0:35

So basically, uh, this is the first segment, which is pull up a chair, and we've got a basically a first flurry of of questions in from listeners, which has been amazing. So thank you if you've been submitting them on our socials or in our Discord channel, um, usual stuff, YouTube comments, yeah, etc. etc. If you've been doing that, thank you so much. And please continue to do so because I'd like to kind of enrich this segment with with more and more stuff like

What is your latest stance on campaign style games?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

that. So the first question that we've got is actually from our Discord channel, um, from uh one of our listeners, Martin. Um, and he's basically says, speaking of campaign games, longtime listeners might remember uh me saying that I've had enough of them for a while, and it was pleased to hear that I was revisiting the Rise of Femoras campaign, uh, which is a scythe, um, and what basically made me change my mind. Um I still, to be honest, great question, Martin. I still think um I I'm still kind of not a big campaign game, board game um player. So when I see these big box campaigns that are on crowdfunding, they they totally put me off now because I've just I ended up buying them so much, fill up my Calax shelves, and then ended up, you know, starting them and just get into the whole quagmire of of oh yeah, great, I've got to organise 30 sessions with friends, and that's always easy to do, isn't it? You know, trying to um align calendars and and nights, and this thing's gonna take me three years to complete. And I just I I still feel that way about most stuff. Um, but I think what's kind of slightly changed is when I was playing um Earthborne Rangers, or when I bought Earthborn Rangers, I knew that was a campaign-style game, card game, and I decided to do that solo um because I thought, well, I can then do it on my own terms and I can kind of schedule it one-on-one. And that worked really well to the point where I've actually finished the the base campaign. I've not done Legacies uh of of Ancestors yet, that's that's coming. Um, but but yeah, it it basically made that whole thing accessible. So I'm not turned off to campaign games. Um and Scythe is is a fun one because when I played the the Rise of Femoris campaign for the first time round, which was I don't know, six years ago, um, I had such a blast with it. I've always wanted to do it again, and it's kind of been hard to get the right group and the right mix of people who who wanted to do it. And we we just kind of had a bit of a resurgence with scythe uh fairly recently, and and some of the players have never kind of gone through that experience. So this was just the perfect opportunity to do it. So I think the answer to the question is I'm not fully turned off. I um I still will dabble in some campaign style games, but it's likely to be more solo than it will be um doing it with lots of friends. But there you go, there's a question, and and thank you for raising that, Martin. I really appreciate

PHASE 2: JUST PLAYED

SPEAKER_00 3:21

it. So let's move on, shall we? So let's move on to the next segment, which is just played. What have I been getting to the table and what have I experienced? So uh just like always, I'm gonna flip to uh sharing the screen, and the first game uh up on the

Metal Gear Solid: The Board Game

SPEAKER_00 3:36

list is Metal Gear Solid, the board game. Now, Metal Gear Solid um is probably an IP that most of you have heard of. If you've ever kind of existed in the the PlayStation 1 era of the um late 90s, Metal Gear Solid came out on the PlayStation 1 in 1998, um, and I think I was 17 at the time, and it basically blew my mind. There's a game about um uh tactical espionage, stealth, um, and it took you to uh a place called Shadow Moses in the middle of um the somewhere uh I can't even remember, Alaska, I think, and is an island where you're trying to infiltrate a terrorist organization um and and basically take down um that organization and stop the nuclear warheads from being detonated and exploded and lots of hostages situations and things like that. And what made Metal Gear Solid for me really fun was obviously the gameplay, but it felt like you were playing a movie, and even back in PlayStation 1 uh standards, the the game looked incredible. It has dated since, but it looked incredible, and the characters and the bosses were all larger than life, they're really like remember um memorable. And um, anyone who has played the Psycho Mantis boss fight in the original game will know exactly what I'm talking about of how memorable that experience is and and the innovation that was behind how to beat him was was amazing. So there we go. I mean, the board games turned up, and so this is published by Simon and designed by Emerson Matsushi. And and I I was kind of hesitant when I heard about this, um, first of all, because they said, Yeah, we're doing a uh a board game of one of your favourite IPs, and I just you know what I was gonna put off. I was like, no, I'm gonna steer away from this um because it's probably gonna not be that great. Um, but as it's kind of come out uh over the past few years, and I'll dug into this game a little bit more and more, and I've I've kind of decided to pull the trigger and I thought, you know what, let's just give it a shot. And I've been having a blast with this. Um, I think the nostalgia factor is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for sure, but you know, going back to Shadow Moses, because the whole board game version is essentially a recreation of the first uh PlayStation 1 game, um, not the Pixly Pixel one that probably not many people have played, but the actual one on PlayStation. It's basically a reimagining of that that whole campaign. And yeah, it was just so nice to be you know Solid Snake, uh going back into um that world and and just experiencing it and reliving it to the point where I've actually bought the uh the Metal Gear Solid HD Master Collection, which is one, two, and three, and I'm currently going through Metal Gear Solid 2 because I've never played two or three. So there you go. It's it's really good to return back to that world. So, how does it work? How does this game um actually play? Well, it's set into a series of stages. I think there's 16 in the Shadow Moses campaign. Um, and those stages are mixed with um sneaking stages and boss stages. Now the sneaking stages are exactly what it expected to be. You know, if you remember the first level of the video game where you you you basically you're getting out of the water and you're trying to make it towards a lift, that is the first stage of of the game. And the the stealth mechanics in in this game work exceptionally well. Um, they're they're quite intuitive once you kind of get your head around um the line of sight rules, which they've streamlined and made pretty much very simple. Um, it is actually intuitive. So on your turn, you'll have your your board. If you're playing one character, you'll just have one. If you're playing multiples, you'll have obviously uh multiple uh characters there. And on your board, you'll you'll have slots for tokens, and you have four tokens. And essentially you are just putting a token on an action, which could cost one or two action points, and you're doing a thing. So you can sneak, which is moving around, you can dash, um, which is moving quicker, but it comes at a risk of noise noise penalty, which I'll I'll talk about in a minute. Um, you can do like takedowns, you can do silent takedowns, you can you know do all this stuff, hide bodies, move bodies around, all that kind of stuff that you would expect to do in a Metal Gear solid game. And so you're kind of moving around, looking at the guards, looking at their paths and their patrol routes, and and basically at the end of your turn, if you made any kind of noisy actions, you'll roll these chunky um dice, these white dice, of which one of the sides has the alert symbol, you know. If you remember where it goes um, they're they're basically the the alert symbol. If you roll that, the guards are alerted and they're basically gonna be starting to come after you. And you have a token which is is double-sided. So if you make uh a certain amount of noise, it'll go to the question mark side where it's gonna alter patrol routes to come to your location, or if you're literally spotted or seen, or or walk into someone's line of sight, it'll be the red side, and that's where usually all hell breaks loose, just like in the video game. Um, so you basically do your turn, and then you do um the the guards turn or the patrol um steps, and that's all ran off a deck of cards, and you'll basically reveal one of the cards, you'll do the first thing, which is a variety of different things for the guards to do. So that could be um the uh basically they could be radioing more helps if you've been killing or taking down or knocking out guards along the way, they might radio more in because they're suddenly realizing where the hell are all the rest of the guards gone. Um again, a variety of different stuff, and it'll tell you their um movement, and their movement will be more if it's you know they're alerted and they've seen you, they'll be running towards you, or it'll be their patrol movement. And that basically works um pretty well. So if I just jump to pictures for those who are watching, and I'll try and describe uh for those that are listening, um you'll kind of see that um all the maps that kind of have um arrows and and kind of turning points on there. And essentially when the the guard kind of hits or lands on a turning point or ends its movement on a turning point, it will change direction. And if it ever has a choice, the patrol card says left or right as a priority. So these things aren't always predictable, they they patrol around, they're moving around the map, and you're trying to second guess what they're doing, and that the the tactical stealth play in this is is brilliant. Uh it's really, really good fun. I mean, I I kind of liken it to Burn Cycle, um, but the difference is in this is that the stage lasts an hour or 90 minutes um to play, so it's a lot faster to set up and it's a lot quicker than burn cycle. Um, so yeah, so basically um you've got those um the patrol decks to kind of swallow that. So you're gonna kind of alternate either back and forth until you beat the conditions of the mission, which could be uh rescue someone or get to the lift or whatever it may be. And uh basically, yeah, um if you leave it too long, the patrol deck runs out, and guess what? Game over as one of the the red patrol cars that sits at the bottom of the deck, and if you pull that, you're done, and you need to do it again. And that has happened uh a large number of times, but it's all fairly intuitive, and the game does a great job at uh scaling um the rules complexity as it goes, so it doesn't throw you in the D pen and actually recommends that you just play the Shadow Moses campaign, start on stage one, tells you exactly what to do through some very nice uh codec style uh conversations between you and and Colonel, and yeah, and you just can't help do your you know your best snake impressions where you just literally they're going, yes, Colonel, and all of that kind of stuff. We just can't help it, it it's just there. Um the boss stages are fun as well, they are very different tactical puzzles. You know, you do fight Revolveros a lot, you fight Psychomantis. I am not gonna spoil um how they do Psychomantis in the board game, but it is bloody brilliant. It's uh again, it's very in innovative, and um I love the fact that he you know the first piece of advice is to do the thing that you do in the the uh PlayStation game, and and yeah, you he basically says you can't because it's a board game, and yeah, so it's pretty it's pretty cool. Uh so the bosses are fun and yeah, I'm I'm just enjoying this game. Um I haven't finished it yet. I think I'm on stage nine, ten. Um so I'm I'm pretty much interacting with all of the characters because you can play a snake, Meryl, um, Grey Fox, which is the ninja, and Octa uh Ottacon, um who does a lot of the hacking and things like that. So yeah, all the characters have got uh their different abilities and different things, and and it's really uh I don't know. I've just been enjoying this. Um, and in terms of its replay value, uh it does come with uh a bunch of VR missions, I think it's six, um, which you can kind of throw in and and uh experience the the kind of stealthy like gameplay and chuck the bosses in and things like that. So I think it's got a little bit of extra legs in that, but it might be one of those games where I play through it um and do all the bits and content and yeah, see how I go. But I think what's quite nice is that as you play, you're unlocking equipment as well, and that equipment can then be used to start any mission. So there are definitely some branching kind of paths on you can't do all of the objectives without having certain bits of equipment. So yeah, the completionist in you might might enjoy that kind of uh side of it. So yeah, that's um Metal Gear Solid. It's been it's been a blast, it's been such fun to kind of dive into and I can't wait to get it done. Right, shall we move on to

Dune: War for Arrakis

SPEAKER_00 13:08

the next one? So the next game uh I want to talk about and just played is uh June War for Arrakis. So I had this kind of itch I needed to to scratch with with this game. Uh I've been seeing it um on socials, I've been seeing people playing it, um, and and basically I had an opportunity to to play because Mark Monk from Ninja Geek Games um basically has a copy of this. So I hit him up and said, Mark, please can we get a game? And and basically we got it, we got it sorted out and and we did it. So so yeah, June War for Arrakis is a 1v1 or 2v2 um kind of dudes on a map, big epic uh kind of game where you're playing as uh the the Harkonnen faction or the Harkonnen faction versus the Atreides, um and you're literally going head to head trying to fulfil your your objectives, um, uh which are kind of asymmetrical in the way that plays. So if you're playing Atreides, you're trying to go up the uh the prescience tracks, and you've got three tokens that will basically go up this this track from one to ten. And your card, which is secret at the start of the game, it will say you'll need this particular token at nine, this one at six, this one at three. Um, and you'll fulfill objectives throughout the game in order to do that. Uh whereas the Harkonans are basically there to just uh military um dominate the the map and uh take down your sieges and and effectively get victory points all the way up to ten. And as soon as they hit the the top of the track, they win instantly, whereas the Atreides have to last for the entire um round uh of the game. But but yeah, I'm just showing the board now for those that are watching um on YouTube, but yeah, the the board is is massive, like I think it's like two separate boards that are kind of connected together. If you've ever played um War of the Ring or Star Wars Rebellion, it's that kind of um like grand scale epic game. It kind of fits in that that wheelhouse. And and yeah, basically um how how it works on your turn is that you're gonna have a dice pool, you'll roll that dice pool, and each of the uh the dice faces are different actions that you can do in the game, which could be move leaders, which will then also move any troops associated with them, or you can move troops, you can fight and attack with those troops, um, etc. etc. And you can do all sorts of different things in that game. So whatever you roll, you're assigning to those actions. So you are limited to doing those things, which is very much like War of the Ring. Um, and if you are the Atreides player and you have less dice than uh the Harkonans, you basically have your desert power action. So whenever you have less um active dice than the Harkonnen player, you can always do the desert action, which allows you to put worm sign tokens onto the map, um, which effectively allow you to traverse the uh the deserts faster and you can kind of skip over those areas. Um, or you can start to to move and attack with sandworms if they're if they're out. Um and I'm telling you, that's a lot of fun because I played as Atreides when I played. Um, and you can start causing some nonsense to to the player. Um, so yeah, so that that's kind of how it works. You take it in turns, I do a thing, you do a thing, I do a thing, you do a thing. And you have cards in there as well, which come from two different decks. So for Atreides, you've got the House Atreides and the Fremen, um, and you can kind of pull tactics from from various different areas there. And Harkonnen has a similar thing, except it's the House Harkonnen and the the Karino, the Emperor, um, kind of helps out with those guys. Um, so yeah, you you're kind of going along fighting, doing all the things um and basically having a blast. Uh combat's relatively straightforward, different units do different things. Um, some units have like two health rather than one, some have um manipulation of of being able to defend against hits more so than others, which are the elites, I believe. And yeah, you're just trying to dominate this this world. Um, and you know, the Harkonnen, you seem to have more toys. You've got your Ornithopters, you got your your um spice um uh refinery things that that can kind of do stuff, and also the carry alls to help kind of lift the the the spice machines off off the desert, um, which is always good fun. Um, because at the end of every round um where there are Harkonnen units, you will literally put worm sign tokens on there and you'll flip them, and so this is how the worms appear. They'll just go right and they'll cause uh shenanigans uh to the Harkonnen player, and unless they've got the carrier where they can kind of lift up um those those vehicles, which is always useful. Now, the Harkonnen have a tough job because the spice must flow, like in any Dune game, and they've got to keep the the various different factions uh satisfied with spice. And if they can't pay that, then they have a track where um their tokens start to go down. And what that does, it basically starts to take dice from them. Um, but it does give them more vehicles to try and you know get them back on on top. So another valid tactic in this game as the Atreides players to start working, you know, their spice refinery um production and start hitting their supply lines and and really weakening their action economy, which uh which is always good fun to do. Uh, but yeah, I mean I could go into this game in a hell of a lot more depth, but I I really enjoyed Dune. Um I prefer it to War of the Ring. Um, I mean Lord of the Rings I really like as an IP. I just think this is a a more streamlined experience. Not that it's say it doesn't have any depth, it totally does. Um, but I just felt like we we played a game, me and Mark, in it was under three hours. I'm pretty sure it was about two and a half hours to three hours. And for that kind of game, I was impressed that it crams a lot in and a lot of decision space into a fairly slick playthrough. Um, you know, it's not gonna be an hour, these games are never gonna be like that. But yeah, I was impressed with with how it is, and and also the production quality on this is fantastic, but you are paying the the price for that, um, being that it's you know Seam on miniatures and all those kind of things. So yeah, June War for Arrakis, I I recommend it's good fun. Um and I can't wait to play again. Maybe I'll play the the Harkin and faction and and see how well I'll do that time.

PHASE 3: CENTRE OF THE TABLE - From punch to play

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Okay, so let's um let's jump back into uh the the main segment of of the episode, which is the centre of the table. And this is gonna be uh from punch to play. And I wanted to just do this episode to to mainly talk about uh my experience on and what I do. I think someone asked me, or one of our listeners, probably you, Stuart, um who said uh it'd be good to kind of get your take on how do you uh go through your process of of getting games and getting them to the table. So I thought, why the hell not? Let's just have uh a bit of a chat around how that works. So so let's just jump straight into it. I mean, everything starts by buying a game, right? Everything starts by that. And you can obviously get games from a variety of different places. And I always recommend using boardgameprices.co.uk to check the price of game and whether it's in stock on different stockists and and and have a look at uh basically what you can get a hold of before diving in. But everyone's got their favourite um game stores and and all those kind of things, so you're gonna get the game, and then that beautiful thing happens when it, you know, the courier uh uh knocks on the door and the game arrives and you get the lovely cardboard box. So you're then unpacking it and going, yes, cool. Is it that? And then more often than not, for me, it's usually something my wife's ordered, and it's not the game that I was waiting for, but um, but when it is, then the little endorphins start kicking in because then you know the excitement's about to start mounting. So you get everything out, and you either put the uh the game on the shelf in shrink for a while, knowing that I need to punch it and sort it out, or you do it there and then knowing that actually is probably not the best time to start. So everyone's got their different um ways of dealing with that. But I tend to like to to maybe do it in an evening where I know I've got the time to do it. Um, but sometimes I do get a little bit excited, guys. Sometimes I I just can't wait to to dive in. And one example of that was Apex Apex Legends, and that was uh the big deluxe pledge. If you've ever seen um Apex Legends, uh Deluxe, it it's it's just like a coffin, it's huge. And I made the mistake of starting that, and that was a big job. That was a good two-hour organisational sort because there's so many bits to it. And I had to abandon that um halfway through. And and I almost felt sick as I was like scraping tokens and just chucking them into the lid of the box, going, Oh god, I'm gonna have to sort this out later. Um so I Basically, get enough time to organize it and sort it out. So once you sat there and you punched everything out, I like to group everything that's together into piles. So whether that's components, tokens, or whatever, I like to just get it basically all out so that the table looks like the board game got us spewed all over it. And then comes the sorting. The sorting process is actually quite an important process for me. It's not just about putting random stuff in baggies and hopefully it all goes into um in the right place. And if you're lucky enough and you've got an insert, then typically things go where they should do. Not always, but but typically they do. So typically with player uh pieces, if you've got all the colour pieces, and and usually when the manufacturers are are producing them, you you probably get the same shape wooden components, but all the different colours together in bags. I can't stand that. I have to organize this is the player, red player bag, and this is the green player bag. And if you start with specific tokens or contracts or whatever, everything has to be in there so that when we set up the game, I can throw you a colour and you've got everything you need in one bag to sort that out. And to do that, you kind of need to not not fully know the game, but you probably need to have understood a little bit about the game or the setup in the rulebook to know how to organize those things. Because how would you know that player gets two starting contracts and free resources or this, that, and the other? You wouldn't know that. But so I tend to thumb through the the the setup or the player setup and look at what components is it referencing uh in order to do that and and to basically help get it uh stored and and organized. So once that's done, once you've kind of got um yeah, the the the pieces there, you've got the baggies there, and the boards there, everything's in, and the lift goes on without lift lid, and more often than not, you're having to sort that out, re-jig it, because yeah, depending on the game, there's so many bags um that happen. I mean, a feast for Odin, it just springs to mind with the uh Norwegians expansion Christ, trying to get that all in one box is is a tessellation of mastery proportions, which uh yeah, it is what it is. So now it's organized and now it's stored, and then it goes back on the shelf, and you haven't even thought about setting up a night for it yet. You you're kind of going, it's just it sits in your brain going, You must play me at some point, and I'm pretty good at this actually. I don't tend to have a big shelf of shame that I will let leave for months and months and months. I will typically get a first play of a game that I've bought fairly rapidly because I'm just excited to play it, right? That's just kind of what I want to do. Um, but once I kind of know that I'm gonna play it, I will then start the learning process. I mean, sometimes even before that, if it's the the weekend, let's say I've got this game on a Friday and I've punched it all and sorted it on the Friday evening, I'll probably be reading that rule book over the weekend with a nice cup of tea with my feet up on the sofa. That's just how I I like to live my life. You know, it's it's good fun. Um, so yeah, learning it is then the next key step, and there's many ways that obviously people can can do that. Now, if it's a small box game, I will probably learn it just before we play it, because typically the rules pamphlet I can read through, and I've played enough games to to kind of know um pretty much what I'm doing with with these kind of things, with the exception I've just learned I played Flip 7 um completely um wrong before. Um, so you know there's always uh merit in in preparing for sure, no matter how big the game is. But if it's kind of a mid-weight to heavyweight game, I will be going through that rule book. That's my preferred uh method of learning initially to read through the book, make sure I understand how it works, the gameplay loot works, etc. etc. And any kind of questions I have at that point, I might be referring to other sources in uh board game geek, or um maybe there's a video on it that has a particular part I can just kind of reference. So, yeah, that that's pretty much what I'll be be looking at doing. And I just love fumming through the rule books, and you know, a really well-written rulebook is a beautiful thing, and the fact that you can read it and go, yep, I get that, and I'm happy to start playing. But again, if it's a heavier game or I think actually this teach is going to be a toughie, like uh an asymmetric, um, heavy asymmetric game, then I will possibly set it up um on my own and do a like a one-hand playthrough of of the game and just kind of get that that loop right in my head, just so I understand that's how you you put that there and that happens, and then you bring that back. Um, just so I kind of go, right, now I get it, I understand it, I can teach this in my own particular way. So the one, yeah, the one-hand or two-handed teach is good, which is why a lot of people like look for solo modes as well in games because it helps them learn them. But I I can depends on the solo mode for me. Because if the solo mode is a complex autumner and it's got you know a flow chart of epic proportions in, I find that will help detract me from learning the game because I'm learning how the solo mode works. So I don't tend to throw the solo modes in. I will literally just play as if I was one player with no contention, just so I know that I'm I'm doing things generally in the right way. Um, but a lot of the solo modes are like beat your own scores or they're they're fairly simple to put in, then I will um typically do that, and then you get to the teach. So it becomes this, you know, the night that you put in. So let's say it's the following week, it's the Thursday, and now I might put a video on, um, or more often than not, I will put a video on the afternoon or the hour before I'm ready to teach the game. So again, I'm refreshing, I'm going, yep, that's how that works. I remember that from the rule book, da da da. And obviously that's quite important if you've left it weeks and weeks and weeks. Um, and then again to the teach, and without kind of doing uh uh specifics on you know how I teach games, I mean I I I I follow um uh a lot of the uh other people's methods on this. There's nothing new in here. I think again, gaming rules, Paul Grogan does um and has done a massive kind of long seminar about how to teach games um to people, and it's fantastic, and you should definitely check it out if you can watch that. Um, but generally I will start with um you know, what's the theme? Why are we here? What's the point of this game? And um how do I win? How do you lose? You know, what's the is it to get to the most victory points? Is it played to 12 rounds and it ends? So everyone knows the the the boundary of of how that game can kind of go from a positive and negative conclusion. Um then I'll kind of break down the high-level phases of the game. So you know you have the three phases in there with X amount of rounds, and each phase you've got this, the worker phase, the income phase, da-da-da-da-da. And then I'll kind of layer and layer and layer and layer down to the point where the group's comfortable enough to either try um or um yeah, kind of do QA and all that kind of stuff. So I tend to um basically do that, and most more often than not, it's been pretty successful. Um, I think I put in a heavel hell of a lot more effort in the earlier days of the hobby 10 years ago than maybe maybe what I do now. But again, it all depends on the gaming groups. Know your audience, right? It know your um people that are coming to the table. And the beautiful thing about what we use uh in our gaming group specifically is after game, and after game, you can put your your your level of learning on on there. What I mean is I've never played this game before. You can tell the organizer that, or I played, don't need to worry about me, I know the rules. So you kind of get a sense of who's coming. And if you've got a lot of people that have never played this game before, you know you've got to put in the work, and that's always good to ask and always good to check. So then you get to the first play, and you're there, you finally got the game onto your table, and it's game night, and you just can't bloody wait, right? Can't wait to get stuck in, and um yeah, and then you're in, and then you get the whole thing around questions and because that's gonna happen. Um, and also typically for me, again personally, my first play of a game when teaching it will probably suck. Um, and well, let's face it, maybe maybe without teaching it as well, but it it's it's definitely a distraction because you're trying to hold those rules in your head and make sure everyone's doing things correctly as well as playing your own game. Now, it doesn't bother me because I'm I'm I play games for um yeah, just for a bit of a laugh. I like to pull levers and push buttons. That's my preferred playstyle. So where I kind of end up is is meh, it doesn't matter. Um so so yeah, it's it's probably many, many of you are like me where you are teaching games, it's it gets a bit uh uh funky in that case. And then sometimes you get to a rule where you haven't come across it's an edge case or something. And my preferred method of dealing with that is I'll go with what I think is is the correct method and agree with that around the table, and then we agree that as a standard for the game, because my most important thing is to keep the game moving, really. Um now if it's something I can get quickly, um then I then I will. And you know what? AI on phones is is getting better and better at this, where you can literally just say, Um, basically, tell me how this works, and more often than not, it will it will dig out the rules, clarification from board game geek or or whatever. Not always foolproof, so don't rely on it. Um, but I would tend to rather move the game on and then deal with it afterwards. And and I kind of have a post-match analysis with um board game nights as well. So especially if it's the first play, and I will go back and go, right, these are three four questions that we had. Did we play it right? Did we do the right thing? Um, and sometimes you don't. You go, ah, yeah, we're supposed to get an extra bit of wood when we went to that space or whatever it may be. And I will tell people, I'll say, right, by the way, when we played this game, we got it slightly wrong and da-da-da-da. So that when next time, hopefully, not you know, the onus isn't just on me, people will remind me, go, I remember that particular rule. Now, Game of Thrones, the second edition, is one of those games where it has these really nebulous rules um that are in there, and I always forget a few of them. So, what I've done is I I've literally have a small bit of paper in there which highlights don't forget these rules, JP. So when I teach it again, I I always re-emphasize this is how the ports work, this is it, and in this card happening, yeah, and it it just it it helps. It really just helped do those kind of things. So that's pretty much it. I mean, right from ordering the game to to playing the game, it's yeah, it's from punch to play, that's kind of my method. It's probably a standard, right? It's probably um pretty similar to to yours. But I just thought it'd be quite cool to talk about it. It's part of the hobby that we probably don't talk about that much. The teach we talk about, but yeah, maybe not how we kind of approach those things. So there you go. Hopefully that was uh enjoyable and you can kind of understand my method and and yeah, I'd be interested to learn more about how you deal with it. How do you cope with getting games? Um, how do you prepare for those game nights? Do you wing it? Do you just, you know, have you got the kind of group that will just turn up and you'll model for it? Like, tell me. Yeah, drop drop a low uh a line in the comments or on our socials and and let me know how you you get on with it.

PHASE 4: WHAT'S HOT, WHAT'S NOT

SPEAKER_00 33:30

So there we go. So that's uh the the main segment. So I'm gonna move into what's hot and what's not. So this is where we um basically are gonna jump back to board game geek and have a look at the hotness scale and see what I think about it. Right, so let's jump over. So, what's on the hotness scale um today? So, number one is wondrous creatures. Now, I've heard of wondrous creatures, um, I've kind of heard it's likened to a worker placement Pokemon style game where you're trying to collect these these fantastic kind of wondrous creatures, as the name suggests, and put them in a reserve in this hexagonal um grid map. And I'm trying to wonder why it's just hit the number one in hotness, but I think it's just had a recent expansion, and I think also it's just landed on BGA as well, so that might be had to have something to do with it. Um, so yeah, that it does look cute. I mean, if I just jump in again for those of you who are watching, the the meeples um on on this thing just look really cool. Silkscreen um meeples, a very, very cute looking game. Um so yeah, I I'm intrigued by it. I I'd like to to see what it's all about. Um, but yeah, that's all I know about it, I'm afraid. But yeah, it's uh in fact it's number one, probably should check it out. Number two, medico. I know nothing about this. I know nothing about this game. Medico, right? Shall we have a look? Um so in medieval Europe, trained physicians were a rarity. Traveling barbers did their best to care for health of people, um, and more or one than they may have dreamed of one day attaining the knowledge and reputation of the learned medicus. So, okay. Don't know anything about it, I've not even heard. So, yeah, can't really give an opinion on this um per se, but it's number two. Um, so it's obviously doing something right that um lots of people are talking about it. So, yeah. Number three is Concordia. That one I have heard of and have played, and I think Concordia's just got a special edition from Awakened Realms that's launched on crowdfunding recently, so that's probably having something something to do with it, and that does look, it does look brilliant. Um, but it is again it's an expensive edition of a game that I've played that do I do I really want the the deluxe version of it? I mean I don't own Concordia at all of any version, but it is it is a bloody brilliant game. Um it's it's basically you're you know trading in the Mediterranean, the board game. Um, but just that hand system, which I think I talk about on on last um the episode two with the mechanisms that should belong in a museum, the the way that the hand management plays, and also the fact you're collecting cards uh into your hand uh to get better and better versions of them, which also acts as scoring cards for the gods. That whole way it works is brilliant. If you've not played Concordia, come on, guys, play Concordia, give it a go, give it a shot, because every board gamer should give Concordia uh a go. It is a fantastic game. Um, number four, world order. Um, I literally talked about this when I went to the uh uh Netherlands weekend uh on another episode, and yeah, I basically went into a lot of uh kind of depth around how that works. And yep, world order. It's brilliant, it's really good. Now I prefer hegemony than world order, but that's not to say it isn't good. Um I would play world order anytime. I just don't think I'd own it because I I think hegemony is doing something for me more. Um, and I just don't, yeah, just don't need all of the games in the world. I've got past that phase of my life now, I think, where I don't have to acquire every board game in existence. And then Excalibur. So Excalibur is I think a social kind of deduction game. Now, this um this production on this game is is mad. I think this came with a deluxe version with metal swords, and it has these these tiles that I think have different roles and and and things on. And yeah, effectively, uh, I don't really know much about the the specific gameplay of Excalibur, but yeah, I think you're trying to um yeah deduce certain things or or or kind of be the only one alive. I have no idea, but let's have a look. So it's a party game filled with bluffing a subterfuge, draw tiles from Avalon to find Excalibur, then use powers off powers of Arthurian legends to keep it safe from the other would-be kings. So it looks like you're trying to get um basically the the Excalibur and keep hold of it before the game ends, and and lots of knobbery probably uh continues in in that kind of game. So there you go, that's the top five. So what I like about this segment is things are obviously ever changing on board game geek, and it's just good to see what is coming in and what is coming out because it it sparks my own interest to kind of understand okay, why is that is that kind of hit the list, etc. So yeah, that's pretty much um uh the end of that

PHASE 5: JUST ABOUT TO PLAY

SPEAKER_00 38:30

segment. So let's get into the next one, which is just about to play. Now, just about to play. I am looking forward to um my next game of Apex Legends, the board game. Now I've talked about Apex before. Um I adore this game. This is from Glass Clan uh Canon Unplugged, and I adore how this works. The first person shooter game, which is a board game that is turn-based, and you think it shouldn't work, but it it really does. And I'm playing a four-player. Um, I've played a six player before, I'm not doing it again. So four player is is where it's at, it's quicker, less downtime, and I think just the dynamics of a you know a team of two, it just makes sense. So yeah, I look forward to that uh to that. And uh yeah, hopefully play some more new legends that I've not played before. But um, yeah, I I've played or have seen all of the legends now um in all of the games I've played, which is really nice to see. But yeah, I have not personally played them all yet. So yeah, um, if you've played uh Apex Legends, I want to know who your favourite legend is as well. Um, because I think mine so far, oh what is my favourite legend so far? I think I enjoyed um Mirage, he was good fun with the holograms, but I just got a soft spot for Wraith in in how she works. Wraith was the very first legend I played when I played on the Gaming Wars channel, and yeah, I just I really like kind of how she plays, but to be honest, they're all fun in their own right. They're all they're all a good good bunch of dudes. The next one I'm looking forward to playing is Glenn Moore uh 2 The Chronicles. So Glenmore is uh uh a tile-laying game, and again, I think I mentioned this. These are all games I'm mentioning, so apologies, but these are actual games I've got coming up uh in the events list. And Adrian, uh formerly from the Who's Turns It Anyway podcast, is coming uh over and we're we're trying to get through all of the Chronicles because I've owned this game for so long and I've still not played all the main chronicles. So we're gonna pick up where we left off, open that box and throw it straight in and maybe get two or three uh games of of Glenmore in because it's just brilliant. And that two player, it's bloody fantastic because there is that kind of third player that is uh proxied by a dice that you just roll and it goes around the rondelle and takes tiles. That's all it does, but it's enough to add a bit of contention in between players that you you're not always gonna get what you want, which I think is good in that game. And uh yeah, I'm looking forward to to trying more chronicles out. So let's see uh what happens. So

PHASE 6: THE LAST PLAY

SPEAKER_00 41:03

there we go. We've got to the end, we're at our last play, and as always, I just want to say massive thank you for if you're watching on YouTube um for commenting along. I've been loving the comments so far and engaging with you guys on that. So thank you. Carry on doing it. I really love it. Um, if you're listening on on your podcast players, then you know jump on the socials and comment that way. Any engagement is you know, for a small channel like us, it makes a massive, massive difference. The fact that you can share this with your friends, your gaming group, it really makes a massive difference. Any subscription, follow, review, please. Uh um, I'd love it if you could do that. Um, it makes the difference. So, yeah, so that's that. Um, and like I say, you can get us on the socials, we're on Facebook, we're on Instagram, um, and also we have our Discord channel. Um, if you want to get involved in that, just uh yeah, jump in and and say hello. And and we've got a lovely little community in there, and we we chat about games and stuff, and we've got some designers and some publishers are also joined in as well. So, yeah, if you fancy joining the Discord, uh let us know it's all in the show notes, as it always is. Um, so yeah, and we also have a coffee. So, coffee uh support is always welcomed. Um, you know, we've already got a few supporters that have been uh kind of with us from the start of this channel a few weeks ago. And again, if you've been supporting, you are amazing. Thank you guys. Um, but if you want to support and chuck us a few quid that helps just keep the show going, keep it running, then I'll always be very ever thankful. Um, but other than that, the only thing I've got left to say is you only grow old when you stop playing. Take care, guys.