My eldest daughter is not yet 4 years old. We are waiting with great anticipation for the day that we all can play a game together that doesn’t come in a yellow box. Nothing against HABA, they make amazing games, but there are only so many times I can feign excitement when playing My First Orchard. A lot of these early games are mostly just toys with rules and trying to get my daughter to follow those rules can be stressful.

So while I wait for the day that my daughter can play some meatier games, I make a list of those I can’t wait to play with her. Mice and Mystics is one I am very excited for, as are the likes of Takenoko, Potion Explosion, and anything from Kids Table Board Gaming. My Little Scythe was high on the list—as both a fan of My Little Pony and Scythe I couldn’t be more excited to play it with her.

When Jamey offered me the chance to review it, I pounced. Spoilers: I was right to be excited for it.

Overview

My Little Scythe (henceforth MLS) came about when a devoted father…

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I first learned about Masters of Renaissance: Lorenzo il Magnifico – The Card Game through a glut of Twitter posts with gifs showcasing its marble contraption. I've even included my own gif later in this review. It is an incredibly satisfying component. But if the marble component is the prize inside, how does the rest of the cereal taste?

Overview

Masters of Renaissance: Lorenzo il Magnifico – The Card Game (going forward referred to simply as Masters) is an engine building game where you'll be buying and using engine cards to turn some resources into more resources. You won't be scoring points directly with your engine, but your engine cards and your stored faith will be worth points at the end game.

Resource management is crucial. Any resources you gain are stored in a temporary holding cell and must be kept in unique sets of 1, 2, and 3 resources. If you would gain a 7th resource, 4th type, or too many of one type, you discard the excess and the other players gain faith due to your avarice.

Luckily (and necessarily) any resources gained from your engine cards are permanent and don't follow…

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In board game taxonomy there are generally four domains: Abstract, American, Euro, and War. And while these definitions are fuzzy at best, they are fairly good at helping players understand their personal taste. Then there is Adrenaline, a game of high-energy player interaction, lengthy calculating turns, and almost no random elements. A constant need for strategy and planning wrapped in a theme of killing your opponents with mega violence.

Like I said—fuzzy at best.

A loving homage to 3rd-person-shooter video games, Adrenaline gives you a laser-tag arena and dozens of uniquely powerful weapons. Your goal is to spread bullety death without remorse, awarding you points whenever an opponent falls.

[caption id="attachment_14936" align="aligncenter" width="730"] Minis come unpainted, sorry![/caption]

But don't worry, this isn't a single elimination game. Each death leads to respawn, allowing you to get right back to painting the walls. You suffer no penalty outside of a reposition; and you'll be worth less points the next time you kiss the grim reaper.

Oh, and did I mention there are no dice?

Pure Strategy, Simple Elegance

This isn't a farming simulator set in the Renaissance era, but Adrenaline is a Euro game at its core. Your shots always hit and almost all information is…

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In the heart of Warsaw, just past the Building of Culture and Science, hidden in an apartment-turned-studio behind a chocolate shop, a small team of designers are doing something revolutionary. With ambition to rival Heracles, THM (Three Headed Monster) is developing a truly hybrid gaming experience using artificial intelligence. And even if you've decided that tech has no place in your tabletop fun, I encourage you to read on and learn about what could be the future of integrated gaming.

[caption id="attachment_14593" align="aligncenter" width="659"] The tower reads RFID chips on the back of the cards.[/caption]

Up until my play of Beyond Humanity: Colonies, my main understanding of app use in board games was CGE's excellent Alchemists. In Alchemists the app hid information and could be replaced by a very bored 5th player, so I expected a simple database of information and a neat little gimmick. What I got was a living world.

Setup

[caption id="attachment_14594" align="alignright" width="300"] This was our new home[/caption]

After connecting the main tower (the chip reader) to the app and picking our characters, it was time to choose our starting world. There are over 700,000 planets to choose from, each with its…

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Magic: The Gathering is one of the biggest cultural icons of our hobby and will never be replaced, even when much better games* have been inspired by its design. Its longevity and devoted player base have kept it going strong for decades. Countless other card games rose and fell, but Magic stayed strong. With little chance of survival, Magic’s competitors turned to digital, giving rise to the likes of Hearthstone, GWENT: The Witcher Card Game, and a hidden gem called Faeria.

Wizards of the Coast was not going to take this lying down. Their Magic: The Gathering Online (MTGO) program had been successful for years, but it wasn’t free-to-play. In fact it was as expensive as the physical product. Changing MTGO to a free-to-play system would take a complete overhaul of everything.

And that’s the story of Magic: The Gathering Arena (MTGA), which users can now download and play for free. Have Wizards of the Coast succeeded in their top-to-bottom renovation?

Magic: FREE-TO-PLAY!

Note: There will be a lot of jargon that non-Magic players may not be familiar with. I’ll try my best to explain required understanding, but know that Arena does a great job of holding your hand until you feel comfortable with the system.

Magic Arena is, as…

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I’m an adult now; at least, I’ve aged enough to classify me as an “adult”, even if I don’t know what that classification means. I pay bills, I’ve made children, and I have responsibilities I don’t remember ever agreeing to. Gone are the days of playing D&D after school multiple times a week. Hell, gone are the days of playing it even once a week. That we managed to complete the Curse of Strahd in a span of one year feels like a huge achievement.

Time is relative, and if you’re like me it’s moving too fast. Finding a GM willing to put up with that work, finding players capable of investment, these are the unicorns. Thankfully we can still scratch that itch with all the great board games available now. But just like there are many, many different RPG systems that accentuate different aspects of play, so too are there many board games that show off those aspects. Which one works for you will depend on the reason you play RPGs, so ask yourself that question and find a game great for you.

The Storyteller

Are you the player that loves to escape into the narration the table is telling? Reading up on the lore of the world, piecing together the mystery and telling a great story, that’s the…

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