Before affixing my critical goggles in place, I will say from the beginning: Redwood has been one of the most refreshing titles to hit our table in months. Christophe Raimbault’s (Colt Express) design takes the occasional monotony of board game acquisition by the ears and tosses it out on the doorstep with style. I do not know what inspired him to reassign the mechanics of a wargame for use with nature photography, but it just works. Redwood utilizes templates—components of specific shape and size—both for movement and a wholly different sort of shooting, creating a fairly immersive experience. Refreshing. It’s refreshing. 

Sing as you raise your bow

The game is an exercise in spatial estimation. Players select two templates under a strict look-but-don’t-touch restriction, one a ribbon for movement, the other a range-finder for their camera lens. The rules make no explicit prohibition of the ol’ thumb-and-forefinger measurement, but exploiting that technicality saps the game of its most thrilling anticipations. Redwood’s distinct pleasure is in the success and failure of the eyes—and only the eyes—in predicting possibilities. 

Having committed to the template, players then employ their selections, first moving the photographer into place, then capturing the moment, which is occasionally only the shattered dream of the intended moment, on…

The post Redwood Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Expeditions, designed by Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games, is a game set a few years after his game Scythe takes place. In Expeditions, a meteor has crashed into Earth, releasing an ancient corruption into the lands. Players take on the role of explorers who, along with their animal companion, make their way above the northern borders of the Scythe map to rid the world of corruption and seek Glory and fame.

[caption id="attachment_295727" align="aligncenter" width="555"] Expeditions: Ironclad Edition[/caption]

If you’ve played Scythe before, some of the components in Expeditions will look familiar—and in both games, the goal is still to be the player with the most points. How you earn and score those points, however, is very different, making Expeditions a game that easily stands on its own.

Let’s get it to the table so I can show you what I mean.

Set Up

Instead of a formal board, Expeditions is played through a honeycomb of 20 hexes that connect, at most, along three edges. These hexes are divided into three zones, the Southern, Central, and the Northern lands. The Southern hexes are laid out randomly, face up, with three of the six tiles placed adjacent to the Basecamp board.

Shuffle the Central and Northern hexes, then…

The post Expeditions Board Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

The post Mage Knight Ultimate Edition Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

If you have a chance to review any of my previous content, you’ll see a lot of glowing words attached to the reviews of games designed or co-designed by Simone Luciani.

To me, Luciani is gaming royalty. Grand Austria Hotel, Lorenzo il Magnifico, Marco Polo II: In the Service of the Khan, and Tzolk’in: The Mayan Calendar are some of the best games I have ever played. Luciani’s “T” game release with Daniele Tascini, Tiletum, was my pick for the best game of 2022.

With all of that in mind, there was never a doubt that I would play Anunnaki: Dawn of the Gods (2023, Cranio Creations), a co-design with Danilo Sabia. Sabia and Luciani also designed Rats of Wistar, which will soon make its way to gamers in the US.

I’m not going to lie to you: Anunnaki didn’t hit it out of the park, to use a baseball reference. It’s not that the game is bad—in fact, it is occasionally interesting, particularly with its action selection mechanism—but it is very likely that my standards for Luciani games have gotten too high. Grand Austria Hotel is the best Euro-style game I have ever played; as a film buff, when you love a film director and that director puts out middling fare, you…

The post Anunnaki: Dawn of the Gods Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Clearly 2023 is proving to be the year of the remake. This marks my 19th review so far this year, and incredibly 9 of those have been reimaginings of older games. That's very nearly half of what I've covered in 2023. I don't know quite what to make of this trend, but it is heartening to see some deserving titles gaining renewed attention. And at minimum, we're not drowning in yet another Kickstarter dungeon crawler packed with gray plastic.

This time we find ourselves revisiting familiar territory as Archeos Society puts a new spin on Ethnos, originally published in 2017. This set collection game begins with each player holding a single card, various scoring tracks representing progress towards ancient archaeological sites, and a central display of face-up cards along with a draw deck. 

On your turn, you have two options. First, you can draw a card either from the central display or from the deck. Alternatively, you can initiate an "expedition" by playing cards from your hand - these must either match in color or depict the same character. As with real expeditions, you'll need a leader, which determines both your expedition's power and which archaeological track you'll advance on. Any cards not played are returned to the central display for others to claim, like leftovers after a…

The post Archeos Society Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

The post Red Dragon Inn Expansions 8 & 9 appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

My last experience with a title from Johannes Goupy (co-designed with Bruno Cathala) was Orichalcum, the 2022 race off a cliff from Pandasaurus Games. But Théo Rivière, via his relationship with the Kaedama design group, has a less chaotic reputation in our house with a game like Draftosaurus. Together, the two released Rauha earlier this year. Their latest, Nautilus Island, puts players aboard a beached submarine to scavenge the goods—and neatly organize them—better than the other castaways on the island so as to win the right to take off in Captain Nemo’s leftovers.

Substance

The central board in Nautilus Island depicts a submarine (before you cover it with cards and nearly forget it’s a submarine). From left to right, there are columns of 1–1–2–2–3–3 stacks of cards, with notation as to whether they lay face-up or face-down. Player count determines the number of stacks in play. Players will loot these stacks of eight, creating collections in front of them until one stack dwindles to nothing, revealing the sub once again and triggering the endgame.

On each turn, players move their castaway meeple to the edge (let’s say the top) of one of the columns, deciding either to collect the top card of each…

The post Nautilus Island Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Ecology Can Be Fun

Emerge puts you and up to three other players in the role of scientists studying a newly discovered chain of islands. Researching these locations’ plants, animals, and earth will uncover new islands and species that help each island grow and evolve. By the end of the game, the scientist who discovers the most islands and diverse wildlife will take home the victory. Admittedly, it’s not a very “sexy” premise for a board game, but there’s a sort of whimsical charm in a board game tackling such an intricate topic. 

Each round in Emerge, players will roll an increasingly larger pool of six-sided dice and assign them to their player board to take research actions. Everyone starts with the same research board, but throughout the game, everyone’s boards will slowly change and morph to facilitate each player’s unique strategy. At the end of eight rounds, players score points based on how many islands they found, how big each island is, how diverse the ecosystem is, and how many research objectives they completed. Those eight rounds go by surprisingly fast, with our games usually finishing around the one-hour mark.

Wildlife Wonders

I was immediately delighted by Emerge’s visual language. The game is strikingly gorgeous and has an apparent color scheme and design aesthetic. I could almost hear…

The post Emerge Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

I have to be more intentional about how I use the word “pleasant” in my criticism. I often say it as a backhanded compliment. I suspect most people do. When I say Sirens is “pleasant,” I mean that it is fine. Nothing stands out, for better or for worse. The game is a smooth, featureless orb.

This is a profound disservice to “pleasant,” a wonderful word that I and others have unintentionally bled of all significance. “Pleasant” does not indicate an absence of any discernible feeling. It is not net-neutral. “Pleasant” is actively happy. It’s a walk in a park, or the feeling of a nice breeze. The little moments that remind you you’re here. “Pleasant” isn’t the euphoria of a great concert, something that burns short and bright. Pleasant is a slow burn, happiness sustainably sourced.

North Shore and Seven Years Ago

Beacon Patrol is a tile layer firmly in the tradition of Carcassonne, though it is noteworthy that Beacon Patrol is cooperative rather than competitive. You play as a group of patrol boats in the North Sea. Every turn, you attempt to place three tiles out on the board. There are two restrictions. The first is that you must place the tile adjacent to your boat, which moves onto each new tile you place.…

The post Beacon Patrol Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

The post Tales from the Red Dragon Inn Game Video Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Archmage is something of an anomaly in my collection. So many of our games reside squarely between whimsy and the eclectic-but-friendly fringe. We don’t own a dungeon crawler. The standard fantasy fare is rather uncommon. Characters don’t often die, and there’s very little spawning. And yet, lurking amid the light-heartedness is this hex-tiled, spell-casting, blood-and-darkness-touting table hog from Starling Games. Two of our sons love exploring the world, building their spellbook, and otherwise getting in each other’s way until someone comes out on top. I love being at the table with them, so we do battle. 

When there’s a game that works within our family, I don’t always want to mess with the recipe. But I had a feeling Ascendant would be a hit with the fanbase. I was right. Tim Heerema has put together a lovely combination of modules that all give life to his world without disrupting the core. 

If you don’t know the base game, feel free to visit our review of Archmage to learn about the mechanics and quirks. The remainder of this review will focus on the expansion materials and the ways they interact with the base experience. 

Spell-ing Bee

The most beefy addition to the Archmage experience is a set of 17 additional spells for each mage to consider on some level.…

The post Archmage: Ascendant Game Review appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

Frosthaven is one of the most anticipated games of 2023, sequel to the absurdly successful Gloomhaven and its little sibling Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. With over 100 scenarios in the Frosthaven campaign, branching pathways and hundreds of secrets to discover, reviewing this iceberg of a game requires more than just a single person.

Happily, Meeple Mountain is up to the task and today David McMillan, Jesse Fletcher, Will Hare and Andrew Holmes discuss their separate and combined experiences venturing to the frozen outpost of Frosthaven. Before we get onto discussing the game itself though, we’ll just introduce our previous experiences with the series and how we’re each playing through Frosthaven.

David: My first experience with a Gloomhaven was a brief, single excursion on my back porch one warm spring evening a few years back with Jesse, our friend Andrew Plassard (who’d brought along the first edition of the game), and my wife. If I recall correctly, the campaign for the game’s second printing was ongoing on Kickstarter at the time.

While that experience didn’t convince me to pull the trigger on it, it certainly put the thought into my head that, someday, I wanted to…

The post Frosthaven Game Review – A Conversation appeared first on Meeple Mountain.

There’s not much left to say about the game that hasn’t been said before. The gameplay is stellar. The story is engaging. The various classes and their abilities are inspired. It’s a fun game if you can get past its biggest hurdle. And I’m not talking about the game play.

I’m talking about its size.

Gloomhaven is a massive, sprawling, table-hogging affair. It’s so large and unwieldy that it pretty much requires one to rush out and buy a third-party organizer to keep it all neat and, well, organized.

Frosthaven promised to be even bigger. Before I even hit that “back this project” button on Kickstarter, I already knew I was going to need a storage solution. Gloomhaven had taught me that lesson and I’d taken it to heart.

But which insert to buy? There were two on offer at the time of the campaign, the LaserOX FrostBox and the Folded Space FS-FROST insert. The LaserOx insert (cost: around 120 USD) is fully wooden with all the bells and whistles you’d expect: trays for the player components, boxes for the various chits and tokens and such, boxes for all the cards, etc. Some of the components are even laser-engraved to add a bit of extra thematic flair. And while that all sounds great, my experience…

The post Folded Space Frosthaven Insert and Map Tile Holder appeared first on Meeple Mountain.