It's a splendid thing playing Splendor.

In Splendor, you are trying to attract the attention of the nobles by having the most production of a certain type of jewel. Right out of the box, the game is amazingly detailed; the tokens are like poker chips and very durable and the card designs are super. It is a great starter game for new players and very easy to learn.

Here are the basics of the game:

Here is the layout, there are three decks that come with the game; I would class them as green is cheapest to purchase, gold is a tad more expensive and blue is very expensive but worth it and then there are the nobles on the top row and the 'chips' on the bottom or to the side.
You draw out four cards from each stack and place on the table along with a number of nobles that equal the number of players at the top.



On your turn you can do 1 of three things: you can either take three different chips of different colours or take two of the same colour, as long there are at least 4 left in the pile (be careful, if you have more than 10 chips at the end of your turn, you will have to give up half your pot); you can purchase a card or you can reserve a card (which means that if you see a card you think you can purchase soon or you think someone else will need that card, then take it in your hand (maximum of three) and take a 'wild' chip as well.

I am going to go trough all the rules of this game, so I will just get to the review. Like I said, visually this game is awesome, as for replay value well it does have some replay value as the nobles are always different each game and the cards that come out of each stack are also random each time. I also said this was easy, well, I believe, the instructions are like 3 or 4 pages in total. This is a fun game and I did play it a lot with my gamer friends. It is a good game for tournament play as well and could have an expansion added to it down the road but the game as it is, is just fine.

If you have a chance to play this game, then do so, you will not be disappointed.

4 dice out of 5

Pirates and Merchants and Navy oh my!

Black Fleet

Black Fleet plays with three or four players, and a game lasts for about an hour.
Merchants, pirates, and navy ships sail the seas.You have a small fleet of ships at your disposal to allow you to amass a fortune.

The merchants deliver goods from port to port, and the pirates try to intercept them, before burying their ill-gotten booty. The pirates try to avoid the navy ships, controlled by all players, which intend to sink them.A fluid and dynamic game.

A card played at the beginning of the turn gives the movement for all of your ships. Each turn is fast and any action is instantaneous.
The fortune cards and the abilities of your fleet allow you to create powerful and varied combinations each game.Pay the Governor’s daughter’s ransom to win!

Players continue to make deliveries and launch boarding parties at a frenzied pace to win ever more doubloons and develop their fleets through new powers.

When all these developments have been acquired, it’s time to free the Governor’s daughter and trigger the end of the game.

This pretty much sums up the game and I would not add more to this so here is what I think of the actual gameplay itself:
First off, love the board, the colours and the details are very cartoony and nice to look at. The ships are a tad dull and I could see some people out there painting them but leaving something original since you need to know which ship belongs to whom. There are actual coins in the game (metal) and they are nice.

This game is very cutthroat because you always try to send your pirates after your opponent's merchants and send the navy ships after your opponent's pirates. You have cards that alter the movements that you do each turn and the development cards have really nice bonusses on them as well that make it harder for other players to win the game. There is good replayability with this game because since you play up to four players and the game gives you 6 of each development card, which in turn are all different, you never know what you will have nor what other players will have as their advantage until the debt is paid.

I really enjoy this game and there isn't much more to say so I gives this game 5 out 5 ahoys!

These games are Legen... wait for it... dary!

Legendary deck building games are seen in the Marvel Universe and now in the Alien universe.
These games are basically like all other deck building games, however, now they are cooperative. Once again they are based on the first ever deck builder: Dominion. You will have probably read my previous post about decking building games because at the time I was not interested in the Marvel game; to tell you the truth I found it kind of stupid. However, once I saw they were coming out with a version based on the 4 Alien movies, I told myself that I had to try this out and I LOVED IT... so much so that I took a second glance at the Marvel game mechanics and found it much easier and simpler than the Alien version and of course they have a villain version for Marvel that is just like the Alien one (I am assuming they based the format on the villain one for the Alien version).

I will start with the Legendary Marvel version:

Here is what is published on the Upper Deck website:

Legendary™ is a deck-building game set in the Marvel Comics universe.

To set up the game, players choose a number of hero decks from the likes of Spider-man, Hulk, Cyclops, or Wolverine, to name a few. Shuffle them together (since players use only a handful of hero decks out of the fifteen included) allowing the hero deck to vary widely in terms of what's available.

Players then choose a mastermind villain (Magneto, Loki, Dr. Doom, etc.) and stack that particular villain's attack cards underneath it. Next, modify the villain deck as needed based on that villain's particular scheme. Over the course of the game, players will recruit powerful hero cards to add to their deck in order to build a stronger and more resourceful deck. Players need to build both their recruitment powers (to enlist more heroes) and their fighting ability (to combat the villains who keep popping up to cause trouble). Players recruit heroes from an array of six cards, with empty slots refilled as needed.

At the start of a player's turn, he reveals a villain and adds it to the row of villains. This row has a limited number of spaces, and if it fills up, the earliest villain to arrive escapes, possibly punishing the heroes in some way. Some villains also take an action when showing up for the first time, such as kidnapping an innocent bystander. The villain deck also contains "master strike" cards, and whenever one of these shows up, the mastermind villain (controlled by the game) takes a bonus action. As players fight and defeat villains, they collect those cards, which will be worth points at game's end. Players can also fight the mastermind; if a player has enough fighting power, he claims one of the attack cards beneath the mastermind, which has a particular effect on the game. If all of these cards are claimed, the game ends and players tally their points to see who wins. If the mastermind completes his scheme, however – having a certain number of villains escape, for example, or imposing a certain number of wounds on the heroes – then the players all lose.

Do you have what it takes to defeat the villains? Or, will you let them escape?

I do have to say that the artwork on the cards and the board is amazing, I really find it bright and true to its origins.

The cards are clear and well defined as to what they do, there are some bolded keywords that the first few times you play you will have to pull the instructions to remember what it does. The one thing I would have done is put the cost of the card on the upper right (looking at the card) corner instead of on the bottom  because I made the mistake thinking that that card gave me that amount of recruit points.


Another thing I would have changed in this game is the points system... it is supposed to be a cooperative game yet there is still a winner (the one with the most victory points)... thankfully they changed this with the Alien version (you have no choice but to work together).

I love the fact that this game has a huge replayability factor (with all the expansions); there are tons of heroes to randomly choose to play in the game, you choose the mastermind randomly, you choose the villains and the henchmen and so on.

                     








There is another version of this game: Villains, but I have yet to try it and like I said previously, it is much closer in gameplay to the Alien version.

Speaking of Aliens, we continue now with Legendary Encounters: an Alien deck building game:

Legendary moves from battling Super Villains to battling chest-bursting, face-hugging, acid-for-blood-having Aliens. This game features some of Alien's greatest protagonists, including Ripley, Dallas, Bishop and Private Hicks, as they go to battle against some of the most terrifying creatures in the universe. Players must work with each other to defeat the terrifying Xenomorphs! Each core set comes with 500+ playable cards featuring all original art. Also included is a Legendary Encounters Alien game mat to help organize the playing field.

First off I have to say that when they say 500+ cards, be prepared to take about 2 hours organizing these bloody cards (ok the Marvel needed some organizing as well but not this long); they are all mixed up. How hard would it have been to place the cards by type in the box? Plus in this version there are strike cards, hive cards, drone cards, starter cards, etc. and the text for these groupings is so small that you almost need a magnifying glass to read them... plus each 'movie' setup has 3 goals to achieve as well and they each have their set of cards with this tiny text... but once you get passed this, you do not want to drop this box and have to do it all over again. However, once you are done a game, you have to sort through all the cards to place them again in the correct groups.

I really love the card illustrations and the playmat (yes a playmat... not cardboard) is very well done... makes you feel like you are in the actual movies.

What I really like about this game is the fact that you get to play through the 4 movies (if you want to) or you can simply randomly choose your three objectives and the 'heroes' you wish to have in your good guy deck and add to that replayibility value again and again. But trust me, you will probably lose the first few times you play because it is not an easy game... and you will want to try and win the next time trying new tactics... Oh and when I mentioned that this game is meant to be cooperative, I meant it; if your partner gets a facehugger and he nor you (not the next player or the one after that) can get rid of it, it is pretty likely he will have a chestburster come out in the next few rounds and die... But hold on to your butts... there is a version of the game that when a player dies he becomes an Alien player using the Alien deck and trying to kill the other players...

I give the Marvel version 4.5 dice out of 5 and the Alien version 5 out of 5...
Enjoy and remember 'In Space No One Can Hear you Scream!'

VEGAS BABY!!!!

Here's a game that when I saw it on Tabletop I knew it was going to be a game that I wanted for my own collection. Let me say, I am not at all disapointed with this title.

Lords of Vegas is an adult version of Monopoly with a lot more money being thrown around; you build casinos, place bets at other player's casinos, expand your casinos, try to take over other casinos, and so on.

 

It is a game for 2 to 4 players (plus there is an expansion to add 2 more players - and in my opinion the expansion is only good for that - I will get to that a little later on) and can be played in just over an hour. There is a lot going on during the game but it is a real fun game to play with a group of people.

Everyone starts out with 2 casino cards and they collect the amount of money that is illustrated on the cards from the bank; this is the starting money for that player. The players place their respective colour tokens on the board and these are known as parking lots for future contstruction. Once this is complete, the cards are discarded for the game the rest of the cards are shuffled into a game deck and the final 'Pay the Strip' card is randomly inserted in the bottom part of the deck and shuffled and placed under the game deck.


Each player's turn consists of taking one of five (6 with the expansion) actions; some can be done multiple times, whilst others can only be done once:
1- Build: This can be done as long as you can afford it and trust me money runs out fast in this game. To build you select one of your parking lots and pay the amount required then you select a color building and place it on the empty space. You will notice that on the board there are pictures of dice on the lots, and with certain pips showing, you place one of your coloured dice in the center of the new building and you are now the casino boss (for now).

2- Sprawl: This is a risky move but could pay off in the end; you purchase a completely empty space next to one of your Casinos and pay DOUBLE the amount. Place a building of the same colour as the casino you already own and place the die with the correct number of pips showing. The risky part is that if later in the game another player draws the lot you sprawled to, he takes over without paying anything (places one his or her die inside the building). You can do this action as many times as you wish.

3- Gamble: Yep you got it, simple, you choose a player who owns at least one Casino (is the boss) and gamble up to 5million dollars per building lot in that Casino. However, if the player who owns the Casino only has 2 million dollars, you can only bid that much (if you double your winnings, the bank will pay the difference that the player cannot pay from his own money). You may only gamble once per turn.

4- Remodel: If you are the boss of the Casino, you can change the color of your entire Casino for 5 million dollars per lot. If I am not mistaken you can only do this once per turn.

5- Reorganize: Here is where the fun is... when you and another player have a joint Casino, you can pay 1 million dollars per pip showing on the dice of all players and get everyone to re-roll their dice and you re-roll your dice. Whoever has the highest dice roll (individual die), becomes the new BOSS (be careful, you could lose your advantage or lose possible future earnings). This can be done once per casino.

6- Build-up (expansion): In my opinion this is the most useless part of the expansion and the most expensive to do... if you want, for 15 million dollars, you can add a floor to your casino. All this does is give you more points when a colour card that matches your Casino is drawn. That is all. Worthless in my opinion (for the price).

So how do you get more money and points? Simple, you can win at gambling or get paid by another player for losing at gambling. However, the main way to gain these is every turn: When a player flips a new casino card, there is a colour on it, match this to any casinos on the board and pay every player the amount of pips on ALL of their dice. Now if you are the boss of the casino, you also receive points for the number of buildings in that casino. If a pay the strip card shows up, you do the same as above but for ALL casino's touching the center of the board (the strip) and in the same manner as points and money.

All in all, this is a really good game and I really enjoy it. I find the replay value to be very high since you have no idea what lots you will start with, nor how much money you will start with, the cards are always mixed up and the end game card is randomly inserted in the bottom quarter of the deck.

Excellent game and I truly recommend this one.

5 out of 5 dice.

Old school comes to the table...

RAMPAGE!

 

 



I am sure there are people reading this that were just as in awe as I was when I first saw this in my local game shoppe. Well that AWE did not last long with me (sorry to say). The game itself is not bad, but it lacks replay value big time and I find it is really aimed at smaller kids (so more of a family game, which is fine).

I was able to test this product and give a demo of it at my local store and not having to buy it was a plus.

When I got home, I noticed there were BONUS stickers with the game; these were for all the little meeples the game comes with - front and back stickers. You don't have to put them on, but it is nice to see the different characters (cheerleaders, army guys, etc.)

 

It took me about 1.5 hours to get all those little stickers on there and now a few months later they are starting to peel off or rip, etc. but it was nice while it lasted.

 

There are also stickers for the monsters and for the pods they stand on.

 

To setup the actual board, you have to actually stick certain bases (building bases) to the actual board and the board itself comes in 2 pieces which you have to join together by a center piece that is also the main base for the stadium.

 

Here is the overview of what you get in the box:

So gameplay is rather simple; you first setup the entire board game (as shown below) and you choose your monster according to colour and then you also choose the matching pod and monster screen and then 4 teeth (I will explain what these do after).

You place your monster on the pod in one of the four corners of the board. Then each player has a choice to do 2 of 4 possible actions: move, attack, blow or throw. Then you get to eat a meeple in your zone for each tooth you still have.



 

Here is a short description of each possible action:

 

1- Move: Remove your monster from the pod and use your fingers to flick the pod then place your monster back on the pod (be careful, if you flick too hard, you might fly off the board and you lose a tooth).

 

2- Attack: If you moved your pod close enough to a building (touching at least the sidewalk surrounding the building) you take your monster, stretch your arm over the building and drop your monster - any meeples that fall off stay where they land; any building levels that are completely free of debris are collected behind your monster screen and if by chance you made another monster fall over, they lose a tooth and you collect it behind your screen.

 

3- Blow: This action is quite interesting and funny at the same time. You place your chin on the top of your monster and take a deep breath and blow as hard as you can on whatever you want. Once again, any meeples that fall off stay where they land; any building levels that are completely free of debris are collected behind your monster screen and if by chance you made another monster fall over, they lose a tooth and you collect it behind your screen.

 

4- Throw: This action is fun, if there is a vehicle in your zone, you may take the vehicle place it on the head of your monster and flick it towards something and same as above with the meeples, floors and other monsters.

 

Once you have completed 2 of these 4 actions (you can also do 1 action twice), you get to EAT meeples that are in your zone (ZONES are identified with colours and borders - there is a park zone, a marina zone, street zone, etc.); however, you cannot eat a meeple that is touching a sidewalk or on debris and you cannot eat more than the number of teeth you have.

 

So you do this until there are no more floors left to clear. The game ends and you score your points (and if I am not mistaken, certain meeples are worth more and so on).

 

As you can see, it is a really simple game (maybe a bit too simple) and a tad pricey for what you get but it will keep your little ones entertained for a couple of hours possibly - just make sure to keep an eye on those flying meeples.

 

As a gamer I give this 2 dice out of 5, but as a family man, I would give it a 4 dice out of 5.