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Eastern European Engine Building at Its Best: Scythe

Scythe is a miniatures board game set in an alternate history of Eastern Europe that combines mechanics from engine-building games like Brass and worker placement like Lords of Waterdeep. The combination of these elements allows for Scythe to play out as a kind of hybrid between the two genres, giving it more depth than your typical engine-builder while still keeping the pacing brisk enough to make the game enjoyable.

Miniatures for Days

Scythe uses miniatures to represent units in combat – minis can be upgraded and used over and over again, allowing for battles to take place (with the possible addition of cards) between miniatures on the board. This adds a miniatures game element to Scythe that is highly anime-inspired, but minis are typically used in miniatures games to represent armies rather than individual soldiers themselves – minis are not merely for combat purposes here.

The miniatures are miniatures in both senses of the word – miniatures in terms of physical size, but miniatures also in terms of quality, detail, and artistry. There’s something very familiar about them, but they all retain a unique flair that makes each one memorable and exciting to behold.

The miniatures are miniatures in both senses of the word – miniatures in terms of physical size, but miniatures also in terms of quality, detail, and artistry. There’s something very familiar about them, but they all retain a unique flair that makes each one memorable and exciting to behold.

Combat Mechanics

Combat is handled through miniatures in this game, so there’s something decidedly anime-inspired about Scythe. However, miniatures games are typically done with the miniatures representing heroes or armies rather than being representative of soldiers themselves. I’m not sure if that means it’s more like Legend of the Five Rings meets Axis & Allies, but it seems fitting. The miniatures themselves are beautiful and detailed, which makes combat fun as you watch each miniature do its thing.

In Scythe, players begin the game with a faction board that has three mech miniatures on it – one for a worker, a soldier, and a noble. Each player takes turns placing their minis onto various locations on the board. These miniatures represent individual units, but instead of being used to simply fight battles or lay claim to territory, minis are also used to execute various actions throughout the game. For example, at the beginning of the game each player takes one minis from their faction board and places it onto an action space that allows them to build buildings – miniatures are also used to upgrade minis, move minis through territories you control (more minis = more territory), or to take resources.

Mechanics in Scythe revolve around miniatures and minis in a few ways: miniatures represent units that can be placed on the board in order to take actions, minis are used for combat purposes, minis are upgraded throughout play, minis cycle in and out of play each round.

Overall Gameplay

At the beginning of each game, each player receives a player board that has spaces for miniatures on it, but also several other actions which can be taken throughout the duration of play. These actions are broken up into four categories: managing energy, building structures, playing cards/upgrading miniatures/fighting battles. All these actions require the use of miniatures to take place, so it may be necessary to refocus on minis throughout the game in order to accomplish certain things even when it’s not your turn.

Scythe is played over the course of 8 rounds, with miniatures being returned to minishelves on one’s player board at the end of each round. This means that miniatures are constantly cycling in and out of play throughout the game, lending a sense of urgency to minis-related actions throughout play. It also lends itself well to the idea that miniatures are being recruited, so minis can be placed onto miniature shelves at the end of each round.

It is possible to upgrade miniatures throughout the course of play, but it’s somewhat expensive in terms of resources or actions that must be used to do it. I think this serves two purposes: it limits miniatures upgrading to a certain extent, and also incentivizes minis-related actions throughout the course of play.

Create an alternate history and buy Scythe today.

 

 

Agricola: Enjoy The Simple Things In Life

Do you ever wish you could go back to the 17th century, when all you had to worry about was your crops and your livestock?  Agricola brings back the simple pleasures of life on the farm, casting you in the role of farmer as you build the most beautiful and prosperous farm in the land.  It’s not all peaceful pastures, however, as you’ll have to outmaneuver your fellow farmers if you want to feed your family and earn enough victory points to win the game.  With quaint little wooden pieces and a gorgeously drawn game board, Agricola is a family-friendly game that celebrates the little things in life.

Growing Your Household

Agricola begins with each player being given a farming couple and their own little two-roomed hut.  As players take their turns throughout the 14 rounds of the game, they will move family members around to different actions space in order to acquire resources and build their household.  These actions will be any of the simple duties of running the farm, from building fences that keep out predators to collecting firewood.

The more family members you have, the more you actions you can take, so having kids can definitely help you build a more prosperous farm.  However, more kids means more mouths to feed, so you’ll have to plan your family carefully if you want to stay above water!

Only one family member is allowed to occupy an action space at a time, so you’ll need to develop a strategy to block your competitors from getting the resources they need while ensuring your own farm’s growth.  The 14 rounds of the game are divided into six harvests, during which you’ll grow more food and breed more animals.  The better fed you keep your family, the more victory points you’ll win.

Occupations and Minor Improvements

Agricola comes with optional Occupations and Minor Improvements cards for a more advanced play.  While younger kids will usually forego these cards entirely, more advanced players can use three different levels of these cards to make each game much more varied.  Playing these cards will win you extra resources and special bonuses, while giving you a more fixed strategy to follow in order to win the game.

There are a great number of strategies you can use to win the game, which will depend on what cards you hold in your hand.  You may find that focusing on building your farm is all you need to succeed, while sometimes sabotaging your opponent is necessary to keep them from having too plentiful a harvest.

Agricola Later Editions

The Revised edition of Agricola features an updated rulebook and gameplay that bring the game into the 21st century.  It also uses differently shaped wooden pieces to represent the resources that you’ll grow, as well as a more balanced deck for streamlined gameplay.

The All Creatures Big And Small edition of Agricola brings the game down to only two players while emphasizing the animal aspect of the game.  This edition casts you as an animal breeder in charge of growing your livestock into a happy and bustling pasture.  There’s also an Agricola expansion that makes the game playable by up to 6 players.  This expansion features additional room tiles, occupations, and major improvements that revitalize Agricola and make it perfect for family gatherings.

Live Long And Prosper With Agricola

Agricola is playable by anywhere from 1-5 players, so it can be enjoyed by the whole family or just on your own.  Playing time depends on whether or not you choose to include the optional Occupations and Minor Improvements cards, so it can last anywhere from 30 minutes to two and a half hours.  Agricola is definitely the kind of game that can be the centerpiece of family game night.

Agricola is suitable for ages 12 and up, so parents and kids can easily enjoy playing the game together.  If mom and dad are looking for a more advanced game on their own, they can add on the optional cards for some extra competition.  All in all, Agricola is a fun strategy game that makes the most out of its vintage agricultural theme.

But it today!

 

 

Here is How you Play Agricola

Ticket To Ride: Hop on Board for the Ride of Your Life

One of the most annoying parts about playing a new board game is the time it takes to learn the rules.  Some games are so complicated that it feels like you need to sit through an entire course just to understand the basic rules of the game.  With Ticket To Ride, you’ll be off on your adventure in less than 15 minutes.  This game is the perfect mix of simplicity and fun, forcing you to weave and wind as you build your railway routes across North America.

Connecting The Endpoints

When the game starts, each player begins with four train car cards and three Destination Ticket cards.  The game board shows a vast map of the United States and southern Canada, and your Destination Ticket cards show you which two cities on the map you have to connect.  Keep it to yourself, however, as it’s your job to secretly build your route without alerting the other players to your goal.

Every turn you get three options: either you draw two railway car cards, draw three Destination Ticket cards, or play one of your cards to claim a route and earn points.  Claiming routes is a super fun part of the game as you get to victoriously place your colorful little train cars along the route.  As you claim more and more routes, the game board begins to fill up with a bright web of red, yellow, and blue train cards that weave their way across North America.

Winning The Game

In order to win the game, you have to earn the most points by successfully connecting your secret Destination Ticket cities.  You can also earn a magnificent ten-point bonus if you succeed in building the longest continuously connected set of routes.  By building longer routes and connecting cities from across the country, you can earn enough points to blow the competition out of the water.

The fun of the game comes from navigating risk and fear.  Do you add more cards to your hand to give yourself a better shot at winning?  Or do you nab the route you need in order to keep it from falling into the hands of your rival?  Whether you win or lose, you have to marvel at the intricacy of the custom-molded train cars and beautifully illustrated cards.

Ticket To Ride Spinoffs

Ticket to Ride was released in 2004, followed shortly after by six spinoff board games as well as a few card and electronic games.  If North America isn’t your jam, you can play Ticket to Ride across a sprawling map of Europe, Germany, Poland, or even the Nordic countries.  Certain expansions even allow you to play with new map collections including The Heart of Africa or the Old West.

While Ticket to Ride comes with a pretty large game board, Ticket To Ride: Rails and Sails ups the ante by including a giant double-sided board that features both land and water routes.  If you’re interested in playing Ticket to Ride with younger players, the First Journey version of the game features a smaller board and shorter game time that’s suitable for ages 6 and up.

Get Your Ticket To Ride And Start The Fun

Ticket to Ride is the perfect game for new players who are looking for something simple and entertaining.  Gameplay is suitable for 2-5 players ages 8 and up, so it’s an excellent board game for family game night or a lazy Sunday morning.  And although its simplicity is one of its greatest features, you’ll find that this board game is plenty interesting enough to keep you engaged throughout the entire 30-60 minutes of game time.

If you’re a locomotive junkie or you’re simply looking for a new board game to add to the mix, you’ll love the imaginative world of Ticket to Ride.  With circuitous routes traversing a beautifully illustrated game board, Ticket to Ride is just as much an adventure for your eyes as it is for your mind.  Hop on board and enjoy the ride with this entertaining and creative board game that will be sure to make “conductor” your newest dream job!

 

 

How to Play Ticket to Ride

Catan: Explore a Whole New World

Have you ever wondered what it was like to be Christopher Columbus and discover a new land full of untapped potential?  While there may not be much of the Earth we have yet to discover, that doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy the experience of the early settlers.  If you’re an explorer at heart, you’ll love the exciting setup of Catan, a board game that pits players against each other in the race to build a lasting society.  

Formerly known as The Settlers of Catan, this board game uses dice, cards, and strategy to provide you with up to two hours of fun.  The game begins with your ship washing ashore a brand new land, brimming with unspoiled possibility.  But not so fast—you’re not the only one to land on Catan’s shores!  Several other seafarers have arrived at the same time with the exact same desire to colonize.  You’ll have to battle the other players in order to gain dominance and win the game.

 

Building Settlements

Catan uses a game board that is set up with hexagonal terrain tiles.  Each player begins their settlement with two small houses on the spaces where three of these terrain hexes meet.  Then, by rolling the dice, players accumulate different resources and barter with each other in order to turn their settlement into a prosperous city.  The more settlements and cities you build, the more victory points you accumulate.  Once you reach 10 victory points, you are officially the winner of Catan.

But how do you go about bartering resources and building settlements?  This is where Catan gets interesting.  Strategy is a huge part of the game as you trade your resources at ports and with other players to give away what you have too much of in order to collect what you need.  But be sure to trade smartly, as you don’t want to give away something that will give the other player the upper hand.  Sometimes theft is necessary, as rolling a 7 on the dice can allow you to steal the resource card you need from other players.

Catan Expansion Packs

Catan has been around for decades, as it was originally released in 1995.  Catan is suitable for ages 10 and up, and gameplay usually lasts between one and two hours.  While the base game serves 3-4 players, the extension allows you to incorporate 5-6 players.  With so many people vying to win, you can fill an entire evening with a game of Catan!

Catan also comes with several expansion packs, which allows you to enjoy a whole new chapter.  The Seafarers expansion adds ships that serve as roads over the water, allowing you to explore the sea and settle on an uninhabited archipelago of islands.  In addition to ships, the Seafarers expansion also includes pirates, which will steal resources from ships and even prevent them from being built in the first place.

Catan: Cities and Knights adds new Knights that can be used to attack other players as well as defend Catan from barbarian invaders.  These barbarian invaders will occasionally attack Catan, forcing the warring settlements to work together to fend them off and continue the game.  This expansion also includes additional resources to be produced and traded, which include paper, cloth, and coin.  Catan: Cities and Knights can be combined with the Seafarers expansion for an even more complex game.

Build A New World With Catan

Catan is arguably one of the most popular board games ever invented, with countless spin-offs, film/television adaptations, and even tournaments.  Its popularity is likely due to the fact that this game appeals to almost everyone.  Whether you’re a family looking for a casual game to add into the mix or you’re a hard-core gamer looking to relive the nostalgia of a classic, Catan has something for everyone.

While the base game is simple enough for children to enjoy, it’s the expansions that really make Catan a versatile game.  You won’t ever get bored of Catan, and no collection of board games will ever be complete without this classic multiplayer board game.  Indulge your imagination and get in touch with your inner settler with Catan!

 

 

How to Play Catan

Ticket To Ride: The Locomotive Adventure You’ll Never Forget

Are you looking for a game to play on family game night that’s simple enough for the kids to understand but fun enough to keep everyone on their toes? Ticket to Ride is the perfect game for you! Gameplay is simple enough that you can dive right in without stopping to read a manual an inch thick. You’ll lose yourself in the vintage world of train cars by building railway routes that weave across North America and claiming victory over your competitors.

How It is Played

Ticket to Ride is a turn-based game that’s simple enough to learn in minutes. Each turn you draw cards, claim railway routes, or get Destination Tickets that connect distant cities. With each turn comes a choice: do you greedily add more cards or fearfully snatch a critical route away from your competitor?

The game is for ages 8 and up, so the whole family can enjoy the fun. The coolest features of the game are the beautiful illustrations on both the cards and the giant board map of North America. The custom-molded train cars are cute little multicolored rectangles that snake across the board, adding to the game’s charming aesthetic.

Ticket to Ride comes as part of a series, with other games allowing you to traverse foreign countries like Germany or the Nordic Countries. If you’ve dreamt your whole life of being a conductor (and what little kid hasn’t?), you’ll love the fantasy world this game builds. With weaving routes and snaking train cars, Ticket to Ride is a wild ride you won’t soon forget.

This is one of the best selling games of all time! If you want to set your sites on traveling the countryside with Ticket to Ride then this is something you should buy. Trains are great!

 

Catan The Board Game: Fun For The Whole Family!

Board games have been a staple of family gatherings for decades.  There’s nothing more fun than dividing into teams that pit Mom against Dad, Cousin Joe against Grandma Ruth.  But Monopoly has grown stale, and Risk is too cut-throat (remember the near-brawl last Thanksgiving?)  The family needs a new board game that’s fun and interesting enough to come back to time and time again.  Enter Catan. 

Discovery of Catan

Catan, also known as Settlers of Catan, is a well-known board game that combines strategy and luck to help players build the biggest settlement in the land.  The game begins with the discovery of a new land as your ship washes ashore on the coast of an uncharted island.  But before you go about building your settlement with the carefree nature of early colonialists, you discover that other seafarers have also landed on Catan’s shores.  The race to gain supremacy on Catan is on!

Building and Bartering

The game board is set up using hexagonal terrain tiles to represent the beautiful island of Catan.  Each player sets two small houses on spaces where the three terrain hexes meet.  With the roll of a dice, resources get doled out to each player to then barter in order to build their settlements.

The fun of the game comes from building your new settlements that will become bustling and prosperous cities.  You’ll learn to barter the resources you have in abundance for the ones you lack.  Strategic planning is required in order to skillfully trade your resources and complete your building projects.  Each settlement scores you 1 victory point and each city scores you 2 victory points.  The first player to reach 10 victory points is the winner!

Who Can Play?

The base game of Catan is for 3-4 people ages 10 and up, and gameplay lasts from around 45 to 90 minutes.  There is an extension available that allows you to add extra players, expanding gameplay to 5-6 people.  If you’ve got a big family that’s all looking to take part in the fun, this is a great way to give everyone an opportunity to join in.

The best part of the game is the different expansion packs you can buy.  These provide new and fun scenarios that allow you to expand the initial fun of the game well beyond the shores of Catan.   Travel the ocean with the Seafarers expansion, leaving Catan for the its wild and uncharted neighboring islands.  Or, step into knighthood with the Cities and Knights expansion, pitting the knights of Catan against the barbarians who would threaten your new way of life.

Let’s face it: there are only so many games of Scrabble you can play before someone loses their mind.  Catan is an exciting and fun board game that provides countless hours of family fun and a variety of expansion packs to keep things fresh.  Give it a chance and buy it today— your family will thank you!

Head of to the shop and buy it now before it is gone. Well… It will never be gone, this is one of our best sellers. But its a best seller for a reason. So…

 

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