[Ryan] Daniel and I had tried War Chest on BoardGameArena a while back and didn’t come away particularly impressed. However, I always felt like we didn’t give it a fair shake, trying a digital version late at night when we were both tired. Recently, I found a good deal on a batch of games that included War Chest and decided to give it another go. Holy smokes, am I glad I did! Really loving the tactics of this game and how the bag-building keeps things interesting and prevents perfect information. And manipulating the nice poker chips is no doubt a joy compared to playing it online. Feels like a new hit in the collection, and I am optimistic about the staying power with the great variability in units that you draft each game.

[Daniel] I was able to schedule a follow-up game of Nemesis: Retaliation after playing it with my gaming group the month prior. Playing this game multiple times close together has shown me how great the changes are in this new Retaliation edition compared to the original. There were multiple times where the way the map unfolded created interesting and unexpected situations, like a hallway leading to a dead end. Not the best thing to find out when you are being chased by the Queen haha. We had a blast with this one.

[Ryan] This month, I played El Grande almost exactly 15 years(!) after the last time I had played it! We owned the old edition way back when Daniel and I were still living at home, and while we enjoyed it, we ended up trading it away as we were drawn more to a lot of other games at the time. Now that I am so much older and wiser, I appreciate more the role this game can fill in a collection as an accessible area control game that has a lot of nice player interaction without feeling too mean, all in a 60-90 minute playtime. We’ll see if it holds in the collection long-term (I have a bad track record when reacquiring games), but I’m glad to have it back, especially with the nice new edition.

[Daniel] One game I had been wanting to get played for a long time now was Age of Innovation. On top of the beautiful board presence, this game has really proven to be the definitive option in this series of games, going back to Terra Mystica. The core system in all three games is so solid, but the variability in this one takes it to another level. Don’t be mistaken by the photo above…. red (me) did not win haha, but it was a tight finish across the board.

[Ryan] Another game that I acquired in the local pickup that included War Chest was Kabuto Sumo! This is one that I had heard a lot of mixed reviews on, but looking into it more, I was encouraged by the way some of the expansion content seemed to address issues with the base game. It is such a unique little gimmick as you push tokens onto the board to try to shift everything and ultimately knock off your opponents’ sumo bugs. The Total Mayhem expansion really does help the replay value on this one, adding some nice variability as well as modules that help the games stay snappy. I think this will be a fun one to pull out in a lot of casual situations, and as long as it can stay more in the 15-minute range, it is good fun without overstaying its welcome.