That's What Jenni Said

Christopher: Guest reviewer here! I’m Jenni’s husband, Chris. It fell to me to review The Shipwreck Arcana: Stars Below mini-expansion for two reasons. First, I was the impetus for getting the game originally . Second, Jenni thought the base game was just ok, while I thought it was a really good and beautiful cooperative logic puzzle. Her original review is here ; if you have not played the base game you’ll want to pause here, read the original review, and return to this page as I will be using game terms and concepts with the assumption they are familiar to you. So, what does the mini-expansion contain? At first glance, it might seem relatively small with just five Arcana cards, but since the base game has 20 Arcana cards, that’s a 25% increase, which isn’t small at all. Each Arcana card in the base game has beautiful artwork, very much like an alternative universe deck of Tarot cards. The five new cards in this expansion maintain that style of artwork, so if you were a fan, you’ll b...

I don’t play too many battlefield war games. We have a handful in our collection, but most of them are unopened and gathering dust. They are daunting multi-hour campaigns focused on traditional historic battles that my husband purchased on a whim but hasn’t found the time to play yet and I feel a bit intimidated by them so in shrink-wrap they sit and wait. Also, my tastes tend to gravitate toward fantasy themes so when I’m choosing games with combat to bring to the table, anything with historic characters is likely to be passed over in favor of elves or wizards. I suspect this description fits not only myself but a lot of my review readers, especially the female cohort. But it’s a new year and time to break out of my comfort zone. I’ve decided to give at least 5 battlefield war games a try this year and I’m starting with Battle Ravens . It’s a lightweight war game designed by Dan Mersey and published by Plastic Soldier Company. PSC funded the game on Kickstarter in November 2018 but yo...

A few months ago, I fell in love with Brass Birmingham (you can read that review HERE ). I fell hard. It was an all time top 10 best games ever kind of love and so when Roxley Game Laboratory offered to send me Brass Lancashire to play and share my thoughts, I was a bit hesitant.  Is there even a chance I could enjoy it as much as Birmingham ? Lancashire was the original game designed by Martin Wallace, and while it’s been updated for the most recent release, I was concerned it might prove to be an older, tired version that couldn’t compete with Birmingham . My concerns were unfounded. Brass Lancashire is fantastic. Playing Lancashire after playing Birmingham is a bit like dating someone and then dating their sibling. Sure, there’s a resemblance, but the kissing feels different. The artwork for Brass Lancashire is beautiful, radiating a classic style evocative of the theme (industrial era production). The artists have shown great attention to detail such as the raised go...

Last month I added Kashgar: Merchants of the Silk Road (designed by Gerhard Hecht and published by Grail Games) to my board game library. This deck building game originally debuted in 2013 to much acclaim, winning the 2014 Fairplay a la carte award, but an English language version only became available in 2018. In Kashgar , players take on the role of spice dealers traveling the Silk Road with caravans, seeking to enlarge their caravans, build up supplies of gold, spices, and mules, and fulfill orders for their trade partners in Kashgar (a city in China). Each player begins with 3 caravans (decks) splayed face up before them in a tableau. Each caravan starts with 2 member cards: a Patriarch card (of course!) laid down first, and a random starting card, slipped behind and under the Patriarch card. Each turn, a player selects one card to activate, choosing from a pool made up of the front card closest to the player in each caravan. On the first turn, that’s any of the Patriarch cards. C...

We hosted a lot of small gatherings in December and they presented the perfect opportunity to bring some games to the table that we hadn’t yet played. The Shipwreck Arcana was one of these games. My husband Christopher talked me into acquiring it, promising it would be something I’d enjoy. I was skeptical because he described it as a logical/mathematical pattern building puzzle game (BoardGameGeek.com classifies it in the Math category among others) and I don’t tend to enjoy those as much as other types of games. We played several games, usually with the full count of five players. The first thing I noticed when I unboxed the game was how pretty the Arcana cards are. The artwork is is unique in style and reminds me a bit of a tarot deck. It’s a pleasure to lay out the cards for display on the table. Components include the Hours card, the Arcana cards, fate tokens, score and doom trackers, number line tokens, and a velvet grab bag. All of the components are sturdy enough to hold up to...

Here’s a story of a lovely lady (spoiler: it’s me) and her pride and how it has led to the discovery of the single greatest board game I have ever played. It’s probably also a good primer for other reviewers on increasing your reach. At GenCon this year, I was perusing the wares of the various booths and my eyes caught a glimpse of two beautiful game boxes. Each had crisp metallic lettering with an old world feel and artwork that radiated European class. I made my way to the booth and waited patiently to speak to to the team manning it as there were many buyers lined up to purchase the games. I didn’t know anything about the games (Brass Birmingham and Brass Lancashire), or the publisher – Roxley Game Laboratory – but I knew I wanted to review one or both of the games. Almost every board game love story I star in in can be summed up this way: I am seduced by the artwork or theme and then I stay for the right mechanics. When the lead rep spoke with me, he gently rejected my request. He ...

Recently, the good folks at Kosmos sent me a review copy of Mercado. It’s a game my husband has had his eye on and asked me to check out, so I thought I’d give it a go and see if I enjoyed playing it. We played two games -  a 3 player game with the two of us and our 13 year old daughter, and a 2 player game where my husband and I faced off against each other. In our 3 player game, my daughter got well ahead of my husband and I early in the game and I only managed to catch up to her on the very last turn as I crossed the finish line and landed right on top of her token. The tiebreaker rule is a bit interesting – the person who lands on the occupied space last wins – and allowed me to pull off a surprise victory. In our second game, my husband and I were neck in neck in scoring the entire game and both ended on the same space just past the finish line when all was said and done. Once again, my token was on top and so I was declared the winner. Two for two!  In a sea of board gam...