Season 2 – Episode 4

SUSDS02E04

June 4, 2012 Reviews, Specials Wiz-War, Epic Spell Wars, Mage Knight Board Game WIZARDS! What are they? What do they do? No, seriously, we don’t know. But ignorance is for cowards! We’ve created a Wizard Special our board game review show, where we review Wiz-War, Epic Spell Wars and Mage Knight.

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The Castles of Burgundy

The Castles of Burgundy

The game is set in the Burgundy region of High Medieval France. Each player takes on the role of an aristocrat, originally controlling a small princedom. While playing they aim to build settlements and powerful castles, practice trade along the river, exploit silver mines, and use the knowledge of travelers.

The game is about players taking settlement tiles from the game board and placing them into their princedom which is represented by the player board. Every tile has a function that starts when the tile is placed in the princedom. The princedom itself consists of several regions, each of which demands its own type of settlement tile.

The game is played in five phases, each consisting of five rounds. Each phase begins with the game board stocked with settlement tiles and goods tiles. At the beginning of each round all players roll their two dice, and the player who is currently first in turn order rolls a goods placement die. A goods tile is made available on the game board according to the roll of the goods die. During each round players take their turns in the current turn order. During his turn, a player may perform any two of the four possible types of actions: 1) take a settlement tile from the numbered depot on the game board corresponding to one of his dice and place it in the staging area on his player board, 2) take a settlement tile from the staging area of his player board to a space on his player board with a number matching one of his dice in the corresponding region for the type of tile and adjacent to a previously placed settlement tile, 3) deliver goods with a number matching one of his dice, or 4) take worker tokens which allow the player to adjust the roll of his dice. In addition to these actions a player may buy a settlement tile from the central depot on the game board and place it in the staging area on his player board. If an action triggers the award of victory points, those points are immediately recorded. Each settlement tile offers a benefit, additional actions, additional money, advancement on the turn order track, more goods tiles, die roll adjustment or victory points. Bonus victory points are awarded for filling a region with settlement tiles.

The game ends when the last player finishes his turn of the fifth round of the fifth phase. Victory points are awarded for unused money and workers, and undelivered goods. Bonus victory points from certain settlement tiles are awarded at the end of the game.

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Review: The Castles of Burgundy

Review: The Castles of Burgundy

Paul: Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Oh, Jesus! That looks like the lovechild of a maths textbook and hotel room art. I’m not having that in my house.”

Hold on. The Castles of Burgundy, which casts 2-4 players as the holders of estates in medieval France, has the whole board game community bleating with quiet joy. We absolutely had to get hold of a copy and try it out. You know what? I actually think it’s quite special, too, although I appreciate it’s such a placid, thoughtful, deeply European game that it won’t be Quinns’s kind of thing. Still-

Quinns: No, no, I really like it.

Paul: You do?

Quinns: Yeah, it’s excellent.

Paul: But-

Quinns: And here’s why!

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The First Ever Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast

Paul: What is this?! Why, it’s the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast! At last, you can enjoy SU&SD while shelling crabs, or during an exceptionally banal bout of lovemaking. As our chat bubbles (and meanders) like a mountain stream, we touch on some of our viewer responses, beautiful hexagons, a dream about plants, some … Read more

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The Podcast

The Podcast

Paul: What is this?! Why, it’s the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast! And it’s also available right here. At last, you can enjoy SU&SD while shelling crabs, or during an exceptionally banal bout of lovemaking.

As our chat bubbles (and meanders) like a mountain stream, we touch on games we haven’t reviewed yet (and why), some of our viewer responses, beautiful hexagons and a dream about plants. But we also cover games! Lots of them. Topics of discussion include
Rex,
Mage Knight,
Runebound,
Alien Frontiers,
Race for the Galaxy,
A Game of Thrones,
Dixit,
The Castles of Burgundy,
Galaxy Trucker,
Kingdom Builder,
Arkham Horror,
Carcassonne,
Skull and Roses,
which I misunderstood the rules for, Sneaks & Snitches,
Shadow Hunters and some of our recent experiences with birds.

We’re between episodes right now, and also up to our necks in all sorts of business, be it our jobs or Mr. Smith’s trouble with his internet connection, but we also wanted to try something a little different. Do tell us what you think of the podcast idea and, who knows, perhaps this could be the start of something exciting.

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Impressions: April

Thurn & Taxis

We’re trying a new format! Sometimes Paul and I don’t have time to assemble a true, riotous review, but we are always playing new games, our bodies like a pair of unreliable steam engines powered by a smouldering pile of cardstock. So how about this: a quick’n’dirty roundup of the best games we tried last month.

Click on through, then, for some impressions of Star Trek: Fleet Captains, German hit Thurn & Taxis and the talking-tastic Baron Munchhausen. But were we actually impressed? Well!

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Season 2 – Episode 3

SUSDS02E03

April 20, 2012 Reviews, Specials The Walking Dead: The Board Game, Catacombs, Belfort, Cyclades Thabwam! That’s the noise of another half-hour of board game review goodness landing in your world like a bit of glittering space junk. You’re very welcome. In this episode, the boys are going to be on REAL LIFE TELEVISION! They’re just … Read more

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RPG Review: Fiasco

RPG Review: Fiasco

Quinns: Listen up, ladies. Fiasco: A Game of Powerful Ambition & Poor Impulse Control (which you can buy from that same link) is very much outside the realm of what we usually cover. It’s a two hour table game, but it has no cards, cardboard, winners or losers. It has almost no rules. But despite that, it’s perhaps the best game you’ve never even conceived of.

All you’re paying for here is a very thin, very affordable book. And with this book, you and some of your friends are going to roleplay your evening away. And you’ll laugh like garbage disposal units doing it.

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Review: The Mines of Zavandor

Review: The Mines of Zavandor

Quinns: CAPITALISM! It’s what’s for dinner.

Paul: It’s what’s for dessert, surely, especially if it’s about excess. The Mines of Zavandor is just the kind of cash-clutching economy management we can put all of our pasty weight behind. That’s because it treats running a business
with the same giddy lack of dignity as J.K. Rowling gave to the arcane.

The Dwarf king is dead. Two to four players control Dwarf clans attending his interminable funeral procession, winding through an entire mountain. Yet what you’re doing isn’t mourning, but receiving gems from back home and using them to buy, buy, BUY at the many auctions of useful or decorative tat you’re passing by. That’s because at the end of the procession (game) the richest clan is the new king (winner)!

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Season 2 – Episode 2

SUSDS02E02

March 19, 2012 Reviews, Specials Cold War: CIA vs KGB, Chess, Stronghold, A Few Acres of Snow, Memoir ’44, Jungle Speed, Memoir ’44: Operation Overlord THE FINEST (and only) board game review show going has, for episode two of season two, turned its wet, wide, child-like eyes towards two player games! Four of them! And … Read more

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