Playing Games With Elizabeth

[Eric Tonjes is Shut Up & Sit Down’s miniatures gaming correspondent. This week, we’re publishing an article from Eric of a rather different nature. Content warning: This piece contains terminal disease and the loss of a loved one.]

Eric: As I write this, I’m looking at a copy of Pandemic Legacy: Season 0 sitting on my bookshelf. I am smiling. I am crying. It is a game I will always love, and I will never know how it ends.

Elizabeth and I got married almost a decade and a half ago. I was already firmly entrenched in my hobbies, painting miniatures and running a weekly D&D campaign. Initially it was “my thing,” and I never tried to make her love games. However, over our early years, she slowly eased into them. We played some Ticket to Ride, some Catan, and soon she was hooked. I remember the first time we finished playing Caverna, which became an enduring favorite. She told me she really liked it, probably in part because she won. I pointed out that she couldn’t say she wasn’t a board gamer anymore. She gave me her little half-smile and said she didn’t know what I was talking about.

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GAMES NEWS! 26/10/20

Tom: Welcome to the news, this just in: Ava is the best and Tom smells. Hey, That’s rude – get back in your own voice! Ava: How’s that? Better? Tom: YES. Now please never do that again. You’ll confuse the readers and unsettle my breakfast. Ava: I promise. Only if it’s convenient for the purposes … Read more

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Podcast #120: James Bond’s Sexy Racist Kneecap…. LIVE!

In this politely 120th episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast Tom, Quinns and Ava grab themselves three microphones, one twitch chat, and a whole month of preparation to best beam podrays into your brain… LIVE! Broadcast live and silly from AwSHUX 2020, this episode sees Ava and Tom delve into Mottainai and A Game of Thrones: The Board Game – the two very different boxes chosen for their respective application videos. Betwixt these two discussions we ramble about the infinite flowcharts of Combat Commander and Dominant Species, before settling on lighter fare with Legendary: A James Bond Deck Building Game – a box that asks the question: ‘what if bond(s)’? We then wrap up with brief, punchy chats about putting your friends into a bind in Oriflamme, and putting your kangaroos into buns in New York Zoo Have a lovely weekend, everybody Tap below for full timestamps and more info! Timestamps 06:45 – Combat Commander 10:11 – Mottainai 16:04 – Dominant Species 31:32 – A Game of Thrones: The Board Game 39:30 – Legendary: A James Bond Deck Building Game 48:02 – Oriflamme 52:51 – New York Zoo Thanks to our amazing community, podcast transcripts are available here, and are usually completed within a week of the podcast’s release.

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Legendary: A James Bond Deck Building Game

Legendary® James Bond is a cooperative game featuring some of the most iconic characters and scenarios from four select films, starring the most decidedly legendary, James Bond. Choose a Bond, recruit allies and deploy technology on your mission to foil the machinations of notorious mastermind villains like Goldfinger and Scaramanga, as you play through epic, … Read more

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Dominant Species

90,000 B.C. — A great ice age is fast approaching. Another titanic struggle for global supremacy has unwittingly commenced between the varying animal species. Dominant Species is a game that abstractly recreates a tiny portion of ancient history: the ponderous encroachment of an ice age and what that entails for the living creatures trying to … Read more

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Mottainai

“Mottainai” (pronounced mot/tai/nai or like the English words mote-tie-nigh) means “Don’t waste”, or “Every little thing has a soul”. In the game Mottainai, a successor in the Glory to Rome line, you use your cards for many purposes. Each player is an acolyte in a temple who performs tasks, collects materials, and sells or completes works for visitors. Every card can be each of these three things.

You choose tasks to allow you to perform actions, keeping in mind that other players will get to follow up on your task on their next turn. Clever planning and combining of your works’ special abilities is key, as is managing which materials you sell.

Mottainai is a quick, but deep, game experience.

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Combat Commander: Europe

Combat Commander: Europe

Combat Commander: Europe is a card-driven board game covering tactical infantry combat in the European Theater of World War II. One player takes the role of the Axis (Germany) while another player commands the Allies (America or Russia). These two players will take turns playing one or more “Fate” cards from their hands in order to activate his units on the mapboard for various military functions.

Players attempt to achieve victory by moving their combat units across the game map to attack their opponent’s combat units and occupy as many objectives as possible. The degree to which a player succeeds or fails is measured by a scenario’s specific “Objective” chits, the destruction of enemy units, and the exiting of friendly units off the opponent’s board edge.

A game of Combat Commander is divided into several measures of Game Time. There is no sequence of play to follow, however: each Time segment is divided into a variable number of Player Turns, each of which may consist of one or more Fate Card “Orders” conducted by the active player. Fate Card “Actions” may generally be conducted by either player at any time. “Events” — both good and bad — will occur at random intervals to add a bit of chaos and uncertainty to each player’s perfect plan.

SCALE: Each hex of a Combat Commander map is roughly 100 feet of distance (about 30 meters). Each complete Player Phase abstractly represents several seconds of real time. Each complete measure of Game Time abstractly represents several minutes of real time.

Each unit in the game is approximated as either a single Leader, a 5-man Team, or a 10-man Squad. Radios — and individual weapons larger than a pistol, rifle or BAR — are represented by their own counters.

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A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition)

A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition)

Based on the best-selling novel series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones: The Board Game Second Edition lets 3-6 players take control of the great houses of Westeros in an epic struggle to claim the Iron Throne.

The updated second edition brings a host of enhancements to your A Game of Thrones experience. It incorporates elements from previous expansions, including ports, garrisons, Wildling cards, and Siege engines, while introducing welcome new innovations. Convenient player screens will hide your underhanded dealings from prying eyes, while new Tides of Battle cards convey the uncertainty of war. This, along with updated graphics and a clarified ruleset, means the time has never been better to claim the Iron Throne.

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GAMES NEWS! 20/10/20

Ava: Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom.

Tom: Aaaah. Stop poking me. I’m awake, I’m awake. I thought it was meant to be worm month??

Ava: Tom. It’s TUESDAY. We SLEPT THROUGH THE NEWS. And anyway, worm month was a lie sold to you by the greedy greeting card companies after they accidentally acquired thirty tonnes of sentimental worms after a spelling mistake on their annual words order.

Tom: I’m feel betrayed! But I sympathise. We’ve had similar issues with the Games Newts. Onwards!

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AwSHUX?! It’s Sunday’s Schedule!

It’s the final day of AwSHUX, the world’s finest digital boardgame convention! Here’s Tom to give you an update on all the fun stuff that’s happening today! Take a look at the ‘read more’ section if you want a quick rundown of how to get in on this lovely little section of the internet…

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