The English language version of Spyfall is finally available! …And stock has immediately drained out shops the world over like a vodka martini through a sieve.
Don’t worry, friends! Operating in a dangerous web of international intrigue, and with a little help from Starlit Citadel, Team SU&SD has secured a review copy. At last, we’re here to tell you if this party game live up to the hype.
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[Introducing another new series of articles! Eric Tonjes is professional Nebraskan and miniatures gamer who’s agreed to review some of 2015’s most popular miniatures games. You guys were so sweet to Hilary yesterday, so please give Eric the same welcome!]
Eric: So you’ve played a lot of games. You’ve gone from the simple family stuff to the weightiest Euro, and it still isn’t satisfying. You’re looking for something more. Lately, maybe you’ve been eyeing those hunched figures in the back of the game shop, pushing around their armies of painted men and orcs and arguing about byzantine rules. You’re looking, and you’re wondering… Has it perhaps come to this? Dare I become a *gulp* miniatures gamer?
Or maybe you’ve just noticed those boxes with gloriously painted figurines on the covers and wondered what they’re all about.
In the coming months I’ll be serving as your guide to the dark world of tabletop miniatures gaming. More than that, I’ll be trying to tell you what makes the very best ones sing – what about each one makes them unique, and why people spend huge amounts of money and even larger amounts of time assembling and painting little soldiers.
Up first, let’s take a gander at Infinity, the phenomenal flagship game of Corvus Belli.
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Quinns: I don’t really like the Warhammer universes. When I was a kid I couldn’t get enough of them. “In the grim darkness of the future there is only war”? Holy shit!
These days I find them a little tired. Conflict is exciting, but not without peace to contrast it with, and not when you siphon all the humanity out of it. Where’s the ego and romance? Where are the themes and mysteries? And obviously: Where are the women?
Let me wrap this up before people start sending me photos of Sisters of Battle, or pointing out that the expanded universe is awesome (I know!). My point is I was a little grouchy when I opened up of Forbidden Stars, Fantasy Flight’s new, striking war game set in the Warhammer 40K universe.
I’m happy to say that Forbidden Stars defrosted my icy heart. This game is sensational.
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Does anyone remember our written review of the fabulous Star Wars: Armada? No? Of course not. You lot are visual creatures. You need to watch us nudging these tiny Star Destroyers and tinier X-Wings around the table before you’ll believe a word of it.
Today, we proudly present a full, 300 point game of Armada between Quinns and his friend Lovely Tim, bolstered with the first wave of expansions, including such vessels as the Star Potato and the Long Fellow(?).
Special Thanks to Youtube channel Mini War Gaming, whose handicam style we totally nicked.
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Paul: I think I can trace my excitement for custom dice right back to my earliest gaming experiences. Dice were supposed to be uniform, six-sided things that counted from one to six. The moment I saw that you could put other things on dice, my world was turned upside down. Icons? Pictures? Why stick to just six sides? Any shape you roll could be a die! What was to stop me shaving numbers into the dog’s fur and tempting her to roll about the hall floor to decide our gaming fates? Nothing, friends. Nothing.
The first time I heard about Roll for the Galaxy’s 111 multicoloured custom dice I had to be sedated. I don’t actually remember much of the day but Matt says they had to call an ambulance and I recall Quinns, Brendan and Leigh visiting me in a facility specially constructed and arranged to avoid reminding inmates of the platonic solids. Thing is, in that place we still had our black market deals that the staff didn’t know about. Ten pounds to touch a D12. Forfeit an evening meal to roll some X-Wing attack dice.
Oh yeah, Roll for the Galaxy. I’d better tell you about it.
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We’ve got a HUGE game for you this week! Witness might look like a pre-schooler up-ended their homework over your table, but it’s actually an inventive, sexy game of solving mysteries from the publishers of Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective.
But while Sherlock is a game of wild theories and sweet sherries, Witness is no less than a game of swearing, sweating and whispering. Come take a look. You won’t regret it.
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Quinns: This was meant to be a video review. Alas, my PC overheated. Repair parts are already enroute (thank you, indomitable Gold Club members!) but the show must go on, so I need you guys to imagine everything that follows with the glitz of a fancy video.
Picture the light playing over linen-finished game boxes. My powerful arms cradling components as if they were a baby animal. The caramel baritone of my voice.
You see, it’s important for your board game collection that you take Dogs of War as seriously as possible. It turns out this is a fantastic game. It’s also a terrible, friendship-sundering thing that made me more angry than a game’s made me in months.
Let’s get started. There’s a war on, and you need to pick a side.
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Paul: Oh God, my head… Quinns? Quinns, why are you here? What did we do last night? Where are my pants?
Quinns: How much wine did you have? Oh, it was beautiful, Paul. We circled each other for hours, laughing, getting closer and ever closer. Finally, I got past your shields. It was wonderful.
Paul: Oh no.
Quinns: Then you activated your squadrons and managed to disable my turbolasers with your mighty TIE bombers.
Paul: Oh no. Wait. What?
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Remember when we told you that Skull was the game that’ll make you and your friends shout the loudest? Monikers (buy here) might be the funniest game we’ve ever reviewed. Weirder still, it might be more than 100 years old.
We’ve always suspected that old things were the best, but now we know. Time to cancel those forthcoming reviews of Armada and Dragon’s Gold. Next week, we’ll be reviewing whist, football and tuberculosis.
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Quinns: Everybody, stop! STOP!
[Montage of factory workers looking up from industrial machinery. Doctors and nurses looking up from their surgery. Soldiers locked in deadly hand-to-hand combat, who freeze and turn to face the camera as one.]
I’ve played a new board game and it’s really, really good!
[Amiable mumbling as factory workers loosen their aprons and turn to face the camera, doctors take five on the edge of the operating table as blood spurts into the air, soldiers dust one another off and sit cross-legged like toddlers.]
Mysterium is a co-op game of ghosts, murder and hilarious incompetence, in that order. All but one player is a psychic spending the night in a horrid house where a killing took place. The final player, who may not speak, is a ghost sending everyone else horrible dreams. The ghost must guide the psychics to the correct murder weapon, crime scene and culprit before the week is over, or… well, I’m not sure. Maybe the psychics have concert tickets. It doesn’t matter, and you won’t care. You’ll be laughing too much and thinking too hard.
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