Boardgaming in 2018!

Played Empires of the Void II yesterday, a recent kick starter from Ryan Laukat. It’s quite a package, the artwork is excellent as usual and there are tonnes of bits. The game itself is promising, difficult to tell from one play just how good it is but there are lots of options and interacting systems, different ways to approach your chase for VPs. Look forward to playing it some more, but less to lugging it around.

Me too! I can’t tell if the theme is really dumb or really cool. I just pre-ordered from GameNerdz.

For those who don’t know, Lords of Hellas is a dudes-on-a-map game (like Blood Rage or Kemet) that takes place on a map of Greece with famous mythic Grecian monsters and heroes (like Achilles and Cerberus) but in a sci-fi / fantasy bent. It looks like Star Wars + Greek Myths. It’s very strange. But the gameplay looks fun!

How does it compare to Cyclades, which I enjoyed?

I bounced of Kemet.

This is the Lords of Hella board. It says it’s only $80. All the miniatures look worth that to me. It looks like Titans crush armies underfoot in the Greek Isles.

Since it’s tax return season I have a few new boardgames incoming. First order included the second edition of Mansions of Madness and its Streets of Arkham expansion (I am not impressed with the pricing, which is nearly twice what I paid for the first edition, for less actual components, but I want to play with the app and I can at least convert all the core stuff from my first edition set), as well as Spirit Island and expansion. The latter should arrive tonight.

There is apparently a new game store near me that has online-level pricing locally and a good stock of FFG games (not surprising, as they’re a few miles away). so I’ll be trying to visit them later this week to pick up a bunch of the Arkham Horror LCG and then perhaps a couple other things depending. Currently tempted by Charterstone, Unicornus Knights, and Legacy of Dragonholt, also wouldn’t mind securing the latest Tash-Kalar expansion and the Legendary Encounters: Alien expansion. But that LCG is gonna be spendy, so we’ll see.

My Eldritch Horror custom storage:

All in the box

Unpacked:

Set up:

That surely doesn’t include expansions…

No, no expansions, I just got the base game last week! I do have some more room on the top there.

Rethorical question.

This is my box for regular and small cards ONLY for all expansion (decided against rebuilding the deck boxes for cities in Ruins since the next expansion will likely be the last one in a while, so I’ll do that then. That’s why there are unpacked cards).

Also, cards are sleeved, so they take more space…

Holy cow that’s a lot of cards.

Ooh! What game store is this?

The Gaming Goat.

Man I’m spoiled by having a cool stuff store 20 minutes away now.

Hey, there’s one of those half a mile from my house!

That’s been closed since September, but is reopening Saturday!

I give high marks to the one by me, the owner was always willing to go the extra mile to get in stuff if I asked.

As a new convert to Vital Lacerda’s output (Lisboa, The Gallerist, and Vinhos Deluxe are all fantastic, brain-burnery heavy Euros), I was really hoping this day would come:

CO2’s been out of print for a while, and that and Kanban are the two main Lacerda games I haven’t had the chance to lay my hands on. Now if only someone (preferably Eagle Gryphon Games w/ fabulous game artist Ian O’Toole, but if this goes well I’d totally take Giochix doing it) would do a similar revamp and reprint of Kanban.

Edit: Ooo, Ian O’Toole is working on the graphic design - with the original artists, as well. So much the better.

A game store franchise? What a damn cool concept!

It’s a good one. If I can buy from them, I always will. Have had many X-wing nights there too.

Spirit Island arrived and I have duly unpacked and punched out etc. I was not expecting it to have a solid, functional insert that has spots for (almost) everything and liftout trays. Almost no one actually bothers to put useful inserts in games anymore.

Unfortunately, I also got the expansion and there is no provision whatsoever for combining that into the base game box.

RISING SUN HAS ARRIVED!!!
I was going to take a photo but there’s just too much stuff to fit in one picture. I’m still going through all the boxes.

Yeah, the Spirit Island insert is amazing unless you get the expansion. Or unless you sleeve cards (I’m a serial sleever). Sigh. Not as nice as the KDM insert (fits everything sleeved, including all first wave and existing expansions) but very nice nonetheless.

Best insert ever is the Mechs vs. Minions one. Makes a great game even more incredible.

There’s a file in BGG that has the plans for a wooden insert for Spirit Island that fits everything that you can get laser cut at any shop. I’m thinking about that.

It might sound anal, but the way I keep my boardgame shelf manageable is by storing away all unused expansion boxes. So I’m really into sorting expansions into the base game.

BTW, there’s a second mini expansion for Spirit Island that is very nice. I would recommend it!