Author: Anthony

A little over three years ago, when I was still fairly new to the hobby, I visited a game store in New Jersey, about a 25-minute drive from my house in Staten Island, NY. The store was mostly devoted to Warhammer and Warmachine miniatures and paint, but they had a nice wall packed with board games – mostly new releases – and when I stopped to look the owner yelled from across the room, “Francis Drake, you have to check it out! We’ve been playing it non-stop.” I wasn’t there to buy a game (just paints for me), but his…

Dinosaurs – little plastic dinosaurs. Seriously, if someone had just told me a year or two ago that Triassic Terror, designed by Peter Hawes and published by Eagle Gryphon Games, came with toys in the box to represent each player (and the ruthless predators roaming the board), I would have been all in a long time ago. Unfortunately, I did not realize and missed out on a clever, engaging area control game that really sings with the right complement of players. Taking place over 6-9 rounds (depending on player count), Triassic Terror takes you and your herds of dinosaurs through…

I can only imagine the backslapping and high fives that went around in the AEG offices when someone jotted “fantahzee” on the whiteboard during a product development meeting. The name is a classic – a pun that elicits chuckles from dads of small children (myself included) and groans from anyone under the age of 30. To which I say, genius! Everything you need to know about Fantahzee is in the name and as you’ll soon see, that particularly combination of dice sequencing, hand management, and high fantasy questing works in a strange, exciting way that I didn’t expect but fully…

Welcome back! On this week’s episode of Table for One, I’m talking about three more games that have been getting a lot of time at my table this summer. First, I’m digging into some recent news in the solo-verse, including the newest Torbey game in the Oniverse coming soon from Z-Man Games and some of the other hot games in the pipeline from FFG and others. At the table recently I’m discussing The Goonies Adventure Card Game, a recent light co-op that really works as a solo game due to the shared nature of the actions. I’m also looking at…

Almost exactly a year ago, I cracked open a fresh new copy of Xenoshyft: Onslaught I brought home with me from Gen Con. I enjoyed it quite a bit actually, but after those initial half dozen plays before the review on Episode 87, it fell to the bottom of the rotation and didn’t get a lot of play. So I was hesitant when Xenoshyft: Dreadmire hit the table this year, at just about the same time, with just about the same mechanics. Would I like this game any better than its predecessor? Was it still brutally (read: nigh-impossibly) hard at…

You cannot judge a board game by its cover (I own a fair few that are less than attractive on the outside but house some spectacular gameplay), but every now and then that cover can be glossy and pretty enough to attract attention regardless. Such was the case with Kumo Hogosha when I first spotted it at Gen Con this year. Packaged in a sleek tan box with a magnetic flip top and a beautifully illustrated slip cover, Kumo Hogoshoa seems like it should be a miniature-driven game out of one of the big high production quality studios. Instead it…

We ran a short solo segment in the BGA podcast for a while and got some good feedback, so guess what? It’s back! But this time as a standalone podcast, Table for One. This is episode 1 and thank you in advance for listening. In this first episode I’m talking about my favorite game of the year thus far, Terraforming Mars, and how it plays solo. I also dig into a handful of other games I’ve been playing recently with solo variants including Scythe, The Castles of Burgundy: Card Game, and Eight Epics. Join me for a run through of…

Remember a few months ago when Cool Mini or Not announced they would be publishing Potion Explosion in the United States? I do. I was skeptical (may have even guffawed) that the company known for miniatures and big, expansive Kickstarter campaigns would shift gears so intensively to a family-friendly marble pulling game. Fast forward to Gen Con and you have Potion Explosion – one of two new releases from Cool Mini or Not that actually sold out. Not The Others, with its expansive Kickstarter campaign-fueled miniature-fest. But this cute little marble-pulling game. Of course, this review isn’t about Cool Mini…

Have you noticed there are a lot of Viking games hitting the market of late? No? Maybe it’s just me. After all, the Norse cultures of the first millennium are ripe for game development. It was a long time ago and yet we have enough historical context to draw from, there is a rich and interesting mythology we can tap into, and the Viking culture in particular was both agrarian and martial. I think I just described a board game. And in this case, that board game is In the Name of Odin. Recently fulfilled after a successful Kickstarter by…

When I was a child, one of the best things that could happen on a Saturday afternoon was The Goonies on local TV, complete with the announced commercial breaks and TV-edits. I’m not quite old enough to have caught this in its initial release, but I watched the heck out of it later on TV. So when I saw that Matt Riddle and Ben Pinchback were creating a Goonies card game, I was immediately interested. So yes, I am a big fan of the property, and my review is almost certainly affected by that. Nonetheless, I still feel like The…