We're Not Wizards - Tabletop Board Game Reviews

                Upper Malden, September 2021.  I'm in the wind swept town of Upper Malden, where we're surround by crops of apple trees and honey bees. It's late September and I'm meeting with Vince Guffer, part time Traffic signal and collector of modern board games.  Vince meets us hesitantly in his garden due to current Covid restrictions and hatred of anyone not wearing a hat, and we slowly pass through some extremely awkward small talk before he heads into the problem at hand. You see Vince is one of the tens of people who suffer from the extreme public embarrassment of  box farts. He feels it's time that he shares his story in order to help with other sufferers.  He stutters several times as he begins to start his story, reassured by his partner who clutches his hand tenderly and squeezes it when they see Vince start to wince since he's convinced people will think he's talking mince.  Prompting him, I ask him where he first noticed the problem.  "

So while everyone else is comfy staying in the the solely cardboard world with the tables of chewed up and printed trees, oil derivatives figurines, and rulebooks at the ready to be checked off as required, Lucky Duck Games continues to push on with its hybrid model. Just like in the Chronicles of Crime series of games, the use of an electronic device is integral in order to make any progress, whether it be a tablet, smartphone or even PC with a handy web cam, you'll need something to scan QR codes on various items in the game as well as check your own Destiny.  The easiest way to describe Destinies is like a choose your own adventure multiplayer with bells and whistles, with the slight twist of giving everyone their own special requirements in order to meet their Destinies. At the start of the game you'll be given the choice of characters you want to play and you'll collect your own character sheet, gold, extra equipment and dice as required. Each of your character cards h

This is a work of fiction and should be treated accordingly. (Like positive Kickstarter Reviews) With champagne still left in a few bottles fresh off their massive Kickstarter Marvel Zombicide, CMON is gearing up for yet another Zombicide campaign launching this summer. Shifting to the East in theming for the upcoming installment, The Terracotta Army will include pre-painted figures in its base game for the first time. To take the helm in such an undertaking, CMON has partnered with miniature painting giant Army Painter. Always in tune with their fanbase, CMON may also be offering a “Sundrop” option for those gamers who wish to bring the figures to life with their own brush.  Joining us today, we catch up with the probably sober campaign developer Alan Johnson for an inside scoop on what to expect from CMON on the new Zombicide. We’ll start with the obvious question on the BGG Forums, why another Zombicide title immediately after your last one? ALAN JOHNSON : Honestly, it is more

If you're going to come at me with your same size box as Blitzkrieg with the same type of exclamation mark as Blitzkrieg and then spout about doing something in 20 minutes then you better be damn sure those promises are made of solid brass. Those are bold claims considering how much I like Paolo Mori's previous 20 minutes of joy in a box. In fact, I've not only wrote about it once, I went back and added in some extra glitter when PSC release the special big box addition. So you better just not be someone else pretending to be Paolo Mori otherwise I'm going to have to punch you. I'm not joking here. If you're David Turczi in some kind of horrible face mask disguise then I'm going to be upset.  I adored Blitzkrieg! because its simple concept and execution meant that it could be actually played in twenty minutes, and due to the randomness of 'the bag', it meant that no two real games were the same. It was incredibly moreish, like some kind of board game

Peer Sylvester wants to mess with your competitive head at the very base level when it comes to his latest game, Brian Boru, published by Osprey Games. Based around the adventures of Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, who in the beginning of the year 1000 used both his might on the field and in the political landscape to unite the various regions under his control and dominance. You take up the task of trying to gain favour with the church, control towns, repel Vikings and even use marriage to unite everyone under your banner and win the game. Providing you have gained more points than anyone else.  On first impressions you have what appears to be the traditional multi-track Euro type set up, with areas for the Marriage track, Church and Viking parts of the game. There is the huge points track that circles the entire board, waiting for one of your cute wooden disks to take a wander around as you collect the spoils of your progress. Everything looks in an acceptable Euro style order and

You sit back slowly in your chair, and push the laptop slightly to one side and mutter 'It doesn't matter' under your breath, and that's maybe some kind of silly reassurance because at this point, at this particular point, it's the entire focus of everything and of course it matters. Otherwise why are you sitting up at 12.37am instead of going to bed, when you had promised yourself 49 minutes ago that you were better just leaving it to another time? The sensible head in you nodding like some kind of dog on the parcel shelf of a car, always there and definitely ignored. While the second guessing gnome just sits in the corner and laughs because you promised it would never get to this, it was always going to be fun.  It wasn't always like this, you were able to do five things at once, and everything wasn't easy but it definitely wasn't as hard as it is now. Everything seemed fresh and new and mistakes were all learning opportunities, never set backs. You la

When you finally sit back like Admiral Ackbar in The Return of the Jedi, realising that your work is done and you've nailed that mechanic in your game, playtesting it until you've refined and distilled it, so that all there now is wonderful purity of intention and execution. There's always the temptation to bloat things out, to add in those little extras to extend things just that little bit more for the sake of content. We've all played those games where you can see they gave into temptation, and the mechanical star of the show has grown arms and legs and while you're enjoying what's in front of you on the table, you can't help but thinking that it would be better with some of the fat trimmed away.    Whirling Witchcraft is a lean mixture of engine building and resource management, couple in with a neat overfill mechanic that has you directly influencing other players resources in order to score and win. You take the role of a witch, using various ingredien

Ten has a lot of promise from the outset. It's based on one of the gamblers core staples, the tense delicious and often painful game of 21 or Blackjack. Except the difference here is that you are not only trying not to bust over the that gateway number of Ten but you are also using the cards you gain to create runs in four different colours. Once the main deck is exhausted then points are tallied based on the runs achieved and the winner can be decided.  There's three types of cards in the deck, the normal value cards have a number and colour that you are trying to get runs with. The currency cards will award you with the associated amount of currency that can be used to purchase cards from the market. Wildcards will allow you to fill in spaces where you are missing all important numbers for your runs. When a Wildcard is drawn then play stops and an auction is held to decide who will win that card. Each player takes their turn to draw cards from deck and decide whether to conti

Like an evenings entertainment in front of your favourite streaming channel, where you've decided to hit on the the 'Play me Something' button and you're not sure of what the next hour or two is going to unfold. You know the theme is MURDER but you have no iota of a clue as how how things will play out as you pick up the deck of cards and lay out the first nine in a three by three grid, forming a picture of a scene. On the screen this scene would be busy with forensics and police milling about, looking for items to investigate. On the table in front of you, this is almost a snap shot. A point frozen in time where you can see a tragedy unfold in front of you. You need to make the decision where in the picture you are looking to zoom into and which card is going to be deftly picked up, turned over, and voice it's choices to us.  Crime Zoom is like a chose your own adventure in card form, and you can see why Lucky Duck Games have partnered with Aurora to bring it to us

We were provided a credit in order to purchase a Pre-printed coloured mini from Hero Forge.  For many, the months of lockdown offered a different way to play. For those who were raiding dungeons or navigating dusk filled night skies it meant moving from gathering round a table with a screen covered DM at the end of the table, to individually gathering online through Zooms and Whizzes and Roll20s ,while still trying to act like there was team work and togetherness and the camaraderie you had come to expect. Avatars moved from being present on the table to being virtual properties moved as if by magic by an unseen hand.  Virtual characters mean bigger possibilities in terms of character design, and with the popularity of Tabletop Simulator allowing role players to take their characters virtually into their adventure world, the opportunities for businesses to offer services in this field has grown dramatically. One of the main players in the last five years has been in the form of Hero Fo

 This is a guest post written by Jeff Hurcomb, we were not paid to post this article. The thoughts expressed here do not represent the views of the We're Not Wizards Team.                                              “Some people dream of success while others wake up and work hard at it.” I’m a guy that loves a good quote and it took me a while to pick what quote I thought best summed up this guest post, but this really nails it because I will be discussing a topic I haven’t been able to find posted anywhere else. Getting over your Kickstarter not being funded. Anybody that has ever launched a Kickstarter knows the feeling. That feeling you get as your cursor hovers over the launch button to make your campaign live and give you 30 days to make your dream become a reality. There are already thousands of posts about how to create a successful campaign and hundreds more about how to re-launch your campaign if it doesn’t get backed, but there is nothing regarding getting over the em