Table Top Game Club Week 26, 27, and 28: Smash, Crash, and Coup

Week 26: King of New York

With a new Japanese made Godzilla film due in theaters in 2016 (Godzilla Resurgence ), it’s a good time to talk about giant monsters.  King of Tokyo is the “go to” Yahtzee, dice-rolling, giant kaiju monster game popularized by Wil Wheaton’s Table Top.  It’s an easy game to play, and easy game to teach, and is great for accommodating larger groups of gamers (it can play up to six).  It’s also quite fun.

King of New York is a sequel/offshoot/spinoff where once again giant monsters are throwing down in a massive battle royal, only now set in New York.  Like KOT, combatants struggle for dominance and points.  Unlike KOT, King of New York, allows everyone to have a piece of territory.  KONY adds a very inspired mechanic where the monsters can attack buildings for points, energy, or health.  As in those classic Toho kaiju movies, there is also a military response for impromptu remodeling of New York.  It feels more in spirit with the basic concept of giant monsters trashing a city.  KONY feels a little more silly than KOT.  One series of dice rolls can make a character “Superstar”, and the adoration of fans and paparazzi grants that monster points.  Another series of rolls turns the Statue of Liberty into an ally.  Although there needs a certain amount of suspending disbelief in a game of this nature, it would be nice to see the mechanics tie in closer with the theme of giant monsters.  Most of the new cards and their powers are great, but quite a few are based on simply buying victory points at a discount based on occupying a particular borough.  The New York sprawl and ability to engage in destroying buildings and military units is neat, and much more thematic than KOT’s mechanic for rolling points.  Unfortunately, everyone could theoretically attack New York, score points, struggle for life and energy, and never actually fight each other. Some of the characters are interesting, but seem a little too goofy.  What exactly is The Sherriff?  I’m curious to see if Iello releases a Power Up type expansion, but I’m not sure how one could add depth and mythos to a T-Rex with a cowboy hat.

The game session was well attended, and students had fun, but they did notice the lack of direct monster to monster conflict. It’s always good however to find games that accommodate larger groups, and recruitment of new players has yielded higher numbers.  No game club on Good Friday. 

Week 27: Formula D

After Easter break, we had a huge turn-out for Game Club.  In anticipation of  the bigger group, we were ready with another game featured on Table Top, Formula D, a racing game for up to ten players.  Formula D is a wonderfully tactile game, with tiny model cars and personal dashboards complete with moving stick shifts.  The game uses a very clever technique for movement.  Although it looks like a simple roll-and-move mechanic, different gears are represented by different polyhedral dice (fans of Dungeons & Dragons will recognize these right away).  The lowest gear represented by a d4 and the highest represented by a d30.  As players shift up and down in gears they get to roll different dice.  The dice are also numbered specifically to represent a range of numbers.  For example, unlike a typical d6 that is numbered 1-6, the d6 representing second gear is numbered 2-4 (2,3,3,4,4,4).  That way gearing up to higher levels guarantees a decent amount of movement (you’ll never roll a one on a d20 for example; its range is 11-20).  This simulates the anticipation and excitement of being able to open up the engines on straightaways, but as the saying goes, “speed  kills”.  Turns on the track are dangerous.  Players must stop a prescribed amount of times at each turn, for overshooting a turn causes stress and damage on the vehicle.  In a one lap race there is no pit stop, so there is a great sense of risk and reward.  Open up the engines into a higher gear to speed ahead, or play it safe and let your opponents flame out before the finish line.

What made this a great game for the students was the ability to adjust the levels of complexity.  A group of new players can have a fun, tense race with a simple damage meter to record wear and tear on the vehicle.  As they get more familiar with the system, they can progress to area-specific damage, weather conditions, and even specific characters who have special abilities.  We played one game on Tuesday which was won by a new club member, and one game Friday where we used the street-racing track.  Both games had tense finishes, and there was much cheering at the end.  The only drawbacks to the game can been seen when the player count gets high.  A seven+ player race can get a bit slow if players haven’t thought about their moves ahead of time.  Analysis paralysis can bog down the momentum and excitement, so encourage players to be ready on their turn.  Overall though, this game was a success, and I see it hitting the table again…soon!

If the big numbers keep up, I think it’s time for a little Coup.

Week 28: Coup

Week 28 saw one of our biggest turn-outs to date.  We had over ten players at our Tuesday session, so to keep people engaged, a side table of Love Letter came in really handy.  It also came in handy because Love Letter is a nice warm-up for Coup.  Set in the world of The Resistance, Coup is a fantastic game of bluffing and deception.  Each player gets two cards representing characters of a court (Duke, Ambassador, Captain, Assassin, and Countess).  Cards are placed face down in front of the players, so no player know what the others have.  Players take turns gathering money, stealing money, attempting assassinations, gathering taxes, and performing coups on eachother.  The fun comes from the tension and bluffing that arises as people decide whether or not to challenge the claims made by other players.  If you attempt to steal from me, do I call your bluff that you don't actually have the card that allows stealing, knowing if I'm wrong I'll be halfway to a loss?  It's this dynamic that makes the game fun.  Some players tried bluffing their way through, while others found it smarter to always tell the truth.  The game plays quite quickly, however with our large numbers, it dragged a bit as players were slowly eliminated.  We had for games in our two hour session.  We also played a few games using the Reformation expansion, which adds a neat loyalty mechanic, and the Inquisitor card that allows players to peek at other cards.

Recruitment of new players has been excellent, for Friday's session was huge!  We had new players, as well as the return of two graduates to join in the fun.  This lead to multiple games of Coup, Nevermore, Love Letter, and we finished with a few rounds of The Resistance.  It's a very exciting time for the club as our numbers swell.  I honestly don't know where to take it next week, but I think it's time to introduce Abyss!

Thank you all for your support and encouragment behind this blog.  Thanks for reading!

Table Top Game Club Week 24 and 25: Dungeons, Lanterns, and Concepts

Two more weeks are in the books, and with Parent/Teacher interviews replacing one of our Fridays, there are three game sessions to review.  Let's get at it.

Week 24: Boss Monster and Lanterns

Boss Monster is a card game where players take on the role of a boss monster, the final bad guy in a dungeon as seen in classic videogames like Castlevania, Metroid, and Legend of Zelda.  Players draw cards representing rooms in a dungeon.  Room cards are played face up to the left of the boss monster.  The rooms include traps and creatures, and the cards are drawn in a pixelated style akin to 16-Bit videogames.  Every round, players build on to their dungeon and then attempt to attract and kill adventurers.  The adventurers, who are usually the heroes of these sidescroller videogames, venture through the players' dungeons.  If an adventurer dies in the dungeon, the player scores points.  If the adventurer makes it to the boss, the player loses points (or is killed after five heroes, depending on the rules you wish to use).

Boss Monster is a game I wish I enjoyed more.  I love the premise, and the gameplay is quite easy to learn.  Unfortunately, it's a little lackluster.  Once the dungeons have been built, it's difficult to adjust your strategy, and if you had a bad hand and some unlucky draws, you're going to sit for a while and watch the remaining players run away with the game.  The students enjoyed it, but they mentioned that given a choice, they would rather play something else.  They are also a little too young (14-15 years old) to get the jokes and references on the cards, which are grounded in the 80s and 90s.  

Lanterns: The Harvest Festival

Friday's open gaming session introduced the crew to Lanterns: The Harvest Festival.  I originally had no intention of picking up this game, but when Wil Wheaton revealed that it would be featured on the newest season of Table Top, I decided to investigate the game further (Here's a video of Wil Playing Lanterns on 'Game the Game'). This is a smart, innovative tile-laying game that's easy to learn, but hard to master. That sounds almost cliche, but in this case, it's an accurate assessment. The goal of Lanterns is to score points based on coloured patterns of lanterns that are placed on a lake during a harvest festival. Each tile represents four sections of lanterns and their corresponding colours. Matching colours with an adjacent tile scores cards that serve as a form of currency. If you have the cards matching requirements on special scoring tokens called Dedications, you keep the token and score the points on that token. The trick to Lanterns is that every time you lay a tile (and you must lay a tile every turn) it also grants every opponent cards as well, based on where the player is sitting in relation to the tile played. It's a very clever idea, in that in order to win, you must consider every tile's potential ramifications. Greedily pursuing your own goals may help opponents score cards they need, but a more defensive approach will deny you the cards you need.

The only limitation to the game is that it only plays four people. I didn't get a chance to play the game; I wanted students to enjoy the experience, so I oversaw four grade 9s as they played. They quickly picked up the nuances of the game, and they really enjoyed it.

It was followed up with a couple rounds of Sushi Go! and No Thanks!

Week 25: Concept and Blokus

Concept was a 2014 Spiel de Jahres Nominee (that's a big deal, trust me). Concept is a fascinating intellectual exercise that doubles as a party game. At its heart, Concept is basically Charades, but instead of acting out a word, title, or saying, players use a massive board featuring images, shapes, colours, and other simple icons to lead the other players into guessing the answer. On a player's turn, they will draw a card with several different ideas that can serve as answers. The player uses small coloured plastic cubes, exclamation marks, and a question mark to lead the players to the right answer. The main player cannot speak during their turn; they can only use pictures on the board to provide clues. For example, if the answer is "Statue of Liberty", the main player might drop the question mark on the image of a box indicating "thing" instead of "person". This is the core idea for the concept. Since the question mark piece is green, any green cubes placed mean their images relate to the "thing". The player might put green cubes on the images for "art", "female", and "big", implying that the "thing" is a large piece of art in the image of a woman. If no one can guess the answer, the main player might place an exclamation mark piece on the image of a map, indicating a "location". Exclamation marks indicate a "sub-concept", an idea to consider when guessing the main answer. If the red exclamation mark is used, any red cubes placed correspond to the sub-concept, a "location". The player places red cubes on the spaces on the board indicating "red", "white", and "blue". Therefore, our "thing" is a large piece of art in the image of a woman, in a location known for being red, white, and blue.

Concept was a hit with the students. The scoring is almost abstract. The game comes with tokens of lightbulbs that can be used to indicate points, but after a while people stop keeping score. The exercise is challenging and rewarding in its own right. The game was a little tricky for our EAL student (English as an Additional Language), as many answers were based on English phrases, slogan, or nouns she had not grasped yet, but she enjoyed the process of concept building. It's a great game for so many different occasions. It's great for parties and in an educational setting.

Wrapping up Concept early, we got the chance to play Blokus.  Blokus might be a bit pedestrian for most hardcore gamers, but I think it's a slick little game reminiscent of a marriage between Tetris and a crossword puzzle.  Opponents take turns placing coloured game pieces onto a grid in an area control fashion.  The goal of the game is to get rid of as many of your own pieces as possible, while blocking opponents from doing the same.  It's a game that's really easy to teach, but a shrewd player can easily start to see the depth of strategies.  Even though I was the "veteran" player (I use the term loosely), I was schooled by a Grade 9.  Overall, it was a very satisfying session.

Next week, we'll jump into King of New York, but then we run into Good Friday and Easter Break.  I'll update this blog in about three weeks.  Thank you all for the kind words and support. 

Thanks for Reading!

Table Top Game Club Week 21, 22, and 23: Zombies, Steampunks, and Aliens (no...not Smash Up...)

Wow...it's been a while folks.  Sorry for the delay once again, but after Spring Break and some pretty heavy work days, I finally have some time to give you a gaming update.  In each week of gaming, my crew engaged in some pretty intense and varied gaming.  Here's the rundown:

Week 21: Zombie 15

Zombie 15 is a fun game, but it's also a tricky game to run.  Zombie 15 is a cooperative game where players take on the role of fifteen year old survivors of a zombie apocalypse.  Unlike many other zombie games (Dead of Winter, Zombicide, Run Fight or Die), Zombie 15 is on a timer, a fifteen minute audio track that come on a CD included with the game.  The audio tracks are also available on Youtube, along with some custom soundtracks made by fans.  The soundtracks for the game are an integral part of the gameplay experience and game mechanics.  The players are working to reach an objective outlined in the scenario guide.  Working quickly, the players each have four actions they can use to move through the game map (constructed from tiles), kill zombies, and search for equipment.  Some scenarios require players to eliminate every zombie on the board or search for specific items like keys to a locked shopping mall.  All of these objectives must be reached in fifteen minutes or the players lose.  Not only used as a timer, the soundtracks feature zombie “growls”.  Whenever a growl is heard, the players flip over a card from a Zombie deck to indicate how many zombies appear on the street. The soundtrack also features tense music and the sounds of sirens and other emergency response noises.

Students really enjoy this game, and due to the quick, tense nature of the game-play, it does not encourage “Alpha-gaming” unlike Pandemic; the players are acting too quickly, and the random zombie arrivals prevent one person from playing quarterback and barking too many orders.  The students encourage and help each other, and it’s great to see a student come to the rescue of another who is being overwhelmed.

 As far as I’m concerned, the game has two drawbacks: facilitating and set-up.  Because of the speedy nature of the game-play, this game needs a fifth person to make sure the rules are followed, zombies are added or removed at the right moment, and players don’t take too many actions on their turn.  The game instructions state that the players should police themselves, but it seems to run much smoother with a referee. The game also takes a while to set up.  For each scenario, a tile map must be built, zombies are added to the map, and often decks of cards and special token have to be adjusted.  That’s not such a big deal when you’re sitting down to a one to two hour game experience, but Zombie 15 takes only fifteen minutes to play the scenario.  The set up and adjustments made after each scenario hurt the momentum of game-play.  Then again, it’s not a marathon; it’s a series of sprints.  Still, I enjoy the game, and my students don’t mind helping with the construction of each new scenario.  

Week 22: Steampunk Rally

Steampunk Rally, no surprise here, is a game with a ton of moving parts, literally and figuratively.  It’s a racing game that can accommodate up to eight players.  The game is focused on a fictitious race through the Swiss Alps among history’s greatest inventors and scientists, including Nikola Tesla, Marie Curie, the Wright Brothers, and a host of others.  As a teacher, I’m glad to see a good mix of both male and female historic figures, as well as a mini biography of each person featured in the rulebook. 

Steampunk Rally combines several different elements together: card drafting, dice rolling, resource management, and simultaneous game-play.  The opening phase is a card draft as players select parts of a machine they are building to help them win their race, by generating heat, electricity, or steam.  These elements power the machine.  The next two phases involve managing resources and rolling a dice pool.  Lastly, damage may be applied to each vehicle depending on certain obstacles. 

The game has a few different elements to wrap one’s head around.  It’s not a simple roll and move mechanic like Formula D.  This game involves understanding how each piece works in tandem with the others.  Applying a piece that adds movement based on generating electricity is next to useless if your other pieces all generate steam. The game suggests that for the first couple rounds, every player takes turns applying their dice pool to the machine so everyone gains an understanding of the mechanics. However, as the game progresses, players can start playing simultaneously as they become familiar with the pattern of gameplay.  I strongly suggest that for the last round, players describe their final moves one at a time.  This eliminates a great deal of confusion, as we learned when we played the game.  In our first game, players kept finding new combinations after they scored, so finding an eventual winner was a long process.  The second time we had players finish one at a time, so each understood their options and completed every possible combination.

As a game for a club in school, I like the use of math and logic in determining how to optimize the vehicles, as well as the historic touchstones.  We found our biggest hurdle came from the confusion regarding when dice are played, and when they are vented (a process where used dice are removed).  Dice create effects when they are applied to the machine.  Once applied, the die must be vented the next round, and removed for the part to be used again.  When the machines get big and unwieldy, students would get confused and forget whether they just applied a die, or if it was left over from last round and needed venting.  I think after a few more sessions, the players will have a better grasp on the rhythm of venting, rolling, and movement.   

Week 23: Cosmic Encounter

If you're an experienced game enthusiast, then Cosmic Encounter is on your proverbial radar. For the few of you who are not familiar with the game, Cosmic Encounter is a negotiation game of galactic conquest. The game plays up to five people out of the box, but I picked up two expansions that allow the game to accommodate seven players (more expansions are available and are quite pricey, but the game can be expanded up to eight). The game has some wonderful components. Each player gets five planets representing their home-worlds, and twenty plastic spaceships representing their armada and colonies. The ships are 50's inspired flying saucers that also stack like poker chips. That's a good analogy for how they are played; they're used by each player to represent an invasion force or defence, but since every encounter is a gamble, the poker chip feel is appropriate.

Each player in turn flips a card from a deck called the Destiny deck. This deck directs each player's target for conquest. Once a player has declared they are invading another player's territory, the attacker and defender lay down cards from their hands. The cards played will result in either a one sided victory, or negotiation for shared territory. As a result, due to the possible terms of the negotiations, multiple people can tie for first place. Attackers and defenders can also ask for help from the other players, making for some strategic alliances.

Even though the negotiation vs conquest mechanic is entertaining as is, the real draw of Cosmic Encounter is the massive selection of alien races included in the game. Each player selects an alien race that gives them an interesting power. These powers allow for bending the rules and give the game a massive amount of strategy and replay-ability. The game can easily be scaled down for a beginner gamers, or can be made quite complex for experienced gamers by adding optional decks of cards. We played several games of Cosmic Encounter this week, and I found it quite easy to teach. The core mechanics are simple to grasp, and the cards and alien races are labelled to allow for easily pulling out the more complex elements of the game. My only disappointment was that we had a small turnout this week. Tuesday had four players, and Friday had only three. The small turnout did allow us to have multiple games during our time, but I was hoping to get more kids involved and engaged in the interactive nature of the game. I hope this game hits the table again because it has great potential.

Well folks, sorry for the delay. Next week, we'll press the start button on Boss Monster.

Thanks for reading!

Table Top Game Club Week 19 and 20: Chickens, Hunters, and Open House

Whew...Long time, no type.  Since my last post we had Final Exams and the beginning of the new semester.  Luckily the club managed to get their game on and get in some good sessions. 

Week 19 had only one day of gaming, a great session of Sheriff of Nottingham.  If you're familiar with the blog, you know how much I love the game.  I gave it some kudos in my Top Five Board Games for the Holiday Season discussion.  This game is a club favourite, and thankfully can accommodate five players.  It was a great session.

After a week of Final Exams and Semester turn-around, we were back to the games with one I've been wanting to debut with the club for quite some time: Specter Ops.  For those new to the game, Specter Ops is a "hidden movement" game, where one of up to five players takes on the role of Agent, a data thief who specializes in stealth. The remaining players team up as the Hunters, a group of futuristic humanoids (I use the term loosely) whose job is to track down and eliminate the Agent.  The Agent tracks their movement on a sheet of paper which is a map of the game board.  Hunters use special abilities and teamwork to track down the Agent.  In a five player game, one Hunter is in fact a traitor secretly working with the Agent.  We never played the five player variant, but I hope we get the chance.  Tuesday's session had two games of Specter Ops while another group played Love Letter.  In both games of Specter Ops the Agent scored their objectives, but were eliminated before they could escape from the board (the final requirement of the Agent).  Friday's game session once again featured Specter Ops as well as a couple games of Splendor.  The Agent was killed again, but finally picked up a win in the second game.  As the Agent, I managed some smart manoeuvring, but if I wasn't playing as Orangutan (the Agent with the most health) I surely would have lost.  This is a great game with very easy set up.  In a two hour session, it's easy to get in two games.

This week was also my school's Open House, an evening where we open the school and run tours for Grade 8 students who are considering our collegiate for next year.  The various clubs in my school set up displays to advertise what is available to students in our school.  Using display cases, I set up games that have great visual appeal, or games that could fit in the case after bigger games were set up.  If you look closely you can see I used Zombie 15, Diamonds, Pandemic, Age of War, Hive, Splendor, Blokus, Camel Up, and Mission Red Planet.

Inspired by our own display, next week, we tackle Zombie 15!  Thanks for reading!

Table Top Game Club Week 18: Madness!

Week 18 has come and gone, and we had a great week of gaming.  Tuesday's session featured a new game to our collection, The Big Book of Madness, a clever deck building game from IELLO.  In TBBoM, players take on the role of first-year students in a wizard college (*cough* Hogwarts *cough* *cough*) who have accidentally opened a grimoire of magical creatures.  The players each have a deck of cards made up of symbols representing the four elements.  Players use element cards to thwart curses, cast spells, and deal with ever increasing doses of madness inflicted by the aforesaid grimoire.  The cooperative aspect of the game is reinforced by players having the option of sharing their element cards, and casting spells that benefit your fellow wizards.  We played two games, with a loss for us the first time around, but we rallied to a win the for the second game.  The more I played the game, the more I was hoping we will get a second chance to have a go at this game.  There is tremendous replayability built into the game, and I want as many students to get to try it.

Friday's open-gaming session was a treat when a student brought a game from home that is a tradition in her family.  Her family apparently has played the game for decades, and they call it "Ching", but the more common name for it is Gimme Five.  It's a fun game that can be played by up to six people.  It's a game with a simple concept; two decks of standard playing cards are shuffled together and dealt out to players.  As you lay down a card, you play a chip on a board that has pictures that correspond to the cards.  The goal is to lay down five chips in a row while preventing opponents from completing their rows of five. We played in teams of two, and my student brought her custom made board from home along with customized chips (not pictured above).  It's a simple game in concept, but the strategy is surprisingly deep.  Looking for possible five in a row while thwarting your opponents takes some great multi-tasking.  We had tremendous fun while playing this game, and I can see how it can be a family tradition akin to cribbage.  It's a great game, so I might try to get a hold of the game for the club's collection.

I'll be taking a couple weeks off from the blog as we head into final exams.  The club doesn't run during finals, but when we return, we'll jump into Specter Ops!

I recently learned my little blog has had a thousand page views.  Thanks for all of the support, and please stay tuned.

Thanks for reading!

Table Top Game Club Week 17: Good Things in Small Packages

Hey folks!  This week we busted into the new year with our first game session of 2016.  To kick off the new year, we celebrated Micro-games, great little games that are quick to play, and although they're not particularly long, they are loaded with solid strategy.  We played all three games on both Tuesday and Friday, and they were exceptionally well received.  Our games included:

Rumble in the Dungeon: I think this is a great little game, and is especially endearing to fans of Dungeons and Dragons as there are little visual references and homages to the classic game.  Rumble in the Dungeon begins with the quick creation of a dungeon using colourful two-sided tiles, and then adding a treasure room and exit.  The treasure room gets a small plastic treasure chest, and then twelve cardboard standees are placed throughout the dungeon, one per tile.  Secretly, each player is designated two-three characters (depending on how many people are playing), and then the game can begin.

      Players decide to move or eliminate characters until one is left standing with the treasure chest.  The trick is to eliminate certain characters while preserving your own, but not be too obvious that you are favouring your secret tokens.  It's not the deepest game-play experience, but as a quick micro-game, it serves its purpose, and the art has some humorous notes.  As a group, it was well received on both game-days.

Age of War: Look at that box art!  I love a good samurai, and Age of War delivers a nice little experience of strategy and conquest in a "push-your-luck" dice-rolling game similar to Yahtzee, with an interesting mechanic for acquiring and protecting territory.  Some students felt too much was determined by luck (it is inherent to the game's mechanics mind you). Others got into the subtle strategy of trying to manipulate what territories other players should be interested in, while at the same time trying to reach their own goals.  Three-way grabs for territory can get very intense.  This is a new game for the club, and I think it was a success.





No Thanks!: This is easily the best micro-game for one's money.  Who knew a simple math game could pack so much fun and strategy?  No Thanks! is like combining blackjack with a game of Russian Roulette.  It blends pushing your luck, a little bluffing and manipulation, and some decent strategy.  Considering how some games with massive production values and price-tags sometimes fail to deliver, it's great to see an iexpensive math game strike a chord with the students.  This was easily the game of the week as we played it multiple times.  That said, all three micro-games were well received, and the variety was a nice way to start off the new year.

Next Week, time for some co-operative gaming as we try our newest accquisition, The Big Book of Madness.

Table Top Game Club Week Fourteen and Fifteen: More Cowboys, Pirates, and Wizardry

Sorry for the late update folks.  December 18th began our Christmas break.  That day I began typing this blogpost, but I have only had the chance to pick up where I left off today.  I'll try and make the most of it, so I'll salvage as much from my original post.  These sessions go back a bit, but now that we're back at school, My reports will be a bit more regular (I hope).

The Table Top game club kept the cowboy spirit alive.  We recently played the game Flick 'em Up, and even though I wanted to feature the game Takenoko, the club wanted to try Flick one more time, now including the possibility of horses courtesy of the Stallion Canyon expansion.  Right before the game started, another teacher wandered in to check out the action.  After one look, he was hooked, and it was now even teams of males to females and teachers to students.  We played two games of guys vs girls with teachers and students on both teams.  The guys' lawmen took out the girls' outlaws in the first game, but the girls easily won the second game with some amazing horse manoeuvring.  Poor Takenoko did not get any love, but the return of Flick 'em Up was a great treat.

Friday's open gaming had a good turn-out, so we broke out Libertalia once again.  I wrote about the game on a previous post.  It was an excellent session.

The following week we tried Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre (love the title). Prior to trying it with the group, I decided to buy the sequel called Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Rumble at Castle Tentakill, because apparantly I didn't notice the small warning on the front of the box.  The original game has some cheeky humour, but the sequel has quite a few cards that are rather inappropriate for school.  I don't consider myself a prude, or a supporter of censorship, but the fact is I couldn't justify including cards like the Auto-Erotic Sexsquatch.  Saddly, it was not a good purchase because I didn't feel cofortable with too many of the cards.  For the very same reason, I'm glad I didn't buy the Oatmeal's Exploding Kittens game.  Although it is fun, the theme and imagery on some of the cards just doesn't work for school.  The session itself was fine, as a couple new players were exposed to the original game.

Anyway, now that I'm back at school, expect regular updates once again.  This holiday I managed to pick up The Grizzled, Specter Ops, and The Big Book of Madness.  Here's to a great start to 2016.  Thank you all for reading and supporting the blog.

Cheers