Donations are now open!

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Donations, and forums, are now open!

Hello everybody!

It’s an exciting day for us. First off, our fourth ever donation season is now open but will close at the end of September, so if you’d like to support us or want in on the 4th Gold Club please pledge in the next 12 days. Unless you’re a subscriber, of course, in which case you can sit back, crack your knuckles and feel a sense of harmony with the universe.

But wait! There’s more! An early test version of the official SU&SD forums is now open to anyone who’s ever made account with us by donating. There’s no need to be in the Gold Club to get an account. Whatever donation you like will get you in there if you’d like to chat about board games, roleplaying games, or just how to fix Finland.

Thanks so much for the support, everybody.

— Team SU&SD

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Review: Samurai Spirit

wereboars, quinns' japanese heritage, middle aged animals, impromptu makeouts
Review: Samurai Spirit

One of the first reviews we ever wrote was of Antoine Bauza’s Ghost Stories, back when SU&SD was little more than a twinkle on our camcorder’s four gig SD card.

Clearly we’re getting old. This year will soon see the release of Samurai Spirit, an all-new Bauza game of protecting an all-new village. What will Quinns make of it? More importantly, what will he make of that box?

Have you heard about the box? Oh dear. We have some bad news. Are you sitting down?

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Review: 1944: Race to the Rhine

rommel's wotsits, axis-a-snax, matt did say tiny wooden trucks
Review: 1944: Race to the Rhine

(Images courtesy of BoardGameGeek.)

Thrower: General Patton chewed his cigar and look East, over the Rhine, into Germany. He’d done it. By loading his divisions down with fuel, he’d stolen a coup on the other Allied commanders and made it to the river first.

Now, only the 155th Panzer Brigade stood between him and the history books. Disorganised and demoralised, they were no match for his crack US corps.

Suddenly the field telephone crackled into life. “Sir? Sir! We can’t action that advance order. The troops have no ammunition. Montgomery requisitioned the lot.”

“WHAT?” bellowed Patton, spraying out a mouthful of cheesy wotsits. “That British f*** took EVERYTHING? Jesus!”

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Games News! 15/09/14

mammoth zips, thicker tash, rare aliens, going full beige
CGE

Quinns: Morning, everybody! I know these pieces usually appear at about 5pm GMT, but I like that greeting too much to change it. As such, I’m now ruling that it is never “midday” in England until after the Games News. Please update your calendars accordingly.

I’m gonna lead with the week’s Kickstarters, but only because our first one has just four hours left! Rogues to Riches looks just lovely. This is storytelling & card game hybrid that casts the players as thieves sharing stories of last night’s exploits. Can you explain to the other players how you used nothing but your hat to steal the pub’s most valuable sandwich?

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Review: Dead of Winter

cleaning poop again, finding medicine, killing zombies, cleaning poop, exiling kids
Review: Dead of Winter

In one of our most anticipated reviews of the year, Paul and Quinns have hunkered down in their rubbish-strew hideaway for a spoiler-free analysis of Dead of Winter.

Like SU&SD favourite City of Horror, here’s a zombie game that isn’t about zombies. Rather, Dead of Winter wants to tell you a story of a freezing cold colony where men and women are exiled over a lost tin of beans, and the degree to which you trust your friends could save you as easily as get you killed.

Did we mention it’s the first board game we’ve reviewed with a sex scene? Oh, yes.

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Review: Camel Up

relinquishing control, a lacing of terror, dead stars, humping
Review: Camel Up

Quinns: As you’d imagine, we take our time with the games we review. There are tea breaks. Pee breaks. We’ll pass around a bit of cardboard, saying things like “Feel how thick that is!” and “That’s quite thick actually”. But yesterday? Yesterday, we were in a hurry.

“PUT YOUR FINGER HERE,” I ordered. Matt cautiously slipped a forefinger into the recess of my toy pyramid, letting me wrestle a rubber band around its neck.

“OK,” I began. “We’re going to bet on some camels now. It’s going to be fun, OK? This game won an award. Now everybody sit down and listen to the rules because we only have half an hour oh jesus is that the time let’s go let’s go”

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Games News! 08/09/14

paul dean vs. the killer roberts, crab production, berm squerd, who is jessica hyde
Games News! 08/09/14

Quinns: Morning, everyone. The bad news is, you’re all going to die because the end of the world is coming. The good news is, you can pick your flavour of ragnarok.

I’m referring to Fantasy Flight’s new range of pen and paper role-playing games! From left to right they’ll cover zombies, angry gods, aliens and murderous machines. In a great little twist, though, all the players control themselves. So, Paul Dean and Matt Lees having to use their real-life skills to survive when their fridges and lawnmowers start wanting them dead.

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The Opener: Cash ‘n Guns and Sausages and Mash and Onions and Gravy

adventures in onionland, laughing in the money, pedro, potatoes
The Opener: Cash 'n Guns and Sausages and Mash and Onions and Gravy

Matt’s definitive series on getting your friends and family into gaming, The Opener, has made its delicious return!

This week Matt looks at the brand-spanking new edition of Cash ‘n Guns, a game of criminals dividing the “take” after a “heist” by “shooting one another”, before ending the video with a lovely recipe for bangers’n’mash. It’s basically the closet we’ll come to filming Snatch.

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Paul’s Thank You for Gen Con

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Paul's Thank You for Gen Con

Paul posted this on his blog a few days back and we thought we’d share it here. It’s a personal thanks to everyone who made our GenCon such a blast, as well as our absolutely brilliant community, but it’s also something a little bit reflective.

We can’t thank you enough. Your support has been fantastic. We must have one of the kindest, smartest and funniest communities on the internet. We want you to know we appreciate that very much.

Paul: Thank you for Gen Con, everyone.

What I thought would happen when I got back from Indianapolis would be my sitting down at this desk to collect my thoughts together and then write some words of appreciation. What actually happened was that I slept for twelve hours, peered at the world for about four and then slept for another eight. My first Monday back is a day that I will never know anything about. After, I had the worst (still ongoing) case of writer’s block in a year and I found collecting my thoughts on everything that happened was actually a lot like trying to separate salt from sugar.

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Games News! 02/09/14

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Snow Giant

Quinns: It’s the games news! It’s a slow news day, though, where even our top stories are trundling like treacle down a sandy slope, so we’re letting loose a blast of our own news.

Our FORUM (hence the header image, do you see) is now just around the corner. While we’re expecting it to be every bit as kind and respectful as our comments, if the movies of Bruce Willis have taught us one thing, it’s that sometimes polite society needs tough dudes to walk around with no shoes on.

If being a forum moderator is something you think you’d be good at, you’ll find the application email address after the break.

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