Games for Two 6 - Shut Up & Sit Down

Review: Troyes

January 13, 2017 Reviews Troyes, The Ladies of Troyes, Games for Two, Conflict-Free Games, SU&SD Recommends To usher in 2017 as a year of good fortune, we’re trying all sorts of superstitions. Paul wrote “FLUXX” on a bit of wood and threw it in a river, while Matt and Quinns have chosen a classic for … Read more

Eric Tonjes, our esteemed miniatures game correspondent, has returned and the CROWDS HAVE GONE WILD! Vendors are sobbing into their hot dogs! Babies are being tossed in the air by baby-tossing machines! Everybody, let the man speak…

Eric: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we’re here to talk about sports! Sports are perhaps the ur-games. Probably organizing alongside early militaries as tools for training and proving of skill, they have grown to eclipse armed conflict for many, serving as a sort of proxy for violent aggression. But what happens when sport seems unnecessarily violent, and we need a proxy for that?

Today we’re looking at two possible solutions. Blood Bowl is the grandparent of sports miniatures games. It’s a rollicking high fantasy version of North American football in which you can violently maim opposing players. Guild Ball, meanwhile, is a newcomer to the scene which has quickly gained a following. It is a gritty low fantasy version of soccer (or “actual football”) in which you can violently maim opposing players. While there are nuances to the themes, both games are clearly competing for similar space. So, in true sports fashion, let’s put them in a ring and see which one scores the most points. Or violently maims the other player.

Quinns: Alright ladies and gents. Today we’re tackling a box of unparallelled size and charisma. The publishers tell me that there are less than 3500 copies of Vinhos Deluxe Edition (the Kickstarted re-imaging of 2010 wine-making classic Vinhos) left, and I want to make sure that you guys have the chance to buy one.

It takes a lot to excite me these days, but Vinhos Deluxe Edition managed it. Contained in this box is nothing less than a torrent of beautifully-illustrated tokens, a board that’s positively threatening in scale, and a fat, clean manual written with wit. It even has nice fonts! In a board game!

But it takes very little to make me nervous, and Vinhos Deluxe did that too. The rules that make sense, like buying vineyards or aging wines, contrast fiercely with the more arcane regions of the board, where players claim score multipliers or manoeuvre their action-selectors.

Any inference you want to draw from the header image of this article is correct. This game’s a beast to play, it’s tougher to teach, and it’s even harder to review.

Obviously, I couldn’t be more excited.

Quinns: Paul, I did a crime.

Paul: Quinns, it’s okay. You can confess and be absolved. Our world is one that still has room for forgiveness. Come and tell-

Quinns: I might have accidentally fed my student a pint of poison.

Paul: Ah. It’s all right. You’re not the first person-

Quinns: Also I misled an adventurer and sold them a flask of soup instead of a healing potion, then I published an academic theory that I knew was a lie.

Paul: Right yes well. The thing is-

Quinns: But worst of all, I forgot how funny Czech Games’ board games can be.

Paul: Quinns, I am so excited to write this review that I have got cracker crumbs all over my keyboard. Let’s go.

Quinns: Ever since I first squeaked about Sushi Go in my 2015 Corner Awards (and dust off your tux, because I’ll be publishing the 2016 Corner Awards any week now) this little game has become loved by my friends. Throughout this year, at the end of a game night when everyone has the happy-sleepy feeling that comes from digesting a two drinks and a big game, and I can’t be bothered teaching Mundus Novus, Sushi Go makes a natural end point for the evening.

More specifically, it’s Sushi Go Party! that we play. This is the enlargened, deluxe-ified version of Sushi Go! that offers all sorts of new takeout boxes, rueful rolls and playful puddings for you to experiment with, as well adding a board and little soy sauce score-trackers. The original Sushi Go was a delicious-looking package, but Party is positively mouthwatering.

But here’s the thing. I’m not sure Sushi Go Party! is as good as other simple, small-box classics you might end a night with, games like Welcome to the Dungeon, Incan Gold or Parade. So why do I keep playing it… ?

It’s a frosty Wednesday, I have a hot cup of coffee and I’m feeling optimistic. Let’s go deep on this one.

We delight in throwing curveballs, so here’s a video you’d never have expected. A fat Let’s Play of fantastic miniatures game Infinity, with scenery provided by the excellent people at Battle Systems!

The truth is that ever since our spirited review of this game last year, Matt and Quinns have been collecting Infinity together with a few of their friends, and anything we’re interested in, we want to show you why. So we ended up making the above heartfelt half-hour, demonstrating just how tense and dangerous this game is. Enjoy, everybody.

NOTE: There’s about 45 seconds of insane strobing in this video, especially during the final interview segment. Rest assured that Quinns is working on a fix.

[Team SU&SD grows ever-stronger! Please give a warm welcome to game writer Jon Bolding, who comes bearing gifs. Enjoy, everybody.]

Bolds: Welcome! Welcome to Medieval France’s fabulous Loire valley, and its jewel, its shining, brocaded, wine-and-cheese-filled capital city of Orléans.

Orléans has a lot in common with those ever-popular “deck-building” games, in that you’re still accruing little somethings to go in your something, but each something is different, and has a different purpose – and your something, certainly, is different from everyone else’s something. In Orléans these somethings aren’t cards, but are little circular people, and you stuff them in your personal bag like a kind of hungry giant saving them for later, never quite sure what delicious treat you’ll pull forth when you go plunging in for a snack.

Ugh, peasants again? Why don’t we ever have Boatmen? Love Boatmen. The little crunchy paddles and rafts. The delicate waterlogged texture.

And speaking of crunch, Orleans is a good deal heavier than most deck-building games. Really, what we’ve got here is a fabulous fusion of a “building” game and a heavy eurogame, and it’s almost entirely delicious.

June 3, 2016 Reviews Quadropolis, SU&SD Recommends, New to Games?, Conflict-Free Games, Quick Games, Games for Two HOT TAMALE-BEANS! It’s Quinns with a Shut Up & Sit Down review of Quadropolis! Who could have guessed I am writing this from the UK Games Expo we just did a live podcast and I’ve got no energy … Read more

In some ways, Memoir ’44 is the game that birthed SU&SD. Paul and Quinns were playing a long campaign of this definitive game of toy soldiers when they decided to create a board game web series. Historians can find our ye olde review of Memoir right here (timestamp 15:01), filmed on a borrowed camcorder on a sweltering summer’s evening.

A more recent Memoir video we did is our Operation Overlord Let’s Play. While Memoir’s campaign books make it a longer game and the Breakthrough rules are there if you want to make it more tactical, Overlord is what you get if you want an epic experience.

If only all games could be tailored to the same extent! What a world that would be.

[Oh my goodness, so many words! Following on from writer Chris Thursten’s awesome article about his first X-Wing tournament, he’s back with seven separate, hilarious reviews of X-Wing’s newest ships.

Chris: As of March, the latest round of expansions for Fantasy Flight’s enormously popular spaceship miniatures game, X-Wing, is finally and fully here. The first – er – wave of Wave 8 arrived in December, so a few of these ships and cards have had longer to bed in than others. Even so, it’s time to round the lot of them up and force them to answer hard questions, like: WHAT DO YOU BRING TO THE GAME? WHY ARE YOU NICE? WHY DO I FEEL COMPELLED TO OWN YOU? And: IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE FOR THE SAME WAVE TO ARRIVE TWICE? WOULD THAT NOT MAKE IT TWO SEPARATE WAVES, LIKE, IN BOTH A MARITIME AND A PHILOSOPHICAL SENSE?

The answer to that last one is evidently ‘yes’, by the way. Haha! Eat it, Heraclitus!

Review: Troyes

Double Review: Blood Bowl and Guild Ball

Review: Vinhos Deluxe Edition

Review: Alchemists

Review: Sushi Go Party!

SU&SD Play… Infinity!

Review: Orléans

Review: Quadropolis

How To Play Memoir ‘44!

Review: X-Wing’s Eighth Wave of Expansions!

Feeds