Recent Posts

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Table-top Games / Bohnanza

« Last post by Dragon on August 17, 2025, 09:48:04 »

I recently gave My First Bohnanza to my brother and niece. The recommended age on the box says 4+, and although I believe that is possible, I think that for most people that might be a stretch. I think it's something they could catch onto, but my niece at age 5, along with a couple parents who were playing along, were just barely catching onto the basics by the time we were done.

Overall, I do think this is a good way to be introduced to Bohnanza, even for adults, since the rules are gradually introduced each time you play. It is nice that this is also compatible with the standard game, so you could mix those cards into this set or vice-versa. I just wish that the names of the characters were printed on the cards, but I guess it was probably done that way considering it is meant to be played with kids who might not even be reading yet. The rules could even be implemented with a standard set of Bohnanza.

One thing it got me thinking of is having a card holder for the standard game. That is something that I think would be a huge help for Bohnanza because card rotation is usually the thing that trips people up the most in the games I've played. Something like a domino tray or the card holders that I've seen used for Star Wars: Battle of Hoth, but I think of it was custom made for Bohnanza, it should have an arrow for cards coming in and shifting to the right with an icon for sending them to the field at the far right. 

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Table-top Games / Re: Castles Of Mad King Ludwig

« Last post by Dragon on August 15, 2025, 18:23:45 »

Board Game Arena now has Castles Of Mad King Ludwig! It looks like the artwork is from the 2nd Edition... not too surprising. I own the 1st Edition and I do like the artwork on 1st Edition, so aside from wanting to get the COLOSSAL COLLECTORS EDITION, I wasn't too interested in getting the 2nd Edition. Still, I'm looking forward to playing it more on BGA.

https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=castleofmadkingludwig

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Blogs / Re: Word For Word Bible Comics

« Last post by Dragon on August 15, 2025, 18:13:44 »

The Epistles of Galatians & James Word for Word Bible Comic arrived in the mail yesterday! I was reading The Epistle of James last night and noticed a page that I think really flies in the face of the prosperity preachers.

James 4:1-3

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

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Table-top Games / 7 Wonders Duel

« Last post by Dragon on June 15, 2025, 12:02:57 »

Today Isaac played 7 Wonders Duel with me. I think this is one that he played just because it's Father's Day and I picked it. We haven't played this game together in years.

Right from the start I was going for a Scientific Victory. Isaac had picked up many of the Commerce cards, which helped him stay ahead in money. I managed to get a lot of the Resource cards though, and even got two of my Wonders built. In Age II, we were both even on Military strength, but Isaac started to get more. Isaac also had more valuable Civic buildings, but I kept moving forward with the Science. In Age III, I was able to eliminate the only possible tech-tree branch that Isaac would keep me from a guaranteed Scientific Victory, finally coming to a situation where the last Science symbol I needed was visible on two cards and no matter what Isaac took, I could get it.

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Table-top Games / Re: Wingspan

« Last post by Dragon on June 12, 2025, 12:55:08 »

Sunday we played Wingspan with Sandy. She was the person who gave us the game. She hadn't played in a year, and didn't remember the rules, so we explained it to her and she seemed to enjoy it. We probably should have played with the tutorial setup again, but we didn't. The Round Bonuses were tough on this game. We had the token that required an egg in each habitat to get one point, so we barely got any. Overall, I had the highest for the End-of-Round Goals, which was 12 points. This time Isaac was gone for this one and Beth won the game this time.

Final score: Beth: 73, Nathaniel: 59, Sandy: 57

Tuesday evening we played Wingspan with Mike. It was his first time playing Wingspan. Isaac started the game and we went through the tutorial setup with Mike. Even though I felt like I was doing very well, Isaac had a big lead over my score. Isaac won, I got second with Mike close behind. Beth followed.

Final score: Isaac: 97, Beth: 72, Nathaniel: 87, Mike: 84

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Table-top Games / Saboteur

« Last post by Dragon on June 01, 2025, 22:45:20 »

Tonight we played Saboteur for the first time. It's a fun card game about digging tunnels to find gold. It's partially co-operative, but the gold diggers want to be the first to treasure so they have the best choice. There is also a chance that one or more players will be trying to keep the other gold diggers from reaching the treasure so they can keep it all for themselves. Similar to Bang!, Werewolf, or The Resistance, roles are hidden, but unlike those games, you don't necessarily have the same role for the entire game. The game is played in 3 rounds and each round the role cards get reshuffled and dealt out.

Out of 3 rounds, the gold diggers succeeded in finding the gold in the first two rounds, but the saboteurs (there happened to be two that round) managed to thwart the gold diggers in the final round. Isaac was the only player who won gold every round.

Final score: Isaac: 6, Beth: 3, Anna: 1, Grace: 1, Nathaniel: 4.

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Table-top Games / Castles Of Mad King Ludwig

« Last post by Dragon on June 01, 2025, 19:22:56 »

It has been nearly 5 years since we played Castles Of Mad King Ludwig, even though we've brought it up in conversation several times. We all seem to like this game quite a bit but somehow it's just been left on the shelf for a while. Today we finally broke it out.

We decided to use the Secrets expansion, which is something we've probably done every time since we got it. Unfortunately, I forget to play my secret passages often times and the game is nearly over before I find a spot for one if I get any. Isaac, on the other hand, made great use of his secret passages, and ended up making great connections to his Throne Room, jumping ahead quite a bit in just one turn. So, even though I completed my moat, and I think I have the nicest looking castle, I wasn't the winner.

Final score: Isaac: 141; Nathaniel: 111; Beth: 103

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Table-top Games / Re: Carcassonne

« Last post by Dragon on May 27, 2025, 17:12:01 »

Over the weekend we played Carcassonne twice. Janai and Austin had dropped in for a surprise visit just as we were getting started on Wingspan, but Beth suggested we play Carcassonne as an easier intro to boardgames.

Beth, Isaac, and I invited Janai's boyfriend, Austin. Janai declined but Austin surprisingly accepted our offer to join. It was Austin's first time playing. Even though I was thinking it would be easier to just use the single starting piece, Beth suggested that we use The River to introduction the rules, which actually turned out to be quite a good way to do it. Austin caught on quickly and at one point was even leading in points for the game. I managed to get slightly ahead of Austin before the end, but Isaac jumped ahead the most to win the game.

Final score: Beth: 50; Isaac: 76; Austin: 60; Nathaniel: 65.

The following day the three of us played Carcassonne again. From very early on, it felt like Isaac was attacking everything I did. If I started anything he was quick to get into it or find a way to make it hard for me to complete. At one point I even managed to get the perfect piece to merge into a field on the very next turn, but Isaac thwarted me with a useless road that he wasn't even using. Of course, it was very strategic for him and he did quite well, although it was quite frustrating for me nearly every turn.

Final score: Beth: 89; Nathaniel: 66; Isaac: 106.

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Table-top Games / Re: Wingspan

« Last post by Dragon on May 26, 2025, 18:01:41 »

This morning we played Wingspan again. This time the bonus board had goals that were much more attainable. I managed to get the max score on 3 of the rounds, while picking up 3 points in the first round, which was the highest between the 3 of us playing.

Final score: Isaac: 73; Nathaniel: 80; Beth: 78
 

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Table-top Games / Wingspan

« Last post by Dragon on May 25, 2025, 11:08:48 »

Last night we played Wingspan. This is my son's favorite game, but we haven't played it in a few months. I'm actually surprised that I haven't mentioned this game before.

It's a game that I originally wasn't interested in because the theme didn't seem like a good one for a game and honestly it looked too pretty for me to think of it as anything beyond becoming a "shelf queen." Of course, that was before I ever played the game. The game was gifted to me by someone who was in a bird-watching family, even though they also hadn't ever played the game. After it was gifted to me, I gave it a shot and I must admit I was was pleasantly surprised by the game play.

The box is nicely organized, even providing a diagram on the edge of the inside box to assist with putting everything away. However, after playing the first time, I felt like I needed something specifically for holding the egg tokens during game play. I found a nice nest-styled-bowl online for 3d printing, and I had some yellow filament at the time so I printed a couple nice little bowls to hold the egg tokens.   

Wingspan has gotten me more interested in the subject of bird-watching, at least a little more than the nearly zero interest that I had before. I've actually been thinking recently that it might be nice to put a birdbath in the backyard.

Anyway, last night's game ended up being a tough one with not much momentum getting built up compared to previous games that we've played. The bonus score board had goals that we had randomly set up, along with the cards that were coming out, made it so we had pretty low scores on the round bonus board. The first two rounds, none of us had more than 2 and even the last round I had 0 points for the round bonus. It was still fun, and Isaac still got some good stuff together.

Final score - Beth: 75; Isaac: 84; Nathaniel: 63.