Operation: Game Night
Travis Smith, Jared Erickson, and Clay Gable get together to discuss the latest and greatest in board games in this weekly podcast. What's hot, what's hitting the table, featured discussions about board games and the board gaming culture, and the primary mission objective- to play more board games!
Operation: Game Night
OGN Ep 9: Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth, Weirdwood Manor, & a Head-to-Head Board Game Pitch
This week's episode of the Operation Game Night Podcast invites you to explore the fascinating intersections of tactical gameplay and historical strategies. Join us on a sun-soaked journey from Florida, where reconnecting with an old friend led to an epic battle of wits over the strategic board game Santorini. Not only did the game revive fond memories, but it also sparked a lively discussion on god-themed player abilities that left even seasoned gamers like Clay eager to revisit this classic.
Prepare for a thrilling exploration of Weirdwood Manor, an upcoming board game with a tantalizing time and day system that promises to keep players on their toes. Navigate rotating boards and outsmart fae monsters like Chaos Ogres, all while racing against time to save the manor. The episode doesn't stop there; it takes a detour into Middle Earth with a fresh take on 7 Wonders Duel. Get ready to vie for control in the Lord of the Rings: The Duel for Middle Earth, where strategic twists and a thematic map of Middle Earth await eager adventurers.
The excitement continues as we tackle the iconic Battlestar Galactica board game, immersing ourselves in its riveting hidden traitor mechanics and compelling narrative. From humorous personal anecdotes of mistaken Cylon identities, there's something for every board game enthusiast. As we wrap up with a playful board game pitch-off between two route building tropical-themed games, we also take a nostalgic look at WWE's wild history, listeners are invited to share their thoughts and join us for more exciting board game adventures in future episodes.
Seven Wonders is about some dusty old monuments that are arguably the greatest accomplishment of mankind, and Lord of the Rings is about the struggle of good and evil. So get out of here.
Speaker 2:dusty old buildings, I mean it was probably one of the most epic gaming experiences I've ever had. Like just seeing all the characters and everybody. Like getting into the roles of, like the Admiral and the President and, you know, moving around accusing each other.
Speaker 3:You know what I heard a lot of great arguments today, great pitches. I just want to say thank you to everyone who joined me today on this battle, but I'm going to have to stand up for this one.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast, where the mission objective is to play more board games. Put your battle, rattle on and mount up. Let's start the show. Welcome everybody to the Operation Game Night podcast. I am Travis Smith, joined as always by one of the great military strategists of our time, Jared Erickson.
Speaker 3:How you doing Jared. What's up? I thought you were going to call me Carl von Clausewitz, or whatever that dude's name is. On war.
Speaker 1:I'm supposed to be reading.
Speaker 3:You are Von Clausewitz or whatever that dude's name is, on War, I'm supposed to be reading.
Speaker 1:You are the Clausewitz of our podcast. Ah, yes, thank you. What is board gaming?
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, One of the great questions that has extended time and distance. For sure. You did say I'm always here. I feel like I'm the biggest flake on this podcast because I enjoyed myself down in Florida last weekend and then this weekend I was in San Antonio so I had to move the operation. We had to do a frago and do this on a different day. So I appreciate my fellow brothers being flexible Key to air power.
Speaker 1:That's what I heard. I said you're always here because with me, as sometimes doesn't roll up the tongue as well, but joining me, as always, is the son zoo of the podcast Claytonable.
Speaker 2:how you doing Clay well, I'm doing great. That's way too much credit there, but uh, I am the only member of this podcast team that has been here every single episode, for better or worse. You've gotten to hear what I have to say about board games every week, so it's good to see you guys both this week, pumped, pumped to talk board games.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to give you your perfect attendance award at the end of the school year.
Speaker 2:I'm looking forward to it, Travis.
Speaker 1:Let's go through the operational order for the day, or the op board, if you will. We're going to debrief our week and talk about what we have been playing and or procuring. We are going to move on to the mission objective, where Clay and I are going to pitch Jared a game each in hopes that he might fish some cash out of his wallet and buy a game every once in a while. We'll see how he feels about our games that we pitch him, and then we're going to go over the fence. We are going outside the wire and we're going to talk about what we have been doing otf outside of board games. So let's move on, and I want you each to debrief your week. Jared, debrief your weekend. Board gaming for me okay guys, you got
Speaker 3:two weeks to get through so I know I I do have two weeks, but, but unfortunately I only really played one weekend. Last weekend, when I was down in Florida, I was visiting a friend from my first base in Lakenheath. He is now down there at Socom Not Socom AFSOC At SOCOM, Not SOCOM AFSOC. Awesome dude. When we met him he had these two kids. They're tiny as can be. Then I show up and these kids are almost taller than me Actually one of them is and I played a board game with Hank down there, Santorini.
Speaker 3:You guys ever played that little one. It gave me serious boop vibes. You know that little cat game that you played with me. So it's like played on this little five by five grid and I've never been to Santorini but I would love to. So it's very on trend that it has these three levels, these white building blocks as you're building the city of Santorini, and it's kind of like a game of chess almost, where you're trying to get to the top of a building that has three levels and if you can do that before your opponent, you win. So it's head-to-head.
Speaker 3:Hank is a freaking genius, was four steps ahead of me. Every time He'd beat me and be like you want to try again and I'm like okay. So I kept playing. It was the wee hours of the night. I did get one win on him.
Speaker 3:But one of the cool twists of the game is you get a player ability. You get to be a god that has different playing options, different winning conditions, and it's a lot of fun. There's some defense to it too, Because if you're trying to get to the third level and you get one of your characters on the third level, you win, but you can also block it by putting a blue roof on it. You know that's very iconic for the city of Santorini and that was awesome. I liked it a lot. I think he's 16 or 17. Either way, he blew me away. Super intelligent kid, so he definitely has a leg up on me. But it's a very accessible game too. Obviously not for Jemmy, I would say. I think Mason could probably get it, but it's a good one. Do either of you two have that one?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have Santorini. I haven't played in a few years because Mary and I used to play a lot and, for whatever reason, I was good at that game with her in this one particular instance and Mary does not tend to gravitate towards games in which she loses, so it's been sitting on the shelf. I love it. I mean, you talking about it makes me want to play it again now. It's got a great table presence, super cool, like you said, easy to get into. Can you remind me like what? What you do on your turn? What are the?
Speaker 3:so you, you, literally you move your. You have two characters on this, again five by five grid. You move your character once and then you build one level that is adjacent the eight, eight squares that are surrounding your character, and so you can build one level. If there's already a level there, you can build the second level on one that's already existing and you kind of have to climb it like a ladder In order to get to a level two. You have to move your character onto a level one, then onto a level two and then, once you build enough of Santorini where there is a level three, you'll have to move your character from one to two, to three, and you can go up one level anywhere.
Speaker 3:But you can only move once. Unless they have different player abilities, like some of them can move two spaces, some of them, like I said, have different winning conditions where they just have to get to the top of a level two and jump off from a level two to the ground. So there's a lot of just fun unique abilities. I guess and it's super quick when Hank was just throttling me they'd be done in five minutes.
Speaker 3:So you can get a lot of games in. You can try different strategies and stuff. I liked it a lot. That was essentially my debrief.
Speaker 2:That's a good debrief, jared. I am now itching to play some Santorini. I never really experimented much. This was one of the first games I got, actually like many, many years ago when I started my collection of board games, and at the time I was not too interested in the god abilities. But now I think that sounds pretty fun to have those player powers that kind of make it a little more asymmetric, but super cool abstract game. Glad you got to play it, travis, what you've been playing uh, this week I got a chance to play weirdwood manor.
Speaker 1:Uh, this is a 2024 publication by gray ridge games. This is a brand new one. I saw it at the 2023 essence spiel and right when I saw it I knew I had to get this game, just because of the table presence, and I actually I didn't get to play it at essence, but I got to watch people play through it and this game is complex in the right types of ways, kind of reminds me of marvel united a little bit, because you are taking action abilities on cards to take actions to accomplish an objective. So Weirdwood Manor is a cooperative board game that marries an adventure-style gameplay and some Euro mechanics to achieve an objective. So you're a character that has been invited to this, met this manor by lady weird wood, and the manor is under siege from these fey monsters. So the first scenarios that you play through play through the manor is under attack by the oh the chaos ogre, and the chaos ogre is one of three villains that come in the core box and if you have not seen this game, you don't know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:Go look up a picture of Weirdwood Manor and the table and the board, because it looks amazing. It's three concentric circles starting from the inside and there's these little rings that go around the inside circle and the outer circle. And there's these little rings that go around the inside circle and the outer circle and on the far outside is like the point tracker count that keeps track of advancing abilities and stuff. So on your turn you have your individual deck. You have your individual player board with a bunch of different skills that you can level up as you gain experience. You're going to take cards from your deck equal to your health level and you can increase that as you go through the game. You take these cards and you play them to different slots along the top of your board. As you play cards to the top of your board, it's going to advance a day timer, okay. So on the inner ring there is kind of a day timer. So you've got three sections that represent sunrise, three sections that represent daytime, dusk and then nighttime and then there's a little day counter. The outer ring has numbers 1 through 12 on it to represent 12 different days. So as you play cards to your little player tablet, you know player board in front of you. Cards to your little player tablet, you know player board in front of you. It's going to advance time to whatever section you played the card to, so you can play them to any of your player sections that correspond to those times of the day. You might want to jump forward and play one right to the nighttime and I'll get to that in a minute, but that will advance the clock timer all the way to nighttime. So every time this little day counter moves you advance the outer ring a day. After 12 days, if you have not defeated the monster and saved Lady Weirdwood, you lose the game. So why would you want to play cards forward to the nighttime when you have available sections earlier on in the day?
Speaker 1:Each card has abilities that you can take on the normal card, but on the left and right side of either of the cards there's a little half circle that has half of a resource or half of an action. If you match two cards up next to each other with matching half circles let's say it's a movement icon or it's a magic spell icon or it's experience or whatever it is you can take that as an extra action. It's like a bonus for matching up the cards correctly, as these rings on the inside and outside spin. Depending on the time of the day and the actual day itself. The hallways between the rooms in this manner change. So if I advance the ring too far, I could lock myself in a room. I could create a hallway that I can skip across for free, and you can create these kind of synergies for your turns to make the most out of your actions.
Speaker 1:Actions themselves are pretty simple You're moving, you're fighting, but then the rooms themselves have different resources that you can get, different actions you can take. And then you get into instances where you need to do combat. You're either doing combat against the big bad fey monster In this case it was the chaos ogre or you're doing combat against these Clockwork Scarabs that are throughout the manor. So you get to combat and you can either roll combat die which are either no symbol as a pip, all the way up to two, three swords for pips, and those only do combat. Then you have defense die that have pips and those only do combat. Then you have defense die that have shields and they only do defense. Then you have a combo dice that has shields and swords, but it also has a little starburst on it and the starburst allows you to do your unique player power. There's like four to six different characters in the in the core set and they all have different character attributes. They all have different skills, they all have different player powers, they all advance and level up differently and really what you're doing is you're just moving around this, this board, trying to time your movements across the hallways to find the chaos ogre or the fey monster that you're battling, and kill it before it kills lady Weirdwood or your mansion becomes overrun by the Clockwork Scarabs.
Speaker 1:This game is not hard to understand. It's very challenging to win. Right when this Kickstarter first shipped, the publisher put out another update after shipping had already begun and or completed, and they actually said here are some tips to winning, because this game is really hard. So I will definitely give this another play. The mechanics are super cool. The players all play differently. The fey monsters all behave differently.
Speaker 1:The chaos ogre, as the game progresses, gets angrier and angrier, and as he gets angrier, he does more worse stuff throughout the manor. He does more damage, he destroys more rooms, he adds more scarabs, he does all sorts of bad stuff. So you got to get to him quickly and kill him, and so when you're in the same room as this chaos ogre and you're targeting him, you're rolling your battle dice, your combat dice, whatever, and you can target different areas on the on the chaos ogre to do different things. So he's got like a head, a torso and arms. So if you damage his head he's going to roll less die that do different things. So you can actually chip away in different ways and kind of maim the main baddie different ways, which is a pretty cool way to approach combat. That's just one of the three bad guys scenarios that you can play. I know that there's like a specter or something like ghosts thing that's actually on the cover of the box and he can like move through walls where you can't and he uh plays differently. Uh, then there's another guy that's like a magician and he behaves differently.
Speaker 1:I haven't really dug into those all that much, but game super interesting. Uh, I really enjoyed it. It's a cool mechanic. I played two handed uh solo and that really enjoyed it. It's a cool mechanic. I played two-handed uh solo and that was kind of a lot to keep track of. But, um, I think once I get the iconography down a little bit and and understand the strategy a little bit more, this will be a super fun game and, and one that most people that have played, uh, action point type adventure games can probably understand, this is, this is a good one. Yeah, that was weirdwood manor, published 2024 by gray ridge games. Freaking awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's cool so if he destroys a room. Do you have like less ability?
Speaker 1:like your player loses abilities and stuff yeah, so, uh, as the rooms become damaged through the chaos, ogre or other things that happen, the room will actually be on fire for a little bit and you can move through it on fire, but you'll get damaged. Or once it turns to ash, you actually flip this token over that has fire on one side, ash on the other and rubble, and then you cannot move through that room anymore. So you have to work through these hallways a little differently. You can't get any of the bonuses that were once on that room. Or if there's two of the clockwork scarabs, because they move around the map as you go along. If there's two clockwork scarabs in any room, that room becomes blighted I think it's called and you flip that room's tile over and you can no longer reap those benefits or take those actions.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of a you gotta manage the Clockwork Scarabs a little bit. You got to manage the Chaos Ogre, got to take care of Lady Weirdwood, because she can get damaged by the Ogre, and then you could lose a game. So it's super interesting and I'm looking forward to playing it again. Yeah, I just like the mechanic that you can pick which dice you want to roll, so as you level your character up. You can build them out with different sets of dice that you roll when you're in combat. So either you're more combat, or like attack heavy, or your defense heavy, or you can roll more of the blue dice, which are balanced and give you a chance to fire off your player ability. So it's it's pretty cool how you can like, customize your character as you go through and and it'll make for a different play experience every time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right on. That sounds awesome, Clay debrief your week for me. So this week An amazing thing happened. I got a Kickstarter of a game I didn't even back in the mail. Unconscious mind showed up at my door and I am so excited about that procurement. Just kidding.
Speaker 1:Easiest procurement you ever had.
Speaker 2:I know. I mean I did get a surprise copy of Unconscious Mind for one Travisvis smith, but um, it is not mine, although he did say I could play it and I'm very much considering taking him up on that please do do it for the podcast.
Speaker 1:I want to hear about it for the podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm, I'm busting it open as soon as we get off this recording, I'm ripping it, I'm ripping into it. Oh yeah, make sure you post it. But yeah, oh yeah, I'll post that. It's beautiful. I mean, it's got like a holographic looking box. It's sweet, yeah. Yeah, this thing is a pretty low game, but for my actual debrief I got two games I want to talk about, so I'll try to be judicious about my time here. But the first game I played was lord of the rings, the duel for middle earth. So, jared, you look like you.
Speaker 2:You might not have heard about this game no but you have heard about the game it re-implemented, which is seven wonders duel oh heck yeah so they just came out 2024.
Speaker 2:They slapped a new theme on that game, so it's now lord of the rings themed. The basics of it are still the same. So you're still doing that two-player card drafting where you go through three ages, some cards are uncovered, some cards are covered and you can only take cards that are uncovered. So you have that cool dynamic of hey, if I take this card, I'm gonna uncover these cards that my opponent might want. I mean seven wonders. Duel is? It is the number 19 game overall on BoardGameGeek.
Speaker 1:Of all time.
Speaker 2:Of all time. Wildly popular, I mean. And for a two-player only game to be that high on BoardGameGeek like this. Seven Wonders Duel was a great game, still is a great game. So the re-theme Floor of the Rings.
Speaker 2:I wasn't sure what to expect of it. I didn't know how much they really changed from that game, and so you're still gathering cards that give you resources to help you. You know complete objectives, get more cards. But the big changes that I noticed were one my favorite change is that when you don't have enough resources for a card, instead of I don't even remember what weird math you have to do to like make up the money you have to pay to account for resources you don't have in the original game, it's like if your partner has that resource, you pay two plus the number that you don't anyway. It was like a weird calculation. Now, if you don't have one of the resources listed, it's just one coin for each resource you don't have. It was like a weird calculation now, if you don't have one of the resources listed, it's just one coin for each resource you don't have so it's money, you just money.
Speaker 2:You just basically spend as a wild resource to get coins, instead of drafting the wonders. At the beginning they place these three I don't know what they're called in the game, I can't remember, but they essentially give you these um towers, so they're the equivalent of wonders. But they're called in the game. I can't remember, but they essentially give you these towers, so they're the equivalent of wonders, but they're laid out for anybody to claim at any time. So you see them out there. You're kind of working your way towards them at the same time as your opponents are working your way towards them.
Speaker 1:Is it like? Yeah, question like the white tower, the do you know like which towers they're supposed to be? I'm just curious how deep this thing really goes.
Speaker 3:How well do you know your Lord of the Rings lore?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, Travis, you're going to love this. It's great.
Speaker 1:It's coming. I preordered it a long time ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you put these towers I don't know that they probably have names on them on the cards, but you put these towers on a map. So this was the biggest change is that there's now a map of Middle Earth that you are vying for control over. So instead of your military cards, where you were just like tug of warring on that track in the original game, you have a map with seven different areas and one of the win conditions is to have control over. Well, not, you don't have to have control over all the areas, but you have to have a presence in all seven areas and when you build one of these towers, which are like the wonders, those can't be removed. So once you build one of those and you have now a permanent presence in whichever region you put it in, your other troops that you put in these little areas can get removed by your opponent playing cards. So yeah, big change with the map. Super cool though Again, it just really leaned into the Lord of the Rings theme, and for the better. You know I the theme on seven wonders duel, I could have cared less, you know, it was just, it was just there. It was a fun game, it was tactical, it was. It was neat to play.
Speaker 2:But now, in addition to the map of Middle Earth you're vying for control over, you also have a ring track with this. I I don't even know if I can describe it right, but there's two sliders. So there's a slider with the hobbits trying to get the ring to mount doom and then on top of your hobbit slider there's a nazgul slider. I think. Are those the people on the horses ring race? Yeah, yeah, yeah, those. There's a slider on top of your slider.
Speaker 2:So whenever you play a ring card, you move, either if you're the dark side I don't, sauron, I think you play sauron. If you're sauron, you you move your little, uh, nazgul on the top slider towards the Hobbits. And if you're the good side players, you are moving the whole unit, the Fellowship. Yes, you're moving the whole Fellowship closer to Mount Doom, but you're also moving the Nazgul with you and you get different rewards as you move up this track. So definitely two ways. The theme comes through. A lot cooler in this game than the original Is that ring track and then your little map of Middle-Earth, and there's no endgame scoring. So you either win by having presence in all seven spaces, catching up to the hobbits with the ring getting the ring. To Mount doom, getting six of the Alliance tokens from the different races. So those, those are like the instant win conditions. For whatever reason the game ends and nobody reached any of those win conditions, then you just see who has the most presence on the map.
Speaker 1:So I really like yeah, what's up I was. I was really hoping that, like if you're going through the three ages, like you do in seven wonders, that it was going to be themed more like the three ages of middle earth and you have different technologies and different races and, like you know, really really dive in deep to the to the theme if you're gonna do three ages and but you know, yeah, I don't know if it got that that deep into you know, the fellowship is cool too, I guess yeah, it's just the fellowship it's your, it's your three ages, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's got vincent dutre art, which also makes it a a beautiful game to play, unlike andromeda's edge, which I talked about a few weeks ago, where I acknowledged that all the changes were probably better for the game but I didn't necessarily care for them or like preferred the old way. I can say that all the changes they made here are better and, I think, make it more a game for me, because they all streamline it. Maybe the map thing is a little more complicated, but after you play a couple turns it's pretty simple. You get a card that lets you put a troop in one of two areas on the map. It's not that much more complicated than your little military track.
Speaker 1:Seven Wonders is about some dusty old monuments that are arguably the greatest accomplishment of mankind, and Lord of the Rings is about the struggle of good and evil. So get out of here dusty old buildings. Lord of the Rings is here to stay.
Speaker 2:We want to hear more about Frodo. Give me that theme, give us Frodo. We don't have enough Frodo in our lives. Lord of the Rings Duel for Middle-Earth. I'm going to get it. I'm going to get it eventually. I just need to see it somewhere and then I'll get it. But it was great, Big fan.
Speaker 1:For all I know, I probably entered your address instead of mine, and it's probably on its way to your front door right now.
Speaker 2:I can only hope I probably won't tell you about that one.
Speaker 1:Lost in shipping.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you'll just be like I don't know what. This one never showed up, but anyway, that was debrief item number one. Number two was a grail game for me Battlestar Galactica. I talked about it last week how I offloaded Unfathomable. God, that Unfathomable, unfathomable, unfathomable what he said. I offloaded that game because I sucked it up and I paid the eBay prices to get Battlestar Galactica, the board game from 2008.
Speaker 2:Fantasy flight games Corey Kanetska fantasy flight games themed around one of my favorite television shows. So it was going to be a hit for me because I already knew I liked the core gameplay from Unfathomable. That game, I can't say, for some reason. And now, with the theme on it of my favorite spaceship crew, oh my God, this was amazing. Essentially, it's a hidden traitor game where you're on this ship and in the Battlestar Galactica game you're on the Battlestar Galactica, the Cylons are coming after you and somehow these robots, cylons, evolved so that they look just like humans and there might be some Cylons on the ship with you and you don't know who they are. Some Cylons on the ship with you and you don't know who they are. So the hidden traitor game you guys are working together, you think, to fend off these Cylon attacks. The humans win if you get to Cobol. So you have to jump your spaceship a certain amount of times, a distance of eight, I believe it means nothing to anybody, but anyway that's your win condition. You've got to get to Cobol and the Cylons win if they deplete any of your resources. So your fuel, your morale, your population, if they get enough of their Centurion robots onto your ship, they win. So a lot of ways to win if you're the Cylons and the humans just got to keep jumping that ship to try and get to get to earth.
Speaker 2:So at the beginning of the game you get the five player game. There was a deck of loyalty cards and so there was two cards in this 10 card deck that say you're a Cylon. The other eight say you're not a Cylon. So at the beginning of the game you deal out one to everybody. So at the beginning it's very possible that everybody is a human. But after you get halfway to your objective of getting to a Cobol you do a sleeper agent phase and if you know the Battlestar Galactica show, there are Cylons that didn't know they were Cylons and get activated. So thematic yeah. And then you deal out the rest of the cards and at this point now we know somebody probably two people on this ship are Cylons and working against us, and the accusations start flying.
Speaker 2:So the main things you do during your game turn is super simple you can move to any location and then you take an action, and that is your game turn. And then you draw a crisis card which says like oh, oh, my god, you have a water shortage. What do you do? You have to pass these skill checks and everybody has a hand of cards and like, if you're a pilot, you have a lot of piloting cards which are red and so if a skill check needs a lot of red cards, you would assume that your pilots would be able to help out with that. So everybody adds these cards face down to this like joint pile that. So everybody adds these cards face down to this like joint pile, and then you count up the numbers on them to see if you beat the skill check. So, like every red card would be a positive and then every other color that was added counts against it. So you start to get suspicious of people when you see these other colors start cropping up in these skill checks. But there also is this destiny deck. That's just a random deck of skill cards that get added to every skill check so you never really know if it was somebody putting those cards in or if it was just bad luck with the with the destiny deck.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, it was so much fun. I can't like I'm. I'm trying not to lose my mind here, but I mean, what an epic game. It took like three hours we were. I don't know what it is about me. I am just bad at playing board games and people refuse to believe that I am on their side. Yeah, I got beef with you, clay.
Speaker 3:You're talking smack about me last week. I did not you deserve to be in the jail.
Speaker 2:Well, everybody thought I should be in the jail the other night too, because they sent me straight to the prison. They were so sure I was a Cylon. I was not a Cylon, I just couldn't help.
Speaker 1:I didn't have the right, he was just cheesing. Because he's playing Battlestar Galactica and because he's got this big dumb grin on his face, everyone thought he was guilty, yeah.
Speaker 2:When people start getting on you and then you try to defend yourself, you come off as guilty. Yeah, so some cons was that it was long it took all of three hours to get through. It was long it took all of three hours to get through. And there was a period of time like a half hour where there was no Cylon ships on the map. So every time we would draw a crisis card and the Cylon ships were supposed to activate. Nothing was happening. And after a while people are like are you sure you're reading the rules? Right After we jumped that first time, were more Cylon ships supposed to show up? And the answer is no. We just happened to have this really long stretch where nothing was happening in terms of Cylons attacking, and that was a little boring for a bit. But as soon as there was a Cylon attack and they repopulated them aboard, everything got crazy again. It was awesome.
Speaker 2:I think it might be a little more nuanced and complicated than unfathomable in terms of different ships and attacks and damages. As the Admiral, you have a nuke token that can attack the Baystar, so there's a few more intricacies about attacking and damages. And you know, as the Admiral, you have a nuke token, that can attack the base star. So like there's a few more intricacies about attacking and stuff, but it's also thematic, like it's amazing, but it might be a little more complicated than unfathomable. So my takeaway is if you like Battlestar Galactica and you like these type of games, spend the money on eBay, get it.
Speaker 2:If you don't like Battlestar Galactica and you've seen it, then just get unfathomable. If you think you like these type of games, if you haven't seen Battlestar Galactica, watch Battlestar Galactica, then buy this game because you will have. I mean it was probably one of the most epic gaming experiences I've ever had, like just seeing all the characters and everybody, like getting into the roles of, like the Admiral and the president and, you know, moving around accusing each other. I mean this game just thrives off of interaction amongst the players and the theme of Battlestar Galactica fits this so well. Like I can't imagine playing unfathomable the? U game, god what Maybe?
Speaker 2:I have a speech impediment. Anyway, that that. That's it for my debrief. I've I had a great I like it.
Speaker 3:It gives me very much a secret. Hitler vibes, just a little bit more complicated more interaction, a lot more goals, very much a secret.
Speaker 2:Hitler vibes just a little bit more complicated, more interaction, a lot more goals and fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's definitely an event game or a little Feed the Kraken, where you're trying to steer the ship and the bad guys are trying to steer you, off course.
Speaker 2:But anyway, yeah, I played the you game with both you guys, so hopefully this rung some happy bells for you thinking about those times.
Speaker 1:Well, congratulations on your grail game. I'm excited for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm trying to set up another, another playthrough here soon where we all know the rules at the start, because you know we did have to get a couple of people up and running. So I think the next time we play would even be better excellent.
Speaker 1:Okay, now we're going to move on to the mission objective. Today we have a special segment that might become recurring, where clay and I are trying going to try and pitch jared games that have similar mechanics, with the potential for Jared to go out and procure these games. These are going to be our sales pitches why we like the game, what's good about it, and then Jared's going to tell us at the end which game he is inclined to go purchase. This is not a binding contract. He's just going to let us know who won, who did the better sales pitch, and we'll maybe do this once a month and see how it goes.
Speaker 2:Hey, jared, can you just give the listener an idea of your spartan collection real quick, like can you give a rundown of the games you have, just so they get a picture of how minimalist you are about what you bring into your game life? I'm pretty selective.
Speaker 3:That is very true. I essentially have two styles of games party games and then complete and utter cutthroat death. Just kidding, not that bad, but I got like the Dune Imperium and the Arnak bad, but I got like the dune imperium and the arnak. Another fun like I don't know competitive skull, where you're, yeah, hidden like you got a head-to-head bullshit game, you know. So that's kind of the only ones that I really have. I, I am a, I love playing a lot of different games. But I love playing a lot of different games, but procuring them, that's a whole other animal right there.
Speaker 1:But I'm ready, I'm ready to hear some pitches, maybe grow my collection. Oh, I like it. So, Clay, why don't you give us a rundown of the different mechanics that we're pitching?
Speaker 2:we're pitching today I think both of these games are route building type games, and I can't really remember yours that well.
Speaker 1:It's a little bit of like area control, a little bit of route. Yeah, definitely area control, a little bit of like a mancala type mechanic, where you're like jumping from one area to the other by dropping people off as you go along.
Speaker 2:And they are both themed around the islands, baby.
Speaker 1:Island life. You got your ska shirt on. We're talking about the islands, Real big fish baby.
Speaker 3:All right. So I got my red horse coin here from 2018. So I got one side that's got the red horse with the flag To the horse and one side that's got to the horse the flag of UAE. Let's do Travis the UAE side and Clayton America side.
Speaker 2:Okay, wow, we'll see where it is.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to defer, I'm going to let Clay go first.
Speaker 3:Defer. All right, he's taking the kickoff in the second half.
Speaker 2:Okay, my opening argument is I don't know that you can continue on this podcast if you don't have at least one Reiner Canizia game. So the game that I'm pitching is Blue Lagoon by Reiner Canizia game. So the game that I'm pitching is Blue Lagoon by Reiner Knizia, okay, 2018. This game is great because I feel like it fills a needed void in your collection. Okay, you have the heavier games. You've got the party games. You have now Quacks of Quedlinburg, which is a fun like mid-weight game to get people going.
Speaker 3:Yeah, shout out to the Gateway Games.
Speaker 2:Segways Yep, yep, heck, yeah, segway Games, and this is a step below that, but above your party games. Okay, super simple. I'm talking me and Mason and I I should get into it on this game. You are, you have these little people and they either have a boat or they're walking on land, and each turn you play one to a space on this map of islands and you're trying to.
Speaker 2:There's several ways to score points. So one way is to have the most of your people on an island. You'll score points like that. Another way is to create links through a bunch of islands via a chain of these people. And a third way is to have a presence on seven or eight of the eight islands. You get points for that.
Speaker 2:And then, finally, there's this fun little set collection mini game going on too, where you sprinkle all these little resources about the map and as you place people on them, you pick them up, and if you get like three of three of the same type, it's worth like 10 points, something like that. But anyway, yeah, what you're doing is so simple. You just place a person adjacent to one of your other people on the map, either in a boat, if you're trying to cross water or on the land, if that's where you're heading. And then, halfway, after everybody places out all their people, you will have these huts that you place out during the first phase of the game and you clear everything off the map except for your little huts. And now in the second phase of the game you can build out from those huts so you can kind of strategically place your huts on the map so that they're in places that are beneficial for you to start the next round and, you know, score those island points and create your routes.
Speaker 3:So in the beginning you start with little meeples and they are traveling so they're, they're just little cardboard chits. Okay, chart chits.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, yep, yep okay yep and then those chits will turn into little buildings the buildings are a separate piece that you have during the first phase. You have like four of them and on your turn, instead of placing one of your little cardboard circles, you can place a building on one of the islands, and those just dictate where you can build out from in the next era. So two-phase game quick, easy, fun.
Speaker 3:It's also given me some joint operational. Going back to my strategic operation game night brain we're massing, that's massing our forces. We have lines of operations. You got to get your people from here to there. Logistics lines Control I like it Okay.
Speaker 2:Yep. Do we even need to go Travis? I don't, I think. I think the choice is clear, Okay.
Speaker 3:All right. Blue Lagoon All right.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, I went first. I I did that on purpose because I knew he was tired from ranting and raving about uh, battlestar galactica, I'm just sitting here on the ropes like ali. I'm ready, let's go, oh my god, you're right, I was.
Speaker 2:I did that was an emotional high. Talking about battlestar galactica. It was tough to get up for Blue Lagoon there, but for what it is, it is a great game.
Speaker 3:Okay. Travis knock my socks off.
Speaker 1:Imagine you are part of a tribe, you're on a Polynesian island and you start to feel tremors underneath your feet. Smoke begins to rise, the volcano on the island that you have inhabited for centuries is going to explode and you have to save your tribe and get them off the island as fast as possible. In Polynesia, published in 2020 by Ludenova Games, you are the leader of a tribe that is trying to evacuate your tribe from the island before the volcano explodes. So what you're going to do is you have your little meeples that start on the island. On your turn, you're going to take three actions sail, explore, populate and fish and you can choose those three different actions. Take any of those three actions as many times as you want, up to three. So, to sail, you take a minimum of two meeples off the island that you're on and you move them to an adjacent island. These routes can vary depending on the tides, but you must take a boat and you must take two meeples. Now, as you get to these islands, you want to populate those islands so that you have a chain that you can go through. So you populate. Populate means you take a member of your tribe off of your little player mat and you put them on that island. So now there's three. Okay, then if you want to sail again, you take of those peoples and you move them on, leaving one behind.
Speaker 1:So you create this chain of uh, indigenous peoples that you are populating these islands to get as far away from the exploding volcano as possible. So, uh, as you venture forth into these unknown waters, you have to feed your people. So so you fish and you collect shells and you collect resources that feed the people to move them along. Sailing is hard work and you have to keep them fed as you explore. But as you are exploring and getting your people off the island, you notice that your neighboring and warring factions are also trying to get off the island, and you don't want them to take the islands that belong to your people.
Speaker 1:However, you know that they are very skilled explorers and skilled guides. So, let's say, you end up on the same island with one of your competitors. You can take one of their meeples to guide you forward, leaving them stranded on an island. So if you have meeples of different colors on the same island and I say I want to venture forward maybe there's additional points out there, maybe there's more resources I can take my opponent's meeple as a guide and bring them with me, breaking their chain and not letting them populate and move forward. Do you have to have?
Speaker 1:two people to populate like two people in the same location yes, so you can break their chains by stealing their meeples to move them? Um, so yeah, what you're really trying to do is get your people as far out as possible, and then every game there's different scoring objectives that depend on the routes, the number of islands that you populate, the number of fish and clams you collect. There's bonus islands that have different amount of point values, but the real mechanic is getting your people off the island and as far away from the exploding volcano as possible. At the end of the game you get points for the number of islands explored. Bonus is oh, at the end of every turn you check for explosion conditions, so you never know when the volcano is going to explode. And if you get caught on the wrong turn and you're not far enough away, then the volcano explodes and kills your tribe. So it's a race to get as far away from the island as possible and collect as many resources and maintain a smooth supply chain through this island chain.
Speaker 3:Polynesia. It's giving me Moana vibes big time.
Speaker 2:Mata Fiti right, Is that? The god that Listen, don't let.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, matafiti.
Speaker 1:Return the heart.
Speaker 2:Don't let his flowery talk about theme distract you from what he's really saying. Through all that, there's way too many rules for what it is.
Speaker 1:Way too many rules. You take three actions, three actions per turn, that's three actions.
Speaker 2:I got one Place a person. That's it. That sounds like a boring game.
Speaker 1:Easy, it's not boring.
Speaker 2:It is exciting, it is abstract and you have the bandwidth because you only have to place one thing on a turn. You have the bandwidth to take in what everybody else is doing on the board. Try and cut people off from expanding to different islands.
Speaker 3:So you're saying you don't think Mason can play Polynesia? No, way too complicated. But he absolutely can play Blue Lagoon, oh come on Isaac plays Blue.
Speaker 1:Lagoon Clayton. It's just rated 2.3 weight on BGA Polynesia or.
Speaker 2:BGG. Blue Lagoon is a lighter game. I mean, the people at BoardGameGeek don't get this wrong, it's easier. I'm saying if you're going to play a game like this, you don't want to have to get in the rule book to remember exactly what's going on. I told you everything you need to know about Blue Lagoon. There's no edge cases. You literally just place a token on the board adjacent to one of your other tokens and the good people have spoken too. I didn't want to have to do this, but I'm on the ropes.
Speaker 3:Are you pulling ratings?
Speaker 1:now, Because I'm pulling ratings no no, no, we're not going to ratings. We're not going to ratings. Travis did such a. It's about the description. He did a nice job.
Speaker 2:It's about the description and our pitch. He did a nice job selling you on the theme, but don't let that distract you.
Speaker 3:There. Don't let that distract you. There's a lot to consider here too. And also, you just have to realize this is uh. I haven't looked at how much this costs either.
Speaker 3:You know, uh, that might be another factor, but I don't want to hear that. Okay, this is, I'm doing it based off of the game that I think I would uh, I would actually procure and try to get to the table, one that I would think that I would play more often. Another thing that maybe, when I'm buying a game, maybe I want to know if it's on board game arena or some other app that I can play with people like you that are not with me, but just by hearing the peach, the pitches, hey, don't don't make, don't on I got, don't do it yet, do you guys?
Speaker 3:need some rebuttals.
Speaker 2:Is there time for, because I feel like this is what happened, Clay. And.
Speaker 3:I'm the judge here. This is what I saw. I saw Clay go.
Speaker 2:Yes, I know.
Speaker 3:And I saw Travis. And I saw Clay clamoring, feeling like he didn't sell it hard enough his first go. So you're trying to do a little rebuttal. And then Travis I got to give Travis a rebuttal turn as well, if you're going to go?
Speaker 2:Yeah, can I just finish my rebuttal? Yes, go ahead. Based on, I think, your current play groups and the people that you have a chance to play games with, Blue Lagoon is far easier to get to the table. It is from an esteemed designer.
Speaker 3:Reiner Knizia.
Speaker 2:And it's nice to look at. So I think you would get Blue Lagoon played more. That's my final argument, travis.
Speaker 1:Final statements Closing arguments. Listen, he's going to try and stand on the shoulders of Reiner Canizia, but the man has put out like 3,000 games and not all of them are hits. Some of them fall flat on their face even though they might be easy to get to the table, easy to teach, easy mechanics. Some of them are real stinkers and do not deserve to be played just because it has Reiner Knizia on the box. Some of your favorite games that are in your collection right now are not from known designers, but stand on their own merit. I rest my case.
Speaker 2:All right, jared, it's time for a ruling.
Speaker 3:You know what? I heard? A lot of great arguments today, great pitches. I just want to say thank you to everyone who, uh, who joined me today on this, uh, this battle, but I'm gonna have to stand up for this one. I don't know if you've ever. Have you ever watched a rugby game? Um, the haka? I think I'm going Polynesia, ha, yeah, oh, the haka.
Speaker 2:I think I'm going Polynesia, ha, oh yeah, no, dad, go on it, I blew it you. Let me wear myself out on Battlestar Galactica. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:No, honestly, it also seems very simple right, you get only three different actions that you are trying to take each round. It does make me feel like it's more interactive and competitive, like battling. I'm all about battling, I can see myself actually getting both of these. But I would have to say my gut and my heart is leaning toward Polynesia and I don't know if that's because in Utah as well, my home state, strong Polynesian presence, maybe if there's more of a theme with Blue Lagoon. I don't know, maybe there is. I didn't hear it in the pitch listen, I'll give it to Travis.
Speaker 2:He did a good job. He out-pitched me, he out-pitched me.
Speaker 1:If I'm being real, I've probably played Blue Lagoon more than Polynesia, and I do prefer Blue Lagoon. I'm just trying to find a game that's similar to compare with.
Speaker 3:I'm putting it in my notes I got Travis.
Speaker 2:Travis has one win and Clay has none. Yeah, I mean, that should have been an easy win for me, but Travis outpitched me.
Speaker 3:I just want to say thank you also, though, for trying to pick a similar game. I could see that you guys yeah, there was a lot of prep work that went into this, so I appreciate the time. So thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I said, we'll maybe do this, like once a month or something, when we have more things to talk about at the beginning of the episode, less main topic. We'll maybe do some pitches and if you're listening to this podcast and you have opinions on either of these games, maybe you've played them, maybe we inspired you to purchase them. Let us know Sound off. Inspired you to purchase them? Let us know Sound off in the comments on YouTube, hit us up on Instagram, comment on the episode on Apple Podcasts and or Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts, let us know what you think about our pitches and if you'd like to hear us pitch different games.
Speaker 3:I'd like to pitch a name for this segment though. Yeah, I'd like to pitch a name for this segment though. Yeah, my joint planning certification makes me feel like this could be COA selection here. I just heard some COAs courses of action briefed to me as the Joint Force Commander and I think I had to make a tough decision from two great koas that would have produced great results.
Speaker 1:That's Joppa. Right there, that's Joppa.
Speaker 2:Everybody blow me up in the comments.
Speaker 3:I blew it? No, you didn't I let down.
Speaker 1:I blew it. If you are disappointed in Clay's pitch, let us know in the comments.
Speaker 2:This should have been an easy win. This is a slam dunk. I was standing on Kenizia's shoulders and I still fell short. Oh man.
Speaker 1:To be honest, that game is really good. I do love Blue Lagoon and that's probably one of the games that I will procure eventually if the opportunity arises.
Speaker 3:But yeah, that game is good. It's so tense Well, thanks guys, that was awesome.
Speaker 2:Let's go over the fence, baby.
Speaker 1:OTF, let's go over the fence. What else have we been doing besides board gaming, clayton.
Speaker 2:What did I watch last week? I watched the Mr McMahon show on Netflix.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was super interesting. There was like a three-month period in my life, maybe when I was in high school, that I was really into Monday Night Raw and Friday Night Smackdown and I have since left that in the past, but it was a cool history. Scandals and whatnot aside, it was kind of a cool history of the WWE how it came to be and how Vince McMahon has propelled it to its heights and how he has, along the way, maybe made some moral mistakes Moral, ethical, legal, yeah. But if you're into those kind of real-life good docuseries lots of larger-than-life figures getting to hear from them, like Hulk Hogan, john Cena they're in there giving their two cents about WWE. It was crazy. I mean hearing about it in like the 90s, early 2000s, like good grief. The stuff they were putting on TV was like good Lord. I can't believe they got away with some of this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like the hardcore Edge era or whatever. Yeah, it was wild, wild. They were putting some stuff on there that was you could not put that on tv nowadays.
Speaker 2:I know I was like watching this, I'm just like I was looking away.
Speaker 1:I was like oh my gosh uh, however, I watched that and I was thinking to myself like maybe I should get into wrestling and maybe I should go get a Stone Cold Steve Austin t-shirt. Oh, hell yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm into Stone Cold. It kind of pumps you up. Yeah, yeah, I could see you as a wrestler.
Speaker 3:The first day I ever went to a wrestling practice, I thought I was going to be doing people's elbows and throwing trash cans at each other, and then we did like 500 up-downs and it broke my soul. I don't know why I kept going back because I never did get to do. What did Mankind do? He put a sock on it Socko. I thought that was the coolest thing. When I was a kid I was like that is so weird and gross and that's why I like watching wrestling. I don't know, I'm a big John Cena fan too. I don't know if you know about that.
Speaker 1:If you were a professional wrestler, you would be Frank Reynolds, the trash man from Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's amazing.
Speaker 3:Yes, all right, just eat garbage. That might have to be my Halloween costume, actually. That would be good.
Speaker 1:Get the little leotard.
Speaker 3:Yeah, with the one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hot.
Speaker 1:I'm jumping back over the fence and I'm going to pass it off to Travis. Go over the fence. What did you do?
Speaker 3:What I did. I got to go to San Antonio for a military retirement. It was one of my first commanders from Lake Neath when I was in England and he's retiring after, I think, 25 years of service. He graduated the academy in 99. He definitely made me who I am today, kept me in the military because I was definitely thinking about five and diving and helped me see how you make your work, your family and you can have a lot of fun while you're at work. You're nine to five. I know I just saw Clay shudder, but I had a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:I've never traveled through Montgomery Airport. That was an experience. It's a lot of fun. I've never traveled through Montgomery Airport. That was an experience. It's a tiny little thing. I got to go through Dallas, hit the Centurion Lounge and then I met up with my buddy. We were both CGOs there in England and we've been best friends ever since. You just make great friends in the military and then you go party and have a blast all weekend. That was my Over the Fence. I've thoroughly enjoyed myself this weekend.
Speaker 1:Okay, my Over the Fence is actually a battle royale game that I've been playing and it's not the one that you might think. I'm not a Fortnite-er, I'm not playing any sort of Call of Duty. It's actually in Forza Horizon 5. So this is a racing game. Forza has two different series. They have Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon. Motorsport is for the big gearheads that want to go really fast around a track. Horizon is like the more arcade-y version where you're like open world, driving wherever you want, and they recently updated with a, a battle royale mode in cars.
Speaker 1:So you go to the meetup spot, you enter into a match. Uh, if you don't know, this game takes place in mexico and it's this giant celebration of mexican culture. They've got the beaches of mexico, they've got the jungles, the swamps, the desert. They've got all all sorts of different regions. This map is gigantic, um, and so you start out in two different cars, either a 1963 bug or a I don't know 1957 chevy or something. Not great cars, pretty, pretty cool for collectors, but like not nothing special. Then, as you drive around, you'll see these little plumes of purple smoke and you drive up to them and you can upgrade your car. Now how do people get eliminated? It has the ring that continues to get smaller, just like every battle royale game. But you drive your car up to somebody that you see in the map. You drive up to them and you honk your horn at them and the game automatically generates a spot in the distance that's maybe a mile and a half, two miles away, that you are now racing to in whatever cars you have. So the game's ai is meant to draw you a path on the, on the roads to get there, whether it's the highway or the street roads or dirt roads, trails, whatever it is. But the other option is you just go bombing through the woods at 150 miles an hour and try and get there faster than the other guy. So, and it's in whatever car they're currently in. So if they've upgraded to a ferrari and you're still in your bug, it's a bug versus a ferrari, and that ferrari might opt to take the roads because the ferrari does better on roads. It does bad off-road, uh, whereas the bug who cares? It's not going to do great on either. So you might as well just bomb through the forest and try, try your best. It's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:It's made some really cool moments. I started on top of this mountain the other day and this other guy met me and we see this like it generates a spot down the mountain and so it's too difficult to take these switchbacks all the way down. So we both take our bugs and we go flying off the top of this mountain. We're bombing down this hill at 300 miles an hour. We're neck and neck. At the very end he hits a rock. He had stopped dead in his tracks and I won and I got to upgrade my car and continued on.
Speaker 1:It makes for some crazy moments. You're racing down the highways and people will jump over the highways out of the forest. People get T-boned all the time out of nowhere and it's the right sort of chaotic and it's awesome. And you have all sorts of cars. You got trucks versus your Lambos, you've got your classic Chevys and muscle cars versus your Mitsubishi RX and whatever it is. I'm not a huge car guy, but it's the right type of chaotic and awesome.
Speaker 1:So shout out to forza horizon 5. If you have the means. You have an xbox or you have xbox game pass. I think it's free, so go get it. It's awesome, sounds cool. They have like over almost 900 different cars loaded into this game. It's incredible. They have like special edition cars and really weird ones. They have, like you know, really obscure, like egg-shaped cars that have three wheels. You've got your lambos. You're your luxury cars. They've got exclusive racing cars, dune buggies. It's incredible. You can drive your car through water and then, as you go down the highway, you can watch the water dry on your car. It's unbelievable. Anyways, we did it.
Speaker 1:Another episode of the operation game night mission complete. If you are liking the show, please like, subscribe on youtube, follow us on instagram at operation game night and leave us a comment, share us, um, send us to your friends if you, if you like, if you want to hear something, want to hear more something, got feedback from us? Hit us up. We look at every single thing that's sent to us. So, anyways, yeah, let us know, interact with us. We love hearing from people, so hit us up wherever you get your podcasts and or follow us. Yep, yep, yep For Operation Game Night. We are mission complete. I have been Travis Smith. He has been Jared.
Speaker 2:And he has been Clay. Thanks for the smackdown, Travis.
Speaker 3:Oh, come on and we're out. We'll be you next time.