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 14: Tapestry/Head-to-Head Showdown - Terracotta Army vs Endless Winter
Get ready to explore the captivating universe of board games as we share our strategies for mastering "Tapestry" by Stonemaier Games. We highlight the excitement of efficiency puzzles, especially with the game's digital version on Board Game Arena. Our gaming tales span from "Super Mega Lucky Box" to "Dice Miner," perfect for adding a competitive edge to any gathering. Plus, we dive into the realm of digital board gaming, praising the online adaptations of beloved titles like "Wingspan," "Dune Imperium," and "Root." Memorable in-person family gaming sessions also take the spotlight, featuring surprises and triumphs with games like "Wild Duo", "Chicken", "River Valley Glassworks", "revive", and "Parade".
The laughter continues with a spirited board game showdown where we pitch "Terracotta Army" against "Endless Winter" for a board game sales pitch for Jared! We discuss the spinning rondel of "Terracotta Army" and its strategic elements, while Clay highlights the deck-building intrigue of "Endless Winter." Our friendly debate is a rollercoaster of humor and passion, as we consider the merits of both games and how they appeal to fans of crunchy gameplay. As we wrap up, we entertain plans for a Euro trip to London and the balancing act of family life, promising more gaming adventures and personal stories in future episodes.
Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast, episode 14. We have a good show for you today. With me, as always, is my co-host, Jared Erickson. How are you doing, Jared?
Speaker 2:Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What it do, what it do. I don't know if you can tell, but I am also joined by Mr Herpy Derp. I'd like to thank Joel Sherritt and the Air Force Wrestling Team for giving me herpes, and that's who's joining me today on my lower lip Welcome.
Speaker 2:Welcome herpes. It's a good start to the family-friendly podcast. It's the good kind of herpes, okay, never mind, you guys need to kick me off this podcast. I'm also the reason why we're starting 26 minutes late, so I'd like to apologize for that as well.
Speaker 3:But I would like to give you credit for leaving your brunch early in an attempt to be here less late. So thank you for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there'll be. In about 25 minutes you'll hear a rumble and a brumble, and that's when Gemma and Adrian will get back from the brunch. So I apologize ahead of time for that as well.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for being here. Brunch boy and good old sack lunch himself is Clay Gable. How are you doing, clay?
Speaker 3:I'm doing good. I do not have a sack lunch on me, but I intend to enjoy some Buffalo wings while I watch the Pittsburgh Steelers take down the Ravens, right after this recording.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's going to be a good game.
Speaker 3:Big stuff. And Travis, I just wanted to say welcome to you. I feel like you always welcome us and we've never given you a proper intro. Welcome to the man, the brains behind the operation, Mr Travis Smith. How are you doing today?
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, I am proud to be herpes-free. If you want to look at our beautiful faces this week, we actually should have the video up and running on YouTube so you can listen to us on your favorite podcasting app, or you can find us on YouTube and you can listen to my family in the background, because I have parents in town, babies, dogs everyone is here in this house and it's probably going to be loud and you might hear them in the background but it's the most I'm going to make it through.
Speaker 2:Nonetheless, adorable little baby, I will say Gwen it is the most adorable baby.
Speaker 1:She got in on the ground floor of operation game night merch. She got the very first operation game night merch besides clay's hat, I guess.
Speaker 3:But yeah, yeah, there are two, two pieces of merch out there.
Speaker 1:I'm glad to be in company with gwen highly coveted, yeah, highly coveted, but we have a great show for you today. We are going to debrief our weeks. Then we're going to have a head-to-head koa selection where we pitch jared erickson a board game that he should buy We've got two hot games for him to choose from and then we're going to go over the fence very quickly and then I'm going to split because we are going to watch the Lions game.
Speaker 3:Who's a Lions fan?
Speaker 1:Rachel Rachel's from Michigan.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that's right. She doesn't seem like she's from Michigan.
Speaker 1:She seems like a pennsylvania girl yeah, not a michigander anymore. Yeah, no, she still. She still holds up her hand when she does the uh oh, michigan, thing that's cute from, I want to know show me, not the up right here, now that we have video.
Speaker 3:Some people, the people that are into looking at our faces, we'll get to see that display of Rachel on the hand map.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yeah, if you care about Michigan geography, go ahead and tune into YouTube. So, clay, debrief your weekend gaming for me.
Speaker 3:Gosh, I, high level debrief played a ton of games. I'm just going to go through all the games I played just to show off quick, and then I'll pick one to talk about. I got to bring up the BGStats app. That's how many I've been into this week. Let's look at my plays here.
Speaker 2:BGStats. Is that your app that you use to track all your plays?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so played some Chicken a couple times with the family. If you're familiar with that game from Keymaster Games great little push-your-luck game. Awesome packaging too. Comes in a little tube. Played River Valley Glassworks four times. Just got that this week. Nice. Played Revive Crunchy Euro game Just played that this week. Played Revive Crunchy Euro game Just played that yesterday. That was crazy. And then played Parade Fun little card game and some more green team wins. So I've been at it this week Working hard for the pod.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, oh, and I played.
Speaker 3:Tapestry, which was probably going to be the one I was going to talk about.
Speaker 2:That's probably what I wanted to hear about most. Was Mama Mare busting out a 300 on tapestry? Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was gross.
Speaker 2:That was dope. That was dope. That inspired me actually to create a BGA tapestry with Mary and Clay, just because I want to see that in action.
Speaker 1:Oh, thanks for the invite, oh.
Speaker 3:I didn't think you were into that type of thing yeah, bga says best at three which I might.
Speaker 2:Maybe I'll just pull Clay out of it and it could be me, you and mayor, you know I'm saying well come on mary wipes the table with you guys all right, so now for the viewers this is uh, coming off the heels of me sending a uh an instagram post to who I thought was just clay, and it actually was Clay and Travis. I've been nonstop this week given Travis the shaft, so I apologize, it's all right.
Speaker 1:It's all right. Everybody else gets free board games, Everybody else gets game invites and I'm just here as the host. That's all I'm good for. You're just here to welcome us. Enjoy your gaming, everybody.
Speaker 2:You're welcoming us into your home. That's why I like when you welcome us to the podcast, I feel like I'm in that home in Germany right now. Even though the sun's already down, it appears. Oh yes, it's been gloomy all day.
Speaker 1:Sorry, Clayton.
Speaker 2:I digress. And oh yes, it's been gloomy all day. Oh yeah, sorry, clayton, I digress Please.
Speaker 3:No, no, it's all good. I I am going to talk about tapestry Now. Tapestry is from one of our favorite publishers here at Stonemaier games, designed by Jamie Stegmaier, the owner of Stonemaier games, and it was put out in 2019. So Tapestry is a civilization themed game. I wouldn't say it's a civilization game. So essentially, in Tapestry, you have this huge board laid out in front of you that has four. Along the four edges are four different tracks that you're going to be going up. The whole game is essentially just going up tracks. So when you're playing Tapestry, your turns are pretty simple in what you're deciding to do. If you have resources, you're probably going to pick one of those four tracks and move your marker up one space and do what the icons say. And this game's pretty nice, I would Okay. So it's nice once you know it, because the rulebook's actually fairly thin for what is a pretty hefty game. Like I said, it's not hard to to know what actions or what you can do on your turn, but there's like a million different icons and iconography that it's almost like learning a new language to play tapestry and know what's going on. So each turn you have four tracks and on each of those tracks you move up, there'll be icons showing what will happen when you move up on that track, and once you know them, it's pretty smooth, flowing, like simple stuff. You're going to be expanding out on this shared map it and then you can conquer different territories with your little military outposts. You can gather these technology cards that will give you ongoing abilities Well, not ongoing abilities, but they trigger. So you go through these eras and you're using your resources to move up the tracks. And when you no longer can move up the tracks, you go to an income phase and then you go through this process where you activate your civilization ability. You score your points during this phase. You play a tapestry card to the new era that will give you a benefit for that next era and you get new resources, and so everything you're doing is kind of building up these actions you're going to be taking during that income phase.
Speaker 3:So there's this little city map you have that you're filling out with these amazing let me find a picture. Okay, there it is For the people on YouTube. You can see these beautiful painted minis on a city map and you're trying to fill out these columns and rows on the city map because that will score you points during the income phase as well. And then you have these little almost like scythe. If you're familiar with how you can upgrade your player mat by taking pieces off of it to put onto the board, you're kind of doing that with these buildings that you take off of your player mat and you put them onto your city mat, and so that helps you with your scoring there. But it also helps you when you get resources and points in the income phase. The more of those buildings you have off, the more points you're getting. So again, that's pretty procedural, not a lot to think about.
Speaker 3:During the income phase You're just reaping the rewards of what you've done during your action phases and moving up those tracks, and so the crux of the game is trying to figure out how to efficiently move up these tracks and maximize your resources, because there's ways to do it that are going to, like Mary figured out in the last game, allow you to just cascade these turns and score these ridiculous points. I posted about it on my Instagram, but the first time we played this game it was completely lost on me. Like I was, I would just pick a track, go up. I was happy. We were done the game in like 30 minutes and I scored like 30 points. And I saw online people posting about scoring 200 plus points on the regular. I was like that's impossible. But the more you play the game, the more you see, the more you see these opportunities to create those efficiencies and take those extra turns. And it's just this crazy puzzle and once you unlock it, it really is fun to figure out how to maximize your point scoring potential.
Speaker 2:She maxed out her capital, capital city, like her. Her city board right. No more spaces left on this like huge, was it? Like nine by nine square grid thing that's yeah, bigger than that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a nine by nine, yeah, and yeah, doing that, I mean it's beautiful and if you create the efficiencies that you need to like, it's no good to fill out your city map if you don't have uncovered the spaces on your player mat that score you points for the city mat. So again, it's just all about this game's just about creating those efficiencies and the cool thing is that I've grown to love about it are all the. I mean I I have everything for this game. There's been like three or four expansions maybe, and each one has come with different civilizations and different city maps. So at the start of the game you each get this unique city map and unique civilization that kind of guide you in a certain direction for the game and give you different benefits which are super fun to explore but also have created some of the biggest complaints about this game from the general board gaming community.
Speaker 3:If you're a tryhard that wants to always win and wants everything to be fair and balanced, you will probably hate tapestry because you'll see people doing these abilities and turns that you're like what in the world? My thing sucks, yours is awesome, and they have done their best to try and balance these different civilizations. So, with the latest expansion on the rule book and you can find these online too if you don't have the expansion. But there's adjustments that you need to make if you're playing with a certain civilization at the start of the game. So maybe you start with like 20 points on the score track already just off the hop, because your civilization might not be as strong as the one mary was playing with last time. Mary's was so good she had to lose a resource to start the game and she still managed to run circles around me yeah, she dropped a 300 on me, so that's something to think about.
Speaker 2:Like on on bga, they like you can some of the options before you start the game is like don't use this thing. And that's like a civilization that's too overpowered, that you're like no, we'll keep that out of the deck. I guess.
Speaker 3:I've never looked at the options, but it would make sense if there were those options. On BGA, are you saying you've seen that?
Speaker 2:I think I've seen it If there were those options on BGA, are you saying you've seen that? I think I've seen it. And also, like even castles of Burgundy, there's like a option to exclude a certain starting player, matt thing. That, like, apparently, is just too overpowered. That make it that person win every time, but so yeah.
Speaker 3:And conclusion on tapestry um, I've enjoyed this game more every time I've played it and that's mainly just because of the variety of civilizations that you can play with and once you know the iconography it's actually pretty smooth to play. Like I said, you just pick one of those tracks to move up and do what it says. If you don't like that type of imbalance in games, that's something to consider. Also, the theme is it's there but it's not integrated in a way that some would find appropriate. I've heard a lot of people complain about the fact that when you're doing like, you're getting technology cards that say you've, like, invented a space shuttle, but meanwhile you're in era one in the technology track or science track. So you know it's fine.
Speaker 3:You know I'm not here for that. I'm here for the beautiful minis, the differing gameplay that all the different civilizations give you and, like the bombastic point, scoring potentials you can unlock and it really is rewarding when you do that. And the other thing to mention again, I'm not a game strategist, and certainly not for this game, but it seems like you have to kind of pick a lane and go with it. I am usually a two track guy Like I will try and move up two of the tracks and the other two I more or less ignore, and that's kind of how I've gotten Okay At playing the game. There might be better ways to play it, but I don't know that.
Speaker 2:you did, mary, tap out any of these tracks?
Speaker 3:Mary was hitting the science track hard.
Speaker 2:Is that the one where you roll that die?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you roll, the science die. I love that, so anyway.
Speaker 1:And you're just a two-track pony. I'm a two-track pony.
Speaker 3:I can't manage three tracks. I'm not there for three tracks, but anyway, that's Tapestry Stonemaier Games. It's been out for a while, it's beautiful and I think you should check it out if you like, trying to work out those kind of efficiency puzzles.
Speaker 1:And it has a great implementation on BGA. So if you have a subscription to Board Game Arena, hop on that if you want to give it a try, because that is a good way to learn that game. I think they do a great job of onboarding and making your decision process clear, so check that out if you're interested.
Speaker 2:And shout out if you are on BGA, please ask Travis to play Tapestry with you, because I'm an asset.
Speaker 1:Somebody, please play a game with me.
Speaker 3:Jared's just out here, leaving our leader behind.
Speaker 1:He just shoots from the hip all the time and I get left out, Okay, so Anyways, Jared, debrief your week, because I do care about you, even though you might not care about mine.
Speaker 2:But debriefing my week, I did have some of my good friends here in Alabama come over for a game night. We got out Super Mega Lucky Box.
Speaker 1:I think we talked about it last week.
Speaker 2:So no need to deep dive on any of that, but just a fun game that you can keep talking while you're essentially playing bingo. In my head You're just playing bingo, you're chatting, having a good time, and still you know a little tiny bit of competitiveness. So then we transitioned from a little bit of Super Mega Lucky Box to Dice Miner, which I think that's another one we've already talked about. But just solid party games that can get the juices flowing. I got my mouse pad out. It was a great weekend for board gaming, I'll say that, but I'm going to try and sneak in at least a get out the steam in the tabletop simulator. Cole's been chirping like he wants to get some Dead Reckoning done, and so I'm going to try and squeeze it in some way. I don't know, we'll see. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1:Does he play that on tabletop simulator?
Speaker 2:No, I don't think, I don't think so, but we know that it exists and so we're going to give it a college try, and I am in no way shape or form ready to tell you about Dead Reckoning, so I'll leave that.
Speaker 3:Come on, jared, let's hear it.
Speaker 2:Walk us through the. I haven't played it yet. How can I debrief something that hasn't happened?
Speaker 3:You know that's a pre-brief You've played it in the past.
Speaker 1:That's a pre-brief. That's a pre-brief, yeah.
Speaker 3:I want the pre-brief on dead reckoning, Jared.
Speaker 2:Hey, that's against our bylaws and our customer base will riot Okay.
Speaker 3:So that's fair.
Speaker 1:Well, anyways, that's why I took this week. I took some of our own own advice from our digital adaptations of board games and I played a little bit of Digital Wingspan, a little bit of Digital Dune Imperium, a little bit of Digital Root. So I have been dipping my toe into the digital adaptations realm, played like 10 games on Board Game Arena all simultaneously some mountain goats, some castles of burgundy can't stop heat, pedal to the metal. I, just after talking about those games and how good those adaptations are, I had to dip back in so, uh, played a whole bunch of those. I know we've kind of beat those all to death, but in person, uh, we did play some super like a mega lucky box, because my folks are in town and we finished the game and here's the review from my mom. She said, quote that is a good game. Oh, okay right on.
Speaker 1:Wow, somebody who only ever plays yahtzee. Uh, she said that is a good game and she likes it because she's a teacher and the font on the box reminds her of Schoolhouse Rock.
Speaker 2:You hear it, it does.
Speaker 1:You hear that Phil.
Speaker 3:Walker-Harding. It's a good game, according to Travis's mom, I know.
Speaker 1:It's a good game. Put that on the box, phil, yep. Then we busted out a little bit of wild duo and I wanted to like give that a test run with my mom, and she whooped my butt at all of those games Dang. Yeah, she's like I, this is just like chess. I hate chess. And then she beat me every single time.
Speaker 1:So there's definitely some strategy to that that I'm not comprehending and not very good at, or maybe I just don't like I don't know positioning strategy games like that, or maybe I'm just not good at them.
Speaker 1:But yeah, she whooped my butt in those games many times, especially like the Tusk Tassel one Tusk Tussle, where you're moving the elephants around to create the herds. Yeah, she smoked me every single time we played that and I could not figure it out. Yeah, she like, smoked me every single time we played that and I could not figure it out. So, yeah, we got a couple of games played, but none that we haven't talked about before. So if you want to check out more in-depth descriptions of any of those games, go back and listen to some of our past episodes. So now we're going to move in on the mission objective and we're going to do a COA selection where we both pitch Jared similar board games with similar mechanics and jared is going to decide which one he would rather buy. He is under no obligation to buy either of these, but, uh, he's trying to tell us which one he would buy based on our sales pitch and sometimes they show up in the mail.
Speaker 2:I don't know how it happens, but like the game just shows up.
Speaker 1:Actually, that was from the one that I did, even when it's not the one that you picked, not the one I picked.
Speaker 3:That's what makes it even better.
Speaker 1:Damn it Deb, damn it Deb. So today's head-to-head Koa showdown is I have selected Terracotta Army by Board and Dice Clay. What game did you pick?
Speaker 3:I picked Endless Winter by Fantasia.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Okay, so today I'm going to talk to you about Terracotta Army. Terracotta Army is a super thematic game about building the Terracotta Army to send the Emperor into the afterlife. It was published in 2022 by Board and Dice, and designers is Primaslaw Fornell and Adam Karpisky. They are both of Polish descent, I believe, but Emperor Qin Shi Huang has passed away and you are running a guild of artisans that are tasked with building his terracotta army to escort him into the afterlife. So, first off, this game combines worker placement with resource management, with area control, and you are leading your little guild that's responsible for building these different warriors for the terracotta army. So, first off, the board is beautiful. Everything is very like rustic looking. It's all kind of clay tones, lots of greens and reds and, uh, oranges. But the real highlight of the board itself is this rondelle that has three spinning layers to it. I'm gonna hold it up. What?
Speaker 1:yeah, I need some visual here. So if you've never seen this board, you can go into youtube and watch this video and see what it looks like, but it has a spinning rondelle in the middle, whoa, that allows you to adjust the actions that you take on your turn seriously, you're bringing props now I just have the game next to me, I'm just prepared clay.
Speaker 1:So on your turn, you can adjust the slider to maximize your turns and you're going to place your workers on this outside ring. You'll notice that there's small and large meeple spaces on the outside ring. The smalls are for the apprentice workers that can then be upgraded to master crafters or I don't know. There's more senior workers that can take extra actions and can block the apprentice workers from going to those spaces. And the resource that you're using in this game? You have money and, of course, because you're building a clay army, a terracotta army, you have clay tiles. So as you get these clays and you're spending them to build the warriors for the terracotta army if you do not spend them before the end of your turn.
Speaker 1:So the resource that you're using to build these terracotta warriors is, of course, clay good and if you can't use the clay at the end of your turn or at the end of the round, your clay will dry out. So the clay has two sided tiles a wet and a dry side. So if you don't use it it's going to dry out. But there's actions you can take on the rondelle to keep your clay wet between rounds and keep it viable for producing more terracotta warriors hey, I'm trying to keep this pg as much as I can, okay this is yeah, jared I'm thinking about.
Speaker 1:You might be worried that when you're laying out your warriors on this board or that you have it stored in the box, it's going to get messy and weird. But the box comes with these nice little sliders that have the warriors built into them, so you can draft them from this row and pull them out and place them on the grid. That is the Terracotta Army, whoa, and there's four different kind of suits of warriors and along the side you earn different points based on when you draft these warriors for your army.
Speaker 3:Okay, Boring, and each of these does different things.
Speaker 1:There's, you know, the warrior, there's the archer, there's the pike, the warrior, there's the archer, there's the pike. And the cool thing about it is that on the side of this insert, it'll tell you what each of the warriors does, right there on the side, so you don't even have to pull them out of this thing to know what they're doing or how they play against one another.
Speaker 2:And that was included with the box the base. It's included.
Speaker 1:It's all included.
Speaker 2:Good to know. Good to know.
Speaker 1:So, then, when you build these warriors, you're laying them out on this big grid and the grid you're trying to earn area majority, both in the lines and columns, but also in the different four quadrants. So you're trying to strategically place these warriors so that they earn points off of one another. They're placed certain distances away from one another. Archers need to be further apart. Warriors need to be together. If you need to take up more space in one of the quadrants, they have excellent horse meeples or horse miniatures that you can place your warrior on, and so are you and your opponents putting your terracotta army on the same mat.
Speaker 1:Yes, so that's the thing.
Speaker 2:It's like a double worker placement game.
Speaker 1:Yes, so once you build the terracotta warrior, you're placing it onto the grid for scoring advantages. For scoring advantages, there's special terracotta warriors like the musician and the priest and these different ones that score differently. Some are all eight spaces around, some are distances away, some are. You know, they do different things, but it's a really complex system that's super thematic and a great resource management, worker, placement area, majority, majority game. The great thing about this is the production. All these pieces are freaking beautiful and they're really cool and they are large and they look awesome at the table, especially if you play multiplayer and you have a whole terracotta army built out on this grid. The other cool thing is that the storage is great. But one of the big benefit benefits of purchasing this game is that it's not available digitally. Sadly. Now clay will tell you that you know endless winter is not available digitally. It is available on Tabletopia.
Speaker 3:Nobody wants to play there.
Speaker 1:If you want something similar to Endless Winter, you have Architects of the West Kingdom right there on BGA. It's similar. You already own the subscription.
Speaker 3:It's pretty similar. There is nothing. The designer.
Speaker 1:it's in the same line, Are you?
Speaker 3:talking about the right game.
Speaker 1:Terracotta Army has great production, a great theme. It's got cool actions that you can take. The decision cycle is great. You can do a little. Take that with the blocking spaces, with your master artisans, and all together it has super deep strategy. That's your time and this game, terracotta Army.
Speaker 2:I am Architects of what.
Speaker 1:Architects of the West Kingdom.
Speaker 3:What are you talking about? I'm now convinced you don't even know what game I'm talking about. Endless Winter Paleo Americans.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And you think that Architects of the West Kingdom is a suitable standing for.
Speaker 1:Tell me why it's not. Then, clay, let's hear it.
Speaker 3:Listen, Jared. He said a lot of things about a run-of-the-mill Euro game. That's as bland as they come. But if you First answer me this, Jared, Do you love Dune Imperium?
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 3:Do you love Lost Ruins of Arnak? What do they have? How?
Speaker 1:about a game that's nothing like those two.
Speaker 3:Okay, this game Endless Winter got lost in the shuffle. They all came out about the same time and they all have two things in common they have worker placement combined with deck building. So if you like Dune Imperium and you like Lost Ruins of Arnak because of that combination, that sweet combination of getting cards for their abilities and that also lets you go take actions on a map, then Endless Winter, paleo Americans is the third in that line and arguably I think it's the best produced in that line. I mean, you got to pull this up, jared. I got it up here for the viewers on YouTube, but it is a beautiful production by Fantasia. It's got great inserts for all your people, all the different things you place on the board, but that's all superficial. I know you don't care about that. Travis spent a lot of time talking about Terracotta Army's beauty, so I won't belabor it. But what you will like is the variety of Euro mechanism goodness going on. Here we have tracks that you're going up to score points at the end. Just like Lost Ruins of Arnak, you have a fun little hunting mini game you can do where you're collecting animals from the hunting ground and when you get sets of them. At the end of the game you'll score points for them. There's rare animals, there's common animals. Fun little piece of it. There's this big map that you're competing to explore against the other tribes and settle. That will give you like an engine building aspect in between each round. I got ahead of myself.
Speaker 3:Let me go back to the basics. So there's four rounds, you have three workers that you can place each round and then in between rounds there's an eclipse phase, and the way you set up your eclipse phase can score you a bunch of points and get you a bunch of benefits in that eclipse phase as you take your actions with your workers. So the three main things you can do with your workers are get new cards, go to the hunting ground, establish area control on this map and when you place a worker there is actually three steps to that action. There's one action in the column that lets you take an action, set amount of times based on the resources you have. So your resources are food and tools, and so you can take an action however many times, whether that's gather as many cards as you want. Then there's the step down from that and that's an action you can take one time on your turn and then, if you're the first person to take that action in a round, there's one more step you can take that gives you even more benefits.
Speaker 3:So you're kind of trying to set yourself up so when you take these turns, you can capitalize on all three of the actions that are available there and set up your eclipse phase so that you can score more points and gain more prestige for your tribe as you try to survive in this frozen wasteland. Oh, and there's one more little mini-game aspect. So you got your track, you got your area control, and then there's this little monolith building thing and all these different mini-games. Although they seem disparate, they all have interwoven mechanisms that will chain together and benefit you as you come up with the perfect turns. To maximize, you get 12 turns, this whole game, and that's it. So you have to be efficient.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's simple you pick a thing, you go down it and you try to again. It's kind of like tapestry in that way If you're not being efficient about your actions, you can easily get left behind. Figure out those efficient turns and how to squeeze the most out of every little resource and card to make those 12 turns matter. So, anyway, a far better game than terracotta army and Jared. Let's be real, you could not handle having terracotta army because that moist and dry clay thing would go. It would derail the game for you. Every time I see my time ready for rebuttals?
Speaker 2:yeah, yield the time back all.
Speaker 1:Right, clay will tell you that this is like Dune Imperium or these other games that you love. He's trying to appeal to your emotions. Okay, terracotta Army is thematic and has a great puzzle behind it, and the mechanics will speak for themselves. You like Foundations of Rome? It's got a placement puzzle that's kind of like Foundations of Rome mixed with a worker placement. Okay, it's true, 2022 had some banger games that year, and Clay will tell you that that's third in a line. I think it's a number two. Okay, dump it, flush it. It's a number two. Stinker.
Speaker 3:Get out of here. Wow, travis, holy moly.
Speaker 1:There are many, many games that are very similar to endless winter, and terracotta army stands alone both in theme and action selection. I cede my time jared any final thoughts?
Speaker 2:yeah, I've got final thoughts.
Speaker 3:He keeps prattling on about theme. What could be more boring than making a tomb? For what is it, Travis? You're building a little stone army for A dead emperor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the greatest empires of the last thousand years.
Speaker 3:I almost fell asleep when you were talking oh, it's way longer than that. I almost fell asleep when you were talking oh, it's way long. I almost fell asleep when you were talking about the theme in endless winter.
Speaker 1:You're talking about tracks and tracks and then the card, and then, and then, and then you, you know, move up the track again. Yeah, tracks are fun.
Speaker 3:Everybody loves tracks and the theme is much better. I mean, you're trying to survive as a tribe in this desolate wasteland. You're hunting, you're getting culture cards that give you benefits, you're gathering food, you're getting tools. I mean, come on, you're not just playing with clay.
Speaker 2:And, as of the way I see it, today is either way clay wins, clay comes on top.
Speaker 3:That's true.
Speaker 1:I haven't made my decision. I've made a terrible mistake picking a game that mentioned Clay too much. I know I rewired your brain.
Speaker 3:You got Clay on the mind.
Speaker 1:He's a dusty dried out Clay.
Speaker 2:He's not even voiced. I just did a quick Amazon search. They're both around $60, but Endless Winter is actually on sale right now for $44.99.
Speaker 3:Do you know?
Speaker 2:what type of a steal?
Speaker 1:that is for the level of production that's in this game. They have to get rid of it. It's not selling because it got lost.
Speaker 3:Everybody wanted to talk about deck builder worker placement. Deck builder worker placement, lost Ruins of Arnak Dune Imperium, and they forgot about Endless Winter and how great it is.
Speaker 2:So, travis, no decks, no randomized drawing of cards.
Speaker 3:No big mistake, Travis no randomized drawing of cards.
Speaker 1:Nope, big mistake, travis. No randomized drawing of cards. This is more like I would say it's akin to your Feast for Odin's, where you are selecting the correct places to go, to maximize what you're doing every round, to build out your puzzle with the different terracotta soldiers.
Speaker 3:Couldn't be more different than Feast for Odin.
Speaker 2:Except they both look boring. I just need to put my jacket on because I think I might need an endless winter. I need a warm winter, for the endless winter.
Speaker 3:Yes, you were doomed, Travis. I had that one in the bag. What drove you to decision Jared?
Speaker 2:Let me just go. I do keep sheets during the COA selection. Okay, to help me keep my mind straight. I love the idea of the rondelle. I didn't even know that was a word I could use in board games and I will say clay, he did get you. On the salesmanship of visual aids. I saw that box. It's included a organization system pre-built.
Speaker 2:This was a tough one for me and I didn't. I didn't take this decision lightly, but the deck building got me going. I love a deck building game, that your cards help influence other parts of the game, and I like the idea of also the tapestry, what we were talking about earlier. You have these different mini games that might seem individualized, but they are. They do weave in together and you can't just focus on one aspect. Both of them look really cool. Just the pictures that I'm seeing online. The mini-figs in Terracotta look pretty awesome, but I mean there's also mini-figs in Endless Winter. The gameplay too is a little bit. It says that it's only 60 to 90igs in Endless Winter. The gameplay too is a little bit. It says that it's only 60 to 90 minutes for Endless Winter. Maybe Terracotta Army, a little more in depth, might be more complex. Big Boy Game Night I could see myself getting on Terracotta. It's definitely a Big.
Speaker 1:Boy Game Night game.
Speaker 3:I think both these games fall in a very similar weight and production value range. I feel like you would like both of them at the end of the day, because they're good crunchy games that reward careful planning and understanding the system, the system, but endless winter. I mean I. I pretty much had a rabbit in my hat when I invoked the name of doing imperium and lost ruins of arnak. I know he tried to take a shortcut I almost didn't even have to do anything else almost turned me by bringing and evoking uh odin.
Speaker 2:You know feast for odin, he almost almost got me.
Speaker 1:Next time I'm just going to go. If you love Gemma at all, you'll pick this game. It's the same thing. He's just pulling at your heartstrings.
Speaker 3:I know this big man's got a big heart and he is easily tugged.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love it, you guys. Oh, does that mean, we're one for one? You each have one win.
Speaker 1:We're one and one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one and one. Who's going to be the conference champion? That's what I want to know.
Speaker 1:I don't know. We'll have to see how we shake out after December and then maybe we'll do an annual award for best pitches. Most pitches won for the year.
Speaker 3:I'm feeling pretty good about that victory.
Speaker 1:Let's go ahead and go over the fence, shall we? Let's wrap this show up, Jared. What else have you been doing besides board gaming?
Speaker 2:Things are getting real exciting over here in the Erickson household. We're a couple days away from a Euro trip of our own, so really looking forward to we're going to London, foggy London town to enjoy ourselves, probably going to get out there to the West End, see a couple of plays Going to try, and what we'll probably end up doing is just one of us watches Gemma while the other one goes to a play. But I am torn between Hamilton and Les Mis.
Speaker 2:Les Mis I saw when I a couple of years, like it was almost 10 years ago at this point. But speaking of a rondelle, they got this circular stage that moves in Les Mis on the west end. They're kind of like marching, but they're staying in one spot because the stage is rotating. Yeah, it gets me going, it gets me fired up. That's cool. We love London. It's our favorite city anywhere we've been anywhere in Europe. Dare I say the world, I don't know. I like Seoul a lot, but London is got a special spot in our hearts. That's what we're gearing up for. We're excited about it. Also, thanksgiving is around the corner too. That's what I've been doing outside of board game.
Speaker 1:Nice, any reason that you're taking the trip, or just vacation?
Speaker 2:We've been trying to go to London for years. It got canceled because of COVID and also because of my short tour to Korea, so now we actually have time set apart on the calendar. We've got the tickets booked. There's no knock on wood deployments or any military things that are going to jack that up.
Speaker 1:Yeah Cool, that's my over the fence Clay go over the fence Tell me what you've been doing outside of board gaming.
Speaker 3:Okay, over the fence, I don't want to keep invoking the munchkin play, but it has consumed our last two weekends and today is the grand finale, the closing ceremonies of the Wizard of Oz at Sunrise Methodist Church. So, looking forward to that, the kids normally do their part and they're done in like the first hour and then we take them out and leave because it's a long time, like a three-hour play or musical. And today we are going to, after they finish their munchkin scene, bring them into the audience so they can watch the whole thing and they're pretty excited about it and I'm excited about it. I watched it on opening night and had a blast. I mean I'm looking forward to seeing that again. The Olives are coming to watch today, so hopefully Mason and Isaac put I've been on them they keep on messing with their munchkin socks on stage. I said if your socks fall down, just leave them. You can't be messing with your socks when you're up there, but you know the life of a stage dad's hard.
Speaker 2:Yes, theater dad, that's quite the move. Theater dad. Yeah, yes, theater dad, that's quite the move. Theater dad.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. And Mason has been propositioned for a critical role in some local improv coming up in December. He's going to be Kid Scrooge in an adaptation of A Christmas Story. That's amazing. We've been running lines for that. Once you get the acting stink on you, people just think Mason's an actor. Now We'll see how that goes, travis, what's been happening?
Speaker 1:Well, we've had family just coming in and out of the house for a month now. We haven't had a whole lot of extra time, but this morning I did watch a board game movie. That is a German film called Blame the Game. It's kind of like a German adaptation of the Game Night movie that hit the US. Okay, what's that? Who's that?
Speaker 3:guy Jason Bateman, jason Bateman.
Speaker 1:Jason Bateman.
Speaker 3:And Rachel McAdams, jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams and Jennifer Aniston. I'm like way off Rachel McAdams and Jason Bateman you can't start your video podcast yet, or your movie podcast until you can get these actors right well, I haven't seen that movie in like 10 years, nor have I.
Speaker 1:But.
Speaker 1:I never forget jason yeah, that's very true, um, but this is a german adaptation of that and it was definitely not as good. Uh, but it's on netflix if you want to go ahead watch that. It's got german humor to it so it's very dry, but it's got some funny moments and it's more of a like it's more of a love story than I think the original game that is. It's like a will they won't they type thing they meet, they have a, meet cute, and then she invites him over for her friend's game night. That then gets crazier and crazier. But yeah, it was kind of interesting. And then lately I've gotten the urge to start tinkering with electronics again and start like ripping open Game Boys and stuff. So I might have to start doing that again. I have like my little iFixit kit, which is a cool company that makes like stuff for tinkering with electronics. They have like mini screwdrivers and all the special screwdriver heads and stuff and I might start ripping open Game Boys and stuff and modding them.
Speaker 2:Can you put a new battery in my iPhone by chance?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have the skills to do that.
Speaker 3:yeah, he has the skills, I'll send it to Germany.
Speaker 1:I have the skills. Yeah, there's probably an easier solution to that, but yeah, so not a whole lot going on over here, just tinkering and watching movies an easier solution to that, but, um, yeah, so not a whole lot going on over here, just uh tinkering and getting all the cuddles that you can soak them in yeah, get them. In Someday you'll end up being a theater dad, we did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe. Well, if it sounds like a herd of elephants is in my living room right now, it's because we are getting ready for dinner, so I'm going to go ahead and wrap this up Episode 14 of Operation Game Night. Thank you guys for joining me. I have been Travis. He has been Jared. Thanks everybody. He has been Clay.
Speaker 3:Jared gave a salute for the listener.
Speaker 1:I know Trying to be direct and dramatic.
Speaker 2:Let's be real, the only reason why Clay won today is because I wanted to put on my fancy dancy Air Force prep letterman jacket that I got in the mail from Korea the other day.
Speaker 3:I'll get out of here. All right, we're shutting down, all right.
Speaker 1:We're out Later, Later Well that was fun, alright.