REVIEWS

VISCOUNTS
OF THE WEST
KINGDOM

We love the West Kingdom series of games–and just about anything out of Garphill Games.

While this is a relatively new addition to our collection, we have enjoyed its gameplay and how it has built on the previous installments.

The mix of simple deck building and shedding, coupled with the myriad number of tactical paths to points, makes this a great game for our collection with a ton replayability and depth.

In fact, we have made the West Kingdom trilogy part of our 10X10 for 2021 so we expect more learning to come with this one. And we have a good sipping cocktail to pair with it that shouldn’t cloud our judgement.

Adam: 8/10
Mandy: 7/10

PAIR WITH:
The Viscount

PANDEMIC
SEASON 0

After a failed start at the first Pandemic legacy game, we picked up a few years later with the new Pandemic Season 0.
This re-theming around the Cold War and espionage captured us from the start and we burned through the whole campaign in just a few weeks.
We had so many close calls, near misses, and a few painful losses–but still managed to do pretty well in the final scoring.
In the end, this game will be one of great memories and how we were able to specialize our roles into a well-oiled machine.

Pair with a good old-fashioned or our take on a Paper Plane and enjoy the high stakes globetrotting. We are off to Pandemic Season 2 as we work our way across the timeline.

Adam: 10/10
Mandy: 9/10
Campbell: 9/10

PAIR WITH:
The Paper Plane

LOST RUINS
OF ARNAK

Games that are simple in rule-set and yet complex in decisions tend to be our favorites.

Mandy got this for me for the holidays and with it roaring up the BGG hotlist, it had good buzz as approachable, tight, and not overly weighty.

After a couple of plays, both at 2 players and 3 players, we all agree it is a solid game. The Lost Ruins of Arnak definitely gives you the tense feeling of so-much-to-do but not enough moves to do it.

We also liked the smash up of mechanics between the tech/research track, worker placement, and deck-building. It felt like a ‘popcorn movie’ game with good entertainment value and no Oscar-bait complexity.

Adam: 7/10
Mandy: 7.5/10
Campbell: 7.5/10

PAIR WITH:
The Pack Mule