Mechs v Minions is a co-op game set in a cutesie manga world full of locust like minions whom could be dealt with much easier with some nasty 70s proximity disease like moxamatosis
The game is fully co-op so like a Garda who’s uttered a few “ah ha’s” as you’ve tried to explain yourself through the window of the car you just dropped out of warp in, I shall begin reading it it’s rights 

Set in the magical land of Whocaresless each player takes a cartoony mech and sets about completing a particular task (possibly while shouting COOPERATION! And high fiving each other) like moving a bomb from one spot to another or kill some dudes or other stuff I haven’t gotten to yet. In the words of Adam West “some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb”
Now I have to qualify this. I’ve only played three games so far so this is my brutally honest early opinion from our Thur night gaming sessions that are not a million miles from xfactor insofar as we have a shed load of unplayed games and we wheel a new one out each week to see if it’s good enough to make the semis. Mechs and Minions didn’t get me anywhere near semi….

The game is beautifully presented. You get a lot of plastic for your buck. It’s beautifully packaged like an €85 box of chocolates and the various trays with dozens of minis all slot together real nice. It’s a surprisingly big box, bigger than Scythe I’d wager. Bigger than War of the Ring. It also has a bubbly personality.
The artwork and models are straight out of World of Warcraft or anything by Blizzard. Big, angular, bright and distinctive. Actually Dota 2 could be it’s twin. I’ll be honest I’ve never been a fan of this art style it’s just too sacerine sweet for my tastes. 
Ok let’s get to the crux. The game is a programming game not a million miles from Robo Rally. Each mech has got eight slots on It’s programming board where you can place a program card which will make it move, turn, shoot, defend. Each round players take it in turn to draw an additional card of their choice from a draft of five or six and add it on their board. Once everyone’s done that the programs are executed and the mechs take you literally and perambulate away in roughly the direction you hoped for. The minions then move, spawn like rabbits and if they wind up beside you spank your hams. 

Once you’ve been hit you wind up with random damage cards that throw spanners in your programming works. Your very handy move forward two spaces could get replaced with a turn 90 degrees glitch instead. Some of the glitch cards transpose some of your programming slots and go away whilst others hang around on top of a slot denying you the move under it until it’s repaired. Getting glitches is a royal pain in the hoop
Each of the slots can have up to three of the same card type,so a move forward might be powered up to be two or three spaces forward or 90, 180, anyway you like turning. Cards often double up with weapon abilities so you might have a turn and fire or a slide sideways and kill all the adjacent minions. Rolling over a minion will bump them off too. 
And that’s it. You move your mech. You cull annoying minions and you attempt to complete a mission. The difficulty of the game is not based so much on your skill as the granularity of the moves open to you. Moving faster means it’s harder to get to specific spots. In robo rally unexpected results were genuinely funny (20 years ago) in Mechs and Minions they just feel frustrating. You don’t feel as in control of the mechs as you did the robots in Robo Rally. They career around the place and it’s often a case of having to wait a few turns before the movement card you need comes up. It’s often a bit too random. Yes yes think smarter, but no movement cards coming out for two turns is again frustrating 

Now it’s more than possible I’m missing something and the earlier missions lead to really enjoyable ones but so far I’m nonplused by the whole affair. I’ll play it again. It’s far too Purdy to just abandon but it better start putting out soon or it’s the pit of despair for it and fast. So far so average. 
Stay tuned for the next play in a few weeks
Huzzah!
Vic 

The Cold War was an extraordinary time. Like any historical conflict it’s easy to look back and say “Wow! Why did they do that?”. Easy when you’re not in the middle of it and when you know the world won’t end today. 
KGB v CIA is a super two player game. I played it with my wife recently and it’s still as good as ever. Now there is a Star Wars version of this out there “Star Wars. Empire v Rebellion”. It’s pretty much the same game, however having played both, this version is still my favorite. 

The game has several elements going on at once, bluffing, push your luck, card counting, black jackery to name a few. 
The idea is to score 100 points before your opponent. You do this by winning various missions valued from 5 – 20 points each. Each of the missions is some historical spot where The KGB and CIA tried to gain popular support like Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and so on. If you’ve played Twilight Struggle you’re in familiar territory.  

Players take it in turn to blind draw support cards and place them on their side to try and reach but not go over the support level needed to take the region. Support cards themselves come in different strengths (1-6) and flavors (military, government, media and business). This is where the black jack element comes in where you push your luck to outdo your opponent and hope not to go bust and lose one of your limited spys.  
The game is a lot more forgiving than blackjack. The different types of cards allow you to look ahead before you draw, remove cards, steal opponents cards and reactivate a card a second time. There’s a lot of in your face interaction which I love. Often times it’s possible to pull your ass out of the fire with some clever thinking when all looks lost. 

before a mission you pick one of your specialist spies to carry it out. Some of them have awesome powers. The master spy is my favorite (followed by the assassin). In the case of the master spy you win the round if you lose it so there’s some real bluffing going on and some lovely paranoia. 
The game plays out in between half and an hour and it feels fast. Losing a round makes you dig in and try and catch up. Winning rounds can make you fatally cocky. Games are nearly always close and it’s a reasonably easy game to teach. 
Production wise it’s a card game at the end of the day and the cards are all very nice with a muted 70s quality to the art work. It’s all type writers and rooms full of smoking men style

This is a game that’s going to appear again and again at my table. It’s another excellent holiday game. It’s light and portable (albeit less beer proof than Hive). Highly recommended and you can pick it up for a song. 
Huzzah!
Vic 

I didn’t expect much from this game. I didn’t pay much for it (fidden euro) but after one game it’s starting to make Risk Godstorm look good. 
Sheer Panic should be a kids game. It looks gorgeous. It comes with a flock of eleven swanky cartoon resin sheep. The pieces are fantastically sculpted, real Wallace and Gromit/Shaun the sheep stuff. Savor the models for a while It goes downhill from there. 

It should be a kids game but it’s not. The rules are a tad over complicated for kids. It should be a fun game, it’s not, it’s dull and dry. 
Here’s and interesting fact. Computers can’t generate real random numbers (shut up they can’t) they generate pseudo random numbers based on a formula and the system clock, it’s pretty random, more than enough for most things. Get them to play a quick game of Sheer Panic and check the scores you’d have a totally random set of numbers right there. There’s practically no skill here. More so if you play with a full four players. By the time your turn comes around it’s pure chance if you’ve scored or not. 

What kills me here is the game LOOKS fantastic and if the designers had have put as much time into the rules as they did the look they would have had a hit on their hands. As it stands we have a game with a theme bolted into a dry and boring set of rules. It’s not like the game can be modified to be a better game. From the foundation up its piddly poor. 
I wanted to like this game. I wanted something I could whip out and play with my youngest. No such luck. 

Shame. Shame. Shame. 
Vic 

Of all the games I own the one I’ve played the most is definitely HIVE. For a very long time it’s been our go to game for holidays. There’s nothing like sitting out at night in a hot country with a cold drink and banging out a half dozen games of HIVE
If you’re not familiar with Hive it’s a clever little two player where you take turns moving your hexagonal tiled bugs (spiders, beetles, ants, grass hoppers) trying to surround the enemy queen on six sides whilst preventing your own from being captured. 

Part of its charm is it doesn’t use a board you just have to ensure there’s no gaps between any of the pieces you have down. It’s a bit like an 80s knife fight where the participants have their other hand tied to their opponent. It’s also very portable and stain resistant. The perfect pub game 

Each of the pieces just like chess move in a particular way. Ants skip around the outside, grasshoppers leap over pieces, beetles can move up and on top of other pieces. It’s a quick game to learn but there is depth here. It’s not chess but it’s definitely more than checkers. 
Now the reason I’m banging on again about this game is I recently got my hands on the three expansions for it. The mosquito, ladybug and pill bug. Having played several games with these added in there, its reignited my interest. 

The expansions each come as single extra bugs (one copy for each player) with new moves and abilities. Let’s examine them now….
The lady bug. 
It moves up and over two and down one. Always up two, down one. It’s a bit boring if I’m being honest. That’s it’s. It does add to the game certainly since you won’t have seen one like this before but it’s not a patch on the other two. 
Mosquito
This bug is fun. Like Rogue in the x-men it takes on the movement and ability of any piece (yours or your opponent) that it’s touching. This wildcard can really get you in and out of scrapes. Having it trapped by your opponent is a pain in the snag. Once this guy is on the board all bets are off. Do your best to pin down your opponent’s
The Pill bug
This is an unusual and special bug. It’s like having your own little bouncer. The pill bug can pick up another piece either yours or your opponents, put it up on it’s back then slap it down adjacent to it. This is a game changer. In games of Hive the writing is on the wall when a queen gets surrounded on three or more sides. This bug can get in there and either clear some space or pull the queen out of the mosh to safety. She is a little slow moving but it’s a super bug to have in a pinch. Possibly my favorite of the bunch 
The extra bugs can be added one or more at a time making learning the additional rules easy especially for muggles. What’s kind of exciting too is there’s an infinite amount of new bugs you could add to this game as they come available so it’s always going to be fresh 
Great game with new life breathed into it by these excellent add ons. If you play Hive. Get these
Huzzah!
Vic 

Despite my love for conquest games I still like a good worker placement game. They don’t come a whole lot more worker placementy than Cavernia. 
If you’ve played Agricola you’re in familiar territory. Very familiar. It’s like a different flavor of Agricola. If not then this is an economic engine game played out over ten or so turns 

Each player starts with a Peurto Rico style player board which is split evenly between outdoor forest and indoor caves. As the game progresses you’re looking to transform the forest into farming land for raising crops and animals and expand the caves, adding improvements in the form of specialist rooms. 
Each player starts with two dwarves each of which can be placed on the limited spots on the map to kick off some event or gain some resources and more importantly preclude other players from doing the same. As the game progresses more and more powerful actions open up to the players, in a semi random order so each game plays out a little differently. There isn’t the same variety of options as there is in Agricola. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is your call. To me this seems like a streamlined Agricola with a few bits bolted on

The game is big. It has a large footprint but because it’s made up of lots of smaller A4 sized boards rather than a single humdinger of a board you can find space to accommodate it. It’s also got a lot of pieces, thankfully most of them wooden. There’s sheep, dogs, timber, ore, stone, pumpkins, wheat, pigs, cows, other stuff. There’s cards for actions, farms, caverns, room improvements and all points in between. Despite the amount of bits it doesn’t take that long to setup or get a game going. You will need to bag this game up well. 
The game rattles on with actions being taken, dwarfs to be fed and harvests hopefully reaped. It’s a slow game insofar as getting resources can be a pain and there’s never enough actions in a turn to do everything you want. That’s ok. Everyone is in the same boat. Like most worker placement games once you’ve gotten your motor really running the game ends. Again that’s ok we expect this.  

I do like an in your face, making deals sort of game. Cavernia is not that. You’re only interaction with others is in taking actions from a limited set and possibly pissing off another player who wanted to do the same action. It’s rare (well in the game we played) that you’ll deliberately try and ruin another players moves and in reality you can’t really. You’re all about yourself and too invested in getting your grand scheme up and running to look at anyone else
It’s not overly complex, we picked it up pretty quick but it does demand multiple plays to understand the intricacies of it. Will we play it multiple times? Nope. There’s far too many shiny things out there still to be played to make us return in a hurry to this one. But that’s us 
Cavernia is a fine game. If you don’t have a worker placement game it’s good. Like you’re rifle there are many many more like it. I see the attraction of it and I’m sure I’ll play it again but I couldn’t say when

Try it at Knavecon for yourself and see what you think. 
Huzzah!
Vic 

I know I spoke about this recently but I’m all excited about Star Wars at the moment so indulge me. 
Risk was not my first “real” board game. That was way WAY back thanks to Action comic or possibly beyond. That said Risk has been a good friend to me but it ran it’s course. I’ve played way to much Risk in the past and even a more modern version like Godstorm I quickly realized made me more sure. I’m done Risk. It’s not you it’s me (it’s really you). However….
Star Wars Risk. The new one 
I read up a bit on this. It wasn’t an impulse buy. It’s good. It’s two player or two team. It kicks off in the Return of the Jedi timeline and it’s glorious. It’s without doubt the best Risk game of all mostly because it’s absolutely not Risk. It’s Risk only insofar as it uses dice for attacks and It has a map. Outside of that it’s very much it’s own game. 

There are three distinct tracks going on here all interconnected. The rebels are trying to advance along the Endor track to take down the shield around the second Death Star. Simultaneously they need to protect the rebel fleet from both the fully operational Death Star 2.0 as well as the Executioner and the massive fleet of Tie Fighters. Also meanwhile Vader and Luke are knocking seven shades of shite out of each other the result of a winner in this bout will let the victor (not me) steal a march on their opponent. 
The rules are simple. It’s kid friendly. It looks very nice indeed (more so if you get the black edition) and it plays really well. 
The game is always on a knifes edge. It’s always tense and can go either way (which is what the expression knifes edge means). 
I’ve played this a few times now and every game has been different. Every game has been good and every one has left me with an urge to play again. 

This is not Rebellion. It is however a game both lite but with enough depth to sink your teeth into. It plays out in just over an hour. It’s a looker and it’s fast to both setup and put away. Truth be told for what it is it’s beautifully formed. 
I highly recommend it. Will you be playing this dozens of time? Probably. Try it at Knavecon and tell me I’m wrong. Oh and merry xmas 
Huzzah!
Vic 

I have a soft spot for serinissima. I first played version one over a decade ago and instantly loved it. Version two recently came into my possession and I was eager to try it out. 
Serinissima is a game where up to four players set out from their home port somewhere in the 

Mediterranean and through trading and *perhaps* piracy try to make as much gold as possible before the variable length end turn arrives. 

Each player starts with two galleys and a half dozen sailors. Their home port is able to produce one of a possible six types of good (wood, stone, textiles…. eh green, gold and black). Players can load a galley in port with the good that port produces and then set sail to other ports and offload them where they’re in demand scoring moneys for their trouble. Each cube transported fills up a limited amount of warehouse spaces and each port only wants one of each good so you can’t spam the one good like a mad yoke. 
Now that the economics have been explained we get to the good part. The med is not a safe place (doubly so if you play with me) ships can be waylaid and their goods stolen and sold off. It’s ugly (unlike the players). It’s possible to play nice and be happy traders with other players but we knew this would never end well. 
When a player gets a little ahead it’s the sworn duty of every other trader to pull them down and mess up their business and if they benefit from it all the better. Revenge will cost you the game (I lose a lot). In order to win you have to put up with a lot of flak and side with people who a turn before were openly pirating you (I don’t win much). This reluctant ally play is something I love in a game. 
If you’ve played the original this is an improvement on it. Rules have been tightened and it’s feels a little different. Version one always ended in a massive battle at the end which could be a little random. It’s definitely stilly fighty but a bit more strategic. As always people’s intentions are visible in advance. Someone buying galleys and forgoing trade goods to fill them to the Gunwales with sailors *may* indicate the intention to do someone the dirty. 
Production is good, pieces are neat, the map is clear and the graphics ye olde. It could benefit from some pimping but it is more than adequate for the task. I’ll be honest I’m a big fan of this game. Have been for a long time and I know some games have come along and have done the whole thing better but I think this is a game well worth playing and they’ll have to rip it from my cold dead hands to get it off me. There’s depth and subtlety here 
Fine game. Well worth a play
Huzzah!
Vic 
 

It seems fitting that we played a Star Wars game last Thur since Rogue One hoved into view. I had Star Wars Risk on my “must get that sometime” list (which mostly lists every game I don’t own). The better component quality Black Edition popped up on a price drop post and I struck. It arrived bloody quick too. Sites are on point this xmas. 
The latest edition of Star Wars Risk is the least Risk like game of any I’ve played. More importantly it’s a FUN game. The game I understand is not a million miles from the hen’s teeth oop Queen’s gambit (although a different setting). The game is set at the end of Return of Jedi and sees three epic events kicking off. The raid on the shield generator on Endor, the light saber battle between Vader and Luke and the big old space battle around and hopefully in the new DeathStar. 

The game kicks off with the rebel fleet arriving to find a shielded and fully operational DeathStar in the center of the map, a swarm of tie fighters and the really nasty executioner launching more.
Each turn both players pick three action cards from their hand of six and alternatively play one after another. The cards allow you to influence the three sections of the map. Cards allow you to advance along the Endor track or in the case of the empire send out storm troopers to slow the rebels down. Other cards allow you to inflict damage on Luke or Vader and lead to their defeat. The real fun is in the center where the big space battle is taking place. Cards allow you to move and attack with your ships (x-wings, y-wings, b-wings and the falcon) or in the case of the Empire launch, move, attack with tie fighters and fire the DeathStar laser. 

So it’s an exercise in spinning plates and doing it little better than your opponent to win. Achieving certain acts like killing Vader/Luke or wiping out a sector full of ships or taking out the falcon will grand bonus cards and moves in a round. The rebels btw win if they destroy the DeathStar while the empire wins If it wipes out the rebel fleet 
The game is pretty much a two player but it can be played as a team (haven’t tried). It’s a lot of fun. It’s fast. An hour plus will get it played. It’s tense with a lot of on the fly decisions and strategy changes needed. 
It’s well produced, the models are good enough but we’ve come to expect a lot thanks to Fantasy Flight games. One glaring oddity is a gold painted falcon model which literally makes it stick out like a whore at a wake. Outside of that it’s nicely done. It’s a great game for kids it works well for bigger kids too and it’s all strongly Star Wars themed from start to finish. 

This is a solid fun game. It’s not the best board game ever made but it’s certainly the best Risk game I’ve come across and I’m eager to play it again. 
Huzzah!
Vic 

I spoke some time about a trend in games I was uncomfortable with. App driven games. Well more specifically board games that won’t run without apps. I’m seeing less of these appearing. Maybe the trend is petering out or maybe I’m looking for games in all the wrong places (there’s a song in that). A trend I’m seeing and while not as uncomfortable as I was with the apps issue it’s making my spider senses tingle. It’s kickstarters with stretch goals and lots and lots of minis. 
I’ve never backed a Kickstarter. No never. Not even once. Wouldn’t even know how and not because I’m a tight git who wouldn’t buy two liters of milk at night in case I die in my sleep. It’s because I don’t want to wait. I want my pay off now. I may be persuaded btw. I don’t have a problem. Honestly. No what I’m tired of is games where the big wow factor is the beautifully sculpted models (BSM). Games that are grand and dandy but weight in at €100 plus because they’re bursting with BSMs. Personally I’m nonplussed by minis. Let’s face if I’m not going to paint them and chances are you won’t either. They’re fine and dandy but it’s the gameplay I’m interested in not fur coat and no knickers. There’s been a number of games released that have had ok gameplay. Just ok but look only gorgeous. No thanks. 
Why can’t we be wowed by a set of mechanics rather than the “look at the monkey” beautiful minis? Look at Scythe, maybe one of the most hyped games. Ever. Ever. Looks gorgeous but the gameplay is solitaire. I would have much preferred wooden cubes and better interaction. I’d jump onboard a game for €50 no problem if it was a hit with the option of buying a deluxe version if I chose to. Not a deluxe as the base game and the super and super duper deluxe version as the luxury one. 
Look at Twilight Struggle would it be a better game if it had sculptured models of armies? Blood Rage on the other hand wouldn’t be quite the same without the monsters. 
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no issue with minis in a game, look at xwing and armada. Look at Blood Rage. The models compliment the game but Jesus Christ and all his little wizards can we have a new block buster game that’s not mini lead? It’s becoming tiring and I demand to be entertained 
Huzzah!
Vic 

“Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war” Gandalf in the movie Heart break ridge. 
Cry havoc is an asymmetric area control conquest game. It reminds me a bit of a study in emerald first edition (amazing) and blood rage (pretty amazing). 
Players start with a hand of action cards a home base and a map of a dozen plus locations full of native trogs (damn trogs) ripe for the murdering of. The map is tight with every spot next to three or four others. The map wraps around so there are no safe spots to hold. 

Each round of which there will there will be 4 to 6 roughly consists of three moves per player in which you raise troops, move them, build structures and maybe kick off scoring. When troops wander into enemies they halt and once everyone has had their moves battles are all resolved. Battles are clever and different. There’s no dice. You have limited troops. Twelve in total (sixteen If you’re trogs (damn trogs)) it’s possible in a battle to not only kill enemy troops but take them hostage which is worth points and reduces a player’s ability to impose their rule. 
The game is all about taking territories which have crystals in them (battles add more) and holding them during a scoring round to gain points. To operate you spend your cards leveraging in icons on them for movement, recruitment, building/activating and scoring. The other action available is drawing cards from the four terrain decks. Terrain decks add more cards with specific actions on them so you can beef up your action deck with more movement cards, more building cards wherever suits your strategy. 

Cards also have actions on them, a lot of which can be used in battle and knowing if an opponent has a stack of cards in their hand before you kick off is important. 
Now what’s really interesting is how each faction works. The trogs are the planet natives and are fast at moving via tunnels, can lay traps and defenses and pretty much annoy the shite out of you. The robot dudes have access to lots of defensive and offensive buildings so they are masters of digging in and slowly advancing. The humans are great at scouting, fast moving and calling in really unwelcome artillery. The other dudes (space elves or something) are fast and well I dunno they’re good too. Each of them is different enough to warranty many replays. Each of them have (which I obviously love) a real FU sting in their tail. Being a king maker or vengeance is just a move away. 
Production quality is very good. Not exceptional. The models are serviceable but could benefit (much like myself) from more definition. Cards and components are bang on. No complaints. 

So far I’ve played the same faction a couple of times and my overwhelming urge is to play again. 
I like games where all the factions are different to each other. I couldn’t say for sure if one is more powerful than another but it didn’t seem that way. There’s so much going on here that it would be hard to figure that out. 
I REALLY like this game. I thought I might when I first heard about it but I wasn’t so sure after my first game. After the second I was sold. Just like a good album. I’ll tell you how much I like it. I’m going to lobby my wife to buy it for me for xmas
Very high marks
Huzzah!
Vic