September 2018 -

Building pyramids in Mexica, and a new podcast!

By Meeple Lady | September 26, 2018 | Comments 5 comments

Two entries in one week? Well, folks, I have some news! I’ve joined a group of talented folks on their podcast, The Five By, and today is my first episode with them. Go subscribe! Each episode is about 30 minutes, where 5 different co-hosts give 5-minute game reviews. I’ll also be posting the podcast episodes and the text of my segment here, if I haven’t already talked about the game on the blog. This episode features Near and Far: Amber Mines, Dinosaur Island, 1775: Rebellion, Mexica, Spirits of the Wild! Enjoy!

Mexica is a game designed by Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling. It was originally published in 2002 by Ravensburger and Rio Grande Games. Now it’s made by Iello. Mexica is the third game in the Mask Trilogy, after Tikal and Java.

Mexica is a game for 2 to 4 players, and plays in about 60 to 90 minutes. It’s an action-point selection game with area control. What’s cool about this game is that unlike many other area controls, you’re actually building out the districts on the map. What’s excellent about this game is the pyramids! Solid, study, meaty pyramids of varying heights, from 1 to 4 levels. Super excellent components. It definitely has great table presence and just gorgeous to look at.

The game is played out over two periods, which are played out exactly the same way. Players receive their first set of 9 pyramids, and the other 9 will be available in the second phase. Any pyramids not used in the first period will be added to a player’s supply for later.

Look at the gorgeous components in this game! Pyramids and canals galore.

Player also receive a Pilli Mexica, which is your little meeple. All the Pilli Mexicas start at the temple in the center of the board. The entire board is a grid system, and players use their action points to orthoganally move your Pilli Mexica meeple, construct canals, build bridges, place pyramids, and found a district. Each player has 6 action points to spend during their turn, and can do any number of these actions based on their various costs of doing them.

Before the game starts, you shuffle 15 calpulli tokens and randomly select 8 of them to use for the first period. The next 7 will be used later. Tokens will have numbers for a district size, and prestige points for the player who founded the district, and points for anyone in the district when it’s founded.

These tokens which districts to build during a particular phase. The district has to be the exact size of the number in yellow.

So how do you build districts? On your turn, you can spend 1 action point to place a canal that’s either a single or double square onto the board. Canals can only be placed on open spaces and can only touch other canals diagonally at a corner. As game play continues, these canals will segment areas of the board. The surrounding lake and the temple in the middle also act as borders for districts. When an area is completely closed off by water, a district can be founded.

In addition, your meeple must be sitting inside the district on a square to found a district. When you found a district, which costs 0 action points, take an available token that exactly matches the district size and place it on an empty space inside the district.

Once this is set, the token can never be removed from the place, and this district cannot be broken up on future turns. You then receive the amount of prestige points on the token, and if anyone else happens to be inside your district, they receive the smaller secondary number.

Players can also score prestige points at the end of the period by building pyramids to establish majority. The number of action points to spend to build is equal to the level of the pyramid you’re placing on the board. 1 point for a 1 level, 2 points for a 2 level, etc. To build a temple, your Pilli Mexica must be inside the district you’re placing it in.

The pyramids come in multiple levels, each with a pip on top to show how many level it is.

At the beginning of the game, before any districts are founded, it’s much easier to do this, but you run the risk of your pyramid not being inside a high-value district. Once districts start filling up the board, then you’ll have to become more strategic in how you move your meeple and put down temples.

Once a temple has been placed on the board, it cannot be removed or upgraded. I like how the pyramids have pips on the top of each of them, so that you’re not spending your entire time counting each level. It’s not the number of pyramids that determine majority; it’s the number of pips, which represent the total temple levels.

Another way to get around the board is building canals. Canals enable meeples to enter a district that has already been segmented off. Canals also allow your meeple to travel via an imaginary boat down canals. You’re basically bridge hopping and spending action points to do that. The lake also counts as a body of water when you do this action.

There’s also one last action to collect action point tokens, which give you extra actions for a future turn.

You have 6 action points on your turn, and these are the various actions you can take.

The first period of the game ends when all 8 calpulli tokens are taken placed on the board, or when one player places all 9 of their temples. Scoring happens again for every district founded. Determine which players have the most, second-most and third-most majority in that district, and prestige points are handed out based on the calpulli tokens in that district.

Everything on the board stays on the board. The rest of the calpulli tokens are revealed, everyone gets 9 more pyramids, and the game continues just like the first half.

On the cover of the rulebook, there’s a subtitle that calls Mexica “a game of placement, blocking and majority.” In other words, this game can be all kinds of mean! Meeples cannot pass through each other, so you can completely block a person from exiting or entering a district. That person then has to spend 5 action points to magically teleport to any location on the map, which, when a person has only 6 action points per turn, is a pretty hefty cost.

For people who don’t like games that can be mean, Mexica would not be for you. Also, having 6 action points to choose from can also bring out AP in some players. The person with the prestige points at the end of the game is the winner.

Mexica also has a 2P variant that allows you to place a number of neutral temples across the board to act as competition when scoring up majorities. And that’s Mexica!

This has been Meeple Lady for The Five By. You can find me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook as Meeple Lady, and on my website, boardgamemeeplelady.com. Thanks for listening!

Friendly Local Game Store: Isle of Games

By Meeple Lady | September 24, 2018 | Comments 2 comments

This profile on Isle of Games is part of an ongoing series about Friendly Local Game Stores I’ve visited. Read other profiles here.

I have some friends originally from Tucson who now live in Phoenix, and they’re always talking about a great store down in Tucson. Last year, while I was in Tucson for RinCon, (which I’ll be attending again this year!), my buddy drove me to check out Isle of Games. I also recently had a chance to stop by again during a trip down south.

Isle of Games is a Tucson game store that opened in July 2014. It’s owned by Gordon Holton, who decided to open the store after two other Tucson-area game stores shut down earlier that year.

Isle of Games is a friendly local game store in Tucson.

Having been a frequent customer of the now-shuttered Game Daze stores, Holton asked the managers who had been working there if they were up for running a game store.

“Those guys needed a job, Tucson needed a game store, and I wanted a place to play,” Holton said. “My day job allowed me to invest some money in order to make this work.”

Isle of Games has been open since July 2014.

And that it has. Isle of Games sells a large selection of board games, miniatures, puzzles and brain teasers, and painting and hobby supplies. The store is about 2,700 square feet, and includes space in the back for people to play games. Every time I’ve visited the store, the workers are always very friendly.

What sets this FLGS apart is its large collection of used board games for sale, which, Holton said, brings in a lot of traffic to the store. People can sell their games back for store credit.

I love how all the used games for sale come with a handy-dandy game-box rubber band.

Holton grew up as a gamer kid playing Dungeons and Dragons, chess and Monopoly. He discovered hobby games a little bit later in high school. After getting into video games after that, he rediscovered hobby games again back in 2007.

Holton is a big fan of train games, such as Railways of the World, and Power Grid. He said his third favorite game moves around a bit depending on what he’s playing. But owning a game store, of course, takes up some of that gaming time.

“If you want to play more games, you might want to avoid opening a game store,” Holton jokes.

Isle of Games is about 2,700 square feet, and includes space in the back for people to play.

In spite of having less time to play games, “when a family or gamer comes up and thanks you for being open and having the ability to play games and meet with their gamers,” Holton said, “things like that are the most rewarding about owning a store.”

Information and photos

Isle of Games is located at 7747 E Broadway Blvd, Tucson, AZ 85710. It’s open seven days a week. You can find more information on its Facebook page.

Love National Parks? Let’s go Trekking!

By Meeple Lady | September 17, 2018 | Comments 4 comments

Growing up, my family would take lots of road trips to various points of interests, national parks and other cool locales. We all would even camp at Yosemite for an entire week during our summer vacations. For years, I was the sole setter-upper for my family’s tents. I actually had my own tent growing up, which ended up being really scary this one time bears terrorized our campsite. But that’s a story for another time.

My fondness for road trips and national parks still lingers to this day. And what better way to celebrate national parks by trekking across the country to visit them?

Trekkers travel across the U.S. visiting national parks and score victory points.

Trekking the National Parks is a 2-5 player game that plays in about 30-60 minutes. Designed by Charlie Bink, this second edition has been published by Underdog Games, a new publishing company that Bink has co-founded. The family-friendly and educational board game has players racing across the country to visit national parks and gain victory points.

Before the game starts, 45 stones are randomly drawn from the bag and placed on each location on the map. The game comes with six Major Park cards, but only three are randomly selected for each game. The Park cards are shuffled and placed face down next to the board, and three cards are picked from the deck and placed face up.

Each player then receives two Trek cards, and then five cards are placed face up next to the board to make a market. The rest of the Trek cards will be face down in a deck next to the board. Lastly, players take tents in the color of their choice and a player aid, and place their Trekker meeple on the Start position of the map.

Look at this adorable first-player marker and wooden tents! I also love that each person gets a player aid.

The person to most recently visit a national park becomes the first player. They receive the brown bear meeple. Isn’t he darling?

On a player’s turn, they can take exactly two actions. Players can take the same action and do each action in any order. The available actions are:

Draw a Trek card
Move
Claim a Park card
Occupy a Major Park

Drawing a Trek card allows you to take the other future actions, either move or collect icons to claim a Park card or Occupy a Major Park. Cards have a number on them as well as an icon. Note: the number on the card is not the quantity of the icon. Each card has exactly one icon on it. The hand size limit is 12.

Each card has a number, to be used for movement points, and a single icon, which will help you claim or occupy park cards.

To move your Trekker, you must spend one or more cards from your hand to move along a trail on the map. The combined value of your cards must exactly match the number of spaces you’re planning to move. You cannot move through other Trekkers.

If you finish your movement in a space where another Trekker is sitting, that Trekker gets bumped and placed back at the Start position. I’m not going to lie — that’s pretty fun to do. Lastly, if there’s a stone at your final landing spot, you can pick it up.

To claim a park card, you must reveal the exact number of icons from your hand to match one of the Park cards shown face up next to the board and be at the location of the card. Claiming these Park cards nets you victory points.

Each Park card has icon requirements, which will give you victory points when you claim it, and a fact about the national park itself.

The last action is Occupy a Major Park. To occupy a Major Park, you must be at the location of the Major Park and you must reveal cards from that hand that match the number of icons on the card. When you do this, you place one of your wooden tents on the card, unlocking a special ability for you and gaining victory points at the end of the game. This is a neat addition to this second edition. I like how only three Major Park cards are chosen for each game so each game is a bit different.

The red and yellow player have pitched their tent in the Everglades, one of the three Major Parks used in this game.

The game end is triggered when all the stones on the map are collected, or when a player claims their fifth Park card. When this happens, game play continues until everyone has had an equal number of turns for the game. You’ll remember who started the game as they have the bear meeple.

In addition to the victory points for Major Park and Park cards you’ve acquired, you also get bonuses for collecting the most stones. The first-place and second-place winners of each color will get bonus points.

Give me all the stones! Collecting the most of each color will get you VPs at the end of the game.

Trekking the National Parks is perfect for your game collection if you love national parks or are looking for a family game that has the same weight as Ticket to Ride. I also love the personal backstory from Bink and his parents, who had the goal of visiting all the major national parks in the U.S. The park cards contain a fact about each national park and feature photography from Bink’s dad, John. The rulebook also lists information about the rest of the parks that aren’t trail locations on the map.

The game does have some changes from the first edition. For starters, it only now plays five players instead of six. Occupying a Major Park is also new, and getting those extra powers is a nice touch to the game.

The bonuses for collecting the second-most stones of the different colors are also new. However, the stones are now made of plastic. I do miss the pretty gems of the old game, but I’ll gladly take these plastic stones for the wooden tents and the brown bear, which is the cutest first-player marker ever.

If you’re interested in purchasing the game, click here. And while you’re there, learn more about Underdog Games.

Thank you Underdog Games for sending me Trekking the National Parks!

Entering the world of Dungeons and Dragons

By Meeple Lady | September 10, 2018 | Comments 3 comments

I’ve recently been venturing down a road I’ve never been down before … Dungeons and Dragons.

When non-gamers first learn that I play board games, they often ask, “Oh, like Dungeons and Dragons?” And I would respond, “Nope, not exactly.” I wasn’t one of those gamers who grew up playing D&D or role-playing games. I actually didn’t know anyone who played D&D my entire childhood.

This is a module from Dungeons and Dragons Second Edition, which my buddy has a bunch of.

My only run-in with an RPG was at Game On Expo, and that was a complete accident. But I had such an exciting first-time experience that I wanted to explore what else RPGs had to offer. I’m also probably spoiled that my first dungeon master (DM) was friendly, helpful and wickedly creative. (I mean, he has to be if he’s a co-host of the RPG podcast Full Metal RPG, right?)

I mentioned to one of the guys in my core gaming group that I had fun playing an RPG. He’s like, let me know if you want to do a campaign.

Well, here we are folks, after a few sessions, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. I’m totally upping my nerd level. Woot woot!

Our DM Mark has an entire office library of D&D modules, guidebooks, miniatures and the whole nine yards to lead us on this journey. We are playing second edition D&D and doing “The Keep on the Borderlands.” (No spoilers, people!)

Lots of reading materials for Dungeons and Dragons! He seriously came over with two backpacks full of books and accoutrements.

We’ve only had a few sessions so far. The first session was strictly to generate characters and fill out our character sheets. Man, there are a lot of numbers for that! When I played Dungeon Worlds at Game On, the characters were mostly preset with minimal number filling.

When you start from scratch like we’re doing, we had to decide our characters’ race and class, and, based on that, roll to figure out their ability scores. That took some time because two of us had never played D&D before and we were thumbing through the player’s handbook to get a sense of what each character does. And when those are calculated out, we had to look up the breakdown of each ability based on their scores.

We then had to figure out what equipment each character was carrying and their proficiencies, and a whole host of other things. My two characters are Clara the Cleric, who is human, and Furiosa the Fighter, who is the dwarf. I do love alliteration and use it any chance I get.

Furiosa the Fighter has a cool fire ring. This sheet is double-sided and contains a lot of information.

One thing I realized when we were generating characters was that I had to acquaint myself with all the many different dice. Most people are accustomed to the typical 6-sided dice, but when our DM tells you to roll a d10, I honestly was spending a few seconds to count sides on my dice before picking it up.

To make things easier, I lined up my dice so that I can keep track of which is which. When I posted this photo last week, I was glad to hear that I’m not the only one who has difficulty differentiating the dice when they first enter the world of RPGs.

All the different dice. It took me so much willpower to not purchase any fancy dice at the last game convention I was at. There were some pretty sparkly ones. These ones came from Mark, and they’re lovely as well.

Anyway, wish us luck on our adventure! In addition to my weekly game night, we’re scheduling a separate D&D night, too. In the few sessions we’ve had, I’ve already learned that when there’s a fire, you should probably go over and help. That misstep sent our story zagging off into another indirect direction when we first set off.

Lastly, here’s a clip that we’ve been joking about in our group, saying this is how Mark probably feels DM-ing us newbies.

So, tell me about your first forays in D&D, and do you still play it?

I asked the guys what a mancatcher was and said I needed one of those, and NOBODY laughed at my joke. Sheesh.

Strategicon Gateway 2018: Meeting more L.A. gamers and some alien trading

By Meeple Lady | September 3, 2018 | Comments 0 Comment

I had the pleasure of dropping into one day of Strategicon in Los Angeles this past weekend. I love going to this convention, as I can visit family while board gaming, to make for a really productive weekend. I arrived early on Saturday morning ready to start gaming with wonderful folks from the board-gaming community. I was very excited to meet Jac, Ben and Albert, as well as see Ruel again, all of whom I had scheduled various games with.

We’re gaming early! Well, at 10 a.m. It was wonderful meeting Jac, Albert and Ben, who just moved to the U.S. recently, in real life!

Our first game for the day was Newton with Jac, Ben and Albert. Even though I had played this game already at Gila Monster, I totally didn’t mind playing it again. This game is super combo-tastic! Jac did an excellent job teaching Newton, and I loved being around her positive and enthusiastic energy. Albert and Ben were also equally fun to hang out with, as all of us ended up gaming together the entire day!

In this game of Newton, I didn’t do as well as my first play of it. My cards did not work as well together this time. We decided to draft cards for our masters, and it really helps even the playing field. (We didn’t draft in my first game of it.) So if you get a chance to play Newton, I highly recommend drafting so that no one player can be overpowered.

Newton is a great midweight game by the same designer who did Lorenzo Il Magnifico, which I love, and Grand Austria Hotel.

Next up was Trickerion, which I volunteered to teach. Ruel was supposed to join us, but his previous game and math trade ran long so he was unable to make it. I brought my beloved copy from home, which includes a gorgeous Meeple Realty insert. This game is a beast to teach, and I’m lucky that the group was patient with me, as there are so many things to remember. I do love this game so much.

Trickerion is one of my absolute favorite games! It’s a heavy worker-placement game that has programming and puzzly aspects. And the board is just gorgeous.

During our game of Trickerion, I ran into Michael of Unfiltered Gamers. We first met at Arizona Game Fair, where we were both part of the “So you want to be a game reviewer?” panel. Michael is a veteran content creator, and it’s always great talking shop with him and learning from him.

Got a chance to catch up with Michael of Unfiltered Gamers, who is based in Southern California, since meeting for the first time in February at Arizona Game Fair.

The gang and I then took a quick dinner break in shifts, as we didn’t want to lose our table in the basement. I love going to Strategicon, but my only complaint is that the basement is HOT AS BALLS. Either the air-conditioning isn’t as strong downstairs or the lack of air circulation, combined with the size of the crowds, makes the entire basement level really, really uncomfortable.

We found ourselves surfacing to the main level to get stronger air-conditioning and fresh air. The basement level holds open gaming and some RPGs, while the main convention floor is strictly for the scheduled gaming. That floor, by the way, is absolutely freezing. I hope the folks who run the convention either get fans in the basement or boost the air-conditioning down there. And this is coming from a person who says 100 degrees in Phoenix is a nice day!

The insanely warm and stuffy basement, in an otherwise wonderful and fun convention.

I then reconnected with Ruel, as our gaming schedules finally aligned, and he taught Welcome To … to me and five other folks.

I love meeting and hanging out with all these cool folks from board-gaming community!

Welcome To is a fun roll-and-write where you’re trying to place numbers into your neighborhood, score objectives and maximize your points, but instead of using dice, the game uses three different decks of cards that are flipped over at each turn. What a neat little game! We played it twice, and it’s a nice short game can play a bunch of folks. The box actually says 1-100 people!

Building my neighborhood in Welcome To. I didn’t realize the blank space is for the name of your city, not your name. Welcome to Meeple Lady sounds a bit odd …

After Welcome To, I impromptu taught a game of Gunkimono, a new retheme of an underrated game I adore, Heartland, which is a cut-throat tile-laying game about farming. Gunkimono uses samurais instead, but I personally love the look and theme of Heartland.

Gunkimono is a retheme of an old classic I love, Heartland. You’re trying to score victory points or honor points based on tiles you put on the board.

I wanted to grab some air and get a drink so I resurfaced up to the ground floor. I ran into the Brothers Murph, who are on one of my favorite podcasts, This Game Is Broken. I completely fangirled out and told them how much I enjoy their antics on the show. They were both super nice!

It’s me and the Brothers Murph! (This is me totally trying to be chill but secretly fangirling inside.)

Lastly, I had time for one more game and busted out Sidereal Confluence. This game is absolute bonkers, and I’ve secretly been wanting to play this at a convention so I wrangle up a lot of folks to play with me! It’s a live trading/negotiation game that plays up to nine players in about two hours. Each player is a unique asymmetrical alien race trying to use their technology converters to create resources.

The thing is, though, you don’t have the resources to run your converters, but the other aliens do. And this is where trading comes into play. Sidereal Confluence plays through six rounds, with each round comprised of 10 minutes of trading, as well as an economy phase and confluence phase. Anything goes during trading, and agreements are binding or else you’ll lose victory points.

Sidereal Confluence is an asymmetrical live-trading card game. And yep, it’s just as fun as it sounds!

If you like trading games, this game is soooo much fun! And while the game is strictly just cards, Sidereal grows into quite a table hog as more converters come into play. In each round, alien races can also research technologies, which will net victory points for the researcher, and then that technology will be available for all players in the next round. When I first stated teaching the game, I could see some confused looks and, to be honest, I wasn’t 100 percent sure folks would be down for it. But they assured me they wanted to play, and everyone ended up having a good time. I know I sure did!

I got to run a seven-player Sidereal Confluence game at Strategicon. Achievement unlocked!

Note to self: I am definitely bringing Sidereal to every convention I now to go. It’s so much fun! I also believe that a higher player count makes for a better experience, as the resource economy isn’t so starved. And with that, my very full day of hanging out with amazing gamers came to an end. I know I say it often, but I’m truly lucky to be part of such an awesome community. I can’t wait to hit up Strategicon next year!