Weekend gaming in Tucson, Arizonia

Last weekend, Chris and I got invited to Tucson to play some games for the weekend. It was a nice trip out of town to see board gamers, and while I was there, I played a dozen games, some of which were new to me! And by the way, I did not misspell Arizona; that’s from “What We Do In The Shadows.” Highly recommend that show!

We began Saturday morning by teaching a game of Iki. It’s been so long since I’ve pulled this from my shelf, as we have the first edition version. The game is set in feudal Japan, and you’re hiring professionals to set up storefronts with their trade, but you’ll have to watch out for fires, which can burn those stores to the ground! I really enjoy the rondel mechanism of this game, traveling across the streets of Edo, to take your turn. 

Next, we played Carnegie. This is a game I’ve been wanting to learn since its release, especially since it’s on Board Game Arena, but I never got around to it. It’s a strategic euro, so I knew it would be right up my alley. Carnegie was inspired by the life of Andrew Carnegie, who became one of the major players in the rise of the United States’ steel industry. During the game you will recruit and manage employees, expand your business, invest in real estate, produce and sell goods, and create transport chains across the U.S. as well as become an illustrious benefactor. 

I really enjoyed the action-selection mechanism of the game. There’s an action board set up randomly for gameplay, and when it’s your turn, you choose a main action, which could also correspond to a section of the map activating or other actions, and then everyone else has the opportunity to follow through with those same actions. Meanwhile, you’re building out your player board to add buildings, hire workers and increase your income. 

Next up was Montana. I have not played this game in forever (even though we actually own it!). And seriously, more gamers need spinners. Wheeee! In Montana, it’s a race to build your settlements on the wide open land. On your turn, you can recruit the right workers to later purchase matching goods, deliver goods on time, and choose your settlements tactically. The first player to build all their settlements onto the board wins the game. 

I then taught a game of My Favorite Things. This trick-taking game can always be so random but I like knowing more fun stuff about who I’m playing with. One didn’t like the work of taking a card out of the sleeve to write answers in the middle of the game, as it goes for two rounds, but I think the game is just delightful as it is. 

We then played a quick game of Tinderbox, a tiny dexterity game about building a campfire using teeny tweezers. You draw a card on your turn, and you have to complete that structure and put it onto the existing campfire. Sometimes you have to use your non-dominant hand, too! It’s silly and short, and I like that it fits into a small tin about the size of a deck of cards. 

After dinner at Serial Grillers, a fun restaurant with menu items named after movie serial killers, we played a couple of party games. First was Belratti: Is This Art or Can It Go? This neat deduction game splits the group into buyers and painters, and they’re both playing against a dirty counterfeit painter rat named Belratti. Buyers ask for a certain number of cards from artists to match a theme, and artists submit paintings of items face down into a pile, as well as four cards from Belratti. Buyers must then pick which cards are from the artist. If you pick one of Belratti’s paintings, he scores the point, and if he scores too many points, everyone loses the game. 

The next party game was Green Team Wins! This was super fun but I’m so bad at it! A card asks a question, and everyone has to write down an answer. It’s not about writing down the right answer; it’s about writing the answer that you think everyone else will write down. If you’re in the majority, then you get on the green team and score points. If there’s a tie among the answers, then Green Team Wins! 

The last game of the night was Sandbag, a trick-taking game with a mechanism that allows you to delay playing cards, i.e. sandbagging, because you do not want to win any tricks. You can play a card from your hand, or play it face down in front of an opponent to play one of the two cards in front of them that are face-up. As these face-up cards get replaced and played, the trump card changes based on the majority of the colors showing. Players also have one face-down card that represents the actual sand bag, which then basically becomes almost zero when playing, thus preventing you from taking that trick. 

On Sunday, we played three games before heading back to Phoenix. Chris and I played a 2P game of Nanga Parbat, where you’re a member of the Sherpa community establishing base camps and trapping animals. On your turn, you take an animal off the board in the section where the guide is situated and replace it with one of your meeples. The guide then moves to the location matching the number of the space where you just placed your hiker meeple. Once you have meeples all lined up in a group, you can replace them with basecamps and score them. Also, once you have a certain number of matching or different sets of animals, you can score them as well . Each scoring threshold can only score once, so if your opponent has done it, you can only score something larger or smaller. I really enjoy the mechanism of choosing when to score things, as you only have a certain number of scoring cubes to do so. 

We then played Isle of Skye, a bidding tile-laying game. Players draw three tiles each round, and behind a screen, they price out the cost of two tiles with money in their bank and ax one of them (to be returned to the bag). When ready, players go around buying tiles based on their cost, with the opponent’s money and the money you placed to price it going to you,  to place into their landscape. If your tile doesn’t get purchased by another player, you send the coins placed to price it to the bank but you get to keep the tile. There are four scoring objectives chosen for each game, and for each round, two to three of those scoring objectives will be scored, so you can play your strategy around that. 

Next up was Wandering Towers. This game was a hoot! And like, I had never heard of this game before until that day. The game comes with these cute cardboard tower sections that can be stacked and it begins with everyone’s meeples placed on top of them. The black Ravenskeep then sits at the end of a circle of towers. Players get dealt a hand of cards, and using those cards, you can either run your meeple toward the Ravenskeep a certain number of steps, or move towers to stack on top of other ones, potentially trapping meeples that were originally at the top-most level of the tower. It’s up to you to remember where your meeples are because once they’re covered, they cannot be uncovered until you or someone else decides to move levels of the tower that will reveal you.

There’s nothing more satisfying than trapping meeples in the middle of a tower level. And once a meeple completes their way to the Ravenskeep, the Ravenskeep tower itself moves. The moving target makes for a fun race and its gorgeous table presence is an added bonus! 

The last game of the weekend was Windmill Valley, where players take on the roles of tulip farmers and entrepreneurs to build and enhance windmills, look for tulip bulbs in foreign trade or among vendors, and plant them in your garden for VPs. This game also has a cool action mechanism board, in which your two wheels rotate based on the dyke’s water level, which then determines which one of the two actions you can do. I love timing out your movements, and the game somewhat forces you to move along your wheel faster than others so you can gain better end-of-season bonuses. It’s such a crunchy euro, one that I hope to play again soon! 

I had a great two days in Tucson gaming with old and new friends. Which of these games have you played? For funsies, I’m sharing a photo that my husband took. He told me to stand in front of this giant saguaro cactus. I think it just wanted to give me a hug! 🌵