Our Game Bazaar will continue on-line with deliveries to future sessions as the transporting of so many games was daunting. I’ll be sending out a separate email to group members with an updated spreadsheet. If there’s a game you want to reserve for delivery to a session at UNO, send Steve an email.

Our July 17 session will be MAGICAL on multiple levels. From 6:30 to 7:30 PM our Magician son, Josh, will be performing a free adult mentalism and illusion show at the North Adams Public Library. Sean and Matt will open up the UNO Community Center at our usual 6:30 PM time for those who strictly want to play games. The theme, fittingly, will be games that feature magic, spells, wizards, witches and potions. After the magic show, we will join Gamenite in progress.

Expect to play from among: Quacks of Quedlinburg, SpellBook, Harry Potter CCG, Apotheca, Faeries & Magical Creatures, Magic Rabbit,  Magic Maze, Wizards, Witchstone, Spellmaker, Lizard Wizard, Whirling Witchcraft, Potion Explosion  … and more

Bazaar (led by K-ban) 1967 classic Sid Sackson trading game played on the original 3M set. Trade tokens using 2 randomly selected exchange rate charts to purchase ware cards as exactly as possible. It has been reprinted numerous times, including a German Parker Brothers version that used beer caps and coasters – called Bierborse.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/287/bazaar

Sushi Go Party (led by Tim) 2016 8-player version of 2015 Phil Walker-Harding with more Sushi choices for greater variety in this classic pick, pass and play family game.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/192291/sushi-go-party

Orleans with expansion (led by Anna) 2014 bag builder where players must assemble a following of farmers, merchants, knights, monks, etc. to gain supremacy through trade, construction and science in medieval France. Players recruit followers and put them to work to make use of their abilities. Farmers and Boatmen supply players with money and goods; Knights expand your scope of action and secure your mercantile expeditions; Craftsmen build trading stations and tools to facilitate work; Scholars make progress in science; Traders open up new locations for players to use their followers; and last but not least, it cannot hurt to get active in monasteries since with Monks on your side you are much less likely to fall prey to fate. The cooperative mode from the Invasion expansion was used.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/164928/orleans

Victorian Masterminds (led by Matt) 2019 light weight, engine building, hidden action selection game with asymmetric factions, about building a death engine, using scientists, collecting secret information, and stealing buildings.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/189453/victorian-masterminds

Phantom Ink 2x (led by Sean) 2022 team based co-op deduction word game, in which players try to guess a word through questions that may or may not be relevant. Best played with 6 or more players.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/330592/phantom-ink

Railroad Ink (led by Rachel) 2018 multiplayer roll & write puzzle game where player’s goal is to connect as many exits on their board as possible. Each round, a set of dice are rolled in the middle of the table, determining which kind of road and railway routes are available to all players. Players have to draw these routes on their erasable boards to create transport lines and connect their exits, trying to optimize the available symbols better than their opponents. The more exits connected, the more points scored at the end of the game, but players lose points for each incomplete route, so plan carefully! This playing was with the Deep Blue Edition which includes the rivers and lakes expansion.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/245654/railroad-ink-deep-blue-edition

Samarkand/Bazaar II (led by K-ban) 1980 Sid Sackson desert trading game. Players visit nomad camps, oases and trading posts in a race to turn 200 Piasters into 500 through buying, trading and selling 6 different types of goods. We played on the 1998 Rio Grande edition. Gryphon Games recently published Samarkand Bazaar which includes the suthor’s Bazaar, Samarkand and Business – all in one box.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/364/samarkand

Point City (led by Nicole) 2023 card-drafting, engine-building game with more than 150 unique building cards, giving players the opportunity to create a completely different city each time it is played. This game is from the same team that designed Point Salad, but is a much deeper strategic and tactical game that packs a wallop with only a large deck of cards. The rules are simple: Take two adjacent cards from the dynamic city grid and add them to your expanding city. Use your resource cards and bonuses to construct building cards that require specific combinations. Build special civic structures to multiply your city’s points and be the top urban planner! The game takes the same simple concept of drafting cards and building the best combinations, then adds new layers of resource management and engine building to the mix — making the game easy to learn, but challenging for everyone! Think of Point City as a cross between Point Salad and Splendor – with the best elements of both.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/368017/point-city

Take It Easy (led by Tim) 1983 bingo-like hexagonal puzzle game that is very family friendly and addictive. It also scales well. One of these days we will try to play with the suns and moons, too – for more scoring opportunities….or more ways for your brain to implode.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/128/take-it-easy

Charcuterie (led by Sean) 2024 I cut, you choose set collection and tile placement game game, where players take turns drafting delectable food tiles and arranging them on their board. Placements will be judged on final presentation with players scoring points for their arrangement and for meeting social criteria that elevate their display into a real crowd pleaser.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/360058/charcuterie-the-board-game

Ethnos (led by Tim) 2017 area control majorities, drafting, set collection and push your luck game, where players draft allies representing different races, each with their own special power.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/206718/ethnos

Dairyman (led by Anna) 2016 push your luck dice game where players are dairy farmers taking turns to roll all dice, and must lock one set of dice that have a sum of exactly 10. They may repeat this process until they want to pass. They may then trade their dice of 10s for milk tile(s) of equal value. If they fail to roll a sum of 10, their turn ends immediately and they will get a snow token as a compensation, which may be used to flip the milk tiles later in the game to earn extra points or gain special abilities. When the stack of milk tiles is depleted, the player with the most points on their milk tiles wins the game.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/194553/dairyman

Steve