Our July 24 session will be a request night – games that our table leaders prepared but never got to the table, games you may have missed on a theme night, new arrivals and old favorites to share with the group. If you have a request please email Steve so the game can be located and a table leader assigned.

Quacks of Quedlinburg 2x (led by Jason/Drew) 2018 push your luck bag builder where players players are charlatans — or quack doctors — each making their own secret brew by adding ingredients one at a time. Players have their own bag of ingredient chips and each round they simultaneously draw chips from their bags and add them to their pots. The higher the face value of the drawn chip, the further it is placed in the pot’s swirling pattern, increasing how much the potion will be worth. Push your luck as far as you can, but if you add too many cherry bombs, your pot will explode! At the end of each round, players gain victory points and coins to spend on new ingredients, depending on how well they managed to fill up their pots. But players whose pots have exploded must choose points or coins — not both! The player with the most victory points at the end of nine rounds wins the game. Quacks won the Kennerspiel award in 2018 for best gamer’s game.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/244521/the-quacks-of-quedlinburg

Dwellings of Eldervale (led by Matt) 2020 blend of worker placement, area control and engine building with unique worker units. The game is set in a once lost magical world. Giant elemental monsters roam while dragons, wizards and warriors battle for dominance over 8 elemental realms. Players control unique factions seeking to adventure, battle, grow in power and ultimately dwell in Eldervale, shaping it to their vision.  Players take turns placing a worker in Eldervale or regrouping and activating their tableau of adventure cards. Action spaces include realms key to power: a summoning portal, an ancient mill, the lost fortress, deep dungeons, and a crumbling mage tower and the elemental lands of Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Light, Dark, Order and Chaos! Magic cards grant spells, quests and prophecies to players. In the end, the players with the most elemental dominance among the multiple paths to victory will reign over Eldervale.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/271055/dwellings-of-eldervale

Potion Explosion (led by Rachel) 2015 set collection and pattern recognition game where players take an ingredient marble from the dispenser and watch the others fall. If marbles of the same color are connected, they explode and can all be taken as well. Complete your potions using the marbles you collect, and drink them to unleash their magical power. Remember, though, that to win the Student of the Year award, being quick won’t be enough: you’ll also need to brew the most valuable potions!

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/271055/dwellings-of-eldervale

Whirling Witchcraft (led by Sean) 2021 variable power game with simultaneous actions where players start with a hand of four recipe cards, as well as a number of ingredients on their workbench. The ingredients come in five types, and players have a limited number of spaces for each type on their workbench. Everyone plays simultaneously during each round. All choose and reveal a recipe from their hand at the same time, then can use as many recipes in play in front of them as they wish to convert and transform ingredients. The game includes personality cards players can use to give each a unique power, in addition to a different set of starting ingredients. Some recipes can be played in either of two directions to help players customize how they transform ingredients, and recipes might also have arcana symbols that give them bonus powers when enough of them are collected.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/335275/whirling-witchcraft

Res Arcana (led by Amy) 2019 resource and production management game that rewards combos where players are mages competing for power. Each mage starts with a few components, called Essences in the game, and a handful of artifacts. By crafting artifacts and summoning creatures each mage develops their resources and then strives to take control of famous monuments and places of power. The theme is about medieval alchemy but also draws ideas from antiquity and fantasy. We ran out of time to finish the game.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/262712/res-arcana

Power Plants (led by Sean) 2022 area control game about magical plants with powers. Players are wizards, growing a shared garden of magical plants with their rivals. Each turn, players choose one of the patch tiles from their hand and add it to the growing garden. Players can activate the added tile for its dynamic “plant” power or activate all the tiles it touches for their slightly weaker (but still very cool) “grow” powers. As the fields expand, players strategically deploy their sprites to gain control of more and more of the fantastic flora. 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/341974/power-plants