4/16/2025 – Berkshire Gamers Session Report #25-15
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18 at the UNO Park Community Center for a request Night.
Our 4/23 session will feature games with RIVERS (thanks to Wendy for the suggestion)
Expect to play from among: River Valley Glassworks, Tigris & Euphrates, River of Gold, Cascadia: Rolling Rivers, Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers, Daitoshi, Caldera Park, Iron Dragon, Life of the Amazonia, Dorf Romantik, Mississippi Queen …and more
4/16/2025 @ UNO Community Center
IN: Steve & Sandy, Sean, Tim, Armando, Matt, Chris, Zach, Ethan & Amy, Tony & Rachel, Reimi, Nicole, Julie, Sean K, Rob, Danny
ON OUR TABLES:
Skyrise (led by Tim) 2024 area control/majorities bidding game where players are building a magnificent city in the sky, dedicated to art, science, and beauty. A very clever spatial auction system is utilized to win building sites, earning favor across Islands and factions, scoring secret and public objectives, courting mysterious Patrons, and building one’s own unique Wonder. This deluxe crowdfunded design has incredible table presence with 3D buildings and a unique modular board made up of islands. It is inspired by Sebastien Pauchon’s 2008 Spiel Des Jahres recommended Metropolys.
Distilled (led by Sean) 2023 highly thematic strategy card game about crafting spirits in a distillery, with resource management and push-your-luck elements. In the game, players have inherited a distillery and are hoping to someday achieve the title of master distiller through purchasing goods, building up their distillery, and creating the world’s most renowned spirits. Purchase new ingredients and invest in upgrades to one’s distillery, all while eventually distilling the spirit and sending it to the warehouse. Once in the warehouse, age spirits to enhance its flavor and bottle it to sell it for major profits! Achieve the title of Master Distiller by having the most spirit points at the end of the game. VPs are obtained by distilling and selling spirits.
Winner’s Circle (led by K-ban) 2001 Knizia designed lively betting and horse racing game that was originally called Turf Horse Racing. Over the course of 3 races, players place wagers (3 real, one bluff) on 4 of 7 horses to gain the most money. During each race players, in turn, roll a d6 with 4 different movement options. Choosing movement cards that either help your horses or slow down the competition are essential to victory.
The game has been republished several times, but we played on the deluxe DiceTree Korean version with painted 3D horses, metal coins and includes cards for both the Royal Turf and Winner’s Circle versions.
Endless Winter: Paleoamericans (led by Matt) 2022 euro-style game that combines worker placement and deck building in an innovative way. Each round, players send their tribe members to various action spaces, and pay for the actions by playing cards and spending resources. Tribe cards grant additional labor, while Culture cards provide a variety of unique effects. As an alternative, cards can be saved for an end-of-round Eclipse phase, where they are simultaneously revealed to determine the new player order, and trigger various bonus actions. The game features a novel blend of interwoven systems and mechanisms, such as multi-use cards, area influence, tile placement, and set collection. Plus, there are many viable paths to victory. After four brisk rounds, scores are tallied, and the tribe with the most points wins!
Bosa (led by Nicole) 2024 very accessible drafting and tableau building card game. Be the player with the most points by strategically placing building cards into your 4×4 townscape to gain coins, resources, and points. Each building will have an action that you take in the order of placement in the row or column that you choose. You also select 2 of the 4 goal cards to score extra points at the end of the game. If you like Point City, Middle Ages and Splendor, this 45 minute Gateway game will appeal to you, especially with its 30 minute length.
Saint Petersburg (led by K-ban) 2004 drafting and set collection game where players add workers (to gain income), buildings (to gain VPs), Aristocrats (end of game VPs for collecting different characters) and Tradesmen (to upgrade all of the above) to their tableau. A second edition on the 10th anniversary of the game included the first edition expansions and added a 5th player. An oldie but goodie that still plays well – but both editions are OOP and expensive.
Hanamikoji (led by Zach) 2013 ‘I cut You Choose’, drafting influence game where 2 players compete to earn the favor of seven illustrious Geishas by collecting each Geisha’s preferred performance item. With careful speculation and a few bold moves, players can outsmart their opponent to win the favor of the most Geishas.
Llamas Unleashed (led by Rob) 2019 retheming of Unstable Unicorns. It comes with 135 cards in a magnetic box, and has the same base mechanics, but with a few twists. The core mechanics are the same, but there are a ton of new card effects never seen before. In the game, players will find 4 types of characters: Llamas, Alpacas, Goats, and Rams. The goal is to get 7 animals into one’s field before your opponents – a task that sounds much simpler than it is with magic cards, instant cards and upgrade/downgrade cards.
The Gang (led by Armando) 2024 co-operative version of Texas Hold’em where players bet on how good they think their hand of cards will be relative to the other players, then try to make their predictions a reality. Early in a round, without talking to each other, each player chooses a chip indicating how good they think their hand is. Then they begin dealing cards into the middle of the table and have a chance to reassess their hands as more cards are revealed. At the end of the round, players see whether they correctly evaluated their hand. If all players did, they get to open one of the bank vaults! If not, the alarm is tripped and the team loses. If the team manages to open three vaults before they trip the alarm three times, their gang wins!
Steve
18 at the UNO Park Community Center for a request Night. Our 4/23 session will feature games with RIVERS (thanks to Wendy for the suggestion) Expect to play from among: River Valley Glassworks, Tigris & Euphrates, River of Gold, Cascadia: Rolling Rivers, Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers, Daitoshi, Caldera Park, Iron Dragon, Life of the Amazonia, Dorf Romantik, …
18 at the UNO Park Community Center for a request Night. Our 4/23 session will feature games with RIVERS (thanks to Wendy for the suggestion) Expect to play from among: River Valley Glassworks, Tigris & Euphrates, River of Gold, Cascadia: Rolling Rivers, Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers, Daitoshi, Caldera Park, Iron Dragon, Life of the Amazonia, Dorf Romantik, …