2025 Session Reports

12/3/2025 – Berkshire Gamers Session Report #25-48

16 at the UNO Park Community Center in North Adams for a request night
12/3/2025 @ UNO Park Community Center
IN: Steve & Sandy, Ken & Rachel, Sean, Tim, Armando, Zach, Anna, Amy, Chris, Tony, Nicole, Julie, Reimi, Rob
ON OUR TABLES:
The Hobbit – There & Back again (led by Armando) 2025 competitive adventure game, in which players draft dice to make pathways, collect resources, and perform actions that help them to reach their chapter goal. Each of the players has their own adventure board book open to the same chapter of the game, and they play in turn order starting with the shortest player. That player rolls all of the dice, then selects one, then the next player selects one, and so on until all dice have been chosen, at which point the next player rolls all the dice once again. With your chosen dice, players use a dry-erase pen to mark the current chapter of your book, drafting a path to evade trolls, battle goblins, solve riddles, and pen the best conclusion to each chapter. The game takes players through the eight most iconic challenges faced by Bilbo and the Dwarves in The Hobbit, such as overcoming trolls, goblins, wargs, and giant spiders; reclaiming the treasure of the dwarves; and defeating the dragon Smaug. In the end, players want to complete the most rewarding journey to The Lonely Mountain.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/436215/the-hobbit-there-and-back-again

The Climbers (led by Tim) 2008 wooden game where the player’s goal is to climb to the highest level of the structure. To help with the climb, players may move and rotate blocks. Ladders can be used to climb large distances. Blocking disks will prevent other players from using a specific block. Wise use of one’s tools and timed judiciously makes for the best possible moves in one’s adventure to the top! Massive deforestation, but excellent table presence.
Card Empire (led by Chris) card game prototype
Eternal Decks (led by Armando) 2025 cooperative game in which players try to complete the stage objectives before any one player cannot take an action. Players start the game with five cards in their deck, but will quickly look to acquire more cards from the various Eternals (characters within the game) who each have their own unique eight-card deck. On turn, players must perform one action:
  • Play a card (on the field, on the river, or by using an ability)
  • Generate a jewel
  • Give a card to a teammate

There are restrictions when playing a card. All three rows in the field cannot have cards of the same color or same number next to each other. Additional restrictions are applied to a row based on the stage being played. Jewels are used to negate the negative effects brought on by the Eternals.

The game has six stages, and the various stages will have players collect points, survive a ghost town, navigate a labyrinth, defeat a boss, and more to win the game!

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/424981/eternal-decks

Lost Ruins of Arnak (led by Sean)  2020 release that combines open drafting and worker placement in a game of exploration, resource management, and discovery. In addition to traditional deck-builder effects, cards can also be used to place workers, and new worker actions become available as players explore the island. Some of these actions require resources instead of workers, so building a solid resource base will be essential. You are limited to only one action per turn, so make your choice carefully… What action will benefit you most now? And what can you afford to do later… assuming someone else doesn’t take the action first!?

Decks are small, and randomness in the game is heavily mitigated by the wealth of tactical decisions offered on the game board. With a variety of worker actions, artifacts, and equipment cards, the set-up for each game will be unique, encouraging players to explore new strategies to meet the challenge.

Cascadero (led by Tim) 2024 Reiner Knizia network and route building game where players are ministers appointed by El Cascadero to visit the people and restore civil harmony. While the ministers are obligated to bring prosperity to the entire land, each of them also has one dedicated responsibility: Farming, Crafting, Mining, or Markets. 

Ministers visit towns by placing their envoys adjacent to them; but towns are distrusting of single envoys, so newly placed envoys will only trigger town scoring when they are part of an established group or carry an official seal from El Cascadero himself. Towns with Royal Messengers at them or a history of envoy visits are even more valuable, as they willingly collaborate for even greater successes.

Players must decide between two competing strategies: build long chains of their envoys to achieve synergies and objectives, or establish smaller, separate groups of envoys to trigger timely town scoring. Both will award victory points, yet a player’s victory points will mean nothing if they don’t also reach the end of their appointed success column – the typical Knizian scoring twist.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/401216/cascadero

Railroad Tiles (led by Tony) 2025 tile placement and pattern building game. Players start each round by drafting tiles from the sets available in the common pool, then they place their routes on their tableau, trying to make as many connections as possible, while being careful not to lock themselves in with choices that are too constraining. Each round, players can also place cars, trains, or travelers to populate the landscape they are creating. The available actions change from round to round, so players need to prepare in advance! The more pieces of the same kind each new placement connects to, the more points that players earn. One can also score bonus points at game’s end for placing tiles in a large rectangle without gaps and for creating sets of three adjacent city tiles.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/418062/railroad-tiles

Die Sieben Siegel (led by Zach) 2003 Stefan Dorra trick taking card game – currently reprinted as Sluff-Off. The cards in the deck are numbered 1-15 in five different suits, and blue is always trump. If someone leads a color, you must follow suit if you can; otherwise, you can throw off a card or trump the trick.

It’s an exact-bidding game, but you predict your tricks by taking colored chips. For each trick that you win, you toss a chip back. If you take a trick in a color for which you didn’t have a chip, then you must take a black chip (worth -3 points). If you have any colored chips left at the end of the round, they’re worth -2 points. If you have any white chips left at the end of the round (wildcards that you get when someone takes a colored chip away from you during bidding), they’re worth -4 points.

There’s also the Sluffer, whose role is to feed unwanted tricks to other players. Instead of bidding tricks the Sluffer takes 4 black chips each worth -1 for him at the end of the hand. When players take tricks they didn’t predict, they take black chips from the Sluffer. If the Sluffer feeds enough of the black chips to other players, it can zero out the Sluffer’s score for that round.

Back in the day on Long Island, this game was referred to as “Die Steven Seagal”.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8129/sluff-off

Knarr (led by Armando) 2023 race, set collection and drafting card game.  Players are leaders of a band of Vikings that are sent to new destinations. Manage the recruitment of your crew, and choose the best territories to explore. Depending on the destinations reached (for trading or influence) and the Vikings who accompany you, players can increase their reputation to gain even more wealth. On each turn players either place a new member in their Viking crew, activate the effects of all of them with the same icon, and get another one from those available under the matching color on the central board, or they can explore new destinations, with the opportunity to trade with those places and get more gains or reputation.
Steve

16 at the UNO Park Community Center in North Adams for a request night 12/3/2025 @ UNO Park Community Center IN: Steve & Sandy, Ken & Rachel, Sean, Tim, Armando, Zach, Anna, Amy, Chris, Tony, Nicole, Julie, Reimi, Rob ON OUR TABLES: The Hobbit – There & Back again (led by Armando) 2025 competitive adventure game, in…

16 at the UNO Park Community Center in North Adams for a request night 12/3/2025 @ UNO Park Community Center IN: Steve & Sandy, Ken & Rachel, Sean, Tim, Armando, Zach, Anna, Amy, Chris, Tony, Nicole, Julie, Reimi, Rob ON OUR TABLES: The Hobbit – There & Back again (led by Armando) 2025 competitive adventure game, in…

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