8/19/2026 – Berkshire Gamers Session Report #26-33

26 at the UNO Park Community Center for an evening of card games. We never got to play any traditional card games but played 14 different modern card games.
Welcome back David. It’s been 3+ years since he played with us at Purple Dragon Games but is currently enrolled at MCLA so will hopefully become a regular.
8/19/2026 @ UNO Park Community Center
IN: Steve & Sandy, Tony & Rachel, Kenneth & Rachel, Samuel & Ruth, Fred & Janet, Jason & Sarah, Sean, Tim, Armando, Zach, Nicole, Ethan, Norm, Julie & her Mom Julie, Rob, David, Matt, Carol, Kelby
ON OUR TABLES:
DNUP (led by Tim) 2025 shedding card game by the author of SCOUT. Players are trying to empty their hands of cards.

Each player starts with eight or ten cards in hand, with each card having different numbers (from 1-10) at top and bottom, e.g. 1 and 7. Players pick up all their cards at once; they can rearrange cards from left to right at any time, but can’t revolve them. On a turn, a player first discards any cards on the table in front of them, then can:

1. Play cards from their hand.
2. Add one card to the table.
3. Take cards from the table.
4. Rotate all cards in their hand.

When playing cards, one can play one or more cards of the same value — but if one plays as many cards as another player has in front of them, your cards must be of higher value. If a player overplays someone, e.g. playing two 5s when they have two 2s, they must revolve their cards, then return them to their hand.

When a card is added, a player adds a card of the same value to someone else’s played cards — but if that player would now have the same number of cards as a third player, the third player’s cards must be a lower value, in which case they revolve them and return them to hand.

When players pick up cards from in front of another player, revolve them and then add them to their hand.

The first player to empty their hand scores 2 points, and cards don’t return to their hand, even if beaten. The second player to empty their hand scores 1 point. Play multiple rounds until someone has at least 4 points, then whoever has the most points wins.

Is DNUP a SCOUT killer or not? (ask Zach)

David & Goliath (led by K-ban) 1997 trick taking game with a few quirky twists. There are five suits and players must follow suit, if they can. However, the winner of the trick is the highest card played, regardless of suit. The winner gets all the cards from the trick, minus the card they won it with. That card is given to the player that played the lowest card. After all tricks have been played, the scoring begins. Players score the face-value of the cards in the suits that they only collected one or two of, and one point per card for suits with more than two. The player with the most points after a number of hands wins the game. We played 6 hands.
Decko (led by Armando) 2026 deckbuilding game where players buy supernatural poker cards, burn cards to thin their decks and bend the rules using a plethora of jokers. The game is structured like a traditional poker game, players bet chips on their poker hands by raising or calling the bet, or fold to get a free new card. Players also get to permanently remove one card from their deck per hand by doing the burn action. After each hand is played all players that didn’t win or fold get to buy new special playing cards and jokers, increasing their chances of winning in later rounds.

As the game progresses players will become increasingly powerful and asymmetric in their abilities. The player who has the most poker chips after twelve rounds wins the game.

Fleet (led by Sean) 2012 auction and set collection nautical card game where players acquire licenses, launch boats, and fish the great briny blue. The player who best manages their resources and acquires the most VP via fish, licenses, and boats will build the strongest fleet and lead their crew to victory!
Boss Monster (led by Kenneth) 2023 fantasy card game that pits 2-4 players in a competition to build the ultimate side-scrolling dungeon. Players compete to lure and destroy hapless adventurers, racing to outbid one another to see who can build the most enticing, treasure-filled dungeon. The goal is to be the first Boss to amass ten Souls, which are gained when a Hero is lured and defeated — but a player can lose if his Boss takes five Wounds from Heroes who survive his dungeon.

Playing Boss Monster requires you to juggle two competing priorities: the need to lure Heroes at a faster rate than one’s opponents, and the need to kill those Heroes before they reach your Boss. Players can build one room per turn, each with its own damage and treasure value. More attractive rooms tend to deal less damage, so a Boss who is too greedy can become inundated with deadly Heroes.

Players interact with each other by building rooms and playing Spells. Because different Heroes seek different treasure types, and rooms are built simultaneously (played face down, then revealed), this means that every “build phase” is a bidding war. Spells are instant-speed effects that can give players advantages or disrupt opponents.

Inuit: the Snow Folk (led by Matt) 2019 card-based strategy game of drafting and tableau building for 2-4 players.

On a player’s turn they:
1. Draw cards from the common deck and place them face up on the table.
2. Choose one type of card to draft into their village.
3. The number of cards drafted is based on the number of Inuit of a given occupation:
– Elders expand your village.
– Shamans call upon powerful Spirits and perform mysterious Rites.
– Warriors bring the weapons of those they conquer.
– Hunters provide precious game: seals, orcas, and polar bears.
– Scouts allow choosing from more cards each turn.

Sluff Off/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”.

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

Vintage (led by Sean) 2020 Bruno Faidutti designed set collection and auction card game where players are sellers and collectors of vintage objects at a flea market and are always looking for the best items to bring to their shop! Collect furniture and deco items from the 1950s to the 1980s, and get the best collections, possibly stealing those items from other players! Color, type of items, and years will earn players points!

Players place item cards face down to the side of their display case (a.k.a. their hands). This stack is known as a player’s hoard. A player can look at their own hoard at any time, but may not look at other players’ hoards. Players start with 1-3 cards in their display case and no cards in their hoards. On their turn, players perform three actions in this order:

1. Choose one item card from their display case and save it for later by placing it face down on top of their hoard.
2. Then, either steal one item card from another player’s display case and add it to one’s display, or salvage the top card from the face-up discard pile and add it face up to one’s display.
3. Draw two item cards from the face-down deck, place one face up in one’s display and the other face up on the discard pile.

To score, lay out the 17 bonus cards and award each card to the player who has hoarded the most cards in the corresponding category.

13 Heroes (led by Kenneth) 2024 card game with core mechanics based on Rock-Paper-Scissors, making it easy for anyone to pick up and play. The addition of card abilities deepens the strategy of trying to be the first person to play their entire hand and win the game. Each card had a number between 1 and 13 and a symbol representing rock, paper, or scissors. At the start of a round, the current player can play any card. From that point, the next player will need to play a card from their hand that either:

A) Has the Rock-Paper-Scissor symbol that would beat the current card in play

OR

B) Is the same number as the card in play.

If no cards in their hand meet either condition, then they draw a card from the deck and pass to the next player

Each of the 13 cards have unique abilities that allow you to do things like skip other players, play successive turns, reverse the power balance of the card numbers and more.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/444922/13-heroes

 
Arboretum (led by Tim) 2015 strategy card game that combines set collection, tile-laying and hand management while playing in about 25 minutes. Players try to have the most points at the end of the game by creating beautiful garden paths for their visitors.

The deck has 80 cards in ten different colors, with each color featuring a different species of tree; each color has cards numbered 1 through 8, and the number of colors used depends on the number of players. Players start with a hand of seven cards. On each turn, a player draws two cards (from the deck or one or more of the discard piles), lays a card on the table as part of her arboretum, then discards a card to her personal discard pile.

When the deck is exhausted, players compare the cards that remain in their hands to determine who can score each color. For each color, the player(s) with the highest value of cards in hand of that color scores for a path of trees in her arboretum that begins and ends with that color; a path is an orthogonally adjacent chain of cards with increasing values. For each card in a path that scores, the player earns one point; if the path consists solely of trees of the color being scored, the player scores two points per card. If a player doesn’t have the most value for a color, she scores zero points for a path that begins and ends with that color. 

Hell of a Deal (led by Armando) 2026 cooperative poker game against The Devil Himself & all the minions of Hell. Of course, they all cheat! To compete, you’ll have to cheat like Hell… and the more you do, the more doomed you all become.

Welcome to The Last Resort & Casino… and winning IS your last resort. To get to the Big Table, players will face off against diabolical bosses like Dedly Aloor, Jack Potts, The Brothers Dreadful, & Roul-ette, each of whom twists the game in unique ways.

It’s real poker – as far as playing poker in Hell goes, with players all trying individually to beat the house. Every Boss changes how you will approach the hand and has a bare minimum hand to beat, should their dealt cards not pan out.

It’s a Texas Hold’em style game – and players get not two but three cards dealt to them (one up their sleeve for more options). Players may earn powerful Favor cards that let them cheat, like making a four-card Flush, but at the cost of a Curse or suffering Temptation.

Players chips will earn them Souls (the coin of the realm) which you’ll need at the Big Table against The Devil Himself – or betting one of one’s five Power chips will gain a player immediate abilities, like revealing one of the Boss’s cards, or taking a face-up discard into one’s hand. But lose the hand and the wagered chips flip over to deliver harsh penalties. Suffer too much Temptation and the game ends in a loss. Manage to win against The Devil Himself and one might just earn their way back to the living.

It has the feel of high stakes poker, with no cash on the table. And delivers a whole Poker Night in just 90 minutes.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/463605/hell-of-a-deal

Bohnanza (led by Rachel K) 1997 Uwe Rosenberg bean trading classic game that has been reprinted several times and expanded even more. Players plant, then harvest bean cards in order to earn coins. Each player starts with a hand of random bean cards, and each card has a number on it corresponding to the number of that type of bean in the deck. Unlike in most other card games, you can’t rearrange the order of cards in hand, so you must use them in the order that you’ve picked them up from the deck — unless you can trade them to other players, which is the heart of the game. On a turn, players must plant the first one or two cards in their hand into the two “fields” in front of them. Each field can hold only one type of bean, so if a player must plant a type of bean that’s not in one of their fields, then they must harvest a field to make room for the new arrival.  Next, two cards are revealed from the deck, and the player, on turn, can then trade these cards as well as any card in their hand for cards from other players. After all the trading is complete — and all trades on a turn must involve the active player — then the turn is ended by drawing 3 cards from the deck and placing them at the back of one’s hand. When beans are harvested, players  receive coins based on the number of bean cards in that field and the “beanometer” for that particular type of bean. Flip over 1-4 cards from that field to transform them into coins, then place the remainder of the cards in the discard pile. When the deck runs out, the discards are shuffled, playing through the deck two more times. At the end of the game, everyone can harvest their fields, then whoever has earned the most coins wins. With 7 players, instead of ending one’s turn by drawing 3 cards, every player at the table takes one card. Trading is still the key to the game. 
Regicide (led by Tim)  2020 multi-player fantasy co-op card game where players must defeat 12 powerful enemies using a standard 52 card deck of playing cards.  On their turn a player plays a card to the table to attack the enemy and once enough damage is dealt, the enemy is defeated. The players win when the last King is defeated. But beware! Each turn the enemy strikes back. Players will discard cards to satisfy the damage and if they can’t discard enough, everyone loses. Rich with tactical decisions and a deep heuristic tree, Regicide is a huge challenge for anyone who is brave enough to take it on.
Splendor (led by Armando)  2014 award winning game of chip-collecting and card development. Players are merchants of the Renaissance trying to buy gem mines, means of transportation, shops—all in order to acquire the most prestige points. If wealthy enough, players might even receive a visit from a noble at some point, which will further increase their prestige. On turn, players may (1) collect chips (gems), or (2) buy and build a card, or (3) reserve one card. If you collect chips, you take either three different kinds of chips or two chips of the same kind. If you buy a card, you pay its price in chips and add it to your playing area. To reserve a card—in order to make sure you get it, or, why not, your opponents don’t get it—you place it in front of you face down for later building; this costs you a round, but you also get gold in the form of a joker chip, which you can use as any gem. All of the cards you buy increase your wealth as they give you a permanent gem bonus for later buys; some of the cards also give you prestige points. In order to win the game, you must reach 15 prestige points before your opponents do. 
Armando is ecstatic that new copies of Splendor have a One Million Sold sticker on the box cover. 
Steve

26 at the UNO Park Community Center for an evening of card games. We never got to play any traditional card games but played 14 different modern card games. Welcome back David. It’s been 3+ years since he played with us at Purple Dragon Games but is currently enrolled at MCLA so will hopefully become a…

26 at the UNO Park Community Center for an evening of card games. We never got to play any traditional card games but played 14 different modern card games. Welcome back David. It’s been 3+ years since he played with us at Purple Dragon Games but is currently enrolled at MCLA so will hopefully become a…

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