20 at the UNO Park Community Center for an evening of FANTASY themed games.

Our 3/11 session is a request night – what do you want to play? Had table envy when playing recently and want a second chance to try something new to you? Kindly indicate your requests on our RSVP form below and we’ll do our best to find a willing table leader to honor them.

March 11 marks the 3rd anniversary of my dear friend Herb Levy’s passing. I wouldn’t be organizing gamenites if not for Herb. Below is the link to Herb’s obituary in BGG. He and Lynn Lamb played with us twice when we played at Purple Dragon games.

https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/1/blogpost/145884/memorial-for-game-reviewer-and-historian-herb-levy

3/11 Berkshire Gamenite RSVP Form

IN: Steve & Sandy, Lauren & Elliot, Sean, Tim, Armando, Zach, Chris, Nicole, Sean K, Ethan, Julie, Cady, Carol, Norm, Rachel P, Rob, Danny, Stacy

Fantasy Realms 3x (led by Sean/K-ban) A quick 2017 card game of making the best hand you can by making the best card combinations in a 7 card hand, with a fantasy theme. The gameplay is dead simple: draw a card and discard a card (though you can draw blindly from the deck, or take any card in the discard area). The game ends once there are 10 cards in the discard area, then you score your hand. A game that takes longer to score than to play, but usually gets played multiple times. I need to get the hang of scoring using the phone app.

Pixies (led by Armando)  2024 drafting, set collection and connections card game, where players move through the seasons to meet little creatures emerging from a flower or sheltering in the hollow of a tree. Choose one of the revealed cards, but be careful which ones are left to your opponents! Place that card in your playing area according to its number. Cards placed one on top of another are validated and earn players points at the end of the round, as do the largest color zone and spirals… but watch out for those X’s (penalty points). The Flower Power expansion was used for this session.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/411875/pixies

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.

The land of Ethnos contains twelve tribes of fantasy creatures, and in each game six of them are chosen, creating a deck with only the creatures in those tribes. The cards come in six colors, which match the six regions. Three glory tokens are placed in each region at random, arranged from low to high.

Each player starts the game with one card in hand, then double the number of players are placed face up on the table. On a turn, a player either recruits an ally or plays a band of allies. In the former case, you take a face-up card (without replacing it from the deck) or the top card of the deck and add it to your hand. In the latter case, players choose a set of cards in their hand that match either in tribe or in color, play them in front of them on the table, then discard all other cards in hand. Players then place one token in the region that matches the color of the top card just played, and use the power of the tribe member on the top card just played.

At the end of the first age, whoever has the most tokens in a region scores the glory shown on the first token. After the second age, the players with the most and second most tokens score glory equal to the values shown on the first and second tokens respectively. Players score similarly after the third age, then whoever has the most glory wins. 

Everdell (led by Zach) 2018 game of worker placement, drafting, set collection and tableau building, where players are the leaders of a group of critters settling new territories and establishing new cities.

On their turn a player can take one of three actions:

a) Place a Worker: Each player has a collection of Worker pieces. These are placed on the board locations, events, and on Destination cards. Workers perform various actions to further the development of a player’s tableau: gathering resources, drawing cards, and taking other special actions.

b) Play a Card: Each player is building and populating a city; a tableau of up to 15 Construction and Critter cards. There are five types of cards: Travelers, Production, Destination, Governance, and Prosperity. Cards generate resources (twigs, resin, pebbles, and berries), grant abilities, and ultimately score points. The interactions of the cards reveal numerous strategies and a near infinite variety of working cities.

c) Prepare for the next Season: Workers are returned to the players supply and new workers are added. The game is played from Winter through to the onset of the following winter, at which point the player with the city with the most points wins.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/199792/everdell

Elfenland (led by K-ban) 1998 network/route building and drafting game designed by Alan R Moon (Ticket to Ride, Santa Fe, San Marco author). It was German SdJ (Game of the Year) winner and a reimplementation of 1992’s Elfenroads.

The game is set in the mythical world of the elves. A group of fledgling elves (the players) are charged with visiting as many of the twenty Elfencities as they can over the course of 4 rounds. To accomplish the task they will use various forms of transportation such as Giant Pigs, Elfcycles, Unicorns, Rafts, Magic Clouds, Trollwagons, and Dragons.  Transportation tiles are drafted over 3 rounds and then placed in turn order on roads in mountains, desert, meadows and forests for all players to utilize. Players then can play their matching card from their hand to move their Boot-shaped marker and claim cities. After 4 rounds, whoever has visited the most cities and is closest to their secret home location is the winner. 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10/elfenland

LoTR: Fellowship of the Ring Trick Taking Game (led by Armando) 2024 co-operative card game that plays out over eighteen chapters that lead players through the events of the novel The Fellowship of the Ring. The chapters can be played in any order, but ideally should be played in sequence.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/429293/the-fellowship-of-the-ring-trick-taking-game

Belfort (led by Sean) 2011 worker placement, drafting and area majorities/influence game where players put their Elves, Dwarves and Gnomes to work in the Village and Guilds of Belfort to collect resources and build up the city! Elves collect wood from the forest while Dwarves collect stone from the quarry. An Elf and a Dwarf together can collect Metal from the mines, and either one can collect Gold. Build buildings in the five districts of the pentagonal city and hire Gnomes to run them to gain their special abilities.

There is area majority scoring in each district as well as for each type of worker. Buildings give players influence in the districts as well as income, but taxes increase based on one’s score, so the leading players will have to pay more than those behind! To win, a player should manage their resources and gold well, choose their buildings wisely, and help build the city of Belfort!

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/50750/belfort

Century: Golem edition (led by Armando) 2017 re-themed version of Century: Spice Road set in the world of Caravania. Each turn, players perform one of four actions:

Living Forest (led by Tim)  2021 Kennerspiel des Jahres (German Gamers Game of the Year)  As a nature spirit trying to save the forest and its sacred tree from the flames of Onibi, players are not alone in their mission, as the animal guardians have come together to lend a hand around the Circle of Spirits where they progress. 

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 their 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

Fairy Tale (led by Zach) 2004 card game where players use card drafting and simultaneous action selection to score points while interfering with other players’ ability to do so. The game consists of four rounds. In each of them, players are dealt five cards. They simultaneously select one each and pass the remainder, repeating until done. Then, they start playing cards simultaneously, playing three and discarding two. When the cards are revealed after each selection, card abilities turn other cards face-up or face-down. At the end of the four rounds there are 12 cards in front of each player. The players each score based on their face-up cards.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13823/fairy-tale

Steve