Adrian  0:26  
Hello and welcome to Whose turn is it anyway, podcast all about our board gaming group and the board games we play. I'm Adrian, your first player once more before I hand over the first player crown, and I'm joined by other players, Becky. 

Becky  0:37  
Hi, 

Adrian  0:38  
And I'm delighted to introduce the wonderful Tambo. 

Tambo  0:41  
Hello. 

Adrian  0:42  
Today we will be talking about the board game Wingspan, you join us mid first turn where I've already forgotten the scoring criteria. But either way, we're going to keep on going. And first of all, we're going to introduce Tambo. So it's great to have you on the show. 

Tambo  0:54  
Thank you. 

Adrian  0:55  
Good, good. So, John, just give our listeners a little bit of an introduction as to how you got into board gaming. 

Tambo  1:01  
Well, I was introduced, I think about well, about three/four years ago, I think as time goes fast. So Rob introduced me he, I, used play xbox with Rob and he said that he fancied playing some board games with JP and then I am I said, Yeah, give it go, see what it's like. And then yeah, that's how I got into it really. Through playing Xbox and then going on to a board game. I always liked playing board games when I was younger, so I thought why not?

Adrian  1:26  
And what did what did they get you in with Android seems to have been the common one.

Tambo  1:30  
It was my first game I played with them was Mansions of Madness. First Edition. My first game, the first edition one. So that was a really good game to get introduced to actually. And then my second game was Captain Sonar, which was a mess. It was really good. Completely different

Adrian  1:47  
is this the one thing for me that no one will talk about on the show? Yes.

Tambo  1:50  
Yes, no, no. So I've really enjoyed Captain Sonar as well. We didn't play it enough in my mind. It's hard to get 8 players really to make it

Adrian  2:00  
So first question we always ask everyone is what's your favourite game of all time?

Tambo  2:05  
Okay, so my favourite game of all time now is Marvel champions 

Adrian  2:08  
good choice. 

Tambo  2:09  
Yes it is. I think it's such a good game as it's solo because I live on my own so it's a good game to play on your own. It's a very well balanced game and then I my niece, my nephew play it lot and obviously we play it in the game group a lot as well so it's just one of my all time favourite games

Adrian  2:24  
Nice, do you have a favourite villain to defeat or hero to play as?

Tambo  2:27  
Thats a difficult one I think my favourite hero would probably be Capt.

Adrian  2:30  
I like Capt.

Tambo  2:31  
 yeah with the leadership,leadership but

Becky  2:33  
Such a goody two shoes, such a goody two shoes shoes 

Adrian  2:36  
In the game he's just got such a toolbox he's got resource generation he can defend well he can attack well he can thwart a little bit as well. He's just 

Tambo  2:45  
And he gets Allies out for cheap.

Adrian  2:46  
He does, he's just a good all-rounder for that kind of stuff. And he's he's one of the better all rounders in the game.

Becky  2:52  
Haven't played it so fair enough. I'm only going purely... 

Tambo  2:55  
They're all really good in their own way though.

Adrian  2:57  
I think they've done a great job. I know. I know Hulk is not well loved in the community. I'm not the biggest fan of but if they, you know there is ways to play him but for the most part these are the characters that were placed right. That's what I find with it. What about villains any particular villains you like defeting?

Tambo  3:11  
I think the Wrecking Crew is one of my favourite.

Adrian  3:13  
Really?

Tambo  3:13  
 Yeah, I quite enjoy it the way the token goes in and they attack you from different you know, turns and yeah, and I just... one of my favourites but I like all the villains to be fair. I mean, like it's not the right word. 

Becky  3:26  
Enjoy. 

Tambo  3:28  
The worst one is Ronin can't do him Yeah,

Adrian  3:30  
I totally agree. No, I haven't either. I do quite enjoy 

Tambo  3:33  
Overpowered

Adrian  3:34  
I do quite enjoy Green Goblin because he puts you on the backfoot from the start but yeah, well okay and then what game you really enjoying right now?

Tambo  3:41  
I'm really enjoying right now? I would say oh thats dificult. That's very difficult. That's gonna be Nemesis I think

Adrian  3:49  
Nemesis Yeah, yeah, obviously we talked about it a few episodes ago anything particularly you want to chat about Nemesis as a game

Tambo  3:56  
No I just, I just love the way... I'm big sci fi game fan, me. I like things that are set in space and antging todo with sci fi and I just love the way Nemesis is, you know, the semi Co Op pat of it is really good when you've got yto chain each other but you've got to work together the whole concept of it's just really good fun for me. Yeah,

Adrian  4:12  
I've heard you pretty good at backstabbing people.

Becky  4:15  
I was just about to bring that nickname up!

Tambo  4:14  
I did one really good backstabbing, it was on zombie game... 

Adrian  4:22  
Dead of Winter 

Tambo  4:23  
That was it and then I've got bad rep ever since. I dont belive it myself but that's but yeah, no, really, really. Um, I like the Alien movies and I think it's a really good concept on their... Nemesis is just great. 

Becky  4:37  
That's really interesting, because my least... I mean, I really enjoy kind of fantasy, reading books and that kind of stuff. But sci fi is not really one of my favourite genres of anything, really. However, all the board games that I've played that are in, you know, involve space and spacey stuff, I really, really like so it just goes to show I suppose it doesn't have to be the theme that you are mega into if the content is good enough, and the actual gameplay is really good, it sort of doesn't have to be something that you're really into. Because if someone had shown me all this is based on a spaceship, I'd be like, 'Oh, do you know what? I'm not, not that interested'. But it's such a good game. It doesn't matter, I think. 

Tambo  5:18  
Yeah, definitely.

Adrian  5:19  
Well, on that note, then I think we'll go straight into our second turn.

And here we go straight into our second turn, where we talk about you and me, and we talked about all the good things and the bad things that have been as we talk about hex. So Becky, what have you been playing recently?

Becky  5:39  
Um, so trying to work my way through all the board games I bought at the UKGE, which will take a little while because I went a little bit

Tambo  5:48  
Mad. 

Becky  5:49  
Yeah, mad is probably the word. Yeah. Well, my rationale was, if I like these, and, you know, great, we can keep them. If I don't like them, I can probably sell them for the same amount of money that I've paid to get them in first place. So it's like borrowing them. That's how I've looked at it. So one of the main ones that we've been playing recently was Takenoko. 

Adrian  6:09  
Yep.

Becky  6:10  
Which is really, really easy, fun, cute little game. And it's got a panda in it. So yeah.

Adrian  6:16  
Baboons. Very different game. Oh, wow. Okay, so it's, it's pandas eating bamboo. Yeah. And there's some kind of farmer trying to disrupt them. Yeah. So

Becky  6:30  
Yeah, it's very, very simple game, you've got three things you can do, you can put tiles out, you can grow your bamboo, or you can get the panda to chomp the bamboo. Really simple. So you draw little cards that have sort of objectives on it either grow a certain colour of bamboo or a certain height, get the panda to chomp, say, three pink bits, or one green, one yellow one pink bit, or get a particular pattern of certain coloured tiles out. So really, really simple to play. It's all little nice hexes, which fits in nicely with this segment. And yeah, basically, you go around the board, you building your stuff. It's quite funny when your opponent is trying to say build a four green bamboo. And your objective is get your panda to eat the green bamboo. So you go over there, chomp the bamboo. And it's just yeah, it's good.

Sounds like fun. Yeah, I've heard lots of good things about it haven't played it much myself.

Very, very pretty, which is, of course, one of my imperatives in a game can't play an ugly game, but

Adrian  7:24  
I don't know whether I dare tell you about the chibi version with like, large chibi pandas. 

Becky  7:29  
I did watch that. Yeah. So when I watched the How To video on YouTube, that was the one I saw and I was like, 'Oh, I've got instant buyer's remorse now, because this one looks really great'. The panda is much bigger. The little farmer dude is bigger. And yeah, the bamboo is I

Adrian  7:44  
Think it is like 150 quid.

Becky  7:48  
My copy was, I think, 15 pounds. So 

Adrian  7:51  
Slightly different

Becky  7:52  
Little bit different there. Yeah. But it's really good. I would really recommend it.

Adrian  7:55  
Yeah. So we'll have to give it a go. I've seen I've heard lots about I've seen it being played before it does look cool. And Tambo, what have you been up to?

Tambo  8:03  
So recently, I played a game Outer rim with the Unfinished Business expansion. 

Adrian  8:08  
Yep.

Tambo  8:08  
Which was extremely good. That makes the game twice as good as my opinion. 

Adrian  8:12  
Really?

Tambo  8:12  
Yeah,

Adrian  8:13  
That much added to the... 

Tambo  8:14  
Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I mean, the game was good on its own. It was very simplistic. You just have to get to 20 fame become the most famous outlaw trader or whatever. It is smuggler? That's the word I think and I've yet so the the different aspects it gives you it was, you get your own ambition sheet, which is the best part about it. 

Adrian  8:30  
Right. Okay, 

Tambo  8:31  
So now you've got your own personal goals, as well as get the fame. It does make the game twice as long. 

Adrian  8:36  
Right? Okay

Tambo  8:37  
But it's definitely a much more in depth game, and you get some favour tokens, right, which you can give to other players, which makes it a little bit more, you know, a bit more backstabbing, maybe

Becky  8:47  
I'm noticing a theme. I didn't know it earlier. It's coming across. Now. How long does it take to play when you said it makes it twice as long?

Tambo  8:54  
I think we played it. But it was a learning game. So that always takes longer. It was about three, three and a half hours it took Yeah, I mean, you can play it's probably within two hours. The base game, I would have said yeah. If you know what you're playing. Just, get on with it. But um, yeah, but I still think it's worth it. Yeah,

Adrian  9:10  
it's definitely one I want to give a go. Obviously, when the first one came out, it sort of came out to mixed reviews generally positive but mixed reviews. And you've had it on the table a couple of times just haven't been able to make the nights when you've said it's gone on the table and when the expansion came out and seems to be getting very good reviews. I absolutely have to play this at some point. So the fact that it's got the Tambo stamp of approval. 

Tambo  9:30  
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I mean, I think Rob enjoyed it Chris loved joining us. I enjoyed it more he didn't really find the first standard edition that fun but when he played the the Unfinished Business, he enjoyed it more by the looks of things.

Becky  9:41  
That's interesting. It makes such a difference. Speaking of someone who knows literally nothing about it whatsoever. It's nice to know that you can change a game that might well I guess it's good, maybe for the game you really love in the first place and it changes it uttery. That might be a bit of an issue. But even if someone didn't like something the first time sometimes just changing a couple of little mehanics can really, you know, make it one of your favourites then or really sort of calls to you,

Tambo  10:05  
Yeah they've definitely thought about it because of the character board. If you looked at it as basically the ship, and you put your character card in the middle when there's little space to the side and thinking, What What's that for? It's an expansion and it comes up now, it's a complete set now, so yeah, they also thought about it. So it was good.

Adrian  10:25  
Good. Yeah, it makes the game that much better, it's quite often worth it. Some, you know, we've talked about it a little bit before and I'm sure talk about it a lot more in the future is expansions can either just add bloat, but they can add new mechanics, or they can really make a game or break a game or whatever. So it's expansions we've done something that positive for it, then

Becky  10:42  
we played seven wonders. Just a bit of an aside. The other day, I played that game a lot really like it played on the app really liked that, too. And we played with the Cities and the Leaders expansion, and that really changed the game massively. I don't know. It's good. I think I really liked the Cities. That's cool. But the leaders I don't know, I found that was really hit or miss. So it's kind of drafting you get to see what... you don't have to play them all blah, blah. I don't know. I felt that really, that took away from the game for me. Cities expansion was good.

Tambo  11:11  
I quite liked it all, to be honest. We did one expansion and then we did the other one, didn't we? Yeah, it was just, to me better. Ooh, and it got a bit better. Yeah. And that's my opinion on that. But um,

Becky  11:20  
Yeah, I think yeah, I'm, I'm the only one with this. And I do normally like, you know, nice little shiny expansion add-on kinda thing. The cards are very shiny. This is a completely tangent. And we all know JP loves an expansion.

Adrian  11:34  
So myself, I was gonna talk about we had a Games Day, like an all day Saturday, we played quite a few games you posted up on our socials. So you can probably see what we played there. But the one game I really wanted to talk about from that set was Concordia. So for those who haven't played Concordia, it is a proper midweight Euro, it's trading in the Mediterranean. So the front of the box says it all as well as it's essentially, you play a card from your hand, it'll have various different things you can do, you can either like move people in and build, wherever you build, you can get resources from, you can trade different types of resources and money. And you can buy new cards. What I really wanted to talk about, though, was the scoring mechanism on this game, because it's definitely one of those mechanisms that you only fully grasp, or most people I think only fully grasp once they've played it through once. So on every card at the bottom of it, it has the name of a different god, like Roman sort of setup, Mars, Venus, that kind of thing. And each of those have a scoring mechanic on it. So one might be 'for every worker you have on the board, you get two victory points'. So it gives you that card or give you more incentive to put more workers on the board. But then you can build by getting more cards into your deck, you can build more with Mars on so then I'm incentivized to go after putting more people on the board with another card, it might be having two buildings in one of the coloured sections. So the map is, like separated into colour sections. And so for each one of these cards, for every section I have with two buildings in I get more victory points. So kind of what you're looking to do is build a deck that is effective in doing what it needs to do. But then also, you're making sure you're hitting the victory points in that deck. And your scoring marker stays on zero the entire game. 

Becky  13:27  
I think I'd find that very hard.

Adrian  13:29  
It's one of those where, like, I explain it to people, people kind of go Yeah, I think I get it. And then they'll play it. And at the end, they'll go 'Oh, of course, it makes sense'. Because what you do is you kind of, once the game is done, you put out all of your cards ranked by like, like separated out by each type of God. And then you go right, I've got four of these cards, I score 12 For every one of these, that's multiplied by four, I've got only one of these cards, I only got one, so wasn't really going after it. And in your starting deck, there's pretty much like one or two of each God. So you've got like a good start of following everything a little bit. And then over the course of the game, you build a deck, but I can explain and I can teach nicely how to play the game. I will explain how to score at the start always. Because I think explaining at the end is a bit too much. And everyone's go Yeah, I think I get it and then you've sort of right. Okay, so as a reminder, you score by number of cards, and then at the end of it. Normally we're putting up the points everyone's going, right, I've totally got it now. And the next game I'm gonna be set for this. And it's just, it's there's not many games where I find that people get to the game so quickly, but don't get the scoring as quickly. But it's a it's a brilliant little game. Everyone around the table seemed to enjoy it. Rob was playing it for the first time afterwards. He was like exactly that is his first time. Right now. I've got it. I can't wait to play it again. 

Becky  14:47  
It sounds like your first game is kind of a bit of a write off for a learning thing. And that really, that that sort of thing really puts me off so I'd have to just get over myself and just play it but I hate the fact that your first game is, uh,

Tambo  15:01  
I always say the first game is always that

Becky  15:04  
You're really good with that. I don't think it's because I'm particularly competitive. Or maybe it is. I don't know, I just, I hate that fact that I know, there's no chance I can win this game. First time. I just that was a real barrier. It's a real barrier.

Adrian  15:18  
I think a lot of games are like that

Becky  15:19  
Absolutely.

Adrian  15:20  
Concordia is the fact that I think most people can figure out how to play the game. Yeah, very quickly. Like sometimes I've played a lot of games you know, we play Perseverance recently, we have played Great Wall, which didn't have the best of time with but that was a new game. We played Coinbra I think it was with the little churches and all that kind of stuff. All of those games, I was about halfway through and I was like, Alright, I'm getting all the mechanics I understand how to play now. I often find with Concordia, by the time you've gone through your hand, once you've got the game fully, there's literally nothing else to learn. It's just the fact that score is you've probably got very little chance of winning the first time around while you understand the scoring mechanic

Becky  15:59  
Maybe wouldn't be so bad thing because I don't mind not winning. As long as I know that I've played a pretty good game, you know, I've understood the theory.

Adrian  16:06  
And that's why I think yeah, that's for me why Concordia is different. And I've very rarely seen a rough play of Concordia. Yeah, normally, sometimes the scoring is a bit further apart at the end, because some people have understood or not. Yeah, but I've never seen like a group where they've gone. Okay, I'll get that the second time round, like fully. So I also just wanted to shout out Kerley on that Saturday, because he came joint first three times and last on every tiebreaker. How close do you want to get? So?

Becky  16:42  
He does win, he does win a lot? Doesn't. He's just good at that sort of thing.

Adrian  16:45  
He's good at that. But it just made me I thought drawing quite yeah, sometimes talk about scores of 120, 130 points, drawing when it's that, you know, if its 5 points for scoring. Fair enough, we can draw. 130 points or whatever, and he's scored on... drew on three different games with that kind of thing. And then every time lost on tie-breaker.

Becky  17:04  
Really, really unlucky. But he is a good loser. I think it although he doesnt really get much practice. That's it. He doesn't kind of sit and stew I think he would rather sit and figure out how to get better next time.

Adrian  17:15  
Okay, I think we'll move straight into our main event then. 

Turn three is our main topic. And in this one, we're going to deep dive into Wingspan a board game by Stonemaier games designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and released in 2019. I think it's fair to say that we all quite enjoy Wingspan of our players events. So does someone want to describe the theme.

Becky  17:43  
Yeah, it is about birds. Yeah. All the pictures are birds, very, very beautiful game really, really well thought out and designed with real aesthetics in mind, I think but it doesn't have to be about birds. If you're like, you know what, I don't care about birds at all, then you're not... it doesn't matter. It's not about knowing about birds. It's not about being interested in birds. But the theme is you've got three different kinds of habitats to live in. Yeah, but you don't live in, the birds live in. Water birds, plains birds and like tree.

Tambo  18:15  
Like forest 

Becky  18:16  
There you go, Forest. not tree. I was gonna say tree. That's. And yeah, you play your birds out of your hand into one of these habitats. You pay for them using food tokens, which are very cute, especially the blinged... if you buy the blinky version that we bought, which I still haven't played with, still haven't played with yet. Unbelievable. You've got a little bird feeder that is where you roll the dice that decide what kind of food you've got. 

Tambo  18:42  
Which is awesome.

Becky  18:43  
It's just great. It's just lovely 

Tambo  18:44  
Also the boards... when you open the boards up and you just think 'all these boards are just like really well designed'. Yeah, really nice. Good. Yep, good. Good, good quality.

Adrian  18:51  
Very good. I think it's fair to say right if we're talking about the theme of the game and you're right, it's birds basically that is pretty much as deep as you can get into it like but it is beautiful. Everything from the boards the fact that on the back of them it looks leather bound like you've got your little bound book the opening

Becky  19:08  
Youre ment to be a little bird watcher, you know watching habitats and so everything around that is it's just beautiful. Little eggs...

Adrian  19:15  
The art on the cards... the art on the cards is beautiful every single card has a different bird on it. So as you say you don't need to know about birds do

Becky  19:24  
Because you find out about them as you go along the game. 

Tambo  19:26  
Its got a description what they do at the bottom

Adrian  19:27  
Where they come from, what they eat, how big their wingspan is, which is hence the name of the game. And yeah, they're just beautiful cards. And then as you say they've got these little eggs which are, if you're... I don't know what countries have Mini Eggs but like they look like Mini Eggs the urge to eat them. They're not filled with chocolate

Becky  19:50  
You can buy special edition sort of wooden, nicer, from the actual Stonemaier Gamed. Speckled eggs. And they look even more like Mini Eggs, I don't think I could be trusted.

Adrian  20:07  
So yeah, and you got that. And as you say, you've got the dice tower, which is this little cardboard dice tower that goes together, but it looks like a little bird box, and you roll these big, chunky wooden dice down it , again, iconography is nice and simple, but very well done. And I think it's fair to say that the production on this compared to the cost of, of the actual game itself is pretty good. Yeah, we've we've discussed on previous episodes, haven't we about the cardboard tokens are maybe a little bit lacklustre compared to

Becky  20:35  
Yeah, but they're still fine.

Adrian  20:37  
They're workable. It's just... 

Becky  20:38  
Absolutely, it's just when you know, there's other things out there that are even shinier, it's hard not to want them.

Adrian  20:44  
And also the scoreboard the little cardboard.

Becky  20:46  
Yeah, you got real problem with that? You really don't like it.

Adrian  20:49  
No, it's just a little thin, very thin bit of cardboard. It's just, I just wanted something nicer out the box. But I bought some third party stuff. So I think that kind of roughly gives you an idea of theme obviously started, you started on the game mechanics there. So again, mechanics, essentially, you place your little cube,

Becky  21:12  
You've got more, like seven turns in the start, is it seven turns,

Adrian  21:16  
Seven cubes, 

Becky  21:17  
Yeah, 7 cubes to start with, and you place them in either the play a bird bird section, or whichever habitat you're going for. So you get one cube less each turn, which does kind of keep the game keep the game flowing.

Adrian  21:28  
Yeah. So you when you score at the end of each round, you put that cube on the scoreboard to represent what your... score you got is and therfore that gives you next round six cubes next round five cubes, because each time you give a cube up to the scoreboard, and so it makes a tighter game, but because you've got a bigger tableau,

Becky  21:45  
It's you don't need as many turns this time you've kind of already started, you're hopefully, 

Tambo  21:49  
Engine,

Becky  21:49  
You started your engine. Exactly. So engine building, which I'm not a great fan of, because I can't seem to be able to think far enough in the future of the game to think oh, well, I need that, I'm quite good at going 'I keep running out of food, I really should have paid more attention to getting more food'. But by that point, it's already too late.

Adrian  22:07  
So we talked about playing birds is the top one. So the next one down is the forest section, which is the food,

Becky  22:13  
You get to pick out of the dice pool that has been rolled, what food you're going to have, which is cool. And the further you go along with it. So the more birds you play, the more powerful each kind of choice then becomes. So at the start, when you've got no birds in your habitat, you only get one item one food, the more you play birds into that forest habitat, you then get to have two items, or three or whatever.

Tambo  22:37  
You spend the food to get another food. Yeah, which way it was, it does something like that, we spend something to get an extra food as well. 

Becky  22:43  
Spend an Egg

Tambo  22:43  
I think you're probably right. Yeah, so

Becky  22:46  
It does use, you know, other pieces in order to be able to kind of barter for what you really want, which is great. One of the things I really love about Wingspan is, if you don't really know what to do, you can always choose the lay an egg choice, which is the next one down, because that's always VP's at the end. So if you think actually, I'm not sure if this is the best to do, you can do the lay an egg function, she gets to pick the really cute little eggs up, you put them on, you put them on the board, and then they're flat at the bottom so they don't roll around, which is very nice. And that's always there. So you don't, you know, you don't have to play the long game, you probably won't win if you don't. But you've always got this lay an egg function, as long as you've got space in your nests. On each little card, it will say what kind of nest the bird lives in either Twiggy, I've got, I've got particular names that I call them, there's probably proper names. So there's Twiggy nests, Pebbly nests, and hollow tree trunk ones and you get certain, sometimes certain scoring means you need to focus on certain nests. So each little icon is very obvious. And that's one thing I really love about this game. Everything is very obvious.

Adrian  23:53  
It's a clean looking game, isn't it because the cards are all white. And then they've got this big picture of a bird in the middle and then down the sides are everything you need to know. Wingspan, number of victory points they're worth which has just a little feather next to it, you've then got the type of nest and then below that, as you were talking about, you've got the number of eggs they can have on them. So when you're talking about the eggs in the grassland, you can say put only one egg on this bird or you can put four eggs on that bird and therefore you can kind of build up all these eggs on there. So once you've, after the grasslands, you've then got water?

Tambo  24:28  
Water

Adrian  24:29  
So what's the water one? 

Tambo  24:30  
Water is draw card cards, 

Adrian  24:32  
It is indeed.

Tambo  24:34  
The more, again, you start off with a basic drawing off, you've got a card deck I suppose at the...

Becky  24:40  
Bird table, 

Tambo  24:41  
The bird table holds three cards so you can see where you can draw off the deck and at the beginning you can only draw one card, again, when you start laying birds in the water, you can start to to draw more cards which actually gives you more options, a lot more options to give you, sometimes you do find you don't have any cards in your hand. Yeah, so cycling through... I've been there a few times so yeah, so if you don't get down the water, you will find out, you'll start running out of cards in your hand. And so yeah, you have to try and draw more cards to get... So that's what the water mechanics is all about.

Adrian  25:07  
Yep. And then in each of those in the in the forest, the grassland and the water, when you've taken that action, you then essentially move your cube from the one. So you put your cube in the space to the right of your right most bird. And so that will tell you how much food you get how many eggs you get, how many cards you get, right? So then when you've done that, you then kind of move your cube from right to left, and you activate all of the birds in that tableau. So

Becky  25:36  
If they've got more powers. Some of them are just basic birds, which just do bird stuff. They've not got any extra special powers

Adrian  25:43  
They just tweet. And fly about a bit. And so yeah, some of it might be Oh, gain, another bit of food from the bird feeder, or it might be tuck a bird under this card. And if it's, or look at the top card of the deck, and if it's got a wingspan smaller than it, then tuck it, which is them flying out and grabbing that bird, that's the predator symbol, isn't it? Yeah.

Becky  26:05  
What I really think is so well thought out about this game is the fact that the predators are actually predators in real life. So you've got owls, you've got that kind of bird. And things like cuckoos can't lay any near... can't lay any eggs in their nest. I really think that's just a very clever way of making it... Okay, we said at the start is not about birds. It doesn't have to be about birds. But I really like how they've tied in some of those obvious things, you know, and the kind of food that birds eat. So you playing pelicans and you know, watery birds, they eat fish, it's just brilliant. It's just really beautifully aligned.

Adrian  26:43  
Yeah, cuz you know, you've got, you've got grubs, you've got mice, you've got berries, Cherries, fish, and stuff like that. Nectar, And then we'll get to

Becky  26:52  
All the nectar.

Adrian  26:53  
I think once you play with the nectar, we'll get to that, it's quite hard to then go back, which is fine. But yeah, so you've got all of those actions. So you move your cube to the left, and then that's your kind of turn done, and it goes on to the next person. The one with the bit where you play a bird, I suppose what we haven't talked about is that the further along, you want to play that bird, so you have to play the bird in the leftmost column of that habitat. But the further to the right you need to play it, the more eggs you need to spend on it. And this is where that laying eggs action yeah, it's great for victory points, but also you do need it to play the birds further along the channel, you have to

Tambo  27:27  
get more expensive rewards.

Adrian  27:32  
And so that kind of gives you that, you know, you need the food, to get the birds into your habitats. You need the eggs to play the birds into your habitats. And you need the card draw to get the birds from the deck to your hand, essentially. And so you're kind of building an engine and there's, there's for me, there's quite a few different ways of then looking at that, you know, you've got, I quite often go card draw heavy, early doors.

Tambo  27:58  
So I always go food, I always tend to get a couple of foods, eat as much food and then you can worry about getting your birds out. Yeah. Yeah. Generally, but I suppose it depends on your goal cards, you always get two end of game cards. You do. Yeah.

Adrian  28:10  
Which will say like, you know, most cards in in the water zone wins, or That's right. You know, most most birds with over 75 centimetre wingspan or whatever it is, or

Tambo  28:21  
Or the colour red or the colour in the name. Yeah, yeah, there's also got percentage at the bottom of them as well. I do like that. That is totally, so the more likely, the higher percentage, that end of game goal you want. That's the best one to go for. Generally, if especially if you're first starting. Yeah,

Adrian  28:35  
Some of them are really tough to get going. Have like, is it there's one of them, which is have all of the same cost or something in a row or a column or something like that. I remember playing something with a crazy bonus where you had to get all stuff in the same in the same column. And I remember thinking I might do that but my brain is not gonna work out how I'm gonna manage that. But yeah, generally, a lot of these bonus cards are fairly easy to get.

Tambo  29:02  
Gives you a goal, to what to head for really? Yeah, I think that's what I always look at it. Maybe just aim for that

Becky  29:07  
So yeah, it gives you a bit of direction at the start. You don't have to do it. And it's not going to necessarily mean the difference between winning and losing. Because what I like about the game, as well is every time you play, the scoring is slightly different because you pick out of a bag of things that can score. So it might be this round, first place is going to go to people with the most eggs in waterbirds or..

Tambo  29:07  
Beaks facing left

Becky  29:08  
Beaks facing left Yeah, it can be really really, 

Tambo  29:12  
They're the new ones

Becky  29:13  
Can be very diverse random things to win, but it does give you a little bit of something to aim for. And you can also be kind of keeping your eye on 'Oh, what's the next thing so if I can kind of I'll put this bird in this place here. And actually that will give me bonus points next turn so it's it's a quite a good way of mixing it up because you can't you know, if you haven't got a case where you're just gonna get into one zone and I'm always gonna play like this. I'm always I'm gonna go food heavy. And I'm always going to do this, this this Yeah, can't do that.

Adrian  30:03  
You've got, you've got the mix of goals in your hand of cards, these bonus cards, you've got the mix of End of round goals, and the mix of what birds come out, right? So, yeah, you can have a little bit of an idea in your head as to right. Okay, I'm gonna probably go down this route. But ultimately, it's kind of down to the game quite a lot which way you go. And I do like that end of Round scoring. When you first, so the first round is worth less victory points, right? Yeah. But quite often, it's easy for a couple of players to get in there, get what they need for that round and done and some other people will score zero points or whatever, because

Tambo  30:36  
I generally don't worry about the first round

Adrian  30:37  
Yeah. And by the last round, everyone's got their engine working really hard.

Becky  30:43  
Well, or, hopefully, you've tried to get your engine working hard. I mean,

Adrian  30:50  
So your engine is working better than it was in the first round, at least hopefully, right? And so at that point, you're then kind of really crunching through how you can get those really high scoring points at the end of that last round. And so it can really, are you going to capture those early quick points? Because no one else is going to go after? I don't know, whatever it is left. Yeah, beaks left, or, you know, number of cup nests when there's been none that we've seen on the board so far. But I've got two of them what Mwahaha, you know, and so some some people will race those early game ones. And then some people are going to hold on to those end ones, aren't they?

Tambo  31:23  
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So each birds have different colour abilities. Yes, yeah. So you over have a brown ability, which means when you put your cube going left, as Adrian said earlier, you activate the brown ability, which could be anything up to getting food, re-rolling the birdfeeder, tuck a card, like say, do the predator action, which means if you draw a card from the top if it's less than let's say, seventy five wingspan, then you get to catch the bird, which is all VP's at the end of the game, lots of different things. Yes, there's lots going on brown, then you got the pink abilities, which is once between round, when someone lays an egg, certain egg on a certain nest symbol, you get to lay an egg on a certain nest symbol, you got to watch him do it. So you've got to,

Becky  32:01  
You've got to pay attention, haven't you to what everyones...

Tambo  32:02  
Really pay attention. So more players you get, the more harder that is just but you can only do it once. That's until it comes back to you. And then you can get to do it again if someone else does it. Yeah, the pink one.

Adrian  32:11  
Yeah, the pink one is interesting for me, because at two players, I pretty much ignore the pink ones. Because the in between rounds is what my opponent's doing. So if they're constant, if it's like, Oh, if the pink one is they do a predator action, and you get this and all they've got is a board full of predators. Absolutely. I'm taking it. But 99% of the time, I'm probably leaving those pink ones alone. Whereas at four player, what they're doing right, you just kind of 'oh I'll take it' and then

Becky  32:35  
Especially at the start of the game, if it's you know, something like every time you lay an egg in a, you know, Twiggy nest or whatever, you get a free egg. And that's great, because then you can use that as your spending egg position. You've always got eggs to spend to get rid of your birds. not rid of you birds. You've always got eggs to spend to get more birds out. So it's yes, it's like free, it's like free goodies, isn't it? It is 

Adrian  32:58  
Yeah, Absolutely.

Tambo  33:00  
And the other ones are just plain white. So it's an instant ability so you play a bird, and it sometimes lets you play another bird in the same habitat straight away. 

Adrian  33:06  
Yeah. I like that one. 

Tambo  33:08  
Yeah. So you have two birds in one turn, if you plan it, right, so you gotta make sure got the food and you got the eggs? Yeah, so you've got to really think about it. But if you do it, it's really well paid.

Adrian  33:16  
It's effective, isn't it? Two birds out quite often the first one might be only worth one or two victory points, but it's getting you further along that track, isn't it to get more in? But yeah, I do quite like that. 

Two birds one stone. Somebody's gotta say it, sombody's gotta say it. But yeah, it's, it's really annoying when you think you've planned and this is this is my entire board game life, this is. I think I've planned this. Yeah, I could do this. And I can do that. And oh, wait a minute, Oh, I haven't got enough of whatever it is that I need to spend to do the thing and you feel so gutted, because you've literally wasted your turn. And you've you've wasted the opportunity to get an extra birdt out and you feel very upset.

Yeah, talking about those brown abilities, one of my favourites and I don't know why it's just because you're mucking around with the board. And I don't know if it comes in the expansion or whatever, it will say if this bird is in the far right of this, of this, like environment habitat, move it to another habitat

Tambo  34:08  
That was in the original base, was that an original base game, I find them very hard to get.

Adrian  34:11  
I love them

Becky  34:12  
I love them too. But I

Adrian  34:14  
But I very rarely win with them, because they're great fun, because you're like, Oh, I get to... right ok, I've got, I'm getting three cards, I get to move all this along here. And then I get to move that bird into the food one which is what I'm going to take next. And now I get an extra food from

Becky  34:26  
It does mean you have to plan your turns, which I'm not good at doing. So

Adrian  34:30  
Now I'm going to do that. And now I'm going to move it to the egg one.

Becky  34:34  
It can it can be brilliant. It can be brilliant but

Tambo  34:37  
And then you put one to the right of it and then it does nothing. Yeah.

Adrian  34:39  
Yeah, but it does have, you know, I've done that before. After a couple of times I've been, I'm just gonna put one to the right of this because I don't need, I don't need it now. But yeah, I very rarely win with those games. But man, I love that. I love those birds that move around the different rows. So we've talked obviously there about various mechanics and we have at  points talked about the production quality and some of the mechanics. What else is it that we like really brings this game forward for us?

Becky  35:05  
I think it's one of the first ones I ever played, of non monopoly type, lets not lets not, you know, kind of slate monopoly... non classic board games. I think I was pulled in by the beauty of it. And the fact that it's, it hasn't got any of the, it's no combat. There's no combative aggression in there, apart from the predator bird, but they're not attacking someone else's birds, it's just a bird. Yeah, there's no rolling dice. Not that I mind that, but well, not numbers. Food, yeah. It's not like 'I've scored a five, and you've scored a 2', there's no combat dice. And I really like that kind of, not that I don't mind a bit of aggression. That's fine. But I like the fact that this is, you play your own game. Okay, you can focus, you have to sort of keep an ear out of what other people are doing. Like you were saying with those pink abilities. Oh, oh, wait a minute, you've just laid that egg I get to... So you do have to keep half an eye, just scouting around, but you're playing your own game. And you can get really into it. And really in your own little zone, you don't have to be thinking, 'Oh, that resource is gonna get used up. Oh, I better take that before they do'. Other than that bird. I quite fancy in my little habitat. I don't want them to have it. Yeah, but there's no kind of finite resources of anything. And I really liked that kind of non aggressive nature of it.

Adrian  36:29  
I think we talked about the pink powers there as well. And I think that's nice, because I do quite often like that, that sort of solo parallel play, almost or I'm doing my own little thing, and you're doing your own little thing. We're having a good time together, doing our own little boards. But the pink does kind of just bring your head up off of your little board and make sure you are paying attention to what other people are doing in certainly in those bigger player games.

Becky  36:50  
I find that really hard if you're playing on the app version, right? Not the App version. I've got it on Steam. So you're playing Steam. And it's one of those games that if I've only ever seen it on Steam, I just wouldn't probably have ever bought the game because the, it's very beautiful. It's very lovely. But I find it difficult to get my head... and you can't look at the whole table. You need to keep clicking between your view the other person's view, 'oh are they going for that?' I find that very, very annoying. It is right?And it's very beautiful. The birds make little noises when you click them. It's all very lovely. But it isn't as, as obvious. I think so. Yeah, although you're playing your own game, you, it is nice to have a little overview. Whereas on the actual Steam version that isn't as, it isn't as obvious.

Tambo  37:37  
I think I'm with you on that Beck. I think I really liked it because it looked beautiful. 

Becky  37:40  
Yeah.

Tambo  37:41  
And I just think that, I think, and this is really sad, but I looked at it, and think my Mum's gonna really like this game. 

Becky  37:44  
This is it, it's great to pull people in

Tambo  37:45  
I really enjoyed playing obviously really enjoy playing it and then that's why I think I bought it and then it's just been a huge family favourite. Even my neice and nephew, the younger... they got hang of it, and they just love it. Yeah,

Adrian  37:56  
I think it's Yeah, I think you kind of hit a bit of the nail on the head. It's not necessarily a gateway game. You can't always put it in front of non gamers and just get them to expect it, straight.. Like to get it straight away. But it is almost like a fluffy light game, I can't think of how else to explain it. But it's kind of low complexity. But it's got mechanics, mechanisms in it as board gamers you're used to, right, but it is kind of just light on areas. Again, it kind of floats along almost as is the best way I can describe it in that respect.

Tambo  38:25  
Definitely. Definitely.

Adrian  38:27  
It's the point-saladness of it. So everything's worth a few points, right? every time I'm going to put an egg down I know that's one victory point or worth more victory points towards a bird, but put that bird down it's only about  three victory points, but that's fine, it's three and it might be worth another two on my card and it might be worth another couple on the round. Every little thing you do is just worth another couple of points. So even if you do, say even if your engine has collapsed into, into disrepair, you still get to put that bird down.

Becky  38:54  
I've got two 7-Feather birds Yeah, great, you know,

Adrian  38:58  
It's cute, but the bird looks nice and I've got myself some points and then you kind of continue down that road until the game is finished. And I think for myself, like I think I quite like some of these heavier Euro games we're getting into some of the mechanics, mechanisms of games a little bit more, and this kind of provides just that alternate sort of game of, I do like lighter games as well but it just sits nicely in that there's a little bit of something going on and I've watched people really crunch Wingspan hard, to try and work out how to to juice every single point for 

Becky  39:28  
Yeah, 

Adrian  39:29  
And to me like fair enough if that's what they're playing I totally get it I saw on the Wingspan group there was someone who was like just played 400 games of this and I was like Wow, great that you've played that many games but I just couldn't crunch this game that hard it's just light and airy and all that kind of stuff

Becky  39:44  
Pleasant pleasing game.

Tambo  39:46  
I always find from it as there's so many ways you can get victory points. You just get lucky. Yeah, you can just get playing all come together luckily. Yeah, I was I found that a few times. Which makes it good game.

Adrian  39:55  
I have yeah, on that: I don't know that they come in the base game, I think They come at the maybe they do. I thought they came in the Oceania expansion, which we'll talk about in a minute. But there's some birds that give you a bonus scoring card.

Becky  40:10  
Oh, yeah, you can pick another....

Tambo  40:12  
That's in the first one, its a white ability again, you put it down, you draw two bonus cards, and pick one.

Adrian  40:17  
I've played that last and then suddenly gone, 'Eight/ Nine extra victory points for me. Thanks very much'. It's just, it just sort of floats along. So yeah, we've talked about the expansions a couple of times. So let's just dive straight into these expansions. So we've most... Yeah, so I keep going 'Or maybe it's an expansion', and they've so far been all in the base game. But there's two expansions out there currently. The first one was the European expansion came in a little box, in it it comes with little purple eggs. So you've already got your nice range of coloured little plastic eggs. This now adds purple eggs to it. It included End of round bonuses. So when we talked about that, I think they're yellow. If I remember correctly, when you get to the end of a round, it will do something like again, it can get you food or eggs or something like that, but it does it at the end of each single round that you go through. And it's so not between turns but the end of every round when you go to do scoring. It gives you a powerful bonus as well list.

Becky  41:14  
Lay an egg in every 'Twig' nest

Tambo  41:14  
I think yellows the End of game ones Okay, I think it's a purple.

Adrian  41:17  
Maybe its blue

Tambo  41:20  
To be honest, I'll hold my hands up. I don't actually have... I've got the expansion you've been... but I don't put it in the deck. 

Adrian  41:24  
Do you not? 

Tambo  41:25  
I don't think it makes...

Adrian  41:26  
I just shuffle it all in in one pile?

Becky  41:28  
I do, Yeah, we've kept the boxes because you know, you can't get rid of those. But we just... Yeah, everything's mushed in together. All of it.

Adrian  41:36  
Yeah. Yeah. And I think you know, the other thing that we've say, Yeah, I've mushed all of mine together, right? Even Even then, like we'll talk about the next one in a minute. Even the old boards have gone because you get new boards. So yeah, mine is all mashed together. But as always as you're gonna expect with this game you get... with the European birds, you just get a massive stack of birds that certainly in the UK were definitely more you see.

Becky  41:57  
Yeah. And that's that's the thing that I didn't really realise I was missing until we had the expansion because most of it is kind of America centric, which is which is fine. Because birds, birds, right. But you think 'Oh, I want to see a you know, a barn owl. Yeah. Or, you know, a blackbird or? Yeah,

Tambo  42:17  
I think the black birds are the most powerful birds. I think I've saw something that is the thingies on a Blackbird, you get wild... you get food and choose any kind of food. I remember being the most overpowered

Becky  42:27  
That's good just for a little old basic Blackbird, I like that. Props to the Blackbird. But yeah, that's.. that's nice. Isn't it? That those more 'familiar to us', perhaps

Adrian  42:36  
Just even like swans and stuff like that, you know, like, 'Oh, cool. Yeah, I didn't know that I was missing that'.

Becky  42:42  
I didn't realise until we got them. I hadn't even clicked, because there's so many birds. You just, I guess you just think, oh, maybe we haven't got to that bit yet,

Adrian  42:51  
Yeah, yeah, it's just yeah. So I, as soon as I put them in the deck, it felt a little bit more homely. Obviously, this depends on where you're listening from. 

Tambo  42:59  
I've never thought of it like that, to be honest.

Adrian  43:00  
Yeah. If you're an American listener, or an Australian listener, we're about to talk about your expansion in a second. But, you know, if you're American listener, or whatever, you're probably like, well, what's the deal with all these European birds, all I'm getting is some purple eggs and a couple of cards do in between rounds. But for us, like us, Europeans, it added just that little bit of homeliness, little bit of like, home touch to it, almost, I felt definitely. Fine. And then on to the second expansion is Oceania. I think this is probably the bigger expansion of to two.

Becky  43:33  
Yeah, I think so 

Adrian  43:34  
Someone talk to me about nectar

Tambo  43:37  
What game changer that was definitely, 

Becky  43:39  
100%. Like a wild card kind of food, isn't it?

Tambo  43:42  
It can be useful wild can' it,

Becky  43:43  
But it goes away at the end of the round. So if you don't spend it, you don't get to save it.

Tambo  43:50  
If it's in your stock, you do get.. you lose it.

Adrian  43:52  
Yeah, it's nectar right? It's sugar. It goes bad, it goes off. Essentially the idea.

Tambo  43:56  
Thing I like about nectar as well, as it's so powerful, if it's in the dice tray, you just take it unless it's near the end, and then stop everyone else getting it. Yeah, that's that's the big thing about nectar it's so powerful.

Adrian  44:05  
I also found it affected that birdfeeder quite a bit now, because I was playing the game quite a lot to try and... so if I had a card that said, 'everyone in your choice of order, or whatever it was, gets to pick from the birdfeeder'. I'd be going right? You're going to pick a nectar, then you're going to pick a nectar, then I'm going to not... okay, so maybe you're.. maybe you're picking a non-nectar, you're picking a non-nectar. So then I get to roll the dice again. 

Becky  44:28  
Yeah. 

Adrian  44:28  
And then there should be some more nectar and it just gave a little bit of sharpness to some of those cards.

Becky  44:32  
That's the best thing it did in my opinion, was it didn't mix up that kind of food bottleneck that you can get in the first game. You think, 'Oh, I really need a caterpillar food. I really need a bit of wheat' or whatever. And people just keep taking them out of that darned feeder, and or, you know, ot the dice just don't give you the little rat that you want or whatever. Very annoying, whereas at least with nectar, you've got that kind of...

Tambo  44:57  
Flexibility.

Becky  44:58  
Flexibility. Yeah, Yeah, definitely,

Adrian  45:00  
It doesn't build in your engine. I agree with that. But I think it also adds more to the game. So where you spend that nectar, you keep that nectar.

Becky  45:08  
Yes, this is an interesting one. 

Adrian  45:10  
And then you score more if you've got more nectar. And so if you put more nectar into playing birds into the forest area

Becky  45:17  
Than I have, for example, or someone else

Adrian  45:19  
I score more vic...like I score seven victory points I think it is, and you score four or something along those lines. So it makes the engine building like a bit smoother. 

Becky  45:27  
Yeah,

Adrian  45:27  
But it can ramp up that end game scoring. Really nice. I think they've done a really good job, a nice mix of that.

Becky  45:33  
And it's really pretty. 

Adrian  45:34  
It is really pretty, again,

Tambo  45:36  
Again, visually lovely. Yeah,

Becky  45:38  
Yeah.

Tambo  45:38  
Well, all your lovely old boards are not there anymore. Now you've got brand new dice. With the nectar symbols on them.

Adrian  45:44  
Yeah. And they give you slightly different abilities don't they? I think they used to be... well some of them used to be you give up cards or something. And now it's you can give up nectar for an extra things for an extra set of eggs or whatever it is. You get yellow eggs as well. 

Becky  45:58  
Yeah.

Adrian  45:59  
And of course, more birds because that's what this game is about. And of course, because it's the Oceania expansion, it's all Australian, Australasian, that kind of region of bird. And you've, I think this is the first time we saw flightless birds, there wasn't many. And then suddenly, we've got the Kiwi bird and very cute and all that kind of stuff. But they'd like to have a Wingspan of like zero centimetres or something. That's they get eaten by everything.

Becky  46:26  
Yeah. I just seem to be really unlucky with that what I'm looking for larger bird. No, you get tiny sparrows and tiny little hummingbirds. When you're, you know, wanting the other way round. It's like, yeah, no, that's rubbish. It's very, very annoying. But that's just the luck of the draw of the pile, isn't it? Yeah, those.

Adrian  46:44  
 Yeah,again, you can build into drawing lots of cards, which is quite often the way I go, and you kind of mitigate a bit of that at that point. But yeah, if you're building a nice solid engine of eggs and food, that card drawer can dry up quite a bit and can leave you with choices that are tougher to make, if anything. Yeah. And and we're aware of a third expansion announced by Stonemaier games, I haven't personally seen a lot on it. I've just seen that they've announced one, and I believe it's coming out in 2023.

Becky  47:11  
That's ages away!

Adrian  47:14  
But I think its Q1 or Q2, So at least it's in the first half of 2023.

Becky  47:21  
But I've already made my insert for my boxes now, if they just invent some other thing I'm gonna have to do all over again. 

Adrian  47:26  
Yeah, me too.

Becky  47:27  
But oh, what a shame! What a terrible shame it would be to have to do all over again.

Adrian  47:42  
And now we find ourselves in turn 4 where it's our listeners questions. So today, we've got a question from Nicole, who posted on Facebook. How do you decide what to buy when the choice is overwhelming? And that's a pretty strong question. I think we've all dealt with that at some point. Yeah,

Becky  47:55  
There's such a lot out there isn't there nowadays.

Adrian  47:57  
So you like you got faced with a load of tasty treats at UK games Expo all the shineys, all the bring-and-buy, how did you decide what what games you were coming home with?

Becky  48:06  
Well, in the queue, I was chatting to the person next to me who was telling me all about a couple of games that involve bears. Clearly, I look like the kind of person that I mean, he had me right spot on. Fair enough. I already had a little shortlist. So I think it's really good idea to look at games that you like... just like the look of, for example, do a bit of research. Think: 'Oh, do you know what? Yeah, I'd like to hold the box and have a little go'. So have a shortlist. And then when I was in there, basically I was looking on the website BoardGameGeek I'm sure quite a lot of you'll be familiar with that. It has a really good kind of little synopsis of the game. It tells you the weight of the game and the complexity of the game. And just in small information, little snaps, like what's the player count? How long can you expect the game to last? That sort of thing. So I basically just kind of looked at that, really, and I just bought as many as I could...as I could carry. And that was kind of how I made my decision. I think buying secondhand is something I would be interested in provided it wasn't really expensive. Games seem to hold their value, which is fine, because value is what people will pay for it right? I just find it really difficult to convince myself it's worth it. Unless the game is sort of half price that I will pay for new. That's kind of my ballpark. If it's if it's much more than that. If it's in shrink, fine. If it's from somebody that I know, and it's... I know it's in absolute mint condition, maybe a bit more than half price fine. But that's kind of my ballpark.

My thing... This is a little bit off topic, but my thing with secondhand games, right is...' would I pay £5 more for the assurance that if it's dented, if it's dinged, if it's missing stuff, I can send it back to the seller. And if I go oh £5 is fine for that. Then I'll just buy it firsthand as you say if it gets down to like a third off or something like that, and I think 'Oh am I gonna pay £15 more for the assurance' that there might be a slight thing or cards might look a bit scraped around the edges or whatever it is, then yeah, sometimes I can get on that thing. I think for myself, like, I'm sure many people are certainly getting there now. But you know, my, my money is quite valuable to me in that respect. And I've got, I've got work out what I'm spending my money on, right. I can't just sort of wander haphazardly down aisles and just like, like it's Supermarket Sweep at the board game shop.

That's how I felt 

at the bring and buy

Tambo  49:43  
You've got to budget yourself

Adrian  49:44  
Yeah, I think I think a lot of people are in that boat, I'm sure there's some people who are not in that boat, who are like loving life and all of these. But for me, I kind of treated the same way that my tattoo artists told me about tattoos, which is put a photo of it somewhere. And if you still love the look of it in a month's time, in two months time in three months time, get to six months, if you love it by then go and get the tattoo, right. And that's kind of how I treat games. I'll put it on a list, as you kind of said, and I will normally let it sort of linger on that list for a while. Yeah. And if after six months, nine months is still on... my list is long enough, right? That it can go a year without too much worry. If after six, nine months, it's still on that list, then I'll pick it up. And so I think I'm also less swayed by 'Cult of the new'. Like, if I must run out and buy whatever the latest hotness is, you know, everyone was Ark Nova-ing I was like, 'Oh, I can leave it, I'll put it on my list'. And if in nine months time I decide it's still on the list, I'll come back to it.

Becky  51:23  
And you know that JP or we'll have bought it, so there's that

Adrian  51:26  
Even before though, even before I had you guys as part of this gaming group, that's what I did, I kind of put it on the list. I thought, you know, the moment Smartphone Inc. has sat at the top of my list for nearly nine months. And it's still there. And so I know that Smartphone Inc. is probably going to be the next game that I buy apart from the ones that I've just bought. But that's probably going to be one of my purchases coming up soon. Whereas I've had games that have quite quickly fallen off the list like Castles of Burgundy was on that list for a little while then it fell off, Istanbul was on that list for a little while it fell off. And I sort of found myself going well if it falls off this list... if I'm not so interested in three months time then it was just a bit of hype and a little bit of buzz.

Becky  52:07  
Yeah, I think doing your research and not getting swayed by like you said the 'Cult of the new' or the fact that everyone's got this game and everyone's talking about it, that... that's great. But if everyone's still talking about it in like you said, choose your amount of time. Yeah, then maybe it has got the legs and it is a great game. And also what games are you gonna get the table? It's no good buying the most amazing six player game that's ever been made ever, if your board gaming group or the people you play regularly with is 4, or 3

Tambo  52:35  
It's finding that game that you think I want to get it to yhe table because all my family enjoy it. Yeah, yes. The good thing about being in a gaming group, you played all different games. And then that's how I found Wingspan. I played in the gaming group, thought 'Ooh yeah, all my famnily are gonna love this game'. And that's when I bought it. So we've got all these... and I love every game I play in the gaming group generally. So it's always hard... it does become overwhelming. But you just got to get to the narrative of 'Well actually, I think this will get to table 'cos all my family enjoy that specific game'.

Becky  52:59  
Yeah definitely. Definitely.

Adrian  53:01  
So do any of us ever get caught up in hype when we're looking at games to buy? And if so, what is it when it's on the shelf that makes you go 'I've got to have that right now'. Is there anything?

Becky  53:10  
The artwork. Well, not necessarily on the front of the box, but what the actual game will look like to play. The artwork on the box could be the most amazing thing. But if I know that the iconography and the cards or the playing pieces are rubbish in my opinion, that will make me not want to get the game really even if it's the best game ever. Or I'll get the game and then I'll try and fabricate my own parts for it or something like that. So that, that will sway me like almost from zero to 100 or from 100 to zero if the pieces aren't any good or the actual... the look of the game playing it is not great or if the opposite.

Tambo  53:48  
I think for me it's like some of you probably, go 'Marvel'. If they bring something... 

Becky  53:52  
Yeah, the IP

Tambo  53:53  
The idea of Marvel. Oh yeah, and what did you guys talk about in the Expo? It was the... it was the 'Ghost Protocol'   

Adrian  53:58  
Crisis Protacol

Tambo  53:59  
Crisis Protocol, that was the one, and I think 'Oh, go online and have a look at that now', 'cos that sounds really cool. Then I think 'Oh, £90 will it get to the table?' and I think 'I've got Marvel champions so I play that, I'm not gonna stop playing that' and then after playing it I'm just not gonna be able to do it. So you got to fight it, but anything Marvel, and it's got... there's a  Zombiecide coming out... version of it, Marvel. 

Adrian  53:59  
They have, yeah

Tambo  54:09  
And it's just too much to back kickstarter, then price... just a bit too high to get, but again, I looked at it. Do I do it? Do I do it? Because it's Marvel, and I love it.

Adrian  54:24  
Yeah, I'm sure yes. I know. Marvel is not for everyone, but it's definitely for me, it's definitely for you. I think in that respect, and like we've talked about Arkham before. Arkham isn't my IP right. I'm not a big fan of anything that has Mr. Wibbles, as I call him, Cthulhu, in the game, but, if the mechanics are right, I will still play that game but it doesn't grab me off the shelf.

Becky  54:45  
I think it's a similar thing to the attitude you might have for articles of clothing or shoes or CDs or DVDs or whatever. It's like a maybe a one in one out system. If this new game that is super amazing, you have to have have, maybe you have to then decide, 'Right, that means I have to get rid of something else', which really does put you to the test of do I actually want this thing? Or am I just being, you know, swayed by the advertising. But if like Nicole's saying the choices are well, when she's got maybe 10, things that all look brilliant, maybe try and play them, try and get involved in board gaming group, watch a few videos online, see if it looks like your thing.

Adrian  55:22  
Yeah. I think that YouTube video thing is actually probably we haven't touched on that at all, really. And I think that is really strong. Because if you find a YouTuber who has similar tastes as you, so we've just had Paul Grogan on the podcast, and he, you know, he talked about his love for Euro games. So if it's a Euro game I'm looking at quite often a look at Paul Grogan. If it's, for instance, a bit more of a party game quite often they'll go and look at 'Shut up and sit down' or something like that. Yeah. And so finding out which ones suit your tastes in what areas and then going out and watching those videos. So looking at It's a Wonderful World, there was a YouTube video where I sat and I criticised one of the players on their choices throughout the entire game while I was watching it. And as soon as I realised I was hooked in going, 'You could have picked that card. That was clearly the better... like card to pick in this situation'. I knew I had to buy that game. Yeah. And so yeah, watching those YouTube videos can certainly help you narrow it down quite quickly.

Becky  56:19  
Yeah, and the opposite way around, you know, you can go 'Actually, this looks like it's a really card heavy game, and I'm not into debt builders'. 'This looks like it's heavily into work placement, and I'm not into worker....' You know, it's a very quick way of going 'I ...yeah do you know what, no, that doesn't float my boat, I'm not going to waste my, because let's be honest, it's not just £20 quid is it? It's 60/70 plus pounds, sometimes for these amazing games. So, you know, it's not like they're tuppence ha'penny and you can buy by a million.

Adrian  56:19  
Also, I think that that's a good point on price as well. It's actually if it is a £15 pound game, just you can quite often just go go and then. Whereas if it's like a 80/90/100 pound game, you know, yeah, I would have never bought a Eclipse: Second Dawn, without a playthrough. First, I still haven't bought it but it's really high on my list now of games to possibly go and get because £100 pound £110 pound whatever it is, 

Becky  57:13  
It's gotta be worth it

Adrian  57:13  
 It's gotta be worth it. Whereas at £15 quid you can buy it, go ' Oh that really wasn't for me' or whatever, pass it on or sell it for a fiver or whatever it is. And you don't feel like you've lost out too much in that respect. Brill, any other hints or tips for Nicole?

Tambo  57:28  
No. I think we're in a situation where you actually probably buy a board game that you don't use enough at all. It happens.

Becky  57:35  
Yeah. But that is a good thing. We've you know, like I was saying right at the start, they do really seem to hold their value. So if you're really careful with your games, and you sleeve the cards or whatever, you can probably sell them for quite quite near what you bought... bought them for. So you know, there is always that to fall back on.

Adrian  57:51  
Yeah very true. Very true.

Now we move on to turn five our penultimate turn where we talk about what we're excited about and what's coming up for us. So Tambo, what have you got coming up for yourself?

Tambo  58:07  
Well, so coming up stuff: we've got a Terraform Mars coming up, which is definitely my top five again, sci fi brilliant, one of my all time favourite games. We've got a couple of games coming of that over the next couple of weeks, I think nice. So yeah, I requested it and it instantly got in the gaming group. So really looking forward to that. It's been a while.

Becky  58:23  
So just a great game. It's just a great game. I'm not playing either of them. So I'm very sad. I hope you have fun.

Tambo  58:27  
Yeah. And then we might play HeroQuest, which we blast from the past, hopefully on Saturday. If we can get that to the table, I'll love that. 

Adrian  58:34  
A bit of 'roll and move'

Tambo  58:34  
A bit of 'roll and move'. I'll find out how frustrating it really was, if I can remember and Nemesis:Lockdown as well. That's tomorrow.

Adrian  58:42  
You got that tomorrow.

Tambo  58:43  
Looking so forward to it.

Adrian  58:44  
Yeah, I'm gutted to be missing out on that one.

Becky  58:47  
I didn't sign up quick enough, so I'm not gonna be at that one either. But it'll be brilliant.

Adrian  58:51  
It looks really good. There's that mechanic obviously of when you put the light on a certain area, the creatures become weaker because they're weakened by light and like they're stronger in the dark. And I think that's going to add a real nice twist

Becky  59:05  
Freaky kind of vibe

Adrian  59:05  
To that nemesis, Nemesis feel.

Tambo  59:08  
Yeah, think that's it really I think. Fair enough. Yeah.

Becky  59:12  
So I'm really looking forward to getting Unfathomable to the table again, really loved that first time, get a nice sound bed going which is important to the ambience I think. Kerley does not agree. But you know, I'm the one thats getting....

Tambo  59:24  
I'm in that, I'm looking really forward to it.

Becky  59:26  
It's brilliant, you're gonna love it. And you just have to accuse everyone of being the Hybrid/Cylon

Tambo  59:30  
I'll be the first to be accused

Becky  59:32  
Of course you will. And I also really want to get Lords of Waterdeep to the table again. I've only played that once

Adrian  59:38  
Yeah, and you've got your shiney upgrades

Tambo  59:40  
With the expansions? The whole kit-and-caboodle

Well only played it once. And that was at about nine o'clock at night on the second day of the UK board gaming expo. So I was really tired, but I still really loved it. And if I still really loved it and wanted to play it, even though I was couldn't really keep my eyes open. That for me is the mark of a really good game. So, I'm excited to play that, again,

Adrian  1:00:03  
I've got a few games coming up. But to be honest with you, they're all kind of, there's ones I've not researched a lot, so I'm not gonna talk too much about them, I'm gonna see how they play and go from there, I just thought I'd talk about things I've purchased or are about to purchase. So, Marvel United: X Men turned up recently, I just got the base game imported from America. It's for those that have played Marvel United, it doesn't add a lot, it adds the ability for someone to play the villain. For those who haven't played Marvel United, it's a very simple Co Op, where you place a card, it has some symbols on it, say you move, you do like a thwart action for Marvel champions, if you want to think about it that way, or you do a hit action. And those are pretty much the three actions. So you play your card, and then it'll have one or two symbols on it, the next person plays their card, and they get to do their actions and the one before it. So if you've got no move in your hand, you play the move, like I'll play a move action. And when it gets to your turn, you've got some move symbols from my thing. And you basically go around in circles, like trying to thwart the bad guys plans and beat up their villains until you've done enough of that you can beat up the bad guy. It's very simple, loads of fun. And the X Men essentially allows a fifth player to control the villain. Before the villain was just like an automata. So really looking forward to trying that at some point, it won't get to the table anytime soon. I don't imagine. You can play like two/three games in a three hour session. Once you've sort of got the teach down. It's really simple. With that point of view. I played Suburbia solo, and posted my efforts on our socials. The other day, I got, unfortunately had to stay inside due to hay fever really sort of, like

Becky  1:01:45  
It's just been awful

Adrian  1:01:47  
Really not enjoying the hay fever. So I decided to stay indoors. And I did, I played a bit of solo Suburbia. Haven't played a lot of it solo before, really enjoyed it and decided to pick up the expansion. So that is winging its way now. So looking forward to giving that another go on solo. And then finally, one of the most exciting things that I've seen announcement wise recently is there's a Village big box. So Village is a work placement, because I like work placements as well. 

Tambo  1:02:10  
I do as well.

Adrian  1:02:12  
I've already got the base box, but the, the expansions are, like so rare, now they're so out of print, you can pay £50/60 quid for each expansion, 

Becky  1:02:22  
Wow

Adrian  1:02:22  
It's... and apparently they add so much to the game. So again, it's a worker placement but where you place a worker, you pick a cube up and those cubes do different things. And they can... including basically ageing your, your like family. So your first generation get put down..

Becky  1:02:39  
Put down?! 

Adrian  1:02:41  
Placed on the board placed, on the board. And then as time goes on, you place down your second generation and maybe your third, as time goes on, you have to kill off essentially. Choose which of your first generation are going to die. And so there's this really nice sort of put a person down, pick up a cube, it gives you the ability to move up certain tracks or whatever, but where you're putting them down... Also you you might not be able to stay there and gain bonuses from it because over time, your family's gonna get older, in the person's dying because they got old and it sounds a bit grim. But it is quite... it sounds a bit grim. But it is cool. And it is a nice, nice set of mechanisms. And the fact that they've got a big box with really nice, I think is nice artwork. It seems to have mixed opinions at this point. Fair enough. But the fact that it's going to come with both expansions, I think is really exciting. And it's due very, very early in 2023 is my understanding and I'm really looking forward for that coming out because I've been waiting to try and get another cheap expansion. It's just not happened. So there's a big box really looking forward to. And that is us. So turn six, our final turn and my reign of first player tyranny is now ended. I will be handing over to our new Overlord Davey who's taking the next four episodes. If you've enjoyed listening to the show, please subscribe and review on your podcast player of choice. If you want to get in contact with the show on our socials you can email us on players@whoseturn.co.uk Check out our Facebook page Whose Turn Is It Anyway Podcast you can go to our Instagram page @whoseturnpodcast and you can join us on Tik Tok @whoseturnisitanyway we'll be back again in two weeks with another episode so until then, 'Whose turn is it anyway?'

Transcribed by https://otter.ai