Game Details
Name	Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game (2014)
Complexity	Medium [3.01]
BGG Rank	240 [7.45]
Player Count (Recommended)	2-5 (3-5)
Designer(s)	Jonathan Gilmour-Long and Isaac Vega
Artist(s)	David Richards, Fernanda Suárez and Peter Wocken
Publisher(s)	Plaid Hat Games, Arclight Games, Cube Factory of Ideas, Edge Entertainment, Fantasy Flight Games, Filosofia Éditions, Galápagos Jogos, Game Harbor, Gém Klub Kft., Gemenot, Heidelberger Spieleverlag, Korea Boardgames, Meanbook Games, MINDOK, Raven Distribution, Rozum and Siam Board Games
Mechanism(s)	Action Points, Area Movement, Dice Rolling, Hand Management, Narrative Choice / Paragraph, Push Your Luck, Scenario / Mission / Campaign Game, Semi-Cooperative Game, Storytelling, Trading, Traitor Game, Turn Order: Progressive, Variable Player Powers and Voting

Participants

• Andrew – winner
• Mark
• Sean
• Robert
• Brian

Rules missed

• not a misplayed rule, but we did forget that a number of zombies are added to each location equal to the number of survivors at the location at the end of the round – this led to 2 or 3 of Mark’s survivors being “overun” (that’s dead) at the end of one round

BGG clarifications

• none

Photos

About the game

This “mostly-cooperative” game features players as members of a colony of survivors trying to live through winter during a zombie apocalypse. The players will have a shared colony objective detailed on a scenario card, plus each player will have their own secret objective, too. In our game the colony objective was to collect a variable number of dead (re-dead? extra dead?) zombies.

The game is “mostly-cooperative,” because one of the players may have been dealt a betrayal card, which means they will be secretly working against the best interests of the colony. This element means that you can never be to sure of the motivations of the other players, which can lead to suspicion, and sometimes a player being voted out of the colony, which has benefits or penalties based on whether the player exiled was the betrayer or not.

During a turn, each player rolls dice and uses equal to the number of survivors they control +1, and uses those dice to perform actions around the game board. Survivors can travel to locations around the colony, search those locations, battle zombies, use items, clean up the colony, contribute cards to each round’s “crisis,” and more. Many actions can expose players to wounds, frostbite, or dreaded zombie bites. Crossroads cards are an interesting feature of the game. At the beginning of your turn, another player will read a Crossroads card for certain gameplay “triggers.” If, during your turn, you perform actions that trigger the card, it is read out loud, and you, or the other members of the colony will have two or more story choices to make that will affect the game in a variety of ways.

Each scenario has it’s own victory conditions and predetermined number of rounds. The game ends when the victory conditions have been met, the final round is completed, or when colony morale reaches zero (in our game’s case, our morale reached zero, which led to Andrew revealing himself as the betrayer and claiming victory based on his win conditions).

Final Thoughts

This game does a great job of simulating survival in a freezing zombie apocalypse. There is always another crisis to manage, and more and more zombies to deal with. It’s very thematic, and the Crossroads cards provide a bit of story to enhance gameplay. The possibility of a betrayal player creates a great deal of suspicion and tension around the table. It might be best to play this game with people you know well.

Game Details
Name	The Expanse Board Game (2017)
Complexity	Medium [2.81]
BGG Rank	2010 [7.17]
Player Count (Recommended)	2-4 (3-4)
Designer(s)	Geoff Engelstein
Artist(s)	Uncredited
Publisher(s)	Pendragon Game Studio and WizKids (I)
Mechanism(s)	Action / Event, Action Points, Area Majority / Influence, Campaign / Battle Card Driven, Catch the Leader, Take That, Variable Player Powers and Victory Points as a Resource

Participants

• Mark
• Sean
• Katey – Winner
• Frank

Rules we Missed

• None found so far

BGG Clarifications

• Being able to move up to one band means you can also move within a band.

Photo

About the Game

This area control game plays well with 4 players. Rules are simple. On you turn, you have the option to purchase a card. Each card has a number of actions points and an event. Events can only be used by the factions shown on the card. Once you have chosen your card, you can either use the action points or the event. The action points allow you to move/build your fleets and establish influence in different areas. If you use the action points each faction shown the card has the option to use the event based on the order of the initiative track.

Once a scoring round is initiated, your influence and fleets are used to see who has control of each sector. Points are awarded based on this. The person in last place gains control of the Rocinante. this catch up mechanism gives the player extra options to use during the scoring round.

Final Thoughts

The theme of the game is nice for those that are familiar with the books or television show. However prior knowledge in no way affects gameplay.

The catch up mechanism works well. In our case the person in last, up until the 5th scoring round, won the game.

This game was a long one since we were learning straight from the instructions. Future games should be much quicker, since all the rules were very straight forward.

Game Details
Name	Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein (2019)
Complexity	Medium [3.25]
BGG Rank	924 [7.44]
Player Count	2-4
Designer(s)	Dan Blanchett
Artist(s)	Mikhail Palamarchuk and Tony Sart
Publisher(s)	Plaid Hat Games, ADC Blackfire Entertainment, Corax Games and Rebel Sp. z o.o.
Mechanism(s)	Dice Rolling, Events, Narrative Choice / Paragraph, Set Collection, Storytelling, Variable Player Powers, Worker Placement and Worker Placement, Different Worker Types

Participants

• Katey
• Sean – winner

Rules missed

• When taking the graveyard or morgue actions in Paris, you may choose any number of cards drawn (0-x). The first few rounds, we only chose one card to collect resources from, and discarded the others.

Photos

About the game

Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein is a worker placement game set in Paris 20 years after the events of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The game is very thematic. A player’s “workers” are scientists and assistants. Most of the game is spent collecting “resources” players use to work towards assembling a creature and attempting to bring it to life. The resources needed for this macabre task are muscle, organs, bone, and blood (as a gruesome “wild” resource, players can substitute animal parts which results in fewer points). Players will also need to purchase and charge leyden jars that are used to roll dice that can bring body parts to life or damage your creature. One interesting aspect of the game are the 3 dials at the bottom of each player board, representing your character’s Humanity, Reputation, and Expertise; all 3 earn points at games end. Reputation will eventually attract new scientists and assistants to your cause (more actions), and Expertise is needed to assemble more difficult body parts, but the Humanity dial is much more interesting. Players need to carefully consider various methods for acquiring parts for their creature lest they themselves become a monster. There are a variety of event and encounter cards used to enhance the narrative during the game and slightly alter game play each round. Abomination is a neat new twist on basic worker placement. If you’ve played other worker placement games, it’s pretty easy to learn to play. It’s 2-4 players, and suggested play time is 90-180 minutes.

Final Thoughts

Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein is a great addition to our library. The game is oozing (see what I did there?) with theme and atmosphere, and managing the dials was a neat puzzle to solve at times. Like many worker placement games, it can take several turns to build momentum, and late rounds can feel full of “filler” actions, but that may have been because we played with only 2 players. Katey and I really enjoyed Abomination, and we’re looking forward to trying it again, with different characters and/or additional players. Until next time!

Game Details
Name	On Mars (2020)
Complexity	Heavy [4.67]
BGG Rank	57 [8.17]
Player Count	1-4
Designer(s)	Vital Lacerda
Artist(s)	Ian O'Toole
Publisher(s)	Eagle-Gryphon Games, Angry Lion Games, Arclight Games, Delta Vision Publishing, Giochix.it, hobbity.eu, Korea Boardgames, Lavka Games, Maldito Games, Mosaico Jogos, Skellig Games, TLAMA games and YOKA Games
Mechanism(s)	Contracts, Delayed Purchase, End Game Bonuses, Hexagon Grid, Income, Movement Points, Moving Multiple Units, Set Collection, Solo / Solitaire Game, Tech Trees / Tech Tracks, Tile Placement, Variable Phase Order and Worker Placement

Participants

• Mark – Winner
• Curtis
• Alain
• Robert

Rules we Missed

• Building complexes using executive actions on blueprint cards: The corresponding tech must exist on someone’s board in order to build or increase the size of a complex. If the existing tech’s level is toolow to build a complex of the desired size, you can boost it by sending colonists to the working area.
• If you develop only 1 tile twice, treat each of the movements separately.
• If you gain a discovery or research tile, resolve it immediately by paying any associated cost, then place it in your play area (put Discovery tiles face down).

BGG Clarifications

• When 2 players have the appropriate tech tile, the player who uses the tile chooses who gets the benefit
• If a tech tile is used twice on the same turn, the owner gets two oxygen

Photo

Final Thoughts

Like all of Vital Lacerda’s games, this game has a learning curve. The rules take a while to learn, but they all make sense and seem logical as play progresses. This is a long game but turns can be quick, since you can take one action and one executive action each turn That said, the best turns are ones that can string multiple actions together by moving tech tiles or completing your personal goal. As someone who also likes The Gallerist, I would recommend this game.