We start off this episode by bringing the news of the nine nominees for the three Spiel des Jahres awards and talk about two of the three of those that we played.

We also talk news!

Don't forget to support Counter Magazine at https://boardgamegeekstore.com

Ryan Decaria regales us with a discussion of his adventures in gaming without the other hosts. He discusses Vanuatu and Tinners Trail.

Brent talks the GIPF series of abstract games, which leads to a discussion of the misuse of the word Legacy. We update/correct our discussion of Charterstone, a new Legacy game coming from Stonemaier Games.

Brent then talks about Pack O Games 2 from Chris Handy at Perplext.

This we we discuss Hidden Role Games, Nathan's favorite genre. We discuss what we like about these games, including Don't Mess with Cthulhu, Battlestar Galactica, Shadows over Camelot, Burke's Gambit, Dead of Winter, and many others.

What is your favorite Hidden Role Game?

We recap the NUGG sponsored International Table Top Day event. We discuss 7 Wonders: Duel, Colt Express, Ice Cool, Terraforming Mars, Arkham Horror: the Card Game, and Clank!: Sunken Treasure.  We all love Clank!, but we examine a few game-play issues that could be improved through expansions. We also discuss game etiquette when teaching a game to new people.

Good times were had by all!

We cover many subjects including:

• Secrets of the Lost Tomb
• Big Trouble in Little China
• Trick of the Rails
• Diamonds
• Moons
• Solarquest
• Trick-Taking, The Trick-Taking Game
• Deckbuilder, the Deck Builder Game
• Pathfinder: The Mummy's Mask
• Magic - Amonkhet Cycle
• Arkham Horror: The Card Game - The Path to Carcosa
• Firefly - Big Money
• Kingdom Builder
• Vast - The Crystal Caverns

It's Barb day on Meeple Nation where we give you the latest board game news. We talk Kickstarters with Aeon's End: War Eternal, Gloomhaven, Five Seals of Magic, Rise to Nobility, Hardback, Brass, and Bios Genesis 2nd edition, among other bits-o-news and games, such as Esports tournaments, a new GIPF game, a Seafall non-update, and plenty more. Oh, and Matt was there too.

Cheers!

This week Nathan, Ryan and Brent sit down and talk about games and related books that we have played recently. The list includes:

This week Nathan and Ryan sit down with Sam Aho from Sam Says Game Reviews to talk about Mechs vs Minions, the surprisingly good board game from Riot Games. They talk about the mechanisms of the game while skirting those details that some might consider spoilers.

Enjoy this special podcast with Sam since Brent will be returning next week and will definitely not allow Sam on the show again.

Are you ready to defend the underground city of Gravehold from the Nameless and their hordes of monstrous minions? How are you going to fight them? By playing Dominion. But instead of buying action cards and real estate, you buy gems and spells, and attack them nasty bug-eyed demon things with magic.

Colony by Bézier Games, Inc. is a tableau building dice game set in a post apocalyptic world where the players attempt to put civilization back together competitively. Nathan and his daughter embraced the game play, mechanics, variety of building cards, and dice rolling. This seems like a theme Ryan could get behind, but does the game meet his increasingly high standards for theme resonance in game play? Listen to find out.