One thing we know for sure: Saucermen are jerks. Except that Brent, for some reason, likes the Saucermen. Something is wrong with Brent. Might be that alien tech sticking out the back of his neck. Rocket Patrol unite. We have to rescue Brent!

Months worth of work goes into running a board game convention. We sit with the Organizers of SaltCON and discuss the past, present and future.

Join us in our newly formed Facebook Group, Meeple Nation Off Air, at https://www.facebook.com/groups/MeepleNationOffAir

This week we interview the members of HUGG, Herriman Utah Gamer Girls, a board game club of women. I use the word interview loosely, as HUGG takes over the Nation, explaining their love of heavy board game, strict competition, and the importance of integrity of the game. The worst insult within their group is that someone "isn't a real gamer." We found out quickly that they are all real gamers. Find out how the group was formed, their favorite games, and a little trash talk about who is the most competitive.

Join Meeple Nation as we host a live podcast as a panel at SaltCON, a board game convention in SLC, Utah. We talk to several guests about how they approach attending conventions, including the big one--the long CON, whether that is GenCon or BGGCon or another convention. We grilled two professionals, Ryan Bruns from Mayday Games and Ben Hillyard from Daedalus Productions about attending conventions as a dealer. We also interview Claudine Finlay and Julie Balazs from HUGG about why they love gaming at CONs. Also, we interview Brent Mair. He's kind of a big deal.

Meeple Nation celebrates episode 100! We talk with Barb and Matt about reaching this milestone, talk SaltCON, our local board game convention, and discuss board game news of the day, including new or newly announced games, Kickstarters, and some related events. Games discussed include Goonies, a possible new fantasy version of Star Realms, Pack O Games 2, and expansions to Mysterium, Dominion, Imperial Assault and Dead of Winter. Join the Nation as we look forward to the next 100 episodes. 

 Pack O Games 2 Kickstarter ends April 2, 2016 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/713947418/pack-o-game-set-2-wee-strategy-games-for-on-the-go

The Manhattan Project Energy Empire ends April 7, 2016 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/miniongames/the-manhattan-project-energy-empire-board-game

Darklight Memento Mori ends March 28, 2016

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/53406598/darklight-memento-mori-miniatures-dungeon-crawler

The Lazy Gamer ends March 31, 2016

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/878938288/the-lazy-gamer

Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game, is a cooperative game for 1-4 players based on the Warhammer property from Games Workshop. This Fantasy Flight game is played mostly with cards, with a few supporting items such as custom dice, and health and exploration tokens.

Each player takes the role of one of the four heroes in the box and uses unique Fight, Explore, Aid, and Rest cards to survive the dungeon and kill the evil nemesis.

Our games took 30-120 minutes to complete. Ages 14 and up.

In October of 2015 we noticed a number of threads complaining about games that get used up or cannot be replayed for other reasons. We sit down and talk about these games

Everyone likes expansions, right? Especially good ones? This episode we talk expansions for games we have already reviewed.

Roll for the Galaxy: Ambition, is the first expansion for this popular dice game. It adds a slightly accelerated start with new black leader dice, and new starting planet and factions. We first discussed Roll for the Galaxy in Episode 37.

Firefly has a number of expansions, including the big box Kalidasa. If you want more Firefly reach back into our archives and listen to Episodes 9 and 12.

Star Wars Imperial Assault now has a smaller box expansion, Twin Shadows, and a bigger expansions, Return to Hoth. We discussed the base game in Episode 61.

It has been six months since we last discussed Kickstarter, and Jeff Siadek joins us to explain why publishers use Kickstarter. Jeff's project, Battlestations Second Edition! Tabletop Starship Simulator, is currently on Kickstarter, with an end date of March 3, 2016.

This is Jeff's tenth kickstarter, with a relaunch of his flagship game, Battlestations. His company, Gorilla Games, has been around for twelve years, and Jeff has been in the industry even longer than that.

Join us as we discuss Battlestations, and how Kickstarter is allowing Jeff to make this game even better.

No one likes a lying cheaterface when playing board games, but what about all of the games that have made lying, cheating, and bluffing core mechanics of game play. This week on Meeple Nation, the primes discuss games with these mechanics such as Sheriff of Nottingham, Coup, Werewolf, Cockroach Poker, Intrige, Lifeboats and Illuminati. We all hate cheating as a mechanic, but find out our take on Bluffing and Lying as core mechanics and hear a few stories of cheaty-cheaterfaces in our past games. Nate owns up, and Ryan finally agrees to let it go. Brent just shakes his head in judgment at us both.