New-to-me games played recently include …

6 NIMMT! BARON OXX (2025): Rank 6848, Rating 7.1 – Kiesling / Kramer

The latest 6 Nimmt variant, where the number now only determines play order and you can play in any row where your card has the same color icons as the last card in the row. But there’s now double jeopardy because you also take the row if there are 6+ icons in that colour in the row (as well as if you play the 6th card). It’s definitely more fun than the original, with more options to consider, but it’s still 6 Nimmt with all the luck that that entails.

Rating: 6

ANTS (2025): Rank 3511, Rating 7.8

After an enjoyable first outing, subsequent play showed just how important an early card engine is to get those early monsters, those early resources, which parlay into a rich get richer engine resulting in leaders frequently being faster to harder and harder objectives. Which results in winning scores doubling losing scores. In a 2 hour game, that’s not good. It’s all about the cards but there’s this whole weird board presence thing going on as well – get out your foragers, get out your explorer to feed the foragers, and then the explorers allow you to kill enemies for souped up bonuses but only if you have the required icons on your cards. So it’s all about the cards. And not getting beaten to the enemies which invariably and frustratingly appear and then get smacked before you get a shot at them. It’s an interesting interweaving that makes you want to play again, combined with the lure of engine building naturally, but if the unevenness continues the rating will drop.

Rating: 7

CAT POKER aka PANDA PANDA (2023): Rank 4482, Rating 6.7

A quick little game of either drawing a card, discarding a card, or triggering the passing of a card until someone reveals a winning set. It goes fast. The winning set condition changes depending on how many cards you have in hand, so you’re juggling whether to go with this set with this many cards or change to this other set with more/fewer cards, depending on what you draw into. It’s too simple but nice enough.

Rating: 6

DRO POLTER (2023): Rank 1671, Rating 7.1

Hold 5 different shape items in your closed fist. Turn over a card and the first to drop exactly the items it shows gets a point in the form of a little gold sphere which gets added to your fist and is lost if ever you drop it. Repeat for way too long. This is not a skill I have, or need, or enjoy, so I was glad when the game was over.

Rating: 4

MILLENNIA: TRACKS OF TIME (2025): Rank 4803, Rating 7.6

Each track needs a specific set of icons to move along. The draft of the cards (containing said icons) has only one of each icon – resulting in perhaps the most brutal draft I recall playing. Also the slowest as the disappearance of each desired icon requires players to pivot to a different plan. As such, there is much interest and review of what other players need. After all that goes down, play proceeds smoothly – advance up tracks, get bonuses, etc. The game doesn’t hold enough substance to get you through 8 repetitive rounds, and the civilisation theming doesn’t really shine through, but I enjoyed it regardless because my game-brain gets little dopamine hits each time I advance up a track, and who am I to deny myself.

Rating: 7

POMPIERS (2019): Rank 9031, Rating 7.1

A trick-taker that’s borrowed the hand goals (eg win no red cards) from Was Sticht, made them global, and said, hey, win as many of these over the 5 rounds as you can. As you’re getting random hands (rather than drafting your hands), achievability of the goals is in the laps of the fate gods (even over 5 rounds) but it’s fun trying and then moaning about it.

Rating: 7

SIGNAL (2025): Rank 9901, Rating 7.3

A hearkening back to the bad old Zendo days. In this co-op, players arrange pieces (black and white in different shapes) and submit them to the alien who follows their secret rules to move, add, remove, whatever the shapes. To win the players need to submit the shapes to the alien such that after the rules are followed, a defined set of shapes remain positioned just right. Submit, postulate, submit, postulate, repeat, until you get it right- the sooner, the better the score. It’s engaging for those who like the puzzle of it all but the repetition and guessing gradually lost its fun for me and I tuned out more and more with each cycle.

Rating: 5

TIR NA NOG (2024): Rank 3247, Rating 7.4

You’re building a tableau of 5 cards in 3 rows where each row has its own scoring method (eg sets, runs, uniques). The meat of the game is the draft – a grid of cards where you take turns placing meeples between cards, and then in reverse turn order claim a card next to one of your meeples. It can be harsh, you’ll want multiple plans. Harsher because you must build your tableau from left to right and you often need specific numbers in specific colours. Thankfully, you don’t have to play the card you take immediately, you’ve got a hand to play from so you can store and plan the sequence you want to play. There are card effects on a lot of cards which must be read by all and slows things down. I was engaged by the constant planning of multiple options but it’s essentially too abstract for me to want to explore more.

Rating: 6

Thoughts of other Opinionated Gamers:

Alan H: I’ve played Ants a few times now and going last in 3 and 4 player games felt uncomfortable and difficult. I found that I was the last to get to places that provided food or the first to explore an area (I could only do this action) and then someone else would exploit the position. Nonetheless my discomfort turned to surprise when I was so close to winning on these occasions. It doesn’t change the feelings I had or might have in the future, but I liked the gameplay sufficiently to be happy to play again.