The Whelming Matches factory has burned down, with only this artifact found in the destruction. Cold to touch, it sat amongst the ashen remains of the factory. Why? How? These questions have yet to be unanswered.
Matches is a trick-taking style card game, with a unique spin on scoring and playing. The lead player plays a number card to start the blaze. Each player in turn order must play a card matching that number (which increases the blaze’s heat and point value), or a set of cards that equal the value of the card.
A player can choose to pass, upon which they collect points for each of pairs they have played. The last player to pass wins the trick and collects the points on the blaze card…but will NOT score their pairs they have played.
Deciding if you’ll get more points from the pairs you’ve played, or if you need to try and stay in to get the points on the blaze card, is the heart of Matches.
The game also includes optional powerful “Burn Cards” which can be purchased with points. These Burn Cards can have huge impacts on how the game is played, the possibly points to be scored, and the cards in players hands.
The incomparable Donal Hegarty has come up with so many awesome concepts for the box cover for my upcoming design First Monday in October (about the history of the U.S. Supreme Court) that we are running a poll for folks to vote on their favorite approach. One lucky voter that posts in this thread on BoardGameGeek will even win a free copy of the game when it is released:
In my prior post – 7 Days, 67 Games, Infinite Fun – I shared my opinions on the first half of my experience at a weeklong game convention this spring. Today, I’m back to report on the second half, including prototypes from Friedemann Friese and Tom Lehmann, as well as old favorites like Imperial and Dominant Species, plus new upcoming games like Knizia’s Rebirth. We left off with the incomparable Stephensons Rocket at the end of Day 3, and we’ll pick back up with the exciting Roll and Write for the Galaxy.
Day 4 – Oathsworn
I started off the day learning a Roll and Write for the Galaxy prototype from Tom Lehmann, who said that I could mention the in-progress game here. I’m not sure how widely known the concept is, but I had not heard of it before. I love Roll for the Galaxy, having played it 68 times, so I’m the target market for a new Roll and Write for the Galaxy. This prototype did not disappoint, even though I had the same difficulty obtaining reassign powers as I do in the original. I was impressed with how familiar yet different the game felt, so I’m definitely looking forward to picking this one up when it comes out.
I don’t bring a lot of games with me to conventions like this, but I do bring Oath. I was eager to set it up in a high-traffic area and woo people into giving it a shot. Oath definitely seems a lot more divisive than Root, which is reasonable because it’s so incredibly different from Root (and I think a lot of people expect a similar game given the same designer/publisher and similar artwork). Oath actually feels a lot more like Pax Pamir to me as you build a small tableau of cards to control your actions and fate. There is admittedly not that much control though. I always warn people that you will most enjoy Oath if you’re okay congratulating an opponent on an epic reversal due to a powerful card revealed after almost 2 hours of play (not entirely unlike Innovation in fact). Oath also has a highly variable game length (anywhere from 40 minutes up to over 2 hours), but the game creates such a lush and memorable narrative that it feels almost like a lite Dungeons & Dragons in a box. I was thrilled to spend most of Day 4 playing back-to-back-to-back games of Oath. This game really excels when you play it several times in a row and this made for a phenomenal afternoon!
Three straight games of Oath can definitely melt your brain a bit, so I followed it up by returning to Captain Flip, which I had played earlier in the week. I still enjoyed Captain Flip very much, but I’m not so sure it needs space on the shelf after all. After Captain Flip, the stars aligned for me to finally try Akropolis, which had been on my want-to-try list for years. I’m a big fan of Java and Antics (plus I enjoyed Taluva), so the three-dimensional hexagonal tile building was very appealing in Akropolis. I wanted to love Akropolis, but I ended up rating it a 7, which is definitely better than my 5-6 average, but not quite an 8 out of 10, which are the games I want to own. I’m not convinced that Akropolis has the staying power of Java or Antics, and I’m not sure the scoring conditions for the various colors are at all comparable. I’d be happy to play a friend’s copy of Akropolis though to explore it further.
I closed out the day with quick plays of the trick-taking game Of What’s Left and the absurd dexterity game Blocky Mountains, followed by an absurdly silly prototype brought by Taylor of Taylor’s Trick-Taking and a fascinating Matt Leacock prototype called Flickering Stars. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for Flickering Stars later this year!
I recently had the pleasure of attending a 7-day board game convention at which I had the opportunity to play 67 games! It was an absolute blast, and I’m here to report on the good, the bad, and the absurd.
Day 1 – Brief But Spectacular
The first day was abbreviated due to an evening arrival, but I still managed to learn and play my personal Game-of-the-Con! I started off with William Attia teaching his new light roll-and-write House of Cats, which was fun and clever. I’m a fan of roll-and-write games (especially when they don’t end up in a dizzying sheet of numbers like MetroX or Dizzle). There were a good deal of numbers in this game, but the mice and cats and cheese made it just thematic enough to grab my interest and hold it throughout. The dice selection mechanism and the variable abilities for completing groups were clever and intriguing. I’ve added it to my wishlist. The second game was less good – Broken and Beautiful: A Game About Kintsugi, which was gorgeous and had a wonderful theme, but the gameplay felt like a less good Sushi Go with not as interesting decisions.
My favorite new game of the week was definitely Friedemann Friese’s Fishing, which is a deck-building trick-taking card game coming from Rio Grande in the hopefully not too distant future. I don’t often like deck-building games, and I’m very hit-or-miss on trick-taking games (especially if they make you predict the number of tricks you’re going to win, which feels stale and tired), but Fishing was brilliant. The game just worked so very well. You earn points and add cards to your deck by winning tricks, but a poor hand (or clever dodging of tricks) will reward you with more powerful cards added to your deck from outside the game. There is such a delicious balance here of earning points versus leveling up your deck, along with the classic decision of when the switch from engine-building to earning points, but here there seems to be more of an oscillating feature to that switch rather than a one-and-done switch.
It is possible that this particular box in the Unmatched: Battle of Legends game series was designed solely for me:
I competed in Shakespeare performance competitions throughout high school.
One of my favorite live theater experiences was seeing Anthony Hopkins in The Tempest at the Mark Taper Forum (Los Angeles).
My bachelors degree was in English literature.
My senior year at Baylor, I took an advanced acting tutorial focusing on the character of Prospero from The Tempest.
I’ve played some form of board games since I was a small child.
I’ve been an unabashed fan of the Unmatched system since its release in 2019.
My sons & I have been playtesters for Restoration Games (yes, including this box).
So it will be no surprise to any of my faithful readers that I am about to rave about the newest release for Unmatched – Slings & Arrows.
I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it.
The Play
I’m well aware that some of you have not had the opportunity to play the wonderful goodness that is Unmatched – so, a short primer on how the game works is in order. (Yes, I know, some of you have played before. A lot. You can skip to the next heading.)
Unmatched is a skirmish battle game, driven by card play and fought on a variety of boards. On your turn, you get two actions (and you can do the same action twice):
Maneuver – draw a card from your personal deck & optionally move your fighter(s)
Attack – play a card face-down to initiate a melee or ranged attack
Scheme – play a Scheme card from your hand for its effect
You win by reducing your opponent’s hero to zero hit points.
If this sounds a lot like Star Wars: Epic Duels, you’re not wrong. That 2002 mass-market game is the forefather of this amazing combat system. (If you want more detail, I did a deep-dive into the differences in my original Unmatched review.)
Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it without a prompter.
The Cast
As you can probably guess from the plethora of Shakespeare quotes, this entire box has characters related to the life & plays of William Shakespeare. That includes the various hero decks & figures:
Shakespeare
The Bard himself heads the list… using his three Actor sidekicks along with a power reminiscent of Little Red. Each of his cards has a syllable count – 2, 4, or 6 – and when played, is set in front of the player. When the player plays a card that “finishes” a 10 syllable line, a special power on the card is activated.
We’ve found him to be relatively easy to play and somewhat trickier to play well – again, not dissimilar to Little Red.
Hamlet
With a single sidekick token representing Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, Hamlet’s key power is a status choice each turn – To Be (which helps him draw more cards) or Not To Be (which increases his attacks but also drains his health).
Hamlet is the easiest of the four heroes to play in this box… but the choice between speeding through your deck or draining your health is tricky.
Titania
Alongside her husband/sidekick Oberon, the Fairy Queen has six Glamours (cards) that provide ongoing effects. Titania is also the only ranged character in the box.
The arrangement of the Glamour cards (which is random) can change your tactics with this pair. Oberon is a relatively powerful sidekick and using him simply as a shield for Titania is not recommended.
The Wayward Sisters
The sisters have three figures (with 6 health each) and the ability to use the ingredient icons on their cards cast spells after one of them makes an attack.
There are no wasted cards in this set (as often happens when you lose a sidekick) – each card can be used by any of the sisters. I think the sisters benefit from setting up spells and forcing their opponents to chase them.
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players…
The Set
The Globe Theatre is the setting for these epic battles. The map is uses the accepted layout of the original Globe with the arena for the “groundlings” and the stadium-style seating around it. The “stage” spaces have visibility to large parts of the theater… a particularly important point for ranged characters. There are no special features (doors, hidden passages, etc.) on this map.
This leads us to my only gripe with this box (and many of the recent Unmatched boxes): I wish Restoration would go back to creating two different maps for each box. The pictures you see above are photos of the same section of the board from opposite sides – one with the original Unmatched design for spaces and the other with the more art-friendly graphic design based on the Tannhauser system. I find the art-friendly design much more difficult to interpret during play – especially spaces like the stage which sits in multiple zones.
That said, The Globe is a very good map and highly thematic.
This wide and universal theatre presents more woeful pageants than the scene wherein we play…
The Wisdom of The Groundlings
The difficulty rankings above for the universe of Unmatched heroes are presented to you, dear readers, courtesy of Mark Jackson (me!) and my sons (Braeden & Collin) – and Owen, Collin’s friend who has developed a major obsession with Unmatched: Battle of Legends. In total, the four of us have easily played Unmatched 600-700 times.
This does not include Brains & Brawn (which I’ve only playtested but never played with a final copy) or Deadpool (which I have never played). The new characters (from Slings & Arrows, Sun’s Origin, and Tales to Amaze!) are in red.
Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it.
Final Thoughts
First & foremost – this is an excellent box in the Unmatched game system… there are no weak characters, the artwork is spot on, and the map is great.
Second, while there have been changes from the playtest of the box (which Collin & I participated in), it has been one of our most anticipated releases from the Restoration team. It was in great shape when we playtested the characters… and it’s even more polished in final form.
Third, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this as an introductory box (I’d go with Robin Hood vs Bigfoot, Tales to Amaze!, or Battle of Legends Volume I), this is not as difficult a box as Cobble & Fog (one of my other favorites). As always, if you’ve got a Shakespeare fan/former English that’s willing to try the game, don’t let me stop you!
Note: I asked my sons which boxes they would suggest to introduce Unmatched to new players. Their answers:
Braeden: Tales to Amaze! (because you essentially get two games – cooperative & PVP)
Collin noted that the large maps in Tales to Amaze! may make it tougher as an introduction to competitive Unmatched
Collin: Robin Hood vs. Bigfoot, Battle of Legends Volume I
Collin also likes Slings & Arrows or Cobble & Fog as potential second choices
All’s well that ends well…
I have received review copies of Unmatched: Buffy, For King & Country, Teen Spirit, and this box – Slings & Arrows… the rest of my Unmatched collection was purchased with my hard-earned cash. For those wondering, I did finally manage to sell my copy of Epic Duels.
Quotes above are all from Shakespeare’s plays (in order):
The valiant never taste of death but once. (Julius Caesar)
I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it. (As You Like It)
Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it without a prompter. (Othello)
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players… (As You Like It)
This wide and universal theatre presents more woeful pageants than the scene wherein we play… (As You Like It)
Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it. (Henry IV, Part I)
All’s well that ends well… (All’s Well That Ends Well)
Here’s the second half of Larry and Ben’s amazing adventures at the Gathering of Friends, which they both attended last month. We pick up the action with a joint review. Was it a tasty little trick-taker or a bit of marshmallow fluff?
Marshmallow Test (2020)
Larry: I’ve been wanting to try this game for a while. It’s a trick-taker from Knizia from Gamewright and is a redesign of an earlier Reiner title called Voodoo Prince. The rules for playing the hands in MT are pretty vanilla; the game’s main interest comes from the scoring rules. Once you win a certain number of tricks (3 in a game with at least 4 players), you drop out of the hand and your score is equal to the number of tricks all the other players have taken. So to maximize your score, you want to be the next to last player to go out (since the last remaining player scores zero). This is a quintessential Knizia twist and is strong enough to make for an interesting and challenging game. In fact, Voodoo Prince contains a few tricky rules for some of the cards and while I usually prefer added complexity, I don’t think I’d like that version as much, as it would take away from the principal goal of going out late, but not too late. Good stuff from the Good Doctor and a game that proved to be worth the wait. Rating: I like it.
Ben: This game didn’t really stand out to me. There was some added considerations, but it was very difficult to do. Card game and trick taker enthusiasts probably love it, but it seems slightly more position and luck driven. Rating: Not for me.
Mountain Goats (2020)
Ben: I love Mountain Goats and taught and played it three times to mostly publishers during the convention. I think its accessibility makes it great as a filler and great as a convention game. There’s some luck, but there’s strategy involved too. I hadn’t seen the mini expansion until someone had it in their box. It adds a twist but is wholly unnecessary. Rating: I love it.
Larry: Mountain Goats (first released in 2010 as Level X) is a dice game with simple rules, but reasonably interesting gameplay. On your turn, you roll four dice and divide them into one or more groups. The board shows tracks labelled from 5 to 10 and the sum of the dice in each group lets you move your goat in that track up by one space. If your goat reaches the top space of a track (they’re only 2-4 spaces long), you score points equal to the value of the track. You score those points for every time one of your groups sums to that number, until an opponent reaches that space and knocks you down to the bottom of the track. So you not only want to get to the top of a track, you’d like to stay there as long as possible. It’s a game where I’m fairly sure I’d rather be lucky than good, but there is definitely skill involved and it’s a pretty good filler that should appeal to lots of types of gamers. Rating: I like it.
