Game: Eclipse Date: September 22, 2026 Impression: Basically Twilight Imperium lite, a 4x on a hexagon space map with lots of ship battles. It strips out a lot of TIs complexity and adds in some new improvements. Dice chucking is actually a bigger part then I expected. You build the map during play which I really enjoyed and tech upgrade availability is random and limited. Scoring is more point salad style which made it harder to know who is winning and what the right thing to focus on is. Overall I did enjoy it and would play again, not a TI killer for me but definitely up there.

Game: Eternal Decks Date: September 22, 2026 Impression: A coop game were you play cards collectively in a certain order to unlock more cards. You need to prevent anyone of you running out of cards. You win when you complete certain combos or rows of cards. Co-ops are not my thing and this didn't change my mind on that, as beautiful as the artwork is.

Game: Wondrous Creatures Date: September 22, 2026 Impression: A resource gathering, card driven game where you are trying to meet various set collection goals, sort of like Teraforming Mars. Had nice variety of puzzle to it though dominated by the cards as in our game a player was able to pull of crazy combos and double the second place score. I'd try it again and see if it was a fluke.

Game: No Thanks Date: September 22, 2026 Impression: A fun filler game where you don't want cards as your score the negative what you have. So you are pay tokens to not take it till some thinks it's worth taking. There is a push your luck mechanic where if you get a run of cards you get a better score. Fun five minute game I'd recommend.

Game: Small Fjords Date: September 20, 2026 Impression: A simple 2 player area control game, you start by taking turns assembling the map and placing your longhouses and then you take turns placing your vikings. It's short and sweet and creates a lovely map, I should probably by the 4 player that this is a version of which I think would have much more space for difficult decisions.