Biblios

Biblios (2007) is an oldie but goodie in our household. I'm pretty sure I've had it since my first year in the hobby. I recently dusted off the cobwebs and introduced this medieval monastery-"themed" filler game to a few different friends...and it was a hit! Biblios is kinda like an old friend – one of those old friends you've known forever, but barely talk to these days. On those rare occasions when you actually do connect, it's like no time has passed at all, and you're instantly reminded why this friend remains on your friend shelf(?).

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Biblios is a light, fun little card game for 2-4 players, that plays in 30 minutes. To win the game, you need to have the most victory points...or shall I say, "monastery influence". This way I'm setting you up to think that the theme actually matters...even though it doesn't...but it doesn't even matter. Although, I do appreciate that the box looks like and opens like a book. Nice touch.

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There are five different color dice that start the game on the "3" side, representing 3 points worth of "monastery influence". During the game, you play cards that manipulate the values of the dice, and hopefully by the end, you'll have the right cards in hand to score more points than your opponents.

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Similar to the game For Sale, a game of Biblios is divided into two different stages/phases, then the game ends. First, you alternate publicly gifting cards to your opponents, while secretly keeping one for yourself and stashing one facedown in a stack that will be auctioned off in the second stage of the game.

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The gameplay of Biblios is centered around a deck of cards, which has: different valued cards with one of five suits matching the colors of "monastery influence" dice, money cards worth 1, 2, or 3 coins, and cards that let you manipulate the value of the dice. By the end of the first phase, each player will have the same number of cards in hand, and there will be a matching number of cards for auction. Then you shuffle the auction cards and take turns revealing them, then auctioning off one card at a time, until the deck runs out.

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It's a great auction too! Going into it, each player has a wee bit of knowledge of what will be auctioned off, but you never know the timing of when different cards are going to pop up, or if your opponents put garbage cards into the auction, or premium goodies. So you really have to know when to be conservative with your bids, and when to go all-in. So, first you get cards. Then you use those cards in an auction to get other cards. In both phases, you immediately resolve and discard cards that increase/decrease the value of the dice. While all five dice started with a value of 3, by the end of the game, they'll be more varied as players try to increase the value of the color they're hoping to win, and decrease the ones their opponents are going for.

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After the last card is auctioned off, each player announces the total value they have in hand for each of the different colored "monastery influence" dice. Whoever has the most influence of a particular color wins that die, which is worth a the number of points matching it's current value. Then after assessing who wins each die, the winner is the player with the most points based on the die pips.

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Biblios is a fast-playing, low-scoring game where every point matters. No worries if you lose...just demand an immediate rematch and play again.

​BGG Link​

Stationfall

Stationfall is known as a party game for heavy gamers. I didn't come up with that, but it's a very fitting description. It's a wacky, sneaky, complex, hidden roles game for 1 to 9 players, where you have this crazy cast of "characters" on a space station that is going to explode in about 10 minutes (game rounds). On your turn, you can activate and move any character...it doesn't have to be your secret character. You can move characters into and out of different rooms. You can pick up different tools and weapons as well. Ultimately, you're trying to secretly set your main character up to achieve as many scoring objectives as you can. For example, most characters need to get to an escape pod and travel to Earth. Some characters score if other characters are knocked out. ...but if you're going to knock someone out, be sure to turn the cameras off first, or do it in a room without lights so you aren't suspicious. I feel suss for saying that.

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We played our game with 6 players and it was super fun. Every time I play Stationfall, I want to play it more. The rules aren't that crazy, but each of the 20-something characters plays differently, so it's a game that benefits from lots of great player aids. I love how each character has a backstory as well, and they are all soooo different. There's an astro chimp, a billionaire with a dog, robots, etc. All sorts of characters. It's so fun! ...but it is complex, so beware. I highly recommend playing with at least one experienced player for a smoother experience.

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Now that I'm into painting, I ambitiously tried to speed paint my Stationfall minis within the 2 days leading up to our game, but that didn't happen. However, I made a lot of progress on them the following week. I'm planning to finish them up soon, and show them off on my YouTube channel at some point.

​BGG Link​

Thunder Alley

Board game publisher GMT Games is typically known for historical board games and wargames, but I find their catalogue to be diverse when it comes to game styles. So today, I have a racing game for you.

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I finally had the opportunity to play one of GMT's most popular racing games, Thunder Alley. My good friend Ben mentioned it to me a handful of times since I've known him. He always said how fun it was when he initially played it, and after our raucous 6-player game, I'm a fan too.

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Thunder Alley is a racing game where each player controls a team of race cars, which is cool because it's different. Usually in a racing game, you have one car and you're trying to win the race with that car, or bid on a car you think is going to win. Meanwhile, in Thunder Alley, each of your cars will score a number of points at the end, based on their finishing position.

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When the race starts, players take turns playing a card to activate one of their cars at a time, until all cars have been activated. Then you get new cards, and keep racing. The base game comes with a few different tracks, and there are a bunch more with expansions. The hand management is awesome. You start each round with a number of cards equal to the number of cars on your team (varies by player count). You'll also get a vocabulary workout because of how often you ending saying "cards" and "cars" in the same sentence. Good on you if your tongue doesn't get twisted like mine constantly did. Having limited cards in your hand makes for some interesting, tough decisions because of the movement works, and how you need to manage the wear-and-tear of each of your cars.

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Each card has a number and type of movement, and some cards have other effects as well. The movement is interesting because sometimes you'll draft and move all of the connected cars in front of you and/or behind you, but there are also "solo" movement cards, which are cool, and a good way to break out ahead of everyone. Of course your friends will claim you're selfish when you play them....even though, sometimes it's your best or only option. Because of all the different ways your cars can be moved with other cars (whether it's your turn or not), there's plenty of room for fun table talk and negotiations. Also, it's such a nice touch that each team has a team name, and then each car has a driver's name associated with it. We really leaned into this for some humorous banter while we played.

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The other thing that makes the hand management tricky (in a good way) is that most cards you play will add some type of wear on your cars, and if you have too many wear tokens, you'll be forced to move slower and you'll eventually to make a pit stop. So, lots to think about with a few cars and a small hand of cards.

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We all had a ball playing Thunder Alley, and I've been wanting to get it back to the table ever since. I'm looking forward to exploring more of the maps, and seeing how it feels at other player counts, but 6 was a blast.

​BGG Link​