I Flew to Paris to Watch the World's Best Ticket to Ride Players Battle!

I mentioned my trip to France in last month's SNR monthly update, so I'm excited to share the video I put together covering Ticket to Ride's 20th anniversary tournament, as well as some gaming (and music) highlights from Bruno Faidutti's gaming retreat. Thanks again to Matt for helping me capture some of the footage in the video. Hope you get a chance to check it out! I enjoyed putting it together and I'm proud of how it turned out.

"Thematic" Abstract Strategy Games?!

I'm sure you're probably wondering how an abstract strategy game (i.e. chess, checkers style games) can be thematic. They aren't per say, but many of them have just a hair of theme, which I find to be super enjoyable. Mythic Mischief & War Chest are both awesome examples, and they inspired episode 71 of the BGG podcast. Give it a listen and find out why these games excite me. Also, my friend/guest cohost Ruel mentioned a few games that sounded super cool.

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Primal: The Awakening

Holy smokes! PRIIIIMMMALLL!! Last year at Gen Con, I was chatting with Alex from BoardGameCo, telling him how I was starting to get into a lot of adventure games. After I mentioned a few specific games I was planning to check out, he said "you have to try Primal." I had never heard of it at that point, but then of course I looked into it.

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Primal: The Awakening is a co-operative boss-battler, where each player is a hunter that needs to take down a monster. This game has a bunch of HUGE "minis" for the monsters, and the hunters are a lot smaller to make the monsters appear even scarier. Each hunter has a unique playstyle, and each has their own deck of cards.There are pre-constructed decks you can play with, or you can build your own deck. The monsters have their own behavior and stance cards...and they all have their own flavor as well. It's an awesome system how they thematically react to what the hunters do. The cardplay is really awesome in Primal. There are lots of cool opportunities to assist your fellow hunters. I love that the game board has just 4 sectors with a variety of terrain depending on the monster you're up against. The monster sits in the center of the board and rotates based on the choices players make when moving and attacking.

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I played Primal for the first time back in April at The Gathering and walked away really diggin' it. ...and after playing some of Oathsworn (another boss-battler), I found myself wanting to revisit Primal. I'm super grateful Reggie Games was able to send me a copy of it, so I can play it more...and of course, paint those sexy MEGAtures. The artwork is incredible too!! Absolutely stunning! After playing my 2nd game of Primal, ooooo...I lovvvve it! There's so much awesomeness to explore here, including the campaign, which I'm pumped to try soon.

​BGG Link​