Checkmate, Bitches! The Chess and other Board Games Thread

[The Sybian]

Wait what'd I miss?

MTG recently got divorced.

[Johnnie]

You folks joke about MTG playing MTG, but here you go:



Also, this channel is hysterical:

[BSF21]

Wait what'd I miss?

MTG recently got divorced.

Jeez ok phew

[Johnnie]

I went to Essen Spiel in Germany last week. Biggest board game convention in the world.

6 massive halls just packed with new lots of published showing off games that will be coming out over the next several months.

Definitely one of those "must do at least once" kinda things if you're into boardgaming.

At the very least it was fun to be back in Germany. I really missed the food and how safe it was wherever you went.

[Johnnie]

Keith Law just sent me a DM on Instagram letting me know I won free passes to PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia.

[Giff]

Nice man! And awesome on the Germany trip as well.

[tennbengal]

Crying -

[L-Jam3]

Keith Law just sent me a DM on Instagram letting me know I won free passes to PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia.

Hey, just saw this. Hit me up when you go. I'll be free that weekend.

[Johnnie]

Keith Law just sent me a DM on Instagram letting me know I won free passes to PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia.

Hey, just saw this. Hit me up when you go. I'll be free that weekend.

PM sent.

[blundercrush]

Mosaic is a pretty fun Civ style game that plays pretty quickly after you set it up. Definitely recommend.

[wlu_lax6]

Fined for being too sporty.
https://qz.com/a-chess-player-was-fined ... r_20240103

[EnochRoot]

Anybody ever played Wingspan? I’m thinking about pulling the trigger on it when we get back home to MD next week.

[+] spoiler

Wingspan is a competitive, medium-weight, card-driven, engine-building board game from designer Elizabeth Hargrave and Stonemaier Games. It is the 2019 winner of the prestigious Kennerspiel des Jahres award.

You are bird enthusiasts—researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors—seeking to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves. Each bird extends a chain of powerful combinations in one of your habitats (actions). These habitats focus on several key aspects of growth:

Gain food tokens via custom dice in a birdfeeder dice tower
Lay eggs using egg miniatures in a variety of colors
Draw from hundreds of unique bird cards and play them
The winner is the player with the most points after 4 rounds.

If you enjoy Terraforming Mars and Gizmos, we think this game will take flight at your table. Please join us in the Wingspan Facebook group to discuss the game!

***

Name updates to birds (November 2023 and beyond)

The American Ornithological Society’s announced that some birds names will officially change so that no birds are named after people and that no names that are deemed offensive or exclusionary (e.g., to indigenous people and various cultures). This process will start with North American birds and will eventually apply to birds worldwide (for their English names). Stonemaier Games supports this effort.

As for the impact on Wingspan, we’re discussing how to proceed. We prefer to use the official names for birds, and we love the idea of celebrating birds for their unique qualities, traits, and habitats (opposed to any implied ownership or ties to a person). Given that these names are officially changing, when the AOS finalizes their name selections for sets released so far, it’s likely that we’ll make a pack of the renamed birds and offer them on our webstore. At that time we will also likely change the names of those birds in the game, rendering the historian bonus card an artifact of the past.

This isn’t a matter of erasing the past or pretending that some of it never happened–the past isn’t changing. Rather, it’s using the information we have in the present to not celebrate or honor those who committed atrocious acts in the past and to simply not be derogatory to various cultures. (Note that this is a general commentary that does not apply to all birds named after people–per the article, there are a variety of reasons that the names of people are being separated from the names of the birds, and by making a universal change, it avoids subjectivity.)

***

Featured Components:

170 unique bird cards (57x87mm) + 10 unique bird cards in the swift-start teaching guide
26 bonus cards (57x87mm)
16 Automa cards (57x87mm)
103 food tokens
75 egg miniatures
5 custom wooden dice
5 player mats (400 x 280mm)
1 birdfeeder dice tower
2-piece custom tray (now made of eco-friendly sugarcane–it’s white instead of the purple shown in older photos and videos)
1 goal mat
8 goal tiles
1 first-player token
40 action cubes (8 per player)
1 scorepad (50 sheets; 1 sheet used for all players each game)
3 rulebooks

Featured Accessories and Expansions:

European expansion
Oceania expansion
Wingspan Asia
neoprene playmat
extra scorepad
Nesting Box
speckled eggs
jigsaw puzzles
and more!
Wingspan’s box measures 30x30x7cm, and it weighs 2.4 kg.

[Pruitt IV]

My wife and I have started playing Go, and I absolutely suck.

Any tips?

[P.D.X.]

Anybody ever played Wingspan? I’m thinking about pulling the trigger on it when we get back home to MD next week.

[+] spoiler

Wingspan is a competitive, medium-weight, card-driven, engine-building board game from designer Elizabeth Hargrave and Stonemaier Games. It is the 2019 winner of the prestigious Kennerspiel des Jahres award.

You are bird enthusiasts—researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors—seeking to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves. Each bird extends a chain of powerful combinations in one of your habitats (actions). These habitats focus on several key aspects of growth:

Gain food tokens via custom dice in a birdfeeder dice tower
Lay eggs using egg miniatures in a variety of colors
Draw from hundreds of unique bird cards and play them
The winner is the player with the most points after 4 rounds.

If you enjoy Terraforming Mars and Gizmos, we think this game will take flight at your table. Please join us in the Wingspan Facebook group to discuss the game!

***

Name updates to birds (November 2023 and beyond)

The American Ornithological Society’s announced that some birds names will officially change so that no birds are named after people and that no names that are deemed offensive or exclusionary (e.g., to indigenous people and various cultures). This process will start with North American birds and will eventually apply to birds worldwide (for their English names). Stonemaier Games supports this effort.

As for the impact on Wingspan, we’re discussing how to proceed. We prefer to use the official names for birds, and we love the idea of celebrating birds for their unique qualities, traits, and habitats (opposed to any implied ownership or ties to a person). Given that these names are officially changing, when the AOS finalizes their name selections for sets released so far, it’s likely that we’ll make a pack of the renamed birds and offer them on our webstore. At that time we will also likely change the names of those birds in the game, rendering the historian bonus card an artifact of the past.

This isn’t a matter of erasing the past or pretending that some of it never happened–the past isn’t changing. Rather, it’s using the information we have in the present to not celebrate or honor those who committed atrocious acts in the past and to simply not be derogatory to various cultures. (Note that this is a general commentary that does not apply to all birds named after people–per the article, there are a variety of reasons that the names of people are being separated from the names of the birds, and by making a universal change, it avoids subjectivity.)

***

Featured Components:

170 unique bird cards (57x87mm) + 10 unique bird cards in the swift-start teaching guide
26 bonus cards (57x87mm)
16 Automa cards (57x87mm)
103 food tokens
75 egg miniatures
5 custom wooden dice
5 player mats (400 x 280mm)
1 birdfeeder dice tower
2-piece custom tray (now made of eco-friendly sugarcane–it’s white instead of the purple shown in older photos and videos)
1 goal mat
8 goal tiles
1 first-player token
40 action cubes (8 per player)
1 scorepad (50 sheets; 1 sheet used for all players each game)
3 rulebooks

Featured Accessories and Expansions:

European expansion
Oceania expansion
Wingspan Asia
neoprene playmat
extra scorepad
Nesting Box
speckled eggs
jigsaw puzzles
and more!
Wingspan’s box measures 30x30x7cm, and it weighs 2.4 kg.

Been meaning to check out the online version but I imagine it’s right up my alley.

[Johnnie]

Anybody ever played Wingspan? I’m thinking about pulling the trigger on it when we get back home to MD next week.

[+] spoiler

Wingspan is a competitive, medium-weight, card-driven, engine-building board game from designer Elizabeth Hargrave and Stonemaier Games. It is the 2019 winner of the prestigious Kennerspiel des Jahres award.

You are bird enthusiasts—researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors—seeking to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves. Each bird extends a chain of powerful combinations in one of your habitats (actions). These habitats focus on several key aspects of growth:

Gain food tokens via custom dice in a birdfeeder dice tower
Lay eggs using egg miniatures in a variety of colors
Draw from hundreds of unique bird cards and play them
The winner is the player with the most points after 4 rounds.

If you enjoy Terraforming Mars and Gizmos, we think this game will take flight at your table. Please join us in the Wingspan Facebook group to discuss the game!

***

Name updates to birds (November 2023 and beyond)

The American Ornithological Society’s announced that some birds names will officially change so that no birds are named after people and that no names that are deemed offensive or exclusionary (e.g., to indigenous people and various cultures). This process will start with North American birds and will eventually apply to birds worldwide (for their English names). Stonemaier Games supports this effort.

As for the impact on Wingspan, we’re discussing how to proceed. We prefer to use the official names for birds, and we love the idea of celebrating birds for their unique qualities, traits, and habitats (opposed to any implied ownership or ties to a person). Given that these names are officially changing, when the AOS finalizes their name selections for sets released so far, it’s likely that we’ll make a pack of the renamed birds and offer them on our webstore. At that time we will also likely change the names of those birds in the game, rendering the historian bonus card an artifact of the past.

This isn’t a matter of erasing the past or pretending that some of it never happened–the past isn’t changing. Rather, it’s using the information we have in the present to not celebrate or honor those who committed atrocious acts in the past and to simply not be derogatory to various cultures. (Note that this is a general commentary that does not apply to all birds named after people–per the article, there are a variety of reasons that the names of people are being separated from the names of the birds, and by making a universal change, it avoids subjectivity.)

***

Featured Components:

170 unique bird cards (57x87mm) + 10 unique bird cards in the swift-start teaching guide
26 bonus cards (57x87mm)
16 Automa cards (57x87mm)
103 food tokens
75 egg miniatures
5 custom wooden dice
5 player mats (400 x 280mm)
1 birdfeeder dice tower
2-piece custom tray (now made of eco-friendly sugarcane–it’s white instead of the purple shown in older photos and videos)
1 goal mat
8 goal tiles
1 first-player token
40 action cubes (8 per player)
1 scorepad (50 sheets; 1 sheet used for all players each game)
3 rulebooks

Featured Accessories and Expansions:

European expansion
Oceania expansion
Wingspan Asia
neoprene playmat
extra scorepad
Nesting Box
speckled eggs
jigsaw puzzles
and more!
Wingspan’s box measures 30x30x7cm, and it weighs 2.4 kg.

Yes, it's a really great game for not only the theme, but flow of the game. It isn't too difficult to grasp either. Very straight forward mechanics too. My friends who are birders bought the game and love it.

Plus it has several explanations so when you've gone through the deck enough times there are more birds for your aviary.

Coincidentally Stonemaier Games just announced Wyrmspan. That game features dragons instead.

[P.D.X.]

Comparisons to Catan accurate?

[Johnnie]

Comparisons to Catan accurate?

Umm, maybe a little bit. In Catan when you roll the dice the number corresponds to the hex tile type for resource generation. In Wingspan it's a die with the resource on it.

In both cases you use your resources to pay for stuff, but in Catan it goes on the game board (mostly), but in Wingspan it goes into a tableau that you build out.

Each experience is unique unto itself, IMO and don't compare directly even if they have overlapping mechanics.

Each game is an excellent 'gateway game' into board gaming hobby beyond the Monopoly/Risk stuff that immediately comes to mind.

[mister d]

My friends who are birders bought the game and love it.

We have a sentence a day where you could say "imagine if the Swamp 15-20 years ago could see this". This one is top tier.

[Johnnie]

My friends who are birders bought the game and love it.

We have a sentence a day where you could say "imagine if the Swamp 15-20 years ago could see this". This one is top tier.

[P.D.X.]

[tennbengal]

It me.

[EnochRoot]

Been meaning to check out the online version but I imagine it’s right up my alley.

You mean the game app in the app store? That thing looks sweet. Apparently it’s a fully-endorsed, full-function game (with the respective birds chirping their songs). I think I’m going to pull the trigger on that before I buy the board game. Sucks I’ll have to buy it twice to play a H2H game with my wife though.

Anybody ever played Wingspan? I’m thinking about pulling the trigger on it when we get back home to MD next week.

[+] spoiler

Wingspan is a competitive, medium-weight, card-driven, engine-building board game from designer Elizabeth Hargrave and Stonemaier Games. It is the 2019 winner of the prestigious Kennerspiel des Jahres award.

You are bird enthusiasts—researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors—seeking to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves. Each bird extends a chain of powerful combinations in one of your habitats (actions). These habitats focus on several key aspects of growth:

Gain food tokens via custom dice in a birdfeeder dice tower
Lay eggs using egg miniatures in a variety of colors
Draw from hundreds of unique bird cards and play them
The winner is the player with the most points after 4 rounds.

If you enjoy Terraforming Mars and Gizmos, we think this game will take flight at your table. Please join us in the Wingspan Facebook group to discuss the game!

***

Name updates to birds (November 2023 and beyond)

The American Ornithological Society’s announced that some birds names will officially change so that no birds are named after people and that no names that are deemed offensive or exclusionary (e.g., to indigenous people and various cultures). This process will start with North American birds and will eventually apply to birds worldwide (for their English names). Stonemaier Games supports this effort.

As for the impact on Wingspan, we’re discussing how to proceed. We prefer to use the official names for birds, and we love the idea of celebrating birds for their unique qualities, traits, and habitats (opposed to any implied ownership or ties to a person). Given that these names are officially changing, when the AOS finalizes their name selections for sets released so far, it’s likely that we’ll make a pack of the renamed birds and offer them on our webstore. At that time we will also likely change the names of those birds in the game, rendering the historian bonus card an artifact of the past.

This isn’t a matter of erasing the past or pretending that some of it never happened–the past isn’t changing. Rather, it’s using the information we have in the present to not celebrate or honor those who committed atrocious acts in the past and to simply not be derogatory to various cultures. (Note that this is a general commentary that does not apply to all birds named after people–per the article, there are a variety of reasons that the names of people are being separated from the names of the birds, and by making a universal change, it avoids subjectivity.)

***

Featured Components:

170 unique bird cards (57x87mm) + 10 unique bird cards in the swift-start teaching guide
26 bonus cards (57x87mm)
16 Automa cards (57x87mm)
103 food tokens
75 egg miniatures
5 custom wooden dice
5 player mats (400 x 280mm)
1 birdfeeder dice tower
2-piece custom tray (now made of eco-friendly sugarcane–it’s white instead of the purple shown in older photos and videos)
1 goal mat
8 goal tiles
1 first-player token
40 action cubes (8 per player)
1 scorepad (50 sheets; 1 sheet used for all players each game)
3 rulebooks

Featured Accessories and Expansions:

European expansion
Oceania expansion
Wingspan Asia
neoprene playmat
extra scorepad
Nesting Box
speckled eggs
jigsaw puzzles
and more!
Wingspan’s box measures 30x30x7cm, and it weighs 2.4 kg.

Yes, it's a really great game for not only the theme, but flow of the game. It isn't too difficult to grasp either. Very straight forward mechanics too. My friends who are birders bought the game and love it.

Plus it has several explanations so when you've gone through the deck enough times there are more birds for your aviary.

Coincidentally Stonemaier Games just announced Wyrmspan. That game features dragons instead.

Thanks! I was looking for board game options yesterday and WireCutter listed 11 of the better options out there, but this one jumped off the screen at me.

[duff]

Surprised Sabo hasn't interjected. He is probably too busy bird watching.

[A_B]

Surprised Sabo hasn't interjected. He is probably too busy bird watching.

Oh he sent me a text about it.

[DSafetyGuy]

Surprised Sabo hasn't interjected. He is probably too busy bird watching.

"Watching".

[EnochRoot]

Oh yeah, I went over to Total Wine to pick up a too expensive bottle of Jefferson’s Bourbon, and came home to what I thought was a cooper’s hawk perched on my parents’ neighbor’s roof. He was preening himself. Or she was. I was about to detach my phone from the car when I saw a second bird come barreling in and displace the first bird to another spot five feet elsewhere on the roof. This bird was easier to see. Red head, dark body. Freakin turkey vultures. Both of them.

Birding involves let downs. Most always.

[Shirley]

Any of you Frogs every come across Worldle? https://worldle.teuteuf.fr/

[tennbengal]

Played two games recently that I genuinely enjoyed --- Doomlings and Century:Golum Edition. Both play cards onto the table style games. Easy to learn, fun as hell to play. Easy recommend to each.

https://doomlings.com/?tw_source=google ... ygQAvD_BwE

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/232 ... em-edition

[sancarlos]

My wife plays it every morning. She yells random questions at me. “Do you know what is the capital of Belize?”

[tennbengal]

My wife plays it every morning. She yells random questions at me. “Do you know what is the capital of Belize?”

Springfield?

[The Sybian]

Any of you Frogs every come across Worldle? https://worldle.teuteuf.fr/

When Wordle and all the offshoots hit during lockdown I played that every day. Looks like they really upped their game with follow up questions. Much more interesting now. Also played one called Globle or something, where it'd show a globe, and when you'd guess a country, it'd show the map in varying colors based on how geographically close the correct answer was to the one you guessed.

[Johnnie]

And they're back for season 2:

[Shirley]

Whew

Wordle 1,039 6/6

[travzilla]

Whew

Wordle 1,039 6/6

Today's bust ended a 535 day streak for me. Had 6 possible words with 2 guesses left.

[Steve of phpBB]

Whew

Wordle 1,039 6/6

Today's bust ended a 535 day streak for me. Had 6 possible words with 2 guesses left.

Dude, that sucks. Impressive streak though.

[Giff]

I even tried “cheating” by giving my wife clues of what I was guessing on 6 and still didn’t get it.

[EnochRoot]

I guessed it in 3, but because I went alphabetical once I got the last 4 of 5, I wound up on the correct one at #5.

[+] spoiler

CURVY
VALOR
HOVER
MOVER
ROVER

[HaulCitgo]

Busted also. Boxer

[Ryan]

My 3s and 4s in Wordle are now tied for I think the 4th time thanks to a couple good weeks. The 3s have never taken the lead.

[HaulCitgo]

You got today in three? Very well done. 6 here