The Index Ran Red
Another week, another collection of three titles from Small Box Games, and once again the legendary Small Box Games Curse takes effect. Two winners, one stinker, and one very small box.
Below the jump, just click one of the images to be whisked suddenly and immediately to the corresponding article, by the amazing power of special magic that is distinctly not Ancient Egyptian.
Red Nile: Rise of the First Dynasty
Much like the ones placed on a pharaoh’s hidden tomb, there’s this thing called the “Small Box Games Curse.” Whenever a set of three Small Box games find their way into my possession, it’s inevitable that I’ll love one, like another, and hate the third (or at least I strongly dislike it — I’m no hater). It always shakes out that way. It’s uncanny. Don’t believe me? Well, this tale has rare proof. Of the first trio ordered from SBG, I loved Omen: A Reign of War (it’s even one of my favorite games of all time!), liked Hemloch, and hated Tooth & Nail: Factions. From the second set, I loved The Valkyrie Incident, liked Stone & Relic, and disliked Shadow of the Sun. There you have it! Incontrovertible proof!
So if the curse continues for the rest of The Nile Ran Red — and there’s no reason to think it won’t, since I enjoyed Lords of the Sand and wasn’t too fond of Crimson Sun — then Rise of the First Dynasty, the collection’s final game, is predestined to be the best!
Oddballs
These days, I have less free time than ever before in my life. It’s like a university finals week except every day, including the weekends. And although we hold regular game nights, I just don’t have the energy to play some of the longer games I once enjoyed. Four hours for an epic game full of deceit and wheels-within-wheels plotting and a million components? No thanks, you guys can play. I’ll be here munching on the finger-snacks like a cow at midday.
Which is why I’m playing and enjoying so many shorter, simpler, and more portable games as of late. For example, Oddball Aeronauts, which I previewed a while back, recently appeared on my doorstep in all its finished glory, and it’s exactly what I needed this week.
Valley of the Blings
If I had to pick any two things that strike me as faintly outdated, it would be the funerary customs of Ancient Egypt and pure deck-building games. Probably the first more than the last.
Valley of the Kings from AEG is blend of both, casting you as a pharaoh employing the magical powers of deck-building to fill his final resting place to the brim with enough grave goods to ensure a resplendent jaunt through immortality. Which raises the question: is this commingling of the elderly a positive one, or entirely unholy?
Red Nile: Crimson Sun
Once upon a time, there was a game from Small Box Games named Bhazum. People liked it, or at least they indicated as much by giving it overall positive ratings on BoardGameGeek. It was recently given new life as Crimson Sun, the second entry in Small Box Games’ Kickstarter tripartite, The Nile Ran Red.
All this impressive investigative journalism would be worth a poop in a sock if I’d ever played Bhazum, but I haven’t. Which means I have no idea whether it’s the same game as Bhazum, or updated, or downdated, or anything at all. Instead, all I can tell you are my impressions of the game on its own merits, so apologies to all those Bhazum fanatics that have been sending me hundreds of emails. You guys will just have to go pester somebody else now.
Red Nile: Lords of the Sand
What’s the first thing that springs to mind when I say “The Nile Ran Red”?
If it’s the story of Moses, then you’re on the same tangent as all my friends. Upon hearing about Small Box Games’ most recent collection (which happens to be entitled “The Nile Ran Red,” in case you hadn’t pieced that together), every single one of them said, “So it’s a game about Moses?” Then they laughed at me, because despite my degrees in history and religious studies with an emphasis on Biblical texts, that thought never once occurred to me, and it really should have. One day, all that education will come in handy! But apparently not today.
Anyway, aside from being decidedly un-Biblical, The Nile Ran Red is actually three separate games, and we’re investigating them one at a time — starting with Lords of the Sand.
Polis Party!
Given the choice when playing a board game simulating a historical conflict, I’ll always pick the losers. Confederacy, Axis, Cavaliers, Optimates, Tories, FARC, Syndicate, Harkonnen. That way, if I lose — then hey, no worries. They were going to lose anyway. Can’t argue with history.
But if, on the other hand, I win… then I’m a wargame genius.
Polis: Fight for the Hegemony is all about one of my favorite historical flashpoints, the decades-long conflict between the Athenian Delian League and the Spartan Peloponnesian League. And yes, while this means I’m shouting “Dibs on Athens!” the instant it hits the table and plotting how to alter history so the overrated Spartans don’t win again, it’s also a great game for a few other reasons.
Fantasy Frontier, or Regular?
If there are two things everybody fantasizes about, it’s the exploration of virgin lands and captaining an airship as it unloads its cannons at another airship. I’d also settle for captaining the Starship Enterprise.
Fantasy Frontier makes both dreams a reality (provided you count a board game as a legitimate version of reality, that is), and that’s still only half the story.
Thrice the Pixels, Triple the Tactics
I’m occasionally overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy, the sense that no matter how hard I try, I won’t be able to convince more people to play Pixel Tactics. I mean, I’ve already written about this gem from Level 99 Games twice (here and here) and apparently there are still a handful of people who have yet to check it out.
But it’s not too late. The third game in the series has just arrived, and there’s hope for you holdouts yet.
Three Generals Walk into a Bar…
You’ve probably heard that old joke about what happens when Bernard Montgomery, Omar Bradley, and George Patton walk into a bar, spot a gorgeous woman at the back, and undertake a contest for her affections. No? Well, it goes something like this: Patton goes straight for her and starts bragging about the size of his detachment, Montgomery chats up the other ladies in the room in hopes of making the primary objective jealous, and Bradley sits around feeling inferior. Who gets the girl? Well, nobody does, at least not by Christmas 1944.
Very few military rivalries have been so romanticized (or even so outright trumped-up) as the one between Patton and Montgomery, and sometimes Bradley gets slotted in there too. With the release of 1944: Race to the Rhine, you can finally live your dreams of proving once and for all that [insert chosen general] could have proven himself better than [insert rival] by crossing the Rhine and ending the war, if only you’d been there to lend your insight.
SPACE-BIFF! 