Tag: Game

Written Reviews

Carcassonne

Lily Gould

I’m not going to lie. I only recently played Carcassonne for the first time, and I found it to be remarkably interesting. The only reason I was able to try it was because one of my coworkers lent me their copy. I was both impressed and underwhelmed by Carcassonne. And I know that is not going to be a popular opinion. The game was fun, had interesting core mechanics, and was something I outgrew a while ago. That isn’t saying it’s not a great game. I just was introduced to Carcassonne a little late in my board game journey.

Game, Written Reviews

Key to the Kingdom

Lily Gould

Okay, this is a bit of a throwback game for me. Key to the Kingdom was one of my go to games in my childhood. It really shaped some of my tastes growing up. At its heart, Key to the Kingdom is a DM-less RPG disguised as a roll to move board game. I was honestly shocked to come across a copy at the local board game flea market and I couldn’t have been happier to find it!! It takes you through a fantasy world where there are challenges galore leading up to a dungeon where monsters await you. One of the most interesting things about Key to the Kingdom is that it is a competitive game. You are racing against the other players to gather the right treasures and claim the throne of the Kingdom.

Game, Written Reviews

Calico

Lily Gould

Calico is a competitive tile laying game about creating your own personalized quilt to attract cats to snuggle into your blanket. Total Game Play: 30 to 45 minutes Designer(s): Kevin Russ Artist(s): Beth Sobel Publisher: Flatout Games As far as themes go, Calico is one that immediately attracted me. Making quilts? Heck yes! Collecting Cats?… Continue reading Calico

Deep Dives, Game, Tournaments

2021 Root Winter Tournament: Semi-Finals

Lily Gould

We have made it through the Semi-Finals!! That was a heck of a weekend! Five games in three days! And one day consisted of eight and a half of streaming!! I am quite excited to make it to the finals but first let's look back at the semi finals and the journey of some of our finalists.

Deep Dives, Game

Root Faction Scoring Models

Lily Gould

Recently, I started keeping track of the round-by-round points for each factions after Rk9 showed interest. It was a stat that I hadn’t really tracked before and I’m not sure why I didn’t because it’s so fascinating. Looking back of all the tournaments, I found that there were two sets of data: the scoring paths from AdSet and the scoring paths from the Plus One Pool Draft. These get delved into by faction in the sections below. All data on the AdSet faction includes only the first two rounds of the 2021 Winter Tournament.

Deep Dives, Game, Tournaments

2021 Root Winter Tournament – Round Three

Lily Gould

Welcome to round three of the winter tournament!! And this round is going to be a doozy. We have skilled players. We have five player games. This has been chaos but I highly recommend all of the games. Each game has offered a new amount of craziness in every different direction. Just like before, I wanted to make graphs of of the scores at the end of each players turn. It's awesome to see each faction climbing up the graph, reaching hard for that 30 points.

Deep Dives, Game

Keepers in Iron Guide

Luke Bridwell

The Keepers in Iron (nicknamed badgers through the rest of this guide) are a tough but fun faction to learn and master. This faction is a continuous learning process. The more practice you have, the better you understand the faction and adapt to the board state. Badgers have a lot of flexibility, and this guide will help you learn which options you should consider when making strategic decisions. They are very rewarding when you have gained an understanding of how badgers play.

Deep Dives, Game

The Vagabond Quest Deck

Lily Gould

Over the course of the tournament, I have taken an interest in the vagabond quest deck. Every quest requires two items from the potential available eight. And I was really curious to see what that make up was like. Especially in relationship to the suits of the decks. This is important since you need to be in a matching clearing to complete the quest. My question turned into: which clearing has the easiest quests to complete? Also, which vagabonds are best for completing quests? The answers... probably won't surprised you.