An Average Gamer - Reviews in 500 Words

I picked up the starter box of Star Wars Destiny from Fantasy Flight Games for my brother-in-law because he is a huge Star Wars fan. Like most starter sets, Destiny provides you with the bare bones to get started. You get Rey and Poe versus Kylo and Phasma. This is a collectible dice and card game. Personally, I am not generally a fan of collectible games. I think they reward players with more money and disadvantage those with less. But, that truly only applies when playing competitively. If you are just playing with friends who like the setting and don't care about buying up all the best combinations, then any collectible game can be fun (I play Magic with my nephew and though we occasionally buy packs, we don't go out trying to buy specific cards to help us win). The dice in Destiny are used to gain resources and for combat. The cards get you extra dice or special abilities that are triggered based on how you roll. The dice and cards can also gain you Shields whic...

For me, GenCon Sunday is usually one last trip through the dealer hall, then an early lunch with friends before making my way to the airport. The airport was an exciting time since the fire alarms were triggered at one point and no one knew what to do. But let's get back to Day 3 and some game talk first. One of the big games that everyone seemed to want to get in on was Unmatched by Restoration Games / Mondo Games . Despite several attempts, I was never able to get in on a demo for this. And, I know there were probably reasons for this, but one day when I looked early, demos were not slated to start until 1pm. I wanted to try it out since I believe it is similar in design to the old Star Wars Duel game (which I still have my copy of) that I enjoyed a lot when it came out. Alas, no demos and they were apparently sold out within 20 minutes each morning of the show. I do like the artwork and quality of the components. Once my local store gets it in, I'll probably try and g...

Table set up and rules reading I played Star Wars: Outer Rim last night. I ran Ketsu Onyo and played against Lando, Jynn Erso and Bossk. It's a fun game and felt relatively thematic to the Star Wars universe (it felt like all of the characters who showed up fit in the same time). I listened to a review beforehand so I knew basically what to expect. And I was not disappointed It is, for the most part, a pick up and deliver game with some combat and challenges along the way. The rulebook seems clearly laid out and with only one person reading the rules, literally 30 minutes before we played, all 4 players were able to get up and moving on Turn 1. That is not to say there are not some nuances that required us to look things up. But again, the layout of the guide books made finding an answer easy. I am a strong proponent of not needing to watch a playthrough video in order to play the first game (but that is also not to say I think playthrough videos are a bad idea, they are very...