The Future of Game Night with the Saints
by Mrs. Saint Sixteen months ago, Brad and I (Jess) published our tenth episode of our podcast: Game Night with the Saints. If you had told us then that we wouldn’t have had our next episode out for you on track two weeks later, I would have laughed. Then life happened. And now, here we…
Board Game Bites for New Gamers: Fighting Card Games
by Mrs. Saint Sorry for the hiatus on our Board Game Bites posts, the Saint household has been embroiled in a few hectic months of holidays, a teething toddler, and general life craziness, as I’m sure many of your can relate. Our first B.G.B. post of 2021 is going to be focusing on a genre…
Saint Gaming’s Favorites of 2020
No matter the year, the end of December brings a time for reflection and 2020 is certainly no exception, but instead of dwelling on some of the sad and less pleasant parts of this year, we’re going to take a few minutes to talk about our favorite hobby and the board games we played this…
A New Challenger: Cammy
By Mr. Saint Cammy, as a character in the Street Fighter universe, has enjoyed enduring appeal. Despite being consistently ranked as one of the worst characters in her debut game (Super Street Fighter II), she quickly garnered a fanbase that solidified her status as a recurring character in the franchise. To date, Cammy has appeared…
A New Challenger: Prepare
By Mr. Saint Cards in hand are good. Cards in hand are important. Cards, whether they be in your hand or deck, are one of the resources that make Exceed’s in-game engine hum (the other two resources being gauge and life respectively). That must make the Prepare action particularly effective right? After all, it’s a…
Board Game Bites for New Gamers: Card Drafting
by Mrs. Saint A couple weeks ago, we talked about Dice Drafting. This week, we’re going to cover the Card Drafting mechanic and discuss a few different games that use card drafting. If you’ve read some of my other articles, you may already know that my husband is the one who introduced me to hobby…
An Introduction to the Arkham Horror Files
By Mr. Saint I love this time of year. The leaves are changing, the unmistakable scent of pumpkin spice is in the air, people are looking for scary movies to stream. There’s just something about late Fall that is filled with suspense, like the world stands at the edge of something momentous, waiting for a…
A New Challenger: Mole Knight
By Mr. Saint Written in Collaboration with Level 99 Discord User @ReggiesWarOnEverything Do you know what playing as Mole Knight reminds me of? A dedicated outboxer. For the uninitiated, outboxing is one of the four orthodox boxing styles that categorize the majority of athletes in modern boxing. It is a style defined by faster, long…
A New Challenger: Shovel & Shield Knight
By Mr. Saint The dynamic duo! The perfect pair! The tandem twosome! Ok, I’ll stop. Shovel and Shield Knight have been affectionately nicknamed EXSK by the Level 99 Exceed Discord, because two knights whose names both start with S would naturally combine to form an EX character (I will at times be using this abbreviation…
Board Game Bites for New Gamers: Deck Building
by Mrs. Saint We’ve placed our workers and drafted our dice, but now we have an architectural challenge, we must build a deck. No, not the kind of deck that you put your grill on and have hamburgers and hotdogs on! We’re talking about the board game mechanic known as Deck Building. In 2008, Rio…
A New Challenger: Mix-ups and Represented Attacks
No one has asked, but if I was pressed, I’d have to say my favorite Season of Exceed so far is Season 3. And yes, a big part of that is the Street Fighter license (you can read more about my personal history with Street Fighter in our Yomi and Exceed reviews). But even more…
Board Game Bites for New Gamers: Dice Drafting
by Mrs. Saint The other week, we covered the worker placement game mechanic. For this week’s Board Game Bites, we’re going to talk about dice drafting. Dice drafting was one of those mechanics that for me at first wasn’t completely clear what type of mechanic it was by name alone. I didn’t fully understand what…
A New Challenger: King Knight
by Mr. Saint Before we begin, a bit of rules overhead: a continuous boost (or Decree) is considered resolved once any “Now” text on it is completed. If the boost doesn’t have any “Now” text, it is considered resolved as soon as it is played. As his preview article would suggest, King Knight is a…
A New Challenger: Ken Masters
by Mr. Saint Ken has always been one of my favorite fighting game characters. Going all the way back to Super Street Fighter II Turbo, where his character design broke with the traditional shoto fireball style in favor of a rushdown style that relied on knee bash loops, a superior jab dragon punch, and crazy…
Board Game Bites for New Gamers: Worker Placement
by Mrs. Saint The other week, we talked about the sheer volume of games and some online resources to help make purchasing decisions a little easier. For the next few Board Game Bites, we’re going to talk about game mechanics. For me, when I was first starting out in the hobby a few years ago, it…
Board Game Bites for New Gamers: Utilizing Online Communities for Game Purchases
by Mrs. Saint As I mentioned in the last Board Game Bites, one of the things that still overwhelms me is the sheer volume of games. When I did a quick internet search, I couldn’t find set numbers yet for 2019 but in 2018 there were over 3,000 new games published and the expectation was…
Board Gaming Bites for New Gamers: Your Local Game Store
by Mrs Saint I grew up playing the classic mass marketed board games like Monopoly, Clue, and Life, and to this day, I’m still impressed with my Dad’s Carrom skills. However, I’m no veteran to this hobby. In fact, I’m pretty new to the hobby board gaming community. It wasn’t until my husband and I…
Summer Reading
by Mrs Saint School has been out for almost a month here. Little Miss and I were sitting out in the front yard the other week and talking to the neighbor’s kids next door. They were working in their garden and I asked them, since our county was going to be moving to the green…
What Kind of Gamer are You?
by Mr. Saint I was recently asked for game recommendations by a relative who was new to the hobby. This was a true blue, often-cited, yet in my experience actually rather rare, “My husband and I love Catan, what other games can you recommend?” type of situation. For reasons unknown, my mind conjured up an…
Hate Isn’t on the Menu
by Mrs. Saint If you read the About page of our website, you would know one of my passions outside of board gaming is cooking and baking. I love cooking a good meal for my family and friends. I love to see them gather around the table and enjoy the food and conversation. I suppose…
Root, a Critical Comparison to Vast (the Crystal Caverns)
By: Mr. Saint Note: Post originally published on BGG April 2019. I’ll spare you the game overview, as at the time of writing this review, Root has 29 other text reviews and Vast has 14. I’m sure other talented writers have already covered how each game plays more eloquently than I ever could. If you…
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