We continue with my audio reviews with Episode 4 - Concordia. Highly praised by those on Facebook and some people I know locally, though not by everyone. And I'm one of those exceptions. Find out why I don't like this game and whether there's anything good to salvage.

Also note, the ten minute clock does not include music intros and endings!

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Conveniently in the same year as Captain America: Civil War is released we've got the newest mini-expansion for Marvel Legendary, which is showing no signs of stopping any time soon with new cards and ways to spice up a quality deck builder. By the way side note if you've not seen Civil War yet, go buy a ticket when you've finished reading this review and go see it, it's frig'in fantastic! But do it in that order, read this, then cinema. OK? Cool! If it's no longer in cinemas, then. . . well sorry you were late to the party, where were you huh?

Captain America has been solid to watch on the big screen, but he's not typically one of my favourites from the Marvel universe. However his recent persona has made me appreciate him a lot more as one of the iconic greats (I guess we have Marvel writers and Chris Evans to thank for that) and so I was excited for this expansion. The mini-expansions so far to date have been solid (not including the obscure Villains "Fear Itself" one, which I doubt anyone loved) and I love them to bits because they focus on iconic heroes. Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Guardians of the Galaxy, they are a must if you like those heroes. So what does this new Legendary set do for the blue, red and white one himself? Let's celebrate his 75th birthday!

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This cycle has certainly been a big influence hasn't it? Democracy and Dogma proved itself to be one of the best packs for a long while so the rest of this cycle has a lot to live up to. I do have one fear though with the way the current meta is going. Runner decks in tournaments are being dominated by Anarch Faust decks constantly and on the Corp side, the emphasis on making decks that rely on a huge wide server build (IG, Gagarin, New Earth Hub) is becoming a little too common. I feel that some Runner styles and Corp glacier builds are being left by the wayside. Will Salsette Island change all that or add further fuel to the fire?

To repeat a previous disclaimer, I'm a casual player that enjoys the game and can hold my own in a local store tournament despite having much to learn myself. That's all. Take that for what its worth, but maybe that will allow me to consider combos and ideas that will be fun to use rather than simply dismissing anything that doesn't make a Tier 1 level deck or whatever! So that being said, let's start. You can already check out my Android Netrunner review on my site. If you want to see all the images for each card, I recommend you visit netrunnerdb.com and use their search engine.

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The Spiel Des Jahres is one of the most prestigious awards a board game can receive. German for Game of the Year, it’s an award for board and card games, created by Steven Spielberg in 1978 with the stated purpose of rewarding excellence in game design, and promoting top-quality games in the German market. It is thought that the existence and popularity of the award is one of the major drivers of the quality of games coming out of Germany.

Now in the past it’s been a hit or miss affair in my opinion as to the nominations and winners. In the last three years we’ve had Colt Express, Camel Up and Hanabi win the award. All three of these games deserve the award even though I don’t particularly like the first two. They fit the family game genre perfectly and are liked by many people. Other classics likeDixit and Dominion have also received the award, but there have also been some downright insane choices as well. Kingdom Builder, really? One of my most despised games of all time and you think that’s more suitable for families than King of Tokyo, Flashpoint Fire Rescue and Takenoko from the same year? Quirkle and Keltis? Like I said, it’s very much a hit or miss award.

Normally you can predict what titles are going to appear. But this is an example of one which nobody saw coming or had even heard of in the UK/US market. Simply called The Game. This appeared and raised a ton of questions, not least because of the odd choice of name. So did it deserve a spot as a Runner-Up? I mean, to appear as a nomination it has to be pretty good right? . . . . . . . right?

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Matt Leacock came up with a gold mine in the form of Pandemic. Not my favourite game ever but the Legacy version gave me some good times at least. Since then there's been a lot of games using similar mechanics, some excellent (Forbidden series), some not so great (Thunderbirds). So when Knit Wit was announced I was at least glad to see that we were venturing outside of the comfort zone and trying something new.

It's concept is obviously based on the old Scattergories party game of old. Well if you can call it a party game anyway it was essentially a word-game with a fair amount of arguing and it quickly got repetitive mainly because my parents kept wanting to play it and unfortunately it's taken a while for me to inform my family that more games exist beyond the 1980's and certainly better ones. And yet we still end up playing trivia games a lot.............ugh, seriously if even half of those trivia questions were useful knowledge to have, I'd already know it! So will this improve on the original concept or equally be relegated to the forgetful pile?

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Episode 3 of my audio reviews continue with Kanban: Automotive Revolution. My first introduction to a Vital Lacerda game, did it scare me off or did it hook me straight away? And can you even physically learn it? Find out more now!

Also note, the ten minute clock does not include music intros and endings!

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For crying out loud, slow down Fantasy Flight! There's Calm Over Westeros, but it's certainly not Calm Over Portsmouth with the rate these expansions are coming out. I know I said I wanted a bigger card pool to drastically improve this game, but there's a limit guys! Already as I write this I know that True Steel is on the boat to wrap up the cycle. Here's hoping that maybe there will be a short break between cycles for us to catch our breath!

To repeat a previous disclaimer, I'm a casual player that enjoys the game and can hold my own in a local store tournament despite having much to learn myself. That's all. Take that for what its worth, but maybe that will allow me to consider combos and ideas that will be fun to use rather than simply dismissing anything that doesn't make a Tier 1 level deck or whatever! So that being said, let's start. You can already check out my Game of Thrones LCG review on my site. If you want to see all the images/text for each card, I recommend you visit thronesdb.com and use their search engine - far easier than me regurgitating it here.

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A lot of people think I avoid heavy Euro's like the plague but this simply isn't true. Good, solid crunchy Euro's are great fun, but if you want to keep me there for 3+ hours it needs to keep me interested and immersed. That means not only must the mechanics be good, but the theme must be strong and interesting as well. Dry, soulless Euro's I can only take as a short game, but there are exceptions (Terra Mystica). In fact by the time this goes up I should have recorded my next podcast episode with my Top 10 Dry (Pasted Theme) Games, so check that out.

Vital Lacerda ranks up there among my Top 10 Designers despite his relatively small portfolio (no this isn't brown-nosing). He's able to create heavy Euro games that incorporate a strong thematic flavour - a trait I latch on to greatly. Vinhos I've yet to try, but just reading the description suggests it depicts wine-making in great detail making it intriguing enough for me to pre-order the deluxe version. Kanban as per my upcoming audio review did a great job of portraying the internal aspects of running a car factory and dodging your mean boss. And now we have The Gallerist which by description alone I can tell it's got a strong thematic tie-in to the world of Art, something I have limited knowledge of I must admit. I couldn't tell the difference between Michelangelo the painter and the ninja turtle and can't draw my way out of a paper bag!

Does this game support the claims I've just made? Do I think this beats Kanban, one of my (spoiler alert) favourite Euro's I've played? Plenty to talk about here!

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People say that I only like games that have a strong theme and stay away from Euro's. Well the first part is half right and I actually like a lot of Euro games. So on Episode 43 I'm going to give my Top Ten "Dry" Games, which is a subjective list to say the list, but essentially these are games where the theme is non-existant without being simply an abstract game. There are a lot of games with pasted on themes, but these ones have incredibly thin veils.

Prior to that though there's plenty of first impressions including some new titles, Valeria and Thunderbirds as well as an older title, The Adventurers: The Temple of Chac.

And the "One More Game?" segments pays homage to the recent Captain America: Civil War craze by taking a look back at Marvel Legendary - have all the expansions kept it alive and does the setup time get in the way?

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