Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Top of the Stack, Feb 2026

Transcript

Top of the Stack, Feb 2026 · Pick Up and Deliver

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello friends. Future Brendan here interrupting before the podcast starts.
0:04
Speaker 1: I am using my new recorder with my old mic
0:07
Speaker 1: and some for some reason, it's very very hot. I've
0:09
Speaker 1: turned it down as much as I can, but you
0:11
Speaker 1: still may hear a little distortion as I'm blowing out
0:13
Speaker 1: the microphone a little bit. It's my second try recording it,
0:16
Speaker 1: and I mentioned it a few times, but I just
0:18
Speaker 1: wanted you to have a heads up that the sound
0:19
Speaker 1: quality isn't ideal. I'm still working on it, but I
0:22
Speaker 1: want to get this podcast out to you, so enjoy.
0:30
Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast where I
0:32
Speaker 1: pick up my audio recorder as I step out for
0:34
Speaker 1: a walk and deliver an episode to you while I
0:36
Speaker 1: stroll around. I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good afternoon, listeners. It's
0:48
Speaker 1: a lovely day here in suburban Chicago. I'm trying this again.
0:52
Speaker 1: My microphone is still acting up. It's still proving difficult.
0:55
Speaker 1: Yesterday I recorded it and I got back home and
0:58
Speaker 1: it was way too loud. I've got the gain all
1:01
Speaker 1: the way down on the microphone so it says low
1:03
Speaker 1: as it'll go, and it was still blasting out the microphone,
1:06
Speaker 1: so I've now placed it a couple more inches away
1:08
Speaker 1: from my face. It's like almost my belly button on
1:10
Speaker 1: my lapel. So we'll see if this works. Hopefully it
1:13
Speaker 1: does well. Welcome to season nine of Pickup and Deliver.
1:20
Speaker 1: It's been it was a nice break, and the semester started.
1:24
Speaker 1: I'm already almost halfway through week two of the semester,
1:28
Speaker 1: but the weather was so cold I was not able
1:33
Speaker 1: to record any podcasts, which was frustrating because I like
1:36
Speaker 1: to record the podcast for you and I like to
1:38
Speaker 1: get started a little earlier than I have, but it
1:41
Speaker 1: was so cold it just wasn't going to work to
1:44
Speaker 1: record podcasts. It's actually still pretty cold today and I
1:46
Speaker 1: think of underdressed, so we'll see. This is going to
1:49
Speaker 1: be a chilly one. Nonetheless, I'm out for a walk
1:52
Speaker 1: in the middle of my work from home day, taking
1:55
Speaker 1: a step away from grading for a minute to talk
1:57
Speaker 1: with you about board games, as I often do. First off,
2:02
Speaker 1: welcome to any new listeners. I don't know why I
2:06
Speaker 1: would have new listeners at the beginning of the season,
2:08
Speaker 1: but maybe people heard about it and they signed up.
2:11
Speaker 1: But this is the first new episode in which case welcome.
2:15
Speaker 1: This podcast is generally of a fifteen to twenty five minutes,
2:19
Speaker 1: and it usually involves ME taking a walk and chatting
2:22
Speaker 1: with you, So the goal is supposed to feel like
2:24
Speaker 1: you and I went for a walk together. Often recorded
2:27
Speaker 1: on my way home from the train, but sometimes I
2:30
Speaker 1: just record it when I have some time, I take
2:31
Speaker 1: a little walk, record a little pod. Often the first
2:35
Speaker 1: episode of the month, which will be this episode, is
2:39
Speaker 1: my Top of the Stack. The Top of the Stack
2:41
Speaker 1: is a segment in which I talk about the games
2:44
Speaker 1: that I played last month and the games I plan
2:47
Speaker 1: to play this next month. I swiped the title from
2:49
Speaker 1: the podcast of Nonsensical Gamers, so a little nod to them,
2:52
Speaker 1: A tip of the hat right there, Let's jump into it.
2:57
Speaker 1: January of twenty twenty six was a fun month for gaming.
3:01
Speaker 1: I played seventy three plays of forty nine different games
3:05
Speaker 1: in the month. My shelf of opportunity went from eighty
3:08
Speaker 1: six to ninety two games, so it went up a bit.
3:11
Speaker 1: My collection size only climbed from six fifteen to six nineteen, however,
3:15
Speaker 1: so even though I acquired more games, also got rid
3:18
Speaker 1: of enough that I kept my collection size from getting
3:20
Speaker 1: too high. My most played game of the month was
3:25
Speaker 1: the gang I played at four times in real life
3:27
Speaker 1: at my board game club. I also played Through the
3:31
Speaker 1: Ages four times asynchronously on Board Game Arena. I really
3:35
Speaker 1: like that game. I'm always happy to play another round
3:37
Speaker 1: of bit, so if you would like to play Board
3:39
Speaker 1: Game Arena with me, please do come on over my
3:46
Speaker 1: games that I picked out for the month. I always
3:47
Speaker 1: pick out four games that I want to try to
3:49
Speaker 1: play in the month. If I play three of them,
3:51
Speaker 1: I consider that a success gives me a little wiggle room,
3:54
Speaker 1: and then ideally a successful year would be thirty six
3:57
Speaker 1: of those selected games played over the course of the year.
4:00
Speaker 1: The four that I picked out this month were La Patisiri, Rococo, Praga,
4:04
Speaker 1: Can put Regne, Duel Ordeal, a Hamilton Game, and The
4:09
Speaker 1: Hobbit There and Back Again. I have, in fact played
4:12
Speaker 1: all four of those, so hazza, I'm a little head
4:15
Speaker 1: of the curve at least on month one. I haven't
4:18
Speaker 1: talked about those games yet, but I will in upcoming podcasts.
4:22
Speaker 1: Aside from those four games, which are all new to me,
4:25
Speaker 1: I also played Lord of the Rings, The Duel Endurance, Splendor, Duel,
4:30
Speaker 1: Carnival of Monsters, Word zy Galactic, Crews. That's on board
4:33
Speaker 1: game Arena and Bonzai. These are all new games to
4:36
Speaker 1: me that I hadn't played before. I will talk about
4:39
Speaker 1: those in upcoming episodes. I'm sure I also had a
4:43
Speaker 1: chance to play some expansion material. I played one adventure
4:47
Speaker 1: from Unlock Enchanted Adventures. That one was interesting. I got
4:52
Speaker 1: it from a friend, Hi Paul, and they had played
4:55
Speaker 1: it already and there were some typos in one of them.
4:58
Speaker 1: There was an error in the app, so you warned
5:01
Speaker 1: me where the typos were, but when we played it,
5:02
Speaker 1: the typo wasn't there. So then the question was are
5:05
Speaker 1: we sure the typo was there or have they updated
5:08
Speaker 1: the app? Could be either one. I managed to dust
5:15
Speaker 1: off a number of games this month that was pretty good.
5:18
Speaker 1: A Dusty game is one that I've played before, but
5:21
Speaker 1: I haven't played it for more than a year, so
5:24
Speaker 1: it's gotten kind of metaphorically dusty. So among those, I
5:28
Speaker 1: have the Lost Expedition five Years, one month, and twenty
5:32
Speaker 1: five days Dusty. This is a really interesting game in
5:35
Speaker 1: which you are trekking through the Amazon rainforest trying to
5:40
Speaker 1: find the Lost City. It's inspired by the Lost City
5:44
Speaker 1: of z which is a nonfiction book by David gran
5:48
Speaker 1: about an expedition in the nineteen twenties I think, which
5:52
Speaker 1: was disastrous and really interesting. Great book. We have code names.
5:57
Speaker 1: Duet one year, seven months, six days, Dusty, Mystic Vail
6:01
Speaker 1: three years, ten months, sixteen days, Dusty. I played that
6:03
Speaker 1: on Yukata. That is a card crafting game which I've
6:07
Speaker 1: never played in person and I would like to try. Yeah,
6:10
Speaker 1: it's fine. I am enjoying it on Yukata, and I've
6:13
Speaker 1: been playing it some more trying to get the feel
6:15
Speaker 1: for it. But it's got to push your luck element
6:18
Speaker 1: that I feel like isn't really that good because I
6:21
Speaker 1: feel like it's never a good choice to push your luck.
6:23
Speaker 1: Every now and again. You can push your luck and
6:25
Speaker 1: have it succeed, but most of the time that I
6:27
Speaker 1: push my luck, it fails and I lose my turn.
6:31
Speaker 1: The penalty is so harsh for having the push your
6:35
Speaker 1: luck fail. So yeah, not the best, but amusing nonetheless.
6:41
Speaker 1: Dead of Winter three years, eleven months, twenty seven days, Dusty.
6:44
Speaker 1: I like this game a lot thematically. I really like
6:47
Speaker 1: the Crossroads mechanism, but I think it's too fragile. The
6:50
Speaker 1: Trader mechanism is the game is really fragile in terms
6:54
Speaker 1: of being co op and so I think the idea
7:01
Speaker 1: is that the players should be able to spot the
7:03
Speaker 1: person who's the trader doing trader as things to disrupt
7:06
Speaker 1: the group. But the game is so hard that it's
7:10
Speaker 1: really hard to stay above the curve. Usually, if you're
7:14
Speaker 1: on your way to winning as a group, you're winning
7:16
Speaker 1: on the knife edge. It's really close, which means that
7:18
Speaker 1: if the trader just does nothing to sabotage the group
7:21
Speaker 1: until right near the end, then they can very easily
7:24
Speaker 1: sabotage the group. And I will say the trader did
7:28
Speaker 1: that to us, but then they lost too because they
7:30
Speaker 1: did not achieve their goal. So that was a little
7:33
Speaker 1: frustrating because that means that real just lost because the
7:38
Speaker 1: trader wasn't paying attention enough. But I guess that's the
7:41
Speaker 1: humor of it. It was fun an except a Zuol
7:45
Speaker 1: one year twenty five days dusty. Now, I think if
7:48
Speaker 1: I kept all the Azul games in a single category
7:51
Speaker 1: for dust it certainly isn't dusty. But our family much
7:55
Speaker 1: prefers a Zuolo summer pavilion, and so we don't play
8:00
Speaker 1: Zool very much anymore. Our pandemic. That's one year, six
8:04
Speaker 1: months and nine days, Dusty. I like Pandemic. I've had
8:07
Speaker 1: a sort of resurgence of it since we had a
8:09
Speaker 1: Pandemic Survival tournament at the Toggo Game Day, and I've
8:14
Speaker 1: played it a few times since then. It's a good game.
8:17
Speaker 1: And Strike one year, nine months, twenty four days, Dusty.
8:20
Speaker 1: This is a pushy lock game where you are throwing
8:21
Speaker 1: dice into a bowl. It is delightful. It's dumb, there's
8:27
Speaker 1: not much to it, but it's delightful. All right. I'm
8:30
Speaker 1: the next thing. As you know, each year or every
8:34
Speaker 1: other year, I do a top fifty list, I update
8:37
Speaker 1: my top fifty, and then the goal is between those
8:40
Speaker 1: two top fifty lists, I want to play as many
8:42
Speaker 1: of my top fifty games as I can, if not
8:44
Speaker 1: all of them. So along those lines, in twenty twenty five,
8:50
Speaker 1: I played twenty nine of my top fifty games, leaving
8:53
Speaker 1: a mirror twenty one to try to play this year.
8:56
Speaker 1: In January, starting Offshong, I only played one, so I
8:59
Speaker 1: have left to go. But the one I played was
9:01
Speaker 1: Paga could put Regny. Then I also have a ten
9:07
Speaker 1: for ten. As you know, the ten for ten I
9:10
Speaker 1: set up a challenge I set up ten different sort
9:12
Speaker 1: of mini challenges that I need to accomplish ten things
9:15
Speaker 1: from each time. To start off, I did player color
9:19
Speaker 1: and need to play ten different player colors over the
9:21
Speaker 1: course of the year, and I have played five already.
9:27
Speaker 1: Player count. I want to play games at all the
9:29
Speaker 1: different player counts between one and ten, and I have
9:32
Speaker 1: done several of those one, two, three, four, and five continents.
9:40
Speaker 1: This is a holdover from last year or a rollover.
9:43
Speaker 1: I am doing the same challenge again. What I'm trying
9:45
Speaker 1: to do is play ten games over the course of
9:48
Speaker 1: the year that are set on ten different continents on
9:51
Speaker 1: five different continents, so two each on five different continents.
9:56
Speaker 1: But Brendan, there are seven continents. You say, yes, I
9:58
Speaker 1: don't count North America or Europe because most of the
10:01
Speaker 1: games I have are set in those two if they're
10:03
Speaker 1: set on the continent at all. So for the goal
10:07
Speaker 1: is to make myself play games that are set on
10:09
Speaker 1: the other five continents. I wanted to really think about
10:14
Speaker 1: how I could continue whittling down my shelf of opportunity,
10:19
Speaker 1: so I kept I rolled over the shelf of opportunity
10:23
Speaker 1: clearing task. But instead of doing two different tasks, I
10:26
Speaker 1: just made it one and I said any game. I
10:28
Speaker 1: want to play ten games that were on my shelf
10:30
Speaker 1: before twenty twenty five. Clear that out a little bit,
10:33
Speaker 1: and I've done one of those so far, that was
10:35
Speaker 1: Deal or Dual. I want to play five or ten
10:40
Speaker 1: games by Vladimir Suci this year and ten games by
10:43
Speaker 1: Martin Wallace this year, those two being kind of my
10:45
Speaker 1: favorite designers. And I started that off strong by playing
10:49
Speaker 1: Roger Coupat Regney and by playing London. So I've played
10:53
Speaker 1: one Beach now. I'm not counting digital plays for either
10:56
Speaker 1: of these. You have to have to. We're talking about
10:58
Speaker 1: table plays. I'm also I'm gonna try not to repeat.
11:03
Speaker 1: I can't remember if I told myself I may not repeat,
11:05
Speaker 1: but I think that that's the goal. Try to play
11:07
Speaker 1: ten ten different games by each designer. And finally, I
11:14
Speaker 1: have the new BGG Top two fifty. What that category
11:18
Speaker 1: is is I'm gonna try to play ten games that
11:21
Speaker 1: are in the top two hundred and fifty on Board
11:23
Speaker 1: Game Geek that I have not played, and I did
11:26
Speaker 1: not accomplish that at all this month. So I'm gonna
11:28
Speaker 1: have to be a little more deliberate if I want
11:30
Speaker 1: to move forward there I said, and finally that those
11:35
Speaker 1: are the sort of new ones, and then the last
11:37
Speaker 1: three the last thirty games are the Alphabet Challenge, which
11:40
Speaker 1: I've done two years in a row now and this
11:42
Speaker 1: will be my third year. So last year I didn't
11:46
Speaker 1: make it. So I'm gonna try to be a little
11:48
Speaker 1: more deliberate in the first half year about getting the
11:50
Speaker 1: number games out of the way, because those proved to
11:54
Speaker 1: be the hardest to accomplish. I did not succeed in
11:58
Speaker 1: getting my painting stuff out month. For those of you
12:02
Speaker 1: new to the podcast, I do like painting miniatures, and
12:04
Speaker 1: I kind of go in spurts off and on. I
12:06
Speaker 1: will paint stuff. I had a really good streak about
12:08
Speaker 1: two years ago where I painted a whole bunch of stuff.
12:11
Speaker 1: Then I kind of fell away from it. I've painted
12:13
Speaker 1: a few things here and there, but I really would
12:15
Speaker 1: like to get back to it. I'm three quarters of
12:17
Speaker 1: the way done painting the miniatures from Cerebria, which are
12:20
Speaker 1: beautiful and really fun, and I want to play that
12:22
Speaker 1: game this year, so I want to get a finished painting,
12:27
Speaker 1: and then Hellboy is the kind of big project I have.
12:30
Speaker 1: The Hellboy game comes with lots and lots of miniatures,
12:33
Speaker 1: and I painted a bunch of those, but I need
12:34
Speaker 1: to pay more. So finally, I want to share my
12:39
Speaker 1: collection size update. I like to keep track of how
12:43
Speaker 1: big my collection is very carefully, and I like to
12:46
Speaker 1: update you, my board game friends, about how I've been
12:49
Speaker 1: doing and managing it. My goal is to give it smaller.
12:53
Speaker 1: I've decided the ideal collection size for my house is
12:55
Speaker 1: about five hundred and fifty games, and I can have
12:58
Speaker 1: between zero and fifty games that are kind of on
13:00
Speaker 1: the bubble, but by which I mean the games I'm
13:03
Speaker 1: interested in. Maybe I've gotten them, I'm trying to play
13:05
Speaker 1: them a couple times and decide are these good enough
13:07
Speaker 1: to displace something in the collection. I've been trying in
13:13
Speaker 1: the last few years to get a lot more games
13:15
Speaker 1: in trade and in thrift stores rather than buying new,
13:19
Speaker 1: So that's fun. It's a fun little adventure and also
13:22
Speaker 1: saves some scratch. So along those lines, I have two
13:29
Speaker 1: games that I got at the beginning of the year
13:30
Speaker 1: because they were part of the holiday celebrations, or one
13:34
Speaker 1: was part of the holiday celebration that's Hobbit There and
13:36
Speaker 1: Back Again, and the other one is a game I
13:39
Speaker 1: found a thrift store that's woodsy. We also had also
13:42
Speaker 1: discovered two games that I owned that I had not
13:44
Speaker 1: marked owned, so Pulp Detective and Wingspan Asia both came
13:48
Speaker 1: into my collection but were not new. There was a
13:52
Speaker 1: game used game sale at my board game club, Toggle Gaming,
13:56
Speaker 1: which meets every Wednesday night in Arlington Heights, Illinois. If
13:58
Speaker 1: you'd like to come, we'd love to have you. And
14:01
Speaker 1: I got rid of Racks on World's Fair eighteen ninety three.
14:03
Speaker 1: Sheer Panic Rattle Battle grabbed the Lute Star Wars deck
14:06
Speaker 1: building game. That was hard to get rid of that
14:08
Speaker 1: one because I really like it, but I was never
14:10
Speaker 1: playing it. I just don't have a lot of opportunity
14:13
Speaker 1: to play two player games at home that my wife
14:16
Speaker 1: doesn't like. So how it goes vantage Boro Bora Time
14:20
Speaker 1: Pirates Mesopotamia another one I really liked but it just
14:24
Speaker 1: didn't click with anyone else. And King's Armory. And then
14:29
Speaker 1: some very nice, meaning, well meaning person pushed a link
14:32
Speaker 1: on board game Geek to a board game retail or
14:36
Speaker 1: warehouse that was having a clearance sale. And of course
14:40
Speaker 1: there's a lot of games that are like mediocre, but
14:41
Speaker 1: they were priced like eighty or ninety percent off. So
14:44
Speaker 1: there's a game that sort of rated mediocre but has
14:46
Speaker 1: like cool art and I can get it for eight
14:49
Speaker 1: bucks or something. I'm like, yeah, okay, I'll try it.
14:51
Speaker 1: So I bought a few games from there, and I
14:52
Speaker 1: bought a couple of games at the used game sales,
14:54
Speaker 1: so I added eight games to my collection. Similar fables
14:58
Speaker 1: crystall tim Palace, Dive, Vampire the Masquerade, Vendetta, Carnival of Monsters,
15:05
Speaker 1: Jurassic World Legacy, and gold Ahoy. Now. Crystalo I played
15:09
Speaker 1: way back when Liberty Kiefer was developing it on board
15:12
Speaker 1: game Geek. I did a print and play and some
15:14
Speaker 1: evaluation of it for them. And Vampire the Mask Graade
15:19
Speaker 1: Vendetta I played at Tagol somebody brought a copy and
15:21
Speaker 1: I did really like it. I mean, I don't know
15:24
Speaker 1: that I would have paid retail for it, but when
15:26
Speaker 1: I can get it for eight bucks or ten bucks
15:28
Speaker 1: or whatever, I paid pretty good. And then right toward
15:32
Speaker 1: the end of the month at a third store, I
15:34
Speaker 1: found Jeshaku, which is a game using rare earth magnets
15:39
Speaker 1: to try to do stuff I don't know exactly what,
15:42
Speaker 1: and Honor of the Samurai, which is a card game
15:45
Speaker 1: from the nineties from Game Right. So I ended up
15:49
Speaker 1: at six hundred and nineteen in my collection at the
15:51
Speaker 1: end of the month. Well, finally I had to pick
15:55
Speaker 1: out my new top of the stack for February, and
15:59
Speaker 1: the four games that I picked our Dive, Brian Boru,
16:03
Speaker 1: High King of Ireland, Hansa Teutonica, and Core Worlds. These
16:08
Speaker 1: are all games from the collection. I have played Brian
16:11
Speaker 1: Boru before with the other three are new and I'm
16:14
Speaker 1: looking forward to getting them played this month. It's gonna
16:17
Speaker 1: be a good time. Well, hopefully this has recorded well.
16:22
Speaker 1: If not, you won't hear me saying this, so it's
16:23
Speaker 1: funny for me to say it. I guess. I hope
16:27
Speaker 1: that your break went well. The world being what it is,
16:32
Speaker 1: let's set that aside at least for this moment. And
16:35
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear how your board gaming has been going.
16:38
Speaker 1: You could share that with me, okay, I hope your
16:42
Speaker 1: break went okay, I'd love to hear what you've been
16:45
Speaker 1: playing and what you've been doing with your hobby. You
16:48
Speaker 1: can head over to board game geet killed three two
16:49
Speaker 1: six nine and share your thoughts there. You can send
16:52
Speaker 1: me a direct message one bat nine two nine is
16:54
Speaker 1: my user name, and I look forward to hearing from
16:57
Speaker 1: you there. If you'd like to play a remote game
16:59
Speaker 1: with me, I play on board game Marina using also
17:02
Speaker 1: using the user name Wombat nine two nine. So head
17:05
Speaker 1: on over there and give me, drop me a line
17:07
Speaker 1: and we'll play a game. Well that's about it for
17:11
Speaker 1: me today. I hope that my microphone work and I
17:14
Speaker 1: want to say thank you for joining me on my walk.
17:16
Speaker 1: I hope that your next walk is as pleasant as
17:18
Speaker 1: mine was.
17:19
Speaker 2: Bye bye.
17:39
Speaker 1: Brought to you by rattle Box