Tabletop Strategist

Hey guys, first off I want to say thanks for checking out my blog.  I have been putting off writing new content for awhile now as I haven’t felt that I could be consistent until now.  And I think you deserve a consistent dose of strategy insight.  With that in mind I wanted to start breaking down a few more modern games outside the heavy heavy Diplomacy that we love oh so much.  That brings us to Tapestry!  I just received it a month ago for Christmas (yes I know I’m a few years late to the game) and already we have 8 plays under our belt plus I’ve reviewed every video I can find on YouTube about it so I am going to condense what I’ve learned from experience and what I’ve picked up from the YouTube.  If you disagree with any of the tips or have your own to share I’d love to hear them! Leave them in the comments below. **UPDATE** this list of tips has been updated thanks to the feedback on BBG, hope it helps! Tip #1 Get the buildings off your income mat! Thi...

This will be a pretty quick post to talk about the opening moves for Germany here.  Being in the center of the map Germany can be pretty difficult to play.  Potential enemies of four sides, I'll be honest I don't normally volunteer for it.  That being said, the challenge can be fun and I wanted to dive into that a little more. If you are playing Gunboat, or maybe everyone is ignoring you so that it feels like Gunboat these are my suggested opening moves for Spring 1901. Kiel - Holland Munich - Burgundy Berlin - Kiel Let's start with Kiel.   Because you have a fleet here you have an interesting decision to make.  Jump into Holland and use him how I would suggest, or head straight into Denmark and potentially keep Russia from that build.  The reason I think Holland is a better bet is this.  England will either assume you've gone mad and headed straight for France, or they'll at least feel comfortable in trying for Norway or Denmark with their ar...

This version of Azul has a very different scoring strategy and so I feel like I should probably do a post about the 1st version as well.  However, I have never beaten my wife in the 1st edition so I never really felt qualified to write about the strategy in it. With Stained Glass however, I easily doubled her score with a 102 final scoring so I feel a little better about sharing my strategy for this game with you. But first, a quick note on the scoring mechanism for those unfamiliar.  Players gain points by completing panels (which also clears them) and adding the value for any other past cleared panels to the right of the panel being scored. With this in mind my strategy has been to A: Set up the end game by scoring on the final three panels in the first two rounds  (where possible matching up with the color bonus as well) B: Use the final four rounds to try and max out the first four panels. C: Always save panels with 4 or 5 of one color till the round with t...

For those of you who don't recognize "Play Nine" you may have heard of golf.  I've been told they are essentially the same thing, simply different countries of origin.  Our copy comes from our Canadian Grandma and is, therefore, the Canadian version: Play Nine, though the strategies should pertain to both. I chose Play Nine as our strategy tip post today because the best card you can draw: the "Hole-in-One" is slightly more red than the others and therefore deserves its place in the REDD WEEK line up! The object of the game is to get as few points as possible.  As you can see from the cards behind the -5 there, it's not at all uncommon to be dealt some very high cards.  (yes this was random and it worked out well). Since I drew the -5 from the draw pile I may replace any card from my personal set, face up or otherwise.  Typically, I find it unwise to replace a facedown card with anything valued 4 or greater.  Since the -5 is less than four this c...

So you fancy being the Carnivore at the watering hole? Hopefully, this post will give you some good ideas on how to use that effectively.  Being a red card we decided "Evolution" would be the perfect game for todays REDD WEEK highlight. Using the Carnivore strategy can be a hard thing to plan on.  With the way the traits are randomly distributed, you can never tell whether you will get Carnivores, or when in the game they will arrive. If your first turn gives you 1-2 Carnivores, you can know that this will be a great strategy for that game.  If it takes you a few turns you may be in trouble. The fact of the matter is that in "Evolution - the beginning" Carnivores are far more necessary for all players as the food supply in the watering hole is very low.  It's never smart to plan on more than two food there.  This differs from "Evolution" in that you can regularly get by with a killer herbivore strategy there where that's not as easy in ...

Hey folks! It's REDD Week this week so I'm going to be coving strategy tips in different games based around the RED player or some other RED component.  Tonight, we're discussing Diplomacy! And of course, the Red team is Austria. If you've never played Diplomacy before you are seriously missing out! It is prime! Head over to playdiplomacy.com  to set up a free profile and learn how to play. Screenshot from playdiplomacy.com This is the opening map for a traditional 7 player game, let's take a look, shall we? Personally, I've never been a huge fan of playing Austria as they are in a very difficult position from the getgo. Austria and Germany share the pain of being stuck in the middle of the rest of the players.  Diplomacy is all about negotiating however, so all is not lost as Austria. I even know a few people who choose Austria as their first preference... they are crazy, but there it is. Austria does benefit from the opportunity for two builds year o...