Category Archives: Board Games

Letters from the Quarantine Zone: Pandemic Legacy March Recap

LettersFromQZHeader

Spoiler Warning: Letters from the Quarantine Zone is a recap of a playthrough of the board game Pandemic Legacy (an After Action Report, if you will), retold in-character. Though the series does not directly acknowledge game mechanics or cards, it references their content, and the events from the game described within will result in spoilers. This is a work of fiction. You can read the entire series here.

March, 2016

Sigh. Another month, another crisis. On the bright side, the media has begun to follow our activities and has really trumpeted our accomplishments in 2016, especially in the face of our severe budget cutbacks. For me, the tragedy is in the cost. It all could’ve been avoided if only this Presidential administration would give the Centers for Disease Control the funds we need.

In many ways, we’ve crossed a Rubicon. The CDC is no longer simply fighting disease; we’re now fighting public perception. First, we have added Essen to the ranks of panicked cities. Worse, we’ve got riots beginning in Osaka. Riots! In Japan! The CDC isn’t equipped to handle riots; we’re a civilian organization. We specialize in epidemiology and public health, not politics. This struggle has grown irrevocably political, and we are poorly equipped to handle it.

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Letters from the Quarantine Zone: Pandemic Legacy February Recap

LettersFromQZHeader

Spoiler Warning: Letters from the Quarantine Zone is a recap of a playthrough of the board game Pandemic Legacy (an After Action Report, if you will), retold in-character. Though the series does not directly acknowledge game mechanics or cards, it references their content, and the events from the game described within will result in spoilers. This is a work of fiction. You can read the entire series here.

February, 2016 

The media has moved on, but the Centers for Disease Control certainly hasn’t. The end of January saw us gain stable footing against the rise of four dangerous new diseases, but within the CDC, we all knew this was just the opening lines of a story that was yet to play out. And, wouldn’t you know, February proved us right.

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Letters from the Quarantine Zone: Pandemic Legacy January Recap

LettersFromQZHeader

Spoiler Warning: Letters from the Quarantine Zone is a recap of a playthrough of the board game Pandemic Legacy (an After Action Report, if you will), retold in-character. Though the series does not directly acknowledge game mechanics or cards, it references their content, and the events from the game described within may result in spoilers. This is a work of fiction. You can read the entire series here.

Early January, 2016

Well, 2016 is off with a bang. First there were fireworks, then there was sickness. I’ll say one thing: it’s never a dull day at the Centers for Disease Control. At least the weather has been nice here in Atlanta. The media is calling this the “January of our Discontent.” Clever. They don’t know the half of it.

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Kingdom Death: Monster Hands-On: Controversial Kickstarter Makes Good

Kingdom Death: Monster Demo at GenCon

Kingdom Death: Monster in action (click to expand)

When Kingdom Death: Monster’s Kickstarter launched in November 2012, it crushed its goals with more than $2 million in funding. The game was, shall we say, ambitious. The brainchild of Adam Poots, the Kickstarter showed beautiful, pre-production resin miniatures while promising an expansive board game, and promised an almost unbelievable set of contents:

  • 4 35mm-scale survivor miniatures
  • 4 copies of each of 6 armor kits (one armor kit can equip all 4 survivors)
  • 7 large-sized boss miniatures
  • 400+ cards
  • 2’ x 3’ game board
  • 15 terrain tokens
  • 6 custom dice
  • 1 rulebook-storybook, with art throughout

When I heard a Kickstarter promised such outstanding miniatures alongside a board game with euro-style development, RPG-style narrative, and tabletop wargame-style tactical elements at an almost comically high price–backers pledged $150 for the game–I was skeptical. Like many people who didn’t back the project, I assumed the game would be a loose justification to sell the admittedly gorgeous minis. Three years later, after multiple delays and setbacks, I hadn’t given the idea much thought. Saturday at GenCon, the guys from Board Game Replay invited me to join them for their demo of Kingdom Death (the full video is here)—now through production, boasting a 17 pound core game box, and sporting a shocking $400 MSRP.

I wasn’t any less skeptical, and I couldn’t have been more wrong.

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