Last fall I first made these delightful dough balls, and I’ve made them a couple of times recently since then. This particular time last fall, I paired them with a delightfully cute and crunchy euro, followed by a quick card game to end the night. Read on to learn more about these super sweet, rich little guys and the awesome games we played them with.

At a Glance…

Sticky Buns

Now let me just preface this by saying that no one said being a vegan automatically makes you healthy. 😂I once saw a meme that said ‘trust the junk food vegans; they’re the ones in it for the animals’, and I’d say that accurately sums me and my veganism up lol. For these guys, there’s a nice layer of butter, sugar, and nuts on the bottom of your pan, then you have your buns that are also filled with butter and sugar. Put them in the pan, bake, flip, and voila! Easiest ever sticky buns! I will say, every time we’ve made these for four people, there have never been any left, hahaha, so bear that in mind and prepare yourself for a sugar coma.

Strategy

At the time, Rats of Wistar was one of our newer euros. It’s got a delightful theme of little rats running around a house, building homes and tools and machines (mostly mechanical animals that are hilarious). This had a similar mechanism of a rotating wheel with actions and sub-actions that reminded us of another game (Woodcraft), but seemed a bit less finicky and a cuter theme. It’s a fairly standard worker placement, but the rotating wheel, the cute cards, and the exploration throughout the house with goals to accomplish end up combining a lot of simple, straightforward things into a smooth but strategic and satisfying experience.

We ended the night with a quick game of No Thanks. This is an oldie but a goodie. It’s soooo simple and great for family and church game nights. There are cards 3-35, with 9 removed each game. You flip one over, and the first person either takes it, or puts one of their chips on it and says ‘no thanks’. The number on the card is points, and points are bad. But as more and more people say no and the chips pile up, someone eventually takes it because 1) chips are good and help your score and you need chips to say no to more things later 2) if you get a run of cards, only your lowest number scores. There’s always a lot of meta gaming and pressing your luck, and deciding how mean or nice you’ll be to your fellow players as you decide how much you want to bleed them of chips for a card they want less than you, or taking a card they need to fill a gap in their run. The standard version I’ve seen is just plain numbered cards, but we recently found a fantastic version in a game store in Lima that has hilarious artwork. We gave our old copy away and now love to pull this one out even more, laughing at all terrible events on the cards you would say no to. If you need a quick filler for before the main event or as the night winds down, definitely check this one out. It’s always well received!

Want to buy these games? Check out your friendly local game store (FLGS), Amazon [here], or get a first-order discount at Board Game bliss [here].