I’m still trying to do more savory treats to balance all the sugar in my life recently, haha, so here’s a new one to me! We also checked a play off our 10×10, and introduced one of our favorite strategy friends to a hidden gem of a game! Read on for all the details!

At a Glance…

Pretty Pinwheels

I don’t know why I’d never made pinwheels before; they’re delightful! Maybe it’s my sometimes slight aversion to cream cheese, but these were such a good combo of flavors! Minimalist Baker does it again, winning me over with things I didn’t know I needed in my life. Mix up some ‘cream cheese’, parmesan, sundried tomatoes, spinach (I used fresh instead of frozen), and basil, and voila! Roll up, slice, and devour! It’s entirely far too easy to eat too many of these. Is it really healthier than sugary treats? I guess it does have vegetables, so there’s that. Good way to get your greens in!

Red Cathedral

Red Cathedral does not get enough love! It is a resource gathering type game where you’re trying to build a giant cathedral in Russia. Simple enough, but it has such a great crunchy combo of things! You can do one of three things on a turn. 1) place a flag to claim a building spot on the cathedral. This also gets you a little bonus for your dice, so I like to do as much of this early on as I can. 2) get resources! You pick a die, move the number of quadrants based on the pips, and get resources based on how many dice are there. You also get a little bonus depending on your quadrant, AND you can activate any bonus you have from previously putting flags out. (Finally, don’t forget to reroll those dice. I *ALWAYS* do, and then Jon kinda asks, ‘what are we forgetting?’ lol, so helpful). 3) deliver resources! You can deliver up to 3 things to any of the building sections you’ve claimed and/or place ornamentation on a finished section. Why do all this? Points of course, but also, at the end of the game, there’s a bit of area control going on with who did the most in each column gets more points. You can’t dilly dally too much with your building, like I usually do, because if someone builds above you before you finished your section below, you’ll lose points.

This is a fascinating game for a few reasons. I normally am not a huge fan of area control, and I also don’t like games that make me rush to not have a penalty. But I love the dice movement, the bonuses from the flags, the beautiful art on the board, and just how much game is packed into a tiny box! This is such a good value for its shelf space, and its expansion adds even more delightful crunch.

The main game of the night was actually Fox Experiment, which I’ve previously talked about here. This, like other drafting or simultaneous type games, can be as quick or slow as your slowest player, but overall moves along quite nicely. It’s so fun rolling those big chunky dice! I always go with the theme when naming my foxes, this evening we went with Avatar characters since we just finished watching season 2. Unsurprisingly, Appa was super friendly and Azula was not haha. This game is now halfway through our 10×10 and I’m still enjoying it!

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].