Current Plays

This week on Current Plays , Jordan and Thomas descend into the shadowy depths of Warhammer Underworlds: Nethermaze , where blades flash, ghosts wail, and victory is as fleeting as a skaven’s courage. Thomas commands Skittershank’s Clawpack—swift, sneaky, and just a bit stabby—while Jordan leads Lady Harrow’s Mournflight, drifting through walls and dreams alike with eerie elegance. The hosts trade...

Hear ye, hear ye! Gather ‘round the podcast hearth, noble listeners, for this week on Current Plays , Sir Jordan and Sir Thomas taketh up their quests in Tales of the Arthurian Knights . In this most wondrous game of adventure and fortune, our gallant hosts dost wander through the lands of Camelot, meeting maidens fair, dragons foul, and many a fate most strange. Verily, their latest play did brin...

This week on Current Plays , Jordan and Thomas warp through space-time with Anachrony from Mindclash Games - a sprawling, cerebral sci-fi masterpiece that proved time travel can actually work on the tabletop. Designed by Dávid Turczi and the Mindclash team, this one’s part worker placement, part paradox management, and all brain burn. The hosts dive into how Anachrony nails its impossible theme of...

The mechs are marching once again! Bringing the weird for October, this week on Current Plays , Jordan and Thomas venture into Expeditions by Stonemaier Games and strap in for the Gears of Corruption expansion. This twist on the Scythe universe adds even more depth, danger, and delightful decision-making. They talk about how the corrupted gears move the tempo of play in a great direction. The chan...

Class is in session on Current Plays ! This week, Jordan and Thomas don their academic robes for Alma Mater from Eggertspiel, a brainy euro where you’re not just running a university, you’re shaping the very curriculum of the Renaissance. Recruiting professors, publishing books, attracting the best students… it’s all here, wrapped in colourful production and crunchy mechanisms. The hosts chat abou...

This week on Current Plays , Jordan and Thomas step through a portal into the elemental realms with Dwellings of Eldervale . Designed by Luke Laurie, this game smashes together two genres you wouldn’t expect to share a table: euro-style worker placement and “dudes-on-a-map” fantasy brawling. The result? A magical mess that somehow makes perfect sense. From carefully managing resources to summoning...

Gather ye ‘round the base of Mount Olympus and get ready to wage war in Ancient Greece! In this episode of Current Plays , we dive into Cyclades: Legendary Edition , where gaining the favour of the Gods is the only way to win. The auction-style bidding system steals the spotlight, forcing players to outwit and outspend each other for divine favour. Jordan and Thomas learned the hard way that a 2-p...

Pack your specimen jars and polish your spectacles because it’s time for an expedition in the Galápagos! In this episode of Current Plays , Jordan and Thomas set sail with Darwin’s Journey and quickly discover it’s survival of the sharpest mind. They gush over the game’s top-notch design, delight in its intricate mechanisms, and admit that every choice feels like a real evolutionary challenge. It’...

This week on Current Plays , we journey into Middle-earth with The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship . The hosts dive into what was done right with this iteration of two large properties, from its thematic immersion to clever systems. But trouble stirs in Mordor as our adventurous hosts also unpack their ongoing frustration with the Pandemic system, dissecting why it drags down the otherwi...

This week your hosts tackled Æterna, by Martin Wallace and published by Ares Games. Vie for power in ancient Rome by conquering distant lands to bring back spoils and build buildings for the people, but too much wealth and power will incur the wrath of those people! Check out our thoughts on this weighty euro.

This week, Jordan and Thomas discuss the 2023 sensation Dune: Imperium - Uprising, by Paul Dennen, and published by Dire Wolf. Dune: Imperium - Uprising is a worker placement and deck-building game based on the Dune IP. Its thematic elements and excellent design make it one of the best games in our collections.

Your intrepid hosts Thomas and Jordan discuss their current play of Tiletum. The European Renaissance game of trading and cathedral building. This time, at 3 players! Wow!

The Current Plays Podcast is back! In this episode, Jordan and Thomas discuss their recent play of Lost Ruins of Arnak with the Lost Expedition expansion - Co-op Campaign style!

The Hosts discuss getting value out of games with repeated plays, solo games vs. games as a social activity, hobby time, and board game expansions. In our Other Plays, Jordan and Thomas focus on Dorfromantik, 7 Wonders Duel, and Rhino Hero. For our Current Plays, we discuss It's a Wonderful Kingdom, The White Castle, Trickerion: Legends of Illusion, and we revisit Near and Far. Please give us...

For May, 2024. Jordan kicks it off with an exclamation of just how good X-Men '97 is (it really is), Dune, and how they relate to crowdfunding of board games. In our Other Plays, Thomas discusses Gloomhaven: Buttons and Bugs, and Jordan discusses Mother of Frankenstein. Our Current Plays includes Grand Austria Hotel (1:03:24), Unmatched (2:05:00), Tiletum (2:50:52), and last, but not least, Ik...

For April 2024, this episode is jam packed with our plays from March and April including Zavandor, The Hobbit, Forest Shuffle, Dice Thorne Adventures, 20 Strong, and Legacy of Yu! Thomas also mentions several games he claims are not worth mentioning. We end off the episode with our plays of Concordia Venus and Res Arcana.

Your intrepid hosts Jordan and Thomas discuss their time at this year's BreakOut Con in Toronto, including lots of games like Ex Libris, Sobek: 2 Players, Wizards of the Grimoire, Trekking through History, Brass: Birmingham, The Fox Experiment, Battle Tech, and Tiletum.

Jordan and Thomas banter about their thoughts on player elimination and players bending their interpretation of rules. Other plays includes discussions of Dorf Romantik, Monopoly Deal, Horrified: Greek Monsters, and It's a Wonderful Kingdom. Current Plays: 1:16:20 - Age of Innovation 1:53:40 - Wyrmspan

For January 2024 The guys don't have many Other Plays this episode, but manage to fill 40 minutes of banter anyway. Then it's app assisted game Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth, followed by an oldie-but-a-goodie, Viticulture, Essential Edition. Then the guys take a break from games to discuss the merits of hexagonal shaped tables. Exciting, right!? The episodes caps off with the...

For December 2023 we have a special episode with our first guest. We have the distinct honour of a sit-down and chat with Mr. Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games! What a way to wrap up 2023! We open the episode with a talk about Jordan's new additions to his collection for the Christmas season. Thomas's additions closely follow this. We switch gears into discussing the fear of missing out...

Season 2 Episode 6 starts with Thomas starting a discussion on different solo mode styles that he noticed while playing Near and Far & Now or Never. This leads to the topic of how adding a good solo option to games can increase the value proposition of those games. We took a slightly different approach to this episode by separating some of our Current Plays with banter portions. So after a cou...

Welcome to Season 2 Episode 5 where Thomas starts us off with a quick update on his 365 Play Challenge. We follow this with a discussion about how we believe there is a board game out here for everyone. Of course, this positivity can only last so far before Jordan and Thomas devolve into rants about the Canadian market for board games, shipping, duty, brokerage, and Amazon Prime. Jordan gives us a...

In episode 4 of season 2 Jordan starts us off with the amazing charity efforts of Stonemaier Games. Thomas brings the conversation to chess and how he was crushed by Canadian FIDE (fee-day) International Master (IM) Mark Plotkin. He then transitions into his thrift store find of Embers of Memory: A Throne of Glass Game and his disappointment with the rule book. Both host talk briefly about using b...

In this bonus episode Thomas and Jordan sit down to discuss how they approach a new game to try to win and avoiding floundering.

This lengthy episode sees our hosts go off on several tangents while trying to discuss the games they've played this month. Thomas has been deep into campaign game mode with Jaws of the Lion and didn't have huge list, but Jordan made up for it with a larger list than usual. We talk Expeditions again, but this time we talk about playing the game at 5 players as well as Solo. Then we do a bi...