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Derek M

@boardgame_intel

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Board game enthusiast 🎲
Miniature painter 🖌️
Game developer 🧩

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🎙️Let's Talk Components & Upgrades that matter to me, starting with Screen-Printed Meeples. I love miniatures as a board gamer and painter; however, Screen-Printed Meeples are my favorite component as I don't always believe miniatures to be necessary or important. When those meeples have unique artwork printed on them it elevates the table presence for me. I don't mean to call out Lost Ruins of Arnak as I do really enjoy that game, but they could use some enhanced meeples to improve the aesthetics. Same goes for Everdell, for such a wildly popular game, those blank meeples just stare at me while I play 😆

🧩 Look, I get it, blank meeples don't change the gameplay so it doesn't affect my rating of a game; but I do thoroughly enjoy the extra effort to make them look cool

🐉Perhaps the best meeples I've ever seen are the ones from Wondrous Creatures made by Bad Comet games. Not only do they have incredibly unique and detailed artwork but the meeples allow your character to have a mount using a cool magnetic feature built in. Bad Comet in fact has two other games in my post, Life of the Amazonia & Wild: Serengeti. Imagine playing those games with blank meeples... It just wouldn't look the same

🧭 One of the games I posted in the photos is Maps of Misterra. This is a relatively simple game at a lower than usual cost and they still featured some great looking meeples. If you're going to make a game using wooden pawns/meeples, let's put some artwork on it please!

❓What games have your favorite Screen-Printed Meeples? And which games do you think could use an upgrade?

#boardgames
#tabletopgames
#meeples
#badcometgames
#wondrouscreatures by @boardgame_intel

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6 months ago

9 games I recommend if you’re starting your collection. With these you’ll gain a variety of mechanics and you can then lean into which ones you enjoy more for additional collecting.

+Parks - 2nd edition available. (1st ed pictured) This is my go-to game to introduce new gamers to the hobby. It will add strategy without luck but not overwhelm a new player.

+Floating Floors - this dexterity game will likely replace Jenga in your collection. Players move and balance their ninjas according to their color across makeshift floors resting on wooden pieces. I think every home should own this game for how unique and cool it is.

+Lying Pirates - You ever seen Pirates of the Caribbean? This game offers high player interaction, top tier components w/magnetic tiles, custom dice, real bamboo cups and fun pirate ship miniatures for an elevated table presence. Great for a party of 4-6 and a laughable good time.

+Santa Monica - smooth Introduction to tableau building, one of my favorite mechanisms in the tabletop world. There’s just something so satisfying about looking back at what you’ve made, even if you “lose” you’re still proud of the work you accomplished.
Recommended Expansion: ‘The Long Weekend’

+The Night Cage - short play time for a fun co-op experience. It utilizes tile laying which is another of my favorite board game mechanisms. Also, it thematically works great for spooky game nights.

+Sleeping gods - this is a controversial pick as a “starter game” but hear me out. This game will introduce you to campaign games but with a shorter commitment (12 hours vs. 50+ for others) It plays well solo and it’s replayable with different encounters and decisions each time.

+Leviathan Wilds - single scenario co-op, no long term commitment, fast set up time, mechanisms are intuitive to theme and it offers various characters for variability in playstyle.

+Redwood - Photography theme with mechanisms to match. Players choose their lens and movement templates to get that perfect angle! I’ve introduced new gamers to this and it’s been a hit every time, usually ending with “I’m gonna buy this”

Critter Kitchen - out of characters, check comments by @boardgame_intel

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8 months ago

I'm concluding my Top 5 '25 series with my best overall games of the year. I played 30+ new games in 2025 and these were my top 5:

5) Galileo Galilei. I love science and Astronomy theme, the cover art pulled me in and the gameplay kept me playing over and over. Surprisingly smooth and one of the shorter brain burn games that hits the right spot. And we just added the Luna expansion which adds more fun and smooth complexity

4) Critter Kitchen. This game was on my surprise list for 2025 and ended up in my top 5 overall because of simply how fun it is. I love the hidden movement mechanism and the look and feel of the deluxe edition makes this a game I will table often

3) Leviathan Wilds. I loved everything about this game. The quick set up, multiplayer and solo options, the amazing Leviathan Artwork and the really cool components including the deluxe upgrade.

2) SETI. This game beat all of my low expectations for it and took me by surprise. Its worth the hype and I'm very much looking forward to the Space Agencies Expansion

1) Unconscious Mind. Incredible gameplay, artwork & Components are excellent even for a 'base' game. Thematically the decisions make sense and this is a game I'll be playing often for a long time.

Special shout-out to Tomas Holek, designer of both SETI & Galileo Galilei. Amazing Year!

#tabeltopgames
#boardgames
#top52025
#top5gamesoftheyear
#bestgamesof2025 by @boardgame_intel

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9 months ago

This painting stand just arrived and I'm really excited for it. It features a magnetic base where you can easily swap your miniatures in and out. Bases have varying sizes, even for those larger and harder to hold miniatures. It also comes with some extra bells and whistles not featured in the reel. Link to purchase below.

https://a.co/d/09jqdvup by @boardgame_intel

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4 months ago

Let's Talk Functional Inserts

I'll start by saying that Functional Inserts do not make a good or bad, they rarely affect gameplay at all; however, Functional Inserts improve game nights for multiple reasons.

Functional Inserts inherently improve the board game experience by providing quicker set up and clean up time and in many cases, even improve organization during gameplay. A great example of this are token trays that are built into the table presence. Andromeda's Edge and Septima, 2 of my top 10 games, accomplish this with their token trays built into the storage while playing.

Some games do inserts better than others; in many other cases the inserts are not functional at all and actually hinder the set up and clean up process. There's also several cases where inserts are completely non-existent (i.e. Lost Ruins of Arnak, SETI).

Of course I can't mention functional inserts without talking about Mythwind. Mythwind’s actual gameplay is infused into the inserts. The game itself is played with the trays for both the player boards and the main town building. This enhances a very quick set up to resume where you left off.

Tea Witches has imprints carved into the inserts for when you're tearing down the game that speeds up the process of where all the components fit

Additionally, one game I forgot to add to the photos but at least requires a shout-out is Dice Throne. Each character has it’s own built-in insert that comes directly out of the box for an incredibly quick set up.

The downside of functional inserts is that it often increases the cost of a game significantly. Critter Kitchen has one of the best inserts but I also have a deluxe copy which is not cheap.

In the case of Earth and Lost Ruins of Arnak, two of my favorite games, I paid for 3rd party inserts to upgrade the storage experience. So now, Earth and Arnak are each over $100

What do you think about Functional Inserts? Do they help improve your gaming experience or do you find the extra cost not worth it? by @boardgame_intel

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5 months ago

Let’s talk Dice!

Dice are one of my favorite components in a game, specifically when they are rolled to determine actions. Examples of this would be in the very popular Dice throne or in the campaign game Stars of Akarios. In those games, you roll dice and select an action based on your roll and you have ways of mitigating or changing the rolls to your favor which in my opinion allows for flexibility and less pure luck to be involved.

My view on dice is actually a controversial point of view. A lot of modern Euros seek to remove dice from games as a way to eliminate luck. In fact,I’ve seen many games advertised as “diceless” as if that’s a selling point. I’ve met gamers who avoid any sort of dice interaction unless used as a resource counter (e.g Leviathan Wilds, woodcraft). I understand that dice rolling presents a certain level of luck but to that point, many modern games create ways of mitigating dice rolls so that you’re not completely bound to the roll. And I completely get it, It’s never a fun situation when you’ve done all you could to strategize and it just comes down to a lucky roll…but man, when that roll hits, it feels so good! If given the choice, I would choose a dice roll over drawing from a randomly sorted stack of cards in hopes of finding that perfect card to fit that perfect scenario.

My favorite custom dice are in the game Lying Pirates. You have your basic crew dice, your special dice which include the Pirate King, Mermaid, Ghost die, sail die and a few others but also, you have the 8 sided battle die customized to your ship’s colors. Lying Pirates is one of the coolest games in my collection because of the custom dice.

What games do you enjoy that dice a featured component? Do you like dice overall or do you choose to stay away from it? by @boardgame_intel

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5 months ago

Components & Upgrades Pt.2 - Metal, Wood, & Acrylic!

-My favorite game Andromeda’s edge features all three of these elements, from Metal coins (credits) to wooden moon & token upgrades, and beautiful acrylic resource tokens. All of these enhanced features increase the good feeling while playing the game.

In ‘Life of the Amazonia’, I have the wooden trees & flower upgrades. In my opinion, these are essential for gameplay. Without the upgrade, the trees would have to be assembled/disassembled for each play and that is not a feature I would enjoy. In addition, the cardboard flower token is hard to pick up and move across your jungle tiles, having the wooden upgrade smooths out that fiddly process. The same goes for Wondrous creatures and it’s wooden upgrades. I love Bad Comet’s games and I’ve referenced them many times, but I always have to get wooden upgrades to improve the game experience.

In Unconscious mind, you have these acrylic tokens called ‘insights’ and they are used to slide across your insight player board. The acrylic token is essential as it allows that slide to be very smooth. It’s an incredible design choice where I couldn’t imagine that process taking place with any other element even metal.

Metal Coin upgrades - this is definitely more aesthetic than functional, definitely not essential; however, I absolutely love this upgrade. Specifically with Septima (Sun, moon, star) coins, Vantage, and Lying pirates. Those coin designs are so cool and really elevate the table presence for me.

In pt.1 of this series I covered screen-printed meeples, I love meeples far more than standees, in fact, I will usually turn away from a game if it has standees…unless…those standees are acrylic. As pictured above, one of my favorite games is Vagrantsong and those acrylic standees are so cool. It’s one of the rare cases where I would choose a standee over a miniature or screen-printed meeple.

What are some of your favorite games with upgraded tokens & resources? Which games do you think could use an upgrade?

#boardgames
#boardgamecomponents
#tabeltopgames
#boardgameupgrades by @boardgame_intel

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6 months ago

My collection of Nature themed games.

🥾Parks is first on the list because it has a special place in my heart, not only do I love the theme of hiking and exploring the NPs (having been to 20+) but it was the first game my wife and I played together. I also used the game to propose with the ring hidden in the token tray about a year after we dated. Parks will forever stay in my collection

🌲 Redwood: as a Photographer, I had to own Redwood. It utilizes unique mechanics to capture the feel of nature photography, plus, the cover art is one of my all-time favorites

🌎 Earth: so much to say about this game, it's the most played game in my collection with an incoming 2nd expansion so it'll be back on the table again soon. It's my favorite pure Tableau & Engine Builder.

🕊️ Wingspan: the game that made me fall in love with tableau/engine builders and inspired me to get Earth. While I do prefer nature games to have more than just birds, this is a beautiful and amazing game and one of my top 5 most played.

🐇Biome: similar to Wingspan but more variety in animals and has simultaneous play. Only thing I didn't like was the ongoing scoring method.

🦜 Life of the Amazonia, despite me only listing it now, this is my favorite of all the games in this post. The ani-meeples are top tier and I simply love the strategy of this game.

🐆🦁 Wild Serengeti: my first game from @badcometgames and although I don't play it as often anymore, it still remains in my top 5 most played games from my collection. And like Amazonia, those meeples are top tier

🐘🦒Ark Nova: the newest game in my collection, it's the number 2 rated game on BGG. That's a bit high in my opinion. Although I do like it and will keep it, Life of the Amazonia is better in my opinion.

🪴🪏 Planted: fun and easy game to learn with simultaneous play. The components are beautiful and it's worthy to own although I prefer animals in my nature Theme games.

🍁 Arboretum: the only unplayed game in my collection. Need to get this to the table

#boardgames
#naturetheme
#earthday by @boardgame_intel

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6 months ago

With respect to the recent Artemis II Launch, I'm taking a look at my astronomy and space themed games in my collection

🪐 ☄️Starting with Cosmogenesis - this game doesn't hit my table often, it's a very niche game in it's design. Players draft tiles to construct their very own solar system. Designed with planets, comets & asteroids and even gas giants w/o rings and even life within the habitable zone to their star. This game is fun in the theme and feeling satisfied with what you create, however it needs an expansion in my opinion to make it great.

🔭 🌘 Galileo Galilei - this is one of my favorites in my collection, players take on the role of historic astronomers discovering the solar system and battling the inquisition to report their new findings.

🌌 🌕 Stellar - this is a fun 2 player card game where players observe the night sky with their telescope and try and find as many like objects as they can, but of course, with the freedom of no Inquisition on your tails

📡 🛰️ SETI - while Launching probes and scanning the cosmos, players will explore the solar system to search for extraterrestrial life.

🧑‍🚀🚀On Mars - the most complex game in my collection. Players will build a colony on the surface of Mars

🛸 🌌 Andromeda's Edge! - this is my favorite game in my collection. Its more Sci-fi than science, however, it has all the makings of a potential future. Players will explore and expand their presence in the Andromeda Galaxy while battling hostile enemy forces.

#boardgames
#tabletopgames
#spaceexploration
#artemisii
#andromedagalaxy by @boardgame_intel

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6 months ago

📜My review of the first Sleeping gods after 5 campaigns; played both co-operatively and solo respectively. This is one of my top 10 games and arguably my 1 solo game of all-time.

🖼️They say don’t judge a book by it’s cover but what about a board game…I was immediately intrigued by this game from the cover art alone. It exudes adventure and mystery! Sleeping gods is a shorter but heavily replayable campaign game, with most campaigns ending around 12-15 hours. There’s over 200 unique locations to visit on the atlas each with their own branching decisions that lead to various outcomes. You won’t visit all locations in one campaign, in fact, in all my journeys of this world I’ve still managed to miss a few locations and definitely haven’t resolved all the branching storylines nor all the various endings to the story.

🎲The game combines tableau and worker placement mechanisms to allow you to traverse the map with your crew and ship. Your tableau will consist of not just weapons but also recipes, magical items, and all sorts of trinkets that help you on your journey. Each turn, the active player will place their worker on a ship location to generate command tokens which will then be used to activate characters and their abilities to explore the map.

🌊This is a game of survival, you will face challenges, weather, and dangerous enemy combat. Your goal is to keep your ship afloat and your crew alive to finish the story and it’s various endings. I think one of the coolest features of sleeping gods is the amount of unique enemies you will face. Enemies include everything from dinosaurs and dragons to armored Knights & magical mystical beings. There’s over 70+ unique enemy cards and I have yet to face everything even after 5 campaigns.

🧭If you’re seeking adventure, survival, or an escape to a different world, I highly recommend Sleeping gods.

⚠️Important Intel
This game takes up a lot of table space! You will play with all 9 characters & build a large tableau of items and quests on your journey.

Expansions: Dungeons & Tides of Ruin, those are still sitting on my shelf unplayed, the base game offers enough without these included.

#boardgamereview by @boardgame_intel

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7 months ago

Black Dragon Kalameet takes the gold medal championship for the painted Miniatures Elimination Tournament. Dancer of the Boreal Valley made a great run, was a favorite of several but couldn't defeat Kalameet

Black Dragon from Heroes of Might & Magic takes 3rd place over the Swamp Sprite.

Swamp Sprite had an incredible cinderella run, all the way from a 6 seed with 64 miniatures down to the final 4. by @boardgame_intel

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8 months ago

Elite 8 Results

Black Dragon Kalameet continues to dominate the competition, could it be the champion in waiting.

The Cinderella run of the Nomad comes to an end. The 9 seed made it all the way to the Elite 8

Smelter Demon was the 3rd 1 seed to be eliminated.

The Swamp Sprite continues to make his mark. The Crafter was a worthy finalist for the elite 8.

Final 4 is live now!

The champion will be crowned soon by @boardgame_intel

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8 months ago