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Welcome to the another installment of our series where we will be focusing on one of the exclusive Chaos Warbands from Warcry. This time we will be discussing Cypher Lords!

Coming from Nochseed in the Realm of Light, the Cypher Lords practice their Chaos arts in secret. Being from Hysh they have a natural agility that they have paired with their dark gifts. Other than speed their primary focus is on their abilities and hitting harder than most. Surprisingly when you think of a faction with better movement they typically won’t have the hits to follow it up but these guys do. Their biggest weakness is the fact that they have a much lower threshold for wounds than almost any other warband.

For players that prefer more complex maneuvers the Cypher Lords will be a great faction to play with. Having to plan for better efficiency they become the closest to playing chess than the other bands. What really makes them stand out from the other factions is the fact that their lore has them stemming from the Realm of Light. A faction of darkness from one of the brightest realms.

The Luminate stands out as a unit because she can essentially act as a second leader for the warband and spread leadership abilities around the field of battler easier. With the ability to essentially teleport units all over the table between the Luminate and Thrallmaster you can keep the moving more to keep them out of harms way and allowing you to dish out a ton more damage.

Welcome to the another installment of our series where we will be focusing on one of the exclusive Chaos Warbands from Warcry. This time we will be discussing Corvus Cabal.

These followers of the Great Gatherer stem from the Realm of Shadow and believe the legendary Chaos General Archaon is the embodiment of their god. This faction is the masters of movement and stealth. Some units have the ability to ignore height when moving around the board. This is huge as some models can be trapped by the terrain pieces themselves. The Shrike Talon has an ability that will exploit this fact- Swooping Attack. Essentially he gets to drop on his enemy from above and use it to get a free move and attack option. From some heights he can receive bonuses to improve on the deadliness of the attack.

When playing against foes that have a higher defense (and depending on your objectives) winning the game will require you win the first initiative. Having the first turn is hugely important because Corvus Cabal will win the day on speed alone if they secure objectives first. Otherwise you will be trying to steal the objectives from forces that will typically outlast your fighters. This is what I call the Smash and Grab.

Visually this is an amazing faction. Easily second favorite. I love the Native American aesthetic they have and will likely be one of the first I build for myself but due to their play style will get less usage as a force. My play style is more of a Hit ’em hard and hit ’em fast method that lacks the finesse Corvus Cabal requires.

Corvus Belli returns with the fourth edition of their hit skirmish tabletop game Infinity, aptly named Infinity N4.

This is the first time I’ve ever been able to play Infinity, and I can’t believe I haven’t sooner as the I also learned that the rules and model stats are available on their website for FREE! This means you can try the game out and various models to figure out if the game is for you AND if you have the right army. Now, assuming you’ve played and are ready to purchase your first army, where do you start? Simple. You purchase a faction pack and a rulebook, unless of course you prefer a digital copy and then the free one will more than do the job but without all the lore.

Having never played the game itself before, I did play the spinoff Aristeia game a couple years ago, I didn’t know what to expect. The models have always been fantastic, both fun to paint and looking great on the table but no idea how the game played. I’m told this edition is very much streamlined compared to N3 but I couldn’t confirm this was the case during my playing of the game. I did find it fast paced and much more dynamic than most games. It was quite a bit of fun too but I just wish that the models had assembly guides to make their assembly much easier without having to track down multiple angles of pictures to ensure proper assembly.

Exploding Kittens has a new expansion called Barking Kittens and we were able to not only play it but blowup members of our family as well!

We’ve talked about the Exploding Kittens brand before but this time we are talking about the latest expansions- Streaking Kittens and Barking Kittens for the Exploding Kittens card game.

Streaking Kittens

This $5 pack of carts adds one HUGE advantage- if you find the Streaking Kitten card you get to hide an Exploding Kitten in your hand without having to defuse it. The idea is to get someone to steal the worse of the two cards from your hand and inadvertently blow themselves up. In our game this would have worked quite well for my wife’s dad if the rest of us weren’t already aware he was drawing a kitten into his hand- no one stole cards from him again until he blew himself up.

Barking Kittens

There are several new additions here that make for some great combinations. My favorites were the Alter the Future and Personal Attack cards. Personal Attack cards force the next player to take three full actions on their next turn but doesn’t end your turn like other attacks do. Having multiples of these cards allow you to overload the next player with several actions and may just remove them from play. Alter the Future works similar to the See the Future cards in that you can see the next three cards in the deck but with this variation you get to change their order when you return them to the deck. This means if you know a kitten is coming up you get to control how soon they do.

There are several other new cards in both expansions and are worth learning how to use them all. Playing the game we loved the new cards and their changes to the core game and hated when someone else used them against us. Both expansions are essential for any fan of the game and a ton of fun to use.

The Exploding Kittens have released another feline-centric game with A Game of Cat and Mouth.

In our house there is one species of pet that ranks higher than all others and that is the majestic feline. My son’s love for cats is so strong that if there is a cat on it or it is cat themed it is almost guaranteed to win him over. It’s no surprise that Exploding Kittens is one of his all time favorite games to play. When he learned that the team behind it were releasing another cat themed title he was more than excited. We received our copy of A Game of Cat and Mouth soon after he heard the news.

Players rapidly use magnetic paws to launch balls through the eyes, nose or mouth holes in the divider between sides. The first player to get all white, all yellow or the single black ball on the opposing side wins. The launchers themselves make use of the most powerful magnets I’ve ever seen that didn’t have electricity amplifying their strength.

Getting the balls through the holes require a bit of skill but with a little practice and even a four year old can do well at the game. The entire family has a blast with this game. This game is so much fun it even draws the attention of one of our own cats.

Poetry for Neanderthals is another family fun game created by the team at Exploding Kittens.

The Exploding Kittens team are back with another insane concept for a family game in Poetry for Neanderthals. Since it’s inception Exploding Kittens has been a staple in our household and the team of the same name was responsible for several of our favorite family games. Conceptually the game is quite simple, dividing into two teams players will take turns describing a word or phrase but must do so using only single syllable words. If at any point they gesture, use more than one syllable, use the word they are trying to describe or a few other instances or rule breaking then they will get hit with the inflatable club. Not going to lie but I felt like Captain Caveman while wielding it over my daughter’s head.

Every player during our games end up getting hit at least once or twice, most of us for gesturing. I was really bad at giving clues without moving because I am naturally very animated when I talk.

The game is a great exercise for the old noggin because you have to be a quick thinker to score points and avoid losing them at the same time. First game was parent’s versus the kids and some of the kids got bored early on (one was watching a movie and the other was too distracted to play) and so we started over for a round of boys versus girls. It was a close game but us boys won by only a couple points. Everyone that played to the end loved the game (4 of 6 members of the household) and the other two had fun until pulled away by the call of the children’s film on tv. We are all looking forward to the next game night we get to spend on this game.

Based on the original by Vlaada Chvatil, Codenames is back with Codenames Harry Potter from USAOpoly.

USAOpoly continues to prove they are the masters locking down the best intellectual properties like Marvel, Disney and even Harry Potter with Codenames Harry Potter. This of course is not their first foray into the magical world of Harry Potter but it is the second one we’ve had the pleasure of trying out.

Visually the game has top quality cards using hires images from the various movies but at a glance the game looks more like a version of Memory. The concept is that as operatives of the Order of the Phoenix you must use clue or “Codenames” to lead your teammates to tracking down the hidden members of the Order. This sounds rather easy but you must do it while avoiding the Death Eaters in the field. As time turner cards are revealed you get closer to running out of time. This puts a bit more urgency in the gameplay and the need to decipher the coded messages more imperative.

The simplicity of the game is quite brilliant in that the game is limited in only how creative you are in creating and deciphering the clues. The game is typically quickly played, the first game taking about 30-45 minutes and followup games closer to the 15-20 minute mark. If you are looking for a quick game that features some of your favorite Harry Potter characters then this is a must purchase for you.

Warhammer 40k was the first game that brought me into tabletop gaming and still holds a high place in my heart with 9th edition.

The kind folks at Games Workshop have once again shared their games with us, this time the 9th edition of Warhammer 40k (as always this holds no sway on our opinions). Commonly referred to as just 40k or the trending hashtag of #New40k. Warhammer in all of it’s iterations will hold a place in my heart as the game that introduced me to wargaming, tabletop miniatures and painting. 

Back when we were with PopNerdTV our friends wrote a battle report as the official review for 8th Edition. We are here with the 9th edition of Warhammer 40k and are back to the traditional review format.

Without wasting much time we are just going to jump right in. As a whole I love this edition. Some of my biggest complaints came from previous editions where tanks and other warmachines couldn’t fire their weapons when opponents were in base to base contact. Thankfully they have finally rectified this clear error. The focus has deviated from being on rule sections and moved to styles of gaming- Open Play, Matched Play and (my favorite) Narrative/Crusade missions.

Now it surprised me to see this first drop relatively early into the COVID pandemic and my first impressions from the community was that it would not do as well as expected. In only a couple days the limited edition Indomitus boxset was not only sold out but Games Workshop even announced they would print however many copies were needed to allow anyone who wanted the coveted set to purchase their own copy. This did two things and both were brilliant. The first being that any customer could get this box that was originally going to be a limited release. Lastly the scalpers who were responsible with the purchases being sold out would not be able to sell them and price gouge the fans who actually wanted to play the game. Any company willing to raise their middle finger to scalpers deserves my patronage for certain.

Let’s talk about the models. Every model in the Indomitus release is a new sculpt with some truly badass poses. I always disliked loyal Space Marines but these models look awesome enough that I want to either field them or convert them for my own chaos armies. The new Necrons are not to be ignored either. The Skorpekh Lord and Destroyers are by far some of the best Necron sculpts ever produced.

Here is our live unboxing video:

Look below for some truly badass Necron paint schemes from our friend John Ashton (shared with permission):

Players take the role of their favorite Hogwarts heroes in the Hogwarts Battle Cooperative Deck Building Game from USAopoly!

In Hogwarts Battle players work together fighting against increasing odds but with the help of your expanding decks of spells you will be able to fight and eventually defeat them. The fine folks at USAopoly supplies us with our review copy of this game (along with others) and we let our son choose which we played first. So one thing became apparent early on in the game- the more players you have the easier the fight will be. Makes sense because anytime you have a set number of enemies and increase the number of people fighting them you usually will have an easier time of it.

We went around the table adding cards to our individual pools of magic spells in order to quickly get an upper hand against Draco Malfoy, Crabbe & Goyle and eventually Professor Quirrell.

I’m notorious for misreading rules the first few times I go over them so to save time I asked my wife to give them a quick read and we were able to jump right into the game within only a couple minutes. The rule book is full color and well written and you’d have to be a fool to misunderstand them. Somehow I did and she straightened it out quickly.

The first stage of the game took about forty five minutes total, including multiple readings of the rules and even a check of them again later on. In our house the toughest critics are the kids and after completing the first stage Merrick immediately asked if we could do the second stage tomorrow. This game is a definite keeper and I think this image says all you need to know about whether or not you should get this for the Harry Potter fan in your life.