24th June 2026
10 gamers braved the heat wave and tackled three long games featuring Dragons, Deep Sea Exploration and collecting fantastical creatures.
The first table got stuck into set collecting Coloretto, a quick game of collecting coloured chameleon cards, but at the end you only score for 3 sets, and the others are negative points. So its a push your luck game whilst you are trying to land others with colours that will score them negatively.
The next quick starting game saw Dave, Neil, Will and James sitting down to play Dave’s new game from UKGE: Fliptoons. This is a very light deck-building game that came out in 2025 and has an art style reminiscent of the video game Cuphead (rubber hose style apparently!). Like most deck-building games, players begin with a standard and fairly weak starting deck and then gradually take actions to improve it. There is only one currency in this game: fame, and as soon as a player has over 30 fame in their hand (or rather their 3 x 2 grid on the table) it triggers the end game. If no player has 30 fame then fame is used to buy cards or banish cards, with two actions allowed each turn.
The 3 x 2 grids are dealt out each turn from each player’s personal deck and order and placement in the grid very much matter, though this is entirely driven by chance. When the endgame is triggered the player who exceeded 30 fame gets a +3 points card and then everyone deals out a new final grid of cards. This is to try and reward building solid decks that result in consistently high scoring grids rather than risky decks that occasionally luck out with a high score. James and Neil both exceeded 30 fame on the same turn but Neil then won the final turn. Dave can’t have been concentrating as he came last.
Another table played a couple of short games - a club favourite Ecosystem and 6 nimmt!. The latter is a game played last during lockdown via the online site Board Game Arena. Its a game of playing down sequential cards worth varying points, but the aim is to collect the least points by not playing the 6th card in any column as that will make you take all those 5 cards. Its played over a series of rounds and the first player to 50 points ends the game, but is of course probably the loser.
Endeavor: Deep Sea was the first long game going. Steph, Dan and Kathy set about trying mission 4 which had a focus on the research action. This game served as a warm up and rules refresher/teach as none of the intrepid submariners made much progress into the depths over the six rounds of the game.
Having enjoyed that and wanting to do better, mission 3 was set up and everyone prepared to dive again. This mission’s objectives were more focused on exploring deeper and keeping your journal of discoveries up to date. This time everyone did much better upgrading their teams skills, using sonar to reveal the depths and making better selections of the pretty underwater tiles to match the mission. Dan’s early team selections hiring sonar operators paid off and he was revealing lots of tiles and gaining their placement bonuses, rapidly improving his team and generally building a nice engine that was reaping more turns than the other two and then dominating the mission board.
So first place was a foregone conclusion, almost double what Steph and Kathy could manage, but both had reasonably similar end-game scores which were a significant improvement on the previous game. Steph was pleased to have hired a level 5 team member for the first time and Kathy was just enjoying her first games and learning the interplay of upgrades, team placements and getting one of her submarines one level short of the abyss.
Ever popular Wyrmspan, now at its fifth play, was selected next for some dragon enticing, cave excavating and exploring goodness. Last played in session 125, this session saw 2 new dragon fanciers joined by 2 experienced connoisseurs. This time the Wrymspan: Dragon Academy was included which brings some new guilds, fledgling dragons and end of round income changes.
This game was played with the new Guild of Merchants that gives you extra ways to get action coins or spend them for cheaper dragons or doubly effective caves. Fledgling dragons are a type of dragon that needs training - usually by having to explore the cave in which it is located multiple times, and each time paying a resource cost. Once trained they give quite powerful bonuses compared to other dragons. The end of round income is usually 6 action coins, but in this version players who pass can select from 6 different combinations of coins and resources, with these selections getting slightly better in the second half of the game. None of these rules adds much complexity to the existing game, so the expansion is a nice addition to give a few more options, and it slightly speeds things on with the different incomes you can get.
Early on in the game Neil was lucky enough to get a Hatchling that helped him move his guild marker so he was obtaining quite a few favours from the Merchants. Will had decided to try his luck on gaining fledglings as he had a cave that helped him train up his first fledgling for free. James was carefully choosing his dragons for their end of game bonuses, whereas Jeremy was concentrating on enticing dragons for the end of round objectives. By the end of the game, though Jeremy had pretty much aced all but one of the objectives, he had neglected getting any end of game scoring dragons or hoarding any eggs - so came a close third. Will had scored big on collecting fledgling dragons (as their per dragon score is based on the number of fledgling dragons), but even with that and scoring first on one of the objectives he came in last - but with a respectable score for his first game. James’ end game scoring dragons made him take second place - very good for not playing before, but Neil’s dragon guild achievements had allowed him to entice many useful other dragons and score well on most categories and so he came out as best dragon enthusiast.
New purchase and first time at club Wondrous Creatures was the selection of the final table.
Having landed on a mysterious island full of Wondrous Creatures three captains and their crew set about creating magnificent menageries, obviously having grown up on Pokemon. Using a blend of worker placement, set collection and hand management players are trying to collect eggs and creatures to form a (hopefully) harmonious reserve. Placing a worker on the map allows you to access the habitat spaces you are next to, and from these you can either take the resource or possibly a creature card of that habitat style if one is available in the wilderness (6 cards drawn from the deck). The resources (fruit, coral, flowers, and mushrooms) are required to play cards into your reserve. There are 7 different species (insects, birds, fish, reptiles, mammals, crustaceans, and of course, dragons), that come in different card types, such as instant effects or end-game scoring. Each creature also has its own unique ability – linked to the type of card it is, for instance an instant card might allow you to draw an extra card, or get a discount on the next card played.
Crew members are also creatures, they take up 2 hexes on the map, and one of the three will be ridden by your captain. There are a variety of captains to choose, each with an ability, and each with a tiny magnet up their butt, enabling them to sit on the magnetised crew member safely. Turns consist of placing a crew member, playing 1-2 cards, claiming an achievement, or recharging – this is calling your crew back once they are out, which advances a time tracker and also allows you to play any recharge cards that you have played. At various points new habitat tiles may be placed in certain spots, and eggs may also appear in various places, eggs being used to help claim certain achievements, or possibly utilised via a creature’s ability.
Having previously spent some time on the island, Iain and Darren took Dave under their wing to show him the wonders waiting to be discovered. Captains and starting cards having been chosen, the three crews got to work exploring the lovely isle, admiring the strange flora and fauna, sniffing the flowers, wondering at the beautiful coral reefs, gasping at the, frankly, wondrous creatures, and then quickly swiping nearby eggs with their catcher nets.
Darren and Iain both went for small early achievements, worth less points, but unlocking their respective Captain’s abilities – these remain locked until a player claims their first achievement, so it’s often worth going for a lower value one to gain the benefit early. Dave seemed to be playing a long game, maybe too long. Not long after everyone had recharged for the first time Iain played a card that really kickstarted his engine, bringing him in resources and points whenever a recharge card was played, which he managed to pair with a card allowing him to discard energy to activate a recharge card. Finding a nice combination of cards is part of the fun in this game, and this was certainly fun for Iain.
Iain soon managed to get a decent lead, whilst Dave was starting to struggle slightly as he’d been unable to play a recharge card, and was thus not getting any extras whenever he called all his workers back – each worker can only be placed once and can’t be moved except to come back home at the recharge point. There’s a balance to find between recharging and gaining those bonuses, and extending your turn as long as you can before recharging by having enough resources to keep playing cards (or finding card combinations that help you do this).
More achievements were starting to get claimed by now, which was bringing end game closer – there are several trophies on the board which are claimed via achievements or reaching certain points on the VP tracker, and can also be removed from play by certain events. Once the last trophy is removed from the board the remaining players take their turn and then its all over. Iain’s point engine was looking to score him a win, although end-game scoring does sometimes provide a few surprises.
Dave was still struggling to find and play a recharge card when the last trophy was snagged, and the captains met up to decide who had the most wondrous medley of creatures on the island. Iain had a magnificent menagerie worth 160 points. Dave ended with a jolly jumble of creatures worth 133 points. Darren had a piddly potpourri worth about 114 points on the collector’s market. But fun was had, and the captains vowed to meet again on the mysterious isle at some future point to further explore the enchanting landscapes.
Next session is on Wednesday July 8th 7.30pm at the St Ives Corn Exchange. Join the pre game discussions on what to play on Discord or just come on the night and see which games, favourites or shiny new ones are available.
- Total Session Attendance: 10
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Board Games: 7