Roux Dat: Haunted Mouse and The First Tsar: Ivan The Terrible

My frequent podcast co-host and I have more in common than just board games, I recently found out. When we were starting our play of The First Tsar: Ivan the Terrible, Mitchell told me that he really enjoyed taking a few Russian history courses back in his days at the good ol’ alma mater. While most of my history and poli sci classes at LSU focused on Western European systems, I did enjoy my exposure to Russian literature back in high school. From an educational standpoint, reading One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich is still a seminal event in my high school career.

So both of us were excited to break out Stan Kordonskiy‘s take on the roughly forty year, 16th century reign of Ivan the Terrible — even if we didn’t agree on the pronunciation of Ivan’s name.

Opening up the box on the stream and looking at the components, I was struck at first with how familiar this felt. 25th Century Games has the license to publish this from its original publisher, and I’m not sure how much was changed, but this game definitely has a comforting feeling. It feels like an old school classic euro yet updated with modern touches, almost like those Alea bookshelf games from a decade or two ago.

In The First Tsar, players have four rounds to gather resources, control different cities / regions in old world Russia, and complete recipes. Pretty standard stuff, right? But it is the way that Kordonskiy puts the game together that makes it special. Each player has three Boyars — yes, there were plenty of “boyyyyy-ooo” jokes on stream — which are placed via turn order onto five action spots. The action spots range from getting more resources, to gathering more recipe cards or special powers, to adding more strength in the regions and battle board. Whichever player’s Boyar has importance on that spot gets the best of the action, while the others get the regular action. So how exactly does one claim importance with the Tsar? You guessed it — ya gotta grease that ole palm.

Players can add to the value of their Boyar by dropping some coinage underneath. Money is tight at first, so the decision as to when and where you place the money is very important throughout the game. But think about how Kordonskiy does this: he makes you commit to an action — and let’s face it, you really need to do all five actions every round but only have three Boyars — and commit to whether you will try for the special action without knowing what all of the moves will be from the other players.

By the last age, we figured out the designer’s little party trick. He fooled us into thinking this was a straight get-stuff-turn-it-into-points euro, but just like in his other games like Endless Winter and Lockup: A Roll Player Tale, there’s more to this game than meets the eye. By the last round, most of us (with me as a significant departure) were putting together combos all over the place. Need more warriors on the map? Complete a project that lets you do it, while also completing another project that upgrades your resource collection so you can build a building. I love these hidden little combos that you discover on the first play as it really encourages multiple plays. We enjoyed The First Tsar at three players, and it might be a great candidate for “Best At Three”, but I really want to try it at four players to see how much more player interactivity there is.

And yes, Mitchell “Mr. Russian History” cleaned our clocks.

This time.

Nothing about The First Tsar was chunky, as the actions were easy to process, but the decision tree did have a lot of far ranging consequences. So, to reset our brains, after we finished, we put Haunted Mouse back on the table. This was Mitchell and Connor’s first play of this cute little card shedding, ladder climbing card game designed by Jon Cox and published by Bézier Games

This was my first play of Haunted Mouse at three players, and it worked just fine. (The box says 3-5) is the limit). This time, we threw in the “It’s a Trap” ‘expansion’ cards, which have tons of wild cards. Want to make a trap but need more of a certain number? There’s a wild card for that. Need a certain color to make another trap? Got that one, too. Want a wild card for both numbers and colors and shapes? Yes, yes, and no!

There is just no reason in my mind not to play with the It’s A Trap expansion. This is a game that is much more fun when cards are getting played quickly. The escalation of a game from one high card to a pair to a three card run is fun, but dropping the hammer of a wild-laden four card run is just silly enjoyment. I think we have a few plays of Haunted Mouse in us, because it has so far been easy to teach and a good one to end the night.

Another great night of gaming in the Gumbo Pot as the Summer of Mitchell and Connor continues. Until next time, laissez les bon temps rouler!
— BJ from Board Game Gumbo

** Complimentary copies of the games were provided by the publishers. **