The Results of a Board Game Secret Santa!

Back around Halloween of last year, a board game podcast that I listen to (Board Game Barrage) held sign-ups for their annual Secret Santa (which they call "Ghost Turkey" since most people sent out things by Thanksgiving I guess).  I've been a listener of the Board Game Barrage for awhile now but never participated in their Ghost Turkey until this year!

The idea of the program is that each person would update their Boardgamegeek profile to indicate the games they already own as well as the games they want.  Then, their randomly (and secretly) assigned "Ghost Turkey" would look at their list(s) and try to come up with a nice gift.  

My Ghost Turkey delivered somewhere around the middle of December with a box full of goodies.  Included in the box was some homemade fudge as well as a pair of board games for me.  In addition, the packing box itself was decorated using the Ghost Turkey picture (drawn by the sender's eight-year-old according to the included note in the package).  Super cute!

As for the games, there were two in the package.  The first was from my want list - Unmatched:  Dr. Sattler vs. T.Rex.

I heard of the Unmatched series of games from a different podcast recently and thought that it sounded kind of cool.  I put a couple of the games on my want list and lo and behold, my Ghost Turkey picked one to send me.  I actually got this game to the table over Christmas break - my brother and I played a round and we both liked it.  I'll need to play a few more rounds to get a feel for the entire system but early results are definitely solid.

The basic idea of the Unmatched series is that you play in a one-on-one battle (or, in some of the larger sets, two-on-two).  Characters can be mixed and matched from among all the various sets and each character has it's own special deck of cards.  The game is essentially trying to "kill" the opponent using cards to move your character around a simple board.  It didn't take long to learn (nor play) and was definitely a lot of fun in terms of the asymmetry of the two included characters.  I do plan to seek out another set or two to expand the playable options for future game nights!

The other game that I got was Undaunted Normandy.

I've heard of the Undaunted series but again, never played any of the games.  I haven't (yet) gotten this one to the table but I'm definitely looking forward to trying it out.  From what I know of Undaunted Normandy, it's a deck-building game (which I generally like) that is part of a campaign.  Units (cards) lost in one battle remain lost for future battles which should make every decision agonizing (in a good way)!  

Not quite sure when I'll get this one to table but I'm definitely excited to give it a spin soon!  

Overall, this was a super successful first foray into the Ghost Turkey experience (and I want to give one more shoutout to my secret Santa/Ghost Turkey).