This is Episode 120 of Breakup Gaming Society, a podcast for board game freaks, hip hop junkies, late adopters, and reluctant participants in the 21st Century.

I am your host, The Colonel Hector Bravado…in Park Hill, Denver, Colorado. I’m visiting the folks. 

I wanted to see if the wildfire smoke and pollution here in Denver had a different nose or character than what I breathe down south. I’m still compiling my tasting notes. Keep an eye out for my byline in Filthy Air Enjoyer Quarterly.

Also, a quick apology for my valued regular listeners who were dismayed by the fabricated tale I posted on YouTube about the home invasion incident. Quick fact scorecard here: I do, for the moment, live in Starkville, Colorado. I do have a large tub of Warhammer 40,000 Conquest cards. The crime and orange chicken things were invented. 

Extra apologies to listener, frequent guest and friend of the show Noisy Andrew, who asked for my orange chicken recipe after seeing the video. That orange chicken is made of lies. My advice, Noisy, would be to just get hold of an orange and a chicken and see where things go from there.

On to the table and the act of play. This week I’ve got two interview excerpts teed up:

• You’ll meet miniature wargame designer Phil Yates, known for the Flames of War franchise and others —  and learn about his upcoming WW2 miniatures dogfighting game and why he and partner Ian Burgos are making a bid to get a new breed of player in the cockpit for the Battle of Britain.

• Also, a guest reading from Nate Tyler, one of a handful of people who make being on LinkedIn tolerable. He has craft and soul and a generous Midwestern wit.

When I found out he played hobby games with his kids, I wanted to hear his story. He over-delivered: A collection of vignettes that spans family play over four generations, from playing Mexican Train with grandma in the Midwest to, today, teaching newer strategy classics to his own kids in Taiwan. Then he raised his hand when I asked him if he wanted to read it. What a guy.

Nate’s piece got me all misty for well-made “back in the day” type hip hop songs, so I’m gonna pop in here and there for nostalgic interludes from Artifacts and Slick Rick.

Music
Dow Jones and D.O. The Fabulous Drifter, “Wash Ya Ass”
℗ 2006 Five Points Plan

Color Parade, “Boom Bap”
Uppbeat License Code: C8DCPMY8FKAXCEKD

Cécile Chaminade and Hans Barth, “The Flatterer,” 1924. Audio. https://www.loc.gov/item/jukebox-71450/.

Slick Rick, “Memories”
℗ 1999 Def Jam Recordings

Artifacts, “Whayback”
℗ 1994 Big Beat Recordings

#BoardGames #TabletopGames #MiniatureWargaming #WW2 #BattleOfBritain #FlamesOfWar #Wargaming #GameDesign #FamilyGaming #Tabletop #HipHop #SlickRick #Artifacts #Podcast

Here’s what’s worth staying inside and playing while your dopey relatives flirt with heat stroke at a Fourth of July parade.

I went to a cookout last year where they didn’t even bother heating the food; the raw meet just braised to safe temp inside your body.

Anyway, games: 

Game of the Week: Cartographers (2:20)
 Three episodes ago we met Stafford Airbiscuit, my cartographer from the hit Thunderworks flip and write of the same name. He was having a tough time in the field, what with the goblin attacks and general incompetence and all. We’re gonna check back in on Stafford and find out if he’s gonna stick it out or not.

Interlude (9:02)
Mantronix, “Sex-N-Drugs And Rock-N-Roll”

Tour Noisy Andrew’s Dope Vintage Fantasy Flight Games Silver Series Shelf (10:30)
The Fantasy Flight Games golden era retrospective continues to spin out of my control. My pal in Perth, Noisy Andrew, showed me a pile of vintage cardboard from the early 2000s that was way off my radar, so I asked him for a tour — and to rate which ones he still thinks are worth playing today.

Interlude (29:25)
• Fred Wesley and the J.B.’s, “Blow Your Head”
• Public Enemy, “Public Enemy No. 1”
• Freestylers, “Punks”

Music
Dow Jones and D.O. The Fabulous Drifter, “Wash Ya Ass”
℗ 2006 Five Points Plan

Danger Lion X, “Ghost Hallways” (Via Uppbeat)
License code: WDLNZS0KQM727RLL

Mantronix, “Sex-N-Drugs And Rock-N-Roll”
℗ 1990 Capitol Records, LLC

Fred Wesley and the J.B.’s, “Blow Your Head”
℗ 1988 UMG Recordings, Inc.

Public Enemy, “Public Enemy No. 1”
℗ 1987 UMG Recordings, Inc.

Freestylers, “Punks”
℗ 1990 Capitol Records, LLC

#BoardGames #Cartographers #FlipAndWrite #FantasyFlightGames #TabletopGaming #BoardGameCollection #BreakupGamingSociety
#BoardGamePodcast

Contributing writer Fritz Godard heads to Starkville to undertake a three-day apprenticeship in Space Hulk: Death Angel, the classic and brutal Warhammer 40,000 co-op card game. We played it — and classic Golden Era hip hop CDs on his boombox — for three days straight.

I flipped the mic on and off with little regard to best recording practices as we stuffed our faces, guzzled beer, invented impossible sponsorship plans, and watched as Fritz went from a guy who couldn’t tell which direction his Blood Angels were facing to a guy who can do gunslinger tricks with a Storm Bolter.

Day One (1:14)
Fritz rolls up in the driveway. I heat up a Lou Malnati’s pizza, we crack some beers and review Fritz’s journey of discovery in board gaming — and where I think that journey leads next.

Interlude: “I Got it Bad Y’all” by King Tee feat. Tha Alkaholiks (10:36)

Day Two (12:44)
Lured out of bed via text the following morning with the promise of good company and complimentary powdered eggs, I head over to the Holiday Inn Express to meet Fritz for Day Two’s action.

Interlude: “Free Mumia” by KRS-One feat. Channel Live (19:13)

Day Three (20:53)
Fritz has already checked out of his room, but he’s waiting in the lobby for me to come back with the game because he wants one more go at it before his long drive. Is he ready to seize victory?

Interlude: “Nutin’ ta Lose” by Dred Scott (25:57)

Coda (27:44)
Fritz made it back to Denver under adverse circumstances. We review the cost of victory and our intentions to become permanent residents of the Holiday Inn Express.

Music
• Main Theme and Bumpers: “Wash Y’ass,” D.O. the Fabulous Drifter and Dow Jones, Five Points Plan
• Game of the Week Background: “Suit & Tie,” Sky Gienger via Uppbeat
License code: 0UY4C9TRFTVO4W0E

Tracks of the Week
• “Got it Bad Y’all,” King Tee feat. Tha Alkaholiks, ©️1993 Capitol Records LLC
• “Free Mumia,” KRS-One feat. Channel Live, ©️2004 X-Ray Records
• “Nutin’ Ta Lose” Dred Scott, ©️Vinyl Digital GmbH

#SpaceHulkDeathAngel #Warhammer40K #BoardGames #TabletopGaming #CooperativeGames #OldSchoolHipHop #PodcastLife #BreakupGamingSociety

Join Breakup Gaming Society episode sponsor Doghouse Reilly in being clever bastards and wearing clever things. 👇

Games of the Week

• Ghost in the Shell TTRPG (5:32)
Our resident tabletop roleplaying curation hound, Walt, leads a conversation with the disarming Alessio Cavatore, a veteran miniature tabletop game designer whose task was to help faithfully imagine the world of Masamune Shirow’s legendary Ghost in the Shell manga as an RPG under the Mantic Games banner. He shows us his passion for the material and the nuts and bolts of play itself. You don’t want to just stroll into a firefight in this one.

• Chicago ‘68 (39:56)
A talk with Yoni Goldstein, designer of 2025’s Chicago ’68 — a game that models the battle between activist groups and the Chicago Police Department, the Democratic national establishment, and Mayor Daley’s administration, who are all fighting for yardage and mindshare during that summer’s wild Democratic national convention. You’ll learn about where this game sits in the tradition of historical conflict games — and what Yoni’s working on next.

Tracks of the Week

(76:32)
Three recipes: one for soul, one for rocksteady, one for dope. This recipe book starts in Memphis, stops in Jamaica, and ends in Houston’s 5th Ward..

Music
• Main Theme and Bumpers: “Wash Y’ass,” D.O. the Fabulous Drifter and Dow Jones, Five Points Plan
• Game of the Week Background: “Night Gatherings,” Pecan Pie (License code: XTGOLLHHPTLTQ6AM)
• Game of the Week Background: “Something Weird,” Pecan Pie (License code: ZRXYCMKOPDHXLZP9)
Tracks of the Week
• Memphis Soul Stew,” King Curtis and the Kingpins, ©️2006 Atlantic Recording Corp.
• “Soul Food,” Lyn Taitt and the Jets, ©️2023 Sanctuary Records Group LTD
• “Trigga Happy N****,” Geto Boys, ©️2002 RAP-A-LOT 2K RECORDS INC.

Join Breakup Gaming Society episode sponsor Doghouse Reilly in being clever bastards and wearing clever things.

Stafford Airbiscuit has to go back to the queen with a score of 37. Which translates into a job rating of -45 per the solo grading rules.

“So what were we doing out there, exactly,” she says, holding my map incredulously.

“Well, the goblins kept attacking and the gnolls stole my lunch and went to the restroom on my lunch…”

Games of the Week

• Cartographers (3:51)
Some queen tells a gnome they have to map a bunch of real estate she just acquired. Hear about my first sit with this widely loved pencil-and-paper terrain-maxxxing puzzle.

• Citadels (9:07)
Bruno Faidutti’s ruthless role-selection mini-masterpiece spent a lot of time on our table during our heavy Fantasy Flight Games era. Learn about how hard it is to pull a building permit for your city when you get a shiv in your ribs.

• Thunderbolt Apache Leader (15:33)
Fly with me back to the rip-roaring action of Thunderbolt Apache Leader and across the pages of Korean War fighter pilot and novelist James Salter’s memoir, Burning the Days.

Track of the Week

(29:01)
It must be boom bap season, because I’m stuck on “Get a Grip” by The Whooliganz, who were two little kids who briefly got to roll with the Soul Assassins team that included Cypress Hill, House of Pain and Funkdoobiest.

Music
• Main Theme and Bumpers: “Wash Y’ass,” D.O. the Fabulous Drifter and Dow Jones, Five Points Plan
• Game of the Week Background: “Night Gatherings,” Pecan Pie (License code: XTGOLLHHPTLTQ6AM)
• Game of the Week Background: “Something Weird,” Pecan Pie (License code: ZRXYCMKOPDHXLZP9)
• Track of the Week: “Get a Grip,” The Whooliganz, Unreleased

Join Breakup Gaming Society episode sponsor Doghouse Reilly in being clever bastards and wearing clever things. 👇

Thank you again to episode sponsor Doghouse Reilly, purveyor of wearable visual puns and vintage hip hop lyrics.

Games of the Week

• Comanchería: The Rise and Fall of the Comanche Empire (3:24)
My initial overview of Comanchería, which is finally on the table. This game models 175 years of conflict in the interior US West from the perspective of the Comanche. I got the first scenario set up, which takes place in the 1700s. Join me for a quick tour of the board.

BEGIN FAMILY-FRIENDLY PORTION OF THIS PROGRAM
• Mix Up Fairy Tales (10:06)
Looking for a lovely family diversion? We’ve got you covered. Walt and I talk about Mix Up Fairy Tales with co-designer Robin Cruddace of Warcradle Studios.
END FAMILY-FRIENDLY PORTION OF THIS PROGRAM

• Chaos in the Old World (39:00)
Lastly, I take you back to a summer night in Portland: The last time I ever got to play Chaos in the Old World, Fantasy Flight Games’ asymmetrical masterpiece of the age. I won the game. But I was about to lose everyone at the table.

Track of the Week

(50:39)
I've been spinning Kool Keith alter-ego Dr. Dooom's First Come, First Served LP all the time. This led me to the small but scintillating discography of Motion Man, a talented Bay Area underground journeyman with gobs of style and technique. My goal here is to put him somewhere on your playlist.

Music
• Main Theme and Bumpers: “Wash Y’ass,” D.O. the Fabulous Drifter and Dow Jones, Five Points Plan
• Game of the Week Background: “Night Gatherings,” Pecan Pie (License code: XTGOLLHHPTLTQ6AM)
• Game of the Week Background: “Something Weird,” Pecan Pie (License code: ZRXYCMKOPDHXLZP9)
• Track of the Week: “Loose Cannon,” Motion Man, Clearing the Field ©️2002 threshold recordings LLC
• Track of the Week: “No Chorus,” Dr. Dooom, First Come, First Served ©️1999 funky ass records/threshold recordings LLC
• Track of the Week: “Housing Authority” Dr. Dooom feat. Motion Man, First Come, First Served ©️1999 funky ass records/threshold recordings LLC

Weekend weather forecast for the Demon Wastes: Look for scattered sword-showers late morning through midafternoon Saturday, which should clear up just in time for the Parade of the Stricken. 

Games of the Week

• Metal Queens ov Skull Mountain (2:58)
Our curated indie RPG series with Walt continues: He’s burrowed way back in the vaults to show us Metal Queens ov Skull Mountain. It’s a story-driven thrash metal holodeck whose light structure paves the way for incredible setpiece battles that rock as hard as you and your GM can make them.

• Professor Phelyx’s Tarot (24:43)
I talk to Denver scholar, magician, and man-about-town Professor Phelyx. I found out he’s 500 hours into the creation of his own tarot deck. Meet Phelyx and get a cool history lesson about tarot’s roots as a storytelling game.

• Dwelling Solo Journaling RPG (45:46)
My work continues in the pages of Dwelling, a solo RPG for ghosts. We’re at the midpoint of the book, where the narrator endures a queasy vision in the unnatural red light cast by the basement.

Track of the Week

(52:22)
I’m gonna zoom in on Keith Murray’s amazing lead-off of the “I Shot Ya” track, helmed by LL Cool J and also featuring Prodigy, Fat Joe, and Foxy Brown. Also, Kwest will show us how to bring a posse cut home.

Visit the Doghouse
This is all brought to you by our episode sponsor, Doghouse Reilly, purveyor of clever T-shirts based on visual puns and opening lyrics from classic hip hop tracks. This includes a T-shirt that Doghouse did just for us: A snippet of a Gang Starr lyric with some clever typesetting, available in three colors.

Please welcome episode sponsor Doghouse Reilly — the Teemill storefront of my man Tim Sismey, who was our guest curator for last segment’s Track of the Week.

Tim makes clever tees based on visual puns and opening lyrics from classic hip hop songs. He also made a special shirt for Breakup Gaming Society featuring one of my favorite lines from a Guru verse.

Games of the Week

• Final Girl: A Knock at the Door (3:37)
I dove face first into Final Girl: A Knock at the Door, only my second experience with this thrilling, slick and cruel hit solo horror franchise. It threw me with some new tricks. And the Final Girl, Ava, hit back with some new tactics of her own. Ride along for that story about the once-peaceful lakeside vacation spot of Wingard Cottage.

• Scrabble (16:42)
Last fall I played a much gentler contest in a much safer location: A house in Taos, where I tilted at Scrabble with The Moms for the first time in years. In Final Girl, you fight the killer. In Scrabble, you fight The Moms, but we were also teaming up against the thieves of our memory and language.

• Fantasy Flight Games Retrospective (22:16)
Another chunk of my talk with Shelf Stable co-host Kenny Katayama. Discussed: Battlestar Galactica, Letters from Whitechapel, Fury of Dracula and more…

Track of the Week

(31:47)
More cross-Atlantic, cross-genre sample and production tracing as evidenced in classic hip hop songs. In this case, a look at “Dance for Me” off Queen Latifah’s very first album in 1989 — and the Ultimatum remix that still thrills me more than 35 years after first hearing it.

You can always hit the show with a one-time donation to get a really dumb cocktail book and a really disarming frog sticker.

My nervous system: the final frontier. These are the voyages of my moth-eaten brain. Its five-round mission: to play a fucking game correctly.

Games of the Week (2:51)
• SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, 2024’s big hit about managing a space agency that’s looking for hard evidence of somebody out there. I tried this weighty Euro-style game over the winter in solo mode for the first time. I messed it up so badly, you could say I hadn’t played it at all. I revisited this busy resource management adventure twice and got a clearer view. Notes on that.

• The Fantasy Flight Games golden age retrospective series continues. I interviewed Shelf Stable podcast co-host Kenny Katayama about his perspective on this unbelievable string of seminal titles — in particular, his experience with several of the flagship Living Card Games they issued late in their glory run: Android: Netrunner, Warhammer 40,000: Conquest, Legend of the Five Rings, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and more…

Track of the Week (42:18)
It’s “Cordless Mics at 20 Paces” by DJ Skitz featuring Phi-Life Cypher, which was recommended to me by my UK pal, Tim Sismey. This track is tight and these dudes rapped their asses off; Tim tells us how it fit into his life and his story of early 2000s UK hip hop.

You can always hit the show with a one-time donation to get a really dumb cocktail book and a really disarming frog sticker.

Sam Altman and Marc Andreessen can frolic in my pickle water. The world they’re imagining sucks.

We’re going to hide from it in the best way possible: An RPG actual play session where two ninjas have to kill Cheap Trick during their famous Budokan set in 1978. Ingest this into your model.

News
• If you live in Chicagoland and like supporting indie game designers, the Indie Boardgame Showcase is stopping at Big Star in Wrigleyville on Sunday, March 8 from 4:30-8:00 p.m. More than 15 designers will be there, demoing what they made for you. Get 50% off your ticket with the code BREAKUP at Quirk Events’ website.

• Also, I’m giving away a charming stack of indie games from The Seahorse and the Hummingbird, Grumpy Spider Games, Long Tail Games and Ada Press. Hear about these games and learn how to win them in the Games of the Week segment of Episode 110.

Game of the Week (3:43)
• You want a taste at how a Mars colony would have played out? Go to Texas, where your fixed-income auntie will be braised inside her apartment during unprecedented free-market desert heat as crypto mining operations brown out her AC and people in Granbury get crippling headaches from the hum of exotic currency being made across the street. I do not envy science fiction writers right now. This and other thoughts on AI in context of the fun slaughterhouse economy they’ve been iterating through several thrilling market crashes for decades now.

• Where can we go that these hyperreal Carnegies and Rockefellers can’t ruin? Well, we can teleport to Japan in 1978 and kill one of my favorite bands. Hear the mission and character setup for some actual play of the NINJA BORG RPG by Walton Wood and Rugose Kohn.

Track of the Week (34:42)
Pardon the sound quality, but I found some deep old ‘93-’94 big-crew boom bap cuts on YouTube from Now Born Click, Troubleneck Brothers and Freakin Inglish. You need to hear selections from these

You can always hit the show with a one-time donation to get a really dumb cocktail book and a really disarming frog sticker.