Have you played Endless Winter? Let us know what you think and also what expansions you like!

You should keep doing reviews. Always very detailed, intelligent and a lot of thoughtful comments. I also like how your different perspective makes your conclusions even more interesting and nuanced.

I have this game ready and set up on my board. Just watching you now to get ready for a couple of rounds for the weekend! Thank you for making it soo easy to learn it.

Loved this playthrough. I've watched other reviews of this game but your descriptions of the mechanics were the clearest and most understandable. And thank you for the comparison rankings vs Dune Imperium and Lost Ruins of Arnak. Great job!

Very excited for this playthrough, glad you're feeling better!

Thanks a lot for this video ! It must have been a lot of work to put together, so it's even more appreciated :D And thanks a lot for your honest review !!! I always like your reviews because they're very interesting, complete, and honest, which is always refreshing ! Really love your content, you guys are just awesome

Thanks for the awesome upload! Been watching more and more of your videos and loving every single one of them. Keep up the great content!

Appreciate the comparisons at the end. Thanks!

Thank you for great and honest review! Looking forward to more videos like this one.

It’s great to see you guys including a review again. Although I appreciate your channel is predominantly about the teach and gameplay but I’m always interested to hear your thoughts.

nice play through. i hope to get to play this in the near future. thanks for the inspiration.

The expansion module for animals really makes the eclipse phase more interesting as well. Because you don’t get end game points, but instead depending on how many untipped animals, you can get resources or points, etc.

I appreciate your videos so much. This was quite helpful as I've only played solo so far and I want to introduce this to some friends this weekend.

Tip for Eclipse phase in round 4 : don't draw cards from your deck for each village you've placed. Go up on the idol track instead ;)

Great video!I really love your video's

Omg I'm so excited!! :D I bought this game recently, and learning this game by watching you guys play it will make it much easier for me to get into :D.

Thanks for another excellent review! I agree on Dune Imperium, such a tense and amazing game. Have a great week!

I love the way you teach games 🙌🏼

I was definitely looking forward to this one! Thanks for your honest thoughts. I feel similar with regards to expansion modules; I'm usually pretty satisfied with the base game. With this one, I do feel like I want to take a peek at some of the expansions as well.

I was thinking of buying it, but your review made me consider something else in the end. Thanks.

Thanks for playing! Please do one with expansions like the rivers and rafts or ancestors with the additional modules in the game. Add the glacier module and you can combine things. Cheers

It was fun watching you play, I've played this more than a few times and also a few of the expansions. I love it, is my favorite of the 3. But I did not enjoy my 1 playthrough of Dune, I guess it was not taught properly to me and I missed some vital stuff to notice in how the worker placement works. I have to say, I use my food as labor a lot, specially when hunting. Great teach and playthrough. Thanks.

Very much appreciated, we're playing our first game tonight. That must have taken some effort to edit!

Great video, as usual! Thanks! Btw, "recorded history" begins with the advent of writing (~4000 BCE), so the theme here predates recorded history by quite a bit. ..the description on BGG says the timeframe here is ~10,000 BCE.

And there it is🎉

I really miss these excellent, unbiased, critiquing videos. Lately there is soooo much sponsored game content, silencing real critiquing. Channels are becoming biased influencers advertising/peddling new games, because of this. We need help to hack through the weeds to determine whether the game has limitations, issues, etc. to make better decisions. I really, really miss these types of reviews. They are becoming few and far between on most board game youTube channels. The fantastic critiquing (both positive and negative) was so valuable for this review. I also agree. Dune Imperium is also my favorite game for the same reasons. Thanks for this!

Thanks so much for the playthrough! Really enjoyed watching it from beginning to end. :) This looks enjoyable, but I definitely found myself developing concerns along the same lines you both mentioned. The game seems really loose to me and that it might have too many underdeveloped sections. I think it might’ve benefitted from cutting one or two of them out and then further developing the others to have more interesting interactions and better tension. That might cut out some of the AP as well. But I can’t say for sure as I haven’t played it. Now I need to go watch those Lost Ruins and Dune: Imperium videos. ;)

That 10 point burial grounds stone was op! I think it was a large deciding factor

Great teach and playthrough. Very clear and made my first game really easy to focus on the gameplay and not the rules. This game is fun but I feel like you are able to do way too much in the game. Which makes each turn fun, but there is no tension when you can nearly max out several aspects of the game.

I only have two expansions, Rivers and Rafts and Ancestors. Both offer so much more to the game. Animals that give points during the gameplay, rivers and rafts offer more bonuses and ways to score depending on the landmark you are playing with! Totally recommend it!

Thanks for the review :) Campared to Arnak I liked this one more. At first the exploration in Arnak was exciting but in the end I felt it was to luck based for me. Not only because of the exploration also because at least for me it seemed that some assistents were better than others and also you can be more lucky with the cards which you can get. It definetly got better with the expansion but also there I felt like some player powers are better than others. In Endless Winter I had the feeling that I have much more possibilities and the actions felt more different than in Arnak. I think it's easier to plan ahead and make your strategy without being thrown back by bad luck. For me the cards felt more balanced and I just liked the feeling that I have in my opinion more options how I want the play the game. It's very important to have enough cards in your hand so that you have way more options on your turn. You will see new cards more often than in Arnak also because it's very easy to get rid of your starting cards therefore new cards felt more important to me. In a two player game I also didn't like that it can happen that there are only animals nobody likes. Still you can take them and get some resources out of them or some points but it would have been great if you can also get rid of them in a different way. The setup in Arnak is definitely faster. I only played the base game of Endless Winter but I'm eager to play with all the expansions. I'm also looking forward to the second expansion of Arnak because it adds a cooperative mode and I really enjoy cooperative games.

Ancestors and rivers and rafts expansion make the game more challenging, definitely worth playing with them

I really love Lost Ruins of Arnak. I love how much faster you're able to do so much in this game compared to Arnak. I did get expedition leaders so I wonder if that will make a difference (haven't played it yet). Definitely another game I plan on getting. Thanks for the playthrough!

Omg so excited for this one-happy you’re feeling better!! 🎉 going to update this once I finish the playthrough 👀 Update: loveeee your thoughts on this overall! There is definitely nowhere near as much tension as dune imperium, but I think the expansions as Naveen mentioned could potentially add to some really fun and interesting gameplay! I’m the same in that i don’t want to add all these mini modules, but I did try one more substantial like cave paintings and loved it~ thanks for the fun playthrough friends! 🎉

Since KS mid-heavy euros tend to wanted to attract both end of the spectrum of players, I approach KS games in this size differently. I usually scan through the base rules first and throw in the expansion I am most interested in. Depends on preferences base game is usually a stepping stone to the "real" game where it shines. Please definitely try the ancestor expansion when you have time. As always, love your channel!

That is wild that we released content on this the same day!! 😂 loved your thoughts

I really like this game and the modules for the base game make it more interesting, especially what M. was talking about the discovery aspect. Ancestors is the only expansion I have played and what changes is the fact that now you can mix and match the animals and the tribe cards. The animal cards can now then help with the eclipse phase where you don't have to depend much on the terrain board. I find Arnak to be less replayable than Endless Winter, and Dune Imperium only works if you add Rise of Ix, because otherwise there is a very clear strategy to win the game. EW definitely has the best components and artwork and costs the same as the other two.

At around 1h 34min, Naveen should have gotten an extra advancement on the left track for playing his culture card. This would have allowed him to take an extra card after the 2 advancements for tipping his animal. Cool playthrough! I really appreciate your style of videos.

I’ve played a ton of Dune Imperium and then with Rise of Ix. Played a bunch of Lost Ruins of Arnak too and some Expedition Leaders. To me. Rise of Ix made Dune a 10+ from 10. Leaders didn’t change much for me in Arnak as I still found gameplay strategy samey with variable player powers. Have read the rules for base Endless Winter and have all the expansions and modules. Watching your playthrough has convinced me that I will introduce some expansions from the first play. Overall, I feel that Endless Winter will settle in the middle for me with Dune being the tops. Your comments in the review I found SPOT ON! Thanks for sharing your views with why. They really help.

I totally agree with you, that's why i voted for continuing Mindclash series. Can't wait for that.

OMG! YES! Endless Winter is so good!

Unfortunately I completely agree with your review 😂 I really enjoy Endless Winter, but it isn't as heavy as some other games, like you said. After playing with the expansions, I can't imagine playing without them. They add a lot of variety to the game and give you more things to focus on, which means you won't necessarily make it to the top of the tracks and get all your villages out every game. I like the tension you spoke of in Dune Imperium, but I also really like the feeling of wanting to do everything and not being able to. The base game doesn't really have that, but thankfully the expansions bring that to the game. Naveen! Come to Helsinki and you can play them all!

Great review! Random/curious question: Who is more competitive between you two when it comes to board games?? My guess would be, even though Monique is more openly competitive, Naveen is secretly the more competitive person... Loved your Dune Imperium review btw!!

I 100% think incorporating certain modules is a must and the only reason it’s not a part of base game is because there’s so many rules to take initially. The rest tokens is a simple module and makes resting a viable option. The familiars also makes resting more incentivizing. Also the tokens you can add to glaciers makes the area control and where you place your villages much more interesting. I think 3 player is best. 4 is to long, 2 Doenst have enough competition. With 3, there’s an unevenness to the first place benefits to spots. First player can get 2. So there’s a big reason to fight over first player in the eclipse phase. The ancestors expansion with new chief cards makes the decisions much more interesting. New tribe cards etc that make decisions better. The base game is just that. Veryyy basic.

Monique waving until Naveen has introduced is the sweetest thing in the whole of youtubes land. 😅 I'm still curious about these hybrid deck builders, which all seem to be hugely successful, but not sure they're for me.

Ancestors is indeed a must have. Also all of the mini modules. I hoped to get more fun and complexitity from Cave Painting and River and Rafts, but they did not give that to me.

The concept seems great, I would like to see it played in more turns as this seems too short. I like that you are able to trash more card than in DI or Arnak, but less rounds make it have less impact.

I've played this 2 player and 3 player. I agree that it runs long and that there is very little tension at 2 players. Exploration of this game feels limited. It didn't feel like there are very many strategies to try out. After 2 plays I feel like adding a module to raise the complexity and possible strategies for winning is necessary to not get bored.

I'm a huge fan of this game from the production quality to all the interesting gameplay decisions. It really is a fantastic game. I just got the ancestors pack and that adds a ton of replayability.

This is a game I really like, the eclipse phase and the decisions it brings is my favourite part of the game, and I really prefer the way this game does it's cardplay and deck building over the other games it's compared to. I wouldn't be very interested playing it at 2 players though; I agree that it needs more competition for all the scoring opportunities to make it more interesting and to tighten it up a bit. I think this actually gets amplified by the modules and expansions which give you even more ways to get resources and score points.

Thanks for the honest review and the comparison to Dune Imperium and Lost ruins of Arnak! I've played both of those. Watching your video I think I would also rate Endless Winter as third. The theme just doesn't do as much for me as the other two and the gameplay isn't different enough. It still looks fun, but I think I will skip this one.

you really need to cover Dwellings of Eldervale 🙌

Thank you! I completely agree it’s pretty but the game play is just OK

Your module comment is spot on. I do not enjoy figuring out the perfect combo of modules especially since it brings doubt to whether it was sufficiently play tested. I’d simply prefer including everything and knowing that is how the designer(s) intended the game is played. Unconscious Mind (their new Kickstarter) does not do this thankfully!

Dune Imperium, it's all in the Intrigue cards :)

Haven't played it, would try it. The turns seem overly long though with many steps, not sure about playing it with more than 2 in this case - considering your game took around 2 hours.

thank you for the honest review. i think i wanted to like it more. something about it being too easy to do well in each track makes it less tense for me. and the length at 4 is crazy. i would only play at 3. im with naveen, i would want to play with ancestors expansion with new animals and tribesmen.

It helps to remember that recorded history started with civilization (agrarian) which only came after the glaciers receded, so this is would be just before that.

I've played this a few times now, at 2p every time (want to try 3 badly, wouldn't be thrilled to play at 4), and I have to say I really love the game. Sure, it's not a tense grind it out game of scraping together incremental value, instead being a bit of a satisfaction machine, giving you lots of options, all of which are good. I don't think that means there aren't meaningful decisions though. If you can all do awesome things, your path to victory is figuring out how to make sure your awesome things can beat out your opponent who is also doing awesome things. Small things add up. I think the eclipse phase is really cool, and because it's a rare deck building game where you don't discard your hand at the end of the round, but still get to draw 5 cards (not UP to 5), it can make for interesting decisions on whether to pitch things to the eclipse phase or keep them for a super powerful next turn. On the topic of the eclipse phase, I also love that the rest action is very powerful, I feel like most worker placement games have that one space you never want to go to, and I'm glad they made resting extremely strong, that 1.5 labor and a card is a big deal, because going first is also no joke. I am looking forward to trying some of the extra stuff, I was looking through the rules for Ancestors and it does seem amazing. But I'm super satisfied with the base game, I really love it and look forward to showing more people it. I will say I'm definitely always using the rest and glacier modules, they really add a lot, and I'll start using the Canine module because it looks so easy to fit in and I love dogs.

Fantasia Games added a new official variant which makes the game faster and more competetive: - Ties in influence on the map result in all tied players won't get the tiles' benefit - Everyone only has two workers (chief and normal) in the first era of the game, a bit like Dune Imperium

This is one of the first videos I have seen that is not singing the praises of the game and as someone who agrees more with yalls thoughts, I appreciate the honesty. It was too open and easy to do everything at lower player counts, but WAAAAYYY too long at higher player counts. So, it just doesnt hit a sweet spot. The static open market hurts the games ability to be repayable. If they made more unique cards and have a fluid market like LRoA or DI and tightened up the game to where its not possible to do EVERTHING, the game would have been amazing. Overal, 6/10 for me and I already sold it.

Fantastic Playthrough!, I haven't played Endless Winter. Why people are always comparing Endless Winter with Dune and Lost Rune of Arnak?

The only game I played the first time with expansions is Obsession because they are great, especially the new servants and new tiles!

I like Fields of Arle for its theme that comes out in the game with a huge sandbox feel opposed to Feast of Odin that for us loses its theme to a huge advanced game of Tetris. You are acquiring pieces for their shapes versus functionality. Sometimes more isn’t better. Love Fields of Arle with Tea expansion 👩‍🌾 🐄 🌱 ☕️

Great play through. I’m surprised you didn’t like it that much as it seemed like you really enjoyed yourselves. Although I do agree on some points. It’s a fine game. Not an all time great but really good. It’s fine with the constant comparison to Arnak and dune. Sure they share some mechanics. But they are all so very different in style and play. Anyway. Great play. Luckily Navine won because he did do some mistakes at the end that could have costed the game. Forgoing the idol movement because he thought he maxed it out anyway was not completely correct. Whenever you have movement beyond the idol track. You’ll get a point. So some of the megalith actions could be converted to idols instead as lesser benefits and score points that way.

What should you do when there are no cards in your deck or in your discard pile at the end of a round? You just go with what you have in hand?

Sign me up to play with ya Naveen! But really, where do you recommend going to find slightly heavier game groups? Most of my friends only enjoy

1:45:25 Navin should have exchanged megalith for idol, and his idol from board would get him +1 point extra. That Burying stone on player board is way too OP, it granted Navin 20 points I believe, without it, he would have probably lost, because there is no other stone, to give 20 points boost.

In the first action of round 4 Naveen missed a bump up the track from his first played card.

The game looks very nice but seems like it would be a harder teach then dune or ruins of arnak, which seem to play similar.

After lots of plays of Arnak and Dune and a few of EW, this is my ranking: 1. Dune 2. Endless Winter 3. Arnak

There is a soon to be official variant where you only gain your third worker in the 2nd era (3rd round). It alleviates the problem of maxing everything

Kinda surprised this game ended up on so many Top 10 lists

Of the 3 big Worker Placement + Deck Building games, which would you recommend for 2 players? Arnak, Dune or Endless Winter ?

Even if you think it's too easy to do everything, you still have to beat the other players to win, not the game itself. You have to do all that stuff faster than the others. It's a race to the finish. Try Ancestors, the game is better without the animals collection.

Really though Dune: Imperium, Lost Ruins of Arnak and Endless Winter are not similar at all. They share some similar mechanics but really can't be compared like for like. Dune is also my fav from those 3.

I think you both forgot the point of the “lesser benefits”. In the last round, you both talked about drawing cards and how it’s pointless.. but you could have done other things like move up the idol track, naveen coulda taken an extra point for example instead of drawing a card for no reason. Or you could take resources to help get points on the offering track. You both barely utilized that area control map which coulda gained yoj major benefits you weren’t getting during the eclipse phase. By that I mean the villages. Only got one village each.. if you get those out quick, you can draw extra cards in every future round making actions stronger or instead of drawing cards, get more track movement or resources every round by using the lesser benefits.

I wonder if there is a little too much of have your cake and eat it too going on with the production of this game. The ancestors expansion switches up the cards making the decisions more tight and creates more tension in the terrain tiles with a new ability to move another players camps. The friendly ties also seem to be a design decision to decrease negative player interaction tension. The base game does feel like it is aimed for the players who want to do everything unencumbered while the other modules make it feel much more tight for the players that desire those choices more. I think for me it's less here is the base game, once you learn that try these cards and more if you are this kind of player you might prefer these sets of card abilities and rulesets over the other. I've never liked the comparison of this game with Lost Ruins or Dune because they are all three very different games. I personally only would rank them in comparison to my collection but not against each other because they don't feel the same and they all scratch a different itch. Really enjoy all three.

I live in Fairbanks, Alaska. I can't even watch this video. I get enough of winter.

you forgot to move idol at 1:34:45

I couldn’t get captions to work for some reason. It said they were unavailable

You should have chosen an idol instead of forgoing the draw of a card from your player board at the end. Honestly, the base game is too vanilla, the modules and the expansions make it sooo much better! You can even incorporate all the modules at once if you're already familiar with the game. After that Ancestors, Cave Paintings and Rivers and Rafts expansions. I'm a bit sad that all the content creators who didn't back the KS rate it based on just the base game because of lack of time. Arnak doesn't even come close to it.

It definitely fell flat for me after one 2p game. Paws with no claws. I have skimmed through expansions content however and it does seem to have the potential to change the game significantly. If not, it’s the end of the winter.

I had a similar experience on my first play (base game + 2 small modules from the base which unfortunately give you even more benefits), I maxed out everything. Had all my camps and villages out, maxed food & tools and the scoring for them, maxed burying (topped the track too), had three stones, maxed megaliths; the only thing I didn't score a lot on was animals. It feels like I "finished" the game which is definitely not what you want to see on your first play. I do want to try at least the Ancestors expansion, but I'm not too keen on getting it back to the table. I'd rather finally try the Dune Imperium expansions (although I hate the intrigue card play in that one), or play again with the Leaders for Arnak (only 1 play with leaders so far).

How much table space does this take up?

Looks like Lost Ruins of Arnak on steroids.

👋 🥶❄️

Glacier and rest module should have been included as part of base game.

I believe Resurgence is the best thing he put out this year

I completely agree with Monique on this one. Unfortunately

What happened to Mields of Marle?

One big rule mistake you made. When you go to the new rounds you are supposed to completely wipe the culture cards and place new ones. Not just fill in the empty spots. So for example from round 1 to 2, you only places out 2 new cards. But you should have replaced the entire selection. I think that’s part of why you didn’t feel The variety.

It sounds interesting but I think it’s a pass for me. I would play it if I had the opportunity but I don’t see myself buying it.

You definitely can play with all the EW expansions at once if you wanted; Cave Paintings and River Rafting are not small at all! Dune Imperium definitely has the same amount, or even more, analysis paralysis, so I don't knock Endless Winter for that. Not much from Dune felt all that new, either, especially after Arnak. The tension from Dune is manufactured a little bit too much for me; any game with a variable ending/scoring threshold just manufactures tension automatically (not necessarily because of decision space). So does any worker placement game that only allows one person to go to a spot (which I think causes the biggest difference in feel from EW). Playing with the automa player at a two-player count in Dune isn't fun at all (again, a manufactured way to add tension that mostly turns into awful feelings of randomness), and there's definitely more tension with EW at a higher player count. Dune is pretty long at three players, as well, and is a marathon at four, so I feel like the timing is pretty similar between both. I could tell from your playthrough (and you even say yourself that you're heavy gamers) that you probably take longer to play most games, which is totally fine, but I also play heavy games, and I've played several three-player games of EW in the same amount of time as this two-player playthrough (with even higher scores), so it definitely can be played more quickly. I know you're trying to talk on a video at the same time, so I get that. Anyway, great video! Keep up the great work.

I also hate modules. Makes us work to find the best game. Just give us your best game off the bat and maybe one expert variant. Taverns of Tiefenthal drives me crazy with all of the modules and extra components to deal with, and none of them are great. And they feel like add-ons and not elegant.

This is one odd game! Production value is through the roof and a rarely seen value in the modern board game world. It looks good. The base game itself (played with the included modules) feels extremely modular and to that extent, disjointed (one area has little to do with the other). It initially gives a false impression of complexity and variability (so many things to do!) - 3 games in and it feels like we've done it all and there is extremely little you can't accomplish in a game. I don't mind the lack of interaction/tension so much as I find there is no room to make one game different than the other. It's redundant and 'pretends' to be the complete opposite. Quite a massive disappointment for us.

You affirmed my decision not to get this game. Thanks, good video.

Problem I had with this game is that it didn't feel unique. Nothing felt special. It felt like I had already played it and explaining all the moving parts to new players is such a chore.

Just played once, but the base game felt way too easy. Even in a 4 player game, it wasn't hard to just get everything "done" Once you get going, starting turns with a bunch of extra cards the worlds your oyster. And I heard some of the modules make it even easier because you get more resources. I heard people house rule just getting 2 workers during era 1 ( Chieftain and normal) and then 3 in era 2. I would like to try some of the modules, but a base game should be good enough that you want them, and not make you feel like you need them.

The game is absolutely too long, and the actions are not 'snappy', so I prefer 2 player. But some tracks boards do need more tension, so I don't prefer 2 player ... all in all I let it go after 4 plays (1x 4player, 3x 2player) and played all the expansions. Arnak and Dune are so better, this has so many problems (downtime, length, AP, replayability, maximizing of tracks/actions...)