This is my favorite game of all time and for me it's a masterpiece of game design. It's rare to find games as elegant, deep, relatively simple, replayable, rich in emergent storytelling, addictive... Big thumbs-up for this video because in this hobby, this game is too often ignored in favor of the last flavor of the month. ;)

I love Inis not just for the gameplay, but for how pretty it is!

I love reviews where reviewers/content creators state "this is my favorite game and here is why", I feel you get a deeper dive than the average review. It is here is where I feel invested in this game.

Inis was one of my first explorations into board games outside of Pandemic and King of Tokyo. It changed my life, and still holds up as my favourite game. If it wasn’t for Inis I may not have delved deep into our hobby.

Excited to get this to the table. Just picked it up this last week.

Your clear joy and passion for Inis swayed me to buy a copy of the game. I just played a 4p game last night and had a blast. All the positive points you mentioned were spot on! Thanks for your post!

Having watched you talk about Inis a few times across different videos I decided to take the plunge. My copy arrived today and whilst I'm yet to get much further than opening it, the look of the components alone make this game a work of art. I live in Ireland so I'm hoping my real world surroundings push the mood of the game even further.

Love Inis! An incredibly stylish, elegant, and interesting area control game set up by the great drafting mechanic and just enough uncertainty resulting from the one action card set aside each round and the really interesting epic tale abilities. I need to play this now!

It is partly thanks to you that I bought this game. We love it. Thank you.

Ah Inis... masterpiece... watching your review makes me want to play right now! One thing to mention is combat after a "clash" is optional, and players involved in a clash can decide to mutually ignore combat and peacefull co-exist... that always fascinated me. The only critic I have is that the clash structure is always confusing new players, the order of the actions specifically. Not buttery-smooth, but not a deal breaker, this game is phenomenal.

Played my first 4 player game today. Loved it!

Great review! This is an elegant game design and I agree with your comments on why this is a fantastic game.

Another massive plus with this game that rarely gets mentioned is the setup and pack up time. It literally takes 2 minutes! Rising Sun on the other hand, that's an absolute nightmare 😖

It's typically pronounced "keltic" with a hard "c" sound when referring to the culture. The soft "c" of "seltic" is really only used when referring to the sports teams.

Inis is your #3 all-time game this year, which is why you’re featuring it first ;)

I picked this game up a few weeks ago and unfortunately haven't gotten it to the table yet. I'll play it this month I swear!

It's pronounced Inish - according to my google-fu. :) IIRC your play-this-not-that for the Matagot trilogy was how I stumbled upon your channel, back in the distant before times. Couldn't agree more. It's one of my favourite games of all time - also in my top 3 and also potentially number 1. I had the advantage of liking the art right away. Everything about Inis is great (well, except the insert - looks nice, almost useless). You said you had to look for a downside, but for me even the little stuff you had to dig for is not a downside at all. Tight endings where everybody is trying to top one another? Those can be great. One of my best games was a tight ending with an opponent who got deeds early on and then had 3 if them against a couple from the other 2 players and it was 3 or 4 rounds of brutal boardstate manipulation and switching Brens. That was super fun. And as you no doubt know the value of the action cards shift throughout the game. In the beginning the move and attack cards are not as valuable as in the late game. And Geis is double-edged. It's great to have it - to foil a strong play by another player or perhaps protect my wim-move. At the same time, it doesn't advance my own board state. I'd rather play another card and have player 3 use Geis on player 4. Wonderful game. Great review. Makes me forgive you for having the wrong opinion ;) on Galaxy Trucker.

My absolute favorite game. I'm playing it almost every day and I'd never refuse a game. New players can grasp this game after a single play and often after a single round. It is just too easy to teach. I think the Seasons expansion is very worthwhile. The fifth player cards are interesting but the Islands are super, the capital city has a harbor and can be adjacent to so many other territories now, not just Islands but things like the Cove, Aber, Haven, and Salmon Creek. Many more chances for unexpected conflict. I also like to add the Seasons module. It is very thematic. Spring time, weakest player can get a free clan. Summer has many more options for conflict by dropping a card and moving up to 3 clans to an adjacent territory. Autumn, has the effect of forcing Epic tale cards to be discarded down to 3. Winter is a slow season and batters are much more difficult. It's not essential but adds a subtle layer to the game play play. All the components can easily fit into the seasons expansion box making it portable and easy to carry. If my house was one fire and I could take only one game from my collection, I'd take my expansion box of Seasons of Inis with me. I can live without the rest but could not live without this game.

I’ve been eyeing Inis for so long! Big fan of blood rage and while I understand this is pretty different, still looks like it’s right down my alley. Simple, elegant, deep and super strategic.

I'll watch later b/c I gotta go to play... board games today! But I just wanna say, Inis is probably my favorite Dudes On A Map game...? Really tough competition w/ Blood Rage, Rising Sun, Root, and Forbidden Stars. Well, Blood Rage is actually the only TRUE competitor w/ Inis, and is probably my #1 after more thought. But Inis is so great in its simplicity, yet tactical depth and ever shifting decision-making. Anyway, eager to hear your thoughts once I'm back!

Pentology. The third of the Pentology. Also, it would be Tetrology, following the sequence: _mono, di, tri, tetra, penta..._

One of my favorite game ever!! Dunno if i prefer this or blood rage, but probably i do prefer this!! Alex have u ever tried cloudspire?

I read "Inis Expansion" and "Inis in Space" somewhere on BGG some time ago. If i recall correctly, it was even confirmed by a person for Matagot. Not 100% sure, but i think thats what i read

I love Inis and the trilogy, but I think Kemet is my favorite of the bunch.

Inis is also high on my list of area control game I like. I think the new token « we need a king » from the expansion should be in the base now, because the game can be too long without it. Otherwise, I like the draft, the combat system, win conditions... a great game. If you like area control game, I advise you take a look at Dune, which bring another aspect, negotiation, battle wheel instead of dice, asymmetrical faction powers.

Just ordered this game. I've been looking at this for a while and I am looking forward to playing. At this point, I think Rising Sun is my favorite game. It seems like this may be a bit more accessible to play with my wife. It's difficult to get Rising Sun to the table due to player count, setup and complexity. Do you think the game scales well with 2 players?

Any idea whether Inis and Cyclades will get the same remake that Kemet did on crowdfunding campaigns?

I bought this recently, was initially put off by the box cover art but the newer edition looks much better to me. I'm curious, do you look up low score reviews on BBG for the "What I Can See Others Not Liking" segment? Or is it just an assumption?

Have some interest in this game, but I think Matagot will put it on Kickstarter sooner or later, may as well wait for it.

Played a first game of this today with 4 players. An oldie but a goodie! Still, I prefer the area control behemoths like War for the Ring. Have you never reviewed that?

We have a very experienced group that never play a game with, If this is your first play we suggest this, setup. We are about to get Inis into our collection. Would you suggest we start with just the base game or should we go all out and play inis with the expansion as our first play?

One of my favourites... it's pronounced Inish btw

You mention you had 3 favorite games, all involve drafting including this one. What are the other 2?

How does it scale? The box says 2-4, is it still an enjoyable experience at two? I know it’s normally not the case for these types of games, but I would probably primarily play it at 2 (especially now during the pandemic).

One of the designers of Kemet has a game coming to kickstarter with Matagot...a quadrilogy?!?!?!

What do you think of the expansion for Inis? There is literally one video review on BGG of the expansion. Thank you.

I love Inis and Cyclades. But I struggle to like Kemet to the same level.

What are your top 3 games?

My biggest complaint with the game is that it often forces players to ‘kingmake’, as there will be two people in a position to win and one player must make a decision on whom to stop. It has led to some bitter moments with my game group.

Would this be worth buying if you were only going to play with 2?

I didn't like this game for a long time, because I tried to play it as a traditional strategy game. I always wanted to create a big army on the map and then march out to gain territory. This doesn't work at all in Inis. Inis is way more a political game in which you unassumingly try to get into position and grab the win when the other players didn't expect you to be the biggest threat. Since that realization, I've absolutely loved the game.

That box lid looks like you had to color it in yourself.

Where does Inis rank in your 2023 now? Where does it rank against the games you compare to like Blood Rage now?

If it didn't cost two billion dollars to buy, I'd get it. At least the cost for this game is justified as compared with Quacks of Quedlinburg.

What I don't like: End game conditions have to be memorised by players. Situations where multiple people gang up on the leader. Analysis paralysis when picking cards can be a problem.

So FYI, you started getting these ads for LOL dolls or something about three weeks ago playing on your videos. Not sure what it means but hopefully means something about your daughter and Rina attracting a female audience!

Pentology?

A quintology? Kinda sounds like a SUSD cult

I tried to like Inis but I couldnt find the excitement in it. I also couldnt seem to find anyone that liked it more then "its alright". This game and really only this game, makes me feel like the people on the internet are vastly different then the people I surround myself with. Fortunately that meant I was able to quickly find one of these strange breed of internet users to buy it off me,

I've read that the game is not that good. Sorry Sir!