As the holidays wind up, most of my gaming winds down. With my parents in town I barely squeezed in the time to get my Quar terrain done. I have a few other projects I’d like to approach as my parents head off to California for the next week, but we’ll see if those see the light of day. I’d like to at least tackle a terrain set–we’ll see. In the mean time, what is getting played in my house is Dice Throne. So much of it, in fact, that I think I’ve played more Dice Throne than any other game in 2025.

The reasons aren’t hard to understand. It sets up fast, with minimal effort needed to really get going. It’s never too taxing to play–just play a simpler character if you’re tired. It’s a lot of fun to play with my son, as the dice luck does help to mitigate the skill differential.

The character variety is really enjoyable and helps to keep the game fresh over time. My son hops around a lot, while I like to play a character upwards of 5-7 times in a row to really understand them. There’s just enough depth to justify it and make it enjoyable. With north of 40 characters in the system spanning both their own setting and the Marvel universe, I’ve been having a great time exploring. In our 50+ matches, I’ve only made it through around 10 of those characters so far.

Overall, I’d say it’s been money well spent. Today, when this post goes live, my son will be opening two big boxes under the tree constituting 14 more characters, wrapping up most of the characters in the game for our collection. We have maybe six more to go. I expect to be playing this with him well into and through next year without needing to repeat a character. Then, I look forward to revisiting them!

For the dads out there I recommend this game. My son has played Memoir ’44 and a few miniatures wargames with me. He’s no slouch at the table, but I’ve noticed his ability to combine and understand information has improved dramatically as we play this game. He’s looking at an ability, a card, a token, and my effects and putting it all together to declare that he just did 14 unblockable damage to me–it’s cool to see and I believe it has helped him a bit in math. I won’t attribute too much to it but I do think I’ve seen a noticeable difference.

For the non-dads, I think it’s down to whether or not you have a reasonable partner or group to play with. The game involves luck and is not the deepest thing in the world. It’s more in the realm of “Just plain fun and easy” with just enough strategy for interest.

As for me, I’m looking forward to my son opening up the X-Men box. I can’t wait to play Gambit.