2023 Board game challenges

Huh, we managed to play Chapter 10 in Oathsworn. I am still firmly on the fence with it… on the one hand, it’s certainly not bad. By Kickstarter standards I would say it’s spectacular. But that’s a low bar.
The story is done relatively well, although this chapter focused on a species of which we have a member in our group, and it had almost no impact (the A’Dendri, treant-people, apparently have no verbal language due to a lack of mouths. And lungs. Why did we just find that out now? And why did the fact we had an A’Dendri with us have no impact on the story at any point?). The combat is getting a little easier now that we have better gear and skills and know what we’re doing.

Ah well. On the 9th we crack open my new copy of The King’s Dilemma, and I’m legit excited about that one. Different group, but I’m curious to see how the lite-RPG-esque elements of the game will work out, and if Andy (my partner) decides that she’s interested in it or not. We shall see!

Other than that, I got Feast for Odin on the table for the first time in… ye gods, years at least. Possibly 5 years? It’s been a long time. What a lovely little game. I lost by a mile (75 to 14), but I had a great time doing it, and I can’t wait to try it again! Also played a quick game of King of Tokyo and another of Cockroach Poker, and Story 3 in our Stuffed Fables campaign. No other games from the list, but that’s okay!

A good month for first plays! Two new games on the list, one of which we played our first game of already (today, technically, but I won’t remember that in a month!).

Rallyman GT was… weird. Not “bad,” but I felt like I was missing something. Actually, I’m pretty sure I was missing several somethings… I’ll have to re-read the rules, because it seemed almost impossible with the track we had to pass your opponent. Although that may have been a 2-player issue more than anything? Not giving up on it yet.

Stick 'Em was a particularly mean trick taker that I very much enjoyed, and Eclipse 2nd Dawn I actually played twice since the first time was such a hit early in the month. I’m… okay with it. I enjoy it, but I still like TI:4 better? And the fact that missiles are still broken AF was disheartening (our second game I had starbases equipped with Plasma Missiles and was functionally unassailable). Still, the game is fast and elegant, and I like most of it.

My Island is interesting. Not as pretty or as elegant as the original, and that’s unfortunate, but I’m willing to give it more than a single play. I’m curious if it will have the same problem as My City (the last chapter of My City I was functionally unstoppable… so much so that I had to start miscounting my score and making intentional poor plays so that Andy had any chance whatsoever… the early rewards for losing were enough to keep the game balanced, but around Chapter 7 the rewards for winning were too good, too quickly).

I did manage to get my Shatterpoint models completely painted, and I’m almost done with the last of my Rebels for SW Legion. About 30 to go… 8 Ewoks, 8 Mandalorians, 12 Commandos, Lando, and two different Boba Fett sculpts (“Classic” and “Dad-bod”). And then that’s it. I can’t afford more models until 2024. I’m going to try very, very hard to be responsible… Andy is starting to get really worried about money (which is kinda adorable… I’ve been worried about money for decades, but she’s not used to it, and I don’t want to make her life more difficult than it needs to be… plus, I’m already depressed, no need to drag her into the muck if being more conscious of my spending makes things better)

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[dons Rallyman GT rabid fan hat]
[seriously, I love this game but if you end up not loving it that’s Just Fine]

If someone gets way ahead it is indeed hard to overtake them, though to stay ahead they’ll generally need to burn through focus to avoid LoC. If you’re behind, take more chances. Play a long enough game that this focus ebb and flow matters; I really prefer two laps minimum. Blocking is a big part of the game, though.

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I think part of the problem was me fumbling my way through the rules for the first time, trying to learn and teach simultaneously based off an explanation you made a while back.

So, for the first few rolls I didn’t realize spending Focus was non-linear.
For the next few rolls after that, I didn’t realize that you gained focus whether you made the roll or not.

I also think we picked the wrong “starter” cars because wow is the iconography on the cars bad… well, not “bad” so much as painfully unclear? Like, I have a dozen cards that all say “GT6”, but nothing that has a clear indication of which I should be using in which circumstance? We ended up with 2 Cruise dice (I think it’s supposed to be 3?) and 2 Breaking dice?

I don’t blame any of this on the game (well, aside from the lack of clear identification markers on the different cars aside from tiny little letters).

I wrote “4”, “5” and “6” on the undersides of my car models with a wear-resistant pen when I was unpacking the game.

A single card defines both car class (GT4, GT5, GT6) and tyre type (this is only shown in the icon of the tyre at top left, with deep grooves, shallow grooves, or no grooves at all for the KS extra / Adrenaline Pack “soft” tyres - I think this was to keep the card language-independent). One side of the card is for a dry track (sun icon), the other for a wet one (rain icon).

So you should have two or three cards available when playing: all GT6, all your colour, but different sorts of tyre. When the weather changes between dry and wet, everyone flips their cards. When you stop and change tyres, you change to a different card and pick the correct side for the current weather.

Standard GT6 asphalt tyres in the dry gives you gears 1-6, two coast dice, and three brake dice.

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Tomorrow will be 2 years of playing at least one game every day!
Considering stopping now, as the original 30 day plan has got completely out of hand. It’s good, and has taught me to make time to do things that aren’t just netflix or scroll, but it does disincentivse activities that can’t be logged on bgg, like mini painting and solo RPGs.

Not sure!

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August Results

Late August reporting as I was away from my laptop…

? X ? = 100 Challenge

Game Month Total Status
Wingspan 2 [21/10] :white_check_mark:
Ashes Reborn: Rise of the Phoenixborn - [10/10] :white_check_mark:
Dune: Imperium - [6]
Radlands - [3]
Baseball Highlights: 2045 - [2]
Biblios - [2]
MicroMacro: Crime City - [2]
Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game - [2]
Alchemists - [1]
Flamecraft - [1]
The Isle of Cats - [1]
Kashgar: Merchants of the Silk Road - [1]
Res Arcana 1 [1]
Terraforming Mars - [1]
Total (excluding exceedances) 1 43

Finally! got Res Arcana into action. Good stuff.

Keyforge 4 x 25 Challenge

Deck Month Total
Unruly “The Wiper” Dmitrii - [27/25]
Elias, Geologist of the Grasping Clubhouse 1 [26/25]
Autoene, the Baron of Information 14 [16/25]
Total (excluding exceedances) 14 66

Excellent progress with Autoene. Hoping the Winds of Exchange Kickstarter will arrive in September to fill the fourth deck slot in the challenge.

Opportunity 50 x 2

Game Month Total Status
Grove: A 9 card solitaire game 7 [16/2] :white_check_mark:
Ashes Reborn: Rise of the Phoenixborn - [10/2] :white_check_mark:
Palm Island - [10/2] :white_check_mark:
The Fuzzies - [8/2] :white_check_mark:
Sunset Over Water 1 [7/2] :white_check_mark:
Dune: Imperium - [6/2] :white_check_mark:
Illiterati - [4/2] :white_check_mark:
Lady Richmond: Ein erzocktes Erb - [3/2] :white_check_mark:
Mini Rogue: A 9-Card Print-and-Play Game - [3/2] :white_check_mark:
Valletta - [3/2] :white_check_mark:
7 Wonders Duel - [2/2] :white_check_mark:
Baseball Highlights: 2045 - [2/2] :white_check_mark:
Champions of Midgard - [2/2] :white_check_mark:
Final Girl: The Haunting of Creech Manor - [2/2] :white_check_mark:
Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game - [2/2] :white_check_mark:
MicroMacro: Crime City - [2/2] :white_check_mark:
Mindbug: First Contact 2 [2/2] :white_check_mark:
Mint Delivery - [2/2] :white_check_mark:
Punto - [2/2] :white_check_mark:
Suburbia 2 [2/2] :white_check_mark:
Tiny Towns - [2/2] :white_check_mark:
Fury of Dracula - [1/2]
Mystery Rummy: Jekyll & Hyde - [1/2]
Pluckin’ Pairs - [1/2]
Res Arcana 1 [1/2]
Terraforming Mars - [1/2]
Progress 47%

Three new titles played, all three enjoyable.

Have a smashing September of gaming everyone!

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