Recent Boardgames (Your Last Played Game Volume 2)

[Bondy034]

Some games last night:

Catan, my wife pushed for this one so we went with it. A fairly tense game - one of our friends managed an early lead by investing in heaps of sheep and using the 2:1 harbor liberally. But toward the end of the game I managed to catch up, and we were pretty neck and neck for awhile. The boot from Fishermen saw some action, passing it between the two of us but then I finally managed to pass it off when I lost longest road temporarily, before sailing to a win.

Point Salad, this one was requested by one of our friends, so we played a couple of rounds. I managed to come in second both times (to different people), just shy of the win. Scores got pretty crazy high in the second game like around 80 or so, which I’m not sure we’d gotten to before.

I was secretly sad not to get Everdell to the table, which I’d been hoping for, as I’ve only played it solo so far. Ah well, maybe next week

[VictorViper]

I managed to sneak in another game of The Loop with my partner this evening, with only one interruption! This time we used the Robofinisher and Mister Time, and we made a pretty good run of it. We took two ugly bouts of bad luck however and lost two eras with missions near completion.

This was especially devastating the second time, as it forced us to attempt the last remaining mission on the board. Here we needed to clear duplicates from 6 eras… on the heels of an absolute rampage by us—the board was basically clear of them! There was little chance we could survive long enough to complete our missions but the Doctor was merciful and didn’t make us squirm too long. We let 6 cubes drop to end us with authority.

Quite happy to have lost this one. My partner’s last (and notably, first) game was a bit of a pushover so it was good for her to get to see the tension build here and really sweat out a few turns. Another great time with this one.

[TamiJo]

Heheh.

It’s more that I’ve merged collections with my partner and their partner now, so we have a bunch of stuff that mainly they have played that I wasn’t there for.

[lalunaverde]

Endeavor: Age of Sails - still a good light Euro. Delivers coop-petition and strategic decisions in 1.5 hours and that’s with 5 players. Very Mac Gerdts-ish. But my problem with it is that to improve the depth, you have to add in these bolted-on stuff that adds more rules. So often that we play this with basic setup.

Dune Imperium - no strong feelings. At least, it’s a deck builder that I don’t hate. It is as dry as Arrakis, but I’m not put off by dryness, in general.

The Crew 1 this time. I have Both Crew 1 and 2 inside the Crew 2 box. The only thing added are the rulebook and objective cards for 1.

7 Wonders: Architects - one of the worst games I have played. Small decision space and each questions have definition answers on them.

Galaxy Trucker 2nd edition

Space Base - after playing Bad Company recently, SB is still my preferred.

Friday the 13th/Poison

[yashima]

@lalunaverde

The Crew 1 this time. I have Both Crew 1 and 2 inside the Crew 2 box. The only thing added are the rulebook and objective cards for 1.

Huh? I should have done that. You’re absolutely right.

@lalunaverde

Galaxy Trucker 2nd edition

Please tell me it’s awful and I really should stay away

@lalunaverde

but I’m not put off by dryness, in general.

Says the Knizi(a)phile

[lalunaverde]

@yashima

Please tell me it’s awful and I really should stay away

Don’t click here then

@yashima

Says the Knizi(a)phile

Yeah. I realised that the comment was unnecessary

[Simfers]

We just had ourselves a game of old-school Pandemic and we absolutely SPANKED it. Eradicated all 4 diseases, we had NO outbreaks even though 5 epidemic cards (out of 6) came out, and we even managed to work it so we all finished in the same city so we could celebrate as a family.

That’s the second time this has ever happened to us. It’s nice when it does.

[mistercrayon]

Blockquote 7 Wonders: Architects - one of the worst games I have played. Small decision space and each questions have definition answers on them

Yeah I can see how one can feel this way about the game.

[Whistle_Pig]

Played Brass: Birmingham yesterday. I still can’t decide which version I like better. Birmingham feels a bit more flexible and less mean than Lancashire, but I do enjoy some cutthroat tactical canal building

[MatineeIdyll129]

Lancashire is in my Top 10 most likely, and I didn’t enjoy Birmingham nearly as much. The weird behaviour of the new resources, and the beer kinda killed it for me.

[EnterTheWyvern]

2 games session this week.

First one started with a game of Bottle Imp kindly gifted and it was nice. Trick taking at a nice, fun family weight.

Next up was Quacks of Quedlinburg followed by a game of Expedition to Newdale which didn’t go over as well as I hoped with one person but the rest of is enjoyed it. I’d like to get a good run at this game to try through the chapters but I’m not convinced I have a regular group that it would suit.

Then we finished off the day with The Crew 1 No more needs saying on this one.

Then last night I had the pleasure of playing The Gallerist with @lalunaverde. Most importantly I won and Mr Verde did not win I am the greatest artist hype man 😶‍🌫😶‍🌫😶‍🌫. It was a close game at the top and generally enjoyable. Classic Lacerda vibes of being all tight and inefficient to start with but then things get rolling and it gets tight but maybe a bit efficient. I enjoyed this play but it doesn’t quite tempt me to purchase a copy. Would play again though.

[VictorViper]

We got a little family gaming in yesterday, starting with a four player game of The Fuzzies with my partner and her parents. Her dad took the acrobatic move of the game, successfully completing an off-hand elephant arms cherry topper… but ultimately toppling the tower a few rounds later.

Early in the evening my nephew and I took in a quick game (one set, not the full three) of Set & Match before dinner. I won, but not by much and in his defense, learning how to serve in the game is a great source of easy points for any opponent.

Short but sweet.

[yashima]

After getting some new games, I immediately had to try Mass Transit. I lost twice in a row before having to quit to go meet some friends. I think though this will be a game where when I figure out how to win it will get boring. The question is how many games will it take me to figure out a sure-fire strategy. Also: will it be an interesting puzzle with more players? Questions questions… for now: not bad at all especially considering how small and cheap it is.

Then I met some friends, not for game night per se. Just some dinner, wine and talking and in between we played my first game of „No Thanks“ which in German is called „Schöne Scheisse“ an exclamation much more fitting and heard multiple times during the game. I lost with -72 to -71, -71 and -60 points. How did the person with the 35 pull off the victory? I don‘t know because I had 17, 19, 21 and 23 plus a few more….

Then I managed to convince the other 5 to play a round of Secrets which had been sitting on my shelf of opportunity for a good bit. All was good and I was on the winning KGB team until the Anarcho Hippie switched around so many identities I ended up on Team CIA and shot twice… by my own assassin. We played too long because I misread the game end condition. So by the end almost everyone knew who everyone else was… except of course for those who had lost track of everything I enjoyed this but I think it can be rather chaotic. But maybe now that I‘ve played a game it might be easier to get it to the table again.

[Phil]

@yashima

17, 19, 21 and 23

Ouch. That’s an expensive non-sequence.

I was on the winning KGB team until the Anarcho Hippie switched around so many identities I ended up on Team CIA and shot twice… by my own assassin.

That sounds amazing : )

[lalunaverde]

Lemminge is just soooo cute. And it is fun too!

Lost Ruins of Arnak - Blegh. Another Euro game.

The Gallerist - great fun. A game of 4 worker space, and each space you can choose between 2 actions. What I really like about Gallerist though is how there’s a very interesting partnership/parasitism on which artist you want to invest your money on. There’s also the scoring tiles, which gives you a wide range of long-term decisions to make.
There’s also the interesting decision of selling a painting or two to fuel your tempo, but you’ll miss out on that artist’s value going even higher (if it does continue to go higher).

I also like how the game doesn’t dwell on resource management thing. You spend money (which are VP) to build yourself up.

What’s fascinating is that the Gallerists has a less messy scoring than Kanban, and also doesn’t have BS decisions that I sometimes see in the latter.

Baby Gloom: Jaws of the Lion - Me with 2 other players played as Inox Hatchet, Valrath Red Guard, and a Human Voidwarden. We played 3 scenarios on our session. We enjoyed the game and I think it scratch the DnD itch of “storming the dungeon and kill stuff”. If I want to play RPGs, I’ll play something with less weight and stats tweaking than DnD.

So far, I am going for the Big Gloom when we are done here.

[raged_norm]

@lalunaverde

Lemminge is just soooo cute. And it is fun too!

Yup, playing electronically and I want a cardboard copy

[Phil]

I just found from a video that I’ve been cheating at Cthulhu: Death May Die.

The scenario set-up card shows you how many of each type of monster are present on the board, and I thought that it seemed pretty clear, but it turns out that it’s only representing the monsters which are on the board initially – you’re supposed to grab all the miniatures for those monster types, and have the remainder in reserve waiting to be summoned. In practice this means I’ve only been using 6/10 cultists, 1/2 fire vampires, and 1/2 byakhee. I’ve only played the initial scenario (multiple times), and I’d just assumed the game was going a bit easier on players for their first experience.

(The video was Cthulhu: Death May Die - Episode 1 - Playthrough - YouTube by the “BoardGameCo” couple, who seem nice – I’d just watched a video that the chap had done for Paint the Roses and I thought he did a good job of that, and I’d noticed the CDMD season 2 box on the shelf behind him, so I looked to see if he had videos about that as well. Part way through I noticed that they had too many miniatures on the table, and went to check to see which of us was doing it wrong…)

[RogerBW]

Star Trek: Ascendancy face to face - first of these gatherings at home where everyone had played at least one prior game, though for some of them it was pre-pandemic.

Cardassians (me), Romulans, Federation, Ferengi, Vulcans. Romulans quietly hoarded culture and got an Ascendancy victory; Vulcans fell one world short of their ten-worlds public objective, and I fell one culture short of Ascendancy next turn myself (9 dice for 4+ in a planetary invasion gave me only 3 hits so I destroyed rather than capturing the culture node). A great day.

[mistercrayon]

You might say the Romulans kept up with you.

[COMaestro]

Got two games in today with my wife. First up was Red Cathedral, only our second game of it, so I am not sure either of us has really grokked a strong strategy yet. My wife claimed more structure cards than I did early on, and managed to cost me a point when she finished one above one of my unfinished cards. Both of us seemed to have shortages of materials we needed due to the randomness of the rondel.

We each had locked in a small column, and she had locked in one of the two tall ones when only the base of the other was finished. With those cards being all that was left, it did not take long for those to get claimed and my wife built her last one to end the game, though at least I was the one who controlled it.

After all the scoring, we were tied at 41 prestige points. However, the tie breaker is the person who built more sections of the cathedral, so she took the win.

Then tonight we played Orleans. After a few turns, I had a bad feeling I was not going to win, as I kept failing to draw out certain character tokens that I needed to get more, or even to build a guildhall.

I finally did get my engine going, but Inwas a good 3 or 4 guildhalls behind at the end of the game, and she had 2 or 3 more citizen tiles. Only things in my favor were that I got to the 6 development point space, to her 4, and I had a lot of goods, mostly silks due to getting the Tailor tile.

Alas, I still lost, as expected, 119 to 103. My wife appears to be unbeatable when she is tired, and with our lives the way they are, that is virtually all the time. Oh well, it is still fun playing.