Recent Boardgames (Your Last Played Game Volume 2)

[KIR2]

Blitz Bowl Season 2 game 2. I was Elves (my drafted league team) versus Dwarves. ELVES ARE SO HARD. SO much of the game is tackling, yet elves are so weak - any roll less than a 5 when I’m tackled and I’m back in the infirmary. I really am flummoxed as to how to win. They run fast, but that’s useless if there are no holes in the defence. All the opposition has to do is form a line and the elves are useless.

I guess I need to create a hole, then get someone (ideally the catcher) to run through to set up for a throw-touch down lay up the next turn? But that’s a difficult 2 turns to pull off without someone coming up and punching me in the face.

I don’t feel good about the league!

(It was 15-11 to the dwarves)

[COMaestro]

Finally got Arkham Horror TCG back to the table, playing the epic stand-alone scenario Meddling of Meowlathotep! This April Fool’s Day prank-turned-product was incredibly enjoyable, with a silly choose-your-own-adventure style intro, lots of bad puns, and a pretty good scenario overall.

I played solo, using Bark Harrigan, the Guardian character from the set. His Fight skill was really high at 5, and he had the ability to carry two extra hands worth of weapons. His card even states “Yes, that’s right. You heard me. Don’t ask how.”

I did very well overall in the scenario, getting 9 Victory points and completing the scenario with a positive ending. However, I must admit that I cheated twice, once by accident and once purposefully. The accident was that I forgot to put a Basic Weakness card into my deck. I constructed a week or two ago in preparation, and did not know where exactly in the box the weaknesses were. So at the time, I figured I would do it when I played. Fast forward to tonight, and I forgot to add it. I have added one now, as I want to play again.

The purposeful cheat was redrawing one token from the Chaos Bag, as I had drawn the insta-fail token twice already, and the symbol worth -5 three or four times, and I was sick of it when drew it again. So for one combat round, I cheated and redrew, getting a different token which let me defeat the enemy (as only the -5 and insta-fail would make me lose that particular combat).

So, tainted win, which is one reason I want to play again. But also it was just a fun scenario and actually makes me want to play two-handed, which I have not yet done for AH.

I truly hope they make some more scenarios in this alternate AH universe. It would be a shame to let it be just a one-off.

[yashima]

Not me but my nephew is starting to play games
He’s turning 9 and apparently last night he played Agricola All Creatures Big and Small for the first time and announced he wants to play again tonight. This was a long ago present from me to my sister. They’ve recently started playing more games but this is his first strategy game. If the trend holds I’ll never have to worry about ideas for presents again!

[RogerBW]

@COMaestro

and he had the ability to carry two extra hands worth of weapons.

[Chewy77]

I believe there is a Coat of Arms card in Munchkins that gives you two extra arms, so you can carry four weapons.

[Chewy77]

Also, had a game of Splendor last night with my partner. She swept the floor with me, I somehow never managed to get enough blue or black cards to get to nobility, so she locked me into trying for her not to get to 15, but she had two possible ways on her last turn, so I lost 15-10.

[Bondy034]

Just 2 of us of our Thursday night group made it this week, so we played:

Summoner Wars, we played a couple of games of this one - I won the first, he won the second. My big ploy in game 2 was getting my Archangel to harass his summoner behind enemy lines. But then everyone ganged up on them and murdered them, and then I was quite outnumbered and built my self into a literal corner. Still great fun, definitely one of my favourite games - I am keeping a very keen eye on the approach of the second edition - so far I’m a fan of the changes I’ve seen so far. But we’ll see.

Hey That’s My Fish, a couple of games of this one to close off the night. Quite tactical, the slowish setup just barely knocks it down a bit for me. It’s still rather fun though.

[Captbnut]

Having played 30+ games of Innovation on BGA this month my wife and I have switched to Race For The Galaxy. I don’t understand this game as well and using a phone makes it impossible to check out the card actions, but it’s quick and I think we’re improving.

Am I right in thinking it’s a game that rewards specialisation? It doesn’t feel like there is time to try a few different things. So far I’m looking for cards that give discounts or rewards for developing or settling and then producing and consuming. I never seem to get a military strategy to work.

[Benkyo]

You want synergy for your own tableau for points and your own phase choices, but you also need to benefit from your opponent’s choices.

Produce consume is a little stronger in base game. Evens up with military as soon as you add any expansion.

[raged_norm]

Military is best when you have a military homeworld and a number of cards in hand that are military with extra military bonuses.

You can then settle settle, having explore bonuses helps out a lot too

[Captbnut]

Just understood a game of Troyes! I feel so grown up!

[Chewy77]

We had another game of Oceans last night. Besides me forgetting the very first migration on set up, it went quite well. A lot of back and forwards, but without malice, so much so that the final score was a tie on 54. I only won because I kept my 4 species from going extinct, but she lost two on the very last turn, which made her think she had lost, and was lot tighter an end than we both expected.

On some phases of the game, between two it feels like a fencing bout, attack and defense, speed to predate, speed to defend back (and forage 7 instead of 5 per turn). As mentioned previously, I cannot wait to see how it behaves at 3 or 4.

[Captbnut]

Just played 2 games of Hansa Teutonica back to back over Zoom. We rigged the camera and 2 others played with us. 45-50 minutes for a tight, decision filled mean euro? Excellent.

I tried totally different strategies. First game I won going East to West. Also got an early cube in Hamburg and got loads of points from others completing the route.

Second game I went for loads of keys and a network. Came third! I finished the game by claiming the last bonus tile. One of those situations where the leader would have pulled away further if the game had continued, but finishing the game was sub optimal for my score.

[COMaestro]

This is one of my newest games, purchased because I was intrigued after watching some of the Let’s Play of it by SU&SD. Now after watching the review, I am more eager than ever to get it to the table!

[Snobbydolphin]

After playing that BGA game, I really regret not jumping the opportunity I had to get it right at the beginning of my descent into the hobby. Had I only known… I hope there’s a reprint!

[GeeBizzle]

Got another game of viticulture in it’s starting to click. It’s a real nice length with some good, light strategy play.

Was close this time I just eeked out a win 24 - 23.

[KIR2]

Halfway through a game of food chain magnate. I was doing so well!!! Until someone undercut my burger racket. Now I have no money, am firing everyone every turn and the only thing I can do is hire a whole bunch of waitresses to try and find new staff. Planning on creating a massive marketing and cooking drive to try and overload everyone… but there’s no way that will work. I’m screwed

Forgot how much I love the game though!

[KIR2]

It was so painful. Second half of the game I could only set up for the next turn, so maybe could 1 thing every 2 turns, while everyone else was doing 3 or 4 things a turn.

So I flooded the market with burgers so at least the game would end sooner

In retrospect I should have got the discount manager the moment someone used it to compete with me, but instead I was focusing on production and marketing… Which I then couldn’t sell.

(The plus side of TTS is you can secretly read a book when you can’t concede but you can’t do anything.)

[yashima]

In honor of the recent Mars landing we played a round of Terraforming Mars today (on Hellas because that is closest to where Perseverance landed). The only other expansion we included was Prelude because my partner hasn’t played in a while. Despite that he won by 82 over 78 points. I messed up my VP generation and he specialized in plants…

After that we played another round of Space Base with dummy rolls and it was much rejoicing because I had pushed two sectors that kept coming up and then through some clever action combining double scored 9 VP in sector twelve and bought a few colonies for a quick win