If you always blow out on your coast/1/2 dice, they are working perfectly fine. My experiential database of physical rolls checks out.
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Iāve had multiple turns in the last few days where I felt pretty safe going flat-out with 1cc2 or similar and rolled LoCs on the first 2 or 3 dice (2 in the situation where it was raining). Itās probably fairā¦ but it just feels very punishing for what should be a gimme.
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I do bb1 or bbb1 a lot, and usually itās fine, but Iāve had three crashes in the past week. (bb1 is 1.9% chance of 3+ hazards, bbb1 7.4%.)
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Played 1861: Railways of the Russian Empire with @EnterTheWyvern and my friends.
I definitely like it. Still not one of my faves. I end up preferring 1844: Switzerland and 1862: Railway Mania in the Eastern Counties
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I accidentally bought a German copy of Micro Macro:Crime City. German is my third and weakest (by far) language, but with the help of the Google Translate camera (which is a miracle!), my wife and I had a great time on the first two cases. I honestly think the process would not be as fun without the language barrier. If new editions of the system get released, I may always seek them out in my non-native languages.
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Gaming night this week, we played:
Startups - I remembered this being great from my previous play, like a year ago. Turns out totally lives up to it. Heaps of fun, tense and cutthroat. Reminds me a little of Arboretum, in that you holding onto the right cards is often key for doing well. Itās a little faster than that one, but Iām not sure Startups is quite as good (though I do really love Arboretum)
Powergrid - We played the Australian map as it was a new buy brought along by a friend. Wasnāt totally sold on the uranium market, and my brain was not on, so we had a clear winner fairly early.
Splendor, played a best of three of this one with Mum this week while she was down for a visit. I just scraped in with a win in our third game, lots of fun. If the expansion was cheaper, Iād be all over it, we certainly play it enough!
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A TTS game of Rallyman GT last night, which reminded me of how much more fun it is on TTS than on BGA. Sorry BGA.
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I am reasonably sure that I will try Rallyman GT soon with my partner, I already explained some of the game during lunch 
although I doubt he remembers any of that by the time we hit TTS.
In other news: since receiving Railroad Ink: BlattgrĆ¼n yesterday (via shop who backed the KS), I have already played 4 times, once with each expansion and 2 games with just the challenge and I am pleased to note that it is indeed a challenge 
Good times.
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We had a few games this week with the little ones, they have a renewed love for Game of Life, and my 4 yo daughter even won one (with our help reading the cards for her).
This evening I had three games of Splendor with my partner. She crushed me on the first two, only on the third one I managed to win by capitalising on the sapphires. Still enjoyed it. Makes every time I manage to get a win a lot more enjoyable
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We played a 2 handed (me) and 1 handed (my partner) three player of Oath. It was game four of my campaign but my partnerās first game. In a frustrating turn of events the a Chancellor (my left hand) seized an almost impossible to beat position almost immediately with a crazy combo centered around the Darkest Secret which was the objective of this gameās Oathā¦ the game was over after minimal amount of turns which was just as well.
My right hand was so frustrated as Citizen, she exiled herself on her final turn.
There are now three edifices in the land the newest addition is a magic tower. But the stronghold of order has fallen to ruin while the festival of discord is going strong in the cradle.
Also played a bunch of tiny games like Herbaceous (cute), Railroad Ink (challenging) and Troyes Dice (wow).
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Nidavellir - first game so far but itās awesome. The blind bid is fun. The pull between two priorities of strengthening your bidding power and set collecting is neat. The different set collecting scores is nice. Feels Knizian in a way.
Razzia! - Had a lively and noisy game of Razzia, which is the best way to play Ra/Razzia
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Iām loving Nidavellir. The draw of a 25 coin is too strong.
Have you got a physical copy, or just playing on BGA?
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Physical copy. Production is nice
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Is Razzia better than Ra? My Ā£10 copy fell through, so Iām wondering if itās worth searching out a copy.
It lacks the disaster tiles, which is aā¦ disaster. But Razzia is smaller and thematic.
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Finally finished up a game of 1824: Austrian-Hungarian Railway with the mighty @pillbox who seemed to enjoy it despite the roads being railed and the lack of boats 
.
The game remains really interesting. Starting with a draft is interesting. The different types of railroads are a good puzzle to piece together. Also the potential to start all cross invested is a nice touch.
The core of the game though is the complicated and brutal train rush. Managing your minors to not get caught with your pants down while giving you mining companies time to develop is a headache in the best possible way. Then trying to asset strip anything in someone elseās statsbahn while dealing with the different points that they form from the minors is nuts. Although maybe youād like to try a hostile take over of their statsbahn? Maybe Iāll try this one day.
The end game seemed to drag a bit although in retrospect I think that was more a function of my internet connection getting wobbly as the host which meant we were looking at the end longer than necessary.
All in all really enjoyed it and 1824 remains a favourite. Bravo Lonny!
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Another game of Vampire: Vendetta with friends over TTS, just four of us this time. Tried the Malkavians again and actually did pretty good, finishing in a strong 2nd with 25 points, winner had 29, 3rd was 22 and 18 for the last.
Malkavians need to just embrace the chaos of their deck, which makes the game more tactical than strategic, with a good helping of luck thrown in. I was able to get all three cards that added an extra card to their locations: one drawn from the deck (the luck factor one, and after the round, you reshuffle any one of your cards back into the deck), one is the last card in your hand, and one is the last card in an opponent at that locationās hand.
This lets you really make some interesting plays, like being able to Hunt twice if that is the remaining card in a rivalās hand (take 1 blood point from each rival at the location), which can cause a frenzy (reduce opponent to 0 blood, which gains you a point), or really overpower a location, as one of your starting cards has a power equal to the number of cards you have deployed there, including itself.
Ultimately, the Toreadors won, as they have cards that get them extra Victims each turn, which are worth 1 point at the end of the game if they live. The player got 4 Victims out of his cards by the end of the game, and having so many also lowers his odds of draining a higher value Ally when he frenzied, which happened twice. Pretty strong clan.
Amazingly, I beat the Brujah, which is one of the stronger clans in the game. Last place was Gangrel, which still seems very underpowered. Good fun, and looking forward to playing again.
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Well, I had a replay today of Splendor hoping for a turn of the tables.
Lost 3-0. Not even the last game, when she was tired. At least on that game I made it to double figures and lost 15-13ā¦
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Iām now a big fan of 1824, whereas I went into it somewhat hesitant because of the different types of companies and when the float/collapse.
The map developed quickly, but still the railroads had different niche corners, so it continued to morph very slowly throughout, even into the last set of ORs. If more routes were shared by more companies, maybe the end of the game wouldnāt have dragged on so long.
As a personal milestone, I was able to upgrade a ātragicā track to keep one of EnterTheWyvernās companies away from tokening me out of a prime route; my most successful tragic track lay so far in my 18xx career.
EnterTheWyvern won, but each place was about 500 apart in final score, so I still feel very good about my nearby 2nd place.
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It was very nice today in London so I met a friend and we played The Duke and Onitama.
I really enjoyed both. My previous thoughts after playing the Onitama app seems to be overblown. Playing defensive isnt surefire. Teaches me not to let the dumb dumb AI colour my impressions. The Duke seems to be more of my style though.
We closed it off with a game of Patchwork
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