Recent Boardgames (Your Last Played Game Volume 2)

Boardgames
3106

Last night, I tried out Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch against Ultron in Marvel Champions, to rather disastrous results. Never really got an engine going, like I do with most of the heroes I have tried, partially due to losing cards to drones, but also just feeling I needed to prioritize attacks/thwarts over upgrades because I was on the back foot.

Got overwhelmed with drones when a couple of side schemes came out. Quicksilver was helpful in taking them out, able to hit two with basic attacks due to his ability, and then the Double Take card which could then hit two more. Scarlet Witchā€™s Hex Bolt was also helpful, but the randomness of it meant I couldnā€™t rely on it to clear out drones.

Will try again at some point, as hopefully the familiarity I gained with the decks during play will help. Also of note is that this play means I have played more games from my 2021 challenge in one week than I did in the entirety of May, and am tied for April. I hope I can keep up this momentum, as I am just under a third of the plays needed to complete the challenge, but almost halfway through the year.

4 Likes
3107

Ooh, I hadnā€™t thought of that. Quicksilver is so reliant on Friction Resistance that the chances of losing it to a Drone and having to cycle the deck before you (maybe?) get it back is pretty horrible!

3108

Yeah, I had it in my hand once, but did not get it out as it was too important at the time to remove some threat, I think (had two side schemes active). While I did have the card that let me reshuffle Quicksilver cards back into the deck, I never saw Friction Resistance again. Would have been very helpful.

3109

Got a game of Sorry in with the kids during our first summer adventure. Not my favorite game, but couldnā€™t beat the view!

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11 Likes
3110

I actually played multiple games that arenā€™t Marvel Champions, which is pretty unusual for meā€¦

Paper Tales: I adore this game after just a couple plays, but my partner is pretty ice-cold on it. She generally hates games that are highly regimented (do this step, then this step, etc.), so thatā€™s to be expected. Iā€™m a proud sucker for any fast, component-minimal card game, though, so Iā€™ll have to track down the solo mode in the expansion.

Regicide: I played a few using the official solo variant on BGG and one of my recently purchased 54-card decks, and Iā€™m of two minds on it. On one hand, Iā€™ve played three games and discovered new tactics and subtleties with each play, which is pretty phenomenal for a game played with a deck of cards. On the other hand, the game is very repetitive, and each game furthered the sense that I donā€™t have much control over the outcome; if you donā€™t get diamonds in hand at the right time, youā€™re going to lose. I think this would be a smaller issue with multiple players, but I donā€™t play games with other players, so weā€™ll never know.

Spirit Island: Played a learning game at the local board game cafe. This game ticks absolutely all of my boxes, but after one game Iā€™m not sure if I want to dive into it. There are so many lovely decision points and interestingly interlocked mechanisms and thematic considerations at play, but with a single spirit these all felt woefully restrained, and Iā€™m never a big fan of two-handed solo. I also felt that the endgame was pretty anticlimactic; I didnā€™t even realize I was about to win until I looked at the board and realized it just happened. That could just be a function of me not having a good grasp on the rules and board state, though. Interested to try this again for sure, but not moved to immediately buy it.

6 Likes
3111

Played a quick solo game of The Bloody Inn last night. Didnā€™t go so well. The first round through the guest deck only had me kill one guest, though I did manage to take over two of the rooms which helped my income a bit, but I only had about 50 francs in cheques at the end of it.

Second round went much better and I managed to get a final score of 148, but thatā€™s still low in my estimation (only a Dangerous Innkeeper? Someday Iā€™ll be Demonicā€¦). There were a lot of police in the deck (as you remove 26 cards when playing the long solo game), and lots of purple, but not a lot of blue, which helps when bribing. And due to the excess of police, I pretty much always needed to make sure I could bury any bodies before the end of the next round, or murder the police guests so they couldnā€™t investigate, which could be tricky if more than one showed up.

Fun little game. I wish it would come to the table in a multiplayer environment more often.

4 Likes
3112

We had my eldest daughter birthday yesterday, and she wanted to learn her new game rules (Fort), so even though we had little time, we played a couple of turns. Still unsure of a couple of things with played cards and discard dynamics, so I think I will watch a how to play video before we give it another go.

2 Likes
3113

Taverns of Tiefenthal - uuuhhhhā€¦ I think I prefer playing this over Quacks. I prefer seeing my pub developing over time, over the idea of adding more bits into the bag to put them on a cauldron. This is also the reason why I donā€™t like deckbuilding - the ā€œfunā€ is being hidden from me!! How dare you!

Pictures - this one is actually good. Although, the box is large, which is justified as there are enough materials in there to play. I donā€™t get the dismissal of this game. (says the guy who easily dismisses games)

Tajuto - it was a good game, but I donā€™t like the theme with the meditation points and wisdom points. It was a load of bollocks. I changed them to money and Lotus points, respectively. Needs more plays, Knizias are often like that.

Beyond the Sun - played this on BGA first and now in real life. The hype is REAL!! I really enjoyed this game. A lot of good things all over. The only complaint I can give is that I think the Level 4 techs (which are end game scoring) being dependent on a random 2 card draft is a bit meh, denying players to plan long term and made the decision on which of the 2 level 4 cards to play to be very calculable (aka lame decision making). I need more plays to confirm this though.

Chicago Express with the Narrow Gauge and Eire Railroad Company expansion - the expansions are a nice addition. The Narrow Gauge was very weird but one player played it decisively (screwing over the Red company owned by a player and me. The Erie Company is simply a 1-share company that is available for auction once a company reaches halfway across the map.

Ilos - this economic game seems interesting, but not sure if this is a keeper. Iā€™ll keep mine for now as it is small (Carcassonne size).

The King is Dead 2nd ed - the production is very nice. I already said a lot about this game.

5 Likes
3114

I need to count how many level 4s there are for each color. I mean you have to decide on a color and you prepped which colors you can choose one with your previous choices in the treeā€¦ so if you know youā€™ve been playing off the yellow abilitiesā€¦ I kind hope that whatever comes up at least one of the two cards should be good for you.

If it happens a lot that you do not get useful tech here, Iā€™d consider a houserule. Something like, if you donā€™t like the first two you get, draw one more and you have to take that oneā€¦ no idea. I have rarely houseruled anything everā€“so I have no idea what makes a good change.

1 Like
3115

There are only about 10 level 4 techs, and they tend to give quite a uniform amount of points. I think only the military/colony ones require specialisation, and if you get those you probably should have a lot of military/colonies.

3 Likes
3116

Good, I got it as a bargain 2nd hand and I still havenā€™t played itā€¦ I must admit, the day I was trying to read the manual I was not really clocking itā€¦ Another one I think I need someone to teach me/watch a How-to video.

4 Likes
3117

same here! Everytime I have a chance to crack it out, its too late to learn a new game!

3118

Iā€™m on a string of bad luck.

Tried Air, Land, and Sea with my Dad which I thought would be perfect. Heā€™s colorblind and all of his mental energy went into trying to discern the theaters for the cards. I wrote Arcane Wonders and they said in later reprints they added colorblind icons, but that does me no good. Botch. We pivoted to Schotten Totten which went better.

Then last night we had a little extra time, so I thought my parents could handle Quest for El Dorado (I seem to be leaning Knizia when teachability is a concernā€¦). 45 minute game took 1.5 hours, they were exhausted and I was stressed as I saw them descend into frustration. I got this game for my 10 year old nephew and he loves it. Really thought they could handle it. Iā€™ve never seen El Dorado misfire like thatā€¦

Anyway, in the end we all retreated to our respective rooms. I mentally went over my teach to refine how well I can orient people onto the purpose and crux of the game, and they did their own debrief on qualities and characteristics of what they would rather play.

6 Likes
3119

Tajuto for me was ruined because drawing those sharp squares out the bag is a bit painful.

1 Like
3120

Played my first full game of Imperium: Legends against the AI, Mauryans (me) vs. Egyptians (them). Itā€™s a weird game! Iā€™m fascinated by it, but itā€™s probably the first game Iā€™ve ever played where I have no idea how to play well, or even how to play better. Itā€™s a deckbuilder, but a quite slow and measured one, where the majority of your point-scoring opportunities come from cards you have no access to until halfway through the game. I wouldnā€™t go so far as to call it ā€œthematic,ā€ but I would say that it felt somewhat Civ-like, simply because of the arcs your civilization can go through.

You start as ā€œBarbariansā€, and you spend the first half of the game conquering lands, maybe acquiring a few cards, and cycling through your deck, picking up more and more cards from your civ-specific nation deck. Itā€™s a game of constant, pretty linear growth, right up until you obtain all the cards in your nation deck.

Once youā€™ve burned through that, though, you become an ā€œEmpireā€, and your growth starts to fluctuate. Instead of getting free cards every time you cycle through your deck, you have to pay for them, and so your focus shifts from buying cards from the market to developing and playing very specific cards from your own personal deck of developments. You can also start obtaining uber-powerful ā€œfameā€ cards, but only by trashing a handful of cards in your tableau that you then have to spend time re-playing. It leads to a wonderful sense of expansion and contraction that actually feels somewhat realistic. Real empires donā€™t follow exponential growth curves, they rise and fall, and this game captures that really nicely.

For a game that is almost entirely cards, I think itā€™s wonderfully thought-provoking. All 8 civilizations in the box look radically different, with some not even following the same broad arc I just described, and Iā€™m really looking forward to playing all of them. Itā€™s longer than I normally like (my game took about 90 minutes), the AI is fiddlier than I normally like, and the rules are more annoying than I normally like, but Iā€™m still pretty captivated.

4 Likes
3121

As I was really busy yesterday and didnā€™t have time to watch a video for Fort, we played Love Letter instead. Really digging the Spy on the new version. Specially when I have a sort of magnet for them.

Played to best of 5 and won 3-1. At least my daughter got to annihilate me on the game she won 7-2 or so.

3 Likes
3122

Played 2 games of Spirit Island with @EnterTheWyvern today. First played as the Volcano Looming High, then with the simpler Lightning Strike Swiftly. Excellent!

7 Likes
3123

Got to play some games today! In person!!

I have the week off as my birthday was yesterday (and my partnerā€™s on Monday), so I met up with a friend and her partner to play games at the FLGS/cafe sheā€™s started working at. I took a long a load of new stuff I havenā€™t had a chance to play yet - though mostly quick/simple stuff so I didnā€™t break everyoneā€™s brains.

Started off with a few games of Kittin. Cute little dexterity game. Nothing ground-breaking, but a fun filler and itā€™s the perfect size for that.

Then we had a game of Bye Bye Black Sheep, which is silly and fun, but quite random. Maybe a little too long and itā€™s easy to forget youā€™re meant to do something with the magpie.

Played a couple of games of Crossing, which went down really well. Super simple and so quick and light, you can be mean to everyone and no one minds.

Next up was Cindr, which isnā€™t the best game mechanically (itā€™s a bit fiddly, thereā€™s a lot of downtime, and itā€™s super swingy), but the theme is a delight! Lots of fun to make jokes about dating dragons and the situations it creates.

We took a break from new stuff and played two games of Cryptid as itā€™s my friendā€™s favourite game (and one of mine). I managed to have a flash of genius and get the answer pretty quickly in our second game. That felt good.

Then we tried something heavier and I broke out A War of Whispers. It will definitely take more plays before I can have any hope of using things like ā€œstrategyā€, but itā€™s a fun game. And the layout of everything makes it really straightforward!

After that, one of the staff had finished their shift and came to join us, so we had another game of Cindr and then tried out Oriflamme - another one I need a few more plays to get the hang of, but itā€™s lightning fast!

We finished up with another couple of games of Crossing and I went home happy :slight_smile:

7 Likes
3124

Adversary was Scotland level 3. 3rd player played Vengeance as a Burning Plague then Many Minds Move as One. I played first as Fractured Days Split the Sky then as Sharp Fangs Behind the Leaves. Great couple of games. Scotlandā€™s tough. Jagged earth remains a supreme example of an expansion. Spirit Island is all round great.

6 Likes
3125

Yeah I agree, Iā€™m a big fan of Taverns. I especially like the fact that even the deckbuilding element allows you to use the cards much quicker than most games. Very much looking forward to the expansion, tempted to import it from Germany.

3 Likes