I have had a very different experience with Lost Expedition… 
Perhaps I need to give it another go
3 Likes
The feeling of the possibility of success doesn’t often translate to the achievement of it, mind you. 
I think I’ve tended to win at best about a third to half of the games I’ve played of it.
4 Likes
Had my first absolute catastrophe in Descent:LotD. I’d been thinking the combat was becoming too easy and predictable, but then the game through rapid-spawning mobs at me during a puzzle mission that also incorporated a narrative party-split.
It was a tough loss, but a fun tough loss.
2 Likes
First Kickstarter I ever backed. With the right group it’s hard to beat for 10-15mins of laughing uncontrollably. Almost never take it off the shelf these days but someday…someday…
1 Like
Played Orleans with my wife tonight. She is a bit tired and brain-fried, so I actually won a game! We were really close on money and points from guildhalls + citizen tiles x development level, but I had a bunch more goods thanks to a building tile which let me get silk from the supply. I was also ahead on the farmer track for most of the game, so I got quite a few coins from that.
Final scores were 158 - 129. And one last play of a game on my 2021 challenge list for August.
6 Likes
Games Night!
Played
- Tsuro - Meh
- Lewis and Clark, interesting enough but doesn nothign special. Won by an aggressive deck thinning about 2/3rds into the game
- Ninja Academy - Dumb dexterity game
- Fantasy Realms - it’s got lots of luck, but lasts 15 minutes. Really like it
4 Likes
Sheepy Time with my partner and my folks yesterday, and a bit of a bust, unfortunately; My mom was pretty beat and just wasn’t into it. My dad, on the other hand, was popping scandalous combos throughout and took a decisive win. I was the only one who had a shot to catch him on our final race, but bailed when I was certain he was going to bust. Lucky bugger. 
Needless to say, he quite liked it but I think that’ll be the only play of this one while they’re in town.
[EDIT] Tonight we played Men at Work, with more fits of laughter as expected. Highlights included:
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A surfing worker who managed to slide the entire length of a girder while still holding a beam, knocking the bricks off of two other workers on the way down.
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A rogue girder fancying itself a helicopter for a moment, swinging into an entirely new position, barely missing just about everything.
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Multiple workers playing acrobatics on the job in various states of highly tenuous suspension.
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Generally and widely a very bad day for cranial injuries, with multiple safety certificates lost due to flying hardhats.
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My partner measuring her placement for an award and knocking half the structure down with the measuring stick. She got the award but it knocked her out of the game.
Mom took the win as the last person standing. It was not the game for impressing Rita often!
3 Likes
Just a couple of games yesterday:
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Tsuro: Phoenix Rising: there’s not a lot to the original version of this game, but I feel like this version has a bunch of unnecessary complications to make it more of a game. We had to do a lot of rules clarification…
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Fury of Dracula: I like this game, but it is loooong. We played for >2 hours and only just made it to the third week. In a stroke of incredible good fortune I drew an event card on my first turn that allowed me to name two cities and force Dracula to reveal if he was in either of them, which I did (he was in Budapest). Yet we were still chasing him around Europe two hours later!
6 Likes
I haven’t tried this, but I did make the mistake of purchasing Tsuro of the Seas (which, for me, ruins absolutely everything good about the original game).
I really like Tsuro for what it is (which is very much a filler), but I’m a bit doubtful that attempting to drag it out of that niche is ever going to prove to be a good idea.
4 Likes
I liked original Tsuro as a phone app (some game modes much more than others) but it also infuriated me enough times that I’m not planning to get a physical copy 
3 Likes
Wheaton’s Tabletop did an episode on it, and I got exactly the same impression.
1 Like
Ah Tsuro of the Seas. Where a player can be eliminated before they could have their first turn.
1 Like
To be fair that can happen in Pandemic too. 
3 Likes
In a coop game it means game over for all players.
Being out of the game in a competitive game is (unless you can wander to the next table and participate in a funner game) slightly more inconvenient. 
3 Likes
Played Troyes in real life after getting it for my birthday. I did my usual trick of running out of dice but also managed to have no money and no influence. I got battered by both my wife and our friend who had never played before!
We followed up with Regicide. We lost in the Jacks!
Two fantastic games, and playing in person is still recent enough for us to be exciting.
7 Likes
Played Regicide because it’s fun. We played with closed hands and lost.
Another game of Wildcatters. I end up loving it more. This is a keeper now. Not sure if I will love it as much as Container or Brass
Whale Riders: the Board Game - STORM! STORM! STORM! STORM! Side note: this is an example where the standees are waaaaay better than the KS exclusive wooden whales. The standees got more charm in them!
Parks - Yo! I end up liking it better than I expected. Fun game. Doesn’t have enough control for my taste tho.
Pan-Am - this plays like an old school Euro. Enjoyed it ofc. I don’t like it as much as Acquire tho
Chicago Express - okay after playing some Cube Rails that are a variation of Chi-Ex. I end up loving Chi-Ex way more, and I finally know why. The other games such as Irish Gauge, Luzon Rails, American Rails, just lacks the “Race to Chicago” tension that Chi-Ex have.
I achieved parity with someone in Blue company. Someone took over my yellow company and dominated it with shares. And the other did the nutty thing of monopolising the risky and volatile red company. I used the Blue to sabotage Green and Red, and used my shares with Yellow to sabotage Yellow. And so, only the Blue company reached Chicago. Won the Wabash company too and rushed to Chicago as well. Alas, it wasn’t enough.
Colt Super Express - Yep. Colt Express the Card Game. I prefer this one personally because it cuts down the OG to just the moving and shooting. However, the board game and card game are so different enough that they can please different audiences.
2 Likes
Got a few rounds of Railroad ink in with the 10YO. We wagered a 30 minute delay of bedtime tonight against 30 minutes of room cleaning tomorrow.
The last of three games was a nail-biting tie-breaker, but she’s in bed now, and there will be room cleaning tomorrow.
7 Likes
More end-of-day brain-dead mayhem with my partner and my folks.
First up was Men at Work, which got nasty right from the initial “foundation”, and a glut of support cards meant we had a rickety sprawl pretty fast. My dad got knocked out fairly early, but part of that was his own fault as he decided to flick the first player hook to my partner, missed, and took out a support. 
My partner was next to fall, mostly due to sustained hubris, as she was being tricky, doing her best to set the next player up for a fail all game (this was me, FWIW…
). Down to my mom and I, she with only one safety certificate left, I made a few “safe” plays for a couple of turns until the whole thing finally crumbled in spectacular fashion.
I won by sheer luck, let’s make it clear. I screwed up every single one of my turns but by some miracle, any parts that fell landed safely on other bits of structure and no workers were harmed.
The game ended relatively quick so we snuck in a 25 minute epic of The Fuzzies, which ended only with my mum as the loser. We had the tower so riddled with holes it looked like Swiss Cheese by the end, so when she took the last turn, there was nothing left on the table for us to continue with. The whole mass stretched like an elastic band on that final pluck, and the placement just sent the whole stack toppling and crumbling.
Getting my dex fix and I’m loving it.
6 Likes
Make sure to play Men at Work in the advanced setup mode: using the box as the foundation, and having the crane in-play.
It makes the game more interesting sooner.
7 Likes
If we get another one in, we’ll definitely be bringing out the crane. My folks demonstrated some pretty gamey behaviour this last play, so at the very least it should inspire more questionable choices.
6 Likes