Played Kemet: Bloods & Sands. This is great. It reminds me why I got so into “troops on the map”. Still the OG Kemet but with rules tweaks, which are great. Although they added the veterancy tokens as a minor added complication.
They also added in the good bits from Ta-Seti expansion and without the bad awful ones.
Good Ta Seti content: Black (Onyx) Power Tiles, new DI cards, new battle cards
Bad: the priest track - I mean, who da efff uses this bit??
The components are mixed compare to OG. One player commented that OG map is better (I agree) and the pyramids are utter [bad word] and I swore from the start of the game that I will buy the D4 pyramids like in OG Kemet.
The colouring between blue and black players and the “buy power tile” action tokens are incredibly abysmal. You’ll struggle to figure out the token is a black or blue one. I am seriously tempted on using a sharpie.
But the game: amazing. Still one of the best troops on a map game.
I was really tempted by the KS for this, but the cost, alongside already backing a couple of other KS, put me off backing. Hope to maybe pick it up sometime in retail.
My wife and I played two games of Inis (lost both, although it was very tight) and two of Quacks of Quedlinburg with both expansions (we’re 1-1, we’ll need to resolve it) yesterday before fatigue claimed me.
I love those games. They’re very different, of course, but they’re both packed with decisions and tension. Some of my favourites for sure!
I’ve just finished the relatively painstaking process of fully resetting Oath so it can be taught using the tutorial round and setup in the (hopefully near) future.
Unfortunately, taking a break last night and finishing this morning proved a bit too much of a disconnect, and my blue player won with a bit of a fizzle. In a twist that would never happen in a real game, the whole table plum forgot that Blue needed to be taken down a peg (which would have been so easy, too!) before their wake phase, and they won with the vision for most banners and relics.
This was convenient since I wanted the table clear, but on the other hand there were some positively delicious maneuvers on the horizon from all of the other players and it was very much anyone’s game.
I have thoughts and cannot wait to explore it in depth. This is an incredibly exciting design and that’s irrespective of any of the chronicle stuff.
[EDIT] I taught Canvas to my partner this afternoon and it’s a delight. The theme has massive appeal, the gameplay is stripped right down but still has an interesting decision space (very 3D, very ironically) and the little closed economy with your bid chips is a fantastic wrench in the gears.
I have some concerns about longevity with respect to the clear cards—this is classic picnic table faire, so hopefully those are unfounded. This was my most lukewarm purchase among the last group of three featherweights, and it’s sure managed to surprise!
Rallyman: GT - we traditionally start with a racing game, and we were in Silverstone, and I think anyone who reads my posts knows how much I like this game Imperium: Classics - I’ve seen glowing reviews but really didn’t think I was going to enjoy this much. It’s now on my “buy if I see it at a good price” list. Many deckbuilders end just as I’m getting the hang of them; this one mutates. Rhino Hero - because Rhino Hero! Dice Hospital - not a great hit, I think this might have worked better as an abstract Lemminge - first physical play! PARKS - abstraction gap galore but an interesting twist on standard mechanisms Vikings - a game I’d never met, but while it’s not really my thing it worked pretty well. Santo Domingo - this time I wasn’t sitting next to someone who always played the exact same card as me, and therefore did all right.
Things have now been resolved, and I have won the series. I’m in shock. I actually won a game against my wife. Verily, I am now unto a god!
Stay tuned to this channel for my forthcoming humbling. It’s coming. Oh boy, it’s coming.
Until then, though, we’ve started the third box of Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, the Jack the Ripper one (my parents gave us the first three boxes for Christmas, we’ve already finished the fourth one). So we played the first chapter of the Jack campaign (the Jacampaing? The Jacpaing?)
On Thursday I got to play Concordia on an actual board for the first time It turns out to be much easier to understand that way!
Yesterday we played Gaia Project with our Terra Mystica -hating friend. He said that it was definitely preferable to TM, but didn’t go so far as to say that he liked it. We’re planning to take it to the local games group on Thursday to try it out with some other people, and try and solidify the rules in our minds.
We also played game 5 of the campaign of Near and Far. I’m definitely coming to the conclusion the this one is just “fine”, but I’m not sure what I am ambivalent about in particular…
As a filler we played a couple of games of Forks, which is a quick card game of manipulating a shared set of companies to give you the best profit from embezzling money from them. Reminded me a bit of Start-ups. My score of -12 suggested that I probably shouldn’t get involved with any financial shenanigans
I played a second 2-handed game of Great Plains this morning, in preparation for a teach to my partner at some point today. That might feel like overkill for a game with a leaflet for rules, but I completed the game feeling well rewarded for the extra effort. A few key things clicked for me this time which should help with a more comprehensive teach and facilitate a more satisfying first match. My first game was pretty bewildering and I feared some risk that my partner would be left wondering about the why of the proceedings.
Side perk: numerous instances of devious “oohs” and deflated curses when foiled. Still high hopes!
We had guests yesterday and two bored girls wanted a game and I gave Great Plains to them to play (10 and 13 yo) and after one game of blundering on the second game they seemed to enjoy themselves quite a bit. Then a third kid joined in and they played Railroad Ink instead. I think my partner watched them play and he probably knows the rules better than me now
Everyone wanted to try out the Fuzzies but too many people and a dog made them stay inside their box.
Today I convinced my partner to try Menara. After an early crash, we managed to win game 2 with 5 stories—still easy mode, the additional 2 stories came from needing an additional base tile and being unable to fulfill 1 contract because of an overly optimistic draw from the red (most difficult) contract deck. Great fun, but of the two of us apparently I am the one with the unshaky hands
Yesterday we had a late birthday for my wife at our friends’ place. While there, we played Mysterium and Ethnos.
My wife played the ghost and worked with what she had. We did manage to get through everything, but I think everyone missed their first attempt at the person and the place. We even got the final vision correct, with all but one of us picking the correct solution.
Ethnos saw us using Centaurs, Wizards, Orcs, Trolls, Halflings, and Skeletons. The Troll Tokens were a huge source of points in the second age for the eventual winner, as he was able to win three or four ties, netting him a good chunk of points. He finished with 62 points, just ahead of my 59, with the other players behind by just a little bit.
Was a good day overall, and a well deserved break for my wife.
Soloed Great Western Trail against a virtual representation of my darling wife this afternoon (I won, 75-57, showing that I can only beat her in my head). Took four hours, which I put on my needing to learn the thing and being still sick.
Holy crap what a game. There’s always decisions everywhere. You have deck-building, economics and worker placement all turning like delicious cogs and gears.
Lots of stuff to keep track of, and I sorta dread the teach, 'cause it’s BIG and my head is stuffed full of cotton balls (and my wife isn’t quite at 100% yet either), but it doesn’t seem out of reach.
So after a very dry month of gaming (no in-person/physical games played for all of August! ) I played:
Cartographers and Cartographers:Heroes (a couple of solo games), after they arrived recently from Kickstarter. It’s a great roll and write, and I’m pleased to have the extra variety of scoring cards and the skill cards mini expansions. In hindsight, the add-on map packs were probably completely unnecessary given how often the game is likely to be played. It’s also not an amazing solo game - I’ve acheived the top rank in both games fairly easily (the skill cards also probably swing that a bit as well).
I picked up Waste Knights (2nd Ed.) yesterday and already managed to get through the solo scenario. Given the wide complaints about the first edition rules I’m going to assume there’s been a big improvement; Aside from a little noodling around before I got started (mostly ensuring I had set up correctly and properly understood how the two guidebooks worked), I got through the first mission in just under an hour.
The first mission is more than a tutorial, but very clearly intended as an introduction. In spite of this, it’s quite replayable, and I hope that’s true of the other three (HUGE!) missions. If nothing else it looks like you can play each scenario twice and literally have no two story elements be the same, which is pretty neat. It also has some faction elements that played into the first mission and will presumably continue to develop, so I’m hopeful these are things that further skew the narrative choices in subsequent missions.
I don’t typically enjoy having my nose constantly stuck in a book [while gaming], but the entries are generally brief and punchy, and are compelling enough to develop interest. Apparently an app is on the horizon and I’ll be very interested in checking that out. If it’s half as good as the Destinies app I’ll be all over it.
I tried something new. I’ve really been wanting to play some solo games lately, but just haven’t had the energy at night to do it (for a number of reasons). But, our 3 year old had me up at 5 am. After she was back asleep, I laid in bed until 6 and decided to get up and try to be productive in the morning (which I never am; I typically sleep until 8 and then promptly start work… I’m not a “morning person”).
I did a few chores and then set up Fields of Arle, a game that I’ve had for about a year (just checked BGG, I received it on 18 September, 2020) but never had a chance to play. Yesterday, during a particularly boring meeting, I had fired up TTS and run through the paces of the game, but struggled to actually play because TTS is awful for being able to quickly reference rulebooks, player aids or simply the text on components. So with the rules and the flow of the game somewhat fresh in my head, I got through setup and my first game in about 90 minutes.
I managed a score of 81, which I think is quite good because I didn’t understand half of the economy of the game (converting units by way of carts) until the 6th round or so. I could have probably min-maxed a bit more to get a few more points, but I’m pretty sure I cheated during the first winter, so I knew the whole thing was going to be an asterisk.
Very glad to have this game. I’ve often felt lost in these sandboxy Rosenberg games, but rather than a sense of dread in being lost, there was, instead, a sense of wonder and amazement that there were so many paths to choose from.
I set up for Warp’s Edge using the story book this morning and I want that half hour back. I reset the game immediately and just set it up normally, choosing the easiest mothership to tackle (it’ll be my first game). The writing was truly painful and added a good 20 minutes to the setup. I’m not sure who this book was for, but it’ll never see the light of day again as far as I’m concerned.
Anyway, diving into some gameplay now, will edit in with my results, but I was annoyed enough by this “feature” that I felt like venting immediately.
[EDIT] Happily reporting a narrow loss, and a good time doing it. Depending on how you look at it, I took one-too-many hits to my shield or didn’t fire efficiently enough on the final warp, but the net result was the same: on my last draw from the bag, I had FOUR tokens, triggering the final warp and losing me the game. I had enough damage drawn to knock out the mothership’s final piece, but one token too few to see the round through.
This played out a little longer than I’d have hoped, but it was a first game, so hopefully that will come down a little—there was a surprising amount of cross-referencing with the manual to check symbols. Critically, it was a ton of fun! This isn’t a brain-burner by any stretch of the imagination, but the threat is real and the Warp mechanism adds serious time pressure, so decisions are important, if not always especially thinky. Because of the bag building element, there’s definitely a strategic element underlying the tactical gameplay.
All in all it was a really fun session and I’m looking forward to a redemption round soon. Deep Space D-6 is a beloved title and this might stand next to it as a proud alternative.
We got a 3 player game of Root in tonight. Cats, Birds and Alliance. My wife and I don’t play a lot of wargames which meant not much battling and a relatively easy win for the Cats. I always leave Root wanting to play it more. Need to get the fighting pants on!
Finished with a game of Regicide. Despite the forum heroics, this was a defeat to the 3rd Queen, which is better than normal. This just seems so much harder in real life. Still cool.
Just tried out Cascadia on TTS and, huh. OK I guess. I mean there’s nothing wrong with it. It feels as if maybe it’s trying too hard to be “the next Wingspan”, a game that appeals to wilderness environment fans who aren’t really gamers… dunno, need to think about that.
You’re the first person corroborating my suspicions about the game. I’ll be curious to hear if you soften a little on it. To me it looked too much of a “nice” game.
It turns out to be much easier to understand that way!
) I played: