Recent Boardgames (Your Last Played Game Volume 2)

Bondy034 · 22 October 2021 12:41

Great day of gaming today (after our Covid lockdown finally lifted!):

Summoner Wars, Vanguards vs Fallen Kingdom, I was the latter. I managed to do a bunch of damage to the enemy summoner fairly early in the game, but ended up cornered later on. My opponent managed to wipe all my gates off the board too, which I’d certainly never seen in all my games of 1e! That was what sealed my fate, though we put up a good fight on the way out.

Netrunner, my friend brought his Nisei cards over so we had a couple of games. I was Weyland and my first game managed to rush to 7 points before my opponent could really get up and running. In the second game things were very different - struggled to draw agendas for most of the game, despite mining my deck. In the end I was sitting with 3 cards that would’ve killed the runner had they scored a regular agenda. Instead they stole 2 from my discard and ended it instantly My friend is big into Netrunner, so even one win felt like an achievement (and with an unfamiliar deck too!)

Morels had a quick game of this, pretty evenly matched but he pulled ahead thanks to a big set of chanterelles

Mint Works four games of this while waiting for our third (who joined in the last two). I did pretty well with some fairly different strategies. It’s a very clever, minimalist worker placement game. Have played games where we’ve gone almost all the way through the deck and others decided in the first few rounds.

Viticulture was the big ticket item of the night. We played with the Tuscany expansion which is just terrific. It evens out some of the strategies and opens up new opportunities without becoming over complicated. I nabbed some big wine deliveries late in the game that saw me rocketing up the score track. I was also quite invested in the area control mini-game, so that helped. A great time though, and love the new additions (we didn’t play with the workers though, as it had been awhile for one of us, and I’m still unsure how I feel about them in general.)

Sushi Go Party, final game of the evening, I managed to regain ground after falling behind early to end in second place. There were only a few points in it at the end but no one got any points from dessert, which would’ve swung things big time.

Chewy77 · 22 October 2021 19:27

After a good few weeks without playing board games due to Covid lockdown and moving house, it is long weekend here and we rented a batch in the Coromandel with two other couples.

Last night we played Cranium (2nd Ed) that was in the house and I found the rules on the BGG website. It had the clay missing, and it was becoming frustrating for some of the players, so we changed to Just One.

We had a really good time. Particularly funny was one where the word to be found was Pope, and all clues got deleted (Vatican, Catholic and Rome).

It is nice to play board games again. Hopefully if this week goes well, I will be able to unbox my games (the shelves they are going to are in my eldest daughter’s room)

VictorViper · 22 October 2021 21:23

Sounds like Cranium alright. On the clay part, you can probably be thankful it was missing. You do NOT want to see it when it’s had time to sit.

[EDIT] A quick game of Hard City, and already set up for a second go after a pretty incredible defeat. I might have stood a chance against the ruthless shuffle, but my dead rolls sealed my fate good and quick. It was a civilian boat party of death.

bort · 23 October 2021 13:28

The Princess bride Adventure Book Game , first play. First, let’s note for the record that I love The Princess Bride movie. The first slightly disappointing point is that you can’t just jump into all the good stuff. To begin with, you have Westley and Buttercup, and obviously they have to get together to fall in love (awwwwww). So, you’ve got a few places to move to, and chores to be done. The initial challenges can only be done if you’ve only got a couple of chores on the board. And you lose (ok, there is no losing as such, you are “interrupted”) if you need to put a chore out and there are no tokens left. We finished the chapter pretty easily, but I’m sure there’s more of a challenge in the later chapters.rr

The Key:Murder at the Oakdale Club X 3, first play. I can’t believe I missed this series of games, because they are right in our wheelhouse. We love deduction, especially murder mysteries. We played Awkward Guests to death. There would be groans at the table if someone announced they had the culprit, or the weapon used. And the tension as you entered you guess into the app – great stuff. This has the same feel, but you’re very conscious of time passing as you try to make sense of the various clues.

So, once you think you have it figured out, you get a 4 digit code, depending on what order the various things (people, weapon, location, exit vehicle) are. You then check the code board, if your code is there, that’s a good start. Then you try the key and make sure the colour matches. On our first game, none of us came up with the answer, didn’t even get to try the key. We talked about it a bit, discussed where we might have gone wrong, we were all learning. Second game, we had a clear winner (not me). I almost got there, managed to get two numbers transposed. Third game, same winner, but I was happy because I got the code correct, just lost because I used more cards. As the description of the game says – the fastest investigator may not be the winner. We were still getting used to the icons on the various cards. Picking up the others in the series.

Furnace . I had the Capitalist card that gave me extra compensation (always one higher than the actual value). Great for getting extra resources. I grabbed a great card that gave me six points for one coal and one oil, could do it twice, and I rode that combo all the way to the end. That capitalist card seems a bit OP. I ended up with 104 points, second place was 71.

Fantasy Realms X 2. Won the first, got my lowest ever score in the second.

The Crew:Mission Deep Sea , failed at mission 5, then won.

Scotland Yard , a very quick game, caught Mr X by about the fifth turn. Seems pretty hard for Mr X, or maybe we’re just bad players. Having two bobbies (who don’t use tokens to move) seems pretty powerful.

Cascadia , another close game, scores were 98, 94, 93

Photograph to close out the day.

VictorViper · 23 October 2021 16:37

Hard City Episode 4: Bloody Sunrise (2nd attempt). This did not end well again, but I made a good run at it this time.

Armed with a better understanding of how crazy the Special cards can be this mission, I did what I could to keep the dock area as clear of mutants as I could. The mutants operate using a simple M.O. (on the cards) and a basic priority hierarchy that really makes them feel a little different than your typical zombie horde enemy; It’s subtle, but it counts. In this episode, however, I guess Dr. Zero rigged our rescue yacht to go all DJ Khaled on the horn, because any time the Special card is drawn, they all drop what they’re doing and rush the boat.

Anyway I held out pretty well in the beginning, rushing the bus and pulling 4 civilians into the rescue space (saving one) and sparing an action to pull the chopper into a convenient air drop location. By the third round I pulled a cutscene which would allow me to rescue 3 civilians in a single shot, and I thought I was well on my way to a win—the scoreboard seemed to agree with me at 5-2.

Of course, that’s when the game decided to exploit the big weakness in my strategy: my two cops acting as escorts were also taking lots of chip damage in their haste. I took a ridiculous string of spawns and activations, followed by an episode special, which also just happened to spawn two mutants and FUBAR right next to a 1HP Marcellus. I got “lucky” and drew another Special before FUBAR could take him out, but you tell me if that was good or bad luck:

Based on the above, and with my cops too hurt to run bump-and-feel again, my choice was clear: I needed to mow some muties down fast. A few activations pass and I’m at 9 dead mutants (out of 10 on the kill track, one more for a VP) and have two cops, a civilian and no active mutants on their space. All I need to do is survive to my next activation, kill a mutant and evacuate the civilian. It’s now 5-3. I draw a Special. I’ll let the final image speak for itself.

Dr. Zero wins, like a bazillion to 5. So close. Next time for sure.

InkyBloc · 23 October 2021 17:43

Yeah that was a change they added in a more recent edition. The original has you always playing with 5 normal detectives no matter the player count. It’s still tough for Mr. X (and I think some people go down to just 4 detectives for that reason), but losing the ticket restrictions just lets out so much of the tension for the detectives.

Captbnut · 23 October 2021 18:08

We played Archipelago…

Good God, this makes Puerto Rico look like Dobble. I don’t think I’ve had a physical reaction against a game before, but this is a really, really racist game - in theme, mechanics and art. It’s not even old enough (2012) that you can say ‘different times’.

It needs a retheme asap because it’s a really clever game. It’s semi co op done very well - each player has their own secret end game trigger and scoring condition (that’s a bit like Troyes). Heavy Euro with worker placement, resource conversion and some area control that we didn’t really explore.

The main end game trigger is a ‘war of independence’ where the Islanders rise up against the colonists. We all lost but my reaction was ‘too fucking right’.

I need to play Spirit Island to cleanse my soul

yashima · 23 October 2021 20:19

After a support run to FLGS, I immediately had to play Canvas… now I have to preorder Art Decko so I can make an art themed game night with Modern Art. The solo mode was fun and relaxing and I got a few pretty paintings out of it. Definitely a keeper, I just wish the plastic cards didn‘t have an additional foil coating that wants to be removed at some point… and they are really hard to shuffle.

We also played our first game of The LOOP.

I seem to remember one reviewer saying it was good that it had multiple game modes because it was too easy? WTF? I don‘t know what some people consider easy.

In the game you have 7 eras represented by the 7 cake slices of the board. They loops around so future lands you back in the stone age. The players are fighting the evil Dr Foo who built a time machine and is destabilizing the timeline. Around the board the 7 pieces of the time machine are placed one in each era. Each has a mission on it the players need to complete. If they complete 4 missions they win the game (in basic SABOTAGE mode). Only two missions are ever revealed at the same time however. So it is not „pick and choose“.

Each turn Dr Foo conjures up some evil duplicates, unearths new artifacts (cards) and spills time rifts across some eras. Then the players get to act and move from era to era, gathering time energy, moving Dr Foos duplicates into paradox eras and removing time rifts. If an era ever gathers a 4th time rifts a vortex appears and swallows all artifacts and the local mission. If ever an era gets a second vortex or a 4th vortex needs to be placed the players lose immediately (as opposed to time running out after 21 turns). This is a small combo-tastic deck builder… each turn a player has 3 cards in their display and to use them they need to be exhausted. There is also a free move ability and a character ability to use. Now the game is called The LOOP b/c the player can spend energy to untap their exhausted cards from one type of elemental sphere (there are 3 different symbols plus black holes that can never be looped). And a player can loop as much as they have energy available in the era they are in. Only each subsequent loop costs an additional energy. 1–2–3–4… so you want a deck that consists mostly of 1 type of symbol so a loop is more powerful.

Quite thinky to get the combos right and the deck building is definitely not trivial. You can only get cards from the era where you end your turn and you get cards after completing a mission. It is possible to get rid of cards but we didn‘t manage to cull a lot.

Definitely want to play again and while yes yes, it is the whole Pandemic formula of „randomly assign bad cubes to places and when the 4th hits things get worse“ but it is really not. This is a cooperative deck builder folded into that formula and it makes a very unique game. Also the cards and the art are great.

Also bought another game from the Natureline and played: Snowhere.

So someone decided to make a game from the old „52 pickup“ joke. You make a mess of the cards with the fire side up. Then you get to take cards that aren‘t covered by others flip them and put out the fire with the snow. It is barely a game. Very barely. But it was a bit of an interesting puzzle to figure it out. Will try again. Maybe it is interesting but I doubt it‘s longterm. The pretty cover got me.

Phil · 24 October 2021 01:03

Aha. I read @bort’s comment and was very confused that there were different kinds of police to the game. That does sound a bit strange.

Phil · 24 October 2021 01:15

I’m really enjoying these. I suspect I’ll be picking up a copy whenever it makes an appearance locally.

COMaestro · 24 October 2021 02:06

My wife and I played 7 Wonders Duel today when we had a quiet moment with the kids. First age went pretty normally, we both had a bit of military to keep it in the middle, And had a couple of science cards, and we each had some resources.

In the second age, she managed to get all of her wonders built (to my two), and also managed to push the military into the last section of the board. I chose to take the first turn in the third age, which was a mistake as it revealed a 3 shield military card, which gave her the win.

I am on quite the losing streak, I think.

Bondy034 · 24 October 2021 02:35

Archipelago is great, and thematically it gets some props from me for at least engaging with the reality of colonialism (well, minus the extermination… ). It at least cares to represent subjugated peoples rather than ignoring them entirely (even if that representation has issues, I’d certainly agree). But yes, we’ve often felt like the sympathizer might have the right idea by the end!

It is a terrific game though. Super weird and absolutely not for everyone, but I’ve always had lots of fun with it. A second edition could tighten up a bunch of things and work on the way it approaches representation without an entirely new theme (even just making explicit that you are not the good guys in this scenario would help!)

VictorViper · 24 October 2021 02:53

I’m glad, thank you! If you are considering buying it though, I think a few points are worth sharing.

The co-op/solo mode is as good as any I’ve come across for the genre, but it has limitations. The episodes are quite dynamic for the Dr. Zero player in the 1 vs. All mode (outwardly pitched as the “main” mode), and while the bombast and variety carries over to co-op, the dynamism doesn’t. This is all to say that I think there’s probably quite a bit more replayability in the box for someone using the 1 vs. All mode (or both).
Some softness in the rules at times. I haven’t struggled with it in game, but I’m the type to muddle through or house rule on the spot. So far I haven’t needed to do much of either, though there have been long moments of deliberation and manual/scenario card referencing between sessions once or twice. On the few occasions I’ve been unclear it’s been related to spawning and movement of the mutants, so again I would guess this is curious to the co-op mode.
It’s wildly swingy, and revels in that. The game is effectively balanced around those huge shifts, but when you’re built around dramatic setpieces that can be triggered dynamically or randomly… sometimes somebody’s gonna get whomped. I see this only as a positive note, but this sure won’t be for everyone.

Just a few points I thought were worth mentioning. The box isn’t obnoxious (standard “Ticket” size but taller) and they stuffed it with fun. No fuss minis you can toss in a bowl, low token counts that are easy to sort, fast setup with randomization… this is a savvy debut. Hope you can snag one!

Brattyjedi · 24 October 2021 13:08

Yesterday was once again my monthly board game group meetup. Everyone in attendance vaccinated. Some wearing masks and some not based on individual preferences.

My husband and I arrived midday and jumped into a game of Sagrada that was just about to start. I’d played it once before. He’d never played but had played Roll Player, which I told him before the rules explanation of Sagrada started was pretty similar, and is generally very good at games. Sagrada is a game of rolling colorful dice and drafting them to place in a personal grid following color and number restrictions to try to score points. I finished middle of the pack with 55 and he won with 84.

My husband and I then broke apart. He was going to get into a game of Terraforming Mars then one of the people mentioned they’d brought their copy of Oath with them and had only been able to play it at 3 and would like to try it at a higher player count. So TM was put aside for Oath. My husband and I have Oath so he and that copy’s owner were experienced players teaching 3 new players and it was a many hours long game.

While that was going on, I played Marvel: Villainous. I love the original Disney: Villainous more than the game deserves. Both versions have players acting as movie/comic book villains in their own realms trying to achieve an evil plot. Each character is completely different and playing their own game with the main player interaction coming from sending “heroes” to try to mess up someone’s progress toward their goal. There are flaws in the games that I can see, especially the way the original bogs down at higher player counts, but I think there are actual strengths to the gameplay as well and my love of the theme and exploring each different villain carries me past the flaws especially with the original Disney one. Marvel: Villainous, I’m not sure. I should love the theme just as much as Disney. I’d only previously played it at two with my husband and we felt like the changes made between the Disney and Marvel versions maybe needed higher player counts as there is a little more player interaction so I was anxious to get it in at the big game day. This was a 4-player game and it still felt more off than any Disney game has. It was OK, but the flaws stood out more. I think I just prefer the Disney system. Or it might be that all the other players decided early on I was the one teaching so the smart play was to pile heroes on me to bog me down and boy did they. My poor Loki couldn’t do much of anything the whole game.

After Marvel Villainous it was Tiny Towns for me. Everyone loved that and had a good time with it. Such a cute and charming little game that will twist your brain all around in the end. Just place cubes on your grid and turn them into buildings. Except other players never pick the right cube when you need it and existing buildings are getting in the way of where you need to place cubes to build new buildings and oh man what did you do yourself!? I got a score of 20 which put me middle of the pack in our 5 player game. The winner had 29.

I then played a quick game of Guillotine. Always a popular light card game. Deal out 12 Nobles waiting in line to be executed during the French Revolution. On your turn, play one action card from you hand if you want, collect the first noble head in line (most action cards let you manipulate the line to get the best scoring one you can to the front), then draw a new action card whether you played an action card or not. Once all the heads are taken, do it two more times for three total days of collecting heads, then total up points. There. I just taught you all the rules. Beyond that it’s read the cards. I came second on this one. I had 16 to the winner’s 17.

I think it’s worth noting, one of the game day regulars frequently hosts a high school foreign exchange student. He has one again this year, a young man from Italy, who came to game day. The game day regular was in on the epic Oath game. The young man from Italy won Villainous, won Tiny Towns, and won Guillotine. So learning a bunch of games for the first time in not his native language, and kicked butt at all of them. After Guillotine I made a quick trip home to feed the dog and he apparently played a game of Arboretum while I did that and lost that spectacularly so not a clean sweep day for him, but still impressive I think.

Once I returned from feeding the dog, Oath was finally wrapping up. My husband got in a two player game of Terraforming Mars with one of the game day hosts while I played Ex Libris with two other game day regulars I love gaming with. Ex Libris is a worker placement game about collecting and shelving magical books with all kinds of restrictions on your shelves. Mostly they have to be in alphabetical order then there’s things you want to do like avoid one type of book, try to have as much possible of a couple other types of books, but also try to have a wide variety of all types of books except the one you are avoiding. I really like it. I once again came middle of the pack in a game with a very wide spread of scores: 98-76-42.

Lots of games played, I finished middle of the pack pretty much every time, and I had lots of fun! A very successful game day!

Captbnut · 24 October 2021 14:54

First couple of plays of Mottainai, which I got in a Maths Trade earlier this year. It’s from Carl Chudyk who designed Innovation and is supposed to be a reworking of Glory to Rome.

It’s a multi use cards tableau builder. Lots of fiddly rules but we got there in the end. Loads of combo opportunities and it plays really quickly. I won the second game but my wife utterly smacked me in the second by managing to hoard some of the most powerful cards and then managing to score them all at once! Balance of the Universe very much restored.

I imagine we’re not playing it well at all, but I think it’s really good. So far not as in your face as Innovation.

Also, that is a very small box

And it has a postcard describing their other games in Haikus!

RogerBW · 24 October 2021 15:05

Went to visit @cornishlee to show him Star Trek Ascendancy in person – as a 2-player game this is clearly going to be vs the Borg.

Who wiped the floor with us, even without any special early boosts. I just don’t get it - I don’t think either of us did anything particularly wrong, but neither of us ever had a chance against them. People on BGG say the Borg aren’t really a threat, but…

Phil · 24 October 2021 16:46

The Borg are not a threat if you have been assimilated by The Borg.

RossM · 24 October 2021 17:18

Wow. It’s almost like an omniscient super being catapulted you into the fight before you were ready.

RossM · 24 October 2021 17:20

Isn’t there a rule about redrawing conduits if you draw them right next to your home worlds?

RogerBW · 24 October 2021 17:26

Possibly, but the conduit didn’t have any effect anyway - nor did we get any Borg exploration cards. All those cubes came from the hub.

I’m thinking about shuffling the conduits down in the system disc stack so that they show up later in the game if at all, and no hub.