Recent Boardgames (Your Last Played Game Volume 2)

[COMaestro]

Played Orleans with my wife last night. Went a little different than usual, as it was quite a few rounds before either of us went for a Scholar, so we were at 0 on the development track for a bit.

I grabbed the Winery tile early on, as that stack of goods was pretty tall and was able to take almost all of them by the end of the game, which contributed to my victory. I also managed to get much further along the development track, getting to the x5 to my wife’s barely acquired x4. While she had one more guildhall and citizen tile than I did, the multiplier worked in my favor to let me outscore her. Final scores were 135-124.

[MrJackdaw]

Ok, I’m not gonna flood this with “Just played Hostage Negotiator” but this playthrough really demonstrates how much of a wuss I am…

Donna is a teacher who kidnaps her students because she’s been passed over for tenure.

I won! In all classical game terms, I played well and won. She even surrendered!

I then I look at the three hostages she killed and I find myself imagining what it would be like telling the parents… Good god, I’m crying. What an absolute wuss.

(What a cracking game)

[VictorViper]

I picked up Champions of Hara recently in one of my (many) new year purge trades, and got it to the table last night. I two-handed a game of the “versus arena” mode, since the scenarios add a bunch of extra stuff and I wanted to reduce the overhead—not to mention the stiffer challenge they represent.

Two-handing the game was easy enough at the beginning, but definitely dragged by the end, as my characters had collected a number of buffs to track, had maxed out their hands, and had a full board of monsters to consider. Thankfully, this came with a bit of a surprise: I think the game will play just fine in “versus” mode using a single character. If this holds true, replay value just got a nice boost. Furthermore, there’s actually some chance my partner might enjoy it!

The gameplay knocked my socks off. Between the on-hand/on-board card mechanism and the neuroshima hex-style spatial element with the monsters there’s a really satisfying crunch, and the event, dusk and world cards all add flavour and mayhem to the proceedings. It’s gorgeous to look at and filled with super corny flavour text that nevertheless had me laughing and frankly enraptured by this weird fever dream of a world. I’ll be exploring this a lot more and it goes right next to Hard City as another risk taken on an oddball that paid off huge. Wow.

[bruitist]

Had a two-player session with my regular 2p friend for the first time since the start of the pandemic! (We’ve played a few times online and played with others.)

Ice Team - To ease into things as we got used to playing against each other again. Played a couple of games with me winning 20-14 and then him winning 13-20.

Gods Love Dinosaurs - I was doing well and had lots of dinosaurs, until two consecutive activations meant there wasn’t enough prey to eat and they all starved

Nanga Parbat - More little wooden animals! And they lull you into a false sense of security! I was doing great, until my last turn when I realised I’d run out of scoring cubes and wouldn’t get any points for trading animals. Leaving my opponent to overtake me with his last move.

Infinity Gauntlet: A Love Letter Game - At some point, I need to play this with more than two. A really interesting twist on standard Love Letter.

Eight-Minute Empire: Legends - Definitely want to play this more, as I might prefer it to the original. Interested to find out how the variants (and expansion) affect things.

Nova Luna - I was so close to the win! I had one disk left and just needed to grab any blue tile on my next turn to place it. But instead, my opponent took a tile and placed all 3 of his remaining disks. Even worse is that there was a moment earlier in the game where I realised I could have placed a tile differently and completed a pattern. “Ah, never mind,” I thought, “I won’t retcon it.”

Combo Fighter (Snø Storm vs Tele Manava) - Finished off with a quick game. Ended with both of us staggered and it was much easier for me to that one last point of damage to grab the win.

We’d hoped to get Red Cathedral played, but neither of us felt up to that much thinking.

[COMaestro]

Had friends over today for a very late Christmas gift exchange + slightly late birthday gifts for their daughter. While they were here, we played Chinatown, which I actually managed to win by $80k over our friends, who were tied, and my wife bringing up the rear. I was surprised at that, as she got an early 4-tile shop, but I guess the rest of us caught up with some bigger shops in the next couple of rounds. Most awesome part was when I needed 3 Restaurant tiles to complete a shop and while drawing tiles managed to get the 3 I needed! Right after I has been saying that I would need to trade to finish the Restaurant, as there was no way I would draw all 3! My first win at this game.

My winning streak continued with Ethnos, using Wingfolk, Dwarves, Minotaurs, Centaurs, Orcs, and Skeletons. It is funny how useful Skeletons are in 2-player, when you have to play a band greater than the total number of markers in a region in order to place another one. At 4 player, I was usually just playing them so I did not have to put them in the shop after playing a band. Squeaked out the win by 1 point, 89 to our friend’s 88, my wife at 73, and his wife at 65.

Sadly, with the various interruptions by our kids, and a break between games to let them play outside for a bit, the games took quite a while to play so that’s all we got to.

[Bondy034]

Boardgame evening this Saturday, we played:

Super Big Boggle, a few rounds of this and I scored my first ever 9 letter word though: headliner. Was proud of that one. And I did indeed win that round by a fair bit.

Click Clack Lumberjack, been awhile since I’ve broken this one out. The box has seen far better days, and I’m now down 2 ‘bark’ pieces. Good fun though - lots of dramatic fails!

Ninjato, three player game of this one, which went really well, reminded me why I’ve hung onto it. In the game itself - I had a solid start but ended up bringing up the rear due to some botched timing and overly risk taking behavior. The other two were pretty close to each other though.

Biblios, two 4 player games of this back to back (by request). It works great with all playercounts really, though it’s nice not having to count out as many cards with 4. Such a clever little auction/card game. The secrecy is so exciting - even if you think you have a strong hand or a weak hand, the reveal at the end tends to produce upsets of players who thought they had something they didn’t.

Red 7, it’d also been awhile for this one too. Definitely a game to play a number of times, so people get better at telling if they can stay in or not with the cards they have so play keeps moving around the table. My wife said she really enjoyed it and would like to play it some more 2-player, so it’ll probably hit the table again before too long.

[Whistle_Pig]

Yesterday we played Pipeline and Bloodrage I made my usual mistake in Pipeline of doing too many things badly instead of a couple of things well. In Bloodrage I went fully in to an annoying Loki strategy which gave me points for getting things killed and released from Valhalla, which worked much better!

Earlier in the day I played a solo game of Three Sisters. I was annoyed that we finished Bloodrage too late for me to play another game before bed, which is probably a positive sign!

[VictorViper]

I finally got a chance to bring my copy of Super Skill Pinball Ramp it Up home, which I bought back in November. My partner and I are (light) pinball buffs, so it didn’t take much convincing to get playing and we ended up having two back-to-back games together on the “Gofer Gold” table. This is the simplest of the four tables offered, and there’s plenty of fun to be had with this layout alone.

It’s an instant hit with both of us. At least on this first playfield, the theme is just oozing out of every bounce down. Clearly the author has some passion for the subject matter because there’s no question in my mind that this was designed from the outset as a pinball game. It’s a simple game, so it’s not hard to see the typical R&W trappings behind the curtain, but the thematic ties to the mechanisms are strong enough to ignore them. I’m not sure there’s much or anything out there competing for the crown of best pinball boardgame, but I’m hard pressed to think of a better way to go about it.

[bruitist]

Yesterday was a game-filled day as my partner asked to play some games in the evening

Royal Visit - Tried this out, but it wasn’t her kind of puzzle.

Kung Fu Zoo - Went down a lot better. I discovered an uncanny ability to shoot my dice straight down the holes.

Okiya - Haven’t played this one in ages. We were evenly matched and managed a draw. Does make me wonder if I should keep it, as there’s not much game there.

Trivial Pursuit - Just the regular version, as I didn’t fancy the miserable loss I usually suffer if we play the LOTR edition. I had a surprise lucky run of good questions and ended up getting all my wedges. Then the game went on for a lot longer as I failed many possible winning questions while she desperately tried to land on wedge spaces. I won in the end.

Cindr - Finished up with this again. Turned out very short as she managed to grab 12 points in one date.

[Whistle_Pig]

Today I’ve played 4 solo games of Three Sisters and got a high score of 98. I think this one is a success!

[COMaestro]

My wife and I played Concordia today, on the Creta map. Definitely felt like an odd game, as I know I Tribuned much earlier than usual twice during the game, and even she commented that things were a little weird that game. She managed to take the last action of the game, building her final three houses, and getting the Concordia card in the process, one turn before I would have built my final house.

It stung a little, as I only had 1 house left, and there was only one card in the shop left to purchase, so if I had an architect, or a wine and a senator/consul, I would have won, but as it was, I only had a Diplomat and my Tribune in hand. I Tribuned, she built her houses, then I built mine.

The card turned out to be the deciding factor, as she won 144 - 138. Really close game.

[bort]

MicroMacro;Crime City , finished two cases, getting to the end now. Still good fun

Sluff Off , first play. I didn’t realise it, but I already had this game, as Wizard Extreme. Oh well, this has a cute bird token. It’s a trick taking game, where you take tokens depending on what colour tricks you think you’ll win. If you win a trick with red, you have to discard a red token. If you don’t have a red token, you take a black one, worth negative points. If you choose to be the Sluffer, then you don’t get any tokens. At the end of the game, the Sluffer will receive four negative points, but that is reduced by the number of black tokens taken by the other players. Its seems that the Sluffer is pretty good, you only take four negative points, and most likely less. I’m sure we’ll get more plays of this in. I like trick taking games where you have to predict what tricks you’ll win. Scharfe Schoten is probably my favourite.

The Crew , despite me being the Captain in both our games, we managed to win one.

Aeon’s End , took ages to setup, because my carefully ordered cards were all mixed together, I must have put it on its side at some point. Annoying, maybe I should just bag everything.

So Clover! , we play this almost every gaming day, so quick and always fun

The Key: Sabotage at Lucky Llama Land , X 3. Nearly won one of them, got pipped by a single point. The next game I had my worst score ever. Still fun – we soldier on to the solution even when we know we’ve lost.

Nova Luna , I enjoy this at 3p more than 4p. I lost by a single point, had four tokens left on my last turn, managed to place three. Then the winner pointed out I had missed one from early in the game. NOOOOOooooooo!

Heist: One Team One Mission X 2. Its been a while since we played, we were a bit rusty. First game was almost called off due to dog. It certainly added a new level of difficulty.

[Phil]

I played a game of Regicide earlier, and near the end of the game I’d played a diamond to refresh my hand of two cards back to eight. I dealt six cards face down, picked them up, flipped them over, and found that I’d dealt all four aces one after the other. It was as if I’d done a magic trick by accident : )

[Simfers]

Played some Pandemic yesterday. We needed FOUR tries before we actually won a game. Just not our day to cure some diseases, I suppose, LOL.

[Acacia]

I’ve gotten several rounds of Great Plains in now. It’s a tight little box.

I mean, it’s not GREAT. 7/10. But it is so unique and so perfect at what it does.

In the quick, portable, 2p niche there’s a lot of contenders - Jaipur, Air, Land, & Sea, Fox in the Forest, Hanamikoji, Schotten Totten (2) Battle Line, Lost Cities, Mandala… but you see the pattern. Hand management, cardplay, bluffing, set collection. Those games are all fine but there’s an undeniable degree of overlap.

Great Plains can be taught, played, and put away in 20. It won’t exhaust you but it will engage you. And it’s got that Go-like spatial puzzle, area control, and sparring that you (or at least I) just can’t get in a quick, light duel game elsewhere.

And it’s got a perfect balance of effort in, enjoyment out. So no, it’s not perfect or a masterpiece, but it does wear itself perfectly. It think it’s solid.

Separately, following on last week’s Keyflower comments - I love it. It works pretty well asynch if you keep the player count at 3. That six player, transcontinental, 30 day monster asynch we played was a bit much but it doesn’t have to be.

But with Tigris & Euphrates now (somewhat) playable on BGA, it solidifies two things. T&E is still better in my book. And I still have a lot of room to be better at T&E

[lalunaverde]

Telestrations - hilarious

Mr. Jack Pocket - I sold mine a long while ago, but I was eager to play it when someone asked me.

Project L - yep. Another tetris game alrighty. Solitaire. Not for me. Little room for growth

Samurai: the Card Game - Knizia being clever as usual on making a card game that still captures the spirit of the board game and succeeds. Not as good as the big one though. Samurai: the Board Game allows forward planning on where to place your pieces, which is randomly shuffled as a deck. But in the card game, it is even more tactical as the villages to fight over are shuffled and revealed slowly, in addition to the random deck.

Through the Desert - still a fab game. The table remarked on how quick this game is to teach yet it performs well. The pastel camels certainly helped with the impression, I guessed.

[Acacia]

Parks, the… Waterdeep killer? Let me explain.

Got a few rounds of Parks in, 2 on BGA and 2 on the table. It’s pleasant. The curb appeal of the box and components along with the ease of teaching have it pretty secure on my shelf now. Like Great Plains, it isn’t a transcendental masterpiece of design but it is tight and thoughtful. All the pieces not only fit together, but have been put in gentle yet direct tension with each other so you are always balancing and thinking.

But to Waterdeep. That one has long been hanging onto my collection by its fingernails. I like it, too. I see Architects of the West Kingdom as the true Waterdeep killer, as most of the mechanics map between the two (well, Waterdeep + Skullport) but Architects is the cleverer and more dynamic design. That said, sometimes I still wanted Waterdeep. It’s faster to teach and easier to play. Newbies can grok Architects halfway through the game, but Waterdeep halfway through the first turn. I couldn’t say I would always choose Architects over Waterdeep.

But now Parks - same general concept. Place a dude, get some tokens. Turn in tokens to complete a card and get some points. It’s a little harder to teach, but turning the worker spaces into a rondel and throwing in seasons and gear get you a lot for a little extra overhead. And who wouldn’t choose black bears over those uncanny valley people on the front of Waterdeep?

Anyway, would I ever choose Waterdeep over BOTH Architects AND Parks? I’m leaning no. This could be a big win for shelf space.

[COMaestro]

Was able to get in a couple of games of Marvel Champions today, trying out Drax solo against Rhino. I lost the first game due to an unfortunate draw of Advance, which let the villain scheme, and I drew a 2 star boost for him, which took me to 7 threat on the main scheme. Was getting nasty, as I had got Rhino to his second form, which brought out a scheme which increases the number of encounter cards drawn each round by 1, and then hit Shadows of the Past which brings out Drax’s nemesis and a scheme which increases all enemy attacks by 2. I think I would have managed if not for that Advance, though.

I set up again and started out pretty similarly, got Rhino to his second form after two or three turns. I ALMOST lost in the same way, as I had used a card to get rid of the added scheme when Rhino was first defeated. This meant the main scheme was dangerously high, but I had drawn two cards which let me add 5 to Drax’s basic attacks, which was already at 5 due to vengeance tokens and his knife. First one got Rhino down to 5 HP, and I easily survived his attack, but then I drew Advance again, with 5 threat on the main scheme. I got lucky and for the boost card I drew the other Advance card, which has no stars on it, so it went to 6 threat, then on my turn, Drax destroyed Rhino.

Drax is pretty straightforward, just keep him in hero form for a bit to take damage and accrue vengeance tokens, then use his various counterattacks to dish out the damage when he gets hit. Mantis can help keep him from flipping to his alter-ego side as well. Good fun.

[SteveB_uk]

I really like the physical version of Parks. Always a big hit with people for the art, and the tokens are just pleasant to handle.

[yashima]

Due to general snow chaos in the Alps and more specifically it snowing for 2 days straight where we are (a bit more than 1m of fresh snow) … we‘ve had some time for playing games.

We taught my Dad the Crew 2. Which seems to be harder to grasp than Crew 1 which we played with him 2 years ago. Still, since he knows trick taking in general we only had to struggle to explain the goals and repeatedly the cooperative nature of the game which he continued to question. The highlight was his suggestion that he had figured out a versus mode for the game.

I played a lightning fast round of Sprawlopolis to show him the game and surprisingly on Minimarts—Sprawlopolis—The Strip scored 7 points! Recently, I have lost a few times and this time without thinking much about card placement at all… I usually hate Minimarts but I managed to make 8 of them this game!

We also played 3 games of Space Base (over the last 3 days) and I won all of them. My partner only rolled 1s and 2s for most of today’s game. He used to like the game but today the dice screwed him over.

Here‘s my winning tableau. I bought half the VP I needed and I had a clump of great cards on 7, 8 and 9 and a lot of 7s were rolled—as it should be.

(All opponents loose 4VP, buy 1 or 2 cards)

And I present to you the newly christened „asshole“-card which helped me win the first game, and when I bought it again in the second game, everyone shuddered but it didn‘t help me win, just wreck everyone else‘s score during my last turn.

I regret not taking along Viticulture. It was almost in the car but I would have had to carry it in a separate bag and I decided it was too much hassle to bring along. But we would definitely have had the time for a long game…

PS: I was out skiing every day despite the chaos. It‘s a bit exhausting. I managed just 2 runs today.

PPS: tons of playing Railroad Ink Woods on the app, tons of Ticket to Ride on the app—specifically Germany and Europe maps. And I tried Hostage Negotiator app before Final Girl KS runs out and had such horrendous luck with dice that I decided this is not a game for me.

PPPS: (sry for the edits) My friend and I finally won another Hardback coop against Penny Dreadful on BGA! After we won the first one, it took us 4 more attempts to win again.