Finished my 1846: Race for the Midwest Tournament. Losing on this one stings so much. 3 pts difference. Out of 4 games, I won two games at 1st place and the other two at 2nd place. Winning at the top of the division means I get to graduate to the next division
A quick roundup:
Spirit Island: Solo, round 2. Earth god was very different than River god in a delightful way. I won without cheating, though I did allow a couple of mulligans when I didnāt think everything through properly. Won with the benefit of some looooong turns to puzzle it out. Really like this game.
Search for Planet X: Solo, and itās nice to have a true bot. It is an incredible feeling to scoop the bot, something about man vs machine. I FOUND THE PLANET BEFORE YOU YOU HEARTLESS COMPUTER.
Aeonās End: Sorting through some old apps that never got enough play. Tried four games and deleted. Seems like it is entirely a turn zero game. Lose a couple of times to learn the bossās tricks, choose your cards and strategy, then mindlessly execute. Not the type of puzzle Iām interested in.
Hanabi: A real game with real people! It was a first for two of us, so we were very generous with the communication rules. Now that weāve sort of hashed the logical space, Iām eager to try a stricter run and see how we do. Iām guessing, though, that now that The Crew exists this doesnāt need to.
Weāll take it for several spins for the experience. And itās so small and cheap I imagine this will stick around for rainy days even if it doesnāt make the objective cut. It seems good enough and distinct enough time to justify itās footprint.
Iāve never loved Bauza, but never hated him either.
Iām interested to know if youāve also played Lords of Xidit and if you have an opinion between the two.
Iāve been keeping an eye out for a copy of this since youāve talked about it favorably. Copies, here in the US at least, very rarely hit the secondary market. That could mean itās sticking around in peoplesā collections; or it may have not done well in retail here. Itās hard to tell.
Played two games of Arboretum with my daughter last night, she fell twice for me blocking one of her trees by keeping more cards in my hand than hers. She was not happy. She focused so much on the planting, did not realise her dad is so deviousā¦
Automobiles plays super well asynch on BGA. Just donāt do the talladega map; something about it undermines the fundamental enjoyability if the game.
Iāve found playing a game on BGA (or on a computer, in general) and playing a game in person are completely different things. Iām a kinesthetic learner and have determined my first impression of games should be via physical components.
That said, since copies are so hard to come by, I might just have to track down a BGA async game opportunity.
Count me in if/when you do 
Hopefully the general principles are Dominion enough that the intangible interface is less an obstruction than with more involved/novel designs.
I canāt stand Dominion but Automobiles is always a fun time. Something about there being more going on than just your deck, probably. Iād be down to join an asynch game on Yucata!
[Automobiles]
Huh.
I must have played it at some point but I have no recollection of it.
It came out as part of AEGās āDestination Funā trio along with Planes (which Iāve never played or even seen) and Trains (not my thing but I know people who like it) ā and the expansion was originally issued as a single package of expansions for all three games, which basically annoyed everyone who only liked one or two of them. Given how often Iāve seen Trains at conventions I suspect it was the most successful of the three; I know one other person with a physical copy of Automobiles and they havenāt got the expansion, which I found in an Essen maths trade or auction.
Thanks for coming and playing!
I played a whole bunch of Blood on the Clocktower at Airecon - the 8pm-1am Saturday slot. Itās become my late night convention staple. Sects and Violets, Bad Moon Rising and Trouble Brewing.
Also of note, Pictures. A ridiculously daft fun game where people make pictures out of poor art materials (sticks and stones, or two shoelaces etc). Bought another game just to harvest for this one.
Played the 4th stage of the Marvel Champions āRise of the Red Skullā campaign.
4th villain is Zola, and phew, thatās one of the toughest Iāve seen in any box so far. Constantly burning through his deck as he throws mutated minions at you, some of which have Guard, he has Retaliateā¦ I played on non-expert and still struggled a LOT with Hawkeye and Spider-Woman. Eventually did it, but only by ignoring the mounting crisis and just shooting him in the face as much as possible.
Spider-Womanās signature ally Captain Marvel is GREAT, Hawkeyeās Mockingbird is GREAT, both the āmany aspect cardsā and ābow + arrowsā mechanics are good fun. Now on to the final 5th round, with all the cards that youāve collected during the campaignā¦
My girlfriend has been occupied with a houseguest so I got in several solo rounds over the last week or so.
Atlantis Rising - four handed. Picked it up on a CoolStuffInc sale for $30 nearly sight unseen. Turns out to be excellently produced - a spot for everything and gorgeous without excess cosmetic faff. I guess in the KS it was possible to get a version where the realistic resource tokens wereā¦shinier? I dunno, they already feel deluxe to me and theyāre for sure not the deluxe ones. Anyway. Fairly light dicey push your luck coop worker placement with enough variability in player powers, special Misfortunes, Library cards and machines youāre building to escape to have some legs but not enough depth or complexity to be a favorite for me. Still, given the price and storage footprint itās got a place in my collection. Thereās an expansion coming soon, Monstrosities, which Iām hoping bulks it out a bit (sounds like it adds monsters to contend withā¦go figure) and which Iāve preordered from Miniature Market.
Sentinels of Earth-Prime - the Mutants and Masterminds themed Sentinels of the Multiverse spinoff kickstarted over half a decade ago finally arrived. Unfortunately, they decided not to further delay it to update it to Definitive Edition compatibility (which I think was the wrong call), but after three rounds in which I tried 9 of 12 hero decks and three of five villain and environment decks, I am comfortable saying I love it anyway and itās I would say still on par with the late era of Sentinels deck design, which is to say significantly more potent and focused than some of the early designs. Or at least the heroes are. Two of the three villains seemed effective but one (Argo, the Ultimate Android) I just stomped all over and the other two didnāt quite fire on all cylinders (the Grue Meta-Mind in particular, while painful, did not immediately seem that interesting to me), and the environments really made no impression. But to be fair, environment decks are so small in Sentinels and the characters I played had so much environment manipulation in two of the games that it would be hard for them to be that memorable. Those heroes are great fun though, and thereās twelve of them, and theyāre all compatible with old Sentinels or the conversion rules for Definitive, so on that alone it would be worth it. (albeit 2 are now sold separately).
Return to Dark Tower - also a recent arrival. I am pleased to report that although it is certainly lighter than my favorite games and the tower is indeed primarily a big expensive gimmick, itās still quite a fun game with tremendous aesthetics and a cool combat/dungeon system of using a limited, context specific resource to downgrade enemy cards to take less damage or even give you things/flip dungeon room effects to be much weaker or beneficial. The two characters I played felt very distinct, and I think the quest and boss you select will make a big difference as well (and the foes are yet another variable, if less impactful).
Right now Iām set up for Unicornus Knights, which I got ages ago and am finally going to give a go over the next day or so.
Iāve said it before and Iāll say it again, Tzolkāin is a magnificent game. Won 62-57 against my wife by using a mostly religion-based strategy. It was tight and tense and fantastic.
May the Covid Games begin. With the family facing a good week of isolation, board games are turning into a nice option to kill time. Played two more games of Arboretum with my eldest, which I won, but a lot more tightly than last night. My daughter was even blocking me during gameplay holding onto cards that would have been useful. But my blockings during scoring phase gave me the edge.
And then we dusted the old Welcome To copy and had a go. I did rather well, if not the rest of the family, they were a bit rusty. But my 114 score after a long time not having played felt good.
I played about 5 or 6 games of 7 Wonders Architects, and yeah, not a fan. All 4 player games.
Too light. Not enough decisions, and often the decision to blind draw is best because it doesnāt give new/better information to your neighbours. So very heavily luck based.
But, I will say that itās fast, and that counts for something.
Thatās genuinely the most positive review Iāve seen of that game!
My partner and I really enjoyed Architects for what it was doing. I flipped it a month or so back because it just doesnāt justify the real estate, but if there was any chance of playing regularly with my non-gamer friends it would have been a hard keeper. Itās Uno-light and sometimes thereās a lot to be said for an alternative game style in that space.
Itās pure fluff and a fun race to the end. Itās intense.
Played another game of Welcome Toā¦ this morning with my eldest, scores were a lot tighter this time, the rust wore off. I just won by the difference of one project score, 104 -97
