What are your favourite solos @Benkyo?
Mage Knight is the only one I ever really got stuck into, and still the best. Somehow it even works when the only opponent is time, but the general, Volkare, from the first expansion is also very good.
Pax Pamir 2 does it well, with a card-driven opponent who has a slew of unfair advantages.
Friday is OK, simple but it works.
Iām not heavily into solo games though, I much prefer human competition. That said, there areā¦ two apps that make playing against the computer entertaining. Race for the Galaxy and the challenges on the Through the Ages app.
I think that might be a complete list. Everything else Iāve tried fell short (and confirmed my suspicion that Iām not really into solo games). I wonāt list them all, because Iām sure someone loves them.
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Heist: One team, one Mission, first play for some of the group. Went over pretty well, had a few goes at this
Nova Luna again, first play for most of the group. Everyone enjoyed the game. If you dont mind a lack of theme, or any real player interaction, then this is great.
The Crew, didnt go over so well. Group today wasnt into trick takers as much, so struggled a little
Forgotten Waters, started at scenario one again, had a great time! Even tho its the second time Iāve been thru it. Weāre committed to playing part 2 next week, so thats a good sign
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A Sunday morning jaunt to the red planet again for me, with more Terraforming Mars.
I drew the Mining Guild for the first time as my corporation, and either got lucky with the cards, or Iām finally understanding it more. This time I finished terraforming with a generation to go, and ended up with my best solo score, 74.
Easily my favourite game at the moment.
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I love your cube trays. Where they from please?
How are you raising the O2? Microbes? I canāt remember how many asteroid cards raise it but I donāt think thereās many.
Just seen Ironworks. You must have had great early Power production to pull that off.
I drew Tectonic Stress Power early, which needs two science tags, so I played the cheapest science I could find and played that, which gives you +3 energy production. There are a couple of +1 energies in there too.
The cube trays, Iāll tell you a story. I subscribe to the Hot deals Europe forum on BGG and someone on there was posting about virtual Expo, and how there were lots of deals in the BGT&C group on Facebook. I had no idea what it was, but it turns out itās a rather awesome group for boardgame trading and chat in the UK (warning: potential wallet killer). I posted in there asking about what people found to buy in the UK for bits trays, one guy responded with trays he 3D prints, so I ordered some. Iāll
Aha, I know those trays! A BGG-friend whom I havenāt been able to persuade over here brought them along to some 1 Player Guild meets. Theyāre 3d-printed designs from Thingiverse:
I believe you can buy them commercially from at least one UK supplier (and Iād be happy to run some up on my own printer).
My wife is in that group (I donāt do FB), it is a great place to find stuff at a decent price.
Nice move, Iāve played TM a lot and I donāt think Iāve ever used that card. I still learn new tricks and strategies and Power production is my latest one. It looks like youāve only got 7 forests, so to pull that in 7 separate rounds is good work.
After my first couple of oceans were used for steel production (miners guild power whenever you place on a steel or titanium tile) and cards, every ocean and grass went on a two-plant tile where possible. Every four you do that with is eight plants, so then you basically get a freebie.
Strategy in that game I find stems straight from your corporation card and that initial draw of ten cards. If you can get something to click there, it really helps.
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@IssiNoho77 Iād love to know what the supplier was (seen some on Etsy)
@RogerBW are you saying that you could run me up a set? If so, would you PM me some details please?
Yep.
I think Arctic Algae is my favourite solo card.
I donāt like to push my commercial enterprises at people (I hate spammers and I really donāt want to be one), but yes, that is a thing I am saying. PM shortly.
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I had a busy week and not much in the way if games except for one scenario Gloomhaven (#27) which took us two attempts and our monthly girls TTS session which was mostly The Crew again. Weāre up to level 21 now with 5 players.
We ended the night with a few rounds of Wavelength. We used the web gizmo thing quite successfully with me screensharing to the others via jitsi.
It was my first play of the game and I think it would be much more fun in person. So i am looking forward to the playing this at some social gathering in some near or far futureā¦
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Last night we had what has become our regular remote game day with our friends. Played Lords of Vegas again, as it has really worked well over Zoom.
I was not very confident going in, as everyone jumped ahead of me pretty quickly and it took a while before I got on the board. One friend jumped ahead early, though the other players managed to catch up, one of them by stealing control of two of my casinos, the jerk! And none of my reorg rolls ever seemed to pan out until near the end of the game.
Meanwhile, my wife pulled ahead with three decent sized casinos. I only started catching up once I retook one of my original casinos and grew it to a 6 tile. My wife managed to get control of the other 3 spaces and merged it into one big casino, and I actually managed to win the roll off between our tied 6ās. She used those changed out tiles to remodel and sprawl her other casinos into a 6 tile and two 5 tile ones.
Probably needless to say at this point, but she won with 60 points, with the rest of us at 32, 29 (me), and 26. Just wiped the floor with us.
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Just finished playing Feudum for the first time. It was difficult. The rules arenāt wildly difficult in some ways. But thereās quite a bit of interaction between parts and the strategies are somewhat opaque in the first game. We all enjoyed it though and all looking forward to playing again. So a success for sure. I still like the art too
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I beat the first scenario of Sword & Sorcery (Immortal Souls campaign) this morning. It was touch and go in a few spots throughout, but not the instant disaster my first attempt/learning game was. Ryld, my Bard character, took an unavoidable hit near the end of the scenario and died, and unfortunately he was my first hero to level up, so he went back down to level one. I resurrected him on my final turn, but I may retroactively adjust that decision after a quick rules confirm, as heroes might resurrect automatically between quests. If thatās the case Iāll have enough XP to level up a hero going into the next quest. Regardless, Iāve got a decent little pile of $225 coins to spend ahead of our next foray.
This is a pretty exceptional beast of a game. Even running on the same engine as Galaxy Defenders, the two games really scratch an entirely different itch. Galaxy Defenders offers a meatier, pure tactical experience, while S&S really leans on character powers and synergy, progression, questing, and enemy variety (and again, synergy). One could totally justify having both in their collections.
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My wife and I played a quick game of Unmatched, Medusa (her) vs Alice (me). I felt constantly behind as she kept hitting me with attacks that forced me to discard a card, and her ranged attacks let her keep attacking me from a sage distance while the harpies worked to box me in. It also didnāt help that she brought back two of the harpies I killed.
I got one good hit in on Medusa early, but did not manage to hit her again, though I killed harpies four times. She picked away at Alice other than one good hit for 4 damage that I did not defend against in an effort to conserve cards. When I finally got a couple of useful cards that I could possibly start a counter-offe sive, I was a 2 health and was unable to withstand Medusaās attack.
Alice is interesting to play. I think I need to check the rules for when you pick her starting size, as knowing if you have cards in hand that can change it when you want would be good to know. As it is, her big size really gives you the opportunity to dish out some punishment, while her small size letās you win some defenses that you otherwise wouldnāt, which can give you an after combat perk depending on the card played. Definitely want to try her out some more.
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Another game of Dice Throne, another victory for my partner. This was a pretty grizzly match between the Tactician (me) and the Huntress (her). The game was close in spite of my damage output, which was substantial, thanks to her smart use of Nyra (her faithful tiger and tragic ever dying meatshield). She got uncanny luck with her (basically) free resurrect roll precisely the turn after the KO three times(!), which essentially halted my assault.
The final rounds got nuts as I was down to 6HP to her 10, but with a full health Nyra. I bought myself a round with a well timed card which forced a supremely lucky reroll in her offense phase which caused a full dud roll (very rare). And I actually managed to hold on for a good 3 turns after that, but her tiger (who got one of the aforementioned resurrects here) ensured she stayed at 10HP until I finally bit it.
Another challenging matchup! The Tactician has high damage output, but few unblockable options with reasonable damage. The Huntress, meanwhile, has a pretty significant counter attack in her ādefenseā roll (no damage mitigation whatsoever). It means she needs to be careful managing her tiger, but it also means sheās frequently able to narrow the gains on my big wallops when she has to take a hit herself. The final two turns were really just waiting for the inevitable, but this round came to one hell of a finale.
Cripes am I ever surprised with how much I love this one.
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Over the weekend, my eldest daughter (2.5 years) was enthusiastic about playing games. In the past, she would say, āLetās play game! Orchard game!ā and I would get First Orchard out and set it up and about 30 seconds later she would lose interest. This past weekend was different; where in the past weāve managed to finish a game, but only just ā this past Saturday, we played 6 games back-to-back followed by a short potty break and then another 3 games. And on Sunday, we played 5 more games up until my back began to hurt too much from sitting at a tiny table in a tiny chair. And even still, she wants to play some more. So: 14 games played this weekend and all of them were First Orchardā .
I also tried another solo game of Aeonās End last night, this time via TTS mod (since tabletop space is at a premium at the moment). Randomly selected nemesis was Knight of Shackles and randomly selected 2-up mages were: Garu and Reeve. Ultimately, I wasnāt able to get those particular mages ramped up fast enough to either do enough damage or create enough Aether to combat Knight-o-Shacklesās straight-forward concept. I forfeited shortly before the end; itās possible I could have kept going and had a glimmer of a chance, but it was getting late. Iām eager to try again.
ā :Sheās going to get some new games soon
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My 9YO daughter and I started a game of The Storymasterās Tales today, since we got the narrations as an add-on to the most recent kickstarterā¦ We almost immediately found a bear skin, and got turned into vampires. My little thief is now nearly unstoppable In a physical fight, but our quest win condition is definitely going to require magic.
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