Yeah. You can also choose to trigger the end boss whenever you fancy after the henchman has been dealt with. The idea is you build up stats to the point where you feel you can win harder challenges than what you normally face consistently.
I think on future plays our games would be quite short - the encounters are very breezy and the rules (like most rules) read like there’s more to them than there is in practice.
Yes, it didn’t feel like a cramped or cut-down game the way some two-player modes do. I think the only change was that we had five bird species in play rather than six.
Ready, Set, Bet - a tabletop version of betting on a horse race. Each horse is a dice roll result - e.g. a 7 horse moves when a 7 is rolled in a dice roll. So, the 7 horse is likely to win. But a 3 has better returns. The other horses are 2/3 and 11/12 - the odds are so bad they decided to give them two numbers to move.
Good game, if that is the sort that you are looking for. Camel Cup remains a fave of mine.
Project L
Power Grid - after playing 18xx, I have come to appreciate Power Grid more. It has the playstyle in which if you are the player who earn the most revenues (- cost) then you are in a winning position. But PG made itself more forgiving with the rubber-banding. By being at the last places of the turn order, you have to make do of that turn order advantage to launch yourself forward. Obviously, it’s up to you if the rubber-banding sounds laright to you. Otherwise, stick to, say, Age of Steam. AoS is less mathsy and crueller game. Very intriguing game.
Note: if I have a say on redesigning PG. I would rewrite the power plant auction like this:
after an auction is complete, place the power station with the lowest number from the Future market to the Current market. Rearrange the Current market row by numerical order. And then, draw from the top of the deck and place it on the Future market and rearrange the row by numerical order. DO NOT rearrange the Current and Future market together.
The amount of surprise draws is annoying and swingy, but not a deal-breaker
Some games over the last week or so:
Azul Summer Pavilion x2, this one is so much more fun than the original, for me at least. Which is strange cause they aren’t that different. Won one, lost one.
Arctic Scavengers, good to get this to the table again - very close game in the end, having more refugees for the humanitarian gang cinched the win. Still yet to play with the Recon expansion. Maybe next time 
(which I think I always say and then leave it too long and decide to go with what I know.)
Cascadia, as always a close one, I pulled ahead with my animal scoring in the end.
Jaipur
Spring Meadow a really terrific and under-rated polyomino placement game. The rules are straightforward yet there’s still some interesting decisions in there.
Eclipse: Second Dawn, I was excited about this one all week! I finally opted to upgrade from first edition when I found a cheaper 2nd hand copy - so great to get it to the table. We all went aliens - Draco, Planta and Hydran. The Planta kind of ran away with the game in the second half - we really needed to harrass them a bit more, but they had a bunch of missile interceptors that frightened me off (though even tying them up in defense would’ve probably been worthwhile, so they couldn’t muscle in on a couple of monoliths in Draco’s territory). Really interesting and a big improvement on 1st ed in lots of little ways. Am already anticipating another game of it - and our winner said he really liked it and would love to play it again - so success !
Point Salad x2, this was one of our wind down games after Eclipse, I won both rounds - this really shines with 2 or 3 players I feel - with 4+ it feels a bit too chaotic and whether you get the cards you need is more at the whim of random chance.
Hanamikoji x2, my buddy saw this one on the shelf and thought it looked cool. He managed to win both of our games despite never playing it before… I’m clearly not very good at it, but I do enjoy it quite a bit.
Agents of SMERSH: Epic Edition, first play. I played the original years ago, this is the new Kickstarter edition. Its fully cooperative, and you run around the world and encounter various situations. So, when you have an encounter, you draw a card which will have a 2 digit code. Then you get a list of possible choices, which gives you another code, and finally you roll a die and get yet another digit. Then, you use that code to lookup what happens in the big encounter book, and what test you need to pass. Tests are generally based on your basic attributes – Spycraft, Persuasion, Deception, Athletics,
and Hand to Hand. Each level you have in that attribute allows you to roll another die. But even on zero, you get one die. The dice have three possible faces (two of each) – success, fail, and resolve. Resolve means you spend a resolve and turn the face to anything you want. Each time you fail the boss moves closer to you. You collect intel tokens from tests and from locations, and when you have enough of these you can fight a henchman (like a mini-boss). It was fun, but a bit random. And seemed to take a while, after about two hours we were still a fair way from the boss. But we basically punched the game and learnt it, so that took some time obviously.
Last Will, basically Brewsters Millions, the board game. You want to lose all your money as quickly as you can, by doing various things, like holding wild parties, buying properties and letting them devalue, and hiring helpers that cost you money. It’s pretty good fun. Each round you position your token, which determines how many cards you get, how many errand boys, and (most importantly) how many actions you’ll get. Generally, the more you get, the further to the right you’ll be, taking your turn later. Want to be first to grab a card? You’ll only get one errand boy, and one action. Errand boys are used to take cards and perform other actions on the main boards. This game still holds up, the art is great, and it’s cool fun to play.
Catch the Moon
Swinging Jivecat Voodoo Lounge, first play. Saw this for cheap so gave it a go. Components are cool, you get a cocktail glass, and victory points are shown by hanging monkeys on your glass. The game is set in the year 1962, and thematically you’re trying to make new friends by buying them drinks. You’ll be using cards to place chips on the board, and also for casting one of five different spells. Spells allow you to save a card so you can use it every turn, save a card and force other players to pay you to use that number, remove cards or chips from other players, move a chip by moving over other chips, and move onto the jivecat characters on the board. You get points in three different ways – by moving onto a jivecat, placing a chip on a “2” or “10” character, and taking a trend card (if you meet the conditions of the card). It’s a bit of a weird game, not sure how much play it will get.
In Vino Morte, first play. One of three games I bought from Button Shy. All their games have 18 cards, and come in a wallet. This is the easiest to play. Each card shows either wine or poison. The dealer gives each player a card face down – they can’t have all wine or all poison, but any combination is fine. On your turn, you either turn up your card, or swap the card with another face down card. When everyone has played, all cards are turned over. If your card is poison, you’re out. That’s the entire game. It plays up to nine, and would probably be better with more people. But it’s good fun still at 4p. It reminds me of Skull, but even easier to play. I might even try it with another group of (non gaming) friends – I tried Skull once and that was too much for them.
Stew, first play. Second game from Button Shy. there are six vermin cards, and twelve ingredient cards. You draw an ingredient, and can either add it to the stew (face down), or place it on a vermin (again, face down). Anyone can call “Stew!”, and then you go through the ingredients to see how many points are there. Each unfed vermin will take an ingredient before scoring. For example, the Fox will eat the chicken. Some ingredients are just worth X points, others have conditions. Like potatoes are worth points equal to the number of potatoes in the stew. If the stew if worth at least 12 points, then whoever called it gets two VPs. If it’s worth less than 12, everyone else gets one VP. You win when you get five VP. There’s a bit more to think about than In Vino Morte, but it seems hard to deduce much about the stew.
And finally, we were going to play Skulls of Sedlec, the third game from Button Shy, but realised it’s only for 2-3 players, not 4. Bit of a shame, was looking forward to it.
Also brought out Back to the Future: Back in Time, but it was vetoed, which doesn’t happen very often. It’s all Biffs fault.
Had a somewhat miserable game of Everdell today, using the Newleaf expansion, and adding in the Extra, Extra! cards for the first time. The game itself was fine, but our older kid started having a tantrum which forced us to deal with him, to the point one of us would be in his bedroom with him while the other one took their turn, then we’d swap. The inability to sit and focus on the game hit us both, but probably my wife more, and she always gets really frustrated when she underperforms, especially when the cause is beyond her control.
We also discovered that we had been playing without Theaters, Universities, Toad Barges, and a Storehouse, as for some inexplicable reason, those cards were shrunk in with the expansion and legendary cards. I had seen them and wondered what was special about them, so only today did I bother to look for the ones in the main deck to compare them, only to not find any but the Storehouse! So all of our games with the Complete Collection have been flawed! At least that part is resolved going forward.
Despite the crap playing conditions, we kind of broke scoring records, thanks to Newleaf. I won with 122 to my wife’s 86. We actually had to break out the 6 value point tokens because we ran out of all the 1 and 3 value tokens! I had 46 points from tokens alone! It was insane!
I shudder to think what our scores could have been had we been able to focus solely on the game.
I tried the Cascadia solo competition for November 6 times. My best score against the 100 target was 96 on attempt #3. Will try again if only because it is an interesting puzzle and I need to crack it.
Also played the 2nd map in Guild of Merchant Explorers. I enjoyed my third game of this more than the first two as I get to know the game better. Also: playing with poker chips or just a point counter is far better than the cardboard coins. Still fiddly though putting tradingpost and treasure tokens under your explorer tokens. I need a „giant edition“.
Lastly, we set up the intro scenario for Mage Knight again, I took the role of GM and guided my partner through the first day as a solo while teaching him. This worked well, as I could focus on the rules and his play. But it took a long time and then we ran out of that as dinner approached. We left the game on the table but moved it over a bit and will hopefully continue today. I really need to see if there are any improved rules overview files on BGG. I keep not finding things.
Just wrapped up another attempt at Scenario 4 of Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion and racked up another failed scenario. At this point, I am not certain that the scenario can be cleared by the Demolitionist and the Voidwarden.
I feel like I do okay at first, but eventually my Demolitionist starts getting overwhelmed and has to lose cards to prevent exhaustion from health loss, but with just 9 cards in hand, and the need to eliminate all enemies to win the scenario, he just peters out before getting to the end. And his specials involving destroying terrain or being near walls just is not that helpful on this map.
Meanwhile, the Voidwarden tries to keep the Demolitionist alive, while making enemies trip traps and getting a bit of damage in here and there. He just seems to lack enough direct damage once the Demolitionist is out. I got down to the final three enemies, and wounded two of them, to the point one would die at the start of it’s next turn, but I was out of cards and exhausted out.
I will try yet again at some point, but I am starting to think I need to swap out a hero.
Edit: alternately, I need some better items.
I couldn’t get the Demolitionist to work at all. Hatchet and Redguard were much better (although I really want to try voidwarden).
Yeah. You need a tank, at least. Having just AoE and Support is a squishy team.
Scenario 4 is really hard. We played it 4 player (I was the Demolitionist) and I think we won with our last possible card play.
Scenario 4 is the only scenario we lost in the first half or so of the campaign, with the Hatchet and Red Guard.
We have since played it with the Demolitionist & Voidwarden team and were successful, so I can at least tell you that it is possible if you did want to keep trying.
Oh, I will keep trying. I’m too stubborn to quit!
I do think I need to revisit the item shop, though, as at the moment, all I have are small items, and I can only bring one with each character, which is typically a healing potion. Some armor for the Demolitionist may help his sponginess.
This is what I was talking about with regards to box size.
If it’s anything like Gloomhaven, a stamina potion, even a minor one, is much more significant than a healing potion.
(The point when characters can get the better stamina potions seemed like major break-point for difficulty, after which everything was too easy)
I think a general rule I have in games (video or board) is that health bonus is basically a bonus to cover badness rather than incentivising good play. ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK!
Yeah, a key thing to remember in Gloomhaven is that your health doesn’t matter. Only hits that would exceed your health matter because they would knock you out. So all health is is a buffer against having to spend cards blocking damage. So stamina potions, by restoring cards, are automatically more powerful because that card is either extending the number of turns you can act in the scenario before you run out, or an instance of damage blocked. Health potions just make you less likely to need to use a card to block in the first place.
It might be different. I think JOTL uses the updated stamina potion rules where it provides one less card, so one card in a basic stamina potion.
Unless you played the digital version with the same rules. Either way I agree, the stamina potion is the best item in the game by a long shot. Worst for game play are going to be spoilered as they get unlocked the flying boots were rubbish. Removed so much of the fun, just being able to ignore traps and obstacles and the gme became much easier and more tedious.
I’d actually forgotten the pre-nerf stamina potion gave 2 cards, that was crazy. Yes, we did start that way, but also started using the nerf after it was posted. Still better than healing, even post-nerf.
I remember stumbling on this just after having played the game digitally. It can be easily missed on the table, or at least I did, thinking the usual fantasy way, where you need more health than anything else, I missed how important something that recycles/ gives you more uses of cards can be.