Popped down to the board game cafe for some games this evening. Sadly we only had time for one: The Castles of Mad King Ludwig
It was fine. Firmly in the category of “I’ll play if someone really wants to”. Just way too fiddly for what it is. And we were playing the collector’s edition, which is ridiculously overblown for little benefit.
My wife, her brother, and I sat down for a game of Lords of Vegas. I thought I was going to get blown out about halfway through the game, as I was on the 10 point mark while they were probably in the 20’s, but I had a string of hits on my Sphinx casino which neither of them had, which caught me up. Eventually we were all tied on the space where the scoring breakpoint becomes 4.
We all need our whatever casino increases we could before the game ended, and my wife ended up winning since she was able to get three casinos on the Strip that scores at the endgame, while the rest of us only had two. Scores were 54 for my wife, and the other two of us tied at 49.
Horseless Carriage is awesome. First game was mostly trying to figure out how to build a factory that didn’t suck, and we didn’t use trucks or sports cars, but competition in marketing and planning was still intense.
The HC version of turn order is really cool: you generate gantt charts through planning departments, and can spend all of them to choose to focus on engineering or sales. Engineering focus lets you build first (components are limited) and benefit from other players’ research, while sales focus lets you snap up sales first, unsurprisingly. There’s so much I love about this, like the way a huge research lead isn’t game winning, and indeed someone else may (and did) help your research instead of their own to get access to better technology. Also, you can focus hard on planning to be able to choose turn order, but a) it isn’t turn order, just focus, and b) you have to spend it all, so a player that doesn’t can save up and get their choice at some point.
The factory building though, wow. Honestly, this might be the first spatial “polyomino” puzzle game I’ve played that didn’t disappoint me. Feast for Odin is just efficient packing, Antiquity is largely solvable, Bear Park bored me… but this, this is crazy. You can put down as much as you want. All the research, all the planning, multiple main lines, multiple sales departments… but you have to cram it all in, and expansion of the factory floor is freeform but slow. You can only put down technology you researched, or have access to from other players via engineering focus, and it’s easy to paint yourself into a corner with a car that goes really fast, for example, but has no room to be upgraded for safety features. This year, that nets you sales, but your opponents have been innovating in safety research, and that captures the public’s imagination, next year safety is all the rage, and you can only sell to the cheapest end of the market…
My cars had sturdy frames, hand-cranked engines, radiators, and horns. Range, reliability and speed (I love that horns are an innovation that benefits speed), but still on the low end of available tech. The last-minute addition of windshields helped with a few sales when that suddenly became a concern at the end of the game. I never got round to brakes or paint.
Really impressed with this.
Edit: posting this photo elsewhere, someone informed me we were benefiting too much from our measly tech investment. If we’d played correctly, the space pressure would have been more intense, and there’s no way we’d have been able to ramp up production like we did. Even better!
What is the purpose of the „frames“ (lower center purple and left edge → other colors)?
It looks quite fascinating and daunting.
With how many people were you playing here? (I can see 3 factories now that I looked again, never mind)
The frames are marketing windows. Each dealership uses one, and the number of adjacent sales departments determines the size of the window. In the sales phase, you place the window(s) on the market board, but you are limited as to how far along the axes you can place them by the level of tech being added to your cars. So on my board, bottom right, I had engines and horns for speed, and two of my main lines had windshields for safety. That meant I could sell to people that demanded up to 2 speed, 1 safety from two of my dealers, but the last dealer with the big window couldn’t sell to people demanding safety 1+. Those being the only two things people cared about in the last round.
One of my dealerships used the 3x3 window, the other two were stuck with 1x2 windows.
You can see the windows placed on the board.
On Friday I got to teach Ark Nova to a friend and my partner joined in for a 3 player round. Having played mostly solo I completely messed up noticing the first „coffee break“ coming up and was left in the cold with 5 income. That was hard to stomach and I pleaded with my partner to do something else… but he said he had no choice. So I admit when I played a card that was able to bury things from the market the next round I may have removed a couple of cards he might have wanted (there-by protecting him from trying to draw a card he would not have been able to play for a long time…) but he still got mad at me for my petty revenge. Our friend struggled but made a respectable -4 points. My partner played really well but neglected to ramp up tempo towards the end allowing me to fulfill my goal of filling up my Zoo completely and which gave me a total of 4 conservation points and (due to 2 separate sponsor cards that gave 5 I think) an additional 7 + 5 + 5 attraction for this handed me the win by about 7 points… I should have just forgot the 2 sponsor cards at the end letting him have the victory because he really played a good game and I got lucky -.- I was accused to be a try-hard that always has to win. But we have played so few competitive games recently I just forgot I am supposed to try to lose 
Yesterday we visited friends and played 2 rounds of Camel Up. Their son left after the first to go programming because he said the game was just random and he wanted to play something more challenging. In the second round one player guessed both the winning and losing camel right on the basis of … nothing and won 
I did really badly in both games. I am terrible at gambling apparently, but as this is pure chaos… It doesn‘t count for me as losing a game…
Then we played Azul Queen‘s Garden. Sadly, my teach apparently sucked because my friend didn‘t hear the part where a joker was still just worth 1 tile when paying placement costs and she proceeded to grab a bunch of 6 and 5 tiles… she found out when trying to place stuff after we had drafted all the tiles and garden expansions for the first round. I tried to give her tips how to recover from the blunder by extending the expensive groups with colors to make the tiles worthwhile… but she was so caught up in her first mistake that she didn‘t listen and ended up hovering around 0 points until the end when she made it up to around 25 points with everyone else having overtaken her … again my partner played a really good game and I won by luck—I got the final bird on one of the very last tile draws to complete a group of 6 and won by about 8 points (2 from the bird and 6 from the bonus). My blundering friend usually plays games like Spirit Island, Lost Ruins of Arnak and Castles of Burgundy with me… and wins the competitive ones so I think she‘ll be fine to play another game and win
Future plays: tonight we‘re visiting BiL and were asked to bring games (they asked to CaH which luckily I don‘t own anymore). We‘re probably taking Space Base and Dixit.
I don’t often bother posting here as my once-a-week single game hardly seems worth it.
But I actually had a boardgame night!
Happy Little Dinosaurs Bidding game with threat. Nobody was paying attention to me - you needed 50 points to win. I had 49! If I lost a round I’d win and if I won a round I’d win. So they had to keep me in the middle. Never had that before, was a wonderful place to be! (And I won!)
Skull I’ll always play this, if offered. Won a couple.
Flamme Rouge I haven’t played this in an age, and this was the first six player game I can remember doing. Messed up at the start because I was too busy focussing on everyone else. Managed to get back to the front right at the end and… one player moved just ahead of me as we went over the line! Thrilling as usual!
And today…
Reign of Cthulhu Played solo, and messed up one or two rules, so my victory is rather tainted.
Darkest Dungeon Been playing this for a few weeks with my son. We finally finished the campaign today with a victory. 1) I love the combat, 2) The exploration is interesting 3) the rules are full of holes 4) It didn’t feel challenging enough. Will have to house-rule a few things… But in general - had a lot of fun and don’t completely regret the money I spent. Would have liked a standee version even more…
We offered up Dixit, Space Base and my last minute addition Cascadia and my SiL chose Space Base because „there seems to be the most game here“. I know my BiL is not a boardgame player… we have played a few games in the past but he was rarely enthusiastic. So I found out it was SiL who asked for a gamenight I was quite surprised but happily so.
Space Base was absolutely perfect. BiL won with a bit if a of runaway victory. We may have helped with a few tips at the start and then the dice just wanted him to win He finished the game when the rest of us were hovering around 10 VP each by buying 2 of the colonies and then asked „aren‘t those things like ‚fun stoppers‘?“ I explained they were fun enhancers because they allowed him to end the game we all knew he was winning and we had to not suffer through 5 more rounds of gloating 
Quote of the night:
„Sometimes you have a choice between money and more money!“
„Oh I wish I had that in real life.“
So SiL asked if I knew any good two player games and I am like „I can give you a list of games that play well at 2 or dedicated 2 player games.“ I explained how we don‘t often enjoy dedicated 2 player games because they get too competitive for us. Then I added that we do like 7 Wonders Duel. And she googles it and goes „We have that game upstairs, unopened. We got it as a present but never played.“ The game was opened a few minutes later…
edit: I made the lists… because I can:
Nothing but a quick game of Ticket to Ride: London today with my wife. She got screwed over when I triggered the end game, which deprived her of the one extra turn she needed to fulfill a ticket, costing her 9 points and causing her to lose 39 - 22.
That’s basically every game of ticket to ride for me.
After playing on BGA a fair bit I’ve become waaaay more cautious. (And analysing hand sizes).
Tonight at Local Game Group, three new players (all of them new-ish to modern games) meant seven of us. So:
I believe I’ve played Indian Summer (though it was awhile ago) but not Cottage Garden. Spring Meadow has you filling from one edge, which gives it much more of a Tetris vibe and it seems the simplest of the three ruleswise - I could explain all the rules of Spring Meadow in one breath. I own and enjoy Patchwork and have played Isle of Cats among other polyomino games but I do prefer the purity of Spring Meadow - it’s just the joy of puzzling - nothing to clutter that up. Jon Purkis over at Actualol has a great review and shares my feelings.
Been enjoying Actualol content a lot recently. It’s filled a hole left by NPI over the last 8 or 9 months where they’ve focused almost entirely on huge, expensive games I will never be interested in. Didn’t realise Actualol had reviewed that game though.
On Sunday we did our infrequent visit to our Cooperative Friends™.
We started off by playing with them and their kid, and so I pulled out Cat in the Box. I had a good time getting my teeth kicked in, but Andy doesn’t like trick takers and hates losing, and so this was a big no from her. She is willing to try it one more time, just to confirm that she doesn’t like it, but otherwise I think I’m going to have to say goodbye to it. Final scores were 15-15-12-0-0.
Then we played the main event: Chapter 3 of Oathsworn. We cheated again (Battleflow isn’t automatic, people… only the 0 section comes back into your hand), but still only won by a hair (two of our Oathsworn were taken out).
Still a lot of fun. I’m gratified that it seems to be as good as I hoped it was. Next chapter in only 2 weeks!
And then we finished off with a quick game of The Fuzzies. Still way better than it has any right to be.
Played in my largest Flesh and Blood tournament at the weekend.
Day 1 - 177 player tournament. Came 17th.
I played Fai, an aggro fire ninja. Went 4-0, had some decent games. Matched into my friends Oldhim, an ice guardian. I’ve never won against him before, and he was completely teched for me. He swept the floor with me. Then matched into another Oldhim who did the exact opposite - blocking and disrupted every turn I had to the point where I hardly did anything. And some terrible draws didn’t help. Then had a nice easy final round. On the bright side, the two players who beat me both made it to the semi-finals, so I only lost to some of the best! Record: 6-2
Day 2 - 166 player tournament. Came 21st.
Same hero, just went for it. Unfortunately second round matched into Iyslander, ice wizard, played by a friend who top 8ed the previous day (so much friendly fire!). Once again hilariously bad hand draws led to me dying pretty fast. But then I submarines big time - matched into a ranger who didn’t seem to know that rangers do not block, then another Iyslander who didn’t see any of their disruption so I killed them in no time flat. Then round 6, my opponent had dropped so I got a bye!!! Round 7 I was live for top 8, but matched into my friend who had built a meta counter deck. The deck was great except for one thing, it can’t beat Fai. I was pretty anguished as I destroyed him. Last turn I decided to concede to get him into the top 8. The rest of the meta was good for him and I wanted to see him shine! Got to the play that would be lethal, then threw the game in. Everyone thought I was mad, but it was great to see a friend do so well. Final match was against one of my best friends who was a bit tilted from his last game. So we both chilled out and had a laugh. Great way to end the weekend.
Record 5-3 (well, 6-2 really)
According to ELO, I’m now the 59th best player in the UK. 
Can’t wait to hear how much SUSD dislike FaB on the podcast 
Got to play Nick at Battletech again. Gosh, what a neat little tabletop wargame… I’m so glad I like it, considering the hundreds of dollars I have spent on (still unused!) models.
We met across the digital battlefield of “Desert Outpost,” a neat little map that has a series of rocky steppes, an oasis, and a couple small fortifications. We wanted to try a scenario, rather than “Punch Each Other Until Ya Can’t No More” (“Rochambeau Rules”), so I set up the “Death From Above” (a Battletech-focused website) scenario “Take & Hold.” Basically a Super Important Thing was placed at the exact middle of the map, and you gained 1 Objective Point if you had a model within 3 hexes of it and your opponent didn’t. Game went to 10 turns or first player to 5 OP.
My lance consisted of a Jenner (the 4 Medium Laser build, piloted ably by Bo Benner), a Clint (with her pilot, Westwood), a Guillotine (with Frenchie at the helm), and an Awesome (controlled by The Hammer).
Nick brought a Raven (with the Large Laser, 2 Mediums, and an SRM6), a Trebuchet (2 LRM15s in a medium chasis! Crazy), a Catapult (the 2K variant with the dual PPCs instead of LRMs), and a Highlander (no LosTech, so the AC20 variant instead of the Gauss Rifle).
We also decided to try out pilots: Nick took an ace pilot for his Catapult (1/2 skill, which is insane, and some bonkers rules that Nick forgot wouldn’t work on his Catapult… they were for missile-clustering, but the Catapult 2K has no missiles!), and I took one for my Awesome (2/2 and with the ability to run a little faster and to ignore heat a bit better). We also got to upgrade one of our mechs to the same stats but no skills as our opponent’s pilot, so my Clint became a 1/2 and Nick’s Highlander became a 2/2.
Lovely.
With all that out of the way, battle was met! The first three rounds saw Nick launching long range shots at my approaching army while his Raven rushed towards the middle. My Jenner made extensive use of its Jumpjets to flank wide to the east behind cover, while my Awesome muttered something about cursing the torpedoes and rushed headlong forward.
Turn 4 my Clint jumped directly behind his Raven and opened up on it, raking its back with laser fire and doing some pretty hefty damage (one shot went internal, but no crit). In response, Nick’s Highlander opened up on my Clint, and his first shot was the AC20, which hit the head and blew it clean off.
Turn 5 my Awesome and Guillotine and Jenner all fire on Nick’s Catapult (my Jenner rushing around and behind his forces), and in response Nick hammered The Hammer (who I think was considering changing his name to The Nail at this point, considering the volume of incoming fire). He landed a Crit, damaging my Fusion Engine, but The Hammer was still in the fight!
Turn 6 my Awesome finally took out Nick’s Catapult and my Jenner, standing directly behind his Trebuchet, managed to get a crit that hit its LRM ammo, causing a Stackpole mushroom cloud. In response, Nick’s Highlander landed another headshot with its AC20 and decapitated my Guillotine.
That’s some irony right there. Decapitating a Guillotine. Carrying on.
Turn 7 my Awesome punched Nick’s Raven and opened up with its PPCs on his Highlander, taking it out but then finally falling to the return fire from both mechs. Nick scored the first OP of the round!
Turn 8, Nick down to his Raven and I down to my (still pristine) Jenner open fire on each other. Nick gets a few hits in, most of which ping off the armour, but my Jenner is capable of slicing off the Raven’s leg, causing it to fall. Nick fails the pilot roll, and the pilot goes unconscious.
Victory!
What a neat game. You have to be okay with some pretty wild swings of fortune: two shots killing two pristine mechs to dead could be pretty tilting if you take the game “seriously.” And I’m not sure how impactful the scenario was (although it did tend to pull us both towards the center, rather than hanging back). Nick introduced me to a lovely website called “Flech Sheets” which is fantastic except it doesn’t let you track more than 30 heat (the highest the scale goes before it lands in “Overstack,” and my Awesome generates 30 heat every time it fires (plus 1 for walking, plus 5 for the Fusion Engine hit)… that seems like a really silly oversight, but I can’t find anywhere that shows how to use the Overstack box. Silly!
Anyway. Great little game. I look forward to playing again!
What’s the digital battlefield you’re using? Someone elsewhere was asking about options.
My wife and I played a quick game of Jaipur last night. I say “quick” because she utterly crushed me on two rounds. She didn’t even need to count her bonus tokens both rounds. Scores were 78 - 66 for the first round, and then 81 - 64 the second. The precious goods just kept coming up for her.
Then, since we are having a get-together with friends this weekend, I opened up my copy of Take 5 (better known as 6 Nimmt!), just to read the rules. After seeing how simple the game is, my wife suggested we try it, so we did. A few minutes later, she had won again with 2 penalty points to my 6. Easy to play and teach, and can handle up to 10 players, which should be perfect if we get around to gaming this weekend.
Nick and I play using TTS, but he’s apparently had a lot of fun with"MegaMek," a freeware Battletech simulator that lets you play against AI (and build your own units, and print your own data sheets if you so desire).
Unlike many TTS mods, there doesn’t seem to be a main mod to use: instead, you download separate mods for the Battlemech models (there is a good one, but even it is probably 85% of the mechs… for example, there is no Clint nor an Guillotine, but a Clint looks a lot like a Vindicator, and a Guillotine looks a lot like a Grasshopper…), and then a specific map you want to play on. There are also mods for Battletech “tools” (reference sheets, dice, etc), but we don’t use those either.
To build a list, I use the “Master Unit List” website with its humble-but-functional “Total Warfare Builder” function (which gives you updated BV for each mech, plus allows you to modify pilot skills and updates the BV correspondingly), and then pick the models in the TTS mod, throw those models into a bag which I then save, then load the map, then pull the saved bag of models out of your “Saved Objects,” and Robert is your mother’s brother.
During the game we use Flechs Sheets, which lets you link to another player’s lists to see their models and update everything on the fly. Super helpful, although it doesn’t track Heat over 30, which is super dumb. One round of shooting with an Awesome generates 30 heat, plus heat for walking or running, and you just have to remember that you spent more than 30. Silly.
Just the map, some generic white (walking), black (running), and red (jumping) dice, plus a bucket of D6 for shooting. For this specific scenario I also Copy-Pasted a building into the exact center of the map and then renamed it “Super Important Thing” and locked it in place (originally I used a chess Pawn as a marker, but the building looked better).
Thanks. I’ve used MegaMek myself, but I think this guy was looking for something a bit more streamlined for teaching new players.
