This. As we are just starting out (yay I am brooding over level 3 cards atm), most scenarios have been short, which allows me to choose the „lose a lot of cards quickly“ route. I also just added the +2/dark modifier card because there is no ditching that part of the character in favor of shadows or so the higher level cards suggest 
3 Likes
Yesterday, my wife and I played Lost Cities, which I easily won because she started out with a bad round with -30 in white cards, leaving her at -8 for that round. It didn’t get much better in the second round as she finished with 2, bringing her total to -6, while I had mid-30 scores for both rounds. The third round was much more representative of our usual games, but I still won that round and the game as a whole, 140 - 39.
Then we played a introductory game of Star Wars: the Deckbuilding Game. I was the Empire while she played the Rebels. We only played a small bit, just enough for us both to lose our first base, and understand the rules fully.
7 Likes
Played 18Mex today with 4 including @lalunaverde who won.
Really enjoyed this one. I like the privates, they are interesting but feel like they provide varied starts more than being too deterministic. I like the map and how it’s competitive around all the points of value on the board. On a personal note I’m pleased with a hunch of moves I pulled off here. I did some stock market manipulation, had a little fun with trashing and didn’t spend too long arsing around with train shuffling causing me to lose value. I did make a decision about going fast on a train purchase and got convinced to go back on it which was an error which I think cost me the game. Still, progress has been made so hopefully next time some more progress will happen. Either way I’m looking forward to another play of this title. 
7 Likes
More solo Marvel Champions, getting a feel for more of the basic heroes, still against The Rhino chap, who seems jolly angry about something. Captain Marvel and Black Panther this time, trying out leadership and protection. Enjoying so far, so have set up again for a go against Klaw next time to see how I get on.
5 Likes
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Cthulhu Death May Die - awesome dice chucker. It doesn’t drag for so long like Mansions of Madness, which can last for freaking hours. Yeah, this is very good. I really like how your characters get stronger as your sanity gets weaker. I do feel that the story could have been a bit more visible and immersive. I still prefer Elder Signs as my go-to Cthulhu storytelling dice-chucker.
Bohnanza
Scout
Carcassonne
Taluva Deluxe - still one of my fave tile layers. Spatially thinky in a span of 30 to 45 minutes.
18Mex - very good game! I think I did the fundamentals right: parred low at the start to get more shares in my portfolio than the others (but Wyvern did the same), good synergy between my major and minor company, good pacing with the train rush. Opportunity to take over the Red company was a major move that might have won my the game during the mid-game period as I end up controlling 3 companies at that time. I also manage to overshoot my certificate limit, which is always good. I did a number of boo-boos as well. I didnt bought a 3 Train when I should have. I didn’t do enough aggressive and defensive tokening (which is often my weakness). DIdn’t predicted properly that it’s the Grey company that did well, instead of the Red. Lessons learnt as usual.
10 Likes
How’s the ships expansion for Taluva?
A bit easy to build and the requirement is still the same “run out of 2 types of buildings”, but now you have 4 options rather than 3… Not sure if this is on the rules, but I stated that there can only be 1 ship per village, otherwise, building those two is too easy. I will have to play more of it before I start talking about balancing
1 Like
Some games over the last week and a bit:
Dead of Winter, got this to the table for the first time in ages. I’m not sure it’s aged well? Or maybe my tastes have changed. The actual game is not that interesting - just searching through decks. The traitor thing and the mind games are the main draw but those objectives are also not great - some are definitely easier than others, some seem entirely luck based (like having the most followers? That’s a weird one). Will be moving this one on as a result - it’s just a bit too unpredictable for me to hold onto it at this stage.
Hats x2, what a great little card game this one was! Props to Naveen and Monique from Before You Play, for putting it on the map for me. It’s great! Gave me Arboretum vibes - lots of really hard decisions for such a simple little game. On your turn you basically exchange a card with the display and that’s it, but a single turn has you weighing up the immediate point value, the longer term strategic concerns (because you can’t just trade any card but one that is higher or the same suit) and what your opponent is trying to do. I do wish they’d listened to Quinns advice about the backs of the cards not having the name of the game and logo, but yeah, total fan of this one, at least at 2. 3 might be too much chaos and they wisely recommend the partnership 4 player game for people who are already quite familiar with the game.
Spicy, got this to the table, only with 2 players though, which is very much not ideal. My friend kicked my butt - I’m almost as bad at calling bluffs as making them, as it turns out… It’s light but fun, I look forward to trying it with more players.
Summoner Wars, 2nd Ed, got to try the Avian Skyspears and, my gosh, they might be my new favourite faction! And so thematic! Really play well with formations and flight obviously and flocking. Great fun. Took my opponent by surprise as he kept forgetting to factor in flight, and my champ (the one who has the power of all the Aerie units on the board) delivered the killing blow within 20-25 mins. Great game, no way I can keep up with the release schedule though, I just don’t play it enough to want a new pair of decks every couple of months!
The Red Cathedral, this one was tense and close and is just a great game of mid weight euro management stuff in a tight timeframe and even tighter box. Excellent.
8 Likes
I eventually sold on Dead of Winter for similar reasons - I wanted the Crossroads to do more (“oh look, another event that’s specific to a character who isn’t in play”), and the social deduction angle felt like Battlestar Galactica lite. (I prefer a relatively pure social deduction experience. Though I also like Homeland so there’s that.)
3 Likes
Gloomhaven had 95 scenarios. I wouldn’t be surprised if Frosthaven has more but I doubt you actually have to do (or can do) all of them any more than you did for GH.
1 Like
We played Calimala for the first time yesterday having found it on Facebook.
What an excellent, pacey Euro in a small beige box. The action selection system is great - placing a marker to trigger 2 actions (which are randomly distributed). The marker stays down and triggers each time someone else chooses the same spot. When the 4th marker is placed in a spot, one of 15 separate area majority scoring happens. At the end everyone scores their secret card (a la Troyes).
It flies along, and the scoring comes at you fast. Similar in weight and length (possibly a bit longer) to Hansa Teutonica. Very easy to learn. I’m excited to play this again.
12 Likes
Played Ethnos yesterday with my wife. We had Minotaurs, Dwarves, Orcs, Merfolk, and Centaurs. While I did pretty good scoring with my bands, I just could not get large enough ones to place control markers much in the second age, so my wife won most of the regions. I lost, 119 - 98.
4 Likes
Today my wife and I played a full game of Star Wars: the Deckbuilding Game, still with me as the Empire and her as the Rebels. Despite a bunch more shuffling, somehow the top of the deck was in a very similar order as our practice game, with me eliminating Chewbacca in my first turn again, and Han, the Falcon, and Luke all making appearances relatively early, and nothing but capital ships for my faction, but a good number of neutral cards.
I managed to eliminate Han and the Falcon from the galaxy row before she could buy them, but even though I could kill Luke, I chose to take out her starting base (she had already destroyed mine) instead since I doubted she could afford to purchase him. Stupid mistake, as there is a base which lets you take a card of your faction from the galaxy row and add it to your hand, so she got Luke for free and was able to use him immediately. There went my second base.
I got a glut of capital ships out, which stay in play and provide resources and abilities each turn, plus protect your base, and I was soon able to take out her second base. So, of course, she was able to wipe out my four cap ships on her next turn, using Luke to take out a Star Destroyer with his ability, then wipe out more with his actual attack, plus her other cards. She eliminated me a turn or two later.
Lesson learned: if you have the chance to kill Luke, do it!
7 Likes
Stationfall. Still really enjoying this game. Unbalanced and turns where you do nothing useful, but it’s always full of laughter.
In this game my Consort dragged my downed Colonel through the ship to the medevac pod and escaped, whilst the inspector firebombed the energy supply to release project X. Meanwhile, with the cameras down due to lack of power, Legal Bot picked up the colonels gun, shot everyone, then made them sign NDAs. Would have been a winning strategy, but the Microbiologist rocket winged to earth without signing one.
12 Likes
Last night at Local Game Group:
We started with a couple of games of Codenames, with the usual slight difficulties as relative strangers try to work out the associations others will make. Still fun, but still not one I’d want to play every week.
Then on to SCOUT, slightly bodged to play six and suffering a little thereby (I don’t think anyone managed a four-card play at any point), but still good fun.
7 Likes
What if you’re his father, and feeling conflicted, and thinking that perhaps slicing off his hand will suffice as a reprimand?
7 Likes
Then I guess you’ll always be able to tell which card is Luke from the hole you cut in it to remove his hand.
6 Likes
Marked cards?! That truly is the dark side.
1 Like
4 Likes
When my hand is three clowns and a cannon, it is hard to resist mentioning it.
5 Likes