Recent Boardgames (Your Last Played Game Volume 2)

[Acacia]

Notched my first Inis last night! Three player, last hurrah before baby comes in a week or two.

It was… fine. To clarify, the session was fine. It was all of our first times, and the game presented a ton of levers, hooks, hidden corners, and opportunities that showed why it is a great game and that magnificence is a few plays away. But the session itself ended up kind of wandery. Someone put five clans in the capital region and I Allianced one of them over to my side and then Epic Taled to put two more clans in, and being chief over his four pretty much handed me the game out of no where. We were all like, oh. Look at that. It’s over. Shrug.

Then we talked a lot about everything we’d learned. Having a bunch of people in one region looked like strength but we now knew it was a liability, if you didn’t have a way to get them back out or trigger a clash if needed. Some cards that looked super powerful at the start proved to be just ok, and some cards that looked weak proved more useful than any of us predicted. The game gives you so many tools to control the board (and each other).

Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to get any more sessions soon to really unpack the game. Didn’t have a blast playing it but super intrigued and looking forward to when I can really learn it. I would say, in the future, Cyclades is the game for a one-shot but Inis is the game for a regular group.

[BertFill]

@Acacia

Notched my first Inis last night! Three player, last hurrah before baby comes in a week or two.

Babies sleep. A lot. You’ll have loads of time for games…!

[Marx]

Played a bunch of games over the weekend. Started on Saturday with an old friend (one of my longest friendships… Dave and I met in my first year of university when I took a Kung Fu class he helped run… we were sparring, and I jokingly went “Jab, jab, hadoken!”, he chuckled, stepped back and shouted “Tatsumaki senpuukyaku!” and did an actual tornado kick) and a local buddy, Terry, coming over for games.

We opened with El Dorado, which Dave loved so I gave him my copy. I like it, but Andy isn’t crazy about it and I don’t really have room in my collection any more for games I only like. Terry won by at least two turns. Really satisfying game, honestly, and the new edition is beautiful.

Next up was a long game of Beyond the Sun, which included a few elements from the new Leaders expansion. I really like the game, but neither Terry nor Dave were crazy about it. I don’t know why I like it so much… I think the theme just speaks to me. I tried a heavy colonization strategy that worked out okay, and the final scores were close, but Terry managed to get way more tech than either of us and took the victory. I may have to try the solo mode at some point soonish.

We then broke for dinner (Bao from a local bahn mi restaurant and kimchi-beef poutine… I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m not crazy about standard poutine, but gosh do I love a good poutine variant, and kimchi, bulgogi, and hot sauce is fantastic on fries).

Then HEAT got on the table, and both Terry and Dave actively hated it. Like, so much so that I suggested we stop at least twice because they were both being miserable about it. But they refused to stop playing… which confused me. I have a huge collection of games… why are we playing something that you’re not enjoying when we could play something that you will enjoy? But apparently I wasn’t supposed to suggest stopping a game, because it’s bad form? I don’t understand people. Dave won the game in the end, and I managed a close 2nd, with Terry spinning out several corners in a row.

After that we played a delightful game of Century Golem Edition, which was really nice. Terry won by a landslide (I think he had almost exactly the same score as Dave and my score combined).

Then, on Sunday, our “co-op” group (Chris and Jen) drove up from St. Catharines to play Oathsworn. We finished Chapter 7, which was… stressful. Okay, spoiler tags for those of you who are playing the game, but we had to free a priest from prison, and in order to do so we had to find 3 maps by investigating people around town. That part was fine, we figured that out no problem… but then the actual using of the maps was done exceptionally poorly. It doesn’t tell you where you start! How stupid… “Here’s my patrol route, but I don’t remember which door you use to get into the dungeon that I patrol!”… super frustrating and stupid, but we managed it.

The final boss fight for the chapter was good. Andy swapped out her previous character (“The Blade”) for a new one (“The Priest”) which she enjoyed significantly more. His healing abilities were really clutch. Big fan.

After that we played a game of No Thanks, which continues to be really good, and then Chris and Jen had to head home.

Good times all around.

[lalunaverde]

Ra x2 with Sushi Go in the middle.

[InkyBloc]

Appropriate - Ra fish night.

[mistercrayon]

We’ve been playing Ra. I’ve got a few things to say but one thing I really like is the set up and put away of this version (gigantic edition)

[gmwhite999]

Another barren few weeks but I had two games of Eleven: Football Manager Board Game last weekend to try out other solo scenarios. First up was the “Rivalry” scenario where you start off with a tiny fan base and have to build it up to best your local cross-town rivals who you play in the final game. I focused on building a strong team and getting results on the pitch, which worked very well: finishing the game with another “Promising Manager” rating and top of the league. Scenario 3 “Former Glory” involved removing corrupt directors from the board, and this proved more tricky, as the actions involved and penalty for not doing so quickly could have a terrible effect on the weekly operations. Luckily I found a few great players and the team performed much better than expected, but I couln’t develop much of my stadium or office, or acquire too many staff so feared failing the challenge. Luckily I had just enough Victory Points to eek out a win as “Assistant to a Manager”, so will try that scenario again with a different focus.

I have the Stadium expansion to trial too with some nice extra features for improvements, and eventually build up to playing against more difficult opposition in the higher divisions. Lots of scope for replaying this solo although I’m not sure that it will play as well with other human players, even if I had the table space to try it with 3 others.

[COMaestro]

Forgot to mention our last game of Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game. The Empire did indeed strike back in this game, as I won with only losing one of my bases! Sure, the second one would be destroyed if you breathed on it, but still…

Similar to how my wife had a awesome final turn in our previous game, this one went in my favor, with Darth Vader being in the galaxy row and I had Grand Moff Tarkin in hand. Tarkin lets you take an Empire card from the galaxy row into your hand for free, but you have to exile it (remove from the game) at the end of your turn. He also has some damage, purchasing, and Force gain. Taking Vader and playing him meant the Force meter was on my side, so Vader got +4 attack for a disgusting total of 10, plus Tarkin for 2, my Star Destroyer which was already out for 4, a Stormtrooper for 2, and something else, which combined did more than the 18 damage needed to destroy her Hoth base in one shot. 'Twas glorious!

[EnterTheWyvern]

Hiatus on gaming has been broken. Last night 4 player game of Guards of Atlantis 2 which @lalunaverde was kind enough to lug over for us all to play.

We played the normal setup having done the intro setup previously. Randomising teams I was with Mr Verde and at the end of the first round we were sat there aghast having just been beaten up, both got killed, and we’d completely lost a push with minions being slapped. Some desperate discussion went on to see how we’d recalibrate. Fortunately we did recalibrate and won by winning all subsequent pushes to storm the enemy base.

The hype is real with this game and it will only get better with more plays. I don’t have much to add from last time but yeah, really fun to play again. Will have to work out how to get a 6 player game in at some point too…

[malkav11]

It really is a game where it isn’t over until someone’s actually won.

[bort]

Back to Frosthaven, repeating the scenario from last time. Went a lot smoother this time, it helps when you include the ally character we should have have last time. And our tank didn’t lose all his health on his first turn, that was also a positive. And then we spent an hour crafting stuff at the outpost.

Spots, first play. A light dice game, very simple to play. On your turn, you choose one of the available tricks (from six), and do what it says. Usually involves dice rolling, and any matching dice are played onto your dog cards. If you can’t place a die, it gets buried, and if you have more than a total of seven buried, you go bust and have to return all your dice. It’s very light, but pretty good fun. Easy to learn, and a pile of trick cards to use (we started with the recommended ones).

Ra, surprising, this was asked for by another player, who I didn’t think was much of a Knizia fan. Good to see he has some taste. Anyway, I had another horrendous game, finished in a dismal last place. But the game was still great fun, lots of “Ra!” being called. This is such a great game.

Godzilla: Tokyo Clash, first play. I thought this would be another quick game (box says 45 minutes) but it was a bit of a slog. Basically, you play one of famous monsters, including of course, everyone’s favourite, Godzilla. The other monsters are Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Megalon. They all look quite cool on the table. So each monster has their own deck of cards, and you play a card on your turn, which usually involves using up energy. You can gain energy by throwing stuff around and destroying the various buildings. The throwing rules were a bit fiddley, it’s a bad sign when a mechanic has it’s own cheat sheet on BGG. I think we had less questions about Frosthaven. It’s all a bit random. When you attack another monster directly, they can play a defence card, and the difference between the two is how many cards you take from them. You want to take cards with a dominance value, these are basically your victory points. But so many cards have zero dominance, which makes them useless. I attacked a player who didn’t have any defensive cards, but both the cards I took were zero valued, so it was all a bit pointless. Bigger attacks just mean you get to take more cards, but you can still only take a single card as a trophy. And half the time you’re not even attacking each other, but just destroying stuff to get energy. A bit disappointed in this one.

[EnterTheWyvern]

@bort

A bit disappointed in this one.

Thanks for playing it so I don’t have to. It’s an appealing theme/idea. Now I know how flat it is I can scratch it from the maybe one day pile.

[Bondy034]

Some games over the last week or so:

Sprawlopolis x2, both solo games and I now have my first win! And not a ‘just scraped by’ one either - trounced it

Hadrians Wall x6, I have embarked on the solo campaign again. Doing a lot better than last time. I’ve lost a couple along the way but am up to fort 6, and feeling most games are super close calls!

Belfort, great to get one of my faves back to the table. It was great. Played sans expansions, and thought I’d cinched it by stealing my hottest competition’s final card. But he built a guild and then got a double activation of the wizards guild to take it by 2 points. Would love to get this to the table more often so I can fully explore the expansions, but it’s always great regardless.

Scout, got this to the table at a local meetup with 5 players. Way better than with 3! I did decently but not close to the win. Having more time to fiddle with your hand makes a big difference in how ‘fair’ the game feels. I mean it’s still a card game and you can get hosed by a crap starting hand, but you have enough control to feel invested. Definitely would love to get it to the table with 4 or 5 some more, as some of the strategy was just starting to emerge from this last game for me. A couple of those I played with said they’d quite like a copy (only to be a bit dismayed at the price it goes for in Aus… Oink games are generally kinda pricey here)

Cafe, close 3 player game of this which I lost on the tie breaker! One of our players struggled to grasp how to play well and felt a bit dispirited by the end. But I certainly still enjoyed it.

Takenoko, it’s fine. I won. Decent as usual but not an amazing game by any stretch.

[lalunaverde]

Guards of Atlantis 2 - awesome!! Still great. Glad I went for the reprint. I have bought some deck boxes to house the hero minis and their cards. Will put some photos after I get some results.

Age of Steam - played on the Germany map - which I have played before. It was tense setting for a 5 player game. I won this time. Again, my choice of game if I want an efficiency-type game. But I will resort to Race for the Galaxy if I want something smaller

Lewis & Clark - another efficiency-type Euro game. But this one is good. Lean, fast, good decision space (for a Euro, that is), and requires a heads-up mindset - as oppose to the heads down mindset of so many games Lewis & Clark made other modern Euros so bloated and clumsy. Will play it again, but not a game I would own.

Quarriors

18Lilliput - Good game. I feel that this game is more for Euro gamers that likes Caylus and Agricola than a game for people who like 18xx like 1830. The worker placement is TIGHT. And this is where turn order is predictable that you can work around it, therefore avoiding bad turn order issues. The classic 3 player problem was talked about. Indeed, it seems that the 2 players who cooperate on a 3 player will lead to 2 vs 1 early game which puts the 1 on a disadvantage.

The train rush was rather slow that this aspect of the game was uninteresting. It then falls back to the tight worker placement play and the tight and aggressive tokening.

Alas, I feel that there are other games in this timeframe that I would rather play. I would put these above 18Lilliput: Imperial, Cube Rails like Chicago Express/Wabash Cannonball, or Stephenson’s Rocket.

Food Chain Magnate - we played with the Coffee and New Milestones. The player who monopolised coffee end up winning the game. This is further proof that Big Coffee controls the entire world.

[Chewy77]

Heaps of games to report here, I’ve had 4 evenings of gaming one after another, hence why I have not been on my computer/phone much.

Thursday night I played Raiders of the North Sea with the little one again. This time she did not want any help, and even though I gave her some hints, she did not manage to win. Which she was fine with. She tried her way (going often for cards and gold in the treasury sort of strategy) and it did not work out.

Friday night I tried my games buddy Ben new acquisition War of the Ring: The Card Game. We were 4, so Ben and me played the Shadow team against the Free People’s taken by Ben’s wife and her friend. Initially they wanted to play the short game, but it felt awkward splitting all the cards and scenarios, so we went for the full shebang. In the end it was not too bad, we had it in about 2,5 hours (with teach and attempt to make the game shorter aborted). We lost on the very last stage, as a scenario that we had won earlier (Lorien) had to be replayed as Dol Guldur came up. Enjoyed the game enough, if I had a feeling that with the Isengard/monsters faction I had a lot of stages where I was having the wrong faction cards on my hand, with very little that I could do to avoid that random part of the game.
After that we played a filler twice (Nine Tiles Panic) at which I did terribly. Not having played before and being late after a long week did not help.

Saturday my group of friends was split as the girls went to Taupo to spend the day in the spa, so us boys took the kids to one of the houses and had an afternoon/early evening of games and pizza. We played Architects of the West Kingdom twice. I ran away with the first game (ruining the host winning trend from the three previous times we had played it) and then after some pizza we had another game, and the host took back his throne this time thanks to the Crane card.

Yesterday it was mothering Sunday, so after a morning of Eurovision (well done Sweden), and an afternoon of slumber and some shopping in town, the girls wanted to play some games after dinner, so I was not going to deny them.

First we played Cluedo, which my eldest daughter won easily, and then we all played Raiders of the North Sea. My better half was a bit reluctant to start with (she really hates learning a new game) but then she got the gist of it. I ran away with victory thanks to a couple of good cards (The Hero that gets one extra strength per crewmember and the “extra food per visit to the mill” girl), and the girls and my better half going too early for glory and missing good scores on Monasteries and Fortresses contributed to me running away in the high thirties while they ended in low 20s.

[Chewy77]

I am continuing with the trend, and it is now 5 consecutive days having boardgames played. I think having restricted screen time to our children to 1 hour a day on weekdays and 2 on weekends may be at fault. Why didn’t I think of it earlier?

So my eldest daughter requested it, and we set up and relearned Flamecraft. And I must say, I really enjoyed myself. My only but to the game is how much setting up it takes for a long half hour of play. Even though the insert does help with cards distribution (with spare volume, I can smell expansions, perhaps?) it nearly takes (or it felt that way) as much as the game itself.

There is definitely a Splendor/Spice Road vibe there, the art is sublime and the kickstart components are ace (the coins are so shiny). I am pretty sure that if we play it again it will take me less time to set up, but then, having to reorganize shops for a second play limits how likely the game is to be replayed once on the table (I guess I could just shuffle the ones preselected?).

Looking forward to teach it to the rest of the family (it’s that easy) and see how it goes.

[COMaestro]

Yesterday we played a game of Ethnos using Dwarves, Minotaurs, Elves, Wizards, and Merfolk. In the first age, I scored more on bands, but she was able to pass me due to region control, but only by 6 points.

Ironically enough, after scoring bands and the Merfolk bonus at the end of the second age, we were tied, but I had taken control of more regions, so I ended up winning 110 - 95.

Later, we played Lost Cities, which has us just one point apart with her in the lead at the end of the first round, 25 - 24. However, I had an explosive second round, gaining 132 points to her 40. I widened the lead more in the last round, winning the game 230 - 121.

Then today, we played Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game. My wife got a bit stuck with 5 cost cards in the row for her with nothing she could destroy of mine, but always drawing cards just worth 2 or 3 resources. Meanwhile, I was purchasing cards, and killing anything of hers that I could, to the point I just had a devastating amount of attack in my deck. We both had undamaged third bases, and I drew a combination of cards which eliminated her base in one go.

To be fair, it feels like retaliation for one of our last games (unreported on here) where she kept drawing capital ships or repair cards which prevented me from destroying her second base for the entire game. She counted three eye rolls on my part when repair cards came out to undo the damage I had just dealt.

[Simfers]

Couple of nice heavier games over tjeclast couple of days here:

First, on Saturday, Brass: Birmingham hit the table. I ended the game with a respectable 104 points, while Maryse got 127 points thanks to a couple of ceramics tiles. I was quite happy with how I played, even though I remain win-less.

Then, today, we played Terraforming Mars. Maryse used Thorgate and I was rocking Ecoline. I pursued a forest–and-oceans-heavy strategy while she was focusing on heat, end-game-scorers and cities to take advantage of my forests. In the end, the tree-huggers won 89-79. It was very close, but I’d built up quite a strong lead before we started counting the points from the cards and the boards, and that was enough.

Strong pair of games that.

[lalunaverde]

99 - trick taking game where you spend cards to bid on how many tricks you win. You can reveal your bid. You can reveal your bid and your hand! Other than that, it’s standard trick taker so it can be picked up easily if you’re accustomed to the basics of trick taking. Thanks for the game @RogerBW @Captbnut . That was fun!

I need more plays to say something with the reduced roster of cards, but I like it that it is reduced.

[RogerBW]

Indeed, thank you both – this, helped by @lalunaverde 's introduction of Nokosu Dice, has made trick-taking “click” for me in a way that other games including The Crew haven’t really.

Last night at Local Game Group:

Piepmatz, the first time I’ve played with more than two. It got very involved and quite fiddly at times, but was great fun, as my two-player games have been. (And I was too busy to think of taking any pictures.)

Then Project L, excellent as always (and as usual I didn’t jump for high-value cards early enough, but I did get in some good 3-puzzle master actions).