5 Likes
Another game of Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game. I had a bit of an unfair advantage, as Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin started out on the Galaxy row, and I was able to get Vader for free and in hand after my wife destroyed my starter base, using the Corellia base power, which I was able to use to take out the Millennium Falcon in the row and take Tarkin as the reward for that.
She did end up getting Princess Leia for herself and used her to good effect a couple of times, but I was just able to dish out more damage than she could, and got her third base before she could get mine.
5 Likes
Well, my winning streak at Ark Nova just came to a SCREECHING halt at 3. 25 to -14 loss. I believe this counts as a destruction. 
5 Likes
Got two games in today. First was Ra, and my brother-in-law joined us this time, so first play at more than two players. Definitely interesting having to pay attention to an extra player and what the have and might want. I kind of screwed myself going into the last epoch, as my highest sun disk was a 6, so I did not win many auctions, and the ones I did only had a couple of tiles.
While I had started well, my last round was pretty miserable, and I was outdone on Monuments by the other two. Despite that, I came in second. My wife won with 43, I had 39, and her brother had 33.
Later, my wife and I played Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game, where she proceeded to demolish me, taking out my third base while I had barely scratched her second (though she did heal some damage from it, so it had been a bit more heavily scratched at one point). Once she got Chirrut, I pretty much never got the Force, and once she had Jabba, she just overwhelmed me.
5 Likes
The usual Frosthaven was played, we eventually won, but it was tough going. Enemies with big range on each side of the main room, so it was hard to find a place where you couldnāt be hit. About 75% of thee way through I got caught by enemies that immobilised, and then I got hammered. Ending up ādyingā four times, and having to discard a card each time, which made things tough. So I ran out of cards eventually, but the group pulled through.
Piazza Rabazza, first play. A fairly silly dexterity game of delivering pizzas. You control a bike rider on a long arm, and have to maneuver it through a series of houses. To deliver a pizza, you have to run the bike up against a person, and hopefully your pizza flies off and attaches itself magnetically. Oh, and to make it harder, you wind up a pizza chef who then acts as the timer, and shaking all the walls in the game. Everyone hated it.
Ultimate Warriorz, which apparently I have played before. You play a fighter in an arena, choosing a card each round to move, melee, and do a ranged attack. When you attack, you roll dice, trying to beat your opponents shield value. Itās a pretty light game.
Orichalcum, first play. A fairly light game, simple enough. Each player has a map board, and on each turn you take a card from the market, place the tile it shows, and do the action. Actions are to take soldiers, get gold, build, or fight. Building three or more tiles of the same type allows you to take a titan card, giving you a special ability. And also helps you win the game. You have five slots on your player board, which can be filled up by titan cards, temples, or discs. As soon as you get your fifth, youāve won. It was a pretty close game, one player had a brief moment where he could have won, but didnāt roll well enough to defeat the monsters on his board. Good game, pretty easy to pickup
6 Likes
A few games yesterday:
Endeavour: Age of Sail
Nova Luna
Good Puppers: a silly set-collecting game
Ex Libris
7 Likes
Followed up today with another game of Dune: Imperium, in which I almost won without engaging in any combat. Followed by Dominion and Eight Minute Empire. Iām still not sold on Dominionā¦ Do people find itās much more interesting with some setups than others? We played with the starter setup and I found it very dull having to wait for everyone to play half a dozen cards that gave them extra actions each turn.
3 Likes
Iāve only played a bit. My much more experienced Dominion playing friends all say the base set alone gets boring real quick. That may not apply to your situation.
3 Likes
Games today started with a treat. @lalunaverde got round early enough that we managed 3 2-player games of Mottainai! I was rusty first game and got a series of things wrong for what I was playing for so Mr Verde who was playing well smashed me about. Fortunately for me I got back in gear and managed 2 wins to take the series. The Coin was rude in a wing with the plus one point on all other works. With 3 metal sales and a pottery sale plus those in hand my score was huge. Matched that 40 points which Iāll bask in for now. When Pās up to scratch I wonāt be getting near that again.
Next up 18Mex hit the table. Pleasingly playing this one again and again the time has dropped considerably. 4.5 hours for a 4 player game. Weāll hopefully keep playing this title for a bit so we can all get a bit better at understanding some 18xx fundamentals. That aside was a fun session. Really close scores. I spent quite a lot of time boxing Mr Verde and another in a corner which was very satisfying. Got me second overall. I may have messed up a bit being cautious early on and later on. Next time Iāll try and remember to keep up aggression on all fronts and flu a little more by the seat of my pants.
Lastly we played older RoboRally. So much fun and laughs. Really donāt agree that this mid edition is charmless. Anyway, thrills and spills appenty saw much player death and Squashbot won!!!
4 Likes
Itās a peculiar take to the 1830-formula that I canāt really rely much on 1830 heuristics to play well in 18Mex. Usually, the best trains in 1830 is the 5 train due to how cutthroat the token is. Meaning that if you let some scum get away with a nice long route with a freaking Diesel train, you might as well declare that player as the winner. Not here. I feel that the 4Dās are the best trains especially if you are boxed in like I did. 3 Trains seems weaker than 4ās, which runs for one more time before they rust.
The rule of being able to only buy 1 train at a time means that the train rush is regulated, but players still have to keep in mind on how much money that the minor company holders and private company holders are earning. The slower the rush, the more they win. The value of the 2 trains are more in this title, as well.
Add in the free town stops, and 18Mex seems to lean more towards revenues than share appreciation. Which is neither a praise or a condemnation. Itās just what it is.
I am curious on what sort of opening that you can do with the other companies that I havenāt really play much. I seem to discover more with what you can do with the Black company and the Blue company in hindsight, than actually playing them.
Blue Skies - Another Joe Huber game, designer of Caravans. This is very counter-intuitive and interesting! But I am a bit dismayed at the awful spreadsheety art by Rio Grande Games. This isnāt a game that train gamers will enjoy so I would rather show this to āeveryoneā at our bg club. But I expect cute graphics. Not this bland spreadsheet board
Rapa Nui - the remake of Giants from Matagot Games. Cool mutualism in play. But I donāt need this game in my life, as I have to reduce more.
6 Likes
I just ran through the second scenario in Dark Venture Battle of the Ancients, taking a decisive win as the Dhargon versus the Bohmerk.
The first 3 of 13 linked scenarios serve as a basic tutorial. The first was laughably brief, yet brutalāI lost (forfeited) after taking a single turn on my first attempt! Very instructive in demonstrating how lethal combat can be.
This second scenario offered a fairly casual environment in which to explore a faction in more detail, in this case the Dhargon. I was up against the Bohmerk, which are essentially gigantic cellular monsters who grow and divide, and proliferate like a virus. Insofar as the threat level was easy to manage, the nature of my opponent set a pretty strict timer on my goals and I was frankly very lucky to have been afforded the time I got.
As a solo experience, I was able to manipulate the basic pathing rules for the AE (auto-enemy) pretty handily, but most subsequent missions will have at least two additional opponents so Iām not too concerned about that yet. Hereās a shot of my final turn, noting that the Ancient (big disc) never actually entered play, I just wanted the satisfaction of āhatching itā as a reward.
A few early thoughts on theme:
This is a competitive, tactical skirmish game with wildly asymmetric factions pursuing a VP threshold on a shared map (in its primary mode of play). It shares its DNA with a countless number of peers, and yet I struggle to find a comparison. Half the āfactionsā in the game are barely recognizable as such: My Dhargon tribe are weird, mostly-peaceful aliens who just want to devour earthās resources and lay their eggs before moving onto a new planet; The Bohmerk are literally a contagion on a macro scale; The Beasts are the (horrible, twisted) wildlife from the Dark Venture ābestiaryā, and so on. This shift in tone makes for a wonderfully bizarre, living environment in which to flex your unique brand of dominance.
6 Likes
Just a couple games to report on the weekend, lost a 3 sets game of Love Letter to the little one (she has a magnet for spies and chancellors, I swear) and a game of Raiders of the North Sea (I cannot believe it is about to drop off the top 100 on BGG, is so much fun) in which I played against my partner and our youngest daughter, and ran away with the victory at 67 against mid 50s. I had the forager and jeweller girls on my team early on, so even though I was last for a while on the board points, I had built up a good reserve with which I snatched three fortresses on my last five or so turns to run away with the victory.
5 Likes
Despite the rough weekend (see How Are You Today thread), we got in quite a bit of gaming.
Played two games of Ra with our friends, first time playing with four. My wife won the first game, while I managed to win the second.
Then, after they left but before the ER trip, my wife and I started Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game. We only got a few turns in before we decided our kiddo needed medical care, so my wife moved it to our room to preserve the game state while I packed up what we might need. After getting home and getting the kid settled, we ate and then finished up the game, which ended with me getting slaughtered again, only taking out her first base. Han and Chewbacca make a pretty devastating combo.
Today we played Jaipur, which had me winning the first round with 92 points (just behind my wifeās all time best score of 96), but failing to win either of the next two rounds, so my wife won that game.
Later we played Ethnos, using Dwarves, Elves, Wizards, Giants, and Halflings. I pulled off a win in both ages, mostly due to large bands, but had some decent presence on the board as well.
We also played Ra, which I managed to win again, 58 - 42. Rather pleased to get 3 different Civilization tiles in two of the epochs, plus 7 different Monuments.
Finished off the weekend with another game of Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game, which ended much like the last game, this time Han and a B-Wing being the most annoying bits, plus a Mon Cal Cruiser. Did get close to taking our her second base, at least.
10 Likes
Wow, I donāt think Iāve ever seen a score in the 90ās for Jaipur!
Also so jealous of all the Ra talk 
(weāre still waiting for the new printing in Australiaā¦)
5 Likes
Worth the wait tho, hope you donāt have to wait too long
2 Likes
My partner and I went through the full twelve episodes of My City Roll and Write (or whatever itās called).
The big two twists over my city are that 1) itās not legacy (thereās a tiny bit at the end of legaciness and your scoring carries through if you want). 2) it uses dice.
The second is probably the more intriguing and weird twist. It changes my city from a game in which you can plan a lot (my partner like to arrange all future pieces near where theyād go) to one which is more about gambling and flexibility. Itās weird. In the first you could feel some security but if things went a bit wrong you were dead. Here if things go wrong you can still pray the gods look nicely on you. Itās still unbelievably tense on every roll and itās still got that thing where while you broadly know what will happen itās the order that thing happens that will determine your outcomes.
If anyone does get it Iād suggest having an eraser to hand because itās really easy to mess things up by accident.
5 Likes
Quick game of Piepmatz last night, great fun as ever. Iāve just rewritten the rules to be easier to understand, and that file is in the moderation queue at BGG.
9 Likes
Spirit Island, solo, with Vital Strength of the Earth on one of the thematic boards. No invaders or scenario.
Cleverly organised myself to destroy the last town and city with one power, earning the fear card which revealed the Fear Level 2 card, meaning I won in what felt a pleasingly stylish way!
I do love Spirit Island, even though Iām not brilliant at it. Yet.
7 Likes
The girls were really in the mood for a game after Spanish Lessons yesterday eve (with dad as a teacher), so we played again a game of Raiders of the North Sea between three (this time with my two daughters). Besides a bit of bickering due to worker availability (yesterday the white and grey workers were hard to get, I swear) and raids, the girls did well, we all passed 40 points. I stole the win by taking the last two fortresses thanks to some amassed provisions (last and one before last turns) and the fact that my little one had only a grey worker at hand and just could raid the final outpost, and just broke 50 to steal the win against her high 40s.
7 Likes
Played my first time of Through the Desert, and did pretty well (came a respectable second with 73 points).
Also played the somewhat Fluxx-like Red7, and watched the incredible table presence of Niagara, with pieces that literally get pushed off the edge of the table waterfall-style.
11 Likes