Played Ra, was good and lost
Played Power Grid, was good and lost. Tried to run up the price of the 50 power plant (powers six cities for free) and everyone noped out.
Oh well
8 Likes
My partnerās plan of setting aside Thursday evenings, after the kids are in bed, as āBoardgame Nightā hasnāt been 100% successful, but thatās okay because life is never dull. However, we did get to observe Boardgame Night this past week and for that, my partner chose to play the Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 6Ā½ ā Poland.
I had bought it for her for her past birthday. Previously, I had decided to maybe stop buying her Ticket to Ride games/expansions because we have so many of them, but she has Polish heritage (her maiden name is an anglicized Polish family name) so I thought it would be fitting. Though I didnāt really expect much from the Poland map because after youāve played a few of the TTR variants, you feel like youāve seen them all.
But TtR: Poland may be the best TtR variant in a long time! It was very good. Most of the connections are very short, so picking up big points for 4- and 5-length connections is not as prevalent, and the country connection bonus mechanism is very interesting ā you are rewarded very well for making connections to the other countries, and in a way that you must build your way up to them, and not just grab the connections and fill in the middle later. A great amount of tension even in a 2-player game. I suspect it may be ābestā at 2 because of how contested the board is.
My current rankings of the Tickets to Ride:
| RANK | VARIANT |
|---|---|
| 1 | Ticket to Ride Map Collection Volume 6Ā½ ā Poland |
| 2 | Ticket to Ride: Germany |
| 3 | Ticket to Ride Map Collection Volume 5 ā Pennsylvania |
| 4 | Ticket to Ride Map Collection Volume 6 ā France |
| 5 | Ticket to Ride Map Collection Volume 5 ā United Kingdom |
| 6 | Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries |
| 7 | Ticket to Ride: London |
| 8 | Ticket to Ride Map Collection Volume 2 ā Switzerland |
| HAVENT PLAYED IN TOO LONG, but from memory | |
|---|---|
| 9 | Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails ā Great Lakes |
| 10 | Ticket to Ride Map Collection Volume 4 ā Nederland |
| 11 | Ticket to Ride: Rails & Sails ā World |
| 12 | Ticket to Ride Map Collection Volume 3 ā The Heart of Africa |
| 13 | Ticket to Ride Map Collection Volume 1 ā Legendary Asia |
| 14 | Ticket to Ride Map Collection Volume 2 ā India |
| 15 | Ticket to Ride: Europe / Ticket to Ride: Europe ā 15th Anniversary |
| 16 | Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam |
| 17 | Ticket to Ride: New York |
| 18 | Ticket to Ride / Ticket to Ride 10th Anniversary |
| HAVENT PLAYED YET | |
|---|---|
| Ticket to Ride Map Collection Volume 1 ā Team Asia | |
| Ticket to Ride Map Collection Volume 6 ā Old West | |
| Ticket to Ride Map Collection Volume 7 ā Japan | |
| Ticket to Ride Map Collection Volume 7 ā Italy | |
| Ticket to Ride: First Journey (Europe) | |
| Ticket to Ride: First Journey (U.S.) | |
| Ticket to Ride: Ghost Train | |
| Ticket to Ride: MƤrklin | |
| Ticket to Ride: San Francisco |
6 Likes
We finally both felt well enough to play something, so we got Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game to the table again, and again I got demolished. Didnāt even damage her second base (but eliminated a full base worth of cap ships in the process of trying). Once again, she got Jabba, relatively early, along with some X-Wings, which just let her steamroll me with extra drawing ability.
4 Likes
Iāve been at my parentsā place for a few days and got in a game of Railroad Ink (my mumās copy) and The Crew. Neither of my parents had played a trick taking game before, but they were getting the hang of it after a few rounds.
7 Likes
Inspired by @pillbox I made my mum play TTR: Japan
I like it. The shared bullet train adds something. This is coming from someone who hated TTR: UK.
5 Likes
I continue to march forward in Hoplomachus Victorum even if itās starting to look like Iām headed for an untimely demise. Iām about to challenge a Primus to close Act II (The Parthian, in this case), and I donāt like the cut of his jib.
After Decimus fell in Act I, I dipped my toes into the geography a little. Using a port didnāt have any obvious benefits, so I decided to pass through The Vesuviansā home turf to reach āParthiaā. Just a taste of that hellscape was enough to keep me from dallying, and after a quick stop at my penultimate destination, I moved up into āAmazoniaā to take advantage of a few Opportunity events.
Things didnāt go well in the jungle. Half my party got wiped in a single bloodshed event and I had dumped all my tactics. Looking at the path back to the Primus fight I realized I had but one opportunity to recoup, and even then it was either/or: tactics or a recruit.
On the way back I was at least lucky enough to complete an opportunity event for a hero talent in a comically brief showdown which, nevertheless, earned me my first Bane chip. So another bitter win there. I chose a recruit for the reward in the final sporting event, so Iāll be able to field as many units as the Primus battle allows at least, but that means Iām still going in without any tactics chipsā¦ and Iām already halfway through my reserve of Blessings (extra lives).
Wish me luck, Iām going in.
8 Likes
Frosthaven, went ok. I was a bit more aggressive with my Death Walker, which mostly seemed to work ok. The scenario was just a single room, so I figured I should go hard. I did run out of cards (had to discard once because I would have died). But took out a few enemies, which felt good. Our Germinate player seems to do pretty well, and is up to level 3 already (weāre all still on level 2).
The Lost Code, first play. I canāt resist a deduction game. I paid extra and got the kickstarter upgrade box, so had some nice plastic pieces. And itās pretty good. Reminds me a bit of Break the Code, which we love. Each player has a set of six tiles, one of each colour, with values from zero to seven. Everyone else can see your tiles, but you canāt. And the object is to identify your tiles of course. You roll dice, which gives you three colours, and then you take a dial, which gives a range of totals. You get more points for choosing the more precise wheels. So, each colour on the dice is totalled, and then the other players tell you if your guess is correct (and if not correct, whether you are too high or too low). Out of the four of us, two (and I was one of them) got all our tiles correctly identified for full points. I still lost by two points, dammit! Looking forward to future plays.
Belratti, first play. Another deduction game, but with no math involved. Seems a bit Dixit like, but fully cooperative. The players divide into cats (who run an art museum), and owls (who paint the pictures, of course). At four players itās two players on each team, but you move the character cards around so everyone gets to play both sides. You draw two theme cards, and then the cats ask for a number of paintings from two to seven. The owl players discuss their cards between them, but they canāt be specific about what cards they have. Then you draw four cards and shuffle everything. The new cards are fakes that have to be identified. For every fake card that you let through, Belratti (the art forger) gets a point, and the game is over when he has six points. Then you compare your points (from correctly identifiying cards) and see how you do. Weā¦didnāt do so well, only just managed to get out of the bottom category. It was a lot of fun.
Get Bit! , the most fun you can have while a plastic shark eats you one limb at a time. Choose a card, then go thru all cards from lowest to highest, and any tied cards do nothing. When you get to your card, you move to the front of the queue. Anyone in the last position gets chomped! I used to own this, not sure why I got rid of it, itās a lot of fun.
The Key: Murder at the Oakdale Club, for some more deduction. I came second, and our usual winner completely stuffed up, didnāt get anything right. One of our players just isnāt into these games (specifically The Key, heās fine with deduction, and in fact won our game of The Lost Code).
Fantasy Realms, a quick game to finish up the day. After predicting I would barely get over a hundred (what we consider a par score), I ended up with over 200, and won.
8 Likes
We played Heaven & Ale (courtesy of @mistercrayon). Itās pretty good, not up there with Hansa or Calimala after a single play, but definitely one Iād like to play again.
You go round that central rondel - you go as far as you like, but once you get back to the start, youāre out of the round.
Youāre buying ingredients to put on your player board - you pay a single cost to put them in the shade (theyāll give you money) and double cost to put them in the sun (theyāll move you up specific tracks).
Itās a spatial puzzle as well, and then an efficiency puzzle. You pick up scoring discs on the rondel and then use those to activate your fields. There are lots of options, but you can only do each once. Ideally you set up activation cascades so each disc is more powerful (I was not good at that).
There are also bonus scoring tiles - if you hit that space you take every one that you qualify for. I wasnāt good at that either.
Decisions were hard, there was racing for spaces and I definitely lost my wife the game by nicking stuff she needed, but was also good for me.
End of game scoring is nuts. Essentially, move everything as far as you can up the tracks, but you move your furthest one back to push the lagging ones up. You multiply that by a figure given from another track position.
6 Likes
Some games over the last week:
Legacy of Yu x11, finished off my first campaign of this last week. I really enjoyed it - got a win, though it came down to one final game for a campaign win or loss. Very compelling (as my rate of play would attestā¦) and the campaign twists are super interesting. I do think I saw most of the game in this campaign though (there were only a few untouched cards in the story deck). Iāll play it again, but not right away. I may actually loan it to a friend or two before then though (perks of it being resettable). But would recommend for sure.
Sprawlopolis x2, another couple of losses (though close this time!). So easy to squeeze in a game of this though! Itās a simple winner.
Metro X, my opponent had a lot less empty stations than I and managed to be first to complete a few lines so solid loss on my behalf here.
Agricola: ACBAS, great game of this. First time Iāve seen sheep make a big difference, but they gave me a solid victory this time around. Also Iāve started doing 8 completely randomised special buildings rather than the 4 default +4. Iām not sure thereās a good reason for the rules to encourage that format - thereās nothing particularly essential about those ones. The half timbered house is probably the best but itās still just another way of getting some points.
Gizmos x3, bit of an impulse buy from Amazon after hearing Ava praise it on the recent podcast and trying it on BGA (good price too!). The components are kinda shonky - Iām a bit sad I got the plastic dispenser rather than the full cardboard one. I definitely prefer the cardboard version in Potion Explosion to that oneās plastic. But not a huge deal. Iām quite bad at this game but itās one thatās easy to get into and after selling on Splendor for itās 2 player version, I think this one fills that niche with just a bit more game there.
Cafe x2, still loving this one, even if my scores in the 20ās seem frightfully low compared to some Iāve seen online!
51st State, a close game. New York definitely seems a touch weak as a player faction though. I mean starting with a cog is good, but most of their trades are bad. Still very enjoyable. Slightly sad the other faction boards are so hard to find in Aus though. Iām hoping to see a few up for grabs second hand from folks who backed the āeverythingā Gamefound when it starts delivering. So fingers crossed for that! (or for a retailer to pick them up).
Hive quick game of this, one turn in it by the end, but felt hard fought on both sides!
Skulls of Sedlec x2, excellent little card drafting and placement game for 2 or 3. Another I wish I could find the expansions for but even just the basegame is a great little filler.
Paladins of the West Kingdom, so pleased to get this to the table again - everytime I do I am just so impressed with it. If it were only slightly easier to teach and grasp itād be pretty much euro perfection (at least at 2 players - not sure Iād rush to play it with 3 or 4, as I suspect the time investment would grow massively!). My opponent really liked it too, even if his was really just a learning game. Hopefully heāll be amenable to a rematch before too long now that heās familiar with it 
I struggle to find friends that enjoy heavier euros like this, but this particular friend is always keen for heavier stuff. (Heās also my A Feast for Odin buddy! 
)
6 Likes
Innovation X2, fun as always.
The Wolves OK, I guess? Didnāt really like the action restriction system.
Mottainai X2, fun but very short.
Modern Art good times with crazy play.
Mind Mgmt intro game, more engaging than I expected it to be, though we tracked down the agent a little too easily.
8 Likes
This is the way 
2 Likes
A bunch of games today with a friend I hadnāt seen in ages, which was lovely.
We started with Caesar: Seize Rome in 20 Minutes (x2) and Village Green, and then while she was out grabbing some food I tried out Ganz Schƶn Clever (aka Fancy Yahtzee). After that we played Flamme Rouge (x2) which on first impression I enjoyed more than HEAT (but not intending to purchase either), and then we decided to try Brass Birmingham which took up the rest of the time we had (neither of us had played a Brass game before), and that was pretty good ā not something I envisage myself buying, but Iād happily play it again. There was also a Crokinole board out, and I got in a few rounds of that with another friend later on. And then I found Iād won a prize, so today was a lovely day!
(I do wonder whether Iām forgetting something as it doesnāt seem like quite enough games for the day, but the BB game probably took longer than I think it did, especially as there were a few interruptions along the way).
7 Likes
Played (and lost) Ankh. Itās pretty good, much faster than Kemet (took us not much more than an hour with 3).
I think 3 may be the weakest player count. My wife and I beat each other up and our youngest ran away with points and board position, so when the merge happened we were too far behind. With a 4th or 5th player there will be more fluidity to the game state.
Iām not good at DOAM generally, so itās hard to say how good they are because I think weāre prone to turtle.
Itās easy to play, but the decisions seem consequential. Definitely worth Ā£31!!!
Would like to play this with more players - I could see it being utterly crazy.
9 Likes
Yesterday I managed to win Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game against my wife, which had been a while, as I think she has won the past three or four games.
Then a little later, her brother joined us for Lords of Waterdeep, which I also won and by a pretty healthy margin. The scores may have been a little off, as we had a lot of interruptions from our kids distracting us, but not by enough to change the outcome.
5 Likes
Inspired by this forum, played Sprawlopolis and got 29 points on a 28 target! A rare win!
11 Likes
These are the ones that I can remember lol
Age of Steam - met @Whistle_Pig and her crew for some trainz. We played with the Poland map on 5 player, which I thought would be too tight as to cause bankruptcy, but didnāt. But the map was tight tho.
Princes of the Renaissance - stockholding on Italian city states where you auction the āsharesā. Players then send these city-states to war where each player is a condottiere who owns their own private armies. Again, auction on who gets to be the mercenary captain for both aggressor and defender. Very cool game and has some Ameritrashy elements to it with dice rolling and take-that cards, which is a nice change to the cerebrally deep games that I get from Cube Rails like Chicago Express or Mac Gerdtsā Imperial. Almost beer-and-pretzel kind of game, almost, but it has some clever stuff going on.
Isle of Trains - we played it wrong lol. To be fair, my friend who taught the game was told wrongly or he might have misremembered. And so the game dragged on. We pointed it out on how it drags on, and checked the rulebook.
6 Likes
Yesterday my partner organized a treetop high rope course for her birthdayā¦ only to have it cancelled on account of weather.
We were already on the road (thankfully only by a few minutes), and friends from three different cities were already planning to meet us. So we reorganized into a picnic near where we were going to meet, and I threw some games into a bag seemingly at random so weād have something to do.
We ended up playing a couple rounds of Phantom Ink, which I thoroughly enjoy but Andy isnāt crazy about. She finds it tooā¦ competitive? I guess? I dunno. I played a ghost both rounds (my favourite answers for Zombies were āHow would you use this as a weapon?ā (I wrote āNecromancyā), and "What container is it kept in (āGraveā)ā¦). It went over pretty well.
After that we played a quick round of Fake Artist Goes to New York which continues to impress me for how gosh-darn simple and elegant it is. Damn fine game.
After that we played a round of Wavelength, but Andy decided she just wanted to chat to people instead and so we only played once (āOn a scale of Unpleasant to Pleasant, my clue isā¦ eating a bit too much.ā The answer was just slightly on the unpleasant side).
It was a nice day overall, and I admit that Iām glad we didnāt go to the high ropes courseā¦ I hate heights, but I love my partner so she wants to go, we go.
10 Likes
Barely any gaming this week-end, instead my father-in-law and I (but mostly him, letās be real, I was basically a gopher) built the deck for our new pool! Maryse even got to try it out (though with a wet suit on, as it was QUITE chilly still).
However, we DID manage to play a pair of games of Tzolkāin on Friday. Still a delightful game, definitely one of our favourites. We traded wins this time around. Yes, I actually won a game! Donāt laugh!
9 Likes
The expansion is brilliant if you can get it 
4 Likes