I think the first couple levels of Carcaghost are training levels. 3-5 are the sweet spot with 6 being , apparently, a silly sausage level.
3 Likes
âŚScotch Mist?.. Whatâs Scotch, Mist?
2 Likes
Twinkle Starship - we were about to play Ambiente Abissal/Planet etuC, but someone joined in and we switch to this one. The twist here is very interesting where you can manipulate the cards you play by placing sticks on them (e.g. a 6 can be turned into an 8 if you put a stick on the gap) The sticks also counts as number of bids so the more you use the sticks, the lower your bid would be. Very interesting. But I feel like Ninety-Nine or American Bookshop feels more compelling. Still, I enjoy playing this. Might keep it for now
El Grande - a grand 5 player game (or should I say, a grande 5 player game? No??). It was great experience as usual
So Clover
Cuba Libre - I was coerced into taking the Batista government, as they deemed it more difficult. And lo and behold, they are ganging up on me as I am winning early game (though, they need to understand that I am weaker at the 2nd half of the game.). Mafia Syndicate got away with the victory, but the Directorio was kinda close. I should have knock down the mafia a peg, but the Castroists and the Directorio are too much of a nuisance.
Classic Art - great filler game, but the box is too large for my taste.
18Mex - played another game of 18Mex with @EnterTheWyvern . Easily one of the best games Iâve played. Wyvern and I are leading ahead with high incomes early game, but I made the mistake where I should have started a new company rather than investing on other peopleâs companies. If I did started a new one at Round 3(?), my hope is that Wyvernâs delta wouldnât be so bad and the other player wouldnât have dumped their company to me. And by not stealing the National railway company, I would be able to sell off my failing company to it (you are not allowed to sell your own company to the state-owned one if you are the president of both). Ah well. Lessons learnt.
Tzolkin - still one of my favourite Euro games even to this day. I mean, it doesnât have the dynamism of other games like Splotters or Tigris & Euphrates, but the simple but difficult gameplay continues to capture my attention.
Kingâs Guild - it got some good stuff going on, but itâs ultimately boring.
11 Likes
Got a few games in today. Started with Lords of Vegas with my wife and her brother. She jumped out to a pretty early lead, but we were able to catch up, me by taking over one of her two tile casinos with a two tile of my own, and her brother by making a size three casino of the same color.
My wife and I traded control back and forth, and though I think I benefitted from it more than she did, she had it at game end. I did get to steal another casino from her, though, which she had raised to three stories. I paid through the nose to take a two story three tile casino and raise it to take over, which then got me 12 points when it scored! Unfortunately it was not enough, and my wife won with 49 to my 44, with her brother at 32.
The two of us then played Ethnos, using Dwarves, Minotaurs, Wingfolk, Trolls, and Centaurs. Unusually, she scored more than I did with bands, and I am a bit embarrassed to say that I had a total brain fart regarding the Troll tokens, thinking I would win ties since I got the 4 while she had 1 - 3. So my first age strategy was totally borked. I won the ties in the second age, but it was not enough and my wife won again, about 100 - 90.
Lastly, we broke in my newest game, The Quest for El Dorado using the suggested first-time setup. And, earning the trifecta for today, my wife won this as well, getting both of her meeples to El Dorado, while I was just able to get one there on my last turn. She did a good job cutting me off at various points, and I realize now that I used the Treasure Chest poorly when I could have held it and moved through the last tile easier instead of getting stuck like I did. Oh well, first play and all that. It was fun, quick, and easy to play, so it is a winner so far.
10 Likes
Quest for El Dorado, having got the new Dutrait art with proper cards it was a delight to get this out. Myself vs my seven year old kid.
I won with a thin deck and taking the longer easy routes. Kiddo concentrates fully on the shortest possible path and often gets stuck on the three symbol spaces waiting for the perfect card.
5 Likes
Last night at Local Game Group a very light set of games:
Ominoes, thereâs a lot of luck here but it wears it on its sleeve.
Skyjo, basically golf with some minor variations, easy to pick up and light fun.
Dixit, hadnât played since I started logging games, and none of us could really remember how the scoring was meant to work (this was one of the âsquashed down to fit in a takeaway containerâ games), but we had fun with it anyway.
I donât always want to play this light but I was in the right mood for it this evening.
Iâve introduced the guy who squashes games down to fit in takeaway containers to Pocketmod, and built him a rules sheet. 
9 Likes
I played two games at level 3 tonight (respectively an abysmal loss and a resounding win), and then read the rules for the remaining levels. Can confirm that level 6 sounds very difficult!
Level 4 is just a more difficult level 3 (with a slightly smaller ghost pool and slightly higher score thresholds to meet). I would have lost my second game if it was at level 4 as although I flew past the victory score in the end, Iâd only barely reached the first of the score thresholds in time.
Level 5 makes graveyards much worse.
Level 6 tracks points independently for three different colours rather than as a single combined total, and you have to get all the colours past each of the scoring thresholds (which are lower than before, but then tripled in effect). Yikes. (Although it was evidentially much worse in the initial printing: unless you had exactly 3 players, you were playing these same rules with 4 or even 5 colours!! 3/4/5 players = 1 colour each; 2 players = 2 colours each; 1 player = 4 colours. They have since amended it to 3 colours regardless of player count â which is still hard.)
The manual also has a silly ambiguity about the victory threshold â if you base it on how most of the levels are played you would think the target was 100 per colour, but itâs actually 50 per colour (confirmed by the big tile with the level summaries).
On that note, the most awkward component/rule is probably the little target score marker that goes on the score track. Depending on the level youâll have to reach it either once, twice, or three times, which I think is completely daft.
On levels 1 and 6 youâre supposed to put it on the 0/50 mark and reaching the marker means that youâve won the game.
On levels 3 and 5 youâre also supposed to put it on the 0/50 mark and reaching the marker means that⌠you have to go around the board again.
On level 2 you put it at the 25 point mark, and reaching the marker means that you have to go around the board again.
On level 4 you put it at the 20 point mark, and reaching the marker means that you have to go around the board again⌠and reaching the marker that time means you that you have to go around the board again⌠and then youâve won.
Itâs a small thing, but so clunky and inconsistent, and it could have been solved easily with a score track that actually went to the highest score threshold, rather than making you loop around the traditional 50-point Carcassonne track repeatedly⌠or not repeatedly⌠as the case may be. 
.
Maybe they had a ton of the regular score boards printed already, and were determined to use them.
3 Likes
A couple more games played today. First up was a rematch of The Quest for El Dorado, and this time I managed the win, getting both of my meeples to El Dorado just after my wife got her first there. She likely would have got her second there in another turn or two, so very close game.
Later, her brother joined us and we tried again to take out Asajj Ventress in Star Wars: the Clone Wars. We got really close this time, actually getting to the Finale, but the Planet Under Siege card came up while there were only a handful of cards in the Invasion discard, and two of them had three droids on them already, our Invasion rate was 3 (draw three cards), and if we got one more Threat we would lose.
So, naturally, all three cards that we drew would cause the loss! I looked and the following three cards would have been fine. Sure, we had a blockade to deal with first, but all three of us were on the mission planet and we had enough cards that anyone attempting the mission would only need to roll 1 hot on the die to win. One more turn would have likely won us the game.
Ah well, try try again.
4 Likes
I played 2 more games of Legacy of Yuâfinally. It had been waiting for me to get back to it for a while. I had to reread a few of the rules and then continued to win one and lose the second game. The second game went quickly as I threw everything against one card that would have persisted to the next game⌠I am really enjoying these games Hopefully the next games wonât take so long to happen.
7 Likes
Played a round of Burgle Bros 2. Everything was going not quite swimmingly, but we were managing, until the last turn of the game where I had to go through a pool to get to the exit and win. I flipped a pool event, had to move a bouncer to a random location, and we both said that he was definitely going to land right on me. Guess what? He did, so we lost 
9 Likes
Some shorter games today. Started with Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game, which I lost, despite having what was arguably the better deck. If I could have kept the Force on my side, it likely would have gone better for me, but she used her second base to pull it back to her side and I never got it back.
Later we played Sobek 2-player, which I won due to having more and better sets, as my wife destroyed me in coins. Final score was 85 - 73.
After that, we broke out Lost Cities, which we havenât played for a while. I managed to win this one, too, thanks to my wife having a lousy first round of -29 points, which was humorously followed by 29 points in the second round. While she outscored me in the last round, it was not enough to make up for that deficit, and I won 78 - 43.
Lastly, we played Ticket to Ride London, which I screwed up by misremembering one of my tickets after I got cut off from my planned route. I still could have made it, but I forgot to use one train to connect to a city, instead using one to get the connection bonus for the 4 point group. If I had completed my route instead, I still would have lost, but would have scored 4 more points total. I lost 39 - 30.
7 Likes
We havenât been able to play any games for a few weeks due to various people being ill, but on Wednesday we finally managed to play a few in the pub after work.
First Rat: I picked up a bonus that gave me +2 cheese every time I collected any, another that let me share spaces with other players without giving them any cheese, and another that gave me 5 extra points or every 10 cheese donated to the rat space program. Really cleaned up with the cheese 
Vaalbara: A quick tableau builder where the value of the character card you play from your hand determines the order in which you pick from the shared supply of âlandscapeâ cards. The character cards also have abilities, so the balance is between going early in the turn order to get the landscape card you want vs potentially going later to take advantage of a character power.
Village Pillage: Another variant on âplay characters from your hand for their abilitiesâ, but this time what they do depends on what your neighbours play, and your neighbours might steal all your turnips 
8 Likes
We played two games of Everdell with Newleaf, my birthday gift!
Holy crap, you guys, this is SO great. The new cards add so many options (without unduly prolonging the game), it made our heads spin. Love the train station as well, and the tickets and reservation token are super good.
I lost both games, but I donât even care, thatâs the best expansion theyâve released.
8 Likes
Gang of Dice (5 times), takes 10 minutes, is stupidly swingy, is by Dr Liner Kunitzia, is fun. GOTY.
Mind Up. Essentially the second half of For Sale with a bit of set collection thrown in. The game comes from the cards you collect become the next roundâs hand plus one card.
5 Likes
Birthday celebration today, which meant having our usual gaming couple meet up.with my wife and I at our FLGS, which has an event space now for some kid free gaming, and it was glorious!
While a Pokemon event was going on, we warmed up with High Society, first play for all of us. I actually managed to win with 11 points, my wife had 5, our friend J had 4, and his wife, C, had 16, but the least money. Now that we all had some idea of what we were doing, we played again. This time J won with 15 to my 10, while the other two were completely out of money cards and thus Cast Out.
We followed this with Vampire the Masquerade: Vendetta, which I have loved ever since playing it on TTS, but sadly has only hit the table twice. Well, three times now. I was the Nosferatu, my wife was Toreador, C was Tremere, and J was Ventrue. Normally, I would have guessed that I would lose thisgame badly, but I actually managed to win with 29 points! J came in 2nd with 27, then my wife with 20 amd C with 18. To be fair, J and C missed that they would only be playing 2 cards the first round, so that may have had an impact.
Then came the main event: Nemesis! Our first play. I was the Captain, my wife the Scientist, C the Scout, and J the Mechanic. I think we only got.two rounds in before J had an encounter, surprise attacked by a Larva, so he got infected and we all had to pick one secret objective to go with. Turned out we all went with the personal one. We steadily explored the ship. I made it to the cockpit and checked the destination, which was deep space, so I changed it to Earth. No one really trusted me on that, but no one ever got the chance to verify it as Intruders started popping up all over.
Eventually, J was able to get to the surgery bay and get his larva removed, which was a relief for him. He got to one of the engine rooms and Repaired it, at least so he told us. I was able to find the Engine Control room and verify that and also another engine was operational, so as far as I was concerned, we were doing fine.
C, meanwhile, needed to find the Comm Room to send a signal, which she did, but also encountered the Queen, and this soon after a serious wound forced her to drop one item from her hands and she chose her weapon. She got pretty messed up getting away. My wife used the Control room to seal up the Queen in the Comm room, and was generally helping by closing doors to try to contain some fires. She also wounded some intruders using grenades. I managed to kill a couple with my six-shooter.
Seeing an opportunity, I jumped into the Hibernatorium and successfully hibernated, meaning the ship could not change destination or self-destruct. With just 7 turns remaining, I was feeling pretty good. C tried to make her way back to non-Queen infested areas of the ship, entering the nest, and then the generator room which burst into flames. She eventually hit an encounter and was killed.
My wife had already used the Hatch room to unlock both escape pods (one was removed by an event) and C was working his way to one but being constantly hounded by Invaders. My wife managed to hibernate as well with 4 turns remaining until the hyperspace jump. Flames spread from events, leaving just one more fire token in the supply. Similarly, rooms malfunctioned, leaving just two in the supply.
J tried to enter an escape pod but had an encounter. He killed that one just to have another adult intruder walk in. Meanwhile the Queen had broken out of the comm room and moved to the other evacuation bay. She ended up moving away and J, with three serious wounds and 7 contamination cards in his deck, made a desperate move from his intruder and actually survived! However, in the event phase the turn marker moved to the 1 and the event made us place malfunction tokens wherever a Queen, Breeder, or Adult were located, which was more than we had token for, so the ship lost integrity and exploded.
Both my wife and I had an objective to get the ship to Earth or be the sole survivor. C needed to send the signal, which she did, but then either kill the Queen or destroy the ship. So while she did attain that, she was not alive to celebrate. J had the Hoarder objective, which was to collect 7 items (which he did), and then escape in a pod, which the game just was not letting him do. And, since he kept surviving, the event cards killed the ship on the very last turn!
Funny thing was we had J check all his contamination cards and he wasnât infected! So if he had managed to get in a pod and launch, he would have won, as well as my wife and me. In any case, it was a lot of fun, though took upwards of four hours to play.
We finished off the day with our first four player game of The Quest for El Dorado, which ended up being really close, with all of us in striking distance of El Dorado, but my wife was last in the turn order and the first to reach the golden city. I was one green short of making it myself. If I had just drawn my compass on my last turn, I would have had it! Though she would have still won due to the blockade tie-breaker. Good fun and our friends enjoyed it.
Gamed from about 11 AM to 7:30ish PM, with a small break for lunch. I havenât had a game day like this in years, as even at SHUX I did not have this much straight game time in a single day, and it was just the best! And huge thanks to my brother-in-law who watched our kids so we could go play games all day.
11 Likes
No Frosthaven this week, having a break. Which worked out ok, since we were a person down.
First up was Pikoko, first play. This is a trick taker, and itâs pretty standard stuff, the gimmick is that you can see other peoples hands, but not your own. And your hand is played by the person to your left. You start by predicting how many tricks each player will get, and your final prediction is for your own hand. And all youâve got to go on is the predictions the other players have made. It was pretty good fun, and cool to watch another player playing your cards for you. Obviously they will be trying to fulfil their predictions. As well as tokens for prediction, there are also confidence cards, selected in secret, which is the player you think will meet their prediction.
Planet etuC, first play. Missed out on playing this last week, but this week we had 3p, so we gave it a go. This is a climbing game, you have to play a higher set of cards than the previous player. Cards are played either by themselves, or with another card, making a pair by value or colour. Once its been established which type has been played (by number or colour), thatâs how future cards must be played. So you could play a lower number, but a higher colour (thereâs a hierarchy of colours, kind of like Red7), if youâre playing with colours instead of values. To win, you need to play all your cards.
Signorie, our main game for the day⌠Thereâs a lot to think about in this dice placement game. Each time you take a dice, you have three choices â do the main Signoria action, do an assignment tile, or create a helper on another dice (that goes off when you do that action). And figuring out which dice to use, because youâre trying to stay under a total so you can use the reward for that round. Meanwhile, you send your dudes out to perform diplomatic missions, and use your women to marry for points. Probably a bit sexist there, but it is the 15th century. Couldnât quite time my guys before the end, which meant I didnât score for some tiles (because you need to have at least three).
And a nice, relaxing game of Sanssouci to finishup.
8 Likes
Space Station Phoenix - good game! But it does take a while than Iâd like it. However, strongly suspect that itâs because we are bad players not recognising that we have to push the game forward and recognising WHEN to push it forward.
The Rich and the Good - used to be available only in German as Hab und Gut so it doesnt show up in that Isleworth club that plays old games. 1 hour simple stock speculation game. I love the shared information you have with your neighbours. Carlo Rossi designed this, and he also designed Alchemist (not the CGE one), which is such a good SICS game. This is one of my best New-To-Me this year.
So Clover
Attila - Another game where players only have indirect influence over game factions. These factions are different barbarian tribes like Franks, Goths, etc that are invading the Roman Empire. Simply area majority on gaining influence on these factions a la Acquire, Carolus Magnus, or The King is Dead. The game is amazingly thematic for a small simple game. You can only place pawns on the Roman border provinces or adjacent to an existing piece. Battle between tribes can happen once there are 5 pieces in one area, which can influence the strength of a faction on scoring. The only thing missing is a Rome that is resisting these invaders. A counter faction that will fight these tribes and allows you to gain influence on them will make the game more interesting. Oh, and it was designed by Karl-Heinz Schmiel (Die Macher fame).
Cthulhu Wars - played as the Great Cthulhu again with @EnterTheWyvern . Again, just when I have a sneaking suspicion that Cthulhu Wars might start to feel rote, some interesting high level strategy and low level tactics reveals themselves.
Chicago Express - 5 players with the Erie company only as expansion due to new players I havenât played with before. I pretty much told them itâs a game of alliances and backstabbing, and it was treated that way by the players and we⌠uuhhh⌠were told to put our volume down by neighbouring tables.
Coup
Tigris and Euphrates - we played with the back-side map so there are more treasures and has two spots to do a 2x2 blue monument (instead of just one in the front-side). It was great playing this again.
Hit! aka No Mecry - new Knizia. Good quick fire push-your-luck game. Gang of Dice remains by choice.
Today, weâll have another game of 18Mex with @EnterTheWyvern .
8 Likes
I discovered that BGA finally decided to make opening solo-games quick and painless. So I played a whole bunch of Itâs a Wonderful World and Sagani. I really appreciate both those solos modes on the table as well. As a pure engine builder Itâs a Wonderful world might be my favorite definitely like it more than both Splendor and Century Spice Road. However: it is also the biggest box, the most fiddly to set up and I really like the Splendor chips.
Also more TrailblazersâI am getting better with the goals. Not using the expansions much so far (same effect as with the *-polis games, there is enough variety in the goals and they are hard enough to win that I just donât see the need to complicate things more).
The goal was to have 2 (red) bike paths share start and ending edge of the camp. You can see the example. I did it ⌠differently
I won a game of Naturopolis with an incredible 18 points. It was with Drivinâ Daisies, Straight and Narrow and Patchwork Park. Not the hardest of goals especially since 2 of them are based on having a long road which makes it easy to focus.
9 Likes
Oh, nice; thank you for sharing that. I just logged back in to check it out, at which point BGA awarded me:
âSenior - 1 year seniority on BGAâ
I then played a solo game of Regicide, after which it gave me another new award:
âFirst game - Play one game on BGAâ
8 Likes
A surprisingly non-gameful Stabcon, in part because I ended up having a multi-hour natter with a few old friends. But I did playâŚ
Fiasco, the new card-based edition. Iâve seen some Coen Brothers films now and so I think that my âjust donât really get itâ canât be ascribed to that; I just felt that the prompts didnât produce tension or give me any real guidance.
Turing Machine, tricky to teach but I think Iâve got the key point now (âthe way you choose which of the 3-4 tests on the card youâre going to be checking is by picking the test numbers, because the one thatâs true for the test numbers is the one youâre asking about for the secret numberâ).
Xia: Legends of a Drift System, fell a bit flat when one player kept getting bad dice luck, but they ended up coming third out of five so it could have been worse.
Flash Point: Fire Rescue, a long and enthusiastic battle on the hotel board.
11 Likes