Two player Scout. I’ve heard not so good at 3, but the two player rules really sing. Well, except for the manual. If you go over to BGG you’ll find a couple of threads of people trying to hash out the two player rules because part of them are only in the French manual, part are clear in the German but vague in the English, and vice versa. They pounded it out and I’m glad I ferreted out the reality. Scout is great at 2.
Two player rules:
- Each play can only scout three times per round. This is indicated by the three scout chips you start with, you have to turn one in for each scout.
- Each turn, you MUST beat your opponent’s show. If you can’t, round over. But you are allowed to scout as many times as you can (using those three tokens…) before showing.
So if you want the cards, or if there’s a strong set out, you can scout-scout-show for your turn. But then you only have one scout left for the entire rest of the round, leaving you vulnerable.
Also Air, Land, & Sea. I still love this game, maybe 9/10 rather than 10/10 now. It really requires two players of equal skill. I’m always teaching it to new people. I need to get some repeat opponents or figure out a sensible handicap so the game is better during that “equalizing” period of learning. But I love the turn zero routing, figuring out what to do with your hand, followed by the inevitable derailment as your opponent moves your cheese or plays into the theater you were sure you’d secure, and then the myriad of levers the cards give you to devise a response.
Also Star Wars Deckbuilding. Timely follow on to @Brattyjedi . I’m also torn. The comparison to Star Realms is inevitable, and that game has had three iterations to perfect mechanics, deck balance, and power curve. I really like all the additions - the bases, the split deck and concept of attacking your opponent’s cards out of the market rather than just a big pool of health, etc. They put in a lot of great ideas.
But at the same time, the card design is bad (tiny icons, tiny text, hard to read across the table). The market is swingy - I had a lot of money but my opponent did not. So his capital ships, which you can’t easily purge from the market, piled up and I was just discarding money each round. Access to scrapping and cycling is spotty, so (like Shards of Infinity) it’s hard to actually act on a strategy and instead you just play whatever the market gives you.
I like it. I think a second edition would be a great thing. I don’t want a prequel or sequel trilogy edition, I want these characters just with more readable card design and a polished deck, with more mechanics for cycling a bad market and more consistent access to basic deckbuilding abilities.
So it’s good, but a bit bittersweet insofar as it does some things better and some things worse than it’s granddaddy.
. Not my best day but the game was fun and enjoyed by all.
