Was it the same person as last time? : )
3 Likes
Nope lol. I know itās not Knizia this time. 
1 Like
Played a whole bunch of midweight Euros yesterday
Deus
Argent The Consortium
Ora & Labora
and a few light fillers.
Really enjooyed them all. My enjoyment of Argent has increased significantly since I stopped looking at the goals and just tried to acheive the one I looked at initially. Deus is a magnificent engine builder wrapped in a civ-lite veneer.
And Ora & Labora is one of those games with baffling component decisions that somehow ends up making sense. The fact you have to dissasemble the wheel depending upon number of players and have two almost identical but not quite games in the box are the kind of things you wouldnāt get in a modern reprint.
7 Likes
I still love Deus, itās a great game. I even have an expansion (Egypt), which I have cough never triedā¦
3 Likes
I exclusively play with the production expansion (Barques) because otherwise the game can be broken by people hoarding all of one resource. That said, the problem is the base game buildings are straightforward, and all of the expansion buildings add a quirk. I wish you could mix both together but because of the barques thatās not really a thing. I also use a mixture of temples. The problem is, mioxing the expansions in requires a howle bunch of card sorting and shuffling.
1 Like
Some more Flamecraft played this weekend, once on Friday and once on Sunday. The Friday game was with my two daughters and my eldest won by 5 points, and the Sunday game was with friends after a BBQ, which I won on a tie breaker. Itās simple, decent enough to teach, cute, and complex enough to feel like a challenge. It is definitely staying in my collection.
10 Likes
Some games over the past week or so:
Fantastic Factories, I taught this one at a meetup to some folks who hadnāt heard of it before and they really enjoyed it. I lost by wasting some buildings slots on 0 VP buildings though, which was fair enough honestly.
Parade, another teach to new people, also went over well. I came second this time - clearly the shorter teach distracted me less 
. Though one of our players was a newcomer so I was helping her a bit, but it helps itās a fairly simple game.
Azul:SP, one I picked given we had a new gamer in the group. Went well - three of us were fairly close - one guy got 2 high value stars finished and blitzed us all!
Ra, love this one - always a hit. I lost in the end as I pushed my luck too far on the final round 
Terraforming Mars:AE, first time getting this to the table. It was a little longer than I expected at like 2 hours or so but one of our players was building some massive combos that dragged his turns out a bit (he does sometimes fall into AP anyway, and this game seems a bit of an engine for it!). Still good fun. Will have to play it again to see how my feelings on it settle.
Blitzkrieg x2, two games of this as I mucked up scoring the first time (I was giving no points at draws rather than both players getting the points). Lots of fun, even when playing wrong.
Fleet:TDG, I think this was my first play with the fishing village. I like it, itās a minor expansion but gives a few more options without overwhelming (it never becomes all about the fishing village!)
Startups, x2 - new to the rest of the table so one game to get the scoring and one on more level footing.
Villagers, one of my faves on BGA and I still really enjoy the physical game. This was a low scoring game, just cause of the cards that came out, and though I won - it wasnāt by a lot.
10 Likes
I actually won a game of Ark Nova over the week-end! 34-31! That was an incredible game, one of our best! Never drew a SINGLE sponsor card. So lots of animals and all three basic conservation projects (never drew one of those either).
7 Likes
So Gridcon happened. This is Paul Groganās (Gaming Rules) thing; strict membership cap at 300, and 200 of those were Patreon supporters who got early access to tickets. Great fun though!
Thursday:
- Lemminge - there was beer. It seemed appropriate. Other players soon shared my feeling that itās a crying shame this isnāt better known.
- SCOUT - in the bar. I had two good rounds. Unfortunately there were four players.
Friday:
- Thunder Road: Vendetta - I had a great time and I feel absolutely no need to own it. Sure, great fun as a blow-em-up, but thereās basically no room for strategy.
- Ark Nova - OK, I start to see the appeal. I ended up running Rogerās World oā Vultures and still just about managed second place (out of three). But my goodness it took a long time, something like five hours altogether, and I donāt think we were dithering unduly.
- Kabuto Sumo - this took 70 minutes and really couldnāt justify it, though I did have a good time. I think for future games Iāll add a ātitle beltā, as apparently the very latest edition does, to give an instant win to anyone who knocks it ouf of the ringāthus shifting the balance towards the offence.
- Lords of Waterdeep - another āgame everyone except Roger has playedā. Fascinating to see the influence of āGerman gamesā on the US mass market circa 2012. Also quite fun in itself.
Saturday:
- Xia: Legends of a Drift System - every time I play this game I love it. N. and I both started out configured as Explorers, while S. went for Traderābut the trade planets didnāt come up for quite a while. N. made the traditional blind jump into the sun.
- Concordia - and another one that everyone except me has played. I was mostly concentrating on building up my resources more than collecting scoring cards, and did the latter a bit too late, but it still went interestingly.
- Nokosu Dice - with five, a bit less chaotic than last time. And I need to update my pocketmod rules again.
- Pictures - 4Ć4 grid of images, you have to use a very crude tool (e.g. two shoelaces, or a small pile of childrenās blocks) to indicate one of them. A bit Paranormal Investigators, a bit Mysterium.
Sunday:
- A Touch of Evil: The Supernatural Game - first time with The Coast expansion. The Sunken Seven are tough and the shadow track melted away before our eyes. All the Elders were dead or evil except for the three we took with us until the showdown (and one of them was evil too). A thorough defeat, but great fun.
- Piepmatz - aww, sweet garden birds. āNow if you play this, a fight startsā¦ā Love this.
- Project L - always reliable, and clinky audio-tactile appeal.
Then three hours homeā¦
15 Likes
Would be keen to hear if the variant works. I was rather disappointed with Kabuto Sumo
2 Likes
I suspect I may violate my usual rule and add in expansion content for peopleās first games in futureāmost of that gives some new way to win quickly.
2 Likes
I was determined to be more carefulā¦. And then I was given free movement that I had to use immediately! Such a cruel universe. Agreed, Xia is all kinds of awesome.
7 Likes
Played a couple games with my wife yesterday. First up was Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game, with me as the Empire to her Rebels. Initially things were going pretty good for me, getting Boba Fett and then Jabba, but my wife got Han Solo and was able to use his card draw ability well, using the base that lets her put the first card purchased in the turn on top of her deck, and then drawing it, getting some capital ships into play that way and preventing me from destroying her second base because of it. While I think I had more overall damage potential, she was able to defend some of it and also repair some, so took me out before I could finish off her second base.
After that, we played Lost Cities, which also did not go my way. She had a great expedition in the first round, getting eight cards in it for the 20 point bonus. She outscored me in the first two rounds, and though I did better in the third round, it wasnāt nearly enough to overcome her lead. She won, 230 - 169.
5 Likes
Indonesia - one person brought a print out map which is miles better than Splotterās. (Also, the sea zone near East Java is actually two zones, not one.)
Age of Steam - My local meta got stale where I win every time and Im keen to see more plays with my group to pump experience to them. But playing it with other people outside of my group (and are very competent) made me fight tooth and nail in the classic Rustbelt map. Rustbelt made me remind how great this map is.
Bus - this is our āclosing filler.ā As @yashima would say: āfillers for train gamersā. Glad to play this more. I finally decided that I dont need to own it. The first player change is degenerate enough that unlike 18xx itās not interesting to manage around it. I will play it but there are better āheavy fillersā like Chicago Express or Paris Connection or whatever
Nusfjord - I requested it. Itās a nice and nearly elegant mid-weight Euro. Due to Le Havreās lengthy duration, this is my fave Rosenburg.
Azul: Master Chocolatiers - I learnt that this game isnt just a (better) retheme of OG Azul, it contains the special factory powers, which are nice to have!
Doppelt so Clever - roll and writes are a bane in my life.
12 Likes
I still prefer the look of a 1st edition map with the original components.
I hope they donāt go for ugly but functional in the 3rd edition.
In a recent game of Bus I found that itās just about always optimal to take the first player spot as your 2nd action if itās still available, and yeah, that seems wrong. Never really cared for 1st player squabbling.
2 Likes
Quick game of Jaipur tonight. Well, not too quick as we needed all three rounds. I won the first by a healthy margin. My wife won the next by a slightly narrower one. Then she blew me out of the water in the final round.
7 Likes
I had my first playthrough of Obsession over the weekend, after finding a copy on eBay. A trial solo game against one of the beginner level solitaire opponents and a comfortable victory. It was very good: pretty quick to setup plus easy to learn and play although the rulebook seemed more complicated than it needed to be so video playthroughs helped. Iām no fan of Austen or Downtown Abbey but did enjoy the theme and gameplay. Definitely a keeper at least as a solo game, and the Upstairs Downstairs expansion has already been ordered; my purchase came with the Wessex expansion already.
11 Likes
Have I mentioned that my colleagues are the bestā¦ when I asked if they would register on BGA for our online boardgame night, they had all made accounts. And so instead of Codenames which we love but have played so much over the past few iterationsā¦ we got to play 2 rounds of Just One and 5 missions of The Crew. The Crew worked really well, because trick taking is such a common thing here that I only had to explain how the coop part worked.
Also it turns out I have a bit of a difficult time naming colors correctly. I can distinguish them well enough but matching the right words to the colors I seeā¦ almost as bad as my partner who has trouble with āI meant the other leftā
8 Likes
I donāt have difficulty with naming colours, but sometimes I get confused with what colour I am playing with. I can build complete strategies on my mind and then realise and go: Sh*t! Iām playing with blue, not yellow!
I guess thatās why some players I know have exclusive colours they will play with? As in āhe always plays with blue and she always chooses redā¦ā
3 Likes
Thatās my wife. Sheās always blue so she wonāt accidentally start working with the wrong color.
Yet she always plays Medusa in Unmatched, who is green based, while Alice is the blue oneā¦ 
3 Likes