We had WyvernCon this weekend. Started with 1824: Austria-Hungary woth 6 players. Didnt liked this as much as @EnterTheWyvern . As usual, found myself more interested on the 1825 branch, or 1846: Race to the Midwest, or 1880: China (this one takes too long tho)
Then the next day, we started with 5 player Cthulhu Wars. It felt epic.
6Nimmt
Senjutsu: Battle for Japan - good card battler. Clearly the kind of game I cant commit to. But would be keen to try Battlecon
It is Stonemeier. If it was published balanced the world would implode.
Still, this is one I want to play.
No 1837? I was hoping for a compare-contrast!
Iāve continued noodling on Carcassonne. I added in Traders and Builders and had what I think is my best game yet? My Builder went down early in a city with a cathedral, which was inexplicably locked out about 25% of the way in. The vacant spot looked easy to fill, must have just been an early run on those tiles. So I was down a builder and a worker, but I made up for it by stealing a massive city at the last minute. Pig got me a huge farm, as well, and it was tied at final count. Then the ātraderā tiles were counted and I pulled ahead by 10. Believe it or not, Carc has become exciting.
Iām giving Puerto Rico the same treatment. It took about 5 games. I have finally realized that, while the only variation in the game is the plantation tiles, what tiles the player to your right and left draw has a huge, outsized effect on your strategy. Trading and Shipping are so central to points and income that being repeatedly locked out of the Trading House, or creating or losing shipping opportunities as ships fill up, really does mean everything. Iāve spent 20 years kind of not liking this game but this run, combined with a bunch of New Frontiers, has finally pulled the game into focus. Two things clicked here - one, Iām now beating the bots consistently so I feel Iāve grokked it. Second, I played a game where I bought an Office and not a Factory. And the Office probably won me the game. Doing that is just so context dependent, it tells me that the game has clicked.
Interestingly, New Frontiers felt surprisingly different from Puerto Rico at first pass. After playing both of them several times in a row, they are starting to move together. I still prefer New Frontiers in a pinch but PR has finally gotten off the ākeep or cullā pile. Itās something of an archive piece but itās one I want to have access to.
High level carc is 100% counting tiles.
We played 1837 a while ago. I think Iām leaning toward 1837, but thatās because I won with a ābrokenā combo 
Has such table presence and, as you say, epic. Next WyvernCon should be all Cthulhu Wars for 2 days. Still, it was nice to see Z again who doesnāt like it. Main downside was after hacking back at the Yellow Sign when it was stated that we were winning and should be targeted no one did. The Yellow Sign player and Daemon Sultan both have played enough to know better. So when I attacked you and didnāt get attacked by anyone else it was a runaway victory. Not sure of the game didnāt suit annoying Cthulhu or my predilection for confrontation in the game led me down the fighting path. Submerge is fun and gets more so with unlimited battle. Ancients look interesting, want to play them so I can start learning. Also want to play Deamon Sultan again. They are really odd so always intriguing and seeing them on the board reminded me about all their shenanigans. Iām pro Cthulhu Wars shenanigans.
Senjutsu was cool, a shame I missed the 4 player game. Sounded more fun with the increased chaos. Needs a few more plays bit seems like it should grow but sadly I wonāt play it too much more.
While that went on I played 2 games of Xenon Profiteer. Iām no good at deck builders but I love them. Love the theme on this one for being so unusual and sort of mundane. Also the use of trashing as a core mechanic is good.
Day 1 I didnāt quite enjoy 1824 due to not remembering some rules and things going awry meant I donāt think we played 1824. One day Iāll playa again with more correct rules implementation. There was a memory of what was going but didnāt zip along as I remembered
Imo, I dont think you shouldnt try on cities unless itās safe or have pre-existing units. Moving (or even recruiting, i think) into a space w gov support reveals your insurgents. And Gov can always train on cities
The trouble (and the fun of Cuba Libre) is that the map forces long marches from one side of the board to the other. Unlike, People Power, the capital - Havana - is often a bastion you cant breach whether youre either 26Jul or DR
On Sunday I finally managed to organise a game of John Company 2E 
Several of us had watched rules videos (and even entire play throughs) which was a great help. We also used the recommended ārolling teachā, which probably saved a good hour!
I treated the game mostly as an exercise in pulling levers to see what would happen, which probably contributed quite a bit to the general chaos. Our chairman started out trying to act with integrity, but realised about halfway through the game that he was on a hiding to nothing. Afterwards he said that the game got a lot more fun when he "stopped trying to run the company well and started being an arsehole.
We only made it to the end of round three before crashing the company, partly due to a large amount of the balance disappearing through embezzlement, and partly having enlisted far too many officers, courtesy of a law that made it a free action.
I really enjoyed it for the same reason that I like a lot of Cole Werhleās designs - the narrative that emerges as you play. There was a bit of grumbling from a couple of players about the randomness, particularly the company failure cards. We drew the card that put all the blame on the Prime Minister, who would have won otherwise and was a bit salty about it. I can see that this would really benefit from multiple plays with the same group, so hopefully I can convince them to play again soon 
We tried makeshift Nigoichi with my parents who are big Codenames heads. It went over just okay - it was fun to discuss after a round but my dad confessed that he was mostly just guessing. It worked though; after four rounds he had an insurmountable lead (1 point), me and my mom had -1 point, and everyone guessed one of my wifeās words on the last round so she plummeted to -5 points. I donāt think it will make a reappearance in the house.
Played Cthulhu: Death May Die last night with my mate Ben. We did episode 2 with Hastur, and he was amused as the cards inside the episode were still in their wrapper. I found it amusing that out of the three times I played this actual game, the first one I wasnāt yet the owner, and the other two have been with him (with me owning the same box).
We managed to win before the very last Mythos card was drawn by the skin of our teeth (that arcane symbol would have cost us the game). We had Adam, The Kid and Fatima. It took us a while to get the second Tome, somehow we managed to get always the odd arcane symbol that we did not have a match for. So Hastur actually came on the board before we could even deal any damage to it, and luckily we found a medic kit that avoided us failing to interrupt the ritual. Soon after, Fatima died.
I had a moment where I was not sure if we were cheating, as Hastur reappeared through one of the portals close to The Kid, and I thought he would get damaged dealt through her power. Later one we checked and it was not correct, her power affects cultists and Monsters, and Elder Ones are a different category. On the other hand, we were rolling extra dice for Hastur (against characters with yellow signs) also wrongly, so one thing may balance the other out? It is hard not to get at least a rule wrong with this game.
Still, it was a ton of fun. Definitely need to play it more often.
Terraforming Mars Dice by the fire. I lost but I didnāt care because I was closest to the fire and have a better chance of making it through the night.
I vote for the being closest to the fire to give you an in-game bonus to raising temperature on Marsā¦
Maybe not Mars, but certainly the Moon.
Last Unmatched night of the tournament. So I got a little confused about things, as the original plan was to have five weeks of games with one make up week for those who had to miss a night due to circumstances. Instead, it became just a best five of six nights, but also a make up session that only benefitted those who had missed a day. I still participated in this as an opponent though.
So for the makeup games, I was dealt Ms. Marvel and Elektra, and I went with the latter. She can be played in a somewhat degenerate way that gives her good odds of winning, though I tried not to play that way.
First up was against Houdini, played by one of the people tied for second with me. It was a really good game and both of us played well, but I managed to edge him out, defeating him while I had just 2 health left.
Next up was Tesla, who owned me last time when I was Daredevil, though run by a different player. I did better this time, getting him down to 3 or so, but in my second life he was able to take out my Hand ninjas and use secret passages in the map to force me to move and boost to attack him, which would leave me in range for a counter attack, and I ran out of cards.
Last in the makeup session was Bruce Lee, played by one of players tied for first. While he did great in killing the Hand, he ended up not being very effective against Elektra, and I won with I think 7 health remaining.
For the actual match, I was dealt Achilles and Bloody Mary, and went with the former. Achilles can be a beast, especially after his sidekick dies and all his attacks get +2, but he then draws a card whenever he wins combat, which can plough through the deck and exhaust him.
First match was against Sun Wukong, who can summon clones and has a very tricksy deck. After my sidekick died, I went very aggressive and while I took some hits, he took more and I eventually was able to finish him off just right with one of my double attack cards.
1-0.
Next was Bigfoot, the player who had been using Bruce Lee earlier. I focused on his Jackalope sidekick to start, as it has three schemes that cause an undefendable 2 damage each that I did not want to deal with. He started the game off with one of them, but I was able to take it out before another one got played.
He killed my sidekick when I swapped him into Achilles position using one of my card effects, and we were pretty even in health to the point I thought I had a decent chance of winning. However, he Feinted every single one of my double attacks, taking a total of just 3 damage and removing the need to block the three follow-up attacks at value 5. If not for that I likely would have won, but I only had him down to 6 when I ran out of cards in hand and he took me out.
1 - 1.
Last was the T-Rex from Jurassic Park, which I have never played as or against, though I have looked through itās deck. It only has a movement of 1, but as a Large fighter, it can attack up to two spaces away, and it also always draws a card at the end of itās turn. It also has 27 health, which is obscene, but it has a lot of card effects that damage it.
It started out pretty well, with me being aggressive with my sidekick while trying to keep Achilles out of harmās way, but he kept getting close enough to get me and we whittled each otherās health down, but he just had a bunch more than me. Once my sidekick died, I only had one card in hand and I was never able to get far enough away to build up any kind of momentum. I got him down to 9 when I ran out of cards in hand and he chomped me to death. Most annoying things was I would usually block with a card that was equal to the attack card, but the effect of his card would let him Boost it, so I was taking 2 - 3 damage each time, and he always got to draw a card to keep up his hand size at the end of the turn.
1 - 2.
I preferred my ratio from the makeup session. 
I came in 4th place out of 15 (though we really only had 10 regulars) so still did good overall. I really needed a 3 - 0 night to be in the running, but it just was not meant to be. But a lot of fun was had, and thatās the important part.
I got to play some games yesterday! I took the day off to go to the optician, so I had a free afternoon. Met up early with a friend at the board game cafe (they were running a Monster of the Week one-shot there in the evening) and played some stuff 2-player.
Cat in the Box - I won the first round, but once they had the hang of the rules, they kicked my ass. We ended up playing 4 rounds, as itās pretty short with just 2. Still a good game, but I prefer it at 3+. Not a fan of how it always ends as a paradox with 2.
Fantasy Realms - I only changed one card of my initial hand, as it was very strong - or so I thought. Unfortunately, my prior experience of Marvel Remix was my downfall. I saw a +28 and a +50 bonus and didnāt realise they werenāt uncommon. Beaten by 21 points.
Unmatched: Houdini vs. The Genie - Played this straight out of the box. Nothing from other sets. I was Houdini and I really liked the way he played. We were pretty evenly matched for most of the game.
My critical error was when I was low on health and used a card that let me draw 3 cards and put one back on top of my deck. I chose to put back the card that would return me to 4 health if I were defeated, keeping two attack/defense cards, thinking theyād be more useful. The Genie played an attack that cancelled the effects on my card and I was dead.
Last night at Thirsty Meeples:
Battle for Byzantium: my goodness this is barely a game. Roll and move, land on a card space to get a card which may let you conquer a city or may screw you over. Iām going to have to review this on BGG; the three other ratings are 10s!
Cosmoctopus: donāt call it Cthulhu. Quite an enjoyable placement game; the three of us specialised in different sorts of card and we were all within a point of winning at the end.
Project L: an actual non-Kickstarter edition seen in the wild! Always good fun.
I like the name.
Apparently Jump Drive has fan-made solo campaigns. Reportedly they are quite good. I gave them a try andā¦ yap. Someone did some excellent work creating a solo Jump Drive experience.
The way it works is there is a four-objective campaign. First game, kind of like Yahtzee, you can ācheck offā any one of the four objectives that you completed. Each subsequent game you have to check off another objective until either a) youāve checked off all four - Win!, or b) you are unable to satisfy a new objective, in which case you lose.
First round really is like Yahtzee, you are probably aiming for something but may qualify for two or three objectives and you have to choose which one seems hardest, to cross off.
Middle rounds you are definitely targeting something, and you may hit it or you may have to switch tracks to an easier objective. Keeping tabs on your trajectory and making a decision if or when to change strategies is a crunchy morsel.
By the fourth objective, you need your tableau to go a certain way, and that has its own tension and thrill.
All to say, itās got an added layer of puzzle/interest, a natural arc, and with Jump Drive already being a low-interaction medium it sits on the game perfectly. Recommended.
These fan campaigns have been bundled into the Terminal Velocity expansion, which unfortunately (or fortunately) falls inside my no-buy zone (and Iāve released all my holds for added enforcement). But they are also available on BGG in the original fan-made format.
Hmm - apparently also implemented in Beta on BGA. And apparently theyāve also tried to give RFTG the same treatment as an alternative to the Gathering Storm bot.
Last note is a comment by Lehmann that he took this model to make solo challenges for New Frontiers, in the new Starry Rift box. Yet to be seen.
I think I remember reading that the fan-made solo campaign by Epyo was the basis for the recent Jump Drive expansion that includes the same concept.
