Recent Boardgames (Your Last Played Game Volume 2)

[EnterTheWyvern]

Was excellent to get such good games played after that hiatus. Fresh Fish was mind bending. Hope we can play again soon enough. First game was all over the place so I’m really interested to see it play not first play for everyone.

@yashima

What kind of Schnellentscheider do you play with?

Me! The group often plays aggressive as well so, all else fails, mess up someone else’s game (joking, but if a funny way to mess someone up then we’ll probably take it)

There’s a ton of guess work and it’s about psyching out the other players so deliberating too long gives away too much of your intentions. I think part of the charm of the design is the fast and loose nature where fake outs and opportune knives in accidentally exposed backs are delicious. I think I’d call it family weight rather than party game.

[bruitist]

A bank holiday meant meeting up with my “regular gaming friends” who I haven’t seen in months Unfortunately I had to leave early to have different fun elsewhere (playing D&D). All played with 5 players.

Scout - Lots of complaining about not being allowed to rearrange your cards, but everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Bullet / - I went out first thanks to a terrible distribution of bullets and lack of stars. Played without the timer as most hadn’t played before. As seems to be standard, one player realised halfway through that they’d been placing bullets wrong (despite me stressing the rule in the explanation).

No Thanks (x2) - I won both times, though there were a couple of moments where players could’ve brought me down if they’d been willing to take themselves out too.

[Acacia]

Part the fourth:
Another round of Flamecraft.

You know what? This is a fun little beast. I’d still peg it family weight, but I need that weight in my collection (due to literal “family,” along with my oft-cited burden of people who are willing to play but complain that Flamme Rouge/Bohnanza/Ra are too complicated).

I played with the “advanced” enchantments and saw more of the fancy dragons (which are like RFTG goals, either “do this during the game” or “count this at end of game”). A more interesting milieu of shops seemed to come up as well, revealing some clever opportunities to me.

I’m happy. Recommended for what it is.

[BertFill]

Recently played A Feast for Odin and Paladins of the West Kingdom. Both for the first time, both solo.

And I am so, so very bad at both of them. Like hilariously, unimaginably bad. Like so bad I’m not going to tell you how bad my scores were.

Has a really good time, mind. Enjoyed both games very much indeed, even though I kept making all sorts of rules errors.

And did I mention that I was very very bad?

[yashima]

I remember my first game of AFFO…. I haven‘t improved much since then. I totally have as much of a plan as the Cylons… every game. Never goes anywhere, especially not when other players are involved but even solo… things just happen. I enjoy it.

[BertFill]

In my second ever game of Paladins of the West Kingdom, again solo, I…

scored even fewer points than before!

However - not by many, and my automated opponent, while still scoring plenty more than me, scored far, far fewer than the first time. So yes, I lost, but this time by an almost reasonable amount.
So yay me, I guess?

[Whistle_Pig]

In more “unlikely pub games”: Tzolk’in. In which I did very badly

[Bondy034]

This weeks games included:

El Grande, finally got my new copy this to the table and it’s as good as I remember. Great area majority action. We got a couple of rules wrong, but minorly and didn’t take away from the fun of the game. I got an early lead but then got a bit pounded down and managed to claw my way back to 3rd place by the end. Super interactive between the effects of the action cards and the bidding for turn order! I’m not sure if it’s my favourite area majority game but it is excellent.

Scout, great game of this, lost by one point!

Ezra and Nehemiah x2, couple of solo games of this - it’s great! I suspect it’ll be even better with other humans! It’s rather Paladins-esque but still feels fresh and different. It’s super engaging, nice mix of tactics and strategy and a fun, original theme. The default solo mode is a little easy, though there is a harder version I’ll have to try! Setup is a bit of a bear, as was learning it - and I’ll no doubt still need to check things in my next games but once you’ve got the basic iconography down it’s not so bad. I did feel in both games I couldn’t get everything I wanted done, which is different than my experience of Paladins, but it might just be a skill thing (and isn’t even necessarily a problem).

[bort]

Cthulhu: Death May Die, which started off badly, I died in the third turn of the game. A Shambling Horror got me, and rolled six dice against me, and I took four damage, but survived. But then on the next turn the Old One advanced, which forced everyone next to certain tokens to take stress, and take wounds if they couldn’t take the stress. My stress was at maximum (because I was trying to avoid dying on my last turn), so I took the damage, which killed me. So, end of the game, because obviously we hadn’t disrupted the ritual yet. But we wanted to play, so we just kept on going (rather than restart). And so we “won”. I went mad, but managed to roll a ton of dice before I succumbed. I had my normal three black dice, plus two bonus dice, and two dice from my marksmen ability. Then I had two items i could discard for three more dice each. So many dice, rolled ten damage! Then I got caught in a space with three cultists, rolled two black dice for each of them, and they all rolled successes against me. I actually died after the first two cultists, rolled for the third guy just for fun, and rolled two successes again.

The Barracks Emperors, still making up my mind on this one. It’s supposed to be trick taking, which I guess it is. I think my problem with it is that every card does something different, so you don’t know what’s coming up. So you play your best card, think you’re winning, and then someone plays a card where they get to discard your card.

Ra, still a classic. Managed the win, which was cool. Didn’t get off to a great start, but we had so many Ra tiles come out, no-one managed to accomplish much.

Mori, a newer trick taker, which took a bit of getting used to. Each card had either positive or negative points, and you also had “X” cards, which is always the lowest card in a trick. Whoever got the most X cards took negative points, but the second place gets positive points.

[InkyBloc]

Me and my wife played A Feast for Odin tonight. I was up to the gills in little green skins so I spent a while fitting them (almost) all in at the end. A super close one - came down to just 17 points in the end.

[COMaestro]

Played Lords of Waterdeep for my brother-in-law’s birthday with five players total today. I did not have the expansion available, so we just played the base game.

It was rather aggravating as my older kid would not settle down and for the latter half of the game kept me and my wife very busy. Surprisingly, I actually did pretty good, coming in third. Birthday boy won the game with 155, and my wife close behind at 151. I was at 141, and our friends ended up with 130 and 128.

[MarkSP]

Went to my games club on Friday, played just two games- Race for the Galaxy: taught some new players how to play, which slowed it down, but only by a bit. Really it was more about convincing them how great the game was so they would play again.

And La Granja! Again! The only thing I’m not thinking too hotly on is how long turns can drag out for at the end of the game when one player is sitting on 5 trade goods and calculating if they can turn them into enough extra barrows and deliveries to maximise points. Otherwise still loving it.

[lalunaverde]

Imperial 2030 - played the futuristic map (which is 6 years away). I had players hitting me hard this game and had their country reach the 5x modifier, instead of mine. But somehow I manage to win by building the best portfolio. I swear, in real life, I’m not good with finance and all that fancy jazz (or maybe I am. Never really tried).

Bohnanza - I now prefer Zoo Vadis as my light negotiation game (and Goodcritters and Intrigue too!) Bohnanza is still fun but the leeway isn’t as good as I wanted it to be. The three I mentioned above are much more dynamic.

Dominant Species - played on a new games night venue ran by a good friend of mine. So that means I play with randoms - except for 1 friend who wanted to play DS. I don’t really like this since these people are unknown to me. Unfortunately, I have an idiot on my table who have to leave during the game. It was still fun and didn’t let that ruin my night.

Ticket to Ride Legacy - finally start playing again after that hiatus. 3 mroe plays to go! I have to say that my renewed TTR phase is now ebbing

Wildcatters - I used to like this game a lot.I kinda still do. This is still better than 90%??? of games out there. But the way the card play works is kinda lame. So potentially, every region can be activated 6 times throughout the game but the deck is shuffled and so the order of regions is different. This is rather unsatisfying because it forces the game to lean towards Euro efficiency - this is the same criticism I have with both Brass - and less towards shared incentives. But the area majority and the tight integrated collusion between players still makes this very fun

Iberian Gauge - I just put this online for sale - if anyone wants this I’ll give this to you for free. My opinion of Holland went down with this title. The ideas are interesting as usual, but the build phase where you build tracks is so plodding. We pretty much auto-play this phase because there’s very little decisions on the build phase!! There are the rare moments where the player has the decision on where to point the company towards, but most of the time the decisions in this game are obvious.

Bad news: I am very sad to see such a disappointing Cube Rail, but not the only one.
Good news: Trans Siberian Railway is the better design and I own it.

[raged_norm]

@lalunaverde

My opinion of Holland went down with this title

I mean it’s not The Soo Line so there’s that, I find their designs to be all over the place personally.

[Acacia]

@MarkSP

And La Granja! Again! The only thing I’m not thinking too hotly on is how long turns can drag out for at the end of the game when one player is sitting on 5 trade goods and calculating if they can turn them into enough extra barrows and deliveries to maximise points. Otherwise still loving it.

I can see that - a real benefit of the async where we can all math out as long as we need.

I’ve unboxed my Deluxe set and most of the modules look quite enticing. After our last game, though, I’m eyeing those broken rooftiles unfavorably. I was trying to figure out how to turn “big money” into points and it seemed finishing your roof and loading extra donkeys was it. Broken roof tiles take away half that money advantage, possibly breaking the money strategy (I know the broken tiles have no benefit, but the late game roof tiles have weak benefits to begin with). And, depending on cards and dice, you may end up playing a money strategy.

Maybe an ill-advised addition. Maybe I"m just still learning the game.

[MarkSP]

It makes going first in the later rounds really beneficial, which makes siesta’s much more enticing, thereby giving alternatives to just max donking in the final rounds. I liked them.

[Acacia]

Ah… I see. I hadn’t thought of that second cost (fewer donkeys) needed to get them.

[BertFill]

I’ve relatively recently played all three of the West Kingdom games solo.*

I like 'em. I like 'em a lot. I’m rubbish at them, of course, but that’s only to be expected. Favourite of the three on first acquaintance? Viscounts, probably. But thoroughly enjoyed my error-strewn fumbles through all three of them, and looking forward to playing them more - on my lonesome and with other people.

These are very good games.

*Why yes, the “Don’t buy any more games” plan is going really well, thanks for asking!

[Captbnut]

We played Tricktakers, twice with 4 and once with 5.

This is fascinating (although, like Cosmic Encounter I’d hope at some point not to be the one having to enforce the rules).

It’s tricky taking (obvs), but at the start of each a round you draft a character who wins points in a different way. Each character also has a specific insta-win condition.

At the end of the round (5 tricks) you see if there has been an insta-win (we had one), then gain crowns (most tricks gets a gold, no tricks means you’re eligible for a black) - 2 gold crowns is a win (we had a victory like this), 3 black crowns is a win. Finally you score points. At the end of the game if no one has won another way, most points wins (we had one of these as well).

There is some chaos; characters are butting heads constantly. One character gets all of their points and a win condition from a single trick.

It’s complicated definitely, but I think this will have some legs. Well worth the hassle of a group buy!

[lalunaverde]

Samurai x2 - friend from Surbiton visited to buy Samurai from me. She thought it would be a great game to play with her non-gamer partner.

Huang - great game. I will put a 10 play challenge this year so I can explore this more. I’ve played Tigris so many times in comparison

Brazil Imperial - it’s okay…

Thurn and Taxi: Power and Glory - we played with the North Germany map. The requirement to have the required number of horses before one could claim a route is interesting. The tension lost on the push-your-luck on the route-building was replaced with hate-drafting tension

Old London Bridge - great game. I would own this but Queen Games love making games with stupid large boxes.