I, of course, would love to hear about 1862. It’s absolutely the 18xx I’m most eager to play. I’ve played and loved it as a solo game, but it is a distinct game by all accounts as a solo experience.
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Same. My copy of 1862 is on its way 
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Yesterday, my wife and I played what should have been a quick game of Jaipur, but due to our kids being boogers, it took more like an hour. Took us three rounds of play. My wife won the first round, I the second, and she took the third to win the game. All the scores were pretty close, 6 points being the widest spread, so it was a good match up.
Today we played a quick game of Azul, with less child interference, so it actually did go quickly. Game ended after 6 rounds, but I got the win this time, 93-84.
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I sorta kinda let my 5-year-old win a game of Jaipur for the first time over the weekend. She said that because I always went for gems, gold, and silver and I always win, she decided to copy me (instead of always going for the 5-card bonus tiles with whatever goods she can get). Luckily, the cards fell in her favour, and I didn’t have to do much at all to reward her progress in understanding the game =)
Played my fourth game of Root, first time as the cats. The Woodland Alliance were hemmed in a corner and never looked like a significant threat, the Eyrie were the only faction being played by a new player, who played contrary to any advice given, and the Vagabond beat me to the win partly because the dice and cards hate me, and partly because the Eyrie didn’t attack the Vagabond early when they should have done. I think we’re finally getting close to the point where we can play a “real” game, understanding all the factions, but we’re hampered by our fourth player constantly rotating out. Maybe we should play 3-player games.
Played a game of Innovation for the first time in a long time, and it was great as always.
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I cannot wait to get my hands on Root, it is such an appealing game to me, I cannot wait for it to go on Steam as a video game. I might be lucky and give it a go tonight at the Geeks Guild Monday night game
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My partner and I got in an introductory game of Awkward Guests this afternoon/evening. It was a multi-hour affair as our daughter kept us busy through most of it, but we played out on the balcony with drinks and eventually dinner, so we didn’t have much concern for time.
It’s actually quite a nice little game at 2P, and we both agreed we could see ourselves playing it again for a casual sleuthing session. We also agreed it would be far better with a group (fully expected). Savvy card play is clearly a huge part of the race, so that’s lacking without more competition.
I won in the end, with one failed attempt and then a success on the second. I followed a total red herring, but thankfully made my guess early enough to be reasonably sure losing a round wouldn’t also lose me the game (we used the app, so no spoilers for guesses, just can’t make a guess the following round). I ended up taking what my partner had to figure was a fairly innocuous card, but it ended up closing out a critical choke point in the mansion and it allowed me to pivot quick and take that second stab with only the who in question (but enough supporting evidence to guess one over the other).
This is a delight and I’ll look forward to showing to just about anyone willing to sit down for 90 minutes.
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Machi Koro Legacy is my first foray into Legacy games with housemates. It’s nice and accessible, and opening the Mystery Boxes is great fun. Seems like it has some balance issues where some cards are obviously better/worse, and since the winner of the previous game is the start player in the next game they have a pretty big advantage going forward, but apart from those it’s great fun. Thankfully losing is still fun despite the apparent unfairness, and I have lost 3/3 so far.
The extra mechanics, especially in Mystery Box 2, add some more whimsy without making things complicated so far. The “story” is light-hearted and enjoyable, as well as being as shallow as possible.
Overall I’d recommend it for people looking for a light game to play through with a group of 4, just don’t go in expecting it to be more than it is. That sounds a bit luke-warm but I’m really looking forward to playing more of it!
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In that case. Wittering incoming.
It was good. I really enjoyed the game play. No one at the table had played this title before so there were plenty of rules queries and one player was a little slow at their choices so this all dragged out the time. That being said I was engaged the whole time.
My first guess is that this game is most heavily focussed on route planning. The mergers for multiple permits/train money was interesting, really interesting. Not sure how much it was a trap and also a useful tool and maybe mandatory. The biggest end game runs came from companies with multiple trains and them being different types.
The density of the board was really good. I think it probably helps overall for the game variability. The route building was really involved and really tense. The type of upgrades available were brutal. Not being able to change the direction or cut in on a route except possibly at stations is impressively brutal.
It was also really interesting having companies go away through merging and then get started again later in the game potentially and coming back on to the board. 
I’m really enjoying 18xx and it’s all new to me still so I’m not sure if I’ve much by way of critical faculty about it yet. I did win the game quite handily yesterday but I was enjoying it long before that became apparent. I’d still really like to meet some experienced players to get properly smashed up and see some more advanced strategies in action. Sort of how people talk about playing @Benkyo in Twilight Struggle 
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The Train Shuffling podcast had an episode about 1862 with Mike Hutton as the guest. There’s so much different about 1862 that they didn’t even cover everything they could have, but it was great hearing the designer pull back the curtain a bit on how the game came to be.
From my experiences, reading about others’ experiences, and hearing that podcast made me realize that one of the things that makes 1862 sing is the tiny map and, quoting Eric Brosius, “There’s no forking track in 1862”. One thing Mike Hutton said on that episode was that he feels parts of maps where nobody builds strike him as a waste of space/opportunity, so kudos to him for making nearly every location on the map interesting! (Except the tile north of WStI, what are you good for?)
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I’d add that it might be the best way of playing machi koro because eventually you have a copy of machi Koro but one that has had an editors pass.
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Another great session of games last night with our Group. First played with 6 a game of Detective Club. Very Dixit-like in the design, it consists of one player putting one picture down, then distributing notepads with the secret word in it to every player (minus one blank notepad at random), then everybody puts down a card, to then reveal the word and put down a second card, so everybody can put their second card down. After this, everybody tries to guess who was the clueless detective.
It was enjoyable enough that I wouldn’t mind playing it again, but then again, I think I am the kind of gamer that would play nearly anything. Two of the players were in their early teens and did some gross mistakes, and still we enjoyed it for the fun of it and the banter it created. Plus the magnifying glass like tokens, that ended up being used as monocles and brought a whole new degree of fun. I came out second, helped by really bad cards and loads of imagination. And that I was really lucky when I was clueless and the first to put down a card.
After that we all fancied a dexterity game so Meeple Circus was brought to the table. If it wasn’t for our table being folding tables (and a bit wobbly), it was good fun. I again managed to end second, with a good deal of horses on my troop.
Finally, we finished the night with a good few plays of Werewords. The dynamics in the group are making this game a lot of fun. Nice and simple. This time I didn’t get away with being the Werewolf once, but I did with the Seer, so hey, I won’t complain.
I think I will have two more people to the table on next Monday for a go at Root (younger ones did not feel like learning it), so watch this space 
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I managed a three-player game of Tokyo Metro at the weekend. As expected, very different to single player mode with the competition for action spots and the ability to affect the value of other people’s investments. I’m keen to play again - if anyone wants to play on TTS, give me a shout
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Last night with the “local” game group on BGA:
Libertalia, which I hadn’t tried before. I like the way it makes sure everyone gets the same cards at each step. A touch abstract for my taste but I’ll play it again.
Potion Explosion, always good fun.
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I have enjoyed AuZtralia, but have only played solo. A Study in Emerald has been on my buy list for quite a while.
I don’t quite know what my great-nephews are doing in town, or how the coronavirus fits in with their parents’ cancelled skiing trip, but whatever: here they are. Yesterday my sister and I took them to the beach, but today was a twidge nippy, so I taught them Tsuro and Walk the Plank. The five-year-old lost interest in Tsuro after his brother had won two games in a row, and found the business of following suit, trumps, and discards a little bit confusing and dull. He went to make pastry with his great-aunt while the seven-year-old and I fought a savage best-of-five match with the old dubloons and peg-legs. Yarr! I’m the captain!
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Tried out Marvel Champions again, still using the suggested starter deck of Spider-Man against Rhino. This time I did much better, probably because I only ever drew one minion (though a lot of Rhino upgrades). At the same time, I did not draw many allies until the last couple of turns.
However, I did draw two Spinning Kicks, or whatever the card is called, which does 8 damage to an enemy, which let me take out Rhino’s second card in just two turns. I even had a nice combo of cards which let me put a tracer on the minion, defeat him with an ally, removing the remaining threat from the scheme before I finished off Rhino. Totally thwarted!
It is a fun game, and it gets agonizing when deciding what cards you should play, which you should use to play those, and which you should keep for a later turn. Might try Spidey on expert mode Rhino next, or break into Captain Marvel. We will see.
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I’ve been trying to get more games in lately. Recently I played a few games with my wife. Did I talk about our Splendor and Carcassonne game night already? I think I did. I’ll move along.
I’ve also picked up a few games of Unmatched on tabletop simulator. Once with my new friend Sojourne, who I met on the SUSD Dischord. I’ve also played a few game nights with local friends over TTS. We’re social distancing to be safe. My friend Ian taught my how to play Hive which I’m happy to have finally learned. I’ve been interested in it for some time.
Later Ian and I played Cage Match on TTS which is just Guess Who? With all Nicholas Cages. It was hilarious.
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Took a little bit, but we’ve gotten in two more (fairly short) sessions plugging away at our learning Spirit Island game. Things looked grim to start with, just so much invader presence and relatively little we could do to stall them. But we’ve been coordinating and synergizing and steadily rolling out the fear, and at this point we’ve pretty much entirely eliminated the invaders from the interior of the island, and while it is blighted, and we are losing a presence or a power every turn (oof), we’ve got just three cities and five towns left before we win (terror level 2). Can we manage that next turn? Don’t know! But this past turn we did completely prevent them from Ravaging, and they only managed to Build in two spaces, so I’m definitely feeling like we’ve got this under control.
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Working from home is so nice. Snacks and drinks are always at hand, there’s no commute, and if things are relatively slow, you can slack off a bit.
As such, I was able to play another game of Marvel Champions, still against Beginner level Rhino, but this time Itried out the pre-constucted Captain Marvel deck. Won pretty handily, but almost lost when a encounter card made Rhino scheme, which took me to 6 out of the 7 threat needed to lose. Luckily, I was able to remove a good chunk of it on my turn, and was able to take him out a couple of turns later.
I kind of blitzed through Captain Marvel’s deck, as there are a lot of effects and actions which let you draw cards. While playing, I constantly feel like I do not have enough resources, and it can still be hard deciding which cards to discard for resources and which to play. Having a hand where you want to play all the cards, knowing you have to toss some if you want to play any of them is agonizing. And I was definitely missing Peter’s ability to generate a free resource each turn.
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Had an online boardgaming sesh with a friend the other day on BGA. Normally I only report real-life plays but I’m slightly relaxing my rule for the moment. We played:
Carcassonne - This one was very close, in the end I won because of farmers - 3 in the same area to his 2, but I only got the third in the last few turns of the game! I’m always fascinated with how Carc can be really vicious or quite laid back or anywhere in between depending on who’s playing. 2 player kind of amplifies that I think - this wasn’t a super vicious game (despite the farmers) and we both spent awhile working on our own stuff with only a few sneaky plays to steal points.
Potion Explosion - Playing digitally does mean missing out on probably my favourite part of this game (being the marbles!) but we played a couple of rounds and it was still plenty of fun. I think playing this one online has made me better at the game, learning how useful the “ask for help” tokens are and how much of the game is mapping out an ideal path of potions. I’m by no means amazing at it but I look at it a bit differently now, having had the chance to percolate on its strategy and tactical considerations.
Santorini - I didn’t realise this one was on BGA! My friend suggested it and it’s a rather nice implementation (like fully 3d and everything). The game itself was a bit weird - we got weird powers (promo cards I believe) - Tyche and Pegasus. I’m not sure they were the most balanced, and the luck factor with Tyche felt odd in the game. But it still turned out relatively tense and interesting.
Jaipur - A few games of this one. It’s just such a simple game to understand but still manages to be full of heart-wrenching decisions and nail-biting tension. Love it. And it holds up even after like 50+ online plays (and probably a dozen or so in real life)
Dice Forge - This one was completely new to my friend but I’ve played it online enough to teach it. It’s not an amazing game, though I imagine like Potion Explosion, much of the tactile joy of the game is lost playing online, but I suspect it moves considerably faster than it does irl. I like it but don’t love it. Our game was a little one sided - my friend focused on his dice and largely ignored the cards, so I snapped up a lot of the victory point cards and won by a fair bit. So it was a bit of a leaning game and it wasn’t until we finished that my friend realised where he’d gone wrong. Once you get past the gimmick, it’s really just another deckbuilder with some special powers - good but not amazing. I don’t particularly feel the need to buy a physical copy, despite enjoying playing it online.
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