Oh, wow, the original made me want to replace the pieces with Opan Opal Fruits (Starburst if you are not British and old)…
3 Likes
Aka Opal Fruits, lol.
3 Likes
Not my fault they’re not paying attention. Why are you giving me 2 pts?
Also, if they manage to avoid me and scale up their upgrades, then the long term players win.
3 Likes
Fair enough. I play games almost exclusively with family, and remorselessly grinding their faces into the dirt doesn’t tend to be the experience I’m looking for; I sometimes forget that other people might play in groups where that’s precisely what everyone’s after, given the chance.
2 Likes
Yes. These are regulars in our club who have played Hansa Toot and someone owns it. My assumption is that they’re stuck in a meta. So I don’t mind breaking that meta and take advantage of the blind spot. I wouldn’t be playing HT with random newbies.
5 Likes
I think that sort of thing is part of pre-game negotiation, really (whether explicitly or not). As long as everyone is playing in the same mode., then most modes can work.
4 Likes
I played Andromeda’s Edge last night.
4 players, all new to it. One guy has been gaming with us weekly for two years and felt bad that he’s never brought a game. This is the first game that he’s owned!
It’s pretty massive!
I love the fact that they’ve gone silly rather than straight sci fi. I played as…
It’s tracks upon tracks upon tracks, but dressed up as 4X.
It was good fun; we played the short game in around 2.5 hours, but there was a lot of rulebook checking. It was getting late, so me and one other player were pushing the event track hard towards the end of the game.
I can’t say I’m the fan of the combat system (you can increase your dice and have re rolls but ultimately the single highest dice wins).
I can see bits of the Terra Mystica series and Skymines/ Mombasa where you’re sequencing and comboing to rinse everything out of your turn.
I think it’s good. I can see myself getting frustrated with AP players but I’d happily go back to it a few times.
16 Likes
There’s an old Rowan Atkinson sketch where he’s an alien visiting Earth, and at one point he mentions how advanced their technology is by saying “we have invented an opal throat that actually tastes of throat”. I remember replaying that line repeatedly when I first heard this, trying to convince myself that he must surely be saying “fruit” but I’m convinced it really was “throat” (which is still slightly funny just for being weird). What I now wonder is whether they were simply steering clear of any possible legal action, and assuming the audience would understand.
Edit: I take it back. It still sounds more like “throat” to me, but he’s definitely saying “fruit” and I’ve just had a very bizarre misconception for the better part of four decades 
(And it’s also Angus Deayton who says that bit.)
7 Likes
Neighbourly games on Monday.
First game of the evening was Horrified, which is very much in the Pandemic mould: you have a set of actions, you use them as best you can, then the opposition activates in some way. In this case you have a fixed number of monsters (a bit of a monster mash, with Dracula, the Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Invisible Man, why yes this is licenced from Universal) which will rampage about the place; random townsfolk pop up to be monster chow if they aren’t escorted to their destinations; and each monster is defeated by a minigame involving equipment tokens, collecting them and discarding them in specific places, though which tokens and which places and in what order is different for each one.
But you only have a limited number of total defeats (automatic when a monster attacks townsfolk, preventable by discarding items when it attacks players, though a defeated character reappears next turn at the hospital) and we ran out all too soon…
Interesting. I’m not sure whether it has the legs that Flash Point does for me, but I did enjoy it.
Then on to NMBR 9, at which I did as badly as ever, but still had a good time. Really need to get on with designing an inlay so that I can store both my sets of this into a single box, though.
8 Likes
Jelluloid Technoblorps
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The Mandalorian: Adventures, first play. This is a cooperative game, based on the television show which you may have heard of. You progress thru the missions, unlocking more abilities (both yours and the enemys) as you go. We did the first tutorial mission, and that seemed to go ok, so we went onto the next one. You’ll get a hand of cards, and on your turn you’ll play two of them into four different slots. The slots are Move, Attack, Intel, and Plan. Move and attack are straightforward, move a number of spaces up to the card value, and attack an adjacent enemy for the cards value. Each mission has both face up and face down enemies, along with face down useful stuff (like a medpack). Intel allows you to look at a facedown tile, and Plan lets you draw from a separate deck for useful cards to use later. As you add cards to each type, you increase its value, which can then cause you to resolve a crisis (which is bad), and/or an event card (which allow the enemy to move and attack). So maybe you don’t want to attack every turn? It was good fun, we completed the tutorial mission and went onto the next one, which gave us new abilities (and new abilities for the enemy too). There’s a big deck of cards that you progress thru, adding more content. And there’s two envelopes of stuff too, not sure when they unlock. Had a good time with this.
My Gold Mine, first play. Great little filler, push your luck fun.
Ginkgopolis, my favourite game, still love it. Although I still find it difficult to teach, not sure why. The first 10 minutes were a bit awkward, but then we were flying. Quick game too, we were all burning through the tiles. I, somehow, managed to really stuff up, and had no reliable way of gaining resources. We drafted our starting cards, can’t remember seeing a resource card, but maybe I missed one. We normally use the numbered start cards just because it’s easier and less likely to make bad choices. No one to blame but myself. Had heaps of tiles, and even a decent amount of success points, but it’s hard to do much without resources. Despite this, I only missed out on the biggest district by a single resource (which the winner added in the last round). I was hanging on, we were tied for resources, and each had a three level built – but mine was 11 and his was 10, can’t get much closer.
Flip 7, always fun.
The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick Taking Game, took us a few goes, but we completed Chapter 5.
Schadenfreude, I lost – but it was entertaining.
9 Likes
I too find that entertaining.
7 Likes
LOTR Trick Taking Game - ah more chapters in and Im having fun with this. On par with The Crew but more thematic and the art is charming. We played like 5 times.
Kansas Pacific - another Cube Rails banger. This one was from Queen Games, an old collection of titles that, so far, proven to be the best selection from all the 3 (others being Capstone’s and Rio Grande’s)
Queen’s small but illustrious set:
- Chicago Express/Wabash Cannonball
- German Railways/Preussische Ostbahn/Prussian Rails
- Kansas Pacific
- SNCF/Paris Connection
- Lokomotive Werks (this one I havent played)
KP is simply excellent. Initial evaluation is so opaque. It lacks the other elbow-to-the-gut nastiness that Chex has but the opaqueness is so focused on evaluating the value of shares and the trade-off decisions between time/money. Indeed, it is more like a race between railways to reach the Western edge of the map and each president have to decide if they want tp spend more time and build rails slow, or spend more money and build fast.
I thought playing another Cube Rail would get samey (some do feel samey tbh) but no, it continues to impress me.
10 Likes
Games Day!
Castles of Burgundy (4 player). Too Slow at 4, with slow players too. Came 3rd.
Quest for El Dorado, same 4 players. Same slow play but I won.
Noped out of Lost Ruins of Arnak with them for…
Ethnos (2nd ed.) Christ on a motorbike, this has UI issues. Pretty cool game under it though.
Courtisans x 2. What a fun game, have plenty of short games though so I don’t need to get it.
Ended with a 3 player Village plus Port. This was quite fun.
11 Likes
Monthly game day yesterday!
Planet Unknown - played this for the first time at game day last month and it went over well so brought it back for another go. Taught it to 3 people and I won. Everyone enjoyed it so this might become a regular.
7 Wonders - played this twice at 5 players. A few people were new so the first game was base only then the second included Leaders. The first game was close with less than 10 points between first and last. I was middle of the pack. The second game was a blowout. I lost and was over 30 points behind first.
Earth - first time play for me. Same 5 players as 7 Wonders and I think 2 had played before. It’s a card tableau point engine kind of game with so many different icons. It took a couple rounds before I understood all the iconography enough to get in the groove, but then I was locked in. I found a couple solid synergies and pulled out a reasonably close win.
Beyond the Horizon - 4 player game with 4 people who have all played Beyond the Sun but not Beyond the Horizon before. We were punching pieces while one guy read the tule book out loud looking for the differences. We probably started this too late for that kind of setup and play and it was super late by the time we were done and I was cranky. Not sure I’ll stand by this initial judgment but it seemed to me to just add fiddle and needless complexity without gaining any fun.
11 Likes
Ooh, hadn’t thought about going up to 5 players for Earth. Try it at 2 or 3, it might feel quite different! (The solo is good too).
5 Likes
Kutna Hora - heard some talk about this being strongly about havng some economic going on, but rather felt like a rote Euro game. Maximise income, then specialise on a linear strategy to maximise points. Decent game, but rather boring
Kansas Pacific - more KP. I feel like the game is a bit too long for like 1 or 2 rounds. I would like more plays to confirm.
Camel Cup - forgot how many players but it was a crowd pleaser as usual
Nucleum - if Brass Birmingham isn’t enough for you and your nu-Euro needs, I swear this one is for you. As you’d probably guessed, this game is terrible. I really don’t see much depth in this game to discover and it’s even more efficiency-driven/more linear/more solitaire than Brass Birmingham. But I already expected that
Mexica - Super Meeple edition. Hilarious and cutthroat
Let’s Go to Japan - certified cosy game
Quest - quick fire the Resistance Avalon from the same designer. The art was done by the same artist as the Bloody Inn so it has that same charm. The game gain in speed by sacrificing some cool things from Avalon. I’d put this lower but it’s still fun. Would like to have more plays
Dampfross - aka Railroad Rivals part of the SDJ challenge of our BG club. It’s shit and shows its age. Roll and move on a race between players wasn’t exciting (I’d be thinking of Magical Athlete on that one) and there’s first player advantage and runaway problem even with the fair dice variant. Even lamer is that there are parts of the game where some players sit out due to high risks, which means they just sit there doing nothing while others roll dice on the race.
I’m not that disappointed as it came from the primordial times. If anything, it makes games like Acquire and 1830 even more impressive
Tower Up - glad to have another shot of the game. Very clever. One of the best releases from SPIEL.
11 Likes
Games night!
Age of Steam, decent game but I don’t find it exciting. Much better than I remember it though
SNCF (Paris Connection), absolute banger. On the new ‘where did the art go?’ Rio Grande edition
Rainbow Best new tricktaker I’ve played in a while. 15 minutes, creative and has a hand management aspect.
Viking See Saw to end. It’s so funny.
10 Likes
We also played Fellowship of the RIng: the Trick Taking Game, our group started calling it Frodo’s Crew, which is a way better name 
10 Likes
The Crew of the Ring, to be followed by The Crew Towers, and The Return of the Crew.
8 Likes