Recent Boardgames (Your Last Played Game Volume 2)

Boardgames
1382

Played Dinosaur Island on TTS. As expected, it’s fine but oddly anti-thematic. The meeple pull is far too easily skewed by previous players, and the dinosaurs feel oddly underwhelming and other attractions oddly powerful. It was much tighter in restricting what you can do than I expected, so I was constantly killing visitors. But that set me into a spin where I wasn’t sure how to compete with everyone else AND not get more visitors killed.

Glad I finally got to play it, but I found it quite frustrating an experience in the game flow. Quite stop/start with each phase, and the meeple pull was quite a convoluted system for assigning money and VP. It never felt like I was creating an engine.

1383

Had our usual gaming couple over on Saturday for a small birthday party for our older kid. After catching up a bit, we played a couple of quicker games.

We started with Spicy, which is basically just the card game BS with a little twist when challenging a person’s claim. We played twice, and apparently I’m the best lying bastard, as I won both games. First game, no one managed to obtain a trophy, but I still came out with 30 points. We didn’t bother getting exact scores as I just placed by stack on the table and it was taller than anyone else’s (possibly everyone else’s combined :smiley: ) The second game, I and one other player managed to get a trophy, and I squeaked out the win with 18 to his 16, with the other two trailing in single digits.

Afterwards, we played a couple games of Kingdomino, the first time playing it for our guests. The second place player from Spicy managed to win both games in Kingdomino. The spread for the first game was pretty close, only 7 points between first and last place (me). But then, the first game was vanilla. The second game we played with a couple of the scoring variants, +10 points for having your castle in the very center, and +5 for having no gaps. He and I managed both, while my wife managed the center option. As such, the scoring differences were quite larger, at 57 - 54 (me) - 42 - 33.

They both really liked Kingdomino and are planning to pick up something in the same family, as I mentioned there was also Queendomino and Kingdomino Duel. They’re going to look into them all before picking something up.

6 Likes
1384

I played Star Wars Rebellion for the first time on Sunday. Was really rather fun. Played as 2 teams of 2 but without the team rules. I was on the Rebels side and lost about a turn away from our win condition. It was tense. Interested to play again, want to give another crack at the rebels actually.

Overall it was worth it just to see the sheer joy on the face of the friend who bought it round. He loves Star Wars maybe more than anyone else I’ve met and was so excited to play the game. :partying_face:

4 Likes
1385

Guild Night on Monday again, played three games.

First, a game between 4 at City of Gears. Interesting proposal. I liked the mechanics of the game, even with all the random luck factors, but I was disappointed a little bit with how far it went. I think I had 5 turns, we played on a grid of 3x3 plus 4 bridging squares to our factories, and it all finished by the time I was starting to warm up. It is one of those games where there is a big advantage to start and also to have the very last turn. Interesting, might play it again now with more knowledge about it, but it did not captivate me.

Then we played Azul between three, it was a quiet night in the Guild, and there were two big tables and us. I sort of knew the rules, but not the best strategies, and it showed. I managed avoiding getting too many negatives, but I only achieved 63 points, ending last. Still decent for a first timer, I guess.

And after having a look for a few minutes at a Hidden Detective game (I think, the Dixit with social deduction one), we went again for a game of three of Llamas Unleashed, just for a laugh. Very in your face, tongue in cheek game. I was sort of surviving but my last few cards were quite rubbish, so the same guy who won the Azul game snatched a 7th animal and won the game.

1 Like
1386

Got in my first proper game of brass birmingham. Played just the introductory variant, which is a really nice way to start after a 30 minute teach.

We both totally stuffed it up ending up with way too much iron on the board (Running out from the general supply twice) in an attempt to flip the coal tiles. The final scoring was pretty close at 53 vs 48 and really a couple of extra canal links was the only thing that kept me in play.

This is probably the most complex game I’ve successfully taught and feel quite chuffed I didn’t make a total mess of it for once.

5 Likes
1387

How is Brass with 2? I’m only vaguely aware of the game, I kind of assumed it worked better with more players but maybe I’m mistaken? Is it a good 2-player choice for a heavy game or are there others you’d go for instead? I haven’t got anything in my collection that scratches that itch, and with lockdown it doesn’t look like my higher player count games are coming out much. I haven’t played anything heavy for a while…

1 Like
1388

I’m interested in the replies to this. I’m still waiting to fall in love with BB. I felt it was better with 3 or 4 but I’m happy to be convinced otherwise.

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1389

It works pretty well. The map is smaller, which does limit some of your options for 2p due to the arrangement of building sites. But generally the game encourages you to synergise with your opponents anyway, so the game naturally fills a smaller area regardless of map with players building beside each other. It’s not a game where you’d ever want to do your own thing on the opposite end of the board.

As I’ve said many times, I outright hate most 2-4p games at 2p. Brass is one of the few I quite enjoy. Still not the full experience, but it’s a fun experience.

David Turczi has been working on a 2p variant of Brass called Brass: Isle of Wight. Think it’s available as a PnP, and being optioned for publishing?

4 Likes
1390

Brass: Lancashire is best with 2, using the Community Variant at the back of the board. I love how Roxley says on the rulebook, “oh, there’s a Community 2 player Variant at the back. But you don’t NEED to play it as we made it obsolete” hahahaha… no.

Haven’t actually played with Turczi’s Isle of Wight variant. Wasn’t wowed by it when reading the rules. But needs a play to confirm, but can’t be bothered to pnp. :stuck_out_tongue:

3 Likes
1391

Interesting. I’m always confused about the changes between Brass Lancashire to Birmingham and what difference they make to how it plays…
Edit: having googled a bit it’s difficult to find an explanation of the differences that I can relate to without having played either game, or at least knowing their rules.

1 Like
1392

I would describe them as:

Brass Lanc is a much smaller tighter board. It’s much more competitive for space, and optimising your placement on the map (through replacing older buildings with newer buildings) is more important because of this. Networking just happens naturally in Lanc as the board is tight. It’s slightly meaner because of the tightness, but I wouldn’t describe it as overtly aggressive.

Brass Birmingham is more expansive, and so it is much more of a networking game, creating routes to ship out the product. The focus on building a network is amplified by certain ports only shipping out certain products, and beer is needed to ship out products (another thing to add to your network if you want to use someone else’s beer). Because the map is so broad, you don’t necessarily have to worry about optimising your build spaces.

The rest is difficult to describe without having played. Birmingham is essentially an expansion variant of Lancashire, but needs so many core components changing that it’s its own game. They use the same mechanisms, but the design amplifies different elements of those mechanisms.

5 Likes
1393

To unwind a bit last night, I played a game of Marvel Champions, using Klaw as the villain against my Iron Man/Leadership deck, and my new Black Widow/Justice deck (pre-built expansion). Both of the heroes are ones that seem to intend for you build up in Alter-ego form, then flip to Hero mode to start busting heads, though I still went ahead and changed them to Hero mode to clear off the starting side scheme.

Things went pretty well, with me slowly building up damage on Klaw, keeping the threat down and eliminating minions quickly. I felt like I was having some trouble getting into a rhythm with BW, having her in Alter-ego form when I needed to be in Hero to use her Preparation cards, but managed a couple of pretty nifty combos here and there.

Both of my heroes took heavy damage, but got Klaw’s first stage down to 2 HP, and then I lucked into a double Supersonic Punch draw for IM. Between his Tech cards, the two punches, his Allies, and his basic Thwart, I was able to finish off the last 2 HP, activating Klaw’s second stage and bringing out the Immortal Klaw side scheme (adding 10 to his health), then hammer him for a bunch of damage, bringing him down to 10 HP and leaving just 2 Threat on the Immortal Kang side scheme. BW was easily able to take out the last 2 Threat, eliminating Klaw’s bonus 10 HP and winning the game.

I thought the two heroes synergized well, working together to take out minions and ping Klaw here and there. I know that my end finale was primarily luck of the draw, as you probably aren’t supposed to take out the villain’s second stage in a single turn, but it definitely felt heroic! :slight_smile:

EDIT: The more I think about it, I think I forgot to add the extra 18 HP to Klaw for using two heroes. That would explain the ease of the last turn. So, flawed victory! I likely would have triumphed on the next turn, but it is possible I could have lost, as both heroes were down to 5 HP. The world will never know…

4 Likes
1394

The other night, my partner, instead of falling asleep on the couch after putting our kids down for the night, asked me if I wanted to play Ticket to Ride. How could I say no? It was the first game I’ve played (not counting play-by-post or solo games) since August.

We opted for Ticket to Ride: Europe with the TtR: Europa 1912 replacement tickets and Big Cities shuffled in (but not the long routes). I started with all tickets in the northwest portion of the map and my partner began on the Iberian peninsula. It wasn’t until we met in western Europe that we found ourselves getting in each others’ way.

I made a mistake near the end of the game, opting to keep 2 tickets and then realizing I was one car short of being able to finish both. I stalled a bit to see if my partner would build a track that I could leverage with a station, but she was focused on a different part of the map, so I grabbed as many points as I could and ended the game. On the last turn of the game, she failed a tunnel and was sure she had lost. Then I drew tickets again and came up empty, so had to eat another 11 points.

Final scores were her 128 to my 125. A much closer game than either of us expected (I expected to win by 20+ points by ending the game before she could complete her last ticket, she expected to lose by about as many; but she had a lot of great, high-value tickets completed and we were both shocked)

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1395

So I can’t comment on Lancashire but…

We got two more games in of ** Brass Birmingham** today. Surprisingly after finishing both eras of the first game (first time playing both eras) my better half wanted to play again, and even more surprisingly we did.

I managed to eek out a win as a beer baron in the second game but it was close.

I thought as a two player game it plays pretty well. You still get some interaction. Although I could see how this is limited a bit with two and would be better with 3-4. I so rarely get to play anything that as anything other than as a two player game so that this scales pretty well was a real treat

There is a bit of “take that” in terms of stealing beers but again you can plan for this as the two player element reduces the variables.

After yesterday’s game we managed to get most of the rules sorted, so although hard to teach it is on the better side of complex.

The main thing I enjoyed as two player is that it can be pretty well planned out for 3-4 turns and most randomness is removed.

If a specialist 2 player map (like concordias) was released I’d certainly my give it a look although with the north having no markets or cards in the two player game the map does feel quite constrained at times.

So in short so far I would recommend as a 2 player and as a nice gateway to heavier games.

6 Likes
1396

What I’ve played this week:

Played Bus with Wyvern. I like this. But I prefer The Great Zimbabwe as my 2 hour Splotter. Just above Roads & Boats on the rankings. However, still a fiiiine game. :ok_hand:

YAAASS! Got to play Search for Planet X which turns out to be a very good game. I am not sure if I prefer Cryptid or this. But I’m gonna say Planet X a notch above the former. The theory points might sour people who prefer Cryptid’s racing aspect. But I like how searching for Planet X doesn’t auto-win you the game. You have to make theories to score points. BUT those theories you’re making will give people crucial information. Interesting interesting. My friend who owns it said that he’ll sell his Cryptid, as he is happy with Planet X.

Another game of Le Havre. Still good. However, the game is a bit too long with the full game on a weeknight on a table of newbies.

Air Land Sea - good game. The special powers that some cards have allows you to do some cool things with the game, in comparison to Battle Line. However, Battle Line has tactics card that also gives the same vibe to me.

Power & Weakness - splendid 2 player from Andreas Steding (Hansa Teutonica fame). It’s Arthurian theme with Celts and Saxons. It has two phases which alternate each round. So there’s a magic round and might round. And you have two types of units: mages and knights, which are only active on their respective phase round. They also behave different. Like mages have different adjacency rules compare to knights. A lot of forward planning to do. Wow. Unknown gem from Andreas Steding. For a small box 2 player, it’s very thinky. I’m keeping it as it is an instant fave!

Pillars of the Earth: Builders Duel

Field of Glory

Carcassonne: Gold Rush - this one is good. Wild Western theme. I like how the game incentivises you to finish the features, which is a flaw in base Carcassonne.

9 Likes
1397

Out of 5 games, I think only 1 was won by the player to find Planet X first.

1 Like
1398

I bought the Cartographers app to see if I want to get the new KS. Usually I’m not a fan of the spatial roll n writes, since they don’t have the same feeling of push your luck and diminishing options to me as the box filling RnWs. For some reason Cartographer scratches the itch of me, the goals are a lot more granular than the likes of Railroad Ink and incentivise going for a haphazard ramshackle arrangement over anything perfect.

But now it makes me question the KS even more. The great thing about the app is a game takes maybe 5 minutes to play, so you can try different things each time to see what works and what doesn’t. Already played 20+ games in a few days. You don’t get that same immediacy with a physical game - you could probably play an entire game on the app in the time it takes to manually calculate the final score! But the box game would work a lot better multiplayer.

Big thumbs up for the app. Great quality for less than £4.

4 Likes
1399

I still need to play it more, but the theory part of Planet X makes it feel more like a distillation of Alchemists to me, rather than something similar to Cryptid. Can finally show friends a logic game where speculation is encourage without all the convoluted worker placement/action selection gubbins and weird theming!

Can definitely see why someone wouldnt want to own both though. Logic puzzles are a weird quirky niche of their own, but most people just need the one.

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1400

Alchemists is such an indulgence for me. I love the quirky theme, I adore the logic puzzle and I think the worker-placement, resource-collection euro that it’s all framed in levels the playing ground for people who aren’t quite as good as logic puzzles. I also love that there’s a bit of push-your-luck with publishing.

That said, the audience willing to play Alchemists with me is pretty small. I wonder if Planet X would broaden that a bit?

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1401

I’d be interested in trying Planet X if someone reckons they could PBF it…

2 Likes