Jaws of the Lion, faced off against zealots and Chaos demons. Unfortunately, we did not survive. We actually called it before the end, with one player dead, and the others low on health - and we hadn’t even reached the final room (with the boss). Our second loss in a row. But we will be back!
My City, episodes 13, 14 and 15. I did better than a normally did, with two second places. Wont give the details (spoilers). Went fairly smoothly.
Viscounts of the West Kingdom, first play. Yet another game in the XXX of the West Kingdoms games (Architects, Paladins). The board is made up of five segments, held together by a castle with three rings. You start with your own deck of eight townsfolk, but will hire and use more.
On your turn, you will add a new card from your hand to your player board (which holds 3 cards). The rightmost card will be discarded. Cards have three types of actions: immediate (when you first play them), on going, or discard.
Then you’ll move your Viscount around the main board. The board has spaces on the outer and inner paths, and you’ll get different options depending on which path you take. Your movement is taken from the cost of the new card you added to your board (so a card with a value of 2 allows you to move 2). You can move further by adding money.
After movement, you take one of four main actions, each with its own required icon. You can add up the icons from your player board, and can dismiss the townsfolk card on the main board next to you to add more icons. You can also add resources to give you more icons.
The main actions are trade, construct a building, place workers, and transcribe a manuscript.
Trade can give you resources, the ability to destroy a card (to thin your deck), or flip debt/deed cards.
Construct a building allows you to build one of three types of building, giving you an ongoing ability, or a permanent icon. And VPs at the end of the game.
Place workers allow you to move your workers onto the castle in the middle of the main board. If you have three workers in one section of the first (outer) tier, then one of them moves up to the next tier, while each of the others move to the left and right sections. This could also trigger another group of three workers. You get an action by moving into the second tier, and a free resource by moving into the third tier. VPs are also given at the end of the game. If there are more than three workers (of any colour) in a first or second tier, then any extra can be sent back to the player who owns them. It sounds a little complicated, but it works smoothly enough.
Finally, you can transcribe a manuscript, which allows you to take the top manuscript adjacent to you. You get something free when you take it, and the colour of the manuscript ribbon lets you make sets for VPs at the end of the game.
Theres an interesting mechanic with the virtue and corruptions markers. They start on each side of your player board. If you gain corruption, that marker moves to the right, where the virtue marker moves to the left. If they collide, then you get a reward, and so do the other players. Corruption gives you more money, but also debt cards.
Debt cards are worth negative VPs if you don’t manage to flip them. You also have deed cards, which give 1 VP, or 3 VPs if you can flip them. The decks of debt and deed cards determine the end of the game. You get VPs from having the most flipped cards.
It took a while to teach this (and it was my first game too, which doesn’t help). There was a bit of AP, as you try and decide which card to play, which affects how far you move, and what options you’ll get. It took a couple of hours to play, next game should be a bit quicker. Some rules seem a bit weird, like when you destroy a card, it has to be from your hand, or you can draw your next card from your deck. Most games allow you to go thru your discards to destroy one. I went after the manuscripts for points, and another player had heaps of workers in the castle. We ended up with the same score, but the tie breaker was left over resources and money, which I lost.
Red 7 to finish things off. I like the game myself, but one of the other players didn’t really enjoy it. There are some people who just never get how the game works.
. Played a game of Spirit Island I played Stones Unyielding Defiance, also at the table were Grinning Tricksters Stirs Up Trouble, Many Minds Move as One and Down Pour Drenches the World against Brandenburg-Prussia Level 2.
