I put Lux Aeterna on my 10×10 having picked it up on a whim last Essen.
Now played twice and I really don’t like it. The gameplay has basically nothing to do with the theme, the cards are oversized even for my hands, and while I can admire the technical artistry the game doesn’t speak to me. That’ll go in the next maths trade, unless anyone here wants it (from the UK).
Forbidden Stars - Wow. I can see why Quinns love this one. The preparation phase is very clever and lets you do interesting plays and blockings. Downtime is awful though. This sounds heretical, but there’s more strategy here than Twilight Imperium (see below). But that doesn’t mean that FS is now a strategic train game. It’s still a tactical Ameritrash, but I’d rather play FS twice than play TI4.
Beez - it’s alright. At least it doesn’t lead to boredom like Reef. It lacked the tension of Azul though. The bees are very cute. Don’t see why I would play this over hundreds of filler games that either makes us laugh hard or allows deep clever plays (or both).
Architects of the West Kingdom + Artisans of the West Kingdom - the expansion is rather miniscule to make a significant impact on the game. Rather, the expansion felt bolted-on. Meh. The base I still found cute, but ran out of reasons why I would play this over 10+ WPs I would rather play.
Everdell + Pearlbrooke - It’s cute and the resource management is tight, which surprised me. I was expecting yet another milquetoast KS game. However, the game really relies on the bloated deck to unfold on your favour - especially on the “free critters” feature that most buildings have. I don’t see why I want to play this over the much more strategic game of Seasons, which is very beautiful too.
Twilight Imperium 4 + Prophesy of Kings - first game with Prophesy of Kings. Very good expansion. The last thing you want on TI4 is basically more rules bloat. The exploration mechanism at least address my pervious concern about how boring early game is - base game is basically a boring exercise of “island hopping”. The exploration cards gives you some surprise treats - like an appetiser - before midgame comes around. Exploration also gives you an interesting choice of how you want to expand - slow island hopping or aggressive expansion. I like that bit.
The agents gives you another tool for player interaction. Good!
Mechs!!! Gives more flavour on ground combat. Good!
I was 5th place (out of 6) but it was fun and the group this time didn’t degenerate into a “leader bashing by committee” just like last time (I might call this the “Ides of March syndrome”). Your boy didn’t engage in kingmaking and remain self-interested during late game. 
Some concerns remain such as the rather arbitrary drip-feed objectives - blindly winning VPs on a 6 or so hour game is still bad. Mind, I’m more of a strategy guy. Still, tactics-fest on a long “epic” game is just godawful. I don’t feel this mentally exhausted for little reward when playing 18xx games or strategic Euro games like Antiquity and Terra Mystica.
Lastly, I played this on TTS and I would never play this for real again. If I get bored during the game, I can alt-tab and do something else, and it’s not socially rude to do so.
Oh, I do love Forbidden Stars (Matt Leacock’s best work, if you ask me… that’s a little Board Game Designer humour for you there folks, try the lamb). My favourite Knife Fight In a Phone Booth game.
Also one of the very, very few games that you can be absolutely eliminated from and that I still like. It’s only happened once, because one of our play group not only didn’t pay attention but actively refused to listen to us telling him what he was doing would be equivalent to suicide… which it then was… and he conceded and left the table.
Other than that one experience, one of my favourite ever games. Scratches a very different itch than TI4 or Eclipse, personally, but I can see why other people would lump them together.
Yesterday, my wife and I managed to play two games of Isle of Skye, which is not the ideal player count, but does still work. This was the fourth game played from our 12 Games of Christmas list, and is also on my 10 x 10 for the year.
We were pretty close the first game, but I kept getting small completed mountain landscapes, which scored 2 pts per, which I think let me pull ahead for the win, 60 - 52.
Second game I got obliterated, 72 - 51. My wife got three sets of Broch, Farm, and Lighthouse by the end of the game, each set scoring 5 pts, whereas I only managed one set which only scored once for me in the last round.
I really like this game. The good selection of objectives means each game has you focusing on different things, and even the order in which they are scored can make you play the same four objectives differently.
Had a Monday night Games Night with our local Guild. Played three games, on a quiet night (Christmas, I guess, plenty of people go away on summer holidays this time of the year).
First a game of Bootleggers. Enjoyed the concept, but I found the core mechanics too based on luck. The second hand of three cards I had were awful (23, 2 and 3, where my best card kept me second to last on the picking order of the round I played it in, imagine where the 2 nd 3 got me). If you combine with really bad rolls on my Stills when I had good cards, it is no wonder I finished last.
Then we played two light games, Clickbait, and checking it on BGG, I cannot believe is a Knitzia. Won it by placing three rude-ish adverts that made the delight out of the judges at the time. Luckily, I won it in 6 turns and we could move on quickly.
Not that we moved to anything much better. Bed, Wed, Dead was next, and if it was worth the time spent was only for the laughs by people struggling to recognize the names of some of the celebrities, I don’t see myself playing it again anytime soon. Guess work at random, and hardly a game at all. Plus how will I have to explain the google searches to the missus, with names like Kate Bosworth, Idina Menzel or Mark Cuban popping up there…
Finished by a conversation about how will be next year Guild challenges, based on a few of the BGG suggestions here and there, and off home it was.
7 Wonders Duel + Pantheon + Agora - good game. Enjoyed the latest expansion. My opponent won via military.
Maracaibo - boring Euro. Which is a surprise because Pfister is usually okay in my books.
Samurai - an old chestnut from Knizia. We played with public scoring and found it more interesting that way. I have placed other tile laying Knizia above this one, but it is still excellent.
Does 7WD feel like a lot of conflicting stuff when both expansions are used? I just got Agora, excited to try it out.
From what I know, I would say no. But considering how bad my memory is, I might be wrong.
Pantheon adds a shop for you to buy Gods to solve your earthly problems. It only affects the card formations by adding tokens on them that you acquire by revealing cards. And Agora adds, well, the agora, which is just another tool at your disposal.
The most likely culprit is the agora special abilities might contradict some god powers, but I haven’t seen that occur.
Well I managed about 50% of that list in the end, but with multiple plays of most things, and a few two-player games into the mix as well, so I’m pretty happy with that : ) Things which were played:
Solo:
2p:
Today we played the fifth game of our 12 Games of Christmas: Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu. My wife’s brother joined in on this one, which is good as I find the game is more difficult with just 2, due to the insanity mechanics.
We came close to losing due to lack of cultists in the supply, but managed to rally by closing a couple of gates and using a relic to cancel an Old One’s permanent effect, which was removing 3 cultists from supply. We closed the last gate and won the game with some good combinations of relics.
And we owned any Shoggoth that dared tresspass in our territory, from the starting one which I killed on my first turn (Reporter transport from the start Train Station bus stop to an Innsmouth bus stop where it was, then remaining 3 actions to kill it) to the other four that spawned throughout the game. Not one made it through a gate. It was just “So long and thanks for all the relics!”
Judge Dredd: Helter Skelter: Dark Judges
Shelving Dredd’s team, I took to the Blocks with the teams of Strontium Dog and Sláine (three games apiece). Strontium Dog have a mixture of close-range and long-range abilities, including psi attacks like Judge Anderson’s; a vampire who can restore her own health by dealing mêlée damage; and “The Gronk” who can heal other team members (and who is pretty good at hiding otherwise : ). The Dogs don’t have the coordinated mobility of the Judges (nor the Hi-Ex ammo), but I found them a strong unit. Conversely, Sláine’s team are all about the mêlée – there’s a spell-caster who offers some healing and ranged attacks, but mostly they just want to get up close and lay waste, and Sláine himself has some excellent special rules…
See within for details of both sessions:
Loss. I attempted to take out all of the Dark Judges, and IIRC put up a decent fight, but ultimately failed. (This was my first game of the break, and it hadn’t yet occurred to me to take notes, so that’s all I can remember : )
A win, by the skin of my teeth. Again tried to eliminate the Dark Judges, and it all came down to Johnny Alpha vs Judge Fear (who was at full health). Johnny ran and dodged as I attempted to stockpile enough attack cards for him to turn and fight, and by the time Fear caught up I’d been able to gain enough of the lethal Psi cards to guarantee that I could knock Fear down to 1 hp; but with only one other attack card in hand, the game hinged on a single uncertain defence card. If Fear defended, then Alpha was certain to die in the next phase (having used every card at his disposal in the assault). Fear chose badly, however, and Alpha took the win for the Dogs!
My most successful game to date, and one where the terrain played a huge part. While three of the Dark Judges pursued my vampire Durham Red across the top of the map, Wulf Sternhammer battered Judge Fear to within 1 hp. I then faced the choice of either finishing Fear, or instead allowing Red to reach cover. The latter would allow Fear to regenerate its shields, making it harder to kill later. I chose to keep Red safe for another turn, which may have been the key to a decisive victory. Red lured Fire, Mortis, and Death to a distant point, and was able to heal herself by twice draining health from Judge Death. Meanwhile Sternhammer ended Judge Fear, and Johnny Alpha stockpiled ranged attack cards from behind cover. Red fell at last (it was a hopeless situation, and so I chose to let her die and then use her cards to have Gronk secure a fragment), but with everyone else out of the Dark Judges’ line of sight due to an obstacle on the map, I was then able to acquire even more attack cards while Mortis, Death, and Fire made their way south. Judge Mortis was the first to emerge from cover, and was instantaneously obliterated by Johnny Alpha’s ranged assault. The previously-damaged Judge Death was next to appear, and was pulverised by Wulf Sternhammer (who was in the middle ground near the terrain obstacle). The Strontium Dogs might have succeeded with only a single casualty but, despite some healing by Gronk, Sternhammer was unable to do to Judge Fire what he had done to Fear and Death, and he finally fell. Judge Fire then burned The Gronk to a crisp in the very next turn; but the writing was on the wall – Fire had defended some attacks, but was still hurt, and the two remaining Dogs had both health and distance on their side – more than enough to prepare a combined assault which Fire could not survive. Ending with 8 fragments and 2 healthy team members (nearly 4), this was my first comprehensive victory over the Dark Judges with any team (and the first where I felt that I had controlled the flow of the game).
This team of brawlers is four-strong rather than five, but still includes five miniatures, because “Warp Sláine” (Sláine’s ‘hulk’ state) has its own miniature. I love the rules for this… for every point of damage that Sláine inflicts on other characters, he receives a ‘warp’ point; and he ‘hulks out’ as soon as his warp points equal or exceed his own health. Sláine starts with 5 health, so while he’s unhurt he needs to inflict 5 points of damage; but hurting him makes it happen sooner – and this is a game in which defending against an incoming attack is optional…
Warp Sláine is essentially a beserker, doing ‘smash’ (double) damage with every mêlée attack of his own, but never defending mêlée attacks against himself.
Sláine and his wife Niamh are close-combat beasts, and so starting with the two of them in close proximity to all four of the Dark Judges initially seemed almost like an advantage – and indeed Sláine eviscerated both Judge Death and Judge Mortis; but even with Kai healing some of the damage from those fights, Judge Fear unleashed an attack that Sláine couldn’t withstand (this was my fault for wasting my interrupt cards in order to reposition Ukko, when they would have enabled Sláine to counter-attack). Judge Fire then unexpectedly accounted for both Niamh and Kai (after defending multiple attacks), leaving only Ukko vs Fire and Fear. Fire eventually fell, but Fear was too much, and the Dark Judges took the win.
Absolute debacle! I took one fragment, and then got completely annihilated. Sláine, the monster brawler, was killed without inflicting any damage at all, and things got no better from that point. Niamh ducked and weaved for longer than expected at the end, but never stood a chance against three Dark Judges at full strength.
Absolute victory! With the Dark Judges spread to the four corners of the map, and Sláine’s family grouped towards the top, things looked promising, but I still didn’t anticipate such a result. Niamh immediately charged Judge Death and tore into him with her sword. A tactical interruption of the Dark Judges’ turn saw her finish Death off, still completely unscathed. As Judges Fear and Fire made their ways up the left and right sides of the map respectively, Judge Mortis pursued Ukko and Kai – until Sláine arrived with his battle axe and sliced Mortis into tiny pieces. Fire took shots at Niamh (who deflected) – and then walked into sight of Sláine (who had 4 health and 3 warp points) and made the mistake of taking a shot at him as well. Sláine chose not to defend against this attack, and consequently the next moment “Warp Sláine” charged and smashed Judge Fire into the ground. Judge Fear now reached the top of the map on the left side, where Ukko and Kai were waiting; but when Ukko swung and missed with his strongest attack, they no longer had the cards to finish the job. Instead, I sent them both running for cover leaving Warp Sláine as Fear’s new target. Fear blasted Sláine hard reducing him to 1 health, and so I used another interrupt card to retaliate immediately – my cards allowed for just one shot at a retaliatory assault, and if it didn’t pan out then Sláine was not going to survive; but if I did nothing then the same thing was bound to happen. This was therefore my shot at total victory – and when the dust cleared my entire team stood tall over the fallen Dark Judges!
I’m enjoying this game quite a lot. There’s certainly a lot of gameplay variety which keeps things interesting. The random elements are obviously a significant part of that; but it plays quickly enough that an unfortunate draw of the cards feels more like an intriguing challenge than a drawn-out punishment. The thing I like most is that it’s tactically interesting – every card has multiple possible uses, so you’re constantly faced with decisions about what it is that you want to do the most – how can you best use the cards you have at any time, what (or who) are you sacrificing by doing that, and how will you adapt your plans when things go wrong. You always draw three cards at the end of your turn (up to a hand limit), but you can play any number of cards during a turn – so you can have a big turn when you want to, and then either push forwards running on empty, or spend whole turns doing little or nothing in order to replenish your deck. And being able to interrupt other players (including in the solo game) introduces even more chaos and tactical opportunity – provided that you have the cards in hand to take advantage. It keeps you on your toes : )
We played a duo of Iwari which I won barely ahead of my partner and it seems like neither of us fell into AP and it was close enough not to frustrate him. I won on the totems because I snagged the big orange area on what I think is the default map and he didn’t get a single tent in there as I “filled” it with mine and the dummy player’s tents and prevented him from drawing any orange cards somehow.
I had overlooked the upper limit for totems on my first solo plays and that makes the game even better that you have to be tactical about when to place new tents or totems.
I will get to play this one again as it was quick and not too AP prone. I would love to play at 3 without the dummy to see how that changes my own tactics. But as of now I do not see that happening soon.
I also played Chapter 3 of CloudAge. Two handed solo for the third time now. Pretty smooth game. It is–once I figured out the rules, no thanks to the manual–not too difficult and the playerboards and iconography are clear and with game 3 I never once had to look up anything anymore. My right hand won for the first time because she tried a cool, new strategy of heavily investing in movement over everything else. Despite not being to build anything on the final two build actions she won with a nice lead.
What I like best is how you slowly build up your airship and with additional drives, emp canons and planting devices but at the same time this is more or less the same every game. The variety is just not enough even though there are different strategies you can focus on. I really wish there were unique player powers to allow for different strategies per player.
I think part of what makes me so hesitant to like this game is that it has a lot of different mechanisms, each well done and they even come together to form a cohesive whole but nothing really stands out. There is a bit of player board development. Some tableau building. A bit of deck building. A bit of a race or point-to-point movement. A bit of resource management and production. Multi-use cards. I think it’s just a bit bland and unless my partner totally falls in love with it because it is rather uncomplicated, I’ll probably sell it after I finished the campaign. And the quality of the materials is another factor that is a bit bland. The box is a bit thin. The “clouds” with the stickers are really meh. And the campaign feels tacked on to make a small game bigger than it is. The theme is less than I thought too, it’s just “apocalyptic waste-land after eco-terrorists destroy earth”… and just like that I’ve arrived at a conclusion. It’s to the reject pile unless an actual 2 player makes something stand out that I’ve overlooked.
Some games over the Christmas break:
Jaipur
Blue Lagoon, first play of this one. It’s pretty good - kind of classic Knizia - streamlined rules but interesting choices throughout. I’d have to play it with a wider playercount to assess further. I enjoyed it at 2 though. Scores get a bit ridiculous at that playercount though, especially with the 2 scoring phases. It does feel different to Through the Desert though, at least to me. I’m happy to have both.
Barenpark
Lord of the Rings, had some friends request a game of this. I forgot how mean this game is - we never made it past Helm’s Deep after having a very rough shake of things in Moria… The game manages to be fairly abstract mechanically while also seeming thematic in tone. Fun but mean - if you like that in a co-op you may enjoy it more than me.
I think you are in the UK yeah? So between Brexit related new customs malarky and the fact that the box itself weighs as much as a mid sized family hatchback, I think the postage would be crazy on it! 
Yes quite probably!!
Which Pfister game would you recommend? (I promise I won’t run off to buy anything but I may attempt to trade for something next year). Because I am thinking that CloudAge is also on the boring side and anything with similar mechanisms as “Oh my goods” has been Forbidden in this household… (not by me)
Isle of Skye and Broom Service 
But for the mid to heavy ones. I really like Mombasa - granted it has a bad theme of 4 European colonial corporations slicing the continent like this:
But gameplay-wise, I really like the tight worker placement and the shared incentives on investment on which company. The multiple discard pile mechanism is very good and requires forward planning. So is the book-keeping. If you get the promo too, the book-keeping becomes a more viable strategy.
Other than that, next would be Great Western Trail which was neat, but I think it’s just average.
Matt and Quinns wrote a review here too: Review: Mombasa - Shut Up & Sit Down
(Sorry - posted this reply in the wrong topic! Amateur!)
Had a quick descent down a toy hill with my daughter yesterday, on Stuffed Fables. What a nasty little game! We made it through, but one stuffie collapsed and all the other three in not a great state. I am lately having pretty bad luck with my rolls, which doesn’t help. And looking at the sleeping girl deck, we haven’t got that many cards left to go through before she potentially wakes up.
Hopefully we will get some better rolls next time, but it is looking a bit bleak.
Played Villainous for the first time. Got this for my wife for Xmas. We’re all big Disney fans so the theme was a hit.
It’s a tableau builder with a twist that an action allows you to put heroes in another players’ way. It’s very asymmetrical in player powers and win conditions but seemingly well balanced because we were each within two turns of winning when my wife got her 4th curse out.
We also got a game of CO2 Second Chance as a 2 player co op. Our first Lacerda and we got crushed. It’s beautiful and the components were good and chunky. Looking forward to playing it again.
