Enough that you’d sell/gift Cascadia?
6 Likes
Lol no. Never.
Harmonies also not.
And I WILL HAVE ALPINE LAKES!
8 Likes
Two games nights
All 3 player
Night One
Tower Up, leans heavily into my favoured play style. Plenty of muscling into each other to block opportnuties but the scores always end up similar, so does it fall into the modern game trap where every move is ultimately worth a small delta of points. Scores were 42-44-50. 50 being the highest score I’ve seen.
Wingspan, perfectly cromulent
Coal Baron, pretty cool, the lift thing is something I haven’t seen and has the Kramer/Kiesling action point system confined to one subsystem. Makes it snappier than Tikal
Night Two
Florence (no machine), Area control where the scorable areas follow a planned pattern. Pretty cool with upgarding of pieces to bump up the majorities. Got an early lead and ran away with it
Merchants of Andromeda, rough start but a pretty smooth game overall. Did terribly. We got stuck into a meta where every auction was 11-13. The mini games are solidly different enough.
Odin, fun little card shedder
9 Likes
Hot Streak (5-6p) – just one game, but it was great fun. The 6th player turned up in time for the final race, so it’s handy that the game trivially supports players dropping in or out. As this group is a slightly rowdy bunch, I was confident it would be a hit, and it didn’t let me down. Requests to bring it again were immediate.
We then moved on to the main game of the evening, which was Lords of Vegas. This was also rowdy and hilarious, with half the table spending large portions of their turns (and lord knows how much money) battling for control of what ended up as a giant nine-block casino. There were so many attempts to usurp control of it, and I actually cheered when the player to my right finally managed a winning roll on perhaps his fourth attempt, even though it was me he’d taken it from. I got it back :). I lost it a few times after I’d first wrested control of it, but I had 3 dice to roll most of the time, and I threw a remarkable number of 6s overall (generally eliciting sounds of anguish and laughter in equal measure), and it stayed with me in the end. Which you’d think would have given me a decent shot at winning, except that it was almost never mine at the times that it actually paid out the points! I think I ended in 3rd place. Good fun :).
7 Likes
Power Grid Deluxe - 4 player with the Europe map. Great fun as usual. If I allow myself more games, this would have been a keeper. The power plant deck is crazy in this edition with only TWO 7’s - 1 gas (which is garbage in the OG) and 1 oil. The hybrids in this one are always oil/gas which makes more thematic sense.
Las Vegas - again, great filler. Played at 5 players.
7 Likes
Played two games in a row of whale riders (Knizia). Really good. The way you’re limited in your actions and how directly the choices impact opponents is really nice. Just deciding to take a step forward or waiting to turn in contracts is really nice.
6 Likes
Another, this shouldn’t be this much fun game. Bid bananas to get more bananas by paying the difference in bananas.
10 Likes
Yes! It’s surprising on how good this game is based on how it is designed!
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Master of Orion - based on the video game IP. It’s fine. Rather boring
Piece o’ Cake - banger filler game
Glory to Rome - 3 players and woah! I manage to do a Forum victory. This is the first time I’ve done it and also the first time I’ve seen anyone do it.
German Railways/Prussian Rails - 4 players and what a banger! Brain melting decisions and the random bag pull is fun af.
6 Likes
Last night I played a not-introductory game of Space Empires 4X. I, as the Noble Red Empire, was utterly obliterated.
I can’t seem to wrap my head around this game. I had a really good time, but the rate at which Mike was churning out ships and research was… ye gods.
I should mention we played with every optional and advanced rule in the base box… so Merchant Ships, Mines, Carriers, Fighters, Raiders, Scanners, Variable Research, Alien Worlds, Doomsday Machines, and Warp Points.
We didn’t encounter any Doomsday Machines, and the Variable Tech rule just utterly ruined my already shaky economy. Oh, and neither of us researched Mines (which seems like a very useful tech for longer games? But as it was I barely had the time to research Size 3 ships to build Exploration Cruisers).
Early game Mike managed to find 3 of his home-system colonies directly adjacent to his homeworld, which was a huge bonus (his homeworld is 4 hexes from the right on the back row, adjacent to the blackhole), and he built a 2nd Mining vessel on the first turn to drag more resources back to his worlds. Honestly, I think that was my critical mistake… I should’ve built another Miner or two, even, to pull resources back to my colonies as quickly as possible. By turn 4 he was generating an average of 10 resources more than me and pulling in an extra 5-10 resources from mining, and by turn 11 (when the game ended) he had a fleet of over 20 “Hull Points” (3 full Carriers with 3 Fighters each for 16, plus a few Cruisers) whereas my entire fleet was 12 Hull Points (2 Cruisers, a Destroyer, and 5 Scouts armed with Point Defense weapons for his pesky Fighters).
I had two turns of failed research into Defence Tech 1 (40 cash into the drain) and a turn of Movement 2 research that was wasted (another 25 cash). I did research Terraforming relatively quickly to get me another colony at home (each home sector includes one barren world), but by the time I managed to get that world colonized Mike had all of his regular colony worlds at maximum production. AND he invaded an Alien world with 2 Carrier Groups when I had only 1 Cruiser in space (and some space docks, granted), which spooked me… I finally managed to get Level 2 Movement tech, and then launched a surprise attack against one of his Deep Space colonies. My entire fleet, two Cruisers, a Destroyer, and 5 Scouts, against one Star Fortress: we both had Level 1 Attack and Defence tech, which meant he was hitting on 5s or 6s (or lower), and I was hitting on 1s or 2s.
Granted, I forgot about the Fleet Size Advantage, which would’ve absolutely swung the fight in my favour (+1 if you outnumber your opponent 2-to-1, which I did), but when the space dust settled his one Base had taken 2 (of 3) hits, and my fleet was atomized. I extended my hand immediately.
The moral of the story is that Mike crushed me with his wallet. I could’ve theoretically delayed him for a few turns to build new ships, but he already had 2 more colonies than me AND a very extensive Merchant Ship network for moving his fleets up to the front lines and additional resources.
My fleet was destroyed after the 10th Economic Phase, which seems about right? And sure, the game might’ve extended for a few more turns if I really fought for it, but it was almost certainly over at that point.
Neat, neat game, even if I continue to fail to understand the economics of how to win. I will say that I suspect Mike didn’t do his books “perfectly correct” (things like failing to pay to upgrade his fleets with new technology as it was researched), but he was unquestionably producing more and capturing more resources per turn, so I don’t think it would’ve had a big impact (and, full disclosure, I was building Cruisers at least a few turns before I realized they were Size 3 ships, not Size 2, and so I too cheated… and because of the variable research, I may not have been able to even successfully research that hull size!).
Anyway, end rant. Great game, can’t wait to try it again with a few of the Space Empires 4X Close Encounters optional rules (the Experience Levels for ships seems neat!).
9 Likes
Only got thru 2 games today
First up was Too Many Bones, first play. BGG reckons it’s 1 hour per player (we had 4p), pretty accurate. Add on some more time for learning, and of course one of our players turned up late (it was me). Cool looking game, lots of lovely clacky discs for health and characters. I was Picket, a melee/tank type. Didn’t get an option on my character, since I was there late (but it was my usual player colour of blue, so probably would have chosen it anyway). So you take your character disc and put on top of your health discs, so you can always see how much health you have (same for bad guys). I didn’t realise how your actions worked at first, you choose a colour, then roll a dice of that colour, and then slot it on your character. All the action takes place on a mat with spaces marked as melee or ranged. There’s no positioning really, ranged can reach anywhere (no line of sight rules or anything), melee obviously have to be next to their target. Took us a while to get thru the initial monsters. Some characters seem very fragile, I was ok (with six health), but my mate had half of that, so a good attack could wipe him out in one go. And he didn’t have any default attack, but he could creates grenades. Definitely some good damage, but took him a while to build up to it. Seemed a little frustrating to me.
So, you gain points from fighting normal enemies, and then you tackle the boss. The boss was weird in a way, because we needed to fighting using one character at a time, seemed strange for a game that’s all about playing as a team. The boss was actually the easier encounter, our grenade guy just smashed him for most of his health. I’m sure we made errors in play, but it worked out.
Having the cricket on probably didn’t help the play time either (but it’s the Ashes!).
RA, best game ever! It’s been way too long since we played this. And I won, which made it even sweeter. Good fun game, lots of RA being called.
So, you gain points from fighting normal enemies, and then you tackle the boss. The boss was weird in a way, because we needed to fighting using one character at a time, seemed strange for a game that’s all about playing as a team. The boss was actually the easier encounter, our grenade guy just smashed him for most of his health. I’m sure we made errors in play, but it worked out.
RA, best game ever! It’s been way too long since we played this. And I won, which made it even sweeter. Good fun game, lots of RA being called.
And some Xmas goodies, nice surprise from our hosts
7 Likes
Christmas meetup for games with friends. Unfortunately one was ill, so it was just four of us (that then dwindled to three as the ill player’s partner left early, and then to two as one player sorted out food for their dogs).
Uk’otoa - Game of shared loyalties where sailors on a ship are being attacked by a sea monster. Quick and easy with some interesting rules of how you play cards that leads to difficult decisions (and you can’t pass).
New York Zoo - I’ve had this for ages but always kept putting it back and picking something else after I’d read the rules and decided the animal placement rules are too fiddly.
After finally playing it, it’s quite a simple game … but the animal placement rules are too fiddly.
Codenames: Marvel - Decrypto led me to get rid of regular Codenames, but I kept this because the different levels of people’s knowledge of Marvel leads to ridiculous situations.
Like a player giving “Amphibious: 2”. The character underwater was an obvious choice, but then … does he think Lizard is amphibious? Or does he think King Cobra is frog-themed?
NMBR 9 and Spots - Both just good simple games that show you the meaning of hubris.
Splendor Duel - Managed to get to a point where I was two moves from a win and my friend was one move away. Took the only card he could’ve used to win, but that only delayed him a turn, so I still lost.
9 Likes
BattleCon x3 - amazing! It’s awesome. Gold standard on arcade fighting games.
Exceed - BattleCon is better. Shared a lot of rules that imo I would just play BaCon. Exceed shines at the roster of themed fighters - for example we played with Shovel Knight characters!
Yomi x2 - BattleCon is better. I think there’s a game here but it is ultimately a blind rock-paper-scissor game. The bluff is really uninteresting and depth is in knowing both decks.
Combo Fighters - are you sensing a trend yet? Cool. BattleCon is better. Worse than Yomi in every way. But more approachable.
Pocket Paragons - okay. BattleCon is better but this is my 2nd fave. Small set of cards so the bluff is more predictable. Fast and light. PP (heh) is vastly superior to Yomi and Combo Fighter in every way.
The moral of the story is: BaCon is awesome. And if you have the chance, play BaCon!
Or I would rather play a 2 player MOBA game other these (except for BaCon and Pocket Paragons)
Tnx for listening to my TEDTalks
9 Likes
Having just picked up moon colony bloodbath this afternoon this has to be a personal best for time between purchase to tabled.
Managed 2x 2 player games of it tonight. Won a game each and got to the penultimate event on our second go. Really liked it, it’s fast (particularly with the simultaneous play) and with some fun decisions. Pretty simple rules to boot. Resources are a bit odd though, in that other than people everything can have multiple uses depending on your tableau.
Seems to have good variety in the decks available,although I could see the event deck getting a bit stale. It’s a definite keeper for me and I’ll be keeping an eye out for any expansions.
11 Likes
RE: Yoo Many Bones - it’s a bit hard to tell from your description but I think there were some fairly fundamental rules misapprehensions happening. For one, everyone has a basic attack, including the grenade lobbing lady. You can roll as many of the grey attack dice as the number on your attack stat, provided you have enough dexterity. (Dex is used 1 for 1 for either movement or dice capacity for the turn.) Boomer is ranged so can use that attack from anywhere. This in my experience is way more effective than her grenades, but I wasn’t a big fan of her and I have a ton of other gearlocs I play by preference, so, I could be wrong about how good the grenades are.
Second, you don’t pick dice to roll by color. You pick between skill dice (any you have unlocked), attack dice, and the white defense dice, up to your maximum based on dex and movement (and the relevant stat for attack and defense). You get to do any combination you like, but if you use the skill dice they’re done for that combat unless it says otherwise.
And the numbered dice are for showing your stat upgrades - from the photo you probably worked that out, but just in case.
4 Likes
Thanks malkav11, yeah, I’m pretty sure we made some mistakes, need to watch a playthrough before we play again.
My mate will be happy to know there is a default attack - it seemed a bit odd (and punishing) that there wouldn’t be. I think I really stuffed up the action dice bit, not sure if I was the only one (no one corrected me at least).
4 Likes
Of those, I have only played Yomi enough to form an opinion, but I do own a PnP of it and an early edition of BattleCon. Wouldn’t you say the depth is in knowing both decks in both games?
That said, I quite liked the few games of Yomi I’ve played, the rock-paper-scissors seems like a solid basis to build on to me. If you know your opponent’s deck has strong throws, while yours is attack combos, you already have most of what you need to start playing the game competitively. In contrast, the one BattleCon game I experienced way back when seemed to be know both decks or lose. Like, rock-paper-scissor-earth-fire-water-air, only all those names are something else related to some theme and you won’t know how they interact until you remember all the numbers. My memory is very fuzzy though.
4 Likes
Yomi is too blind because the deck is large and you draw randomly. There’s more to BattleCon than choosing rock because.. ~vibez~.
5 Likes
Hot Streak!
Photo taken shortly before Gobbler turned around and quit the race as he hadn’t paid his union fees.
6 Likes
Before I left London to Cambridge for Christmas:
Railway Boom - designed by Hisashi Hayashi (Yokohama, Trains)
It’s a multi auction game where you auction track networks, engines and carriages, techs, and objectives. It was underwhelming. I had hope for some strategic decisions but it is very tactical make-up-as-you-go-along affair. Very underwhelming.
I definitely put Trains over this one and even prefer Yokohama, which I didnt like
Castles of Burgundy - blitz mode with 3 players and went through it quick and it was very fun
7 Likes
Got chess clocks going?
2 Likes