The hard part is always to find people who wants to play something like this.
2 Likes
Same. Both plays were just at 2P and even without teach and setup they took close to three hours.
2 Likes
From memory, teaching it is a bit of a pain
1 Like
Itās not that bad, the screens have such a good player aid that you can run through. But the rulebook is so funny that I tell people to read it themselves beforehand.
2 Likes
More weekend gaming this Sunday evening. Having spent all weekend thinking about and planning to play something else - which will probably get to the table next weekend - I decided on a quick favourite and got in two games of Maquis.
I didnāt feel like trying any of the 3-star missions so settled for two games with a 1-star and 2-star mission each. First up was trying to remove the German Shepherds on patrol and take out two of the cityās bridges. Needing lots of medicine supplies and money took me a while from the Doctors and radioing for air drops but I got the Chemist Lab built early and managed to complete it in 12 or 13 turns, playing it cautiously and without any agents being caught until the penultimate turn. The second game required sabotaging the munitions factory while aiding a British spy; again, the Chemistās Lab was built quickly and regular trips to the radio stations for air drops and the Fence for weapons stocked me up ready for the challenges but I feared I had left it too late to complete the missions after the Milice kept blocking the Fence location. Things were looking desperate towards the last few days but I managed to complete both challenges, albeit while sacrificing all of my agents to complete the demolition of the munitions factory.
Maquis is possibly my favourite game; definitely my favourite solo title. Looks great, quick to setup and play, perfect match of theme and mechanics for me and a good range of tense challenges. Still got to try a couple of the 2-star missions - especially the assassination one - and the hardest 3-star missions. Might get another game or two of this in over the week ahead.
8 Likes
Age of Innovation
Rebel Princess Deluxe - itās fine. An alright spin to Hearts. Alas, I donāt understand what the hype is about. The special player powers and the different rules every round feels rather gimmicky than clever.
Codenames x2
Valencia - aka Strasbourg. Itās been a while since Iāve played Strasbourg and this game is unimpressive. 
6 Likes
Picked a copy of this up recently for a tenner on Vinted as Iāve always fancied trying it out. Thought that was quite a bargain. Still yet to table it but really looking forward to it.
5 Likes
Kingdom Builder - solid game, do like it a lot. Keen to hunt out some expansions!
Magical Athlete - First game of this. Love it. Funny and chaotic. Where do I sit on Hot Streak v Magical Athlete ?? Do we have to have a favourite? Itās like The Beatles and The Stones all over again.
7 Likes
Finished with Ministry of Lost things. 1 (lint condition). Itās got a good set of puzzles and a fairly light story. I think the third set of puzzles was probably my least favourite (laborious) but I think one miss out of 8 is not a bad rate.
7 Likes
Some games we donāt talk about as much:
Revive: Played the absolutely garbage solo mode. Very interested to try the ārealā game. Solo was a complete loss apart from internalizing the rules.
Tiny Epic Galaxies: I had done several cycles of this solo and put it on the test-and-cull list. I did want to play with people firstā¦ and the 5p game I got in was a big success! This is not a bad solo (see: Revive) but the game was significantly different with people. The pain of when to follow, the race for planet settlement, etc. really brought the whole thing to life. Turns out, itās a great game given the tiny box, and all that a tiny box entails for accessibility.
Fantastic Factories: Another near cull. The thing is, Furnace is better. Res Arcana is better. Fantastic Factories is appealing, and simple. Itās been a big hit with the people I play with, so much so that it went from āmaybe cullā to āwhere is the expansion still in print.ā Itās also done well with repeat play, some games Iām forced off of my standard strategy. Was forced to win with a Monument strategy, completely foreign to me, and getting thrown off your rails like that is often when a game starts to shine.
What can I say, itās still not better than Res Arcana or Furnace. But Res Arcana is a tough sell in my house with the deeply magicky theme, and Furnace is a bigger lift insofar as itās best with all the modules, but all the modules make it harder to draw people in.
Golden Goal: What a winner! I need to write a review of this or some such, as there are two games in the box. In one, you roll the die and kick the ball as hard as you can each turn, and someone eventually rolls cumulatively higher numbers and wins. That game sucks.
Thereās also a game where positioning and area control come to the front. You may not kick the ball each turn. You realize that defense requires lower pips than offense, and the momentum of the game shifts back and forth between stand-offs on either side of the board. You realize you can kick the ball off target to pull your opponent out of position. Things start getting spicy, rounds take longer, and I start deeply, deeply enjoying myself. When played right, this game draws in your head and heart.
Hereās to experience two.
7 Likes
Golden Goal is surprisingly good. I was expecting another meh 2 player from Allplay
3 Likes
I donāt agree that the solo is garbage. I have played it a few times and enjoyed myself. But this is one I have played a fair enough (for me anyway) number of two player games of and those were very good and I would hedge better than the solo. I havenāt had the brainpower for it recently though. And then I got Recall which occupies a similar space and took up some of my big solo times, so my solo experience has been a while. It is mostly a speed struggle to build up as quickly as you can in 20 turns and that kind optimization puzzle is definitely mot everyoneās cup of tea. It is mine. I like it. It does help practicing so you can put on tempo in a multiplayer gameā¦
4 Likes
ok ok! Iāll gladly concede that itās an experience that can be enjoyed.
I was bugged by how much of the core game was sacrificed in creating the solo and then felt like i was missing out. I also didnāt like being hustled by the aggressive game timer when I wanted to be exploring the system.
No competition over real estate, the fact that the map stays at least half face-down so you canāt reasonably get to more than one cornerā¦ They noted as well that not all factions play nicely with the solo but didnāt provide any guidance. I found myself with the faction that explores very easily, therefore collecting a lot of new cards, therefore hitting the game timer especially hard. Bad luck, but also bad (lack of) guidance. No race to colored artifacts, etc.
An optimization puzzle does remain in place of these things, but it didnāt work for me here just as it didnāt in Red Cathedral and other similar ones.
Iād be happy to BGA it with you!
3 Likes
Finally got to play my copy of Rebel Princess and Iād forgotten how much I love the card game Hearts.
RP is Hearts with extra chaos rules: you are princesses and the suit you donāt want (usually Hearts) is āPrincesā who want to propose to you. Try to lose every trick so that you get the fewest proposals, because those Prince guys love themselves too much and you wish theyād go away.
Except: every player has a unique āonce a roundā power (a round is 10 tricks in 4-player). And each round also has a rule that you get from Round Cards which can completely change the game: the second highest card wins each trick this time (Bridesmaid themed), or every player after the first plays their card face down until you all reveal at the end (masquerade ball). There are crazy ones for the final round: give a wedding gift of a facedown card (your worst one) and the winner of the trick will also take all those gifts.
So itās hearts, and then you keep adding TOTAL MAYHEM rules on top. Even brand new players enjoyed it, but I loved it.
Then we played Courtisans and once again the ānever played a boardgameā players at a casual pub night got it instantly and demanded a 2nd round afterwards.
4 Likes
we can try i am very slow playing ā¦ i mean taking turns.
2 Likes
Last night at Thirsty Meeples:
Tenby, had the same response as last time I played, that itās quite fun but thereās nothing here ti say ābuy meā or even āask to play me againā.
Otters, three first-time Polish designers and yeah, itās a game, but thereās a lot of arbitrariness about it. Really liked the art though.
6 Likes
Tenby really reminds me of Kingdomino. Not just the way turn order works, but in building a tableau which needs to combine scoring for x and having lots of x. Itās just Kingdomino got into my heart first and is the level of simplicity I appreciate more in that genre.
4 Likes
Yesterday I played a great game of War for Arrakis with my buddy who owns it. I usually try to stick with the Atreides (I have difficulty playing ābad guys,ā and while Paul himself isnāt a good guy, the Baron is unquestionably evil, and so is his entire house).
Great game. I decided to come out swinging for the Harkonen harvesters, and managed to eliminate all of them, although due to a House die the Harkonen player was able to place two of them back on the table at the last moment. The second turn I repeated this process more successfully, causing the Harkonen to lose 2 dice and a laundry list of Imperial Bans.
By turn 3 the Harkonen managed to get some steam, sending The Beast Raban out to destroy a sietch (and then die when Stilgar attacked to earn me some Red points) and destroying another with a massed attack from Arrakeen. In response I was able to destroy the settlement at the North Pole and then accomplish a few objectives on the side, getting all of my Prescience markers to 3 around the same time, unlocking Chani, Paul Plus, and Jessica Plus.
Round 4 I was able to clear out a bunch of Ecological Stations, gaining much-needed Red and utterly-useless Green points, and despite losing Stilgar to a quick attack along with his troops, I was able to bring Gurney and some elite Fedaykin out into the Deep Desert for more red points. Oh, and a key āGrandmother of a Stormā card allowed me to thin three different Legions of Harkonen troops.
Two turns later and Stilgar was back and rode wormsign into the Imperial Basin and sacked Arrakeen for the last few points I needed for victory. In response, the Harkonen player sent the Baron and the Emperor off to destroy the two sietches he could reach, but a solid Wom attack thinned his ranks enough that it wasnāt a threat. Victory to the Fighters!
Sadly, the loss demoralized my opponent enough that he didnāt want to play again (one of the many reasons I love War for Arrakis over War for the Ring, which is also sublime, is that WfA is twice as fast. A full game, including reintroducing myself to the rules, in under 2 hours? Yes please!). So instead we played a bunch of 2020 ThunderGryph kickstarter games he thought might suck.
They were Space Lunch, Eiyo, and Golem, and after playing those three and confirming that yes, they suck (and they have awful rulebooks), we didnāt bother trying the last two (15 Days andā¦ I forget the last one). Just bad games, fiddly, horrible iconographyā¦ just disappointing. He is going to purge them from his collection, wisely.
5 Likes
Quantum - very good. Really enjoy watching how the chaos seems to sweep around the board like a wave. Someone will be happily going about their business on one side of the board and then thereās suddenly a mob a ships flooding over. Donāt play it enough really.
Azul:Stained Glass of Sintra - does seem that the first Azul and Summer Pavilion are the ones that naturally arrive on the table, with Sintra and Queens Garden pushed aside. Need to play QG more, certainly the heaviest rules wise but cetainly enjoyed it. Feel Sintra gets a rough ride, just as good as the others, for me anyway.
6 Likes
The Crew: Journey to the Ends of the World - itās the Crew. Nothing fundamentally changed. At least with the early missions.
Knights of Charlemagne - Knizia. Forgettable
London 2e - good fun. I guess only because itās Lahndahn, innit!
Kingdom Builder
DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNEEEE
Amun-Re the Card Game
Ruination - another shit-starter game.
Manila - very good betting game! Iād love to play this again
Innovation + Figures in the Sand - this is great fun. I have now played with all of the Innovation expansions and hopefully I get to play a game that has all of themā¦
Compania - LVL99 Games served gold again. This is a very good light weight game.
The Great Zimbabwe
Chicago Express
National Economy - oh. This is a clever light weight worker-placement game. I wish is is more widely available!
6 Likes