We’ve only ever played at 3p (very occasionally we’ll get a 4th player, can’t remember if we played it with 4p)
3 Likes
Last night we played the next two missions of Descent Legends of the Dark with the Betrayer’s War expansion content included.
First off, I didn’t know that you could include the expansion stuff to the original campaign, but you absolutely can and it’s great! More gear, and critically more monsters. Big fan.
We played Syrus’s main-quest mission (talking to Professor Greysdon), and then the Witch of the Woods side-quest, and they were both fantastic. I love the fact that the game is never a cake-walk, but it’s never impossible. And we just got our 2nd XP, so now we can take two 1-level skills or a single 2-level skill, and Kehli’s 2nd level skill lets us roll 2 dice on attack and that alone is great. Plus we found armour that lets you roll a second defence die, and that’s great too.
I think that’s my only complaint with Descent. I wish it let you roll more dice more often. 1d8 is just a sad number of dice, but 2d8 is great. Skill checks are the only thing that defaults to 2d6. Small pet peeve, but otherwise a fantastic game.
Afterwards I taught the table Sea Salt and Paper, which was okay. I think it’s better at 2 than it is at 4, but it was still good.
Going back to Friday, I managed to get Blackstone Fortress on the table, and gosh is that ever a banger of a game. I’m not sure that it will keep being as fun as it was (there’s no “leveling up” for the characters, although you can get better gear… and I don’t know what is in the “secret envelopes” because this is only my 2nd time playing and the first time since 2019). I wanted to try with 5 players because I knew you could but I didn’t realize it was an all-vs-one if you play with 5 so we fudged the rules a little to let us play 5 heroes.
I also didn’t realize that the Solitaire is a single-player-only hero. Massively OP. But whatever, we had fun on our first expedition, got the 4 Clues we needed. Great minis, fiddly rules but good (we rolled once for the behaviour of an entire group of enemies, rather than for each model in the group).
10 Likes
Took Hot Lead for a spin. It’s a Knizia, and Space-Biff praised it, so I had high hopes. It was fine. There are N cards laid out, where N is the number of players. Everyone chooses a card from their hand, 6 Nimmt style, and then the “market” is allocated left to right based on high card to low card selected by the players.
The cards are not all equal, and if you get too many of one color you bust. So there are some stakes. The hook is when three people are all trying to choose the “most middle” card from their hand.
As I said, just fine. But it did get increasingly tense over three quick rounds - indicating it benefits as the meta evolves. And there are some modules we didn’t include, which serve to increase the benefits as well as the risk/frequency of busting, which would be good things.
In the end, a filler is a filler and it’s rare to get Love Letter alchemy out of anything this light. We’ll try again with the modules but it’s going to be a tough sell against 6 Nimmt.
Playing Keyper on Yucata with a stranger. It’s not good at 2 - at least not against these tactics. It’s a farming / worker placement game with Breese’s (Key’s) signature touches of workers as currency and fluidity of supply. By design it has interesting interactions. But at 2, it’s possible to play “control Keyper,” as I call it, by which you try to hoard workers and boa constrict your opponent. The most interesting and fun parts of the game are thereby removed and you end up starving for Fields of Arle instead.
I’ve looked at the numbers and I don’t think Control Keyper is a winning strategy. Certainly not a fun strategy. But it’s hard to counter as a neophyte, you need to know exactly what you are doing from turn one to counter it.
So, bad session. Maybe a fun game. We’ll see.
Caverna: introduced this to the spouse. Good fun. I still prefer Agricola but I more and more appreciate these games that can be enjoyed with a more laid back approach. Winning is really when the non-gamer has a good time and you get to play again!
GWT NZ: Halfway through a solo. I like what they’ve done here. There really is a kitchen-sink approach but each thing is a little titillating and exciting to interact with. I was also struck vs. Caverna above, at the evolution of game setup mentalities. Caverna was so easy despite its size and weight (I got a used copy with a wooden organizer, that helps). But even so, lay out boards, remove a card (as printed on the board and the card), give each player their pieces, good to go. NZ - put these 16 discs into their holds. Randomly choose 4 of 10 bonus decks, then get the right number of cards per deck, lay them out here. Separate the deckbuilding cards from the sheep market cards from the starting deck cards. Choose a side for buildings. Randomize neutral buildings. Give each player different resources to start. Oh, and don’t forget on your first turn to take these additional “first turn setup” steps. Caverna was a breath of fresh air on that dimension.
10 Likes
Had a good amount of gaming this weekend.
Played a couple games of Star Wars the Deckbuilding Game, one Clone Wars and one Original, and won both.
My brother-in-law joined in for a game of Lords of Vegas, which I also managed to win, though he and I tied in points, but I had more money to win the tie breaker.
My wife and I later played Lost Cities, where I think I had my worst ever first round, scoring -19 to her 72. That I was later able to come back and only lose by 2 points, 133 - 131, felt good.
Got to play Unmatched, trying out Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for the first time (not counting app plays) against her Medusa. I thought I was going to get crushed, as she kept making me discard cards and there was a couple times I had no cards to defend with, but managed to survive and win, though only because she made a tactical error and forgot to move Medusa out of my zone, so ones of Hyde’s schemes was able to finish her off.
Finally, we played Ethnos, with Skeletons, Elves, Dwarves, Giants, and Centaurs. I was just a little ahead after the first age, and thought at first that I was going to lose in the second like I often do, but this time I greatly expanded my lead and won 92 - 71.
11 Likes
Had a holiday get-away with the wider family, and had games of:
- 6 nimmt (7p) x3
- Camel Up (5p)
- Mysterium (7p)
6 nimmt was good chaotic fun as always.
About two thirds of the way through Camel Up, one player idly commented “Red isn’t doing very well, is it?” (red having advanced about 3 spaces in the entire race) which, everyone having completely forgotten about that action, was followed by all five players placing a bet on who was going to lose the race :). Unfortunately they’d made the comment at the end of their turn, so they merely gifted a lot of points to the next few players!
We all lost at Mysterium (we needed one more turn to get one player’s third card), but I never end the game that way, so I didn’t say anything about that. So we played the final shared vision – and we lost again :). We unfortunately had two really plausible options to choose between, and we picked the wrong one. Sorry, ghost!
Mysterium has become a favourite for these occasional family get-togethers (when my sister is in the country, basically), and it scales nicely up to the 7p we had this time, and more or less circumvents language issues (with two of our players having English as a second language). It’s a little bit of a faff to set up, and isn’t a quick option, but once it’s underway it’s so easy for everyone to play (well, other than the ghost of course :), and gets everyone involved and talking and comparing ideas. It’s always a good time.
12 Likes
Maryse and I both had colds that ended, annoyingly, yesterday. Just in time to get back to work. Poo. I’d wanted to try and learn Kutna Hora over the long weekend, but instead we were both coughing up a lung. We did play two games of Ark Nova, though!
I won the first one by a whalloping, around 30 points. Maryse made a bad mistake early on and never recovered.
Yesterday, she asked for and got her revenge, but it ended up beinga 26-25 victory for her. Super super close game, it was frankly wonderful. One of our best.
11 Likes
Met up with old friends again and got to break out some unplayed stuff.
Damask - One player had to work (the problem of being employed by Americans, so no bank holidays off), so I took the opportunity of only having 4 players to break this out. Pretty simple game (though we did miss a rule initially), but I liked it a lot. Always a fan of games where the ending is only advanced by a certain action.
The player ahead of me finished the game and robbed me of a couple of points, beating me 22 to 21. But then it turned out another player had 24, so it didn’t really matter.
Splendor - An old favourite and another case of the game ending just before I got a few more points (but still wouldn’t have beaten the winner).
Spots - Second time playing and first time with different actions available. We also forgot the rule that you get a new dog when you complete one. Still fun.
Wyrmspan - Now with 5 players, this filled the rest of the night as it’s slow going when you’ve never played before. Wingspan didn’t really pique my interest, but I really liked this. I didn’t have much of a strategy, just working out what fit best with what I had available. Ended up coming second 
10 Likes
Ugh, I did that in my first multi-player game introducing it to others, and it was awful. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t figure it out until too late. I’m glad your game was still fun, but I think you got fairly lucky for that to be the case.
3 Likes
Pandemic Iberia!
Lost, narrowly, but as three of us hadn’t played it for years and the fourth had never played it, we’re putting that down to simple inexperience/being out of practice. Also none of us minded much as we had a great time.
Lovely game!
10 Likes
Yeh, we realised halfway through, so just dealt out dogs people were owed.
3 Likes
Pull up a chair, we need to talk about The Glade. Yes, I’m sure you’ve heard of it. BGG puts it at a walloping 6.53 - which, for a game that came out in 2023 makes it multi-purpose kindling. But 183 raters can’t be wrong, right?
Someone put me onto it. Said it was their desert island game. Pointed out that ratings weren’t so much low as divided. Said most people just don’t take the time to get comfortable with it.
This held up. MeepleMountain said game of the year, can’t stop playing. Vasel said toss it. Dale Yu (opinionated gamers) said he was selling it, but every time he put it in front of people at least one left the table planning to buy it the next day.
At 6.53, the used market was favorable to “why not give it a try?”
So what is the Glade? The designer describes it as gamer’s Rummikub. I get that, a bit. It felt to me more like a tile-laying pattern-maker in the vein of Sprawlopolis, Trailblazers, Cascadia, etc.
You have a “hand” of 8 tiles and you are trying to make rows of 3 or 4 tiles, which you do by making a set following somewhat complicated rules - at least one (of three) symbols needs to match across the set, and the other symbols either have to all match or all be different. No “two mushrooms and one acorn” - it’s all mushrooms or mushroom-acorn-blackberry-hazelnut and nothing in between.
So what you’ve got is a lot of hand management, scanning your 8 tiles to decide which ones you want to group up and what to do with the others. A lot of board planning, as you want to lay a tile now so that it can become part of another set later (crossword style). Oh, and you want to encircle empty spaces on the board as well. Because (I’ll spare the bookkeeping here, just the idea) you get 1 point for making a set of 3, a second point for the complete set of 4, and a third point for placing a mushroom you earned from that four-set into a space on your board surrounded by tiles.
Verdict? Gosh, I liked it. I wasn’t blown away. Not a desert island game by any shot. But I enjoyed every darn turn and kept on cycling with “why not just try it again?” It was hard, satisfying, and rife with the just-one-more-turn mentality as you draw fresh tiles and start pumping the permutations for your next move.
I’d definitely recommend this to the Beacon Patrol, Dorfromantik, Sprawlopolis, Cascadia, Habitats, Nova Luna, Chomp crowd. It’s likely a low financial barrier of entry to try!
Any problems? Yeah. It’s a very pretty and tactile game. But quick, Hedgehog, Squirrel, Mouse… what’s the missing animal? If you responded “uh, uh…uh…uh” then you are with the rest of us and you will be giving that exact answer most turns for your first several sessions (the answer is, of course, Toad). I know we’re all well familiar with the icon for “hazelnut” (see example above), so that shouldn’t trouble anyone. Trying to keep track of what symbols you are missing is, indeed, a bit of a chore.
Would it have played easier if the sets were defined by 1,2,3,4, +, -, x, /, and RGBY? Absolutely. But as an abstract I don’t think I would have enjoyed it nearly as much. It’s got a perfect shade of green and I really like building this tableau of tiles. I still noodle on pre-coded sets of four that would have been more learnable (N-E-S-W?)(Sun-Cloud-Rain-Lightning?). But the bottom line is that I felt momentum, not friction, as I took the time to hardcode the Toad/Squirrel/Hedgehog/Mouse quadrology into my brain. You might, too.
And good for solo.
8 Likes
Galactic Cruise - the latest pseudo-Lacerda from Dandra games. Starting off, it is definitely better than the awful Pampero (the other pseudo-Lacerda) that I played recently.
Weird with the 3.88 weight because it felt more like a medium-heavy weight with its rule set. A lot of actions with multiple systems running in sync - which is standard for a modern Euro in 2025 - but the internalisation was easier due to its ludo-narrative. Gather resources, build your space cruise, get passengers, usual engine-building stuff, and then LAUNCH. People who are absolutely clueless about the game can follow this ludo-narrative and they’ll be just fine. Obviously, the devil of the game is in the details. How do you navigate through this ludo-narrative with your limited workers? How to manipulate the various systems to be more optimal than other players?
However, I don’t see elements that would make this a great game. Once you establish the high level strategy, the game becomes very linear. I feel that the only thing that saves it is the pretty production from the publisher and the graphic design from IOT. The result was significant enough that unnecessary additional internalisation was avoided.
Compare to a Lacerda (alas, it has to be done), it’s better than the bloody awful ones he did like Weather Machine. But I would rather play, say, Vinhos, which I feel is in the same league. But it is no match against the depth of The Gallerist, Lisboa, and On Mars. Again, it’s definitely more enjoyable than Pampero
Pax Hispanica x2 - during the weekend, we played a 3 player learning game (which I now discount) and a 5 player game which is the proper one. The title would probably make you think of Spain in the Iberian peninsula, but the setting is the Golden Age of Piracy in the Caribbean under the watchful eye of the dreaded Spanish Empire.
There are 4 victory conditions you can strive for:
- Colonist - there are more tax rebels than the level of Mercantilism + 1 Peerage
- Missionary - free all the slaves + 1 Peerage
- Buccaneer - 3 Peerage (or 2 at higher player count)
- Royalist - the King’s coffers are full up + 1 Peerage
I love it after the 2nd game. It’s a darker Sid Meier’s Pirates game with a very confrontational gameplay. You command a fleet of ships and cause chaos across the Spanish Main. The professions can be tricky to. You can build up to a Royalist victory but then someone will kick you out of that profession and claim the victory themselves. It doesn’t have the deeper player entanglement that you’ll see from JoCo 2, or Pax Renaissance, or Pax Transhumanity, but it was very immersive and actually made me want to install Sid Meier’s Pirates.
Greasy Spoon - 2 player game from Sean Ross (of Haggis fame). Pedestrian and boring
Dickory - another 2 player Sean Ross game but this one is much more interesting. The decision on picking up cards to change the “highest rank” is very tasty. e.g. if the highest rank is 5, then 6 is the weakest rank and 1 will beat 10. But you can change that by picking up that card (which is in a face-up queue) to change the highest rank and therefore can beat the set that the opponent have played
For Northwood! - solo trick taker. I am glad on how they executed this solo trick taker. Good show! I decided that it’s not for me though.
13 Likes
Ah crap, another Pax to add to the to-buy list.
4 Likes
Dont buy the deluxe
4 Likes
Fromage, an easy way to kick off the day. And it has simultaneous turns, so it’s pretty quick.
ALIEN: Fate of the Nostromo, was over before we knew it. We lost…
Dorfromantik: The Board Game, our highest score yet (307). We started well, got a bit bogged down later. We weren’t finishing any tasks, so our normal tiles were running out, but the task tile stack was huge. Then we got on a roll, completing task after task. We were on fire!
Eternal Decks, finished Stage A on standard difficulty with a win. A couple of hairy moments, but we figured it out, always a good feeling! Still having a great time with this game. My game of the year? Sure, why not?
The Bottle Imp, a pretty good trick taking game. The main idea is to not have the Bottle Imp at the end of the game, because you won’t score any points from tricks won. In fact, you’ll get negative points. The Bottle Imp starts out on card 19. So as soon as anyone plays less than 19, they’ll take the Imp and win that trick. Nothing wrong with that, but you want someone else to grab it from you (by playing a card less than the current price. So if someone played a 15 – that’s less than 19, so 15 becomes the new price. Then if someone plays less than 15 they’ll take Imp, and so on. Having low cards is pretty dangerous, unless you can offload them when someone plays a higher card, but still less than the current price. Good fun.
8 Likes
I may have a weird aesthetic (“may”?), but this is one of the most visually appealing games I’ve seen in a while.
6 Likes
Dominion x2 - played it. It was great. Everyone wanted a rematch. Ergo, we had a rematch
Spring Cleaning - good fun! Better than Scout!
Fun Facts
Parade
Race for the Galaxy
Fives - one of CMYK’s latest pink-box card games. Another solid Shinzawa, I’m telling ya. The production was too much for me and could have been cheaper and could have been more compact. But the game design is just great
Tales of the Arabian Nights - ah this is an amazing choose-your-own-adventure as a board game. It felt that it was a bit long, but it was still really entertaining and funny. Just letting fate rolling along with your character and it’s just great. I would be keen on a copy of the reprint
10 Likes
It’s even more beautiful on the table. The colours work brilliantly together
6 Likes