Pete, forget the house, and we'll run a Battletech campaign instead.
Speaking of Battletech, I hope they managed to get that Succession Wars reboot off the ground. Played the original, imagine if Twilight Imperium was created in the age of classic Avalon Hill war gaming. It would take hours just to set up the game.
Forbidden Desert (new to me) - Interesting co-op game that I'd been avoiding, since Forbidden Island didn't hold my interest. I found Forbidden Desert on par with Pandemic.
Mamma Mia! (new to me) - Played over and over at MAGFest - if multiple friends ask to borrow the game while I'm not playing it, it's a good sign. Uwe Rosenberg is batting 1000 with older card games (Bohnanza, Schnäppchen Jagd, Mamma Mia... still need to play Space Beans)
Kardinal & König - I actually like this a lot. I've seen a win with early advisor networks, only dropping a handful of churches before the first scoring. I've also seen people monopolize countries while other players are fighting elsewhere, and get the payout from the resulting continuous chain.
Snow Tails (new to me) - Dog racing game with straightforward rules. We played a basic course, but it was already fun, and adding more obstacles to the course seems like it won't detract from the game.
Steampunk Rally (new to me) - Wacky races, with less-straightforward rules than Snow Tails. It's actually a fine game, but the iconography on the cards and the board (important details that do not read clearly at the size they have been printed) drag it down. Would still play (and kvetch) again.
La Città (new to me) - Another game with some questionable graphic design decisions, but I'll give it a break since it's 16 years old. Requested a play to find out if I should pick up the copy in my local store... and I'm still inconclusive. But the fact that I'm still thinking about the game might be a good sign.
Löwenherz - Castration is a useful metaphor when explaining this game. Be careful with your long snake kingdoms, lest they get chopped.
Thebes - 12 weeks, 10 tiles... three points. I settled for shorter digs in the followup game.
Tumblin-Dice - My tumblin' board got warped after only five months! Playable, but annoying. This game makes me wish Scorekeeper XL would get an Android port.
King of New York (new to me) - I enjoyed most of the changes - buildings and military - but automatically stepping into Manhattan (Tokyo) even if you don't roll a claw is just different enough to be annoying. In a 5-6 player game, if the player to your right chases both players out of Manhattan, you will be forced to step in on your turn.
Hanabi - People establish conventions after playing multiple games of Hanabi with the same group, and then when you play with new or unfamiliar people, things can still go off the rails in an entertaining way.
The Grizzled - I like that this is a cooperative game that keeps its tension and uncertainty in the other players' hands. It feels like playing a partnership card game.
Settlers of Catan - I taught a gamer how to play Settlers (or is it Catan, now?). These old bones still have life after twenty years.
I saw this pop up on Reddit, and it's likely going to cause me to cancel/modify a CoolStuff order. I'd put in a $40 copy back when it was on a daily sale, alongside some X-Wing preorder stuff that won't be out for months. If it's a busted-ass copy of Tumblin' Dice... I don't got time for that.
I saw this pop up on Reddit, and it's likely going to cause me to cancel/modify a CoolStuff order. I'd put in a $40 copy back when it was on a daily sale, alongside some X-Wing preorder stuff that won't be out for months. If it's a busted-ass copy of Tumblin' Dice... I don't got time for that.
The one @pence has is all warped and was almost unusable at MAGFest. Tumblin' Dice might become a game like Crokinole, where you just have to make your own.
I'm not sure if it's worth the time or effort to replace my warped boards, but it is a shame. Definitely not heirloom quality.
I’ll start this entry with two games that probably wouldn’t normally be compared to one another. At this point, I’m used to having strange ideas about games.
Collection Played in 2016: 25%. 106 games to go. Added this week: Portao para o mundo, Lisboa.
Le Havre(new to me) - This drew a predictable reaction - I loved it, Anthony hated it. I suppose ‘love’ isn’t a foregone conclusion, but Uwe Rosenberg’s euros have all followed a similar arc for me, with an initial burst of activity followed by waning interest. Two things that struck me after my first game - the potential for extreme variability in building order because of how the building stacks are constructed (compared to Ora et Labora’s rigid schedule), and the ability to put off feeding for several turns because of the incredibly forgiving nature of loans (compared to begging cards in Agricola). Taking a loan is only -1 point (or -3 points if you can’t pay it back) in a game that scored 150+ our first time out. Loans can also be paid back in full with the same efficiency - using actions you want to perform anyway because they are worth points - no matter how many loans you take. As long as players know that ships are point machines (free food, and the ability to use the shipping line), there won’t be a problem finding a way to pay those loans back.
The option to construct buildings the “usual” way (and get points), or purchase them outright using cash (netting 0 points but saving an action) also allows for some clever manipulation. You can even purchase a building from the town to kick another player’s worker out, then use it yourself.
The Bloody Inn(new to me) - As a contrast, a game that Anthony enjoys but I found less forgiving than Le Havre (less forgiving isn’t bad, only less forgiving). The increasing (but inconsistently applied) penalty for failing to bury bodies snowballs if you sequence your actions incorrectly, compelling you to take more actions that put you further behind to the tune of 5-10 points/turn, churning cards when you should be scoring points. You might get lucky and see a round where no lawmen come out, but you’re taking a big risk in a game where you are allotted a total of 32-36 small actions.
Of course, the solution (obvious in hindsight) is not to hoard bodies unless you have the annex that lets you bury more than one in a single action. However, if you don’t realize that before you take the second body, you can’t fight your way out of it - whereas my gut feeling is that “buried in loans without any ships on round 7 out of 14” is an entirely winnable position in Le Havre.
And that’s probably the first time anyone has attempted to compare and contrast Le Havre with The Bloody Inn.
Food Chain Magnate - And here’s an unforgiving game Anthony and I both enjoy. This time I started losing on turn two. ;]
Portao para o mundo, Lisboa(new to me) - Not sure if we played the rules for the central board correctly, but it felt too processional (barring the possibility of drawing a specific card that interacted with the Lisbon board). I have plans to try a house rule, but I'm not sure this is a keeper.
Minerva - The second middleweight euro from a Japanese designer this week, and one I already know I enjoy.
Run, Fight, or Die!(new to me) - Shuffle the survivor deck and see what order they come out (if you get to draw one) - but fine as an experience game.
Karuba - Still enjoying this. I tried to focus on getting gems this time (and lost, but barely)
Codex: Card-Time Strategy(new to me) - Another interesting customizable card game, but interesting isn’t enough to get me to play a CCG that isn’t Netrunner. Otherwise I’d already be playing Ashes and Thrones.
Race for the Galaxy - Mix-with-hand explores let me put together a shockingly efficient Trade + VP engine with Merchant World and one of the new trade-power developments. Xeno Invasion works fine with just the cards (although the Invasion Game is also good).
Tigris & Euphrates - I’ve never seen all six temples on the board before.
The Prodigals Club(new to me) - Totally abstract, but very up my alley - I tend to enjoy games that throw a complex puzzle between you and some straightforward points (eg. Panamax). Whether I will enjoy it after several more plays, I can’t say.
maskmen(new to me) - Great art, simple climbing game with a twist. But I have no idea how to play well.
Lost Valley: The Yukon Goldrush 1896(new to me) - All were in agreement: this game is held together with baling wire, but there's still something fun about it.
Ninja Camp(new to me) - Compare to Hey, That’s My Fish, with cards. Quite enjoyable.
Among the Stars - I’m particular about which expansions actually add interest to Among the Stars, but fortunately everyone I play with seems to be in agreement.
Looking back at February, I haven't played as many new board games in a single month (22 games) since... Anthony visited last summer and brought a bunch of his games. Of course, now there's no plan for him to go anywhere, but I still find I play more unique games while Anthony is around because 1) our tastes differ, and 2) we end up in the same game groups.
My favorite new game was Le Havre - although I only played it once, near the end of the month. I'm dubious about getting to play as much Le Havre as I'd like moving forward; long games that aren't brand-new are a hard sell with most of the gaming groups I'm in. Super Motherload also surprised me (especially as a 2p game), and Mamma Mia kept the Uwe Rosenberg streak going at MAGFest.
The only game that was a complete miss for me is The Institute for Magical Arts.
Speaking of the Prodigal Club. I'm pretty sure Last Will will be available to play at Zenkaikon, unless Chuck and John have cycled it out of their collection.
Meanwhile, I updated my Codex pledge so I can host a Free-for-all draft. 3-5 players, plays until the first base is destroyed, person with the highest base health wins. There are also rules for loaning out units and repairing your base with gold. Although Codex probably won't ship until November.
In the next month or so I'm hoping to receive the new EmDo expansion and Shogun (Queen Games).
There were also a couple of Science-based card games that came out recently. One was about chemical ions and the other was about DNA.
I'd give Shogun/Wallenstein a play when you get it... I'm interested in playing without the noble court expansion (the only time I played before it was fully expanded.)
I'd give Shogun/Wallenstein a play when you get it... I'm interested in playing without the noble court expansion (the only time I played before it was fully expanded.)
They were in the process of adding two new expansions for the kickstarter, we can always mix and match them and see what adds the most to the game.
I feel like I'm cheating at Roll for the Galaxy, I have been on such a roll of winning :-p I think it's because I always aim for the abilities that let you convert dice to whatever you want for cheaper. It's apparently absurdly powerful in that game or I just have been lucky.
I feel like I'm cheating at Roll for the Galaxy, I have been on such a roll of winning :-p I think it's because I always aim for the abilities that let you convert dice to whatever you want for cheaper. It's apparently absurdly powerful in that game or I just have been lucky.
Reassign powers are good! You'd want them, too, if your hand sometimes didn't want to cooperate with you in Race.
Unsurprisingly, going through the exercise of playing every game this year has helped me cull some games I never play anymore - or let them go to friends that will use them more than myself. The games I added this week are both games I played and enjoyed last month, so nothing surprising there.
Collection Played in 2016: 29%. 101 games to go. Added this week: Russian Railroads, La Città. Trade Pile: Inhabit the Earth, Betrayal at House on the Hill.
Inhabit the Earth - Less time spent thinking than time spent updating the board every turn, so I’m letting it go. Wouldn’t turn down a game, but I don’t need to own it.
Spirits of the Rice Paddy(new to me) - This is a clever game, though I already found myself playing similar strategies two games in a row (we drew similar scoring cards.)
Portão para o mundo, Lisboa - Fixing a rules mistake made a huge difference. Very nice game that fits in an hour.
Archaeology: The New Expedition(new to me) - Entirely unsurprised to learn the original edition is a 2-4 player game. I would play again with 3-4, but 5 strains with lucky draws and the game drags.
Bohnanza - In some ways, Archaeology is a distant cousin of Bohnanza, but of course the beans work just fine with five players. We played without wax beans, to keep the game brief.
Space Beans(new to me) - The final game in bean week. A drafting variation on Rosenberg’s more popular Bohn game. More tense, since adding to a field might cause it to become worthless, especially if you’re sitting downstream from an opponent drafting those beans.
Thebes - Same mistake I usually make - books in all four colors. Next game I’m determined to jump some dig sites much earlier than I’m comfortable.
Lost Cities - Like Thebes, I tend to play this too cautiously, so I consciously push myself to take risks (I haven’t finished a hand in the negatives... yet.)
Russian Railroads - I played this in February, and quickly added a copy to my collection so I could play it again this week. It’s already got a real shot alongside Tzolk’in as my favorite worker placement game.
Gold West(new to me) - Abstract but clever. I like having the option to “claim jump” at a penalty in order to get an extra metal out, and the process of efficiently dividing up the resources you acquire.
Kashgar: Händler der Seidenstraße - Playing well continues to elude me. Probably because I rarely consider the points on the caravan cards.
If noticed before another card is played, no penalty. If trick is completed and the mistake then discovered , players automatically make their bids except the player who reneged loses 20 points.
So @Rym now you know and you DO NOT want to get caught doing this.
I've accepted the fact that I am going to have to watch Board With Life. I've seen some of their short segments (the Jaipur one comes to mind) and they were funny.
Should I watch from the beginning, or jump in S2 and go back later?
Comments
Come play live-action Battletech on our hypothetical acreage.
(Waiting for the seller to sign the contract.)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webeharebrained/battletech/description
Collection Played in 2016: 22%. 109 games to go.
Roll for the Galaxy - It helps if you have more than one person with the knowledge to help you teach... nearly killed my voice explaining Roll.
Bottom of the 9th (new to me) - Cute, but swinging at the ball takes more effort than I would like.
Art of War the card game - Finally saw a game end via Regicide - king vs. king!
Forbidden Desert (new to me) - Interesting co-op game that I'd been avoiding, since Forbidden Island didn't hold my interest. I found Forbidden Desert on par with Pandemic.
Mamma Mia! (new to me) - Played over and over at MAGFest - if multiple friends ask to borrow the game while I'm not playing it, it's a good sign. Uwe Rosenberg is batting 1000 with older card games (Bohnanza, Schnäppchen Jagd, Mamma Mia... still need to play Space Beans)
Kardinal & König - I actually like this a lot. I've seen a win with early advisor networks, only dropping a handful of churches before the first scoring. I've also seen people monopolize countries while other players are fighting elsewhere, and get the payout from the resulting continuous chain.
Snow Tails (new to me) - Dog racing game with straightforward rules. We played a basic course, but it was already fun, and adding more obstacles to the course seems like it won't detract from the game.
Steampunk Rally (new to me) - Wacky races, with less-straightforward rules than Snow Tails. It's actually a fine game, but the iconography on the cards and the board (important details that do not read clearly at the size they have been printed) drag it down. Would still play (and kvetch) again.
La Città (new to me) - Another game with some questionable graphic design decisions, but I'll give it a break since it's 16 years old. Requested a play to find out if I should pick up the copy in my local store... and I'm still inconclusive. But the fact that I'm still thinking about the game might be a good sign.
Löwenherz - Castration is a useful metaphor when explaining this game. Be careful with your long snake kingdoms, lest they get chopped.
Thebes - 12 weeks, 10 tiles... three points. I settled for shorter digs in the followup game.
Tumblin-Dice - My tumblin' board got warped after only five months! Playable, but annoying. This game makes me wish Scorekeeper XL would get an Android port.
King of New York (new to me) - I enjoyed most of the changes - buildings and military - but automatically stepping into Manhattan (Tokyo) even if you don't roll a claw is just different enough to be annoying. In a 5-6 player game, if the player to your right chases both players out of Manhattan, you will be forced to step in on your turn.
Hanabi - People establish conventions after playing multiple games of Hanabi with the same group, and then when you play with new or unfamiliar people, things can still go off the rails in an entertaining way.
The Grizzled - I like that this is a cooperative game that keeps its tension and uncertainty in the other players' hands. It feels like playing a partnership card game.
Settlers of Catan - I taught a gamer how to play Settlers (or is it Catan, now?). These old bones still have life after twenty years.
Tumblin' Dice Kickstarter has some issues.
I’ll start this entry with two games that probably wouldn’t normally be compared to one another. At this point, I’m used to having strange ideas about games.
Collection Played in 2016: 25%. 106 games to go. Added this week: Portao para o mundo, Lisboa.
Le Havre (new to me) - This drew a predictable reaction - I loved it, Anthony hated it. I suppose ‘love’ isn’t a foregone conclusion, but Uwe Rosenberg’s euros have all followed a similar arc for me, with an initial burst of activity followed by waning interest. Two things that struck me after my first game - the potential for extreme variability in building order because of how the building stacks are constructed (compared to Ora et Labora’s rigid schedule), and the ability to put off feeding for several turns because of the incredibly forgiving nature of loans (compared to begging cards in Agricola). Taking a loan is only -1 point (or -3 points if you can’t pay it back) in a game that scored 150+ our first time out. Loans can also be paid back in full with the same efficiency - using actions you want to perform anyway because they are worth points - no matter how many loans you take. As long as players know that ships are point machines (free food, and the ability to use the shipping line), there won’t be a problem finding a way to pay those loans back.
The option to construct buildings the “usual” way (and get points), or purchase them outright using cash (netting 0 points but saving an action) also allows for some clever manipulation. You can even purchase a building from the town to kick another player’s worker out, then use it yourself.
The Bloody Inn (new to me) - As a contrast, a game that Anthony enjoys but I found less forgiving than Le Havre (less forgiving isn’t bad, only less forgiving). The increasing (but inconsistently applied) penalty for failing to bury bodies snowballs if you sequence your actions incorrectly, compelling you to take more actions that put you further behind to the tune of 5-10 points/turn, churning cards when you should be scoring points. You might get lucky and see a round where no lawmen come out, but you’re taking a big risk in a game where you are allotted a total of 32-36 small actions.
Of course, the solution (obvious in hindsight) is not to hoard bodies unless you have the annex that lets you bury more than one in a single action. However, if you don’t realize that before you take the second body, you can’t fight your way out of it - whereas my gut feeling is that “buried in loans without any ships on round 7 out of 14” is an entirely winnable position in Le Havre.
And that’s probably the first time anyone has attempted to compare and contrast Le Havre with The Bloody Inn.
Food Chain Magnate - And here’s an unforgiving game Anthony and I both enjoy. This time I started losing on turn two. ;]
Portao para o mundo, Lisboa (new to me) - Not sure if we played the rules for the central board correctly, but it felt too processional (barring the possibility of drawing a specific card that interacted with the Lisbon board). I have plans to try a house rule, but I'm not sure this is a keeper.
Minerva - The second middleweight euro from a Japanese designer this week, and one I already know I enjoy.
Run, Fight, or Die! (new to me) - Shuffle the survivor deck and see what order they come out (if you get to draw one) - but fine as an experience game.
Karuba - Still enjoying this. I tried to focus on getting gems this time (and lost, but barely)
Codex: Card-Time Strategy (new to me) - Another interesting customizable card game, but interesting isn’t enough to get me to play a CCG that isn’t Netrunner. Otherwise I’d already be playing Ashes and Thrones.
Race for the Galaxy - Mix-with-hand explores let me put together a shockingly efficient Trade + VP engine with Merchant World and one of the new trade-power developments. Xeno Invasion works fine with just the cards (although the Invasion Game is also good).
Tigris & Euphrates - I’ve never seen all six temples on the board before.
The Prodigals Club (new to me) - Totally abstract, but very up my alley - I tend to enjoy games that throw a complex puzzle between you and some straightforward points (eg. Panamax). Whether I will enjoy it after several more plays, I can’t say.
maskmen (new to me) - Great art, simple climbing game with a twist. But I have no idea how to play well.
Lost Valley: The Yukon Goldrush 1896 (new to me) - All were in agreement: this game is held together with baling wire, but there's still something fun about it.
Ninja Camp (new to me) - Compare to Hey, That’s My Fish, with cards. Quite enjoyable.
Among the Stars - I’m particular about which expansions actually add interest to Among the Stars, but fortunately everyone I play with seems to be in agreement.
My favorite new game was Le Havre - although I only played it once, near the end of the month. I'm dubious about getting to play as much Le Havre as I'd like moving forward; long games that aren't brand-new are a hard sell with most of the gaming groups I'm in. Super Motherload also surprised me (especially as a 2p game), and Mamma Mia kept the Uwe Rosenberg streak going at MAGFest.
The only game that was a complete miss for me is The Institute for Magical Arts.
Meanwhile, I updated my Codex pledge so I can host a Free-for-all draft. 3-5 players, plays until the first base is destroyed, person with the highest base health wins. There are also rules for loaning out units and repairing your base with gold. Although Codex probably won't ship until November.
In the next month or so I'm hoping to receive the new EmDo expansion and Shogun (Queen Games).
There were also a couple of Science-based card games that came out recently. One was about chemical ions and the other was about DNA.
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/star-wars-rebellion
I was wondering how more than 2 player Rebellion was going to work. Reading these articles, I get a very Axis and Allies vibe from it.
Collection Played in 2016: 29%. 101 games to go. Added this week: Russian Railroads, La Città. Trade Pile: Inhabit the Earth, Betrayal at House on the Hill.
Inhabit the Earth - Less time spent thinking than time spent updating the board every turn, so I’m letting it go. Wouldn’t turn down a game, but I don’t need to own it.
Spirits of the Rice Paddy (new to me) - This is a clever game, though I already found myself playing similar strategies two games in a row (we drew similar scoring cards.)
Portão para o mundo, Lisboa - Fixing a rules mistake made a huge difference. Very nice game that fits in an hour.
Archaeology: The New Expedition (new to me) - Entirely unsurprised to learn the original edition is a 2-4 player game. I would play again with 3-4, but 5 strains with lucky draws and the game drags.
Bohnanza - In some ways, Archaeology is a distant cousin of Bohnanza, but of course the beans work just fine with five players. We played without wax beans, to keep the game brief.
Space Beans (new to me) - The final game in bean week. A drafting variation on Rosenberg’s more popular Bohn game. More tense, since adding to a field might cause it to become worthless, especially if you’re sitting downstream from an opponent drafting those beans.
Thebes - Same mistake I usually make - books in all four colors. Next game I’m determined to jump some dig sites much earlier than I’m comfortable.
Lost Cities - Like Thebes, I tend to play this too cautiously, so I consciously push myself to take risks (I haven’t finished a hand in the negatives... yet.)
Russian Railroads - I played this in February, and quickly added a copy to my collection so I could play it again this week. It’s already got a real shot alongside Tzolk’in as my favorite worker placement game.
Gold West (new to me) - Abstract but clever. I like having the option to “claim jump” at a penalty in order to get an extra metal out, and the process of efficiently dividing up the resources you acquire.
Kashgar: Händler der Seidenstraße - Playing well continues to elude me. Probably because I rarely consider the points on the caravan cards.
Edit: Ghostbusters II bounces off the shields and into space.
One is a redesign of Cheapass Games's realtime game Light Speed:
And the other is a light exploration game with Carl Chudyk's name on it:
If you can not read it clearly:
30. What happens if a player Reneges?
If noticed before another card is played, no penalty.
If trick is completed and the mistake then discovered , players automatically make their bids except the player who reneged loses 20 points.
So @Rym now you know and you DO NOT want to get caught doing this.
Should I watch from the beginning, or jump in S2 and go back later?