The later half of the month despite it being holiday season and heatwaves has continued to see a lot of gaming.
Not sure about what’s different but this year has seen a lot more gaming happening for the time of year.
So let’s look at what’s hit the table in the later half of August.
The group at The Angles is growing and great fun to play with. We are having some great games, banter, politics, in game moments. Just a fun evenings of multiplayer Star Wars Unlimited. I even got my new Mandalorian deck to the table, and got to experience my All the Vaders deck from the other side (not fun).
Scythe: despite a recent strong challenge by Glory to Rome, Scythe is still my favourite game of all time. We played with the Duel of Meloch stuff mixed in. So that’s the new faction, new combat card deck, new encounter and factory cards. No airships, used the modular board, the Land Rush resolution tile (6 stars or controlling 10+ territories trigger the end of the game), and the structure bonus tile was for the number of structures built on farms and tundra.
Here is how the factions worked out:
- Fenris (one of my favourite factions) /Patriotic: Josh
- Constantinople (new Duel of Meloch faction)/Engineering: me
- Crimean Khanate/Militant: Dave
I have to say I like the new Duel of Meloch faction. I think particularly with the modular board it can be quite powerful. With the random setup it is possible to be resource screwed for your faction finding a way out to the rest of the board. Being able to discard a star to get a resource can mean within two turns being able to riverwalk, use mines, or warp. Although that later ability passed me by until much later in the game.
I did trigger the end of the game with the territory controlled condition. I had to. If I had let the game go on I’d have lost, and my calculations gave me a slim chance at best when I did trigger it. Luckily that was a good call.
Panda Panda: jury still out on how I feel on this. But at the moment I’m leaning towards meh!
Mistwind: not a bad pick up and deliver, with a kind of ticket to ride route building element. Plus a rather nice mechanic that forces you to decide which actions you want to take and which group you can’t on that round. Add in a limited number of rounds that decision of what you can’t do becomes even more important. It also stops the game dragging on beyond its welcome.
Mottainai: the spiritual successor to Glory to Rome. It has an awful lot of the dna of the former game. However this is in print, and more importantly much much cheaper. The later point being important. A single copy of the game plays two or three players. So if you want to play with up to five players you need a second copy.
Tenby: probably one of the “hottest” games of the last year. Love the included tuck boxes for organising the cards. Like Villagers this aids the setup and tear down greatly. The choice between turn order and actions you want to take can be a difficult decision to make. It’s hard to hate draft in this, you almost have to just concentrate on your own streets. The reason it’s hard is because anything on the card could be scoring. Keeping track of other players needs is nigh on impossible. But it’s a fun game. Love it.
Villagers: a learning game with a major misplay. Which we did correct. I still lost. But I like it. The drafting limited by amount of food and an upper limit. The building also similarly limited. I like the chaining of cards, and also the locking/unlocking mechanism. The organisation within the box allows for quick setup and tear down. Which is very nice.
Innovation: despite having the ultimate edition I still went ahead and bought a copy of Innovation. Mainly because I can throw this small box in my game bag and have it live there. Yes the ultimate edition will still be used but in a planned manor with one or two of the expansions in play. This small box edition is for impromptu games or to take to UKGE. That sort of thing. Still it was in the bag when I was at Jeff’s so we played a game that had a little of the take that, but not as much as there can be. Still very fun.
Excalibur: everyone lost in the first play. Then in the second game through skill and subterfuge I won. Always a crowd pleaser.
Tenpenny Parks: one of Marcin’s better games. Worker placement, tetronomes, theme park theme, limited number of rounds. I think the sum of the whole for this game really works. You can see some Uwe Rosenberg influence.
Memoir 44 Overlord: Jeff’s birthday gaming day was an 8 player game. It was meant to be the Sword of Stalingrad map, but Jeff only realised it wasn’t at the end of the day when he packed the map away and noticed the correct one on the opposite side to the one we were playing on! Doh! Still it didn’t detract from the fun we had. Both games we played were pretty close. We played the scenario twice swapping sides in between. As usual this was a great day celebrating Jeff’s birthday with a great game.
Sushi Go: a great fun drafting game. I do like the rules tweak they made about the dessert cards. This is always in my game bag. So nice to get it to the table for once.
Captain Flip: a light fun family game. A little luck based with the tile draw but you get to mitigate it a little by being able to flip the tile. It was ok.
7 Wonders: long overdue a return to the table. It’s considered a classic for a reason. Next time I’m going to introduce the leaders expansion.
Rauha: an interesting game. Drafting tiles, deciding where to place them on your board before activating your current row/column. This also falls into the category of “one of Marcin’s better games”.
Wonderous Creatures: We played with the new Winterfall expansion. The game did seem to drag on because it seemed that Marcin had been zapped with a bad case of analyse paralysis and retaining information. In reality the new expansion apart from increasing the table space needed doesn’t add hardly any extra overhead to playing the game. Still it’s a lovely game and I won! I really leant into my captains power in a big way.
Crimson Company: think compile but simpler, shared deck, auction mechanic, and a fantasy theme. It also plays quickly. Nice two player filler. But it’s not Compile.
New Arrivals
- Villagers plus kickstarter expansion, coin box, playmat
- Tenby
- Venger’s guide to Mastering Chaos at the table
- Three Sisters Harvest Edition
- Fliptoons season 2
- Forest Shuffle Smoky Mountains
- Innovation 4th edition
- Marvel Champions Fear No Evil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage hero packs
- Splendor Duel The Counterfeiters expansion
- Star Wars Unlimited singles for a Twin Suns deck
- Alice’s Garden
- Liars Dice
- Quarriors! Qultimate Quedition
- Catan On The Road
- Harmonies
- 7 Wonders second edition plus Leaders, Cities, and Armada expansions
- Gundam Card Game starter deck