A bit of a mouthful but the posts title says it all really.

Since the last round up just over a week ago I have managed to play some games. Not many granted but still some games have hit the table.

Much of the gaming I briefly talk about below were played because we ended up with six players at this weeks club night.

Rebel Princess: Probably my favourite trick taking game at the moment. I just love the variable player powers. Granted some more useful than others. I love the changing rules each round. These two factors help keep the game fresh. Add in the first expansion that adds in more of both, and the variety increases.

Celestia: Push your luck with a very light theme. Ok if you are the captain you have to keep going until you crash the airship or make it to the end (which early on is nigh on impossible). But as a passenger you have to decide if you stay on the airship or jump off. Obviously the longer you stay on the higher the points are when you get off. However if the airship crashes with you on it you get nowt. A nice intro game.

The Flow of History: It has been a very very long minute since this last hit the table. Seven years to be precise. I do like this civ themed game. I like the semi auction mechanic used to reserve a card you want. Throw in a bit of engine building and you have a nice light civ like game.

Faraway: The game that plays with your brain! Yeah I like Faraway, and I’m glad a few of us at the club feel the same way making it easier to get to the table.

That folks is all the gaming I’ve managed since the last update.

I thought it was time to talk once more about stuff that has hit the table since the previous update.

Star Wars Unlimited: I’m not going to spend much time about this first game. We know how I feel about. I will briefly say that the two spotlight decks are great fun to play and really play into their mechanics. I like that. Great examples of deck building for new players.

Hegemony: aka class war! Archie played the working class, I was the middle class, Charlene was the capitalists, and Marcin the state.

Each of those classes play differently, have different objectives etc. Each player trying to play to their classes strengths.

Yes it’s a longish game (ours was about four and half hours) that could be longer if playing with those inflicted with analysis paralysis. But like TI4 time flies by and doesn’t seem that long.

I can see why people like this game. I enjoyed playing the game. Would most definitely play again.

Sadly the deep state ran riot and easily won.

Emberleaf: I enjoyed this cute looking game. I particularly like the card element building an engine and the sliding of cards to get a benefit (possibly) and return them to hand. You also have a touch of hand management.

Add in the other elements such as tile placement, card drafting to strengthen your hand. You get a fun enjoyable game.

Fate of the Fellowship: the latest (delayed) hotness. Ok this wasn’t a perfect play. There were one or two rules misplays. But hey it was a first play.

But boy does it have a great table presence. From the incredibly impressive dice tower (a pain to put together) to the nasgul and wooden printed character meeples.

I think this is probably the most complex pandemic based game I’ve played so far. Which probably makes it the least new player friendly.

Obviously I love the theme. And I think they’ve done a great job of capturing the essence of the books. From trying to destroy the rings, to creating distractions to help Frodo and Sam get to Mordor.

Obviously being a pandemic game Sauron aka the game won.

Wondrous Creatures: a three player game. I loved the greater competitiveness over spots on the board. However this admittedly being only my second game I don’t get how people think this is overly long. That’s not been our experience at all so far.

Forests of Pangai: with art work that brings to mind the Studio Ghibli classic Princess Mononoke.

An interesting game that has an element of area control, resource gathering, pattern matching. In some ways it’s similar to the bastard panda game (as my departed and missed friend Ben used to call it) aka Takenoko.

I love the table presence of the game.

Now I have to debate if I try and get a copy.

Machi Koro 2: I had previously owned Machi Koro plus its first expansion. Had even tracked down the promo cards and paid over the odds for the play mat. In the end I traded it away to Gavin. Over the last couple of years I had toyed with the idea of getting the game again. But in the intervening years there had been another expansion, anniversary edition, and second edition. With all the choice my indecision about what to buy got in the way.

However on an impulse I picked up the second edition at this years expo.

There basic game play hasn’t changed. But there are a couple of rule changes that if I had the early editions I’d house rule. The first is the trade rows. They must contain five unique buildings. If duplicates are drawn they go on top of the other copy. You then draw again, repeating until there are five unique buildings.

The second rule change is right from the git go you decide whether you roll one or two dice on your turn, instead of having to unlock the second die.

It’s a nice, fairly quick entry level game. Depending on the buildings you buy there can be some take that. In my game with Marcin there was a bit of me taking regular amounts of money off of him.

War: yeah still a favourite quick two player skirmish game. I just love how quick it is to teach and play.

And that’s my most recent gaming and some brief thoughts on the games.

In the previous still alive post where I think I had con crud I promised to write a post about the recent games I had played.

Well here is that post.

I’m not going to write lots for each game, and will try and keep everything brief.

I did write about this demo game of Star Wars Unlimited that I played at the expo in the UKGE post I wrote.

It really wasn’t a fair match up, especially giving me the Han deck.

I knew both decks, and more importantly their strengths.

That knowledge gave me the edge. I knew to mulligan to try and get a Falcon. I knew that there were no even cards. So using card abilities looking at the top card of the deck looking for odd value costs was more than likely to succeed.

But the other player enjoyed the game. We both got the promo card. So win win.

I like, no love this game by Byron.

As long as you have a flat surface you can play the game. Plus being very portable, it’s easy to keep in the bag ready to play. In this sense it reminds me of the convince of Hive.

I just wish there was a bgg page for it so my Bgstats could sync up.

I have to admit when I was at the expo and we hit the publisher stand selling Tacta I wasn’t really that interested. Ben was very excited and was ready to throw money at them. He was only prevented from doing so by a system outage stopping retailers taking card payments.

They were also handing out a 2 player promo pack of the game for free that could also be used with the full game. Which I did grab a couple of copies of.

I was still indifferent to the game when I bought it later at the same time as Ben.

Truthfully I still can’t tell you why I took the free promo pack or even bought the game. But I’m glad I did.

Marcin, Dave, and myself played a game of it, and it was really good fun.

Now this game was bought solely on its theme alone!

However it’s a fun little card game, and surprisingly tactical. You can’t just focus on your own ramen bowl, you have to be aware of your opponents bowls. Place your card in the wrong bowl and you could be setting them up for a big score.

This is a nice quick filler game.

This was one of the games I had to collect at the expo for Marcin.

It’s a drafting, market manipulation game.

The cards you draft score depending on their position in the market. The lowest two suits in the market score negative points. Whilst the remaining three suits generate a positive score.

A fun, quick filler as well.

Another Marcin game.

I got Kanagawa vibes playing this game.

It’s a very pretty drafting game.

Light, reasonably quick.

I liked that each round you got a new additional objective that could just match up instantly with what you are doing, or force you to pivot mid game.

Another one of the games I collected for Marcin.

This game I don’t remember too much about. But I do remember it being fun.

It really is sad the game doesn’t stand out in my memory as much as the other games I’ve played this month. Is that a reflection on the game or me?

This was the game no one seemed to be selling at the expo.

So I had to order it online.

It was definitely worth the effort of getting a copy.

I loved the open drafting, stock market manipulation. That last part reminded me of Seasons with its last remaining die moving the season marker, but with a card.

There is also a chaotic element to it with that stock market manipulation where you can’t quite guarantee the markets you want to change will. Plus you have to hope the markets you are aiming to score don’t bust and reset.

Simple, but fun.

We played Charlene’s copy of Faraway with the “expansion”. But it would be more accurate to call the “expansion” a mini expansion. Because it is just a handful of cards.

But the game is a really nice game.

Naturally I have since getting back ordered the mini expansion.

Colin bought the Spartan edition of the core game at the expo.

So we met up on a Saturday afternoon to play a learning game (for Colin).

I threw together a team of Spartans that looked cool. I had no idea how they’d work.

Colin played all four Spartans from the learning game setup.

The two squads were fairly evenly balanced. For the first half of the game I was rolling really badly.

But in the end I managed to snatch victory.

This game was amazing value for a fiver. I bought it at the expo as damaged. The only damage was to the box.

It was also a nice quick game.

Also a game that I want to play with Jeff knowing his weakness for push your luck games and having to push his luck. Play the player, not the game!

We played Diego’s copy of the game.

It looked like Oink games have updated the game. It’s familiar yet different!

There are now three dice and a boost mechanism that runs down the oxygen even quicker.

But even taking into account these changes Deep Sea Adventure is still a great little push your luck game.

After six years we finally got round to playing Bohemian Villages for who will win the trophy Jonathan had made.

Being the reigning champ I had to defend my title.

Sadly my defence of the title failed, with it being stolen by Diego.