Well this was a surprise.
Not only has the month gotten off to an amazing start in the number of games played. But some of the gaming was Netrunner and SWU. With the later being played weekly, and the former possibly becoming a monthly thing. Things are looking up for these two games for me. Now if I can get a regular Ashes thing going.
Netrunner: in the aftermath of UKGE and trying to capitalise on the flurry of interest of those that did a demo of the game on the NSG stand, a Netrunner session was setup at “local” game store Angle in Peterborough. I got a chance to playtest my two decks a bit more. The corp deck needs more testing because it had mixed results out of two games. The first I just wasn’t getting ice to secure my servers. Naturally I lost that game. The second game with the corp deck it won. Servers were iced up. I was getting additional advances, scoring agendas, stole an agenda back, tagging the runner, getting value from the tags. It worked. It also helped that the runner was not finding their ice breakers. Now the runner deck needs tweaking. Some of its milling and recursion worked. The main idea works. But I need to look at the economy and ice breakers. Overall it was a fun evening at a new location. Can’t wait until the next Netrunner evening.
Star Wars Unlimited Twin Suns: I attended my first SWU TS evening at the Angles and got to play a couple of three player games using the new Master and Apprentice, Count Dooku and Asajj Ventress precon TS deck. Which I have to say was pretty fun to play. Especially the spamming out of droids. I must build my All the Vaders deck idea.
Shallow Regrets: I carried this with me everyday at the expo, but never got a chance to play it. This is a very fun light micro game that gives the feels of its much bigger brother. Plus it plays much quicker! I like that there is a little take that. With the micro expansion you get on going abilities as well. Which I think almost makes it a must include.
Agueda City of Umbrellas: Nice production. The game is ok. Not amazing. But also not a bad game. It’s fairly quick to play, and doesn’t over stay its welcome.
Las Vegas: the new edition plays up to six players, but the publisher Ravensburger did drop the quality of the components, and tweaked the rules. So I’ve decided to stay with the previous version and include the new 5 or 6 player variant when playing at 5 players. It’s disappointing really that they dropped the quality. The rules tweaks? I don’t think having a larger die worth 2 points is that great a change. I’d rather have the larger dice of the previous version.
Beasty Bar: this was surprisingly fun. Lots of take that trying to manipulate the board with the card you play. Everyone has the same cards, it just down to you trying to second guess the cards you think your opponents are going to play, and remembering what they have played. Very much similar to the first round of Libertalia. That is the game really. Why didn’t I think of that until now? Still fun.
Tropichaos: loved this. There is so much component wise for being in such a small box, tile holders, tiles, tokens, season track, bag. But this is a nice tile drafting game that plays quickly as well. Nice tactical element as well having to decide when you score tiles. Miss the season the tile scores its maximum and you could be looking at zero points. Like Deep Sea Adventure, simple, quick, and fun.
Kobayakawa: I saw this described as Love Letter with betting/bluffing. At three players it was fun. However I think this is amazing at the higher player counts. As you can see below in the new arrivals I did buy a copy of the previous version just to get the metal coins!
Railroad Tiles: I like Railroad Ink, well the app version. The roll and write is too “arty” to play physically. More so than Cartographers. So a couple of years back when the publisher did Railroad Tiles as a kickstarter I backed it all in. I have played this once. And it was fun. Charlene requested to play this. So who am I to disappoint?
Seti Search for Extraterrestrial Life: I’ve wanted to play this. Massive game, can be a bit overwhelming when you see everything set up. However I really liked it. Like the asymmetrical player powers. Really like it. Would love it in my collection. But can’t justify another game that’d rarely hit the table.
Pixies: like Rebel Princess this has become a staple of a club night.
3 Chapters: at six players this played very well. Yeah still a very nice trick taker with its twists of drafting your hand, and scoring.
Excalibur: was great fun at six players. However this game is over priced for what it is. What the deluxe version goes for you can get much bigger games.
Duck & Cover: this was ok. It’s light, quick. Not a game I’d ask to play.
New Arrivals
- Kobayakawa (2018 edition with metal coins)
- West Story plus expansion
- SWU TS playmat, cards and tokens