I think I like Love Letter!

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I started adding tags within the bgstats app that I use to record games played, and keep a track of my collection.

The first tag I added was a 2 player tag for those games that play just 2 players. You saw the result of that in yesterday’s post as it helped me choose the games I would have taken to the 2 player game session.

I added three more tags today. The first is the basis of today’s post.

I knew I had more than one copy of Love Letter. But not this many!

It’s funny how things soon mount up.

My Love Letter collection as images!

I’m too lazy to type out the names manually so here is a screen shot of them from the bgstat app.

List of my Love Letter games

What is it about Love Letter that I like? It’s such a perfect “micro” game. 16 cards, quick to teach, and play. There is so much depth and decision making to do based on which card to play, and what cards have been played. Plus it’s fun!

So why do I have so many copies? Apart from a couple of them that are just basically alternate art versions of the original game. Each version brings a new twist to the core game play. Whether it’s the gaining an extra point for guessing another players card in Love Letter Batman, or the card zero in Love Letter Hobbit (one of a couple changes) to the Archer one that brings the removed card from the game into the game play. Plus the theme often comes into why as well. Or my reasoning for getting the second edition is the fact it now plays up-to 6 players in a handy pocket friendly edition (unlike the Premium edition).

I think Love Letter Batman is still my favourite of them all.

Although the Archer and Hobbit versions are vying for second place. But Jabba’s Palace might be leap frogging them both.

What do you think of Love Letter? Which is your favourite?

9 Really Cool Two Player Games

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The Friday 2 player games evening has been cancelled due to lack of interest and one or two others that were going having to drop out.

It would have been nice to have seen it going ahead.

It is what it is.

But seeing as I have a bit of time on my hand for a couple more days before I can start testing. I thought why not share the list of games I would have taken with me if I was able to attend this Friday.

I have about 30 games in my collection that I have tagged as 2 player only. Which includes one or two like Santorini or Star Wars Rebellion that technically can play more players. But playing more than two is a kludge. They are really 2 player games, and play best at that count.

A couple of the above have new expansions (can the Targi expansion be called new considering I’ve had it for a year or so now?) I want try with them.

The others are just favourites that have been away from the table for way too long. Although I do play Lost Cities a lot using the rather excellent app against friends.

Oh and sorry for the click bait post title. I know I’m better than that.

The frustration of isolation

new arrivals

Yesterday I tested positive. So now have to self isolate. I did make mum take a LFT test when I got home, which was negative. But until I test negative again she will be testing daily.

Thanks to having both jabs plus the booster at the moment my infection seems to have manifested as a mild cold.

However this self isolation thing has thrown a spanner in my gaming plans.

This Friday was meant to be an evening of 2 player games (despite a poll showing there was a lot of interest in such an evening, still poorly committed too) which I can no longer go to.

Which is a bloody shame as I was looking forward to getting Onitama back to the table with the recently arrived new expansion Light and Shadow.

It also means I’ve had to rearrange the session zero for the new D&D group. They were very understanding.

As the photo shows today saw the arrival of the new Dune Imperium expansion Rise of Ix. Pretty chuffed I also got the preorder promo. Which means I got two for two on that front.

But I’m going to have to wait to get this to the table. No ad hoc gaming session this weekend to play it.

I’m sure there won’t be any problem getting it to the table at the next Friday night gaming.

D&D Grp 2 Session Zero Planning #1

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

Next weekend is the session zero for a second D&D group starting up.

I’ve never met any of the players. Although one or two of them are friends.

So this session zero is going to be interesting.

Naturally I’m leaning towards running a homebrew campaign. Although I’m not averse to running a published adventure. Heck I’m bound to repurpose a map or two from a published adventure to my own needs.

However this session zero is going to be so important.

It’s a chance for me to find out what sort of campaign the players want, the tone of the campaign, setting (Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Realms of Dread, Avernus, Eberron or maybe Ravnica or Theros!).

Without knowing this stuff it’s not possible to write a one-page campaign document. I’ll write one up afterwards and share it with everyone afterwards. It’ll work more as a summary/reminder of what was decided.

But I’m hoping that a group discussion will hammer out those details, and allow the players to create characters whilst we are there.

I’m not planning on running a short adventure. I’m not sure how long all of the rest will take. I’m expecting a couple of hours. Which doesn’t leave much if any time for a short adventure.

Finally hoping that we can agree on the day a regular time for the session to happen.

This will be an interesting experience when it happens.

Vaesen One-Shot Session Planning #3

RPG, session planning, vaesen

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming Vaesen One-Shot. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

Yesterday was meant to have been the one-shot.

I’d spent the morning printing out what I needed for the session, such as the pages from the rulebook for the intro mystery The Dance of Dreams. Along with the pregens I did, some blank character sheets (just incase), cheat sheets for the players, and the handouts for the intro mystery.

I’d made one or two notes on the printed copy of the intro mystery as I read it. Which was highlighting where the countdowns triggered, what to skip so it fitted into a single session, plus a couple of notes on a couple mechanics I didn’t want to forget.

One thing I didn’t think to do was print the page for the Revenant Vaesen so it was easy to reference during play. Especially if the players were using the rulebook at the time I need the page.

But sadly this was all for nought.

It was only going to be two players plus me today. But when just after midday one of them drops out ill. The only sensible thing to do was postpone the session. A new date has been suggested that is mid March.

So hopefully we’ll get to run this one-shot or even our D&D campaign. But our group does seem to be cursed never to meet again!

Twice in one week!

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night was a Fenland Gamers Friday club night.

I know what you are thinking. “Gaming twice in one week, what’s going on Darren?”

Hey what can I say? It’s been a good week.

A really good week.

Early evening Jeff messaged he would be arriving early, ordering some food, playing a game and possibly leaving early depending how he felt.

This was amazing news.

So I made a point of getting to our new host early so someone was there.

It was so good seeing Jeff again after the massive curve ball life threw at him. Although it’s only in reality been a couple of months, it has felt so much longer.

After food we split into two groups. John’s group played Sagrada and we played Kingsburg.

This was a first for me playing the game.

Kingsburg

I think it was inevitable that I’d like this dice placement game. After all the other one that I really like with a similar mechanic is Marco Polo.

I like the catch up mechanics the game has. The extra die, or the ability to build two buildings or use an occupied space are great to get when behind but not over powered.

For much of the game I was last on the victory point track, but a late surge meant I came in third, not too far from the front two.

But the main take home of playing this game was how much fun it was to be playing a boardgame again with Jeff. And amazingly it was the first time I’d played a game with his wife playing too!

Jeff’s “gamesmanship” has been sorely missed. I don’t think Colin was ready for the Jedi mindtricks, and being talked into blocking the only space Jeff’s wife could go to with her final die. But despite that sort of shenanigans Jeff’s wife won.

The scores for Kingsburg

After Kingsburg had finished Jeff said good bye and retired for the evening.

Which left Colin, Julie and me to play a game of the latest addition to the Love Letter family, Star Wars: Jabba’s Palace – A Love Letter game! What a mouthful. I’ll just call it Jabba’s Palace.

As a first play we stuck to the traditional end of game objective of having the highest valued card in hand wins.

Although that’s one of the first notable changes in this version. There are four end of game objectives. One of them allows for two winners!

Another change is each card has one of two faction symbols on them. They are either belonging to the rebels (good guys) or Jabba’s crew (bad guys).

The faction a card belongs to does make a difference. Not only for three of the end game objectives, such as most rebel cards in front of a player winning. But also for card abilities like the Jabba’s the Hutt card (see below) that defeats a player if the card they are holding is a rebel card.

Star Wars Jabba’s Palace – A Love Letter Game

You’ll also notice that Jabba the highest valued card is not like the Princess card in regular Love Letter. You can actually play the card.

In the GameBoy Geek’s review of Jabba’s Palace he would have liked the game to have used one of the more recent Disney Star Wars movies for its basis. What utter tripe no one buys stuff for that, the only Star Wars stuff Disney sells is original trilogy or Mandalorian. Plus we all know what a train wreck the Disney trilogy is.

Anyway. I really like how this version played. And not just because I won!

Jabba’s Palace scores

It was a great evening gaming. Even more so with Jeff being able to get along.

Thursday’s Child aka Vaesen One-Shot Session Planning #2

RPG, session planning, vaesen

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming Vaesen One-Shot. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

In the initial post I pointed out that Free League do not provide any pregenerated characters to use with the introductory mystery The Dance of Dreams in the Vaesen Rulebook.

Which does put a bit of extra work on me if I want to run this as a single session one-shot, maximising our time playing Vaesen and not spending a large part of the session creating characters.

“There should not be more than one player character of the same archetype in the group.” Page 18, Vaesen Rulebook.

The ten archetypes in Vaesen are:

  • ACADEMIC
  • DOCTOR
  • HUNTER
  • OCCULTIST
  • OFFICER
  • PRIEST
  • PRIVATE DETECTIVE
  • SERVANT
  • VAGABOND
  • WRITER

Sadly in the rulebook there is no suggested party make up for The Dance of Dreams. In an ideal world I’d create all ten archetypes for the players to choose from. And in the long term this is something I can aim for. However with current time restraints I’m creating just a subset.

Each precon character will have a couple of areas on the character sheet, character name, and relationship to the other player characters, left blank. These will be filled in by the player on the day. It will help personalise and make the precon character feel a little like their own.

Steps for creating a character in Vaesen, page 18, Vaesen Rulebook

Following the steps above were pretty easy. I was able to create an academic, doctor, hunter, and occultist relatively quickly compared to say creating a D&D character.

Having what is basically a template for each archetype, tied in with a simplified character sheet makes such a big difference. I think the hardest choice was deciding the age of the character! The age chosen decides how many points you get to spend on attributes and skills.

I dare say that if there were enough copies of the rulebook that you could almost have players creating characters in less that half an hour! Which would make it “feasible” to run a single session one-shot with the players creating characters on the day.

I’m hoping interested folks can access this link. My Vaesen Precons. It should be setup so that anyone with the link can view them.

Expedition Leaders Recruited

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night although technically the second Wednesday of the month was not the monthly meet up.

That was last week. Or would have been if enough people had said they were coming along to it. Sadly due to working that night (I was working 10pm to 10am doing stock take) I wasn’t able to attend. So it was cancelled.

However I was back to having Thursday as my day off this week. So at the weekend I created an event to see who was up for playing some games last night.

The numbers were looking pretty good. But life likes to through challenges in our way, and one or two had to drop out on the day. Still we had six people turn up. Which is pretty decent.

We split into two groups of three. The group I was in played Lost Ruins of Arnak with the “new” Expedition Leaders expansion. Whilst the other group played Stone Age.

Lost Ruins of Arnak with Expedition Leaders

We played with the three leaders that the rules said were the easiest to play. Who had which of those leaders was decided randomly.

I have to say I like Arnak much more now with the leaders. I love the unique ability/power each person has. Each player has a unique starting deck. You are trying to play to your leaders strengths. Which for mine was buying the item cards and playing them.

For me this should have been in the base game. Not sure I’d play the game without the leaders now.

Naturally the expansion adds more cards, ruins, guardians, etc. which is always welcome. Plus there is a new double sided research (I think that’s what’s it called) board that overlays the one on the main board. More variety. Never a bad thing.

Has this expansion given Lost Ruins of Arnak the edge over Dune Imperium? No. It’s closed the gap (until the Dune Imperium expansion comes out). There were five ruins explored this game (a first for one I’ve played). But it still felt like it was a race up the research track. Plus although I do really love how the game handles buying cards and having them go to the bottom of your deck. Deckbuilding still feels very tacked on.

Anyway Marcin kicked ass and romped away with the victory. As you can see I didn’t even get close.

Final scores showing my humiliation

Meanwhile the other table were playing the classic worker placement game Stone Age.

What would one of these posts be with out Jonathan’s photos?

Photos by Jonathan

New Game Sunday

Game day

Sunday I woke up thinking “I wonder if Jonathan would like to meet up and play Three Sisters this afternoon?”

So I sent a message to him.

As luck would have it he was indeed free.

A time and place was quickly agreed.

Come the agreed time Jonathan and I met up at the Wisbech St Mary Sports and Social Club, the agreed place.

Our first game naturally was the recently arrived Kickstarter Three Sisters.

For our first play I thought we’d leave the mini weather expansion in the box.

Three Sisters

This is a really nice roll and write. There is so much to like about it.

For starters it’s use of a rondel for selecting actions. You choose the die you want to draft and get the action underneath it. The die you choose selects the garden you are going to plant or water. However this also means the die you draft can deny the other players of getting that action. So you could hate draft. It’s genius.

This game really combos off. Early on Jonathan was comboing off whilst I looked on in awe and jealousy, thinking I’d made the wrong choices. You really do need to be paying attention to what you trigger.

I like how everyone gets to do one common rondel action based the position of the lowest valued die left. The highest value die left is used by the weather expansion to determine the weather for the following round. Tie this in with the end of round game effect.

The rondel board with its thick cardboard puts many boardgames to shame. For a roll and write the component quality is very good.

As you can see from the scores below the early combo stuff paid dividends for Jonathan nabbing him the win.

Three Sisters final scores

Our game of Three Sisters counted towards the following ongoing challenges in the bgstat app.

Our next game was one of Jonathan’s called Gingerbread House.

I liked this “light gateway” game a lot. Despite the designer having created the not a game Barenpark.

This game has a definite Kingdomino vibe to it.

The personal tile supply is a cool twist. As is collecting resources to capture character cards from for want of a better description, trade row.

I like how completing a level on your board gets you a bonus card.

Gingerbread House

As you can see from the scores below I managed to squeak out a victory.

Gingerbread House scores

Playing Gingerbread House only counted towards one challenge.

Our final game of the afternoon was Tussie Mussie.

I nearly played this whilst I was with Nathan. However I’d left the rules at home so was unable to.

This is a really really nice “I split, you choose” card game.

A simple mechanic. But choosing which card to have face up and which to have face down to offer to your opponent can be a very hard decision to make. Then flip that decision from the opposite side, it’s just as hard a choice.

Tussie Mussie

Once round three had finished and the scores tallied I came out the winner.

Tussie Mussie punched well above its weight and counted towards three challenges.

I had a great afternoon gaming with Jonathan. We played some great games. Now to get them back to the table sooner than later.

And yes I will indeed be closing the post with the photographic talents of Jonathan.

Photos by Jonathan

Solo vs Fett

Game day

The yesterday morning started off so well with bacon sarnies. I’ve not had one of these for breakfast for a long time. It was washed down with coffee. But I’ve been slumming it while visiting Nathan by having to drink instant coffee! It was Kenco Americano instant coffee. Which to be fair is on the top end of the instant quality scale. But still instant!

Our first game of the day was Star Wars Outer Rim.

I bought Outer Rim during the first lockdown in 2020. It seems so long ago now. Obviously it hadn’t made it to the table since gaming in person has become a thing again. We (I’m including other Fenland Gamers here) have so many games to play that we purchased during the last two years of global events it’s just not possible to get them all to the table so soon.

Luckily I knew the theme of this would appeal to Nathan and be a good game to learn with him.

Nathan chose Boba Fett to play as. Whilst I naturally had to go for Han Solo.

Despite everything being bagged and in deck boxes setup is still pretty long. It’s mainly all down to the many decks you need to separate out and shuffle.

The game is also a table hog. Not only the space required for the board and decks, but also for the player boards too. Luckily we had a pretty large kitchen island we were playing on.

We naturally were playing a two player game which meant there was very little player interaction throughout the game. At the higher player counts I’m hoping that improves. The encounter cards certainly imply that it should.

Star Wars Outer Rim

As a two player experience the game was ok. We had a good time. Nathan enjoyed it. We were playing to eight fame points as recommended in the Learn to Play rule book, instead of ten. Nathan during the game asked if we could play to ten fame points. Which is a good sign he was enjoying the game.

I did like that both our chosen characters had unique abilities that were thematic to the character. Plus our characters both had personal goals that if met allowed you to flip them over to a more powerful side. And the goals were also very thematic to the character.

I did manage to get a YT-1300 which also had a thematic shop goal that if met allowed me to turn it into the Millennium Falcon.

The goals were pretty cool and something else to aim for whilst playing.

In the end I managed to not only hit the required eight fame points but also hit ten, for the win.

Final scores

Naturally playing a new game bought during the pandemic has helped progress one or two of my current gaming challenges.

Challenges

Our second and final game of the day before I had to leave was Onitama.

Another new game for Nathan. Another game that he beat me at. Which will cheer Jonathan up (see his comment on yesterdays post).

Onitama

Sadly after being beaten by Nathan it was time to leave. It’s always the hardest part of visiting him. But at least now I’m in a position where I can visit him more regularly.

I had such a great time with Nathan. I always love playing games with him, it such quality time. Plus so far I haven’t introduced him to a game yet that he doesn’t like.

I can’t wait until my next visit (hopefully the start of March).