Friend of mine is currently in New York; he asked me if I wanted any games buying while he was there. I sent him what I thought was a short list, and he has pointed out he doesn’t have room for 30+ boxes in his luggage.
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I did a retrospective of the con I was at last weekend, talking about all the games played.
Some good ones, some not so good, and some just not for me.
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May he have found Peace.
I can’t recall ever hearing about Blockhouse before, now I know about it, I wish I could play it. But I own all of Uptown, Zendo and “The Gang” but have not managed to play any of them yet.
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Zendo is great.
The Gang is something we have been playing consistently for weeks.
War of the Ring with Lords included. I really need to get around to Kings, but I haven’t played this in months, so it was back to getting reacquainted and making mistakes. If only it didn’t always take 3+ hours to play, but then again if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be as good. I fought valiantly (got beaten). Even though I used cards really aggressively, and really pushed the fellowship; splitting off Gimli, Legolas, and Boromir early was a good decision, got their nations into the war quickly. Gondor put up an incredible fight. Gandalf the White and Aragorn were perhaps too late to exert the influence they should have.
Really wish the political track was on the FP side, there’s a lot of space that is just water on that side of the board, and the FP is the player most concerned with it.
Another game of WotR. I lost again. Helm’s Deep, Osgiliath, Minas Tirith, and Rivendell all fell in quick succession. I was one move away from taking Orthanc and pulling off a military victory, especially after Dol Amroth absolutely kicked the shit out of two armies (with additional help from Boromir, eventually). Gandalf the White helped wipe out the forces in Orthanc, via the Ents, twice. Legolas and an army of elves failed to hold Lorien, and that was that. The Fellowship was just outside Mordor.
Even with the outrageous consumption of cards in combat, it was over well before I had to worry about running out of cards.
Finally got the opportunity to use Dune plus all the expansions, so we had a random draw for factions while I rolled out Big Mat. Emperor/CHOAM/Ixians/Tleilaxu commenced with a poor Emperor, a dominant CHOAM, a quiet Tleilaxu, and my poor Ixians scampering hither and yon for spice. The Tleilaxu only got into the game really once the fights started, as the revive money goes to them, and I quickly ran out of spice juggling my suboid-to-cyborg pipeline as well as trying to stay competitive and sell my card knowledge (no-one was buying). A Nexus finally came up on T6, and CHOAM and I promptly ran out of steam, the Emperor lost yet another battle, but the Tlelaxu Facedancers saw CHOAM’s win completely subverted, and their alliance cruised to a victory. Dune is probably my favourite game for a reason, and it includes so much that, looking at aspects in isolation, you think “That will never be relevant. That won’t happen. That won’t come up.” and then it does.
Condottiere. After a loss of a piece (a cube, if you must know), I bitterly removed it from circulation, but after finding that piece more than a year later, I felt the insult had been redeemed. Still a pub classic. So many bullshit mind games to play.
The Gang. We still love this; with new players and at higher player counts it can be fraught, but it is always possible to cultivate a good group mindset for it, and get into a really smooth cycle of puzzling out where everyone is. I was still high on spice, so we won accidentally twice (I misjudged a straight, and then a flush), much to everyone’s dismay and my delight. We also had a good long talk about the recent suicide of the chronically ill designer, Kory Heath, and had a drink to his memory.
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My attempt to go a little beyond Boardgame reviews
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Just backed this. Postmark Games make the best print & play games in town.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/postmarkgames/52-realms-adventures
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I was actually considering this, and would’ve backed it if it was a physical game, but I only read print and play and did not care to look further. Your comment made me reconsider and now I am backing as well… thanks
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You can print and laminate all the sheets, this one at least isn’t just a roll & write. More of a dungeon crawler that uses a deck of cards and a couple counters.
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I also backed–thanks for the recommendation. I like the campaign giving backers the vote on additional dungeon and character sheets. And it sounds like they release more even after the campaign ends. I don’t usually back print and play, but this looks solid.
They’ll definitely be releasing more. If it’s like the previous games of their I’ve backed they’re continued releasing content for that game throughout the year beyond what you get immediately after the kickstarter ends.
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Pax Unplugged was off the hook last weekend. This was the first sold out PaxU since the pandemic and they had 3 floors going strong. WotC appeared to have massive audiences for MTG, every major cardboard game team was there and it was the first time there that I did not have enough time to see everything I wanted to.
A bunch of my time was taken with the Star Realms and Hero Realms legend tournaments - I made Top 8 in both, but that was where those stories ended. Still quite happy with back to back Top 8s.
My only purchase was Clank Catacombs and the expansion. I had actually gone with the intention of picking up Wyrmspan - but when I went by the Dire Wolf booth, they had a table out with Catacombs on it, and so I played a game with a few people and it is SOOOO much more fun than Clank! and I really like Clank! So I picked it up.
The other really big news there was that Dice Throne, which is one of my favorite games, will now get a Kickstarter for the Digital Version soon, and I will likely be all in on that.
I did demo the Slay the Spire game, and it was really faithful to the video game, but it is a solo/co-op game, and I can just play StS on both iOS and Steam, so I don’t need a board game version.
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Very much hope Clank! does well enough on digital that they do Catacombs or In Space as expansions.
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Good to hear on Dice Throne - keep me updated
I went all in on the Dice Throne Adventures, but struggle to get it out.
I have an ongoing campaign on Dice Throne Adventures and kind of just keep it out on my basement office poker table. I pick it up a little bit here and there.
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Unbelievable, I just ordered my (used) copy a few days ago and it should arrive any day now.
Bought my son the Magic The Gathering - Foundations Beginner Box for Christmas. Its reasonably priced and is set up with enough content for 2 players.
Interestingly theyve added replayability by the way the product is set up. You combine 2 mini decks to make a whole deck, and the box comes with 10 mini decks. Im not sure what the math is on that, but every game will only use 40% of the cards, hence replayability.
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I did the same! Foundations doesn’t excite me greatly, but it is a great set for beginners as there is a lot less text and obscure keywords.
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