The Actual Table

[OhBollox]

Been getting quite a lot played lately, thank you vaccines.

Azul. We often play five or six games in a row, of this inoffensive abstract with forbidden Opal Fruits. I don’t particularly care for it, but everyone else likes it a lot. I don’t give a shit. I don’t care if it cures cancer. I find it both is constructed from, and expresses, 100% boredom.

Unmatched. I’ve gone from hater to fan in the space of one box. Playing with Robin Hood and Bigfoot was enjoyable in several discrete steps, as I got to grips with each character, the particulars of their deck, and then different strategies to combat each approach from an opponent. What really emphasised their differences was getting to play a friend’s Bruce Lee, another different character, who cycles used cards back into his hand, and can combo cards into long strings of attacks. Playing Bruce against characters I knew well was delightful, especially as I’m the only one to pull off a win with him, so far. Fighting him and getting to try established strategies against a totally new character was wonderful.

Oath. Watched an exile player school us in the art of misdirection, as they grabbed the Darkest Secret and then the People’s Favour, with an unrevealed vision. The chancellor was no help at all, believing it to be nothing but a tissue of lies, and that exile won easily as a result, offering prospective citizenship to all exiles who remained neutral. Said exile then took two more exiles on as citizens, now they were chancellor, and this looks like the beginning of another kingdom, as he won the next game as well, burying visions in the bottom of the world deck with the cracked horn, and ruling almost everywhere with the bandit crown. They got there by negotiation, but they’re stayed there by force. The only other exile apart from me scooped up the ring of devotion, which allowed the kingdom to grow considerably, as he could no longer rule sites, so he slapped some citizens around but achieved little else. I had a difficult time in the first game, although I escaped almost all hostile attention, and managed to do very little searching, focused on trading and hoovering up relics. I had an impossible time in the second game, managing to draw a vision, but under horrendous pressure from an overbearing kingdom I couldn’t fulfil it. I expect/hope there’ll be more infighting in the kingdom next game, and give me more chance to breathe.

Slip Strike. A perfect little 2P bluffing game, simultaneous card play, constantly trying to out-guess your opponent. Light weight, easy to play, short duration.

Terraforming Mars. As good as always, and we’ve played it so much it’s totally painless to set up and get going. I’ve paid for my arrogance in the past few games, constantly choosing new corps to play and losing as a result, if only by a few points. Still incredibly enjoyable though, everyone has a good time even if they don’t win.

[rinelk]

Mansions of Madness second edition has taken over the dining room table. Just got the Horrific Journeys and Sanctum of Twilight expansions, and am in the process of designing storage solutions and painting minis. Personally, I like Arkham Horror 3E a bit better, but both my kids love MoM, to the point of happily forgoing earned screen time to play.

[Baelnor]

Can’t wait for my TFM big box + stuff to arrive!

[OhBollox]

Been enjoying Unmatched and the excellent weather lately. It was satisfying to pit the different fighters against each other again, and working out how to make the most of the tank that is King Arthur and the excessive, unpredictable power of Merlin against the likes of Robin Hood’s constant arrows, and Sinbad’s stacking Voyage benefits, was ridiculously enjoyable. Particularly liked watching everyone go toe-to-toe and see who could churn out the most damage, King Arthur boosting Excalibur, Alice staying Big, Medusa trying to sneak in Stone Gaze. I don’t like the common cards between decks though. Although I realise it makes the design work much easier having a common bedrock, the fact they don’t even have unique names is a little disappointing, but that’s better than them having unique names but the same effect I suppose. Bigfoot doing Momentous Shift feels thematic, Bruce Lee not so much.

[Mirefox]

Oh boy, is Gloomhaven good. Well, the tutorial scenarios of the “basic” version of the game are good, at least. My son and I have begun Jaws of the Lion and it streamlines and fixes so many of the ambiguities I’ve had with other dungeon crawls like the Descent system or D&D Adventure system. And the card play is great! The game isn’t beyond my 8-year-old’s abilities to play as long as I’m running everything. Good stuff.

[OhBollox]

Been having a whale of a time with Sanctum. It’s a slick loot RPG in board game form, where you fight enemies, get perks, grab loot, and try to stay ahead of the other players. The way the game works is with rare economy of effort. You pick enemies to kill and they grant you loot and XP. XP is represented by markers, which you move off your perks in order to activate them. These markers, once removed from your perks, also serve as the way new loot is equipped, doing double duty as levels essentially. Loot gives you new abilities, increases your Stamina and Focus pool, offers certain combat results, and absorbs hits. Combat is rolling dice, with it being possible to increase and manipulate your dice pool.

It’s so smooth it’s hard to believe. The system feels almost ergonomic, like it wants you to use it, which is still a rare experience to me. You can shift markers from any perk, but they always move upwards, so you can have late-game perks out early, but then you’ve buried your mid-level ones possibly for the rest of the game. You can focus on any row or column in order to bring out all the perks for one area you might need, but if you’re too clever for your own good, you might do something like get an early perk first thing, then be efficient and move markers from the perks below into that empty space, so now you have all three perks from that single column available, without trapping a perk under a pile of markers. The only problem then is, how are you going to power your sweet loot when all those markers are still stacked up on a perk space, and will take plenty more enemies to get them into your marker pool?

Four different characters, and you can develop them differently each time you play. You know what type of loot you’re getting, but not exactly which item, so there’s always some randomness to contend with. Simple move/battle/rest system means you’re constantly planning to hop past the other players, pick choice enemies, beat them ASAP, and race to grab the chest and clear the area, snaffling bonuses for yourself. No direct competition or PvP, just throwing some elbows as you jostle for position. Clear several areas, go up against a demanding boss fight. I love it.

[halfvoid]

Picked this and it’s standalone counterpart Imperium: Legends up and it’s a lovely little competitive Civ builder.
Bonus of a really well designed solo automata too.
Classics is mostly classical civiliations like the Romans, Persians, etc and generally less complex civs to play as.
Legends is more civs of folklore like Atlanteans, Arthurian, etc and generally more complex to play as.
There’s a gnarly errata for the solo mode if you don’t check in on BGG first.

Imperium: Classics

[OhBollox]

I’m really enjoying it but the rulebook is terrible. Useless for learning the game.

[halfvoid]

Yeah, I learned it from the Gaming Rules stream instead and now only really need the AI Civ tables and quick ref sheet.

[halfvoid]

Also pretty fond of Sanctum for pretty much all your reasons.

I bought it for, and have only really played it solo, but it definitely enjoyed a lengthy stay on my table.

[whovian223]

Believe it or not, I’ve actually done a blog post!

Top #270-261 games on BGG.

Maybe I’ll do the next one in a month or so.

[OhBollox]

Review Drift

[Mirefox]

Any good ideas for a game that can be played while we wait for our food at a restaurant? Bonus points for being kid-friendly. I refuse to let my kids be on any kind of electronics at the table and I’m not a huge fan of books, either, as I feel a dinner with the family should be social. At the same time, I want keep my kids from getting too antsy.

[OhBollox]

Skull.

[biffpow]

Old standbys like Fluxx or Love Letter are small and can fit in a pocket. As can a deck of cards–Kings in the Corner works if your kids are young, and Whist or Spades or Hearts can be fun if your kids are a little older.

There are also some travel/pocket versions of younger kids’ Haba games–Orchard and Animal Upon Animal come to mind. I don’t know how old your kids are.

For my (absurdly competitive and nerdy) non-family crowd, one of us always has a copy of Boggle for gatherings. It has a built-in time limit, so it never goes too long.

[rinelk]

Various dice games work well—Dino Hunt Dice was ours, but there’s a more common zombie version, and I think some other similar ones. Rory’s Story Cubes would also fit. Set’s quite good as a quick perceptual puzzle, but you need a central zone on the table everyone can easily reach quickly, which may not be available. Hive is a good two-player abstract with washable components that’s accessible for moderately young players.

The ones that live in my car for this purpose are the Lost Legacy games (much like Love Letter, but with different abilities) and Age of War (an old Knizia battle Yahtzee which uses cards rather than writing, but has likely been eclipsed by later roll-n-writes). There are some variant rules which speed up AoW, which would otherwise tend to run a little long, and it’s worth sleeving the cards even though they take square sleeves I’ve never needed for other games.

For those who’ve played The Crew, would it be suited to that context? Or perhaps The Shipwreck Arcana? Those are two that I’ve wondered about for a while.

[OhBollox]

The Crew is. Shipwreck Arcana is a little bit odd, but also workable.

[OhBollox]

If I was going to fight two of the most formidable melee combatants in Unmatched, I would merely bring a load of meat shields with two of the most accomplished ranged fighters. And in doing so, secure a solid win, killing off Merlin before he could do much damage, wiping Bruce Lee out with Stone Gaze from Medusa, and peppering King Arthur with arrows and outlaws until he fell over.

Ignominy followed when I tried to match Bruce’s might with Sinbad; early feints stopped Bruce chaining strikes, and I did some quite severe damage in return, piling up my Voyage cards for bonus damage, before I ran out of good defence cards and promptly got KO’d as Bruce emptied his hand and finished me off with a massive strike.

Yet another box has arrived:

Looks like the best yet.

[Mirefox]

I just got the Jurassic Park box and will report when my son and I have played some games.

[Natus]

I’ve heard good things. If I were just starting, what sets would I purchase?