The Actual Table

[OhBollox]

Either Beowulf vs Red Riding Hood or Robin Hood versus Bigfoot if you want to try at the cheapest entry point to see if you like it, or Cobble & Fog if you want a 4P-capable box. RH vs BF is a really straightforward box, one big melee fighter versus a ranged fighter. C&F has fulfilled my expectations in terms of the way the game changes not just card distribution across the different decks, but the different effects and unqiue facets of each character.

C&F is easily my favourite box, and became so immediately after a couple of fights. The Invisible Man is incredibly hard to pin down, he has deployble fog patches to enable him to move and defend better, and he’s heavy on the scheme and defence cards, so he’s no offensive powerhouse, but he can wear down anyone. Jekyll/Hyde has an obvious dichotomy in their deck between Hyde’s powerful offence and Jekyll’s defence, and swapping between them at the right time is crucial, not only because some cards can only be used by one personality. Sherlock & Holmes cannot have their specific card effects cancelled, can restore health upon adjacency, and introduce a deduction element whereby if you can guess an opponent’s card value, it is cancelled. Dracula has some extremely powerful sidekicks in his three wives, the ability to regenerate health with some attacks, and some rarer but powerful abilities. Any of these could be my favourite deck.

[rinelk]

Agreed. All of them are good, so if you’ve an attachment to any of the characters, you’ll enjoy the box that gives them to you, but Cobble & Fog seems to me the best overall set of designs. Against my son, I find Red Riding Hood a bit overpowered, which is sad because I love the puzzle of figuring out how to chain her actions to get the most out of them (and when not to). I think she and Holmes are my favorite characters to play in the published sets.

That said, it’s also a blast to make your own characters, and the Unmatched Maker website has great tools for it. I quite enjoy playing a homebrew Cathulhu, for example, and my son loves his dragon. So, if you’re into print-and-plays, your options are basically free and very broad, indeed.

[OhBollox]

Had to send an email today pointing out I ordered x amount of clear sleeves, and have received a mix of matte and clear sleeves, actually, though it’s an easy mistake to make because if you’re not looking closely enough, the only difference is the matte sleeves say 'matte ’ on the packet. What a fucking nerd.

In the meantime! I picked up the 5-6 player expansion for Survive! which also includes giant squids and dolphins. That’s going to be fun to get to the table, with the added bonus of the similarity between the tiles for Cosmic Frog and Survive! surely means I can swap one game for the other easily. No-one will notice. I also managed to find my very own copy of Innovation, which is nice. I won’t say I’m a hero, that would be immodest, but come on. I also ended up somehow buying Cursed Court, which is extravagantly expensive for what it is, but it’s also a pretty compelling game and an easy in for some people I know who are primarily poker players.

Picked up another handful of trick-taking games, including Anansi, Red Dragon, Wizard, The Deadlies, 5211, Gorus Maximus, Brutal Kingdom, and Photograph (Wind the Film). Everyone from my game group is meeting for the first time in more than a year on Saturday, so I’m hoping to get through them all (unlikely), but in truth I’m just going to be happy to see everyone. We’ve been running at around 50-60% attendance for a few months, which has been nice, but getting, as Oldman would scream, everyone back in the same place should be wonderful, and a relief. We’re all fully vaccinated. Those of us who were shielding were the last ones to return, and rightly so, but they feel comfortable to come back now and we’re all eager to see them.

[Mirefox]

Let me know how you like the Survive expansion. It is a family favorite, here, though we do house rule that each meeple is worth 1. Easier for the kids that way. The hidden values were always an annoying mechanic for me anyways.

[OhBollox]

Our group meet was almost complete and we had a solid game of Nemesis.

That’s me getting absolutely fucked up that is. We had a fun game, with an opportunistic attempted airlocking, plenty of being chased by aliens, and the universe’s most rickety ship breaking constantly. As the captain, I fended off an enormous alien with my trusty six shooter, got shredded as a result, and spent the rest of the game staggering around looking for medical supplies on the verge of death (two serious wounds, two light wounds, slimed), reloading one round per turn when I could, and the rest of the crew had an equally bad time, including our wheelchair-bound scientist who went out punching an alien.

With one crew member hibernating after achieving his objective, and the rest dead, I called the game at this point. I was mostly healed and could theoretically have achieved my objective, but there was a lot of noise out on the board, plenty of aliens, and it would have taken me another half an hour at least while everyone else spectated.

[Mirefox]

I am a fan of games all across the sprectrum, but regarding the whole eurogame vs. Ameritrash dichotomy, I love how the latter can so often be retold in narrative form like this. You can always have a post-game dissection of a good euro game, but I love a good post-game dramatization!

[OhBollox]

It’s no-one’s idea of a well-balanced game, and it really needs more work, but it’s usually fun.

We also played multiple rounds of Unmatched. Dracula/Medusa versus Invisible Man/Sherlock turned out to be a tad one-sided. The Invisible Man proved impossible to pin down, which left Sherlock to face the music. Dracula ended up healing almost all of his damage, and while Medusa lost all her harpies, she was barely scratched at the end.

Second match with Bruce Lee/Bigfoot versus Invisible Man/Sherlock was a different matter. Sherlock started with hefty use of schemes, Invisible Man spread out his fog tokens, and Bruce had no JKD cards to chain attacks. Bigfoot’s biggest attacks slid off the Invisible Man, doing very little damage, Sherlock had a hard time defending with a hand full of schemes, and Bruce finally started pulling JKD cards, killing Watson in a single turn. Invisible Man kept Bigfoot occupied, but Sherlock couldn’t match Bruce, and after Sherlock was One Inch Punched into oblivion, even the Invisible Man couldn’t fend off Bigfoot and Bruce forever.

Terraforming Mars was a nightmare game for me. Playing Mons Insurance was great, I enjoyed damaging everyone’s money production, and I mostly avoided the insurance payouts.

I was fairly sure I could win, and promptly ended up with something like 14 cards in hand at the end, which was the biggest possible red flag I was doing something wrong. I ended up drawing for second, so while scores were tight and it was technically a close game, with only three points between first and second, if I hadn’t bought far too many cards I could have won easily. I have only myself to blame.

[OhBollox]

My eagerness to keep trying Jekyll & Hyde is matched only with my frustration that every time I break out Forever Hyde an opponent sinks it. I’ve set up some very big hits, including 11, 13, and 15-damage, and so far only one of them has landed (hilariously it was Alice with 2 health, so it was total overkill, but the concept is proven!). Even an enormous one powered by Scientific Method (draw number of cards equal to damage dealt) after taking a savage blow from Dracula’s Beastform, which saw me go into my turn with 10 cards in hand, was overturned with Do My Bidding. Sickener.

I defeated Sinbad and his Porter with Sherlock and Watson with ease. One of the key things with Sherlock is knowing your opponent’s deck. If you know it well, you can cruise to a win even if you don’t know the Sherlock deck that well.

Creamed Jekyll/Hyde with the Invisible Man. Proved to be a tougher fight than I expected, and I took more damage than I thought, but I still won quite convincingly. Between spreading my fog out to Maximum Fuck Off, I gave myself plenty of time, escaped whenever Jekyll turned into Hyde, let him bleed cards coming after me, and also lucked into playing Impossible to See as an attack. It’s a guaranteed 2 damage, so it’s a great way to set them up for bigger attacks, soaking up their primary block. You can do the same with Feint cards, which are a paltry 2 damage unlikely to land, but the effects of their defence will be cancelled and it’s a really good fake out.

That didn’t help me much as Dracula against Medusa. I made better use of my Sisters versus the Harpies, but Medusa’s offensive power proved a little too much for me, and even though I made sure no Gaze of Stone touched me, even with two Sisters still alive, I couldn’t do enough damage. Medusa was on 2 health when she put an arrow through me, and I had nothing but a hand of schemes.

Won Pandemic: Fall of Rome on the last turn. I forgot to put any events in the deck so we were playing on hard mode, but we won so we must have done something right. Passable enough.

Spicy is our official top new pub game, and it always results in laughs, furious rounds of insults, and squinty gazes as we try to work out who is bluffing.

I find it hard to care about Azul. It’s okay. The most entertaining thing about it is so far, 100% of bystanders who commented have said “It looks complicated.” Enough to drive any sane man up the wall. I’m bored with it, maybe I’ll see about extra tile sets and boards to see about accommodating more players if it’s not too expensive.

[OhBollox]

Study in contrasts in today’s delivery.

FitS is a grail game of mine I genuinely thought would never be reprinted. Phalanx took a while to actually get it all sorted out (I paid for it in 2019), but I don’t care, worth the wait. Very happy to have something easier to teach than Empire of the Sun.

Gorus Maximus is another trick taker, up to 8 players, and thankfully it’s just cards and some counters…and a tracker that might as well be a paperclip.

Should fit nicely in a deckbox. Should get it tried out shortly, perhaps at this beer festival I’m going to at the weekend.

[halfvoid]

Just moved house and I finally caved and picked up a Kallax. Now all my games fit on one set of shelves, and not scattered randomly around free spots on bookshelves and cupboards for once.

[Private_Prinny]

That Dune game…is it good?

[halfvoid]

I’m a fan. Sort of a mashup of deckbuilding, worker placement and area control that just really clicks with me.

[js619]

But… where’s Labyrinth?
.
.
.
.
Ah, displayed in its own place of honor, I’m sure.

[Mirefox]

I think it is awesome. One of those games that is greater than the sum of its parts. It is very thematic if you know Dune but knowledge of the IP isn’t necessary. The race is only to 10 points so games can get awfully tight. I recently had one where everyone’s machinations came down to the last conflict and there was a great stand up moment for the victor. If you can’t tell, I love the game.

[Natus]

And having just played Dune Imperium for the first time, it’s an absolutely inoffensive worker placement game that may well be improved by the upcoming expansion. But for me, a die-hard fan of the strategy game of Dune, Imperium doesn’t compare so well in terms of theme, and that’s the reason I would play it. It’s especially tough to get a ton of theme out of normal houses of the Landsraad instead of the factions from the strategy game (which you can play of course, but the theming is more muted.)

Despite all that, I’d play it again and I’m conside3ring picking it up for my family.

[halfvoid]

I’m probably the one person in these forums that has no desire to ever play a COIN game.

[Mirefox]

I haven’t played Dune, but I’m looking at this from the perspective of a mod-weight worker placement. For me, the characters each have abilities that reflect their role in the story. The same for each card and each location on the board. Gaining favor with each faction gives benefits that make sense for that faction. This is what I mean by highly thematic.

I would love to try the strategy game but I’ve heard it is best with 6, which is a non-starter for me.

[Snotty128]

You might be mixing up your dunes there. Dune, the rereleased war type game from the 70s is a 6 player must in my opinion. Dune imperium, the deck builder, plays less. Shut up and sit down recommended 2-3 players.

[halfvoid]

Also just picked this up and looking forward to learning it this weekend.

(Edit, wow this is very much in the running for GOTY for me)

[Mirefox]

I maybe just didn’t explain myself correctly. I love Imperium and have always played with 3. Dune would never make it to the table for me because of the 6-person recommendation.