We got a 4-player game of the newly-shipped Ankh onto the table. While I like and own CitOW, Godfather, and Blood Rage, I did not get along with Rising Sun and had no expectations whatsoever for Ankh. My son won handily, so he saw some strategy in the game that totally evades me, but I am continually mystified by my delight in some of Lang’s designs and my near loathing of others. There’s a focus in his earlier games that I miss in his later ones. And yes, the hyper-focus on the minis bothers me, because at the end of the day, they really don’t matter, and it takes as long to deploy and tear down the set as it does to play.
2 Likes
Friend got his Ares Expedition delivered. It’s nice enough, but I can’t help but notice the central board is almost completely unnecessary. The ocean tiles don’t matter in terms of placement, and you could easily have individual score tracks on your player boards. The O2 and temperature tracks are needed but they could easily have been two columns. The board seems to deliberately echo the original TFM board but with much less utility. I like some of the cards and their reorganisation is nice, so they splay horizontally rather than vertically, but the turn structure is lifted wholesale from Race for the Galaxy which is a bit irritating. You can also continue terraforming once terraforming is complete, for the rest of that turn, which doesn’t make a lick of sense and is blatantly a measure to ensure the final scores are tighter than might otherwise be the case.
Otherwise we got Spicy, The Deadlies, Fantasy Realms and Codenames played. A light game day, but a really enjoyable one.
3 Likes
The Dice Tower review of Ares Expedition turned me off to the game. I haven’t played it, but it went from the top of my wishlist to something I’d like to play but am not rushing out to buy. The similarities to Race make it sound like it would be redundant in my collection.
How is Fantasy Realms? I’ve had my eye on it and it just came back in stock.
Ares Expedition is fine but I honestly am never going to choose it over TFM.
Fantasy Realms has been hit and miss. I like it, but it can involve some furious mental maffs, which means people don’t have the spare capacity for watching what the other players are doing. So some people have a very insular experience.
I agree about Fantasy Realms but ultimately I do enjoy it. I even did a review for my blog.
Too bad about Ares Expedition though. I’d like to try it out.
59 games on my shelf and I every one I pick up to play and open up the box, by the time I look at the contents inside I no longer want to play it.
I’ve got Excavation Earth and Red Cathedral coming in the mail soon, so hopefully one of the two will cure this tabletop ennui.
3 Likes
I’ve got Shadow Kingdoms wishlisted, but haven’t played it before.
1 Like
I can answer your question because I haven’t played nor heard of them but…
How freaking amazing is the Big Box TFM to get to the table? Seriously, that game looks and plays amazing. Still a little long in our household, but wow - I build tiles just to get them on the map (here’s looking at you nuclear zone)
1 Like
I totally agree!
I’m just thankful that I didn’t have to figure out how to put it all away. 
Not actually playing in a disco, honest. Survive! proved a challenge and the other players loved gobbling down my swimmers.
Filth.
1 Like
Every time that question gets answered I have had to reply in the affirmative.
3 Likes
Damn.
1 Like
Continuing the Top 300 on Boardgame Geek, here’s #240-231!
We’ll see if I can keep this up for an entire month and post one next week.
1 Like
I have played Tapestry and Vindication on that list. Both games I really enjoyed and would love to take to the table again. Played vindication maybe 4 times?
1 Like
I loved Tapesty and I’m not sure why the hype for it died out as quickly as it did. Maybe because the building pieces aren’t as important as the hype for them suggested they should have been? I really liked the way the 4 different actions worked with each other and I think the game does a great job of balance so that your decisions can be a little agonizing.
1 Like
Tapestry suffered at release for the civilisations being completely unbalanced. This problem keeps cropping up with Stonemaier games.
2 Likes