Alice is Missing. This is an easy 8/10 and maybe a 9/10. Surprisingly tense. Quite immersive. Not going to spoil anything, but if you want a one-off for people who aren’t even RPGers, this will work. Needs a little smoothing out in terms of front-loading and structure, but its a fantastic central idea.
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Looking forward to playing this. Have a game setup in two weeks!
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Just finished Alas, Babylon again. You had me at nuclear war, you sonuva
ETA: signed up for updates and will likely kickstart it. We’ll have to figure out a play by email system!
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How do you compare its weight and length of play to Terraforming Mars or Ark Nova. The last time I got my group over for Ark Nova the game dragged for what I think was 5-6 hours. I love it, but there was too much teaching and too much AP. I’m interested in Earth but don’t want a similar experience.
Lighter and shorter than TFM.
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Yep, OhBollox has it right. It’s much more akin to Wingspan than those two.
It’s very easy to teach and pick up and it shouldn’t be any longer than 90 minutes, if not fewer.
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I sold my ark nova… loved it, but there was no way I was going to get to play.
Earth should be here in a week!
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Tyrants of the Underdark. Aberrations & Undead, I got hold of three Mindwitnesses and constantly had him discarding as I assassinated. Easy win, 80 to 69.
Demons & Elementals were another matter. He got ahead of me in the Insane Outcast dispensing game, and despite two Marilliths devouring all in sight, I couldn’t stay ahead, and he piled on the promotions with Hezrou and Nalfeshnee. He cleared 72 points from promoting alone, and won handily, 143 to 121.
In other news, my Air, Land & Sea luck has changed, and I won three games in a row.
In two of the games, my opponent scored precisely zero points.
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I’m picking up Tyrants tomorrow based on the love it gets here. Looking forward to getting some plays in.
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I really need to play it again. It’s been too long!
Has anyone tried Ascension Tactics? It looks like it might fit my 3-player skirmish requirement since it has some scenarios for that. Plus, deck building and tactics sounds fun.
I just finished punching my copy of Tyrants of the Underdark and it barely fit back into the box once punched. And there’s no way I’ll be able to sleeve it and fit it back. Looks like I’ll have to chuck the provided organizer and find my own. Do publishers not think people sleeve their games?
And how necessary are the VPs on the back of the unit pieces? Because I’d like to swap them out for minis or meeples or something.
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It was the same with the 1st edition (which came in an even bigger box), insert was useless if you want to sleeve.
Do publishers not think people sleeve their games?
We are still a tiny minority, but I do think the tolerances to fit sleeves should be more common.
And how necessary are the VPs on the back of the unit pieces? Because I’d like to swap them out for minis or meeples or something.
Wait until you play it and see. The unit counters are better than minis because they don’t obscure the unit spaces; the problem on a busy 1e board is constantly checking if that 6-space city has 5 black minis on it or 6. Because of their vertical dimension, they obscure info. The counters are better.
War of the Ring TCG at 2P again. A 20-16 skinning for me as the Shadow, and a 17-16 squeaker for me as the Shadow. I’m beginning to think keeping your reserve is more important than winning any particular fight, because of the abilities you get for drawing, etc. I dumped most of my reserve into a fight and won the battleground, but for the next 3-4 rounds I had nothing by way of buffs, and bled points all over the table. A fully tooled-up Saruman or grab bag of Nazgul are invaluable. Particularly well worth doing, make your opponent eliminate as many cards as possible before they really get going; forsaking cards off the top of their deck is great for getting rid of items they need.
TKID is an old reliable that got rudely shoved aside by the likes of Turncoats and Condottiere, mainly because it takes a little longer and only supports 2-4P, but it’s still a solid game, and thankfully I have the nice, non-garish edition. I can win this most of the time, but the end game calculations get fierce.
Heat. This was well worth the wait. Very smooth to play, slightly finicky turn structure to learn. Excellent racing though. Piling on heat backfires so badly you have to race in a much smarter way. Easy to see the evolution from Flamme Rouge, I just wish the tracks were modular. Hoping to find a cheap way to print off the fan-made courses, or at least a bunch of cheap expansion tracks. The championship mode beckons.
Hidden Leaders has nice art, but is otherwise unremarkable. Felt strangely uninteractive, a little too much card cycling, and an anticlimactic ending.
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I don’t know why I can’t grok The King Is Dead. I have it, people LOVE it, but I’m nonplussed. Maybe I need try again.
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It is a really sharp efficiency puzzle, I don’t know how exciting that is for some people as there can be a lot of quiet turns as people calculate stuff, not a lot of flashy moves, and quite a few decisions don’t have an obvious benefit in the first half of the game. It also rewards you for sitting back and passing when others are taking actions. As the decision space narrows I think it gets less opaque and more ‘obviously’ exciting, but it’s a grower overall, usually. Players go from ‘hmm’ to ‘It’s okay’ to ‘It’s good’ in my experience.
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I did a couple of posts today.
My New to Me: April boardgames post.
I already had at least one person read it. Thank you!
Then my Friday Night Shots: what do you think of asymmetric games?
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Heat. We worked our way through all the courses, and after inducting a new player, made a start on the weather and upgrades. This is a pretty wonderful game, very tight, but also rewards good play and doesn’t negate skill via the included rubber banding. At one point I had a commanding lead and promptly lost it because I spun out; the consistency of the other players meant they won, and I had nothing to complain about. The weather is great because there are only 4 tracks and you need the variety; the upgrades are fantastic because they offer a unique way to race that can be different for each player. It’s a real shame the tracks aren’t modular, but other than that this is an upgrade in every way over Flamme Rouge.
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