What are you playing?

[Captain Kelsten]

Fucking Paul Daniels, always knew he was a greedy bastard. 

[Nathan Wind]

Too soon man, too soon.

[Stoppy2000]

20 hours ago, Nathan Wind said:

Quest 2 went well. Although we discovered the prisoner we were looking for pretty early (by chance took the direct route) and it pinged open the rest of the dungeon, spawning all the enemies and degenerating into essentially Zombicide

 

 

Sadly in quest 3, Paul Daniels died. We killed the boss and his goons no bother but greed got the better of him and he searched a room for treasure only to be jumped and killed by a wandering orc. Thankfully, Dave the barbarian was in the room so we didn't lose all his gold. Also, the rest of them found a staff for the next wizard, David Blaine, so the grief was short lived.

Yeah finding the prisoner early is actually a bad move on that quest. Played that one with my son and he murdered everything. When the alarm finally went off there was nothing left to kill. Hoping I can use this game as a gateway to getting my son playing Imperial Assault. 

[scottcr]

Been playing The Legend of Robin Hood, Watergate and Tiny Epic Dungeons over last couple of days.

 

RH is *ace* - very light story game but some wonderful ideas including completely free movement and a really nice ‘Chuck everything in the bag’ thing. Seems about right at 2 player.

 

watergate - played this before but introduced it to a friend. He was Nixon and was about to win, I had one card I could play which was to reveal a random tile from the bag and place it. If it was green, I’d have won the game, If not - I’d have lost. It was green! Yay. Very thematic and tense.

 

tiny epic dungeon… difficult to learn but easy to play if you have the appendix and use the online tutorial app. Great art and a really nice system. Fast and fun and, like Pirates before it, a proper full big game experience in a very small box.

 

once Descent and Robin Hood are done, it’s time to try Destinies!

[scottcr]

Been playing quite a few lately!

[therearerules]

Played Time Stories Revolution Midsummer today, and absolutely hated it. It didn't help that the owner got some fundamental rules wrong, but they've changed the flawed 'replay it a bunch of times' to just even worse randomness. Location choice is completely random then you get into random activities and draw random cards. There's no objectives, it's just aimlessly doing activities for no reason. One of the worst games I've played recently, genuinely pissed off at it.

[Aluco]

Having played and enjoyed most of the original Time Stories stuff, we have a plan to try the new stuff.

I will go into it with an open mind, but consider your experience when I do.

Maybe one to borrow and try out.

[moosegrinder]

We're playing Keyforge as I bought some decks literally years ago and forgot I had them. It's fucking rubbish. @strawdonkeymight be along later to be more reasoned in his appraisal.

[Nathan Wind]

We polished off Aeon's End Legacy last week and are now cracking on with Aeon's End new Age. It's a very fun system. I'd highly recommend one of the AE games if you're looking for a self contained strategy card game. It's a deck builder of sorts - in the sense that it's much more about the strategic manipulation of a limited deck than building up a whopper. All very clever stuff.

 

 

 

[Jamin]

Playing 5-player Twilight Imperium with the new expansion on Sunday. 9.30am kick off, expected end of 7/8pm. Factions to be picked on the day. Only played base game once before (with Ghosts of Creuss - so quite a non-vanilla faction) so very much looking forward to it. Potential picture-based game report to come.

[Mortis]

Spent this morning learning the rules for perseverance episode 1. 
 If you’ve played any of the other mindclash games you know what to expect - lots of iconography that looks daunting but ultimately the basics of the game are simple.  
 Scoring well however will be a challenge with the various avenues to score points, hopefully get a game with some friends soon. 
 Can’t beat plastic dinosaurs though. 
 

[Stejay]

My wife and I have been playing Long Shot - The Dice Game, which we just had to import after the recent SU&SD review. Really looking to eight player games of it next week while we’re away in a cottage with family.

[Nathan Wind]

Sleeping Gods is the current game of choice here. I'm fairly luke warm on it but @Rikku is loving it. It's another narrative 'turn to paragraph...' game, and I think I'm a little burned out on those after a stint on Roll Player Adventures and some others over recent years. I know it's incredibly well regarded though so I'm hoping I might yet take to it. The combat seems very punishing and it's been very stingy with the resources you need to gather. Could just be that we need to get used to the systems a bit more, or that we've had a couple of unlucky runs so far.

 

I dunno. Whatever, I'm just a sucker for throwing dice. A simple creature.  I'll be trying out some solo methods of playing Memoir '44 in the coming days.  I think I'll go with the  draw two cards and pick the best one for the opposition method first.

 

[Nathan Wind]

Yeah, Memoir is good fun solo. I’ll work through the core campaign playing each map as either side. Just done Pegasus Bridge, and had two allied victories. The first was a 4-0 thumping but the second was 4-3 and could have easily gone the other way. Drawing two cards and making the best move for the opponent works well. Although when I was playing as axis, I drew three cards for the allies to go towards simulating the bigger hand they get in that scenario.
 

Quite tempted to see if Battlelore would work as well like this. I’m guessing not, because the fun of that game is the strategic twists it has over Memoir with the lore cards and being able to hide half your army at the start.

[Rikku]

19 hours ago, Nathan Wind said:

Sleeping Gods is the current game of choice here. I'm fairly luke warm on it but @Rikku is loving it. It's another narrative 'turn to paragraph...' game, and I think I'm a little burned out on those after a stint on Roll Player Adventures and some others over recent years. I know it's incredibly well regarded though so I'm hoping I might yet take to it. The combat seems very punishing and it's been very stingy with the resources you need to gather. Could just be that we need to get used to the systems a bit more, or that we've had a couple of unlucky runs so far.

 

I dunno. Whatever, I'm just a sucker for throwing dice. A simple creature.  I'll be trying out some solo methods of playing Memoir '44 in the coming days.  I think I'll go with the  draw two cards and pick the best one for the opposition method first.

 

I honestly think we are just bad at it. For now.   Rightly or wrongly, the game appears to be designed with replayability in mind and I definitely think there is a way to do things more efficiently.  At the moment, we never know what we're walking in to and what checks we will need to pass and pushing our luck in situations which is exhausting us meaning we are ill prepared for combat if it happens.  So it feels more punishing than it probably is, but if we played again, I don't think we would necessarily do everything in the order we have done.  The game encourages you to keep excellent notes and use them from campaign to campaign.

 

I am thoroughly enjoying it regardless though!

 

I think I'll probably set up Stardew Valley for my solo gaming this evening, it arrived yesterday and I'm quite keen to play something a bit different to anything that I have played before. 

[jonnyalpha]

We'll be playing this at the weekend. I couldn't resist this box so will be selling my base game at the UKGE or giving it to my step son if he wants it. 

 

Edit: That took an hour to punch and sort. I'm very glad they put detailed instructions on how to sort it (2 sides of A4) and lots of stickers for the baggies so you can easily pick out base game, automa or expansion components.

[Nathan Wind]

Kingdom Death Monster. Now this is my kinda game. The combat is pure Games Workshop - roll to hit, roll to wound, roll on injury tables. The Hunt Phase is very Warhammer Quest with all sorts of events to draw and tables to roll on again. The settlement mode is ripped right out of Monster Hunter and it almost has the RPG bookkeeping of Folklore. Wrapped up in a gorgeously bleak dark fantasy setting (provided you can get past the gross over sexualisation of the female characters). That's the only real criticism I have of the game actually. Thematically it's a bit all over the place, with this horrific setting and descriptions of all sorts of goriness juxtaposed against adolescent levity, such as punching a lion in the knob, and images of anime girls with ridiculous breasts. The game itself though, is 100% pure tabletop crack cocaine to me.

 

We're still grinding away at the first boss farming gear, but I can't wait to see what it has in store for us.

 

 

 

[Nathan Wind]

KDM is going to be reserved for our Sunday sessions when our friend comes over for the afternoon to play boardo's so we have consequently been absolutely flogging Darklight Memento Mori. It's one I've had for a while, and never really expected it to get to the table. It's great! A love letter to the original Warhammer Quest. Resolutely old school in every way. You can have a poor dice roll and die. Draw a bad card and die. Have a couple of rough rounds of combat and die. Just the sort of game I love! It's probably up there with DungeonQuest in its lack of fairness

 

It's also a massive table hog, with huge, thick tiles and oversized minis.

 

[frumious]

Some time ago a friendly and generous forumite was kind enough to sell me a few games, including a couple that I'd not heard of but which came recommended.  One of those was Glory to Rome, the slightly naff cartoony version there, packaged in a plastic clamshell thing, and I made the stupid mistake of never getting round to play it, and even worse eventually just passed it on to a friend without looking into it and discovering that it highly regarded in certain quarters, and impossible to get hold off for anything other than megabucks.  I regret the error. 

 

BUT, at least now I have actually played it!  Went to my local games night on Tuesday, and immediately noticed someone setting it up, and they had a spare place and were happy for me to join them.  Luckily I wasn't the only one needing teaching.  It's definitely a clever design, although I found it quite the brain melter - the way that every card can be used for many different things:

• buildings for points and special powers
• resources to build buildings
• role selection
• free actions if you install them as "clients"
• straight victory points if you put them in your vault

On at least one occasion I came up with what seemed like a clever play and then realised that I'd already used the card I was going to use during my action to select that action...  Also hard to get my head round the subtleties of some of the roles, and the various locations where things can be placed, and how stuff moves between them.  The "following" mechanic is nice, you can often have a free go during someone else's go, the way if you can't do anything useful you build up wild card Jacks so that you'll have better options in the future, the way that resources in the pool have directly come from cards other people have played, it all seems to fit together despite being quite unusual in my experience.  I didn't do very well, but I did enjoy it a lot! 

 

Now I'm looking again into the possibilities for getting my hands on a copy - that original one I stupidly gave away is long gone, and English copies go for £100s.  They'll never reprint it it seems - bad blood between the creators seems to have knocked that idea firmly on the head.  There's what looks like quite a faithful copy/redraw of the fancier "black box" edition which you can print yourself or send to a pro to get proper cards done, but that's either going to be a massive faff and probably not turn out amazingly, or still cost around $100.  But maybe one day...

 

Finally 

[Professor Rob]

The more reasonably-priced Mottainai is worth checking out.

[frumious]

Yeah, I've been investigating the various "almost Glory to Rome"s, they all apparently lack a certain something if you're a true afficionado, but I'm not so maybe any of them would do!  

[jonnyalpha]

Uchronia is another one by Carl Chudyk, the designer of Glory to Rome, although it's also out of print.

 

@frumious I think I was the person who sold you the copy of the cartoon edition many years ago because I had been lucky enough to get in on the Glory to Rome Black Box KS when it launched and didn't feel I needed both versions (also probably an error). It was the KS and the debacle surrounding it that caused Carl Chudyk and Ed Carter to fall out so badly that the game will likely never be reprinted. The game was delivered very late, although that seems to be the norm for KS at the moment, and cost them a fortune because of ordering errors. I remember being amazed when the game actually arrived. The game funded on 22nd August 2011 and I received the game in the Autumn of 2013.

 

I played the game a while ago with my middle stepson who was straight on his phone looking to buy a copy while we were still playing. He loved the game as his brain seems to work in combos and he gleefully destroyed everyone else with ease. He didn't manage to find a copy at a reasonable price at the time but I knew he hankered after one so I would occasionally scan ebay but was put off by the prices mostly topping £100. I finally managed to get a great condition copy of the original version in 2021 although it did cost me £85. 

 

It is a fun game although I'm not sure it's very subtle. I've played several games where a player has managed to put together game-breaking combos that make them clearly unbeatable. Once my wife set up a combo that meant she could copy anything that I did and do it twice, I resigned the game as she'd clearly crushed me. The rules specifically point out that this can happen and that resignations are often a sensible decision, they also state that any player who argues that "this is madness, that can't be right" should be told "Madness? No, this is Glory to Rome!!!!" 

 

Next time we get round to holding a Newcastle boardgame meet up we'll have to get this to the table.

[phresh]

Played some Quacks of Quedlinburg at the weekend and really enjoyed it. I'm partial to a push your luck game so it's probably taken me longer than it should have done to pick it up. It does a great job of balancing the risk, not making it completely catastrophic if your potion explodes, but with enough of a penalty to make pushing further a non-trivial decision. Really enjoyed this and the variety from the different potion books you can use each game was surprising.

 

Also played Isle of Cats a few nights ago, we love a tetromino-esque game and while I didn't find it as enjoyable as the likes of Patchwork it's got some nice mechanics and enough variability that games should be quite different. It is probably better with more than two players though.

[frumious]

I keep being a bit conflicted about Quacks. I definitely enjoy it while I'm playing it, and I like the idea, but the actual bit where you're pushing your luck seems to end up being "OK I'll stop there, that's boring", or "woohoo, here we go, oh I've exploded, now I'm losing forever".  Rarely, "yay, that was a bold and exciting move, now I'm on top".  Might be that I've been playing with some quite risk-averse people, and none of us is a tactical master at the purchasing stage.

 

None of that stops the core mechanics being fun though!  

[michael]

On 05/05/2022 at 11:19, frumious said:

Some time ago a friendly and generous forumite was kind enough to sell me a few games, including a couple that I'd not heard of but which came recommended.  One of those was Glory to Rome, the slightly naff cartoony version there, packaged in a plastic clamshell thing, and I made the stupid mistake of never getting round to play it, and even worse eventually just passed it on to a friend without looking into it and discovering that it highly regarded in certain quarters, and impossible to get hold off for anything other than megabucks.  I regret the error. 

 

BUT, at least now I have actually played it!  Went to my local games night on Tuesday, and immediately noticed someone setting it up, and they had a spare place and were happy for me to join them.  Luckily I wasn't the only one needing teaching.  It's definitely a clever design, although I found it quite the brain melter - the way that every card can be used for many different things:

• buildings for points and special powers
• resources to build buildings
• role selection
• free actions if you install them as "clients"
• straight victory points if you put them in your vault

On at least one occasion I came up with what seemed like a clever play and then realised that I'd already used the card I was going to use during my action to select that action...  Also hard to get my head round the subtleties of some of the roles, and the various locations where things can be placed, and how stuff moves between them.  The "following" mechanic is nice, you can often have a free go during someone else's go, the way if you can't do anything useful you build up wild card Jacks so that you'll have better options in the future, the way that resources in the pool have directly come from cards other people have played, it all seems to fit together despite being quite unusual in my experience.  I didn't do very well, but I did enjoy it a lot! 

 

Now I'm looking again into the possibilities for getting my hands on a copy - that original one I stupidly gave away is long gone, and English copies go for £100s.  They'll never reprint it it seems - bad blood between the creators seems to have knocked that idea firmly on the head.  There's what looks like quite a faithful copy/redraw of the fancier "black box" edition which you can print yourself or send to a pro to get proper cards done, but that's either going to be a massive faff and probably not turn out amazingly, or still cost around $100.  But maybe one day...

 

Finally 

So uhhhh... I made my own copy of Glory to Rome (with permission from a certain person). If you want, I could probably hook you up with the files? It's kind of based on the fancy black box version, but uses graphics and stuff from the GameIcons site. Looks OK, plays exactly the same as the normal game!

 

Oh, also, I just played Mini Rogue on my Twitch channel, and it was a bloody delight. Next up this afternoon: soloing Stardew Valley!

[frumious]

17 minutes ago, michael said:

So uhhhh... I made my own copy of Glory to Rome (with permission from a certain person). If you want, I could probably hook you up with the files? It's kind of based on the fancy black box version, but uses graphics and stuff from the GameIcons site. Looks OK, plays exactly the same as the normal game!

 

Nice!   I've got files from here https://gtr.stormtide.net/Instructions, but I got as far as uploading them all to https://www.printplaygames.com/ before losing my nerve.  Did you do something like that, or print your own and sleeve, or what?

 

I must admit to having a fondness for the cartoony version now, seems like an underdog having been usurped by the new hotness!

[michael]

44 minutes ago, frumious said:

 

Nice!   I've got files from here https://gtr.stormtide.net/Instructions, but I got as far as uploading them all to https://www.printplaygames.com/ before losing my nerve.  Did you do something like that, or print your own and sleeve, or what?

 

I must admit to having a fondness for the cartoony version now, seems like an underdog having been usurped by the new hotness!

I literally just designed my own cards and took the text from the Black Box version of the game (which I borrowed from a friend). Had them printed up at a local place then cut and sleeved them all. 

 

It's such a good game, but trying to convince folks to play is a nightmare! It's got such a reputation of being an absolute beast that it frightens people away!

[frumious]

Cool, sounds good.  I've asked a local print shop what the damage would be, I think getting them to print nicely on decent card and then cutting and sleeving is probably quite a good compromise.

 

Maybe the cartoony graphics would help the fear, it seems to approachable!  I found that I was certainly not making optimal moves, but I had a lot of fun getting it completely wrong. 

[phresh]

5 hours ago, frumious said:

I keep being a bit conflicted about Quacks. I definitely enjoy it while I'm playing it, and I like the idea, but the actual bit where you're pushing your luck seems to end up being "OK I'll stop there, that's boring", or "woohoo, here we go, oh I've exploded, now I'm losing forever".  Rarely, "yay, that was a bold and exciting move, now I'm on top".  Might be that I've been playing with some quite risk-averse people, and none of us is a tactical master at the purchasing stage.

 

None of that stops the core mechanics being fun though!  

 

I've only played a few games but I think all push your luck games benefit from a group with at least one all or nothing 'wildcard' player to encourage the others. I didn't think the explosions were too bad, you probably only lose out on victory points, and you'll get the rats tail advantage on the next round as well assuming you're not in first. Hoping to get a few games in tonight with 4 of us so interested to see how that plays out.

[phresh]

Didn't manage to get that game of Quacks in but did play Men at Work again. Can't remember if i've mentioned it before in here but it's a great dexterity game, the handful of games we've played so far have nearly all descended into tears of laughter. Might take a game just to get a feel for the pieces, and games tend to take few rounds to get interesting but the pay off is absolutely worth it. 

 

Had our first game of the new Azul (Queen's Garden) last night, and while at first glance it looks a bit complicated, the actual rules are simple - just the way the tiles work can be a bit confusing in the heat of battle gardening. The mechanics are all similar to the other games, with the main difference being that tiles are revealed more gradually in each round This means you don't know what tiles are necessarily coming up and so strategically it feels a bit more on the fly than some of the other versions. Enjoyed it though and will definitely end up in rotation!

 

I have two complaints though - the tiles are in 6 colours, blue, yellow and then dark/light green and dark/light purple, which requires just that little bit too much effort to differentiate, especially as the same colours are printed on some of the card pieces which aren't a perfect match. It's not a game breaker by any means (although anyone with colour blindness around green/purple would have a nightmare I imagine), but seems like an aesthetic decision that does slightly hinder it. Secondly, the boards are now thinner card rather than board so feel a bit cheap, I assume this is a cost decision but they feel a bit cheap compared to all the other components.