OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

[Fardaza]

Some first impressions of Arcs,

The campaign looks like a lot of fun, but I'm not sure that I'll be able to commit a full day it any time soon.

Can you play the campaign in several shorter sittings?

[AWS260]

I'm pretty sure you can, yeah.

[Skinypupy]

Friend I hadn't seen in a while was in town the last couple days, so we got some solid gaming in.

- Dwellings of Eldervale: This continues to be a top 5, maybe a top 3 game for me. Just an absolutely superb mix of worker placement, area control, cardplay, and strategic thinking. Every single decision you make in the game feels weighty. We ended up playing a very close game, with him winning by one single point on a "hail mary" magic card draw attempt on the very last turn of the game. I simply adore this game.

- Roll Player: This wasn't originally in the plan, but he mentioned that he was interested in it so we gave it a shot. I kinda forgot how much fun this one could be, especially with the Monsters & Minions xpac. It's wonderfully thematic and connects at a fundamental level with those who have been playing RPG's their entire lives. Puzzling how how to effectively manipulate the dice is just thinky enough without being overwhelming.

- Return to Dark Tower: I have really only played this solo, and this was the first time I was able to bring in another player. While it's a good solo game, it's a great co-op game. It all depends your tolerance for app-driven games, but if that's not a deal-breaker, the technology is very cool. I do see how it could get repetitive if you played it a ton, but I doubt I'll ever get to that point. He had to leave to catch a flight at 9:30, and we took down the final boss in a desparate zerg blitz at 9:31. It was a pretty awesome adrenaline rush.

I kinda forgot how much fun it is to play with other people that aren't my kids. Playing with the kids are great, but only the Wonder Twins 11.0 will play anything with me anymore. It's nice to actually play with other adults.

[AWS260]

- Dwellings of Eldervale: This continues to be a top 5, maybe a top 3 game for me. Just an absolutely superb mix of worker placement, area control, cardplay, and strategic thinking. Every single decision you make in the game feels weighty. We ended up playing a very close game, with him winning by one single point on a "hail mary" magic card draw attempt on the very last turn of the game. I simply adore this game.

I'd really like to try this, but no one in my gaming group has a copy and I don't have space for that big box. Someday.

[Zarathud]

I played Eldervale with hepcat at GenCon last year. It was all right, but really much bigger than it needed to be. I was pretty happy I had that rare moment of restraint when the kickstarter came around.

[Skinypupy]

Quick question for folks who play Tanares Adventures/Arena the Contest with less than four people. Do you control one character and use "Comrade" cards for the rest? Or do you control multiple full characters?

Using Comrades feels incredibly basic (maybe they get better later on) but it seems like actively running multiple characters would get overwhelming pretty quickly. Not to mention simply running out of table space.

Just curious how others are managing it.

[tylertoo]

It's too freakin' hot to go outside this weekend, so I intend to play the solo-able RPG Dragonbane. My first two attempts at the initial solo mission ended in defeat, but that was with a pretty weak mallard character, so I'm going to try an elf with range abilities this time.

[AWS260]

Last night I got Triomphe a Marengo to the table for the first time. It was very much a learning game for both of us. Triomphe isn't particularly complicated, it's just... different. The map system is pretty amazing: you're playing on a historical map that's been divided into polygons of various shapes and sizes, and you're maneuvering through those locales to meet and outflank the opposing force.

In our game, which I am certain was played sub-optimally, the French did a decent job of bottling up the Austrians in the east, but a handful of Austrian elements made it around the flanks to disrupt the French rear. French reinforcement arrived just in time to destroy those Austrian marauders and preserve a victory.

[LordMortis]

Learning Odin's Feast and Viticulture on BGA. Both are worker placement games. OF intrigues me. VC seems at the surface it's the luck of the draw on how goes first and which spring/autumn cards you draw. I'm going to play them both a bit more to get a better feel. I can see enjoying OF for a bit and leaving VC behind but I'm trying to give it a better chance. It's not too uncommon for me not to get a game well enough to appreciate until I've played it a bit.

[Skinypupy]

Trying to decide how I feel about Taranes Ultimate.

On the one hand, the combat system is pretty awesome. It's simple enough to flow quickly without too much fiddling, but has enough flexibility to make for some really interesting battles.

One the other hand, the game doesn't scale to anything less that 4 players. So you're left either trying to manage multiple heroes (which is close to overwhelming...at least early on) or playing with "Comrades" that run a very streamlined set of skills that takes out lots of the individual flavor of each character.

On the other hand, the theme is great, there are a ton of really unique heroes and mobs to choose from, and the whole thing feels really grandiose and epic.

On the other hand, setting up each scenario takes a really long time finding all the bits and bobs. Finding all the cards and dashboards used for the different characters is a bit of a chore as well (maybe I'm just spoiled by how easy Tales From the Red Dragon Inn was in this regard. The game often does a terrible job explaining what some of the "if/then" outcomes are that move the scenario forward. I spent nearly 30 minutes reading and re-reading the last scenario before I pieced together what was supposed to happen and where I needed to jump to next in the campaign book as specific enemies were defeated.

On the other hand, it provides a really solid tutorial that eases you into the game mechanics and is easy to learn.

On the other hand, the manual is often incredibly vague or simply leaves out really critical information. One small example: The beginning of the second tutorial mission says "Assign the four heroes you will use for this mission". However, it makes no mention whether or not these four heroes need to be same ones you used in the initial mission or if you are allowed to choose four new heroes. Will I be leveling up four specific heroes throughout the campaign? Or am I free to plug and play new heroes at any time as we go along? No idea. Another example is when the campaign book tells you to "Mark Diplomats and Spies on the campaign sheet after completing this mission". The campaign sheet has multiple boxes with what looks like multiple options to "mark" them with (some have circles, some have stars, some have triangles and these all seem to indicate different things). What, exactly, am I "marking"? No idea.

In summary, there seems to be lots here to like, but just as much that I'm finding to be really frustrating so far. Hoping it gets a little easier to parse as I become more familiar with the structure and flow.

[YellowKing]

Your complaints about the 4 players and the setup is why I haven't finished Oathsworn or Middara yet. I've got to stop buying big-box campaign games that would be much better with a group than solo.

[Fardaza]

I ended up using 2 full characters and 2 companions in Oathsworn, and it worked nicely.

[AWS260]

I recently picked up Tokyo Tsukiji Market in a math trade and played it with my family over the weekend. It's an economic game in which you fish fish from the ocean, sell fish to other players, and then sell the fish you bought from other players to the central market. Basically.

There's a lot more wrapped up in it, since each type of fish has its own market with unique rules. Squid are simple: they sell for a generous flat rate but aren't worth any points at the end of the game. Red Snapper, on the other hand, can't be sold to the market, so you're just holding onto them for endgame points. But their value degrades with each new fish that's bought. Etcetera, etcetera. The crowning moment in our game was when my son crashed the eel market, instantly making my wife's eel holdings near-worthless.

It makes for a very interactive game, since you're reliant on other players' catches to provide fish that you can flip for a profit. And because you set the prices for your own catch, you aim to squeeze as much money as possible from your opponents.

I enjoyed it, and it's really appealing on the table, since every type of fish has a unique meeple (feeple?). I think it would be a bit better at 4-5 players (we played with 3), since there would be more opportunities for interaction and messing with people.

[baelthazar]

I ended up using 2 full characters and 2 companions in Oathsworn, and it worked nicely.

I did this as well. What I love is you can switch them out at any time between missions and it still works. I contemplated going with only one full character and 2 companions, but the 2 full characters wasn't too hard to manage.

Tanares is next on deck for me and I remember playing the Arena version with 4 and it wasn't too overwhelming. But they added a whole lot more since then, so I will see. It seems like they really are trying to capture this as being D&D without the DM, and that means all the fiddly bits as well.

It's why Dungeon Universalis has sat on the shelf unplayed here at the house - I'm too afraid to start it up.

[hepcat]

I ended up using 2 full characters and 2 companions in Oathsworn, and it worked nicely.

I did this as well. What I love is you can switch them out at any time between missions and it still works. I contemplated going with only one full character and 2 companions, but the 2 full characters wasn't too hard to manage.

I thought you had to play with 4 characters total in any combination of full and companions?

It's why Dungeon Universalis has sat on the shelf unplayed here at the house - I'm too afraid to start it up.

DUN is an amazing game, but it does have a learning curve. But you can play it however you'd like. One-off, short campaign, campaign lasting well into your retirement years and then picked up by your children and then their children, etc..

[baelthazar]

I ended up using 2 full characters and 2 companions in Oathsworn, and it worked nicely.

I did this as well. What I love is you can switch them out at any time between missions and it still works. I contemplated going with only one full character and 2 companions, but the 2 full characters wasn't too hard to manage.

I thought you had to play with 4 characters total in any combination of full and companions?

Oops! I meant 3 companions there!

[AWS260]

I just wrapped up a great game of Star Wars: Rebellion. As usual with this game, the outcome hung on a knife's edge. Just as the Empire was about to discover the Rebel base with their massive fleet, the Rebellion launched a sneak attack on the Death Star (well, one of them; the Empire had two by that point). Wedge Antilles landed a "one in a million" shot to blow up the imperial space station, bringing new hope to the galaxy.

[EzeKieL]

I just wrapped up a great game of Star Wars: Rebellion. As usual with this game, the outcome hung on a knife's edge. Just as the Empire was about to discover the Rebel base with their massive fleet, the Rebellion launched a sneak attack on the Death Star (well, one of them; the Empire had two by that point). Wedge Antilles landed a "one in a million" shot to blow up the imperial space station, bringing new hope to the galaxy.

So you only need to blow up one to win? Even though they had 2 at that point?

[Skinypupy]

I had to admit today that Tanares Adventures was simply too much for me right now. I just can't devote the brain cells required to really give it a fair shake, and I left each attempt at it frustrated and annoyed. I'm guessing it will be a great "I have a ton of time to dedicate to this" campaign if/when that situation ever happens in my life. With great reluctance (and a bit of shame), I boxed the $200+ brand new game back up after only getting through three scenarios.

On the plus side, I did finally take Roll Player Adventures off the shelf of shame where it had been sitting since Christmas morning. Played through the first scenario and really enjoyed it. It's quite simple (rule book is 20 pages, compared to Tanares' 80) and I'm very familiar with the original game so lots of it already makes sense to me. It's got a big chunk of both luck and strategic dice manipulation, which seems like it'll be quite fun. I got pretty lucky on my first attempt (drew out the colors I needed for each check) which I'm sure won't happen every time. The branching story makes for some interesting decisions and while it's nothing fancy, it establishes just enough of a story and world to be really cool. First impressions were great, and it's definitely a game that is more my pace at the moment.

[Zarathud]

The second Death Star remains in play until the third movie.

[EzeKieL]

I had to admit today that Tanares Adventures was simply too much for me right now. I just can't devote the brain cells required to really give it a fair shake, and I left each attempt at it frustrated and annoyed. I'm guessing it will be a great "I have a ton of time to dedicate to this" campaign if/when that situation ever happens in my life. With great reluctance (and a bit of shame), I boxed the $200+ brand new game back up after only getting through three scenarios.

On the plus side, I did finally take Roll Player Adventures off the shelf of shame where it had been sitting since Christmas morning. Played through the first scenario and really enjoyed it. It's quite simple (rule book is 20 pages, compared to Tanares' 80) and I'm very familiar with the original game so lots of it already makes sense to me. It's got a big chunk of both luck and strategic dice manipulation, which seems like it'll be quite fun. I got pretty lucky on my first attempt (drew out the colors I needed for each check) which I'm sure won't happen every time. The branching story makes for some interesting decisions and while it's nothing fancy, it establishes just enough of a story and world to be really cool. First impressions were great, and it's definitely a game that is more my pace at the moment.

If you want a harder challenge you can first play Roll Player and then import that character
I did that, not knowing it's not recommended, and ended up with a janky yet thematic character . it worked out though!

The two vids:

Spoiler:

Roll Player:

Roll Player Adventures, first scenario:

[Fardaza]

On the plus side, I did finally take Roll Player Adventures off the shelf of shame where it had been sitting since Christmas morning. Played through the first scenario and really enjoyed it. It's quite simple (rule book is 20 pages, compared to Tanares' 80) and I'm very familiar with the original game so lots of it already makes sense to me. It's got a big chunk of both luck and strategic dice manipulation, which seems like it'll be quite fun. I got pretty lucky on my first attempt (drew out the colors I needed for each check) which I'm sure won't happen every time. The branching story makes for some interesting decisions and while it's nothing fancy, it establishes just enough of a story and world to be really cool. First impressions were great, and it's definitely a game that is more my pace at the moment.

I never finished this game after about 10 sessions with it. I really enjoyed it, but haven't taken it back down off the shelf. How many characters are you playing? I was using a gnome magician and a dragonkin warlord.

[Skinypupy]

On the plus side, I did finally take Roll Player Adventures off the shelf of shame where it had been sitting since Christmas morning. Played through the first scenario and really enjoyed it. It's quite simple (rule book is 20 pages, compared to Tanares' 80) and I'm very familiar with the original game so lots of it already makes sense to me. It's got a big chunk of both luck and strategic dice manipulation, which seems like it'll be quite fun. I got pretty lucky on my first attempt (drew out the colors I needed for each check) which I'm sure won't happen every time. The branching story makes for some interesting decisions and while it's nothing fancy, it establishes just enough of a story and world to be really cool. First impressions were great, and it's definitely a game that is more my pace at the moment.

I never finished this game after about 10 sessions with it. I really enjoyed it, but haven't taken it back down off the shelf. How many characters are you playing? I was using a gnome magician and a dragonkin warlord.

I'm running with two: an Orc Paladin and a Kaiika (bird person) Druid, both pre-generated. Seems to be a decent balance, but we'll see.

If you want a harder challenge you can first play Roll Player and then import that character
I did that, not knowing it's not recommended, and ended up with a janky yet thematic character . it worked out though!

Playing it was actually prompted by the original Roll Player session with my friend a couple weeks ago. He said he wanted to try and play imported characters in RPA next time he came out here.

Good to know it's about as janky as I expected it would be.

[AWS260]

I just wrapped up a great game of Star Wars: Rebellion. As usual with this game, the outcome hung on a knife's edge. Just as the Empire was about to discover the Rebel base with their massive fleet, the Rebellion launched a sneak attack on the Death Star (well, one of them; the Empire had two by that point). Wedge Antilles landed a "one in a million" shot to blow up the imperial space station, bringing new hope to the galaxy.

So you only need to blow up one to win? Even though they had 2 at that point?

Star Wars Rebellion works on a timer: the Empire has a certain number of turns to sniff out and destroy the Rebel base. The Rebels can complete objectives that shorten this timer, and blowing up a Death Star is one of those objectives. In this case, the Empire would have had one more turn to crush the Rebels, but the Rebel's successful sneak attack brought the timer down to zero, ending the game immediately.

[Fardaza]

If you want a harder challenge you can first play Roll Player and then import that character
I did that, not knowing it's not recommended, and ended up with a janky yet thematic character . it worked out though!

Playing it was actually prompted by the original Roll Player session with my friend a couple weeks ago. He said he wanted to try and play imported characters in RPA next time he came out here.

Good to know it's about as janky as I expected it would be.

It's not so much that it's janky as that you need a REALLY STRONG character generation. You need one of the best sets of rolls, skills, and item buys that you can get for it to be truly successful in RPA. Otherwise, you may as well use one of the characters provided by RPA.

The pre-genned characters in RPA are simply better than ones created in Roll Player.

[EzeKieL]

Yeah, I agree but it's also just fun to play RP first and then import it , janky or not ^^.

[Fardaza]

Probably true. Didn't try it that way.

[LordMortis]

I played with people other than the normal 1-3 people I've mostly been playing Terraforming Mars with with for the last 5+ years yesterday. I watch most of a game of From the Moon and learned Aquatica and Terra Nova. It was about a six hour session and I didn't get home until 2130. I placed last in both games but it was so nice to be among different faces, even if I slept with anxiety all night. Here's to hoping this is a sign that I'm moving past COVID and medical keeping my home and I can slowly and with trepidation re integrate into humanity.

[AWS260]

That's awesome, LM!

[hepcat]

On Memorial Day I played a 2v2 scenario of Burning Banners, a new fantasy wargame. A friend described it as a "beer-and-pretzels" wargame, which sounds about right. Lots of dice-chucking and balance-shattering spells, so can never count on succeeding in an attack.

The most impressive aspect, beyond the hand-drawn Tolkien-esque map, is the asymmetric factions. The Empire starts with enormous resources, but is constantly draining its treasury to suppress internal revolts. The Orcs pay a penalty for controlling settlements, which forces them to constantly expand, leaving razed cities in their wake. Etcetera.

It's a lengthy game - our six-round session took about 6 hours, including a lunch break - but really dynamic and fun.

I picked this up on my birthday last week as a present to myself. It’s a beautiful game. High quality components throughout. Started a solo play of the intro scenario and I’m already itching to go to the advanced rules.

[AWS260]

Oh, that's great. I haven't had a chance to play it since (the friend who owns it had a baby in the meantime), but I think it has a lot of legs.

[hepcat]

The only things I'm struggling with are the terrain icons on the map (they can be a bit confusing) and the "postures" of settlements (I find it hard trying to remember when I raze or when I control based on those). But other than that, it plays great so far!

[hentzau]

Dusted off (literally) Shadows of Brimstone last night. It was a 2 player re-learning game, and it was pretty rough. We didn't make it more than about 4 levels into the mine before the Darkness caught up with us, and we had a major fight that took out one of our characters so we ended up retreating at that point (it was late as well.)

When we were putting stuff away (I took my sets over to my buddy Tommy's house) we took a moment to do some sorting of the components and man, I have completely lost track of everything that I have for this game. I still had a bunch of stuff that I didn't bring over, but I brough over both of my core sets, along with some of the additional characters, but no expansions of enemies or any of the big set add-ons, yet somehow I seem to have 3 sets of the base core cards and reference cards and the like. I only own 2 core sets, so I don't know where the other core set cards and reference cards came from. Weird.

[hepcat]

Upgrade kit? I know I have a baggie full of cards I'm supposed to swap with the original cards in my base set(s). I just haven't got around to it because I have 4,328 other dungeon crawlers I'm currently playing.

[hentzau]

Upgrade kit? I know I have a baggie full of cards I'm supposed to swap with the original cards in my base set(s). I just haven't got around to it because I have 4,328 other dungeon crawlers I'm currently playing.

That's the only thing I can think of, but I didn't see any real differences in any of the cards I looked at.

[Smoove_B]

That's the only thing I can think of, but I didn't see any real differences in any of the cards I looked at.

I think some of them were really subtle changes - like making sure card was "square" in the printing or that it included a correct super tiny identifying label at the bottom (the set it came from).

I need to get back into Brimstone.

Managed to play a tutorial game of The Doomed with my buddy last night - he ran the enemy rolls while I showed him how to solo play. By the end, he was more or less just playing the enemy faction. It's a great game. It did not end well for me.

[hepcat]

Saturday I broke out Burning Banners and Undaunted: Stalingrad for a two player game day.

First, we played the tutorial scenario in Burning Banners to get the rules down for the basic game. It's incredibly unbalanced for the Oathborn (dwarves) in favor of the Fjordlanders (viking types), but it's only 3 seasons (turns) and is meant to teach you the game. We only played two of the turns though because we felt comfortable with the rules for the basic game after that.

Then we dove into the advanced game, which is where it really shines for me. I love the magic, the heroes, the blessings and the monsters you can fight for gold in addition to going for your main objective. We did a Goblins vs. Orcs scenario and I lost by turn 4 of 5. Mainly because I didn't expand as quickly as the Orcs (not expanding quickly is also why I lose in Undaunted: Stalingrad later). But I loved the game all the same. It has confusing erratas right now, as older ones get contradicted by newer ones, then contradicted again later on BGG. They really needed to play test it more and polish up the rulebook more. But I guess that's an ongoing issue with Compass games in general. I always feel disappointed when I realized I've bought a first edition of something that will most likely be corrected in a follow up edition or two. So I hope they offer an upgrade option for future editions.

BB is old school wargaming with some nice quality of life updates and thematic ameritrash stuff thrown into the mix. The only thing I found troublesome was remembering how settlements and cities "worked". They have two "postures" which are welcoming and hostile. But they also have such settings as loyal and neutral. All these things determine what happens when you attack it/move into it with your units. And the interplay is a bit much. A loyal settlement can be looted and controlled by an enemy, but only controlled by a faction that it's loyal to (which really only comes into play when a loyal settlement has been taken over by an enemy player). Then there are rules on razing them, etc.. It can be a bit much, to be honest. I really hope they clean that up in future editions.

But overall, I really like it. It's a fantastic beer and pretzels wargame for a day of dice chucking. And you can play up to six when combing the four large mounted map boards into one huge one. Sure, it's team play, but each player gets their own turn/economy, so it doesn't feel as if you're forcing multiplayer into a two player game, from what I can see.

Then we broke out Undaunted: Stalingrad. This one is just amazing. The whole thing is a masterpiece. I won't spoil it since it's a campaign game, but the way it handles casualties, upgrades, etc is fantastic. I lost (again) because I didn't venture out fast and far enough when I obviously should have. But I still had a blast with it. I cannot recommend it enough. And at only 15 scenarios for the campaign, it's not a year long game. Also, you can reset the game VERY easily and switch sides to play again. Furthermore, wins/losses change the city of Stalingrad and your goals as you play, so no two game will be alike for quite some time, I imagine.

[Fardaza]

But overall, I really like it. It's a fantastic beer and pretzels wargame for a day of dice chucking. And you can play up to six when combing the four large mounted map boards into one huge one.

Reminds of when my brother and I would put 6 maps together and play an all-day game of Panzer Leader! Those were truly epic gaming days.

[hepcat]

I spent some time on the Burning Banners board on BGG yesterday speaking with the designer. I don't think they thought through all the permutations of settlement/city conquest as they're still changing rules as they go. It didn't need to be this complicated and is really my only complaint about the game. Thankfully, the fix shouldn't require any changes to components, but rather just a decisive and coherent workflow of what happens when a settlement or city is taken over by who does so.

[YellowKing]

Got a chance to play the latest iteration of Horrified, Horrified: World of Monsters.

The original Horrified is one of my all-time favorite co-op games, so I'll always buy every iteration of Horrified that comes out. However, I do feel the series has slowly declined in quality over time.

World of Monsters introduces The Sphinx, The Yeti, The Jiangshi, and Cthulhu. Defeating the Sphinx requires a math game where items on his mat must add up correctly in rows and columns. The Yeti requires guiding his children home to his lair. The Jiangshi is a Tetris-esque puzzle, and Cthulhu, arguably the most interesting of the four, utilizes a multi-stage mechanism where you must lure him to the center of the board and then ultimately trap him.

If the choice of monsters sounds a bit haphazard, you're right. The game board itself goes for some sort of Steampunk/alt-Victorian style, and for the life of me I could not figure out the overarching theme of the game. Compared to previous Horrifieds (Universal monsters, American cryptids, Greek monsters), this game's theme lacks any cohesion. I think it would have been better served as a Lovecraft-themed game with various monsters from that mythos, as the four monsters in this game seem completely disconnected and random.

Like Greek Monsters, this game utilizes the new lair mechanic in which a creature's lair must first be uncovered before you can start working on defeating them. I wasn't a particular fan of this mechanic in Greek Monsters, and I'm still not in this iteration. I think it just adds another layer of busy work at the start of the game to artificially increase the difficulty, and I find it an annoying task that has to be completed before the real fun of the game begins.

That said, the one positive thing I can say about the later entries is that as monster complexity has gone up, so has the challenge. While I won my first "easy" level game with the Yeti and The Sphinx, it got a little touch and go at times. Adding a third monster to the mix (particularly Cthulhu) can get quite challenging, especially if you randomly choose your player characters like I tend to do.

The game does add one thing that fans have been clamoring for, and that is backwards compatibility. You can mix and match the heroes and monsters from this game with Greek Monsters. However, it is a little clunky in my opinion, and I honestly don't see the point. I imagine this compatibility will get smoothed out in future iterations, but for now it seems like far more hassle than it's worth.

All in all World of Monsters is more of the same from the series. If you're a Horrified fan like me, I can recommend it for Cthulhu, but not for much else. If you're new to the franchise, pass on this and track down a copy of the original instead. And if you own the original but want more, I'd recommend both American Monsters and Greek Monsters over this one, in that order.