OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

[Skinypupy]

I enjoy playing engine builders but holy crap, I am so, so, so terrible at them. Got together with a couple friends last night to play Terraforming Mars and embarrassed myself with a score of 66 (they were both over 90). I typically grok the basic concepts just fine, but my brain simply can't think multiple steps ahead to plan out an efficient engine. Sad part is, I actually thought I was doing pretty well that game...but I ended up as an epic fail.

They suggested Ark Nova for our next session, which is terrifying. The more complex, the worse I typically am. Unfortunately, no one in that group enjoy dungeon crawling, so I'm out of luck.

[Zarathud]

You are like hepcat. He has a dungeon crawler fetish.

Engine builders require you to plan to do a thing, then do the thing. There are lots of ways for it to fall apart. I focus less on my score than whether my engine worked that game.

[hepcat]

You are like hepcat. He has a dungeon crawler fetish.

To be fair, I'm also the guy who plays more heavy GMT games than anyone in our group. And the Pax games, let's not forget how many of those I own. So complexity is not an issue for me if the game gives me a sense of story and theme.

I just don't like victory point salad games all that much, nor do I like heavy euros where the theme is hidden behind the mechanics. If I can see the mechanics without having to think about it, it loses my interest fairly quickly.

They suggested Ark Nova for our next session, which is terrifying. The more complex, the worse I typically am. Unfortunately, no one in that group enjoy dungeon crawling, so I'm out of luck.

Relocate to Chicago. Problem solved.

In lieu of that, book a trip to chicago for the fall octocon. I'll bring a ton of dungeon crawlers and we'll just play throughout the entire weekend.

[YellowKing]

but my brain simply can't think multiple steps ahead to plan out an efficient engine.

You hit the nail on the head on why I play co-op games almost exclusively. For me I don't think it's that I *can't* think several steps ahead, it's just that I don't have the patience for it. I was always terrible in chess because I find the "setting up the plan" part of the game so boring. I want immediate decision, immediate results, evaluate, adjust, repeat.

[Isgrimnur]

You are like hepcat. He has a dungeon crawler fetish.

Engine builders require you to plan to do a thing, then do the thing. There are lots of ways for it to fall apart. I focus less on my score than whether my engine worked that game.

It seldom came together and rarely worked when it did, but it was my favorite.

[YellowKing]

I got through the intro round of Invincible: The Hero-Building Game tonight.

Quick impressions - I can't render a full judgment until I actually experience the full game (intro game eliminates some features/powers for simplicity):

- Watching gameplay videos of this really didn't do it justice. Even buying it I was still a little unsure based on the playthroughs I watched, but in practice the bag draw mechanic works REALLY well.

- I've always been a fan of mechanics in which you roll dice (or draw cards, or in this case, draw cubes from a bag), then have to figure out the most efficient use of what you've been given. It's a mechanic that's prevalent in many, many co-op games, but I love how simply it's presented in this one. 3 cubes, that's it. That's what you have to work with every turn, and you have to slot those before you can draw more. It makes the turns fast but still full of agonizing decisions. It reminded me A LOT of The Reckoners, but much more streamlined.

- The deck-building mechanic layered on top of the above mechanic is the *chef's kiss* that really elevates this game, because it ties into the bag draw so well. I found myself thinking - sure, I can afford this crazy good power, but do I have the right mix of cubes in my bag to really pull it off that often? Or I really want to get rid of this yellow power because it sucks, but is it worth cashing it in for another yellow cube when my bag is already full of them? There was some really unexpected depth that came to light when it was time to build my power set.

I really like it and I'm looking forward to digging into a proper full game and then on to try the campaign mode. I think it's important to note that I know ZERO about the IP - have never read the comics, never watched the show. Heck, I had never heard of the IP until the game came along. So you can definitely have a good time with this without any familiarity with the characters. (Though I do plan on watching the show now that I'm enjoying the game so much).

Right now I'm playing solo but since you have to play 2-handed anyway I figured I'd post it here instead of the solo thread.

[hepcat]

We lost the tutorial scenario when we played at Gencon. I didn’t level up damage nearly fast enough.

[YellowKing]

I beat the tutorial scenario pretty handily, though it did take me the full 5 rounds. I know enemy HP scales down as player count goes down, but I don't know how that translates in real gameplay terms. Some games scale more smoothly than others.

I could have gotten lucky on bag draws as well. I only crashed once, and I probably deserved it for being a little reckless.

[Edit] Just tried the second scenario and OUCH. That escalated quickly.

[YellowKing]

Ok, final thoughts on Invincible now that I've had several full scenarios under my belt with the full ruleset:

- This game is REALLY challenging, but I also think it's nicely balanced. I won the second scenario by the skin of my teeth in the last round. I lost the third scenario by the skin of my teeth in the last round. I always feel pretty good about games that consistently come down to the wire. However, I haven't felt that the game was unfairly pushing me to that wire; I feel I have plenty of room for improvement as a player to better my chances.

- Scenarios feel really different from each other, which is cool. Especially when playing through them as a campaign. It's not just "new boss with different abilities." Some scenarios will really focus on thwarting, some really focus on rescuing civilians, some are more damage driven. Each scenario so far has forced me to formulate an entirely different strategy from the previous one.

- The heroes feel nicely balanced as well. While the "focus" of certain scenarios certainly makes picking certain heroes more advantageous, I haven't felt like any of them absolutely require a certain hero in order to win. I really enjoy all the heroes in their own way. In fact, I consider them all so equally viable that most of my plays I just picked two at random.

It's a great little game. It's relatively inexpensive ($55), and the components are perfectly fine where it matters. To me it scratches the itch of both Marvel Champions and Marvel United, but I honestly find the mechanics more enjoyable than either of those games. My only (minor) concern is extended replayability since there are only 7 included scenarios (and one is very much a tutorial), but Dire Wolf has already released an 8th scenario in their app, so we may be getting more content delivered that way until a proper expansion comes along.

Even with the limited number of scenarios, however, there are enough ways to tweak the game (playing on hardcore difficulty, using challenge and hero cards to adjust difficulty) that I could see running through the campaign with different heroes or different difficulty levels and still having a great time on a repeat play. Big thumbs up from me.

[Skinypupy]

I've jumped back into Massive Darkness 2. This game has so many things I like with lots of dice chucking, amazing minis, fantasy theme, and a fun combat and progression system. I really love the fact that you can often level multiple times over the course of a single session and that you actually get to use the massive boss minis before getting to the end of a long campaign (that I usually never get to).

Has anyone tried the Heavenfall campaign for this one? I'm very tempted but wondering if it's worth the extra $50.

The only thing I don't like is the Darkness track "timer". It ends up spawning so many mobs so quickly that it's pretty much impossible to keep up. Almost every single scenario ends with me getting overwhelmed and simply running for the exit to try and escape before I get buried under a zerg rush. You never get to actually enjoy the fun combat because you constantly end up running for your life. I'm playing around with house-rule adjustments to the Darkness track so it activates every other turn instead of every turn. That would at least give some time to battle without getting overwhelmed so quickly.

I also find that it can be tough to create character synergies. Most characters are very squishy, and there's really only a couple "tanks" available. You're almost forced to play with one of them, otherwise you run the risk of getting one shot by pretty much everything. I need to check out some of the xpac classes and see if there's any that look cool to grab.

[Skinypupy]

I had never played Heroscape, but tried it at GenCon and liked it enough to come home with the small starter set. My brother collected a ton of Heroscape stuff during the original run, and surprised me by sending a HUGE box of duplicate minis and terrain he'd gathered over the years. It was like opening a huge treasure box with the kids last night.

I put up a big table in the playroom and the Wonder Twins 11.3 started building a map around 8:00 this morning. It's now well after noon and they're still in the midst of a massive campaign, with minis, character cards, and dice spread out all over the table. I asked how it was going, and one of them said "Don't bug us dad, we need all our concentration for this!"

At first glance, I'd say Heroscape is a huge success.

[hepcat]

That's great!

[Holman]

Some first impressions of Arcs, the new four-letter game from the company that brought you Root, Oath, Ahoy, Boob, Fort, and Vast (one of those may be made up):

• The action selection, which is loosely based on trick-taking, does a nice job of offering flexibility while constantly requiring compromise. I like it a lot.

• How you feel about the area control element will very much depend on whether you like area control and dice-driven combat. I found it pretty fun and exciting, with a lot above-the-board politicking to encourage other players to go beat up someone else. Another player in our game does not like this stuff and did not like Arcs

• It's a long game. It took us 3.5 hours, not including the teach. I think that can come down a lot with experience, but it's never going to be short. Playing the three-game campaign would be a real commitment.

I definitely want to play more, to wrap my head around it further and form more concrete opinions. 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.

Played my first game of Arcs today with my boys (20 and 18) and my wife. 20yo was the only one who had reads the rules, but he did a good job of explaining it. The rest of us picked it up pretty quickly, mainly because the core gameplay is pretty simple: it's not only less complex than Oath but actually less complex than Root, mainly because there's less asymmetry involved.

It moves fast once everyone groks the systems. Number-One Son won the game during scoring at the end of the fourth (out of a possible five) chapters, with the whole game taking about 2.5 hours. Once we all knew how things worked, the last two chapters took about 20 minutes each. I could see experienced players doing a full game in two hours or so.

We all had fun! It's a game that produces its own narrative, and the artwork sets a great tone.

[Skinypupy]

Imperial Assault got back to the table this weekend. The initial campaign is still my absolute favorite. I picked up the Return to Hoth xpac but never got very far into it. I proceeded to absolutely get my ass handed to me twice on the very first scenario. Thinking that I may need to read back up on strategies because, whew...that was rough.

Picked up Fire Tower after playing it at GenCon, which is very simple but is a total blast. The kids had fun ganging up to burn down dad's tower as fast as possible. The fire gems also make it a really stunning looking game on the table.

[hentzau]

I had never played Heroscape, but tried it at GenCon and liked it enough to come home with the small starter set. My brother collected a ton of Heroscape stuff during the original run, and surprised me by sending a HUGE box of duplicate minis and terrain he'd gathered over the years. It was like opening a huge treasure box with the kids last night.

I put up a big table in the playroom and the Wonder Twins 11.3 started building a map around 8:00 this morning. It's now well after noon and they're still in the midst of a massive campaign, with minis, character cards, and dice spread out all over the table. I asked how it was going, and one of them said "Don't bug us dad, we need all our concentration for this!"

At first glance, I'd say Heroscape is a huge success.

Heroscape was the start of the Chicago gaming groups and over 10 years of Octocons.

[AWS260]

Played my first game of Arcs today with my boys (20 and 18) and my wife. 20yo was the only one who had reads the rules, but he did a good job of explaining it. The rest of us picked it up pretty quickly, mainly because the core gameplay is pretty simple: it's not only less complex than Oath but actually less complex than Root, mainly because there's less asymmetry involved

I played the first game of a three-game Arcs campaign today. It's a lot more to keep in your head than the base game; at least on the scale of Oath and maybe a bit more. I would definitely play base Arcs (or with the Leaders & Lore mini-expansion) a few times before trying a campaign game.

That caveat aside, it was really interesting to see how the sharp asymmetry in the campaign changes up the gameplay. I played the Founder, whose goal is to leave the empire and start a new collective of systems outside of imperial control. Which is why I ended up sprawled across several systems on the opposite side of the map from where the empire started. Unfortunately, I didn't achieve my objective, while another player dominated and ended up far ahead of the rest of us. We'll have to try to close the gap in the last two games.

Because I didn't meet my objective as the Founder, I have to switch to a new role in game two. I will become the Pathfinder, abandoning the planets I control to fly about the galaxy in a massive flagship, searching for a mysterious portal.

[AWS260]

Played a little Flamme Rouge as well (props to my son for making this during our game without anyone noticing).

[Holman]

Played my first game of Arcs today with my boys (20 and 18) and my wife. 20yo was the only one who had reads the rules, but he did a good job of explaining it. The rest of us picked it up pretty quickly, mainly because the core gameplay is pretty simple: it's not only less complex than Oath but actually less complex than Root, mainly because there's less asymmetry involved

I played the first game of a three-game Arcs campaign today. It's a lot more to keep in your head than the base game; at least on the scale of Oath and maybe a bit more. I would definitely play base Arcs (or with the Leaders & Lore mini-expansion) a few times before trying a campaign game.

That caveat aside, it was really interesting to see how the sharp asymmetry in the campaign changes up the gameplay. I played the Founder, whose goal is to leave the empire and start a new collective of systems outside of imperial control. Which is why I ended up sprawled across several systems on the opposite side of the map from where the empire started. Unfortunately, I didn't achieve my objective, while another player dominated and ended up far ahead of the rest of us. We'll have to try to close the gap in the last two games.

Because I didn't meet my objective as the Founder, I have to switch to a new role in game two. I will become the Pathfinder, abandoning the planets I control to fly about the galaxy in a massive flagship, searching for a mysterious portal.

Interesting!

I didn't specify it, but I should say that my experience has only been with the base game.

[Skinypupy]

I really like the idea and the randomness of Clank Catacombs. However, every single time we've played, the randomly generated modular board has built out to where it spreads off the sides either of my decently sized gaming tables. We then have to awkwardly try and reposition the entire setup so it actually fits.

Really bogs down the game, imo.

[YellowKing]

Long post, but time to recap the last two-day gaming marathon. With the holiday weekend as an excuse, my buddy and I both took 2 days off work to do nothing but play boardgames from our backlog. We got to play three titles extensively: Sky Team, The Invincibles, and Tesseract.

The Invincibles - I'm not going to discuss this one in-depth because I've already given my impressions in the solo threads. Suffice it to say it's a fantastic game with deck-building, draw bag, action efficiency, and push your luck mechanics. It's also a difficult game - we beat the first two scenarios but got stuck on Scenario 3 with 3 failures (though I have beat it solo so I know it's possible!) Terry liked it so much he wants to keep playing through the campaign the next time we do one of these marathon sessions.

Tesseract - Tesseract is a cooperative game in which a large cube from space (made of 64 dice) threatens to destroy the world unless the scientists (you) can safely dismantle it. You do so by collecting dice from the tesseract and forming sets in sequence or 3+ of a kind, in either the same color or all different colors. When a set is completed, one die from that set can be "contained" and placed on a mat with all 24 possible die face/color values. Players win by containing all 24 face values. Players lose if they suffer 7 or more "breaches," or run out of cubes in the tesseract before containment.

I won't go into full rules detail, but like most co-op games there is a threat phase after each player turn in which bad things happen. Action efficiency is crucial, and there are a LOT of crunchy decisions to make. Characters have special powers, and there are a lot of various "research cards" that can be obtained to help contain the tesseract. So there are lots of mechanics that will be familiar to players of games like Pandemic.

The real "gimmick" of this one is the tesseract itself, which is built of 64 actual dice that have to be removed. There's a quite clever little lazy Susan setup that makes it easy to rotate and see all of the cube sides. My buddy had upgraded to the deluxe $60 metal dice set, so it was quite a solid little brick when built. Still, as you might imagine you had to be fairly careful when removing dice not to knock dice out of place or disrupt the structure.

We only got one game in of this one, but we did win and I enjoyed it a great deal. The co-op element is extremely strong, with a lot of communication necessary between players and tons of difficult decisions to make. I will say that even though I had a blast with it, and I think it's a great game, it didn't quite rise to the level of me feeling I needed to own it. It's not one I think I'd want to go through the trouble of setting up for solo play. But with a group that enjoys co-op games it's certainly unique, very brain-burnery, and looks impressive on the table.

Sky Team - This, to me, was the standout game of the marathon. Sky Team is a 2-player only game in which you play as a pilot and co-pilot attempting to land a plane at various airports. To do this, you'll roll 4 dice (in secret), then take turns placing them to control things like engine speed, banking, landing gear, flaps, and radioing ahead to clear other planes from the runway. The trick is that because the other player's dice are hidden, and direct communication about dice values is not allowed, you're really having to trust in your partner not only to handle their specific jobs, but also to make it as easy as possible to do the mandatory actions (airplane level and engine speed).

The game comes with various airports that are easier or more difficult depending on length of the approach (which may require speeding up or slowing down), number of airplanes in your way, or specific banking needed to approach them. In every round, airplane level (banking) and engine speed MUST be done. That leaves only 2 of your 4 dice available to handle things like clearing other planes, deploying flaps and landing gear, etc. Dice value differentials between the two banking slots dictate how far the plane will bank in either direction, whereas the sum of the engine speed dice values will determine whether the plane stays steady, goes slow, or speeds up.

To successfully land the plane and win, all 3 landing gear must be deployed, all 4 flaps deployed, the plane must be level, and the engine speed must be less than the brake level. Much easier said than done.
 
Coffee is HUGE in this game. At any point a die can be used in a "Concentration" slot to brew a cup of joe. That coffee can then be used by either player to adjust a die face value up or down by 1. This becomes your primary dice mitigation tool. There are also re-rolls (though typically this is limited to once per game). And yes, this led to a lot of Airplane jokes such as "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinking coffee."

Thematically the game is just brilliant and let to some tense moments where we were white-knuckling being able to land at the last minute. And absolute hilarity like when I was so focused on our engine speed that we forgot to radio the tower and crashed into two planes on the runway in a fiery ball of catastrophe.

Once you've mastered the basic game, you can then start adding modules (all included). Things like interns (can be used to swap out dice for a different value), kerosene (in which you now have to monitor fuel usage), wind (in which wind can speed or slow your engine speed), or even ice (landing on an icy runway requires a much more difficult application of brakes). There are suggested airports for each type of module, but you can also freely mix and match to raise or lower the difficulty.

The games are very quick (typically around 20 minutes) so we must have easily played 15 or so sessions today. All of the modules added really interesting twists to the gameplay, and even after a dozen games when we were getting really good we still never felt comfortable.

The only downside to the game, of course, is that it's 2-player only so it is a bit of a niche product. People have come up with some homebrew solo modes, but due to the hidden information element it's a bit of a different game and not something I think I would enjoy. If you have a buddy or spouse who likes board games, though, it's an absolute blast. I really had a fantastic time with this one and now understand why it was getting so much buzz and was up for Game of the Year. I love when game mechanics and theme fit together so neatly, and this is one of the best examples in the hobby of how it's done. If you'd told me a game in which you simply place die values could somehow evoke the sheer stress of landing a plane I'd have been skeptical to say the least! Highly recommended.  

[Skinypupy]

Sky Team - This, to me, was the standout game of the marathon.  

I adore this game. Something I didn’t expect at all, as the theme really does nothing for me. The gameplay that ratchets up the tension as you get closer to the end without flipping all the switches or doing all the things coupled with the lack of direct communication is just brilliant.

[Skinypupy]

While I typically avoid Awaken Realms games because I find their complexity to be overwhelming, I had heard good things about Tamashii: Chronicles of the Ascend and was in the mood for something cyberpunky so I grabbed it yesterday. I'm very impressed with it so far, through the first three scenarios.

The main mechanic is the "programming" system. At the start of each turn, you fill up a board with different colored tokens drawn from a bag, and have a certain number of moves to rearrange them match-3 style. Making specific patterns will do different things when you "launch" them later in the turn. Three matching green gains you a shield, three red gets you additional combat dice, three yellow gets you a reroll, etc. You can also create patterns that allow you to hack enemies to do damage or even dismiss them completely, patterns that allow you to gain a new body (think Altered Carbon sleeves), heal, or other things. A huge part of the game is bag building (you can spend points to gain token of different colors or even gain wild tokens) and figuring out how best to manipulate them on the board.

After the programming step, you can move around a randomized tile-based map, completing objectives and triggering different effects. However, each move gains you "trace", which is the amount of attention that Ascend (the evil AI baddie) is paying to you. The higher your trace, the more likely you are to spawn enemy bots or drones to hunt you down. When they trigger, they attach themselves to you, and you have to fight them off one by one using different combat skills. There are four base classes but they have lots of flexibility to add augments that trigger combat effects or jump into a new, more powerful body. There's a Reset system that allows you to respawn a certain number of times when you die (and you'll almost certainly die) at the cost of adding "corrupted tokens" (that take up a space but don't do anything) to your draw bag.

There are eight scenarios in the base game, each driven by a small deck of cards that walk you through the actions. Several of them have branching paths that allow you to make decisions that can impact the win conditions and unlock new skills, augments, bodies, or enemies. The story isn't anything special (you wake up in a new body with amnesia) but it's interesting enough. It is a bit odd though that you can do all the scenarios except the Prologue and the final boss battle in any order. It makes the whole thing feel a bit disjointed, but I'm mostly just viewing each one as it's own standalone adventure and having fun with it. They range from 45 minutes for the short ones to 2 hours for the longer ones.

Plays great solo, with a little bot that runs around and helps you collect things, discover tiles, or trigger effects. Super simple and easy to play.

I thought that maybe the whole programming thing would wear thin quickly, but it's really a fun system. There's lots of really chunky decisions that you have to make in how you build your programming bag to trigger the effects you want while balancing the pretty demanding scenario requirements. There is definitely a fair bit of luck involved with both dice rolling and token drafting. I managed to spawn three enemies who all rolled crits, which ended my last game pretty quickly. That said, it rarely feels overwhelming or unfair. I find that it has a really good balance of complexity for my tastes. It's not a thousand checklists (like the ISS Vanguard binder), but there's enough steps to make you feel like you've really accomplished something when you win.

I wasn't expecting to like this one as much as I do. I even went back to my local store and picked up the Lost Pages xpac that same day because I figured I was going to want more.

(One thing to note. Unless you’re really dying for some cyberpunk minis to use in other games, you definitely do not need to shell out $$ for the xpac pack of minis. You barely use them all during gameplay)

[hentzau]

Broke out D-Day Dice last night. The plan was to use the large Campaign neoprene map that I got the last DDD kickstartrer, but I only had the 1st edition rules with me, so I didn't have the Overlord rules, and we had to fall back to just playing regular DDD. We decided to challenge ourselves so went with a tougher map, and boy howdy was it tough. We played Omaha Beach II about 5 times before we were finally able to eek out a victory.

Have plans to try and do a full campaign sometime in the future.

[AWS260]

I took Deep Shelf for a spin on Sunday, playing a two-handed learning game.



The learning game was definitely needed -- this has a lot going on, a lot of iconography, and it's not immediately obvious how the different elements interact. I'm still mulling how best to teach it to others, because I think some of my friends will really like it if they don't get hung up on the learning curve.

Deep Shelf does a great job of weaving together three of the four Xs: explore, expand, exploit. No exterminating, unless the count the extermination of the ocean ecosystem as you strip it of its riches.

Like a lot of resource-heavy eurogames, you are constantly trying to optimize your efficiency. Should you accumulate raw ore on the ocean floor to refine en masse with your underwater smelter? Or bring it to the surface first, where refining is less efficient but the refined ore will be immediately available to buy tech upgrades? There's rarely an obvious answer (at least to me).

The asymmetric factions don't determine your destiny, but they do strongly influence your playstyle and decision-making. I played Cogent Industrial, which is all about maximum resource extraction, versus Mobius Incorporated, which favors the deepest parts of the ocean. They focused on very different scoring goals, but ended up just a point apart in the end. I don't think I played either faction well, but at least I played them equally incompetently.

Because of the complexity, Deep Shelf definitely isn't a game for everyone -- I think some people who come to it from Dinogenics will bounce off -- but I really enjoyed this learning game and am looking forward to more.

Congrats to @lordnine! It's an amazing achievement.

[hepcat]

I picked up Undaunted: Callisto, the science fiction entry in the Undaunted series. Haven’t gotten to it yet, but I laughed when I realized Turczi’s solo rulebook is 3 times larger than the rulebook.

Speaking of Undaunted, I’m in a campaign of Undaunted: Stalingrad with Seppe. We’re 3 scenarios in. The game has received a ton of accolades…and they’re all well deserved. The game is absolutely fantastic. The casualties matter (they force you to replace soldier cards with reservists who are raw and untalented), the upgrades are substantial, and the scenarios are all unique and fun with new mechanics oftentimes.

[Isgrimnur]

Fantasy Flight Games revealed Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Expansion, for Marvel Champions: The Card Game, which will hit retail on February 21, 2025.

Some of these characters include Maria Hill and Nick Fury, each as playable heroes with a pre-constructed deck that comes ready to play. The box comes with five new scenarios where players battle the minions and mad scientists of A.I.M., Black Widow (Yelena Belova), the mercenary Batroc, and M.O.D.O.K.

[$iljanus]

I picked up Undaunted: Callisto, the science fiction entry in the Undaunted series. Haven’t gotten to it yet, but I laughed when I realized Turczi’s solo rulebook is 3 times larger than the rulebook.

Not to fear! The size is due to all the scenarios being included in the solo book with the AI flowcharts for each scenario. I really liked playing Undaunted Normandy with the Reinforcements expansion (I have to break out North Africa) so it was pretty easy getting started with Callisto. Big fan of the elevation rules which makes you be a little more aggressive in order to capture the high ground. Just playing scenario 1 right now but looking forward to various missions where you're rescuing captives and other unique objectives.

On the side of the workers but since the corporate thugs have mechs I'm going to have to get my oppression on and try that side out.

[hepcat]

I played the first scenario solo (as the miners) weekend before last and absolutely loved it. The only thing I'm not a fan of is breaking down your supply into two "forces" which is there solely for deployment and/or 4 player games, I believe. Other than that, it's smooth as butter and fun as hell.

[Skinypupy]

Finally got around to trying Ark Nova this afternoon. I initially thought I would hate it, since a) my head was spinning from the 30 minute teach and b) the theme does nothing for me. I was really surprised to find how much I enjoyed it. It wasn't nearly as complex as it originally looks and I loved how quickly the turns progressed and the game flowed (I hate sitting around while other people take forever to take their turns). I ended up building a semi-competent engine, coming in 2nd (of 3) only because of a card my brother played on his very last turn.

I don't think I'd like it much solo, I thought it was great with three players. A great surprise today!

[LordMortis]

Finally got around to trying Ark Nova this afternoon. I initially thought I would hate it, since a) my head was spinning from the 30 minute teach and b) the theme does nothing for me. I was really surprised to find how much I enjoyed it. It wasn't nearly as complex as it originally looks and I loved how quickly the turns progressed and the game flowed (I hate sitting around while other people take forever to take their turns). I ended up building a semi-competent engine, coming in 2nd (of 3) only because of a card my brother played on his very last turn.

I don't think I'd like it much solo, I thought it was great with three players. A great surprise today!

It's the top game on BGA for quite some time running.

[YellowKing]

I enjoy Ark Nova solo a great deal, even with the official solo rules. It's definitely challenging enough for me. However, I hear a lot of people talking up the alternate ARNO solo rules that plays more like a competition with another player, so I need to give that a try at some point.

[AWS260]

I just played Lords of Vegas on the Atlantic City board from the new expansion.

Instead of the Strip running down the middle of the board, Atlantic City is a long, skinny map with Boardwalk running down one side. Atlantic City also allows you (at great cost) to build on the streets that separate the property lots, which means that it's easier to create huge, sprawling casinos than on the original board.

Our game was decided by an epic, four-way tug-of-war over one gigantic casino right on the Boardwalk. Each one of us controlled the casino at one point. So many dice rolls, so many cries of disappointment and disbelief, so much chaos. It was the most fun I've had playing Lords of Vegas.

[Daveman]

I've played a few games of Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth. At a glance, this looks like it's just a LOTR themed version of 7 Wonders Duel but it has enough changes to make it stand out. I really like it.

The core gameplay is largely the same. On your turn you either pick an available card from the pyramid-like shop to put it in play or discard for coins, or you choose to build a "landmark" which is roughly this game's version of "wonders" from 7WD. You're trying to achieve one of 3 instant-win conditions or the end-game condition if you play through the entire deck. The main differences:

1. Each player starts out equal in all respects. You don't have a "Wonder" board that's unique to you. Instead there's a stack of seven Landmark tiles, three of which are dealt out to a market. Either player can choose to build one on their turn, but like Wonder steps they're all expensive, and the cost goes up slightly based on how many Landmarks you've already built. New Landmarks are dealt out at the end of each chapter. The Landmarks give you some special effect when played but mainly contribute to one of the winning conditions...

2. Three of the four winning conditions are very unique to this game, while one is similar to 7WD:

- Green cards are very similar to the green cards in 7WD, but instead of Science they represent six Middle Earth factions. If you manage to get six factions into play, you win. Along the way, collecting three different faction cards or two of the same will earn you bonus tiles that grant some very useful abilities. Like 7WD, one of the tokens includes a seventh faction (Eagles!) so if that happens to come into play it can make this winning condition a lot easier.

- Blue cards all have 1-3 One Ring symbols on them. Each player has a track and you move one space along that track for each One Ring symbol. If the Fellowship player reaches the end, Frodo reached Mt. Doom and they win. The Sauron player captures Frodo and wins if they reach the end. These tracks are cleverly displayed on a single plastic piece that overlays an image of Middle Earth and literally shows Frodo and Sam moving along, chased by a Nazgul. It's a little overdone a fiddly but looks nice.

- The biggest change with this game is the battle for Middle Earth, which is a very simplified wargame that plays out on a map of Middle Earth, divided into seven regions. Red cards let you place varying amounts of army meeples into a choice of two different regions. There's no real detail to it, the Fellowship player might be able to plonk two armies down in Mordor on the first turn. Again, it's all very simplified. If armies from both players wind up in the same area, they all basically cancel each other out. If the Fellowship player would add two armies to Mordor and Sauron has one army there, he removes the Sauron army and places one of his own there, the other died removing the Sauron piece.

In the third round of the game there are Purple cards that let you move troops around and the same basic "combat" applies. You're basically just adding and subtracting armies from regions. The catch is, if either player is present in all seven regions, they win. If the last card comes into play, whoever is present in the most regions wins.

It all sounds very simple but it's just enough to feel like there's a war going on and when you're taking your turn trying to move Frodo along or win over the various factions you have to keep this battle in mind and keep one eye on the board. It's really neat how the first two rounds are mostly about putting armies into position and then in the third round the war goes nuts.

As a final point to the battle, the Landmark tiles, in addition to their special one-time effects, all let you build a tower in a specific region. These towers are nearly permanent additions to the battle map. There are only a few effects in the game that can remove them (getting most of the way along the One Ring track lets you destroy one tower, an Ent faction tile does the same) so they really help achieve this winning condition.

Overall the artwork is fantastic and the army and tower pieces are these tiny screen-printed meeples (in colors!) that look really nice. It has just enough LOTR theme to it as well but it's not a heavy game at all. I also like that, unlike 7WD, there's no points in this game. You either get an instant-win or have the most of 7 regions on the map. Ties are possible and the rules say that's a draw but I think some tie-breakers would be nice. Maybe whoever made it further along the One Ring track?

[YellowKing]

I am such an idiot.

A buddy of mine and I took the day off Wednesday to try to get through the rest of Invincible: The Hero-Building Game. We knew how to play, as we had played the first 2-3 scenarios a few weeks back.

We got started around 9am, and just kept getting our ass kicked on the scenario we were on. Over and over and over. Finally we broke for lunch and tried to figure out whether we would just skip that scenario and move on.

When I got back, I just happened to glance down at the reference card and realized we had been playing a rule wrong ALL morning. Instead of crashing on 5 black cubes drawn, we were playing you crashed on 4 black cubes. Suffice it to say, this would make the game damn near impossible.

So we kick ourselves, start back over playing correctly, and we beat the scenario. Then we start getting our ass kicked on the next scenario. WHAT GIVES? We know we're playing correctly now! We try it twice and start introducing Helper cards just to get us by. We finally beat it.

As I'm putting the game back in the box, that's when I notice that we were playing the mission on the 3-4p difficulty side.

So yeah, a full day to get through.....two scenarios, both of which we essentially played incorrectly.

[AWS260]

I played Unconscious Mind last night. I love the theme: you play members of Sigmund Freud's inner circle, developing the science and practice of psychotherapy in Vienna. You interpret patients' dreams to help them work through their grief, and publish papers and treatises on your work.

All of this nifty theming is wrapped up in a big, heavy eurogame. It's a lot to learn - the very good Gaming Rules teach video is more than 40 minutes long. But it clicks relatively smoothly, and the interlocking systems mean that you can occasionally manufacture big, exciting turns.

We played with 4, which is probably one too many for a game this dense. Because of the complexity, each player's turn can take a while. It worked OK for our group, since we're friends and just chit-chatted about other things during the downtime. But I think I would stick to 3 or fewer players in the future.

Like a lot of good games, this falls firmly in the "would gladly play again, but I'm not going to be the one asking for it" category.

[Fardaza]

Not "this weekend", but in the last 2 weeks.

I recently found out that my LGS moved from a second floor walkup to the first floor of an old building downtown. Since that discovery, I've been there 4 times. (I'd only been there once because walking up and down the steps was not an option.) The first 2 were unproductive for actual playing time. I was just sitting among the rather large collection of boardgames in the side room and hoping someone would come in that wanted to play a game. This did however allow me to peruse many games that I was interested in. I looked through the boxes, skimmed the rules, and imagined playing it. Here's a list of the ones that I got to look at: Fallout, Spirit Island, Death May Die, Everdell, Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North, and probably others that I've forgotten about. I play almost exclusively solo these days. Several of these looked promising.

The last 2 times I went in to the store, I got to play some games with one of the owners, Frank. He and his business partner are both very friendly and welcoming. I set up a time 2 weeks ago and last week where Frank would be free and could teach/play. He tried to get others to join us, but each time the person(s) bailed. So we ended up playing a few 2-person games instead.

Here's the list of what I got to play: Sky Pilot, Azul, Splendor, and Wingspan. Frank's a pretty good teacher of rules, but not very good at setting up the theme. All 4 games seemed a little hollow because of this, but I'm really interested in the last 3 as possible games my wife might like to play (eventually). She's always so busy that gaming is way down her list of priorities. But who knows.

I see mixed reviews of all of these. There are a lot of people that love them, and then there are some that slam them as repetitive puzzles with no soul. I'm trying to be more picky about which games I buy. I'm particularly looking at Wingspan. The amount of bird cards in just the base game is staggering. Does it get old and repetitive, or does it hold up over many replays? Remember, solo mostly. Your thoughts and suggestions would be welcome!

BTW after playing with Frank, this has now become my FLGS. Emphasis on the F. I can see myself going in here many more times!

[LordMortis]

...long quote full of game names...

Sky Pilot, Azul, Splendor, and Wingspan are all available to play a test drive on on BoardGameArena if you and your wife are so inclined.

Spirit Island is fully Co Op so it would work well solo. It's the same game pretty much in puzzle fashion again and again but you keep ramping up the difficulty.

Of the games I've played that you've mentioned, Wing is my favorite, though there are some very poorly balanced birds. BGA has the option to "remove powerful birds" which suggests this is a game designer sanctioned variant. They don't do house rules variants. I've never tried it solo. While the amount of birds may feel intimidating, they are not. They are there to give a large variety and small amount of consistent themes for one of only 4 available actions. Types of food eaten, types actions taken by one of three habitats, types of nests, amount of eggs, reactions to other players, victory points, drawing more VP goals, and enhancing special VP goals (so you might be looking for birds named after people, geographies, colors, etc...). I wasn't sure of it's replay-ability at first but then I started to really enjoy playing it more and more.

[YellowKing]

I love Wingspan solo and still play it from time to time. I don't find it repetitive as your strategy is going to change game to game depending on your randomized goals and the cards you're dealt. I will say that I consider it fairly light after playing other engine builders such as Ark Nova and Earth, but sometimes that simplicity is a good thing when I just want a quick fix. The last expansion added a pretty significant addition to solo play that did add a bit more depth to the experience.

Cthulhu: Death May Die is a ton of fun and one of my favorite Lovecraft themed games. The scenarios almost always come right down to the wire and the process of your investigators going from weaklings to powerhouses in the space of one session is really satisfying.

Of the others on your list I've only played Fallout and Spirit Island. I would not recommend Fallout solo unless you have the New California expansion - it really overhauls and fixes the solo game. It's quite fun if you have it though.

Spirit Island is one of the most satisfying puzzle games I've ever played but the learning curve to get good can be quite steep. It really hinges on being able to be proactive with your turns rather than reactive, and I struggled with that aspect. However, once it clicks it's a brilliant game.

[LordMortis]

Ark and Earth are both on BGA for sampling as well.

[hepcat]

I mistakenly purchased the Beasts of Enveron expansion for Maladum, which apparently is included in the Kickstarter version...which I stupidly didn't check before going to the game store today.

If anyone has the retail copy of Maladum and wants a free copy of this, just pay for shipping and it's yours. I did open it and punch out some tokens before realizing my mistake, so I'm not going to try and return it to the store.

PM me if you want it.