Octopus Overlords

Yeah, if hep and I agree on a game, I think it has to be good

That's like me and hep on anything, especially on comedians.

LM has trouble comprehending any comedy that involves humor.

Anyway...

I've backed everything from the Aeon's End series on Kickstarter from the first game until the current Aeon's End Legacy entry. And I consider it one of the few resounding successes in my collection. They also won top marks from me in customer service after deciding to revamp all the artwork in War Eternal, then offering a free upgrade to EVERYTHING in the first game to match...for free. That is not something you see very often these days.

When I bought Aeon's Flux War Eternal based on some opinions on this very forum I was able to start playing rather quickly and didn't have to refer to the rulebook very often. I was getting my ass kicked then pulled out a satisfying win. I started another game immediately afterwards. The game is a good challenge but not impossible and I have a feeling of accomplishment every time I win.

I also ended up buying the first game and backing the Legacy kickstarter, of course.

YellowKing wrote:I just ordered AEON'S END: WAR ETERNAL. I don't have the original, but from the threads I read on BGG either this or the base set is an acceptable starting place. It was $32 on Amazon which was my sweet spot on a game I've had my eye on for quite awhile.

So weird... I also randomly ordered Aeon’s End War Eternal that day...

With the family out of the apartment on Saturday, I soloed a four-investigator game of Eldritch Horror. My intrepid team managed to save the world from the omnipresent cosmic madness that is Yog-Sothoth, but it was a close thing.

The investigators kept the board relatively clear of gates and monsters, but were slow to solve mysteries. Two of the three mysteries were focused on spells, and only one of the investigators (Jacqueline the Psychic) was strong in this area.

As a result, the game came down to the wire, with just one shot at solving the final mystery with no time remaining. Only Jacqueline was in position to attempt it (she would've been joined by Mark the Soldier, but he went insane at the most inconvenient time). The final test was in her weakest area, strength, so I could only roll a single die -- and it was a six. Whew.

This was a nice reminder that A) I still really enjoy Eldritch Horror; and B) I don't have enough table space for this game. I had to jenga together a folding table, coffee table, and TV tray to make it work.

I’m looking at purchasing a new kitchen table simply for the reason of bigger games. So I feel your pain.

Got in a 3 player game of Hexplore It yesterday. It went over pretty well with a group I thought might not like it that much. It really does feel like an old school PnP rpg game at times. My only complaints are that some of the characters can quickly turn into a slog because you can end up just doing the same thing every fight. I played the priest and I think I only did something other than channel once in the game.

Also, the rules for pierce are friggin’ annoying. We thought we had it down, but one of the players found an example on their official forum that makes no damn sense, mathematically speaking.

But overall it’s a fun little game. Although I still prefer Dungeon Alliance, which I purchased at the same time.

Got in three solo rounds of AEON'S END: WAR ETERNAL.

I didn't manage to win any of them, but the third round I came very close (had the Umbra Titan down to 10 HP). In hindsight I may have been able to win had I made a different decision about some Nemesis tokens earlier. As it was, it definitely gave me some hope that the game is not impossible.

With just this handful of games under my belt, I still haven't yet figured out the best balance between economy and offense. And it's going to take several more plays to really get the timing down on when to focus on breaches, etc. The game has a very deliberate escalation, and I have to learn to follow that ramping up on the player side as well.

Oddly enough the game I'm reminded most of when playing (aside from other deck builders), is SPIRIT ISLAND. Both games feature a mechanic whereby some spells get cast immediately and some can be cast later (though in Spirit Island this distinction is not up to the player). In both games, the early game is a defensive struggle for survival while you build up, then the late game is all about unleashing hell. And both games feature varied "heroes" which play differently and require varying tactics to play effectively.

Great game. Brutally tough, but I love challenges. At some point I'm sure I'll go all in on expansions, but as of right now there's plenty to keep me busy in the box. My game group wants to try this one as well, even though our backlog is to the ceiling. We'll be finishing up PANDEMIC LEGACY: SEASON 2 in the next month or so, so the thought is that we'll blast through some backlog stuff before we hit GLOOMHAVEN.

YellowKing wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 6:37 pm At some point I'm sure I'll go all in on expansions, but as of right now there's plenty to keep me busy in the box.

Be sure to remember that, since you started with War Eternal, the original game is the biggest expansion of all. You will have some redundant components but it's worth it.

Got out and did more gloomhaven this weekend. I thought we were coming along not far far but as it turns out after what I think is 7 fairly long sessions (which include all of the learning sessions) we've only completed 12 scenarios. I thought we had 20 or more.

We did two more this weekend and after almost 50 hours of game time, we're about 22 scenarios in. Thankfully it doesn't feel artificially extended as we're now pursuing specific story arcs.

hepcat wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 3:01 pm We did two more this weekend and after almost 50 hours of game time, we're about 22 scenarios in. Thankfully it doesn't feel artificially extended as we're now pursuing specific story arcs.

We have been largely following the initial main story arc on the side of good and doing the bidding of some lady in the woods following the same path since the first scenario. We've failed a number times, so I'm hazarding to a guess, we've put in more than 50 hours. I think we probably average about two hours, setup inclusive per attempt. So you can take 50+ hours to beat 12 scenarios as you will.

Hey, everyone plays at their own speed. The only thing that matters is that you enjoy it.

We've played enough that our games tend to clock in at 2 hours per scenario at most. That's been true for the last dozen or so scenarios.

Sure sign I like a game? When I start pimpin' it.

Ordered a play mat for Aeon's End as well as some Fantasy Flight blue/green/yellow tokens to replace the charges/Nemesis tokens/power tokens respectively. I'm debating on how to handle the hit points. The play through I watched used red 10-sided dice to denote the HP. Clean and elegant solution, but I don't like the idea of one random bump potentially screwing up my health counter. I may just try to find some large red/small red counters to replicate the large 5 and small 1 chits.

The Umbra Titan is dead!!!

After 6 failed attempts, I finally put and end to the sand worm's reign.

Went with two random mages and a random supply. Drew Gex (can destroy 2 cards of cost 0 in her discard pile and heal ally for 2), and Maz (can gain one gem of 4 cost or less from the supply and heal Gravehold for 4).

I also got fortunate with the random supply. Primordial Flesh (destroy for 3 health), Aurora (gain a charge while prepped), and Conclave Scroll (gain a charge when played) turned out to be game changers.

This time around I played smart. Early on while the Nemesis had nothing out I focused on opening breaches vs gaining as many cards as possible. My overall strategy for the game was to keep my deck size small for high turnover. This strategy played out well, and by Nemesis Tier 2 I had decks that were a little slim on mana but had some heavy hitting offense for minion control.

In Tier 2 I continued to focus on getting the rest of my breaches open and building up my charge-gaining abilities. I had a few close calls as my HP dropped under 5 on a couple of occasions, but in each case I was able to snag a Primordial Flesh in time to heal back up.

As I moved into the back half of Tier 2 I had a fierce deck set up on both mages that was generating an enormous amount of charge. This was allowing me to use my specials every 2-3 turns, which was huge. I began to realize that I had reached a tipping point where the Umbra Titan couldn't damage us fast enough to make any ground.

End game was just a matter of grinding it out. I had an enormous amount of offense on both mages, but it became apparent I'd win quicker just burning through the Umbra TItan's deck rather than hitting him directly. So I just sat back, relaxed, and let him throw things out. Minions were dispatched with ease, which meant I just had to mitigate Attacks and Powers through my heals.

End state - Umbra Titan had 41 health, no cards, minions, or powers. Gex was half health, as was Maz. Gravehold, I'm proud to say, was still sitting at 30. On to the next boss!

YellowKing wrote: Tue Apr 10, 2018 2:23 pm End state - Umbra Titan had 41 health, no cards, minions, or powers. Gex was half health, as was Maz. Gravehold, I'm proud to say, was still sitting at 30. On to the next boss!

Not to diminish your victory or anything, but for the record, many consider the grindstone (decked out) win to be more of a stalemate than a victory. You sent him scampering off to try again.

I went to play Aeon's End this weekend and was frustrated to find that even though I waited and purchased the second (updated) edition, there are still errors on two of the nemesis card (Rageborn, Prince of Gluttons). There's no reason for it to bother me so much, but it does.

Even less of a bother if you never look, but now I know and it bother me too. Thanks.

coopasonic wrote:Not to diminish your victory or anything, but for the record, many consider the grindstone (decked out) win to be more of a stalemate than a victory. You sent him scampering off to try again.

Fake news!

It's possible I could have taken him out earlier, but for one stupid attack that would have me either lose Nemesis tokens I couldn't afford or put the most recently discarded minion back into play. Through bad luck, I wound up getting another attack that had me resolve the last attack which had me put that same minion back AGAIN. So all told I fought that son of a bitch THREE times.

That's a total of 27 attack I burned on that one minion right at the end that would have otherwise left the boss in the low teens.

That definitely encourages me to try again though.

Finished our threeway battle of XWing with some amazing rolls.

The Scum player took out the last hit of the Raider with a single die at range 3 (allowing an agility for the defense), saving his Ion attack from the Y-Wing on my TIE Phantom.

Raider player went to bed, as I had only the Defender remaining (cherry) versus a Hawk with a single hull point, a YWing with no shields, and an untouched M3-A Interceptor (with a damned ION)

I managed a decent Agility roll against the ION attack from the YWing to speed away from the wounded ships as the M3 started a run to flank me.
With the Defenders ability to go 4 and turn as a White maneuver, I target locked the YWing and was using the Pilot who draws 3 cards for a crit and chooses. I followed that by a full run to the HWK for the extra attack at range 1. BOOM

The final run had the M3 behind me, trying to ION my engines and keep me drifting slowly to the edge of the board or blown up.
Got the evades to keep from being IONized and pulled the 4 turn, took a pair of ION hits across two turns as I decimated him with a pair of shots.

Between Focus action and holding Target locks until needed for the reroll, we gave the MVP not to the Attacks of the Defender, but to the DEFENSE roll that allowed me to turn around.

Raider player came out and could not believe the Defender had pulled it off.

We polished off September and October in PANDEMIC LEGACY: SEASON 2. We've now won an astonishing seven games in a row. I don't know if the Pandemic gods took the night off or what, but this game that usually kicks us in the nuts at every opportunity just rolled over tonight. Everything just seemed to go our way, from card draws to reveals to other surprises.

So if all goes as planned, we should finish this one up in a couple of weeks. Technically we could finish it next week with two wins, but I don't foresee us getting that lucky again.

Ok Umbra Titan has been defeated "legitimately" in AEON'S END. Now that the game is clicking a little more, I understand why he's considered easy mode. I even did it with two random mages, random supply, and no ability to heal!

Played a tank scenario with 3mm minis from Kampfgruppe Commander III as the Germans trying to defend the approaches to Berlin from the Soviets. It did not end well.

Played quite a bit of Magic today, trying out some new casual 60 card decks and trying out Commander decks with new tweaks to them.

One deck (with Wall of Shards and Tainted Remedy) worked very well.
The Lands deck did not work out against a speedy Goblin deck, may have to set that one aside for multiple players.

But the modifications to my W/U Superfriends Brago deck were amazing! Wiped out the entire opponents battlefield, with an amazing array of Planeswalkers on my side (Six of them!)

My friends and I did the first scenario in Gloomhaven yesterday. I am so glad I have a Gloomhaven organizer (the one from Broken Token + file folder for the map tiles). Setup was pretty easy and we were able to focus more on how a round would play and what the icons on the cards mean. I had also printed out the 11 page rules summary and a sheet showing the icons and what they mean for each player.

We went in with a Brute, Mind Thief and SpellWeaver (me). We took too much time taking down the guards in the first room, and the Brute took some hard hits, which led me to try to heal him instead of adding my own attacks. Once the guards were down the Mind Thief "really, really" wanted to be the first to open the door to the next room. So we kind of burned a turn so he could do that. I figured it was for his battle goal and I didn't really care since I thought we could still win the scenario.

The second room was a bit easier as the Brute pushed one of the guards onto a trap, killing the guard and clearing the path to the final room. The archers were not much of a problem either. The mind thief summoned a rat swarm but turns out the swarm moves slow as molasses so it didn't even see any combat the whole game.

In the final room the Brute was almost exhausted and down to his last 3 hit points. Luckily between the mind thief and myself we managed to kill all but one of the enemies. That was when we realized that the scenario would end in the round that the last enemy dies, and that we don't get to divvy up the treasure lying on the floor (and the scenario chest) at the end. Someone has to actively go and get them.

So we agreed that the Mind Thief should do a hail mary (play two cards that could get him over the blocking skeleton and get to the chest) while the brute and I kill the last skeleton. The Mind Thief was successful, I closed with the skeleton and brought him down to two hit points and the Brute did his attack....

and he whiffed! With that the Brute fell down, exhausted. Next turn I was hoping that the mind thief would kill the skeleton before he could kill me, which luckily, he did.

It was a great first scenario and we all agreed we should try to play through the campaign. For my part, I was too stingy with the AOE attacks, waiting till I could get 3 targets at once. Next time I'll try to use them more often and at least settle for two targets. I also was handicapping myself A LOT with the "Impaling Eruption" card because I thought the text "additionally, target all enemies on the path to the primary target" meant "straight line path". According to the FAQ it says "As with any ranged ability you can trace the path to your target however you would like. It doesn't have to be in a straight line."

I could have done a zigzagging effect with Impaling Eruption several times but didn't because I didn't know that was allowed. Oh well, just means that next time I'll be an AOE damage dealing machine!

I really most break out Gloomhaven one of these days.

raydude wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 11:11 am and he whiffed! With that the Brute fell down, exhausted. Next turn I was hoping that the mind thief would kill the skeleton before he could kill me, which luckily, he did.

It was a great first scenario and we all agreed we should try to play through the campaign. For my part, I was too stingy with the AOE attacks, waiting till I could get 3 targets at once. Next time I'll try to use them more often and at least settle for two targets. I also was handicapping myself A LOT with the "Impaling Eruption" card because I thought the text "additionally, target all enemies on the path to the primary target" meant "straight line path". According to the FAQ it says "As with any ranged ability you can trace the path to your target however you would like. It doesn't have to be in a straight line."

I could have done a zigzagging effect with Impaling Eruption several times but didn't because I didn't know that was allowed. Oh well, just means that next time I'll be an AOE damage dealing machine!

Well done. We've lost a lot.

Straight path does me straight path but it doesn't mean center to center. LOS is from any bit of a hex directly to any bit of any other hex. OtOH, you do not need LOS to "range" affect allies.

I don't remember what they means for AOE. Think you need LOS to any hex as enemies block LOS to enemies behind them.

LordMortis wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 11:53 am

raydude wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 11:11 am and he whiffed! With that the Brute fell down, exhausted. Next turn I was hoping that the mind thief would kill the skeleton before he could kill me, which luckily, he did.

It was a great first scenario and we all agreed we should try to play through the campaign. For my part, I was too stingy with the AOE attacks, waiting till I could get 3 targets at once. Next time I'll try to use them more often and at least settle for two targets. I also was handicapping myself A LOT with the "Impaling Eruption" card because I thought the text "additionally, target all enemies on the path to the primary target" meant "straight line path". According to the FAQ it says "As with any ranged ability you can trace the path to your target however you would like. It doesn't have to be in a straight line."

I could have done a zigzagging effect with Impaling Eruption several times but didn't because I didn't know that was allowed. Oh well, just means that next time I'll be an AOE damage dealing machine!

Well done. We've lost a lot.

Straight path does me straight path but it doesn't mean center to center. LOS is from any bit of a hex directly to any bit of any other hex. OtOH, you do not need LOS to "range" affect allies.

I don't remember what they means for AOE. Think you need LOS to any hex as enemies block LOS to enemies behind them.

Nope, only walls block LOS. We learned this too when we were trying to see if the Brute was safe from a ranged attack from an archer that had to shoot through his ally.

Boom!

Line-of-sight: All ranged and melee attacks can only be performed against enemies within line-of-sight, which means that a line can be drawn from any corner of the attacker’s hex to any corner of the defender’s hex without touching any part of a wall (the line edge of a map tile or the entire area of any partial hex along the edge of a map tile, unless covered by an overlay tile). Only walls block line-of-sight.

I have no idea where we got stuck on mis information.

So upon further discussion of what we were doing wrong the FAQ reveals. LOS for AOE must cover all hexes affected by AOE (I don't have AOE abilities so I never paid attention to if we follow that rule) and all other range abilities require LOS, which we were not doing for friendly ranges, again, don't know where we pulled that interpretation from.

What blocks Line of sight?
Walls and closed doors are the only things that block Line of Sight

What are the line-of-sight rules?
Line-of-sight is necessary for all attacks (including every hex of an area attack) and all other abilities that specify a range (including looting, which technically has a range). Any non-attack ability that does not specify a range does not require line-of-sight.

The good news is rule screw ups isn't ruining my enjoyment of the game or making me say "I'd have totally played that different if I know *that*" annoying the piss out of me.

Over the weekend I tried Dinomals, a simple card game that was Kickstarted recently. (I didn't back the Kickstarter, but they had an open copy at my FLGS.)

It's a cute and quick game about making dinosaur-animal mashups. You try to collect a dinomal card (e.g., Penguinosaurus Rex), cards for the two creatures that make up the dinomal (Penguin and T. Rex), and a "Smush" card that lets you combine the two. There are a variety of action cards that let you mess with other players and search for the cards you need. That's it.

I think this is nice for playing with young kids (I'd say age 6-10, depending on the kid), but I wouldn't recommend it for an older or more experienced crowd.

Played another game of Imperial Assault: Legends of the Alliance last night. Since we added another player to the game, and there's no way to add them in mid-campaign, we just started over (we were only one mission into the campaign, so it was no big sacirifice.)

Damn, did we suck.

I'm not sure what the difference was between 2 and 3 players, but when we only played with 2, we did so much better than when we played with 3. There are still a few things about the automation of enemies that I haven't gotten a great grasp of, but it was still fun.

Can you use this to "automate" your enemies?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/70398 ... _Alliance/

LordMortis wrote: Wed Apr 18, 2018 3:28 pm Can you use this to "automate" your enemies?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/70398 ... _Alliance/

Yeah...that's what we're using.

Well then, nevermind. Assumed that would give an incontrovertible answer to any question. I guess not.

LordMortis wrote: Wed Apr 18, 2018 3:28 pm Can you use this to "automate" your enemies?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/70398 ... _Alliance/

Yeah, they do the same thing for Mansions of Madness (second edition). I think it's pretty neat, though I know some hate the idea completely (app-driven board games).

I honestly was against it until my first game of Mansions of Madness 2nd edition. Now I’m even thinking of getting imperial Assault as I already have Descent 2nd edition with the app. It’s just a fantastic experience.

I kinda wish there was an official one for Gloomhaven, to run the monster AI... I know there are fan created ones, but support seems limited. I think it's a great use of a device (to keep track of cards and decide what's happening).

Smoove_B wrote: Wed Apr 18, 2018 4:22 pm Yeah, they do the same thing for Mansions of Madness (second edition). I think it's pretty neat, though I know some hate the idea completely (app-driven board games).

As an only choice for playing, sure. But as an aftermarket option to make a game solo-friendly that would otherwise be unplayable alone? I'm all for it. We play a lot of games here, but it has been really hard to pull off campaigns.

Finished November in PANDEMIC LEGACY: SEASON 2. Did I say finished it? I meant CRUSHED IT.

This was our eighth win in a row. Some of that is due to pure luck, but I attribute the lions's share of our success to having such a strong group of players. The other guys I'm playing with are all veteran Pandemic players who have quite literally played every version of the game. We also based a lot of early decisions on our Season 1 experiences. Though the two games play completely differently, there are high-level strategies that tend to work for both games.

Next week we should wrap things up, then it's time for several weeks of digging into the backlog. SEASON 2 has been a blast, but I'm greatly looking forward to learning some brand new games.