Octopus Overlords

Sixth Fleet. I managed to lose a mission-critical amount of supplies headed for Beirut in record time, despite a carrier task force being in the area.

A re-learning game of C&C:Ancients, followed by a quick game of Memoir '44.

Double heartbreaker in MANSIONS OF MADNESS last night.

I won't tell which scenario we played, but suffice it to say it all came down to a single "boss" monster at the end.

We put forth a valiant effort, and I had him down to 3HP left. My attack would do damage equal to my test result - automatic. I roll........2 successes. He has 1 HP left, and app decides we took too long. Game over, you LOSE.

So we quickly regroup and decide to blow through the scenario again. This time we're better prepared - however, I wind up going insane. Unfortunately, one side effect of my insanity is that if a certain condition is not fulfilled, we lose the game even if we beat the boss. You can guess what happened. I'm unable to fulfill the (secret) condition, and cheers go up from everyone but me as they take down the boss. High fives all around until I throw my insanity card on the table and reveal we actually lost. AARRGHHHH!

However, two times through was enough for that scenario, especially since we got the "moral" victory. So we'll be moving on to a new scenario next week. Really fun night, but very frustrating to get soooo close both times and lose once by a single die roll and the second time on a technicality.

To celebrate International Tabletop Day, we pulled out Star Wars: Rebellion. Still a favorite.

As usual, I was the noble Rebellion, while my wife played the evil Empire. Sadly, the Dark Side triumphed. After losing my initial fleet in a failed bid to take out a star destroyer, I was never able to assemble a decent military. Imperial forces spread out across the map, forcing the Rebel base to relocate twice. Our heroes pulled of the occasional mission here and there, but defeat was inevitable. Sorry about that, galaxy.

Not much gaming recently, my wife and I are visiting Denver, and managed to try out a few game stores which has led to some fun acquisitions (that I really don't have room or time for) and a rare pick up.

First of all Denver has one of the strangest game stores (in a good way) that I've ever seen, Wizard's Chest. We stopped by because the store looks so interesting and I was quite surprised when it had an extensive board game inventory including some rare games and some out of print games. Very surprised to see that. If you're in the Denver area the store is at least entertaining and worth a visit with costumes, games, miniatures, etc. It's certainly unique.

Between that and a couple other stores I've managed upon some run of the mill relatively easy to find new games that I just want to play while in Denver (Great Western Trail), a limited print run expansion that I have had trouble getting (Eclipse: Shadow of the Rift), and the real gem which I am so very happy to finally own... Puerto Rico Limited Anniversary Edition, new in-shrink. I have been looking for this for a very long time. It's one of my favorite games but the base pieces are a bit lackluster, the anniversary edition is so rare.

Now I need to purge when I get back home. I've had a few up for trade but I think I'm ready to just sell off some of the games now to make room without getting something new in. Probably be purging Mechs vs. Minions, Scythe, and my Lost Legacy collection. I keep thinking about getting rid of several large collection games like my Zombicide collection but then I think about how simple the game is to teach and how non-gamers enjoy it, or my Memoir '44 (just because I don't play it much) but then I remember how genius that game is (especially in campaign mode), even if it does rarely hit the table.

I've been eyeing Great Western Trail for a while now. Let me know what you think of it.

Last night is our usual gaming night these days, and I realized that I still had most of my games stored over at the church from OctoCon. So I went down into the dungeon and looked around for a game that we could play, and my eyes fell on my copy of "A Touch of Evil". This has been sitting down in my basement, never played, from when I bought it when it was first released.

A quick read of the rules and we're up and running. What a fun game. I regret having left this sitting on my shelf for all of those years. I remember when I first opened it up I was disappointed because I was expecting a re-theme of Last Night on Earth, and when it wasn't that, I put it aside. We played a 3 player game, using only basic rules (but we went cooperative) against the Werewolf, and by the time we finally confronted the werewolf, Karl had so much firepower built up he turned the werewolf into puppy chow on his first combat action.

So yeah, lots of fun was had with this one. I think this one is going to go into rotation as a palate cleanser between Gloomhaven games.

Hey hepcat, I found the perfect game for you. It's a My Little Pony reskin of Scythe called My Little Scythe...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_edZP7hOvU

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/177036 ... cythe-whol

OMG! I haven't let hepcat play my copy of Scythe yet, and now I may have to force this on him.

I wonder if I can play as Pimento Pony.

Played a number of games recently, including:

The Networks: a business management card game along the lines of Empire TV Tycoon and other similar computer games - you're trying to get the most viewers over the course of five seasons. And it really does a good job of getting that kind of gameplay (scheduling your shows at the right time slot, making sure they have the necessary actors and advertisements, and that you maximize your viewership without running out of money).

World Championship Russian Roulette: Players have seven cards (one bullet, the rest clicks), and play rounds of Russian Roulette (and choosing how many shots you're going to go through each round), with the ability to take one of those cards out of the slot (but if you take the bullet out, and people call you out on it, you're out of the round and you get an extra bullet in your hand). Everyone who makes it through a round gets points for every pull of the trigger they survived + 1 extra point. Anyone who got shot loses one of their four characters. It's fun for what it is - a bluffing/press your luck game. Though the goal (getting to 15) seemed a little low in our playthrough.

Moat_Man wrote:Hey hepcat, I found the perfect game for you. It's a My Little Pony reskin of Scythe called My Little Scythe...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_edZP7hOvU

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/177036 ... cythe-whol

Why is it when any of us see My Little Pony, we think immediately of Hep?

I would be more alarmed if you didn't.

It's professional courtesy for those with a finely-coiffed mane.

Right now I'm sporting a freakin' crew cut thanks to a barber who must have mistakenly thought I asked him to make me look like a human bullet.

baelthazar wrote:

Moat_Man wrote:Hey hepcat, I found the perfect game for you. It's a My Little Pony reskin of Scythe called My Little Scythe...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_edZP7hOvU

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/177036 ... cythe-whol

Why is it when any of us see My Little Pony, we think immediately of Hep?

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to exclude anyone. After all, sharing is caring. Are you a brony too?

Moat_Man wrote:

baelthazar wrote:

Moat_Man wrote:Hey hepcat, I found the perfect game for you. It's a My Little Pony reskin of Scythe called My Little Scythe...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_edZP7hOvU

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/177036 ... cythe-whol

Why is it when any of us see My Little Pony, we think immediately of Hep?

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to exclude anyone. After all, sharing is caring. Are you a brony too?

I am not... although I must say the new My Little Pony RPG did catch my eye, since I have a daughter and want to indoctrinate introduce her to role playing someday. Ok, so she is only one right now, but you have to plan ahead! I have a plush Cthulhu already and an ABC Cthulhu book to teach her about the Mythos.

Absolutely fantastic, epic, 4 hour scenario of Gloomhaven yesterday. We won, but it was close more than a few times. Played another scenario before that to whet our appetites, but...wow.

That session of Gloomhaven was absolutely terrific. It conveyed the same feeling as an epic battle in D&D, but through a well-designed board game scenario.

We faced what seemed to be an impossible situation getting into the lair of the bad guy. The town guards fought to death or draw in the courtyard, giving us the opportunity to rush into the next impossible situation. We were all on our last legs, and survived only through some amazing choices. Blessings proved well worth the cost, and our new equipment gave us just enough turns to finish the battle. We had, at most, 2 turns left before getting destroyed.

baelthazar wrote:Ok, so she is only one right now, but you have to plan ahead! I have a plush Cthulhu already and an ABC Cthulhu book to teach her about the Mythos.

The Cthulhu is well-remembered by our kids, and Steve Jackson Games also licenses an adorable plush Muchkin Duck of Doom.

My oldest is now 10 and tonight helped create a few of the new R&D Equipment cards for my Origins Game Fair sessions of Paranoia (Rebooted). It took about 2 minutes to explain that these Minions/Despicable Me items were supposed to have fun complications before she started suggesting new features. For example, the gas cloud from the FART GUN has the possibility of blowing back at the user so she suggested a broken "wind flow analyzer." So funny to see my spawn turn their inner evil to higher purposes.

Zarathud wrote:That session of Gloomhaven was absolutely terrific. It conveyed the same feeling as an epic battle in D&D, but through a well-designed board game scenario.

We faced what seemed to be an impossible situation getting into the lair of the bad guy. The town guards fought to death or draw in the courtyard, giving us the opportunity to rush into the next impossible situation. We were all on our last legs, and survived only through some amazing choices. Blessings proved well worth the cost, and our new equipment gave us just enough turns to finish the battle. We had, at most, 2 turns left before getting destroyed.

I can't wait to unlock new characters and open envelopes. But I like the pacing so far. I've sunk probably 15 to 20 hours into the game up to now, and we're only about 6 or 7 scenarios into the 70 to 90 or so that you can play. I'm sure I'll take a break every now and again, but this has just blown every dungeon crawler away for me.

Do you just leave it setup between sessions? The only complaint I've see is that the breakdown/setup time is rather laborious. You know you have problems when you're thinking of keeping a folding table out to have a game sit around ready to go.

You need a bachelor friend without pets to handle all the setup and storage.

There apparently is a sweet organizer from Meeple Realty.

Personally, I'm waiting for my gaming table to arrive. Then I'll probably set it up and leave it out. Just throw the topper on as needed.

TheMix wrote:Personally, I'm waiting for my gaming table to arrive. Then I'll probably set it up and leave it out. Just throw the topper on as needed.

The two may arrive around the same time for me.

Zarathud wrote:There apparently is a sweet organizer from Meeple Realty.

Organizers are my kyrptonite. EDIT: $74 shipped is bananas.

I know that some folks complain about the set up and breakdown, but I've never really thought it was that big of an issue. At least not in comparison to any other dungeon crawler. I do leave it up sometimes, but usually just when I'm working through a scenario solo during the week. In our game Saturday, I think it took us 10 minutes to set it up (well, that and 15 minutes while Zarathud Stewart fixed the magnetic strips on our character placards so that they worked better with the magnets I had picked up). It really isn't as laborious as some people make it out to be, IMHO.

Edit: I wonder if those complaining about the set up time are populating the entire scenario map, instead of doing so only when entering a room? You're only supposed to set up a room AFTER you open the door to it.

Yeah, I know everyone's tolerance for setup/takedown is different and some people just want something to complain about. For me it's not an issue other than a motivator (or not) to play.

Setup can take a bit searching out the appropriate bits and bobs and map tiles.

I think the bigger annoyance can be the Town stuff. Typical start of the session you pull out the world map, decide where you want to go, pull out the items, go shopping, resolve the town event (if you choose), then resolve the road event (you can't choose on this one) and then put all of that stuff away because you don't need it any longer, and then pull out all of the actual dungeon stuff, go through the dungeon, and then once you have resolved it (hopefully) pull out the world map again and put the new locations on the map. I've now got it set up so that I just take notes of what the things were that we uncovered at the end of the adventure and then the next time we play, put on the stickers, get the new store items, etc.

Shadows of Brimstone suffered from the same sort of thing. If you're OK with that, you should be OK with this.

I've taken to using this incredibly helpful campaign tracker. Just fill it out after every adventure. Then just whip out the map at a later time if you so desire, and fill it out after referring to that.

By the way, if anyone is worried that the nature of a legacy campaign will cause issues because of varying availability issues with some players, can I just say that this works beautifully with drops in/drop outs. I've got all the base characters run by a few folks popping in and out of scenarios with absolutely no issues. Characters falling behind if they're not involved with every adventure is mitigated by the city's prosperity level. As the game progresses, you "level up" Gloomhaven. Then, if a lower class character jumps in (or you just want to try a new alt), you simply match that character's level with the city prosperity level. Viola, you're caught up.

Smoove_B wrote:

Zarathud wrote:There apparently is a sweet organizer from Meeple Realty.

Organizers are my kyrptonite. EDIT: $74 shipped is bananas.

Yeah, that is bananas. Personally, I plan on following the storage and organization advice for Gloomhaven posted here.

Anonymous Bosch wrote:Personally, I plan on following the storage and organization advice for Gloomhaven posted here.

The misleading URL just ruins it for me!

Not a huge amount of games played recently. Though my wife and I did bust out a large game (and I do mean large) of Carcassonne on the floor of our hotel. It was too big for the little hotel table, so it spread out all over the ground. Was very fun, and then my wife destroyed me with a mega-farm at the end of the game. Great times!



I also started the first huge purge for 2017. I decided to move on from Scythe, Mechs vs Minions, Star Realms, 7 wonders duel, and a mountain of promos. Made some room in my collection for my new acquisitions, and also made helped take the dent out of my budget from recent purchases (including backing the second printing of Gloomhaven due to the forum effect).

What are the archways?

Anonymous Bosch wrote:

Smoove_B wrote:

Zarathud wrote:There apparently is a sweet organizer from Meeple Realty.

Organizers are my kyrptonite. EDIT: $74 shipped is bananas.

Yeah, that is bananas. Personally, I plan on following the storage and organization advice for Gloomhaven posted here.

I went ahead and bought one of the meeple source organizers. I tried to work out a storage solution using plano boxes, but was never satisfied. It's nuts spending almost as much on the storage as you did on the game, but I do like this organizer. It's my first foray into 3rd party organizers. I feel kinda unclean.

hentzau wrote:

Anonymous Bosch wrote:

Smoove_B wrote:

Zarathud wrote:There apparently is a sweet organizer from Meeple Realty.

Organizers are my kyrptonite. EDIT: $74 shipped is bananas.

Yeah, that is bananas. Personally, I plan on following the storage and organization advice for Gloomhaven posted here.

I went ahead and bought one of the meeple source organizers. I tried to work out a storage solution using plano boxes, but was never satisfied. It's nuts spending almost as much on the storage as you did on the game, but I do like this organizer. It's my first foray into 3rd party organizers. I feel kinda unclean.

Indeed, pre-play organization of this game seems to be a challenge unto itself. I'm thinking more along the lines of using the expanding file folder and envelopes method, combined with GMT Counter Trays for the rest.

Someone on BGG came up with a great way to reuse the packing foam in the box to store the standees. It serves the dual purpose of easy access to the standees, and a storage solution that allows you to pack the game back up in the (almost) original manner.

I have about 3 small plano boxes that I store the counters in. I keep all the cards that are removed from the game in a little baggie and keep it away from the game so I don't mix them back in accidentally. I keep all the available town shop items in their own baggie too. Then add to that when instructed. So far it's not been too terrible.

I did order the removable stickers from sinister fish in the U.K.. Although to be honest, I probably would've been fine just marking up my board and cards considering how much time this campaign is going to take.

That's the method I used. Conveniently the foam is layers; so I just out the whole piece, cut off 2 layers (for most of them), and then used tape on the bottom to hold the final layer in place. Seems to work pretty well.

Played my first game of the Gallerist. Enjoyable eurogame, although one that takes a playthrough to really understand the ins and outs, IMO. It's a worker placement game where you can discover artists, buy artwork from those artists, get a contract for an artwork of a certain type, sell your painting to fulfill that contract, increase the fame of an artist, get assistants (helpful for certain types of actions) and accessing the international market (useful for endgame scoring or immediate benefits). You can also use tickets to move visitors of various types into your gallery of certain types (helpful to get the two kinds of resources - money and influence). Money is used to buy stuff and for endgame scoring. Influence can be used to increase the fame of artist and can convert to money at the end (but not 1:1)

I bought several pieces of artwork, and sold a couple, but I mostly focused on getting money and getting end game scoring tiles from the international market.. In the end, I did well enough to score second (and close to first). I think I benefited from others increasing the artists fame because they also owned a piece of art from the same artists as some of mine.

Thursday night was another scenario of MANSIONS OF MADNESS. Introduced a fourth player to the game and had a really good time. As in past games, things went right down to the wire. However, none of us could roll worth a damn and we wound up getting wiped out at the end. The game is tough, but fair. Looking back on it, we realized a couple of options we missed that could have probably given us a better edge. I think we're going to try the same scenario again next week knowing what we know now and try to knock it out.

I also picked up a copy of DASTARDLY DIRIGIBLES at Barnes & Noble on clearance for $10. It's a fun little card game in which players compete to build a Victorian-era steampunkish dirigible. Each airship is made up of 7 parts, which are represented by parts cards in various different suits (including a Wild). A round ends when one player has completed his or her airship, then all airships (incomplete or not) are scored. Players get 2 points for each card in the suit most used on their ship, and 1 point for each Wild. Therefore it's advantageous to build your ship with as many of the same suit as possible.

However, every time a player places a part, ALL players have to play the same part if available - meaning you can force them to replace a part that was part of their strong suit. There are other things that can impact play - Special cards with various powers, and an "Emporium" tableau consisting of cards that players can freely pick up by swapping with an existing card in their hand. And because each player can do three actions on their turn, there is some definite unpredictability on what your opponent is going to do.

I played it with my daughter (7) who understood it enough to play, but didn't quite grasp all the finer strategic nuances. She just tried to build her ship as quickly as possible, which in this case actually worked. She wound up eking out a victory just from finishing patchwork ships while I tried to get the perfect dirigible. I think this one probably plays better with more than two players (it supports 5), since the chances of parts being replaced and ruining strategies would occur more often. At any rate, it's light and plays quick so for the price I'm very happy with it.

I don't impulse buy very often, but after hearing a review of THE GOONIES ADVENTURE CARD GAME on the Dice Tower podcast, I couldn't resist. It's one of my favorite movies of all time, and being a light, soloable card game it filled a niche in my collection for quick solo games. I also thought it may be a good gateway game for my kids.

As you might expect, the theme is relatively incidental to the actual gameplay. 1-4 players represent one of the seven members of the Goon Squad, each of whom has a special ability that can be used at any time, and one super powerful special ability that can only be used once per game. The goal of the game is to explore each of five locations from the film, find the treasure there, then being it back to One-Eyed Willie's ship.

Each location has three random tiles on it - two are booby traps, and one is a treasure. Exploring and uncovering a booby trap typically adds obstacles to play and moves you to another location. If you turn over a treasure, however, you can store it on one of five ship cards. Big caveat - in order to open a storage slot on the ship cards, you must first "map a route" to the ship by playing three cards of the same symbol as the ship slot.

Each turn the group of players as a whole has four actions to complete. This is a pretty interesting mechanic, as it means there are no individual player turns. Instead, the group as a whole decides the best way to proceed. For an action, the group as a whole can move to a new location by playing a card matching that location's color, remove an obstacle card, or explore a location with no obstacles. Removing an obstacle card requires playing cards from your hand that match the symbols on the obstacle, and exploring can be done by playing any card (again, only on locations where all obstacles have been removed). Once a location is successfully explored and its treasure retrieved, its card is flipped over which causes an ongoing effect for the rest of the game. In this way, the game gets progressively harder as more locations are explored.

There are a couple of interesting mechanics. For instance, two matching symbols of any type can be combined to make one symbol of any other chosen type. Also, players can freely combine cards from each others hands to play towards removing obstacles. One of the most critical mechanics is the fact that if - at any time - the group does not use all four actions, each player gets to draw an extra card at the beginning of the next round. This is a critical part of gameplay success, as cards can get scarce quickly as you burn them on movement and exploration.

After the four actions have been completed, the game moves to the Escalation Phase. A card is turned over and placed on a location as another obstacle. There are three possible outcomes of this. If the card has no symbol on the edge, it's simply placed as an obstacle and nothing further happens. If it has a double arrow symbol, another obstacle card is drawn (with enough bad luck, this could lead to a chain of obstacle cards being drawn in a single escalation phase). If it has a skull symbol, an Encounter card is drawn. Encounter cards are mostly members of the Fratelli gang who impact gameplay by adding obstacles, etc. If at any point five Fratellis are on the board, you lose the game. However, there are allies (like Sloth and Chunk) in the Encounter deck that provide huge benefits.

The game is won if you successfully explore all five locations and bring all five treasures back to the ship. The game is lost if five Fratellis are on the board, five obstacle cards are in play at any one location, or you run out of cards in the Encounter deck.

So - impressions. The game is largely a puzzle game, and your enjoyment of it will largely depend on your tolerance of luck and patience for figuring out the best combinations of cards to use at any given point. It's very susceptible to Alpha Player Syndrome due to the collaborative nature of every turn, so that's something to be aware of. However, it is extremely challenging. Most locations will need to be explored multiple times in order to get the treasure since you only have a 1 in 3 chance. It's also very easy for your best laid plans to get derailed as obstacle cards mount up that you have to frantically take care of to avoid losing the game.

On the plus side, I really like the wide range of options that are open to you each turn. While in many cases the appropriate action will be obvious, there is always an element of uncertainty about when to press your luck and when to play conservatively. The theme is fun and even though it's not integral to the game mechanics, it's better than playing the same mechanics in a generic fantasy realm. I also like that even though the game is light and quick, winning is very challenging. I've read that it gets easier with more players, but that's true of many co-op games so I don't hold that against it.

On the negative side, there is a heavy luck element which may turn some people off. Last night I nearly lost a game within a couple of turns just due to a really bad Escalation Phase draw. Folks with a low tolerance to those kind of wild swings in difficulty may not find it as enjoyable. Components are a bit of a mixed bag. There's a really cool "Goonies silhouette" token included, and the cards are adequate quality. On the other hand the artwork uses screen caps from the movie which I always find a bit tacky, and the font choices are a little amateurish. The box is also way oversized for what you get, but at least it has nice slots for everything.

Overall I'd give it a B-. It's fun, it's challenging, the theme is a plus. However, it's certainly lighter than my usual fare and does require some patience in terms of the luck swings.