Stuff I’ve played recently…
At home: Lords of Waterdeep - My wife requested this one last time we played, because she enjoys the worker placement games we’ve played. Was a close game too, but I ended up winning by 8 points. I think if she hadn’t been playing the builder, she might have gotten me.
At game group:
Betrayal at the House on the Hill - Glad to see this one come back in stock. The game was a little scattered (some new folks mixed with some that have played 1,000 times), but I always enjoy it.
Fury of Dracula - My first time, so I was a little lost at first, but it was a good learning game. I apparently was very lucky and drew two stake cards within the first few turns and then ended up being Dracula’s target in round 3 or 4. Dracula ended up limping back to his castle with 5 health. Fun times.
Ladies and Gentlemen - I had heard of this before, but it was way more complicated than I thought it would be. I ended up playing a husband, so my job was a little less difficult, but I generally don’t like real time competitive mechanics, which is mainly what husbands do. I always ended up going 4th or 5th except on the last turn when I lucked out with a 2. I still don’t quite get how the scores are determined, but I probably won’t play it again anyway.
And lastly…
Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures - I’ve been playing the core set solo a bit, and liked it enough that I thought I’d go a little deeper, but I haven’t been able to find anyone at the store who plays it (apparently everyone mainly plays 40k which I have no interest in). As luck would have it, there were two people playing on my board game night, so I got to talking with one of them and he showed me the ropes, while letting me build lists out of his collection. He’d also been talking to another new player who’d gone rebel, so I stuck with some Imperial squads built around Vader. My first game against rebel new guy went really long, and I ended up losing. Before playing the second game, I read up on some basic strategies and won pretty quickly after making a few minor mods to my list.
My third game was against the guy who’d been teaching me, and at first it looked just like I expected…I lost Vader in the first round because I made a fairly rookie mistake. But I stuck with it and about mid-game the whole thing turned around and I won. It was a ton of fun, and really great to see how quickly just a few well-played rounds could make a huge difference.
I’m a little wary because after looking at how much it would cost just to get one of everything and how much FFG was releasing per year, I felt like I was standing at the edge of some monetary cliff, especially given that a lot of players end up buying multiples of a lot of the ships. But it was a lot of fun, and the ships do look cool and honestly feel like a good value when you look at each expansion individually. So I’ll probably be dipping my toe in. Ok, maybe a leg…the water’s pretty warm. Alright, up to my waist, but that’s as far as I’m going and I mean it!
