I’ve seen a ton of stupid in the boardgames industry. Like, a ton! That might be one of the stupidest.
-Tom
Ug, I’ve totally missed out on 9 days of boardgaming talk because I was just counting on the notifications and didn’t realize we had a new thread. So sad.
Fair enough, I also hated that thread title. QT3 is my favorite forum full of the worst thread-titlers in the business.
The theme goes a long way in Anachrony. It’s a solid worker placement game with a loan system I actually like using, plus cool exosuits. The new single player bot that comes with the latest expansion is really cool, though. Very clever and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite bots in any heavy Euro.
Also, Cthulhu Wars: Duel arrived today. No minis in this one! Old thread title would be so proud.
The map and rule book confirm what absolutely no one doubted: PG will be releasing multiple versions of CW: Duel in the future, each with 2 new factions and a unique map, all interchangeable. You can already see the faction icons for the others on the map in this one, and the rule book contains stuff for them as well.
Also wouldn’t be surprised to see a multiplayer pack in the future with a bigger map for more players. Here’s a picture of the box next to a reference Ganz to show how much shelf space this one will save you:
Is it Hallertau time yet?
I hope they do do multiplayer, because I’m up for an affordable, storable Cthulhu Wars, but I just don’t have a lot of room for 2 player PvP in my games library, or 2 player at all honestly.
In previous years, 2p games were a tiny portion of my plays. It was all about the boardgame meets.
That said, 2020 has really brought good 2 players games to the forefront for me. My wife and I have had a tons of fun playing 7 Wonders Duel, Caverna: Cave Vs Cave and Whitehall Mystery (which was 1v1 last year because my daughter will not come near that game). Arkham Horror The Card Game has been a 2p game for us too (also, the core box only supports 1 or 2 players). Though I might start playing a bit more solo as well.
My son and I have (when he was still allowed to visit in the summer) also had a lot of fun with Air, Land and Sea and Fugitive.
There is something to be said for a well designed 1v1 contest.
Nice! How difficult was it for your wife (And you, for that matter) to get into?My GF isn’t a CCG player in any way, and this will be the second one she ever tries (First one was Shadowrun!).
I really want to try it out this coming week, since we’ll be spending some nice time together at home, but it does have some rather intricate rules I think from what little I’ve read and seen in videos.
Also - the setup, and subsequent packaging seems needlessly annoying - I REALLY like that Jaws of the Lion has specific instructions on how to handle just that.
I think the game looks intimidating at first, but the core box does a good job at guiding you through the rules. It is certainly a game where I took learning it seriously (not reading the rules 20’ before and hoping to wing it :) ). But it actually plays in a very predictable way. It’s easy to grok how a turn goes. So, after a couple of turns, you and your GF should feel pretty confident that you understand the flow. The harder part is doing well against the mysterious forces at work. :)
As for how I learned, I watched this video to get the quick start rules:
I think I also watched this one to see someone setting up and playing. But the quick rules would cover the same grounds:
So you would have watched 25’+ of video before playing. But, really, all your GF will need are the player reference cards. They remind the players of the sequence of a turn (just follow along and do what it says) and what actions you can take on your turn on the other side.
As you go through the set up for your chosen investigator (may I recommend Wendy for your GF? She is very cool), you can tell her about the the cards you are pulling (this is an asset. It will be on the table and let you take advantage of its effect. This is a skill card, that will help you when you look for clues / fight a monster / run away / … depending on the card. And so on). Tell her what the cardboard tokens on the table mean. But leave skill checks explanations for when they happen (look at your investigator skill value, use assets or skill cards, draw a token and hope for the best :) ). Keep the rules overhead low.
And then you can start playing the first couple of turns with your hand on the table. That way, you can discuss what you are doing on your turn with her. Same for her turn. Once you feel confident, you can pick the cards back up!
In effect, all you really need is one person with a relatively good idea of the card types and structure of the turn. And the other can follow the prompts and learn as they go. I never looked at the full reference manual before playing. We simply would open it and look a special term we didn’t know when it came up. Worked very well that way.
If you have some time before you play, I might recommend watching this video as well. For your own peace of mind that you understand how interactions with the monsters will work. But, again, it’s more for you to have the confidence to put the monster in the right place when it is drawn. You can also look up the same things in the reference guide as you play.
The video above helped me keep the game flowing more smoothly when combat occurred though.
The set-up is a bit of a bear. But it comes from the fact that each scenario needs to be set up differently. They have their own combination of scenario, monster and treachery cards. They might have a different distribution of tokens to put in the draw bag. So there is no standard set up beyond: characters shuffle their deck and will draw 5 cards and 3(?) resources at the start.
I think the game is worth it though. It’s tense. It’s thematic. My wife and I had a good giggle at how badly we have been doing in the first campaign. It’s part and parcel for the Mythos games. And part of the fun for us.
I hope you 2 enjoy it!
PS: Do you play with the English version? If you do, enjoy the game and decide to get The Dunwich Legacy to play more stories, let me know. I have a duplicate of the first mythos pack used after the core Dunwich box (the pack is called Night at the museum). I’m not using it and would be happy to send it to you to save you from having to source it.
Net deck. Net deck. Net deck.
Seriously, once you’re actually building decks go on Arkham DB and grab some decks from there.
My favorite channel for Akham stuff is Arkham Chronicle
And here’s an ASMR playthrough of the first mission
Good advice. Use the starter decks for your first few plays. But don’t be afraid to look up different pre-made decks online if that catches your fancy.
There are Youtube channels that will tech you the basics of deckbuilding in AH:TCG if you later find you would like to try that. But it’s by no means a required component to play the game. Also, you only have a limited card pool in the core box. So no real need to worry too much about the cards until you start getting into the expansions.
Just a couple of new games this week:
I know there are some Hexplore It fans around here - I have extra copies if any QT3ers would like me to ship!
That are interesting. :)
7 Wonders Duel is soooo good. Are you using either of the expansions? I only know the religion one, and I like it, but I think it’s a bit too much feature creep in a really elegant game.
As for Arkham Horror solo, do it! And then post about your games in the thread where @Mike_Cathcart and I were playing.
I have a real love/hate relationship with Arkham Horror, so I’ll just provide a contrary opinion. I’d say the game really does require that you be into deck-building. If your girlfriend isn’t into CCGs, it might be a tough sell. It’s telling that @Wendelius has cued up an hour’s worth of video for you to watch! :) I would encourage you to try a solitaire game first to make sure you can wrap your head around it before trying to present it to someone who’s not familiar with the genre.
Ugh. Can the internet just come over and play the rest of the game for me, too? :)
Playing someone else’s deck in these games is like using someone else’s toothbrush. Which is even more gross if it’s just some stranger off the internet.
They got into retail? Is that new? Anyway, please do not show me that at this point in time. I haven’t even broken out Forests of Adrimon. And, yet, I can feel the lure of completionism calling me…
-Tom
Does anyone know about this game Dreamescape which is supposedly about escaping from H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamelands, or something similar? I was at the game store today (where I bought the second Arkham Noir game) and the very knowledgeable manager who has been there forever tipped me off about a “new solitaire game coming to Kickstarter in June (probably), made by Bad Cat Games.” I looked it up and found a few things, including the Bad Cat Twitter account.
Web page is here:
Sounds interesting.
That’s the Pantheon expansion. I believe we have always added it in since we first tried it. Picking the gods when you get a token doesn’t add a lot of overhead. But it adds the transformative ability of not picking up a card in the pyramid. More than the power of the god, that’s something we love making use of. Also, the placement of the gods allows you to add tools to further your strategy or hinder your opponent.
I agree that it does add some feature creep to a very elegant game. But we find it justified because of what it unlocks. It also adds a bit more variability to the games, which we enjoy.
Agora, on the other hand, we are staying away from. That one reportedly adds fiddliness and seems a lot less essential to me from what I’ve seen. I could be wrong. But since we wouldn’t try and play with both expansions, we are happy to stick with the former.
I did. But, in fairness, only one of the players needs to go through the rules. It’s easy to talk someone through the turn phases and what we are doing bit by bit and without spending 20’ doing it.
I’m the rules learner in my household. I’m thankful my wife pays boardgames at all. :) So I try to make sure I can make the learning experience a smooth one.
But I didn’t need to play solo before playing with her. And she had the hang of it during the intro scenario.
Now, in fairness, my wife had played some Magic at uni in the late 90ies; that was over 20 years ago though. And I don’t know whether it made a big difference in learning AH.
As for netdecking, it’s a good learning tool. Let them enjoy the game with starter decks. The core set doesn’t give you that many cards to play with anyway.
I will take your recommendation to go ahead with the solo plays. I want to try that jazz musician I got in the Dunwich set. And maybe that murderous cook. They look like fun.
The second game was available through distribution. This one I backed on Kickstarter which is why I have them early. Looks like it’ll be everywhere retail at some point too (right now it’s a preorder).
Regarding two player games, I’ve played some Android Netrunner LCG lately. It is super good. A great blend of theme and mechanics. It really showcases the strengths of asymmetrical games when done right. Luckily my friend owns practically all the card sets, but it is also available on www.jinteki.net for free.
I’ve played some on that site but it wasn’t very user friendly as I recall. Still, it’s better than nothing!
I played a lot of Android Netrunner back in the day, when the competitive scene was very big. I loved the game but I would say the competitive scene suffered quite a bit from netdecking, and in the end that kind of spoilt it for me, it is however a brilliant game (imho) and I would heartily recommend it to anyone who wants to see what an excellent 2 player LCG looks like, as Jorn says the blend of theme and mechanics is excellent (and Cyberpunk 2077 could have taken some cues from Netrunners hacking mechanics and been a much better game for it, again imho)
One of these things is not like the others!
One of these things doesn’t belong!
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish this song?
Whoa you went big! Hope you like them! I’m especially curious what you think of Raiders of Scythia. I didn’t get on well with its predecessor Raiders of the North Sea, but Scythia really has my interest (the fantastic artist they got for it may be a big part of the draw).