Just lost my first game, and the AI proved a little clever.
Game starts with towns in each sector. Center sector town has an infantry unit, while bulk of enemy forces are coming in from the left and right corners of the board. I have an entrenched hill position in the left, but no supporting forces.
I drop in 4 paratroopers, and promptly secure the center town and reinforce the right sector in forests and hedgerows. The AI attacks the left, moves into some town hexes. My hill position lays fire down on them while I move up reinforcements from the center.
Meanwhile, the only armor unit on the board uses it’s infantry as a screen, and slides through forest hexes to the center sector, threatening the central town.
On the left, my forces repel the enemy, forcing many retreats but not fully eliminating more then a single unit.
In the center I drop my infantry behind the town to avoid the armor. Big mistake as the armor now controls the line of sight in the center and begins to pressure my infantry positions on the right. In fact, it’s first attack wallops a unit for -3
I trust the positions on the right, and instead try to collapse the AI left flank. Again causing casualties, but no knock out blows. The counter attack costs me a unit.
Right now the match is 3 (me), 2 (AI)… Playing to 4. However, my right side is in ruins with both units down to a single HP left. The first unit is killed by an off- map artillery strike. The second is killed while retreating, getting caught in an all out assault which allows the enemy to move two hexes and still attack. Final score was 4-3.
If you like Memoir 44, I wholeheartedly recommend Undaunted Normandy, which gives the player more tools to manipulate RNG in their own and the opponent’s deck.
So my group tried Abomination: Heir of Frankenstein today and ended up stopping at the 3.5 hour mark (8 of 12 rounds) b/c the game was taking a long time and the TTS mod is super fiddly. We liked the game but all three of us feel it doesn’t mesh well with TTS - too many little cubes (the TTS mod really needed to use counters) plus the game is VERY long for worker placement.
I think we will likely try it again, live, b/c it had potential, but it was a bear to learn cold (we watched videos but none of us had played) - but the biggest issue was it didn’t really work well with TTS. Hopefully it is better live.
Board game adjacent, some of my concept art work is in the first half of the new Privateer Press video! It’s fun seeing this stuff I’ve worked on coming out now!
Just watched the Dice Tower review of My Father’s Work.
There are some really cool mechanics I would like to explore, but it looks like there is a lot fiddliness with a few tracks, compulsion cards, manor placement, resources, an app… Seems like a little too much for me.
I can completely understand that. It’s fiddly in the sense that you have to go back to the app a lot. The manor placement isn’t anything. If you buy a piece, place it on an open spot on your board . If there is cost on the spot, pay it. You only get if you use the compulsion cards by using one of the resources in the game. They give you a quest to complete for victory points , like get an animal resource or complete a chemistry type experiment. The worker placement and the game are pretty basic, but challenging. Too much to do and never enough time to get it done. It’s way easier than say agricola.
Cool - thanks for that feedback. Dice Tower LOVED the game in their conclusion, so maybe I just need to watch a game played on YouTube. I just walked away with the ‘but wait, there’s more!’ impression of the overview which made me nervous :)
My wife and I may be looking for a new coop game for 2 players soon. We are currently playing Too Many Bones with the 40 Days expansion. I was thinking of getting the Tyranny expansion but I remember Tom wasn’t crazy about it.
We’ve enjoyed Gloomhaven, Too Many Bones, Pandemic (vanilla, with expansions, legacy versions). What’s the big recommendations for 2 player coop these days? I know Spirit Island is a favorite. Start with the base game? Are expansions good?
It looks like Sleeping Gods is also picking up steam. Would one of those two be the way to go? Any other recommendations? Thanks!
Undertow is a much better next buy for TMB than Age of Tyranny. Whole new set of encounter cards (which I broadly prefer), raft combat, new mech and Krelln foes that start off the conventional grid and have unique mechanics, more loot, more baddies, two neat new Gearlocs. Though I expect it’s more expensive also. I’d say Age of Tyranny is probably the least worthwhile TMB expansion.
You should start with the base game of Spirit Island, 100%. It’s already on the complex side and the expansions, while they don’t increase the mechanical complexity that much, it’s still one step more than you need to take when just learning. But the expansions are really good once you’re ready. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s out yet but there’s a $30 Target exclusive beginner version in the works called Horizons of Spirit Island that pares it down to the most basic core mechanics and has several completely new low complexity spirits where the base box only has like…two low complexity ones and then things escalate from there pretty much. Might be worth a look if you’re just starting out. The new spirits are compatible with the main game once you move on, but it’s a bunch of redundant components so it’s not the most exciting buy for people who already own the game and know how to play.
The Arkham Horror LCG is a pretty good buy for 2P coop and now comes in a more collecting-friendly release format. You could consider Cloudspire - it’s more complex than TMB and I think coop is the lowest content way to play it, but it does max out at 2P for coop and is very cool. Bullet Heart, Orange and Star (Heart and Star are the standalones) are excellent quick-playing coop if you can find a copy. Fog of Love isn’t precisely coop, but it’s not not coop, either and a good couples game if you’re up for a little light roleplaying with your boardgaming. I personally really rate Tainted Grail and Etherfields but you will probably have trouble finding them and not everyone is such a fan. Similarly Waste Knights and Champions of Hara might be tough to get hold of? Oh, burncycle is another coop from Chip Theory and I am loving it. Stealth game, primarily.
Really I think Spirit Island is a very safe pick, though. And Sleeping Gods seems awesome also.
Just finished two cooperative Sleeping Gods campaigns. Just magnificent adventure game. The combat mechanic is so-so. If your partner is into theme, then Sleeping Gods is just amazing.
Spirit Island is also amazing! Not campaign, so played as single games. Really fun if you and your partner like brain-burning puzzle solving. Get it with Branch and Claw expansion
For me, this are my 1a and 1b favorite games of all-time.
I’ve also really enjoyed Mechs vs Minions, which is a 10 scenario campaign. You use a programming mechanic that works great and is very satisfying.
Our tastes may differ, however. I didn’t care for TMB much at all, and sold my copy after a handful of plays.
I’ve heard Summit works really well cooperatively, along with Arkham legacy card game… But I haven’t played either.
For a light coop, ai can recommend Codenames Duet. Fun, quick game of Codenames!
Technically, I guess the pilot, who set us on a course to earth was the last one to die, when the sabotaged engines (thank you Captain) and the ship exploded.
Company report on the disappearance of the spaceship Nemesis:
All crew are lost. The ship exploded on the way to earth. We suspect sabotage.
Log fragments we recovered indicate the ship was infested with intruders. The pilot, mechanic, scientist and scout all tried to bring the ship back to earth.
The captain decided to enact his secret mission and ensure the scientist would not come back and testify about our work on LV-426.
This triggered a series of events leading to the brutal demise of all crew.
Records sent by the ship AI indicate the scientist, scout and mechanic were killed by alien creatures. The pilot, died in the ship explosion on the way to earth while back in hypersleep.
The captain tried to find an escape pod to escape onto but was also pursued by the creatures and killed.
Nemesis file closed.
The end was both anticlimactic and a fitting end to that horror story.
3 of the players had never played (one is new to boardgames and was concerned about complexity, but she took to it quickly). One is prone to AP, which helps explain the length. But now that they know the rules, all players have expressed an interest in playing again. That game can tell a darn good yarn.
I have been so tempted by this game after watching the NRB live play. It looks right up my alley, but I’m skeptical I can get it to the table and teach it.
I’m not going to lie, teaching Nemesis to a brand new boardgame player and 2 more experienced ones took some effort. But that was all on my part before the game. I watched the 2 best rules videos I have found for the game (I can link them if you’d like) and had a quick read through the rule book.
Once the game started, I didn’t try and explain the whole game in one go. That would be overwhelming. I explained the setting/story, objectives with examples of those and who we are.
Then we got our decks of cards and items and I explained what those meant. Then we covered basic actions shared by everyone and how you pay for them.
Once the first player was about to move, I explained movement, where they could go, what would happen, …
And so on. It was probably 60-90’ of play before I even had to touch on combat.
The point is, the game has a lot of rules, but you can do what they did in the NRB playthrough and parcel them as they are needed. The rules combined quite logically when you build them up progressively.
At the end of the night, the newcomer told me the rules were actually quite simple and easy to understand. She enjoyed the game. But she said that was because there was someone at the table who knew them all. To go from Sushi Go to Nemesis shows it can be done. :)
This to me is the way to making Nemesis easy to reach and fun for everyone at the table.
As for duration, my wife and I can play it 2 players in 2 hours or less. 5 players with full set up and rules explanations added quite a bit of time. But it doesn’t have to be a whole day event.
If those stories sound tempting, I’d at least consider it.
I also note two drinking glasses on the lower playing table. You live dangerously, young man.
I’m anal about this. However, when I play board games with my wife in the evening she invariably puts down a hot cup of tea next to the board and cards and yet I bite my tongue because it is the kind of ceramic mug that would not tip easily.
