Boardgaming 2022: the year of "point salad really isn't very filling"

Ha! Peanuts and popcorn were also eaten. As the night wore on, other, much easier to tip, glasses containing Martinis were brought you the table.

Most of the cards are sleeved. And when I play with non family members, I switch to host mode. I care more about the players having fun than preserving my precious game.

But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t keeping track of the food and drinks. :D

I’m still working on it…

Well done! I had a similar experience with teaching Oath to 3 newbies. About 2 hours of slow and steady

Wow. Not sure how it compares to Root difficulty wise, but those games really intimidate me when it comes to rules explanations. I don’t own them (though I’ve played Root twice after some help from a rules explainer) because I feel I just couldn’t get through the rules for myself and others.

Nicely done.

I guess we all have our mountains we dare not climb. :)

Oath is a really, really tough teach. Just very very complicated. Root is hard, but you have to know each faction well enough to coach everyone…if you do that then it isn’t so bad.

Group was pretty blasted when we wrapped up 3.5hrs later with Oath… But it is fun watching folks who haven’t explored the hobby world of boardgaming have their minds blown with how rules and mechanics can create tactical, strategic, thematic and political spaces that they never knew existed.

I guess the main reason I was thinking Tyranny is because it added new day 1-3 event cards. It gets a little repetitive playing the same first 3 days constantly. Is the Undertow campaign similar to Age of Tyranny or is it different / better in some way? Is Undertow a big improvement over the base game or just tighten / polish things up a bit?

Does Cloudspire have any similarities to TMB, or is it completely it’s own thing? It looks like Burncycle is sold out. A stealth game could be cool. Is it anything like Invisible Inc?

Is Tainted Grail anything like the PC game? I liked that quite a bit.

Spirit Island does seem like a good choice. My wife likes TMB more than I do, but I do like TMB. I can actually get Spirit Island for a lot cheaper than TMB Undertow, which is $99. But I don’t mind spending the extra money for Undertow if it is the better choice.

Undertow has a completely different set of starting encounter cards and has four cards for each of days 1 and 2 (and then from 3 onwards you’re just doing regular encounters). I’ve never played TMB in campaign modes of any kind but the Undertow one is basically do Kraken, do one of a few different middle bosses, then do…uh. Whichever the big bad is, I forget exactly. So, shorter, less involved, but people seem to like it better. I think Unbreakable is also going to have an Undertow style campaign. I wouldn’t call Undertow a major improvement, it’s not that different from the core. But it’s got the biggest single chunk of additional variety and content of anything that’s currently available for TMB and I tend to prefer playing its encounters because the raft battles mix things up and, importantly, most of them reward 2 training points so you level up a bit faster.

Similar production but it’s a very different game. More of a MOBA/tower defense sort of thing - each player controls a completely asymmetric faction with different minions, towers, heroes and a whole bunch of special upgrades and there’s a shared market of neutral units you can buy, and there’s ambient monsters and special locations in the island you’re fighting on. Which you construct out of neoprene mats and can also purchase terrain overlay tiles to change mid-game. Every one of these things has keywords. It’s a lot to keep track of. It’s PvP, solo or coop and coop has the lowest scenario count, so it’s not my top recommendation for that.

I haven’t really played Invisible Inc so I can’t compare to burncycle. They just funded a reprint campaign so you could late pledge soon though if you’re interested.

Thematically, yes. Mechanically not at all.

It’s the best choice for more TMB. I think Spirit Island is overall a better buy than TMB, and I really like TMB.

So it was 5 hours with the teach? I was going to say that’s a long long time for a nemesis game. Nemesis can totally be a beast of a game to teach especially with someone who doesn’t play games. I have found the key to teaching Nemesis is not explain everything and to teach as you play. I show them the how sound checks work how actions use cards which also defend you against sneak alien attacks and the parts of the ship must be working. We leave battles out till one happens etc. Sounds like that works for you too.

You got a bunch of great suggestions, I’ll throw in some more. It seems like you enjoy campaign games. I tend to avoid those so no campaigns in these suggestions…

The Loop seems to be getting a lot of praise and recently got re-released. It’s a Pandemic style co-op with deckbuilding and a time travel mechanic. I haven’t played it, but it’s on my to-get list. BGG says best at 2. (If other people have thoughts on this I’d love to hear them!)

Project Elite is a real-time co-op Starship Troopers style game. Absolute ton of alien minis flooding in and you have to keep them out of your base while finishing a mission by rapidly rolling dice against a clock. I know some people hate real time, but may be won over by this because it has 2 minutes of frenzied real time, followed by a break where players can discuss strategy and plans, and then another frenzied 2 minutes. It plays great at 2 but also plays great above 2.

Massive Darkness 2 feels like a Diablo board game. Each class has its own mini-game mechanics to learn. In the course of a 2 hour game, you’ll get tons of unique items to pick through and level up through a skill tree trying to max out how your character works in the scenario you’re playing and with your partner’s class choice. This game is not challenging, you will win it more than you lose it, but like Diablo it’s just fun to build your character and figure out how you can get a combo together to roll 10 dice at once. Works best at 2, too much downtime between turns to play with more than 3.

Looks like Splotter has a new game coming out this fall. (Their first new title since Food Chain Magnate I think.)

Not much info about it, but it looks a bit like a mix of Kanban and 18xx games. They posted some photos of a playtest on BGG a couple of weeks ago:

I have no doubt this game will be genius, but I’m in the middle of downsizing my collection and there is zero chance of me ever bringing this to the table. But my wallet is definitely itching to pre-order.

Hey, thanks for the recommendations. I bought Spirit Island this morning so I will keep your in mind the next time I’m looking to buy a game!

I just picked up a copy of Spirit Isle back during the prime day sales. I’m hoping to break out some solo learning games this weekend. I always say that though but when the time comes to put the rubber to the road I’m just too drained to do anything that involving. I really need to break out of this rut. Especially because I got a little stupid during the Nerdz Day sales and totally broke my vow to not buy new games aww shit I guess SI broke that rule too and that copy of Black Plague OMG I have a problem ;-)

I have that problem all the time. Too tired to get everything out after work, and even more difficult to learn a new game. Wish I had more space to just leave something out for days/weeks.

I’ve started playing more digital versions of games, including spirit island, and that has helped.

I constantly set up games, even on the weekends, and then when I look at the rule books, I just decide, no, back to easier, smaller games. Just seems like a waste of time to spend so much time learning new games when I could be doing a lot of other things with that time…but then, I keep buying them. Had Stars of Akarios on my table for a hot minute, now it’s Kanban EV. I need to stick to video games.

I’ve been on a BoardGameTables kick. On Tour, Bites, Kabuto Sumo, and Bear Raid are all solid in different ways. My eight-year-old is enamored with the bug wrestling one; only partially because she thinks she wants to be an entomologist when she grows up.

The one I’m most excited about is My Father’s Work, which some folks here have already been playing. Apps always make me wary even though I’m not opposed to them in principle, so it was a relief to see that this one takes a fairly light hand. Undo button, only occasional narration, and fairly light requirements. Our first play was a hoot. We ruined our village because we were the worst visiting university professors of all time. Can’t wait to give it another shot.

I’m sure people here have seen it, but if not Skybound is selling the deluxe version of Wonderland Wars with the poker chips. It’s been getting good reviews. I debated and finally broke down and picked it up. shipped out today. If you do decide to pull the trigger use SKY15 for a discount.

Wowsers Heroscape is coming back!

Whoa. Love that game. Still have a bin full of my stuff somewhere around here. Just read that the figs will be unpainted this time, though. Ah, well.

That’s pretty exciting. I never got a chance to play it. By the time I heard that it was actually a great game, the sets were disappearing from store shelves.

It is a pretty great game, though I am sure mechnically will undergo a little updating.

It’s great for kids - there is a simple mode and a normal mode, though even the normal mode is pretty easy, rules wise and presents decent tactical opportunities. The kids go nuts for the terrain and figures and it looks sensational on the table.

Now I’m not saying I was entirely responsible for that, but I collected a LOT of heroscape around that time. To be fair, mostly from ebay after it had become too hard to find elsewhere.

I had (some of) it out a few weeks back when the family was in covid isolation:


Big worry for HS in 2022 and beyond, I think, will be cost. I look at HeroQuest in retail at the moment at $250 and can’t help there is a LOT of nostalgia baked into that price point - it’s got to be at least double what the original was on shelves for, price corrected. And they are everywhere. I will not be surprised to see at least 50% off stickers on many of those over then next few years.

Heroscape also contains a lot of bulky plastic, so if they can’t keep costs reasonable and price accordingly, I think appeal will be limited to the hardcore heroscapers only. Though to be fair, maybe that will be enough for commercial success.

Haha, this was an awesome fight too! Thanos going toe to toe with Hulk for the whole damn show!