Boardgaming in 2017!

You guys aren’t talking about this, right?

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/135895/rising-sun-asl-module-13

Not as interesting!

Man, I’m trying to learn ASL, but it’s hard with so few people around here playing. And talk about a disaster of a rulebook!

I would be glad to teach you via VASSAL, but the time difference between Portland and Madrid might defeat us.

Maybe Ramón can help.

You know what? Maybe something like that might work. Will look around!

Terra Mystica seemed awesome at first but quickly ran out of steam for me. The fun was entirely in figuring out how you’re going to approach playing a race for the first time. You quickly realize though that there’s an optimal scripted strategy to follow for each race and once you figure it out you just follow the script and hope you win out against the very minimal effects from bumping up against other players in that bout of multiplayer solitaire.

So I bought the iPad version of Though the Ages 2 months ago off of Tom’s recommendation. I 2nd his opinion and put it into the same category as Sentinels of the Multiverse: a good game that I will never again play the physical version of because it was made to be run by an app.

The only problem is that I’m terrible at the game. 2 months and 50 games played and I don’t think I’m getting any better at it. I can consistently beat a 4 player game against easy AIs but that’s it. I get crushed by medium AIs and human online opponents.

Ouch. Avoid the Masks of Nyarlathotep expansion for Eldritch Horror at all cost. It’s a total a con job.

It’s a $50 large box expansion that should have been a $25 small box expansion. The only reason it’s not is because they put in one large cardboard punch sheet instead of 2 smaller ones. Everything could have fit into a smaller box otherwise. This is the first big box expansion where they don’t show all the new components laid out in mock play on the back. Gee I wonder why. Incredibly deceptive.

One of the big selling points on the back is a new campaign mode where you can play a series of games. It is implied on the back that they are linked and include variant rules on the ancient ones that ramps up the difficulty as you progress. This is a lie. All campaign mode is a simple house rule that essentially says “Play 6 games, win them all, use a different ancient one each time, defeated investigators stay dead.” That’s it. I’ve seen over half a dozen fan made campaign rules with more thought put into them.

I couldn’t tell you about anything else because at that point I put everything back into the box and returned it to the store, something I’ve never done with a board game before. Just terrible.

I haven’t bought it, and probably won’t in the near future since among other things my current storage solution wouldn’t be able to accomodate it fully. But there’s more to the campaign than you’re making out. https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/2/6/an-onslaught-of-abomination/

I really don’t know if it’s any fun (we’ve never won a game of Eldritch Horror so a campaign where you have to win six consecutive times seems unlikely to work for us), but it’s not just six games in a row with permanent death for characters.

Pst, @Infested_terran

“Play with 2 preludes instead of 1” is literally the only other aspect to the campaign “mode”.

There’s also personal stories, a gather resources action, and those preludes are specially designed for the campaign, but okay.

You don’t have to get snarky.

Those things are all separate from the campaign mode, and the new preludes are just for the new ancient ones or reprints of existing ones.

Look, one of us bought the thing and is looking right at the final product, and one of us is just going by the company press release page.

I’ve reviewed the components included and I will most likely buy it anyway.

I like the personal stories. Plus the new Mystic Ruins deck and two Ancient Ones.

The campaign mode I’m not crazy about, but given that many games I win (playing solo) rely on certain investigator combos, having some of them become unavailable could be interesting, but I agree it’s the weakest part of what I’ve seen.

Also, you carefully omit the resource tokens, which I don’t think anything of (I like that they make purchasing, something I seldom do because of unlikelyness, easier, but it’s a very minor overall effect like Focus is, so whatever).

Now, you might make the case this should have been a small box expansion, and maybe that’s true for. That is, if you like big box expansions at all. I hate the sideboards and have played each one exactly one time to victory before archiving them in the box along with the preludes and ancient ones that use them.

For me this is a big box expansion with the parts I dislike changed for something I might enjoy more on paper, although it’s definitely not as component heavy or game changing. Would have I preferred this shoved into a small box expansion? Sure, exactly like I wanted he other expansion to throw away the sideboard and be cheaper. But for my specific style of play is the big box expansion that gives more worth for the bucks. Pricing a board game by its component weight is useless for me.

You just find value on different stuff.

I wasn’t being snarky?

And one of us is omitting potentially very important details because they’re mad at the product. I’m not here to tell you you should enjoy the expansion or that the campaign mode is necessarily all that great, especially without having played it, but it is factually incorrect to say

All campaign mode is a simple house rule that essentially says “Play 6 games, win them all, use a different ancient one each time, defeated investigators stay dead.” That’s it.

That’s all I’m saying.

Based on what I’ve seen, this is pretty much correct. The campaign mode is simple instructions to play six games and replace dead investigators. Nothing except Dark Pacts carries over between games. The investigators don’t level up, acquire possessions, suffer madness, or in any way improve or change, which is kind of the point of a campaign game, isn’t it? Imagine playing the Arkham Horror Living Card Game with the same deck for your investigator every time you played.

Oh, if you’re using the ruined cities mechanic from the last expansion, that carries over. So, yeah, calling out Fantasy Flight for yet another instance of money-grubbing, underdeveloped, poorly thought out bloat sounds about right to me.

-Tom

The personal stories introduced in the expansion (which is a single class up/down on each character) carry over too. So there’s a little of that, but yes, the campaign mode doesn’t really make the expansion worth it if you are not sold on the other components.

I have to admit personal stories – the concept of each character having a leveled up and a level down version of himself – sounds like a cool idea. If I was playing Eldritch Horror regularly, I’d be tempted to demonstrate what a chump I am by buying the add-on.

-Tom