It pains me why they never released the expansion for the iOS version.
Whenever I do a Kickstarter, I usually have any “your name” stuff done under Sarah’s name. So here’s Sonky McMaster going into the official Gloomhaven development set owned by Isaac Childres. Ol’ Sonky “DOOM POWDER” McMaster hahaha
I really agree with this assessment. The game is pretty fun and satisfying, but nothing too impressive. But the theme is so well executed that it really raises this game quite a bit above it’s peers. Just played it yesterday and had a great time crushing everyone under France’s brilliant nuclear wasteland.
Played both Scythe (finally!) and Energy Empire in the las week and I enjoyed both. I think Energy Empire is the real winner for me though. Definitely my favorite worker placement game to date. The balance between pollution and energy is pretty fun. EE is also a great weight for me for a Euro, being complex enough to be interesting to my but not overwhelming to me.
Pretty pleased that my copy of Nemo’s War just shipped too! Pretty excited to give that a go!
Quick question for the group: I’m reading Redwall to my oldest daughter (8) and she loves it, I’ve heard that Mice and Mystics is kind of like the Redwall board game, is that true? Is this a good game for an 8 year old and her dad? She loves stories, books, animals, and all things games.
I picked up a copy of Magic the Gathering “Duel Decks” this morning, looking for something to play with my wife in the off-hours when we’re hanging out at a hotel in a few days. Neither of us have played Magic before, but the clerk assured me that if we can play Hearthstone (we both do), we’ll have fun with this. And it’s easy to learn, and everything we need to get going is in the box (2 pre-made decks, right up our alley).
The problem is, there’s no freaking instructions in the box on how to actually PLAY Magic. There’s a short little cheat-sheet, but it’s using a bunch of terminology I’m not familiar with, and I really have no idea WTF I’m doing.
I guess I’ll have to bone up by watching watching a video tutorial or something before our trip.
What a stupid package. It’s obviously meant for brand new players, what, with the pre-made decks and all, but what’s the point of all that if they don’t even teach you how to fucking play? I guess they assume every new player will have an experienced player sitting there to show them the ropes. And I guess it doesn’t occur to them that if they’re selling a 1v1 duel package intended for new players who don’t have the cards or the willpower to collect and craft an entire new deck all their own, that maybe, just maybe, we kinda sort of need instructions on how to actually play too.
The various Duel Deck products are decidedly not intended for brand-spanking-new players - rather, they’re meant for players who are familiar enough with the game to understand a few of the stranger interactions that have come up over the game’s almost-25-year history, and would be interested in a standalone preconstructed product based around a specific theme and featuring some older cards that are a little too powerful for Standard, but fine in supplementary products. That said, once you learn the core rules, the Duel Decks are usually easy to pick up and play, and any weird stuff you might run into is almost certainly thoroughly explained online.
I’m guessing if you picked it up at a regular retail store (as opposed to an LGS or online retailer that might have a few older ones in stock), you got one of four specific recent Duel Deck boxes: Zendikar vs. The Eldrazi (has a couple of odd interactions, but isn’t too bad), Blessed vs. Cursed (slightly above average for complexity for these boxes in general), Nissa vs. Ob Nixilis (probably the most straightforward of these four, though unlike the rest, you’ll need to read the rules for how Planeswalkers work), and Mind vs. Might (the most complex Duel Decks box they’ve ever released, featuring an actual combo deck and a highly synergistic creature deck). All of those except Mind vs. Might are totally fine to pick up and play, and shouldn’t have too much that would be totally baffling to anyone who’s played other CCGs; if you got Mind vs. Might, you’re in for a somewhat rough time as a brand new player, but once you’ve learned a bit, both decks are a joy to play, with some very cool cards and the most powerful mechanic in Magic’s history.
Let me know if you need help with anything!
I picked up Mind vs Might.
I watched a couple tutorials on Youtube to at least figure out how turns are structured, starting hand, hand card limits, the concept of tapping cards etc. That will have to do for now. I might watch a couple more tomorrow, but I have the barest basics for now. I assume the card text will provide any further instruction once they’re in play.
I figure I’ll run the Mind deck, since it seems a little more complex, in that you have to sit patiently for a bit before cheating out expensive minions, and I’ll have my wife run the Might deck, since it looks like straight up early aggro, and might be easier to figure out sooner.
We’re just playing against eachother, so I’m not especially worried about making ridiculous plays as we learn.
And yea, I stopped in a local store for the first time. I was hoping to look at board games, turns out they just deal in TCGs.
Even as someone who loves TCGs, it’s always disappointing to find out a shop only carries them (or miniatures games). Along with just being frustrating for people who might want to buy or play other games, it’s usually not healthy for the shop in the long term, unless they have a very strong online sales presence.
The two biggest things to note with the Mind deck are that storm counts spells cast by all players during that turn and that you don’t always need to be concerned about getting combat value from your creatures. The Mind deck can easily win without casting any creature above three mana; in fact, it’s technically able to kill by turn five, regardless of what the opponent does and without entering combat, by way of the two cost-reduction creatures, burn spells, and the storm mechanic. That said, this would require quite the nut draw, and the deck is far more likely to win via the creatures that generate tokens whenever you cast noncreature spells, the creature-token-generating storm spell Empty the Warrens, or just cheating out the big spells and creatures. It’s also worth noting that using Snap to remove a creature during combat can totally blow out an attacking opponent - bouncing Lovisa Coldeyes or a large Rubblebelt Raiders can very easily save your ass, and since Snap lets you untap two lands, it leaves mana open if you’ve got any other instant-speed spells you want to cast that turn. Later on in the game, if you’ve got six mana open, you can cast Quicken and then cast the sorcery Temporal Fissure at instant speed, taking advantage of any spells your opponent may have cast during the turn for a higher storm count to bounce more permanents - unlike Snap, Temporal Fissure can bounce things like lands or the very powerful artifact Coat of Arms. Finally, when casting either Snap or Temporal Fissure at any time, note that the many creature tokens your opponent can generate will disappear forever if you bounce them! Despite the set including physical cards to represent various creature tokens, they don’t count as cards and can’t exist in any zone except the battlefield.
The Might deck is for the most part straightforward aggro, but it’s got a few tricks of its own - for example, despite blue being the color of counterspells, the red/green Might deck is the only one of the pair that gets a counterspell of any sort (the one-of Guttural Response, which can blow out many of the Mind deck’s strategies for just one mana). It also includes several spells with flashback, so the Mind player will need to pay attention to what the Might player has in their graveyard - even with an empty hand, the Might player can cast Sylvan Might or Beast Attack from their graveyard during combat and run over the Mind player or make a surprise blocker. Finally, just like the Mind deck, the Might deck is capable of winning incredibly fast (unsurprising for an aggro deck, of course), and unlike the Mind deck, it’s able to do so somewhat consistently. The deck is capable of getting a large number of creatures out very quickly, and with Lovisa Coldeyes (who gives almost every other creature in the deck a sizable boost and haste) and Coat of Arms (which can win the game on the spot, depending on what creatures you’ve played so far), the Might player can roll over the Mind player with ease.
A couple of things for both players to note: Coat of Arms affects all creatures, not just its controller’s creatures, so if the Mind player controls both of their Goblin Electromancers and the Might player controls Zo-Zu the Punisher, all three Goblins will get +2/+2, and the Mind player can easily benefit quite a bit more from Coat of Arms if they’ve got one of their token generators out, as each additional token of the same type will boost the others more and more. Also, since the decks share a color, there’s some neat customization you can do between the two without having to buy any extra cards - for example, after you’ve played with the decks a bit, you could try swapping the Mind deck’s Volcanic Vision for the Might deck’s Beacon of Destruction if you want to go harder on a burn theme in the Mind deck while giving the Might deck a way to deal with the large number of creature tokens the Mind deck can generate, or trade the Mind deck’s Young Pyromancers for the Might deck’s Burning-Tree Emissary to make the Mind deck’s storm gameplan work better while giving the Might deck another way to go wide.
That’s a good read. I’ll have to save the post for when we get into the game in a few days.
Yes, Mice and Mystics is clearly inspired by Redwall, though the backstory is that you are humans turned into mice.
It has nice narrative elements, it’s a pretty simple coop, should be right in your wheelhouse.
Played Scythe and Clank! again last night. Good games of both, but I think I’ve reached “peak Scythe” while Clank! is on it’s way up on my gaming-O-meter.
I’ve played enough Scythe that the initial complexity of the game is being replaced by the sense that winning really comes down to pumping up popularity and timing the sixth star right. Early on, Scythe’s layered approach to engine building and it’s integration of engine building and map control make it seem incredibly deep. However, I’ve been on a winning streak and I’ve won using a whole bunch of methods (military, econ, aggro, turtling) that all ended up with me pushing for a sixth star when my popularity was high and I was choosing the timing. Generally, winning with a Move action to spread my map control and getting that sixth star for a successful battle. It doesn’t seem to matter what method I use to get 5 stars and to get high on the popularity; once I’m there, grabbing the sixth star seems to guarantee victory. I’m not saying this makes Scythe bad; it’s great. But I feel like the mystery has been peeled back.
As for Clank!, last night’s game was still just the base game, without the water expansion, but it was a very good and very tense game. I made it into a race by grabbing a 20 point treasure and getting the hell out of dodge quickly, but I timed it poorly; I got out while the other 3 players were lightly damaged so although I dropped the hammer of dragon wrath on 1 of the 3, one of the other two made it fully out, and the other made it to the upper part of the dungeon and still scored. Interestingly, it was the guy who made it out of the deep dungeon but not all the way out who won; he was slower than 2 of us, but had a lot more skill cards and ended up winning by buying cards like gems that give victory points. Right now, I’m really liking Clank! with it’s mix of deck building and dungeon map crawling.
I think you’ve sold me on this. Sounds like a blast! I wish it went up to 5. I find my groups are at 5 players a lot recently, which is a frustrating number for a lot of board games. (Mostly we play Archipelago, A Study in Emerald, Concordia, and Energy Empire at those counts, which isn’t all bad, but I’d love a bigger well to draw from.)
So my wife and I took on book 7 of Hogwarts Battles.
As before each new book folds in some new mechanic or wrinkle. Game 4 adds dice, game 5 adds the end game boss (that upgrades each consecutive book), game 6 adds proficiencies, and game 7 adds horcruxes.
I particularly want to talk about these last two, because they really change the game. Proficiencies are a set of abilities that you choose at the start of the game. Each character can choose one of nine different abilities. They each impact one part of the game, from improving healing, mitigating villain abilities, rerolling dice, drawing cards, or having influence removal. There doesn’t seem to be any ‘must have’ build, most combinations can be effective. Depending on the number of players it can alter what is best. Anyhow it gives a really neat update that really changes how different characters play.
And the horcruxes in game 7? They are a really neat mechanic. So in order to destroy one, you need to roll symbols on the house dice. The first few have two symbols, and you need to roll only one of them. Not that hard, really. It makes the cards that give die rolls even better, and they were already high value cards. Hogwarts: a History is probably the best 4 cost card in the game, as it lets you roll any one of the 4 dice. When destroying horcruxes this is a fantastic choice. With 4 symbols, and each dice being dedicated (3 of 6 faces) to one symbol, being able to select a dice with 3/6 odds over a 1/6 odds is huge.
But each horcrux needs to be beaten sequentially. Until then the active one has a negative effect, such as blocking you from healing yourself, or preventing shared actions. But once beaten give a permanent ability to the one who destroyed them. These usually key by discarding cards. So discard a card to roll house die X (there are three different ones of this). The final one requires 3 symbols to destroy, but is a discard to use, one time 3 influence removal.
But the wrinkle is that until all 6 are destroyed, Voldemort is impervious. If all are gone before he shows? No big deal. Otherwise it can be bad news I imagine.
As you can probably tell from the ‘I imagine’ this was not the case for us.
My wife chose Hermoine (bonuses for playing more spells) with Defense Against the Dark Arts (largely negates negative effects from discarding cards). I played Ron (finding personal fulfilment and inner healing through punching things) with Arithmancy (cards with Dice cost less, and can reroll dice once each time I roll).
The first turn was a disaster of immense proportion. Due to a quirk of the dark arts and villain decks my wife got stunned on the very first turn, before anyone took an action. 10 health, whacked. Also due to this I took lots of splash damage, and my first turn I got stunned too. We lost the first location before downing even one villain. With 4 locations and over a dozen villains? This was pretty grim looking. Turn 3 for each of us to lose a location is about as bad as it can get.
But we turned things around. Lots of dice cards came out early, and I snapped them all up. Turns out being able to reroll each dice once is kinda strong. At this point I would destroy a horcrux a turn. We also got a few removal abilities (the second horcrux has one, at the cost of discarding 2 cards) and managed to keep from losing the second location, despite the track filling at one point. By the end of the game we were pretty reliably each drawing 12+ cards a turn. My turns went basically:
Discard 3 cards
grab all 4 dice
Roll
Reroll
draw 2-3 cards.
Roll 2-3 more dice
draw more cards.
Oh hey, hon, while you were shuffling you get to draw 6 more cards.
Oh wait, make that 7.
Ok, 8.
And 2 Energy.
Umm, also I played a bunch of allies so heal 2.
PUNCH ALL THE THINGS
And I did eight damage so heal 2 more.
Something about grabbing those handful of dice, and of course I’d roll them all at once, then just drawing half my deck? Felt good, let me tell you. Then my wife would return the favor. We’d each start our turns with 7-8 or more cards, and draw more. A fully tuned end game deck can be a beautiful thing.
Well we’ve beaten it, but I imagine we’ll try again. Conveniently we are only a month or so away from the expansion dropping, so I imagine that will keep this game firmly in the rotation.
I know that Wil Weaton did a video of Mice and Mystics on his Geek and Sundry channel recently. It was a game I was interested in for a time, but his video actually turned me off it in the end. I never made the Redwall connection despite those books holding fond memories for a younger me, but I can certainly see it with Mice and Mystics from what I understand of the game setting.
Today was like Christmas for me. On top of a copy of Leaving Earth and the much delayed Robinson Crusoe arriving in my mailbox, a copy of Nemo’s War also came in fortuitously at the same time. All of this gaming goodness that has come in right before university resumes for me.
My big problem right now is, how do I open Leaving Earth. Somehow I’m meant to use a knife to cut cleanly along the paper that seals the box shut. It seems almost sacrilegious to do. Plastic shrink wrap exists for a reason.
I never thought I’d ever be in this position, but I have a backlog of board games. I can’t help myself. I need a bigger house. Worse is that I’ve also sent a message off to Victory Point games to see if they can cut the freight cost of shipping Dawn of the Zeds 3rd edition…
Got an email from the creators of The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31, they will be showing at the Comic-con in San Diego this weekend. The game itself is planned for release in October. Would love to know more about this, anyone planning to be at the Comic-con this year?
Played a couple of interesting shorter games at a meetup last night.
First up was Not Alone, a game where one player is the Alien and everyone else are survivors of a crashed starship. The survivors are trying to stay alive and get off the planet. The Alien is hunting the survivors down. The players start with 5 cards showing 5 basic locations and each turn they play one face down showing where they will go. The Alien places a token showing where the Alien is searching. If the Alien catches a player, the player loses 1 will (out of 3) and the Alien advances up the victory track. If a player is not caught, the player gets to use the special ability on the location card, such as pulling a card back into hand, drawing a new location card for the 5 advanced locations, etc. If all players avoid the Alien, the players advance on their victory track. There are a few additional wrinkles but its a game of cat and mouse, with a lot of deduction as to where the survivors and the Aliens will go each turn. It played pretty swiftly and I give it a moderate thumbs up.
Second up was Burke’s Gambit which is basically a spin on The Resistance but with dice. The players are crew on a starship and one of the players has become Infected. The players are divided into two teams with hidden cards. The blue teams wants to identify the infected player and then vote them out the airlock. The red team knows who is on the red team (the blue team does not) and wants to vote a non-infected person out the airlock (so that the infection spreads to earth). Each turn, a player rolls a dice which will result in an action: attack, heal, inspect a neighboring player for infection, and so forth. Some of the dice are engine power ups and when you reach a number of engine power ups based on the number of players, the vote happens and the blue or red team wins. It’s a pretty tight spin on the Resistance concept and I like the addition of the dice, as well as individualized special abilities for the crew.
Neither of these is a must buy for me, but I found both enjoyable.
I just picked up Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game, and surprisingly found myself enjoying it a lot more than I expected. Playing a lot of solo. I give myself 7 cards with 3 heroes and several house rules to make it easier and STILL find myself losing 75% of the time. Its fun and fast, plays in about 1 hour or less. Which is good because of how many times you have to replay a book. The scenario or book plays differently enough and the selection of heroes makes it highly replayable. I’ve been playing them in order of the published books and with the heroes that were in the story…that sometimes make it harder…but its been fun! :)
Played Anachrony this week. It is quite the table hog.
It’s a medium/heavy specialized worker placement game with a loan mechanic disguised as time travel. It’s definitely a “want to do everything, but no time to do it” kind of game.
The iconography will scare you at first glance, and makes the game feel more difficult than it is. Once you understand what your trying to accomplish the basics of the iconography become clear. I enjoyed my first play through and look forward to more games.
Pros:
Theme & Art
Asymmetrical everything. Player boards, resource boards, leader cards.
Specialized workers for game actions
Mini expansions in the game (not sure if this is a KS edition only).
Solo player variant.
Did I mention COOL OVER PRODUCED MECH PIECES (this is only in the KS version. You have to purchase separately otherwise).
Cons:
Iconography overload
COOL OVER PRODUCED MECH PIECES (only in the KS version. You have to purchase separately otherwise).
Table Hog!!!
Potential Issue
I need more plays before I can comment, but many of the super projects felt unnecessary other than for points. Some of them do cool things, but I suspect that by the time you get them built the game is almost over.
