We did a trial run of the first scenario in Gloomhaven to get a feel for the mechanics before we start the campaign with a full group of four.
Very promising! The different classes are really distinct, and in general the mechanics feel solid and intuitive. The hand management element is really something. The way monster turns are handled in is also quite neat.
Looking forward to get going on the campaign and getting more stuff unlocked, feels like it can only improve from an already good position.
We played the first adventure of Gloomhaven the other night and failed. First time any of us had played, so it was more of a learning experience. Really cool setup.
Last weekend, I saw a game of Dale of Merchants played without knowing any of the rules. Delightful and insane sounds like a good way to describe people collecting cute pandas and groaning about tasters. Iāve played several deck builders and I didnāt have a clue about what was going on.
My personal favorite Deckbuilder is Codex which uses deckbuilding to simulate RTS mechanics. Iām pretty sure Iāve talked enough about it here (one of my all time favorite games!) but I really wish it had made more of a splash.
I think itās by far the best co-op deckbuilder Iāve played. Thereās a ton of co-op deckbuilders that have pretty unexciting card powers and uninteresting cooperative decisions. Aeonās End has lots of fun combos between cards and character abilities to discover as well as often tense decisions for how to resolve events.
I really need to pick this up at some point, if only the complete version wasnāt so expensive! I really enjoy David Sirlinās approach to game design.
Thereās no shame in playing the first few scenarios on the easier difficulty. The rewards arenāt drastically different than the normal level and itāll give you a chance to learn how it works.
Iād also advise putting some thought into your choice of personal goals as some are much harder than others! Assuming the rules allow you to choose between two. Thatās how we played it but we mightāve houseruled that in.
Iām pretty sure you get to pick between the two! Iām trying to consider how I want to proceed. I might do a solo run for recording or play with a friend or two.
I just got an email that they have a 50% off sale on their website (with coupon CRAZY50) until the 28th, which gets the deluxe set down to like 110. That said, Iād strongly encourage getting just the core set. Itās only $50 and I played about 30 games of it before getting into any other colors. Plus, if you get all the colors separately, itās only $130 and youāre only short some binders. And if you really want to binders you can buy them as well and the total goes up to $170 which is still $50 cheaper than the deluxe set. Iām honestly not sure why anyone would get the deluxe set, it seems like a pretty bad deal to me.
The Codex core set does not support 4 players. I havenāt played the 4 player mode. Itās a 2v2 setup that sounds really interesting but I think would up the complexity quite a bit as well so I find it intimidating. I would imagine itās a good experience with 4 people whoāve played Codex a bunch already. Iām hoping to try it, but my Codex playing friends are split across gaming groups and havenāt all been together for it to make sense yet.
Cool, thanks for clarifying. I enjoy auction mechanics in theory, but then often find that in a game Iām terrible at estimating the value others place on things. Which makes me terrible at auctions.
Welp, Aeonās End was $25 on Coolstuffās pre-Black Friday sale, so I grabbed it for solitaire play. Iād be more interested in Codex if I didnāt have to draft a friend into the deck-building.
Codex is a fine game indeed, but its a little over-designed IMO. I like the deckbuilding system in the game, and it really does feel like youāre playing an abstraction of an RTS game. However, I think it has a few too many rules (for example, the whole āheroes systemā) that make it more complicated than it has to be.
To be honest though, I think many modern board games are over-designed in some way or another. Many designers (especially kickstarter game designers) just donāt cut enough chaff from their game systems.
Played Chaos in the Old World for the first time last night and I enjoyed it a fair amount. In terms of the multi-sided aggro and shafting other players combined with map control, it seems a bit similar to Blood Rage. Overall, Iād say the mechanics in Blood Rage are superior but one positive for CitOW is that it uses the Warhammer theme quite well. For example, you get to shout āBlood for the Blood God!ā multiple times in any given game.
I think you might enjoy charterstone. It starts out kind of simple but at least when you finish you can continue playing the game. Unlike Pandemic. The mechanics seemed okay, but I just wasnāt in love with it enough to purchase. Iām kind of burnt out on Legacy games at the moment.
That makes sense. I agree a lot of hobby games nowadays seem to value elegance a lot less than hobby games did a decade ago. I tend to prefer games with a little rough around the edges designs, especially if that roughness is hiding some exciting interactions, so this has mostly been a good thing for me. Iād put the āFlyingā keyword up there too. It matches RTS design well, but is quite confusing in the card game context, however it does lead to some pretty neat counter-counter-counter strategies that make it worthwhile for me.
Iād love to hear what you think of Aeonās End solo! Iāve never tried it myself. Iāve heard itās quite challenging. Might be worth playing two hands if it ends up feeling impossible.
For Codex, I just want to clarify you donāt have to do any building of decks before the game begins. Thereās advanced rules for building a set of cards to play from, but Iām 50 games in and havenāt felt the need to explore that part of the game yet. It works great with pre-built mono-color sets.
