Boardgaming in 2019!

I saw this video the other day on Reddit. The most impressive thing about the video is that camera work! It’s so professional, it really puts Vasel’s “10 videos in a row, one take each, all stood infront of a wall, with a different hat in each” approach to shame.

I definitely experienced the arc Rodney talks about. I used to be a collector: Gotta play them all! But then sometime last year I came to the realisation that I had way too many boardgames (500 or something in BGG stats) and had only played some of them once, years ago and some never. I was yearning for second, third, tenth plays on most of my games but never getting them. And for some games (ahem memoir 44) I was basically hoarding all I could get even though I had barely played the content I already had!

I think joining my local gaming club really helped. There’s a continuous influx of new games there, I think it helps dampen my FOMO and strong desires to play games vased solely on pictures. There are some people at the club whove been going for 10years are only own about 5 games. I’m impressed by their reservation! (Also: one of them’s an accountant, so it’s expected he’d be a tight was ;))

I’ve since stopped buying new games (mostly. I try!). I’ve even been ditching some, e.g. I took £400 ‘worth’ to UKGE “bring and buy” and sold most of it, and did similar last year.

I’m in the process of moving house right now (it sucks) and it turns out I have a lot of stuff in this house. I had much less when I moved in 3 years ago. I think my partner and I are secretly hoarders. We definitely need some kind of intervention! So I’ve already made sure she watched that video :)

/s

No problem with taking awards away from shite twee Eurotrash even in jest

(ง ͠° ͟ل͜ ͡°)ง

@McCrank
I will agree with Tom wholeheartedly. Organizing Shadows of Brimstone and prepping it for actual table time is a journey in and of itself. I spent a freaking ton of time (and money) before I really got the gaming humming. And I still have a lot to organize from expansions. Personally, I was starting at core sets then adding either direct or separate content to each core as I organized. I do not recommend playing off just one or both core sets; add in ranged enemies and at least some other content ASAP. Eventually I will mix it all together, but it made the pile of organizing to be done less daunting as I was just building up Terderra with a splash of void creatures or Jargono with western encounters. Thus I currently sort of have save slots for extra theming.

As to the game itself. I have played a fair bit now, and I really enjoy it. It is very unique. Mechanically it borrows from lots of places, most notably the 90s version of Warhammer Quest. But as a gaming experience, it is an adventure. It is not a guided story, but it will tell you a story. It begs for imagination and story telling. It has the most story of any game I have played, but without the flaw of being ONE (or few) stories.

It also has a wonderfully flexible system of encounters from story skill checks to combat that have extremely unique elements from monster to another or even the same monster when encountered again.

Lots of games lately claim to be some sort of D&D without a requiring a Dungeon Master. Well, that usually means it has enemy AI with limited or railroaded story. And, no offense to fans, D&D isn’t any more of a game than Cards Against Humanity. It is kind of just a social experience of planning or bartering for rulebook hooks. Brimstone is a game. It has mechanics that directly link everything from bizarre town shopping consequences to having brains melt to unspeakable western horror behind some dark portal in a cave. It is like choose your own adventure meets madlib in a rules driven adventure.

I really love the game. However, the organization involved is no joke. Neither is the table or closet space required. I am not exaggerating when I say that I spent entire days and closed out multiple Kinkos as I worked on organization materials.

I saw Rodney’s collector video right as I was debating going all in on Middara episode 2 and 3. I have the first set, and it’s a monster and totally untouched in the KS shipping box. Rodney had me seriously ready to back out of my pledge and sell off episode 1. But that voice is there, whispering. What if Middara is an amazing crawl that I would be mad as heck to have not gone all in later? FOMO is poison.

Awesome. Thank you Chaplin.

So… Etherfields or Tainted Grail?

Tainted Grail got the most Kickstartbucks of anybody. That makes the choice obvious, amirite?

We are playing Treasure Island next weekend… anyone played it?

I need to break out my eyepatch. Arrrr.

Of anybody? Didn’t Kingdom Death do $12+ million or something?

But TG did $5 mil, and Etherfields just started and is already halfway there. Who knows how far it’ll go?

Really, I think the answer is ‘how long do you want to wait?’ TG is shipping… soon? ish? Etherfields says end of 2020.

Yes, once! It was an exciting game, I felt (playing Long John). Pretty sure the other players liked it, too, although I recall at least one saying they weren’t sure if they would like it as much after the newness had worn off. Its uniqueness is definitely the best thing about it, so there might be something to that. I’ll have to play it more to see if it holds up longer term. Let me know what you think!

Yup, played with @Wendelius and @Ginger_Yellow and loved it. Highly unique and has a super short learning to play before you start the fun period. Whomever plays as Long John should know the rules well so they can be clear and consistent, then you are good.

Pretty much essential to play the Black Sails TV theme tune as the intro music. In fact pretty much essential to watch Black Sails - all seasons. No really!

Another South East London game day report and renewed invite to you. Join us! Ping me if you would like to join an ever evolving group of video and board gamers that meetup at my place regularly for gaming. I serve pizza and have a tray in my freezer that literally never runs out of magnum ice creams :-P

We played . . . . Root! With 6 players and therefore both expansions. The deeply asymmetric factions and cohesive woodland theme had huge appeal (helps that I live next to a park with potentially warring squirrels, birds and foxes). Learning to play was a bit of a challenge but helped a lot by a paint-by-numbers first two turns starter guide included with the game and good player guides.

Useful to know a bit how other factions work but if playing for the first time I would suggest players focus on learning one faction well and worry about the others later. Also, Birds are tricky.

We played two games back to back sticking with the same factions which worked very well. Within the second game - playing as the rebels / guerrillas / woodland alliance I found myself realising that there were things I should be doing that I had no concept of in the first game.

Downtime with 6 players is . . . . not terrible. Individual turns are fairly swift and planning time for your next is useful.

Also played, Decrypto! Happy to rate this as one of the most fun to play light filler games. Clever and tricky but not a brain burner and funny when your own team completely misinterpret your word clues and you have to keep a straight face whilst you watch them screw it up! Just as much fun to lose as it is to win. Great game.

Also pizza. Shout to @Wendelius and @Ginger_Yellow and some non-QT3ers!

I guess I could just get both. I backed TG, but don’t think I need 2 campaign games.

I do like how Etherfields seems more bizarre gameplay-wise than Tainted Grail, which looked really good but perhaps more conventional. I almost backed Tainted Grail but cancelled last minute due to “collectors syndrome”, but I think I might not back out of Etherfields.

Played the Z-Man version of History of the World today with some friends. It took us around 5 hours to complete, though we weren’t really in a hurry (and one of the guys had serious AP). It’s a really great Risk-like, especially for history geeks. Its definitely a game where the mechanics create a narrative, as opposed to relying on flavor text or mobile apps. That said, it is definitely a beer-and-pretzels game, and its mechanics may be a bit out-dated compared to other modern games. It was still a lot of fun though, and will definitely hit the table again sometime soon.

It’s strongly reminding me of 7th Continent in the gameplay videos I’ve watched (albeit mostly in how scenes and such work - action resolution is fairly different). But supposedly the preview videos show it at a very basic stage of play and things get much more ambitious later.

The game should speed up with repeated plays, and the faster it is the more enjoyable it is.

What’s crazy is that the original was longer. I imagine it would have been a real slog to play.

Got to get both Villagers and Tiny Towns to the table tonight, and a good time was had with both.

Villagers went over particularly well! I had been slightly put off by some seeming fiddliness with the rules, but now I think it’s not a problem at all. The game is actually quite easy to explain. And the variety of directions players can go to score points makes it feel like you really are building your own little unique village. “Round here, we make carts and wine and do some mining on the side!” “Well we are a priestly town that makes beer and provides the other villages with blacksmithing services!” The game has that beautiful modern white-background look (like Tokaido) and super on-point packaging. Not sure if it’s at retail yet (I kickstarted it), but I’d recommend it!

Tiny Towns looks light and simple–and it’s certainly elegant as hell, which is why my designer-brain likes it! We also found it to be easy to screw yourself up and sometimes agonizing to decide what to do with your one resource block a turn. I ended up doing dismally because I made one or two mistakes early that just cascaded into more bad moves I couldn’t avoid. Others managed to do much better. I think the game really is a marvel of design; I just wonder if you can finish it feeling good about yourself, or if it leaves you with a catalog of your missed opportunities.

Tiny Town is the most brutal game since Agricola.

-Tom