My wife and I wanted to end the year on a high and played Vindication this afternoon. When I say it’s in my top 10 games, I should be honest with myself. It’s really my favourite in my 140+ games collection.
To say the giant box is packed with goodies is an understatement. Also fits (barely) the Leaders & alliances expansion.
We generally play only the base game and various mini expansions that come in the box. But, today, we tried Leaders and Alliances (the expansion released as part of the 2019 Kickstarter) for the first time. and we loved it! I think it’s going to be part of our set up the majority of the time now.
Wretched scum thrown overboard, about to be rescued themselves on an unexplored island. The expansion adds the guild cards on the left
It adds known and fixed powers which you can use your attributes to pay for. Those help you complement your main strategy. I was concerned about adding complexity to the game for no real gain. But if you have the expansion and haven’t tried it, I encourage you to do so. It’s pretty great. And it doesn’t really add to the play time.
As for the game itself, I think it keeps getting better every time we play it. The randomised island lay out, secret quests and end game conditions mean that no 2 games play the same. Sometimes, we have long games that go late with 100+ points scores. Other times, like today, the game was over in around an hour with a 63 vs 60 score.
Companions recruited, monsters fought, guild alliances forged. And a “crushing” 3 points victory.
I know I have posted about the game before, but I can’t not share how awesome it is. The best part is that I think it gets better the more you play it. You get a better handle on the various puzzles. I was sure my random set up was going to mean I was going to win by a mile. But my wife smartly countered it all with her own strategy and was 1 card from beating me instead. Nice and tense game.
Nesrie
1586
We love the game in my group.
It’s got just the right amount of depth and downtime for a lot of groups and the staying power to keep it interesting throughout the entire play. Aside from a coupe of issues with the early run minis and my general dislike of the trays, the components are worthwhile too.
I am not backing their current Kickstarter just because I have too much already, and literally no game nights on the horizon yet.
newbrof
1587
Finally got Planet Apocalypse on the table. On my 1st turn I moved to the closest invasion token and rolled the despair dice to reveal the demons. I rolled with 4 dice 6-6-6 (the equivalent of the 3rd circle symbol). No joke, this spawned a Cacodemon. All my guys had already spent the courage (needed for support attack). So I cannot defeat him, need to roll 2 dice higher than 4, and so early in the game everyone only has one attack die. Mostly 1d6.
Guess, I let him through to the exit, have a good day Cacodemon.
There’s a mechanic to address that sort of luck: you get a once per game token that the leader can spend to, among a couple of other things, take one invasion roll, after rolling, and set the dice to whatever result you choose.
newbrof
1589
right, divine intervention token. This is my learning game, I just found it funny to roll a cacodemon. I think it will increase the doom track 1 point.
Yep. Everything’s 1 point except fourth circle demons, which are 4.
There was some game that was a hot topic of discussion here that was a competitive game but with a shared loss condition. So it was cooperative in that you had to all do but if you spent too much energy on the public good you would fall behind and not win the game. I think Tom wrote a review. I realize this is a super vague description, but does it ring bells for anyone?
Agreed. The fairly recent games that come to mind matching the description are either Lowlands or maybe Crossroads games like Gen 7 or maybe even Dead of Winter.
Lowlands is by far the better candidate as it’s all about preventing the lowlands from flooding while doing the minimum amount of work to build that wall and letting others do it for you.
Merakon
1594
Archipelago perhaps? Tom Chick at one point called it “probably my favorite boardgame.”
New Angeles does that as well, but with a traitor.
JPR
1596
Interesting. I bought Archipelago this year but haven’t had a chance to play it. Didn’t realize Tom was such a fan.
Looking at it, it seems the inverse of Spirit Island :O.
Matt_W
1599
But Spirit Island is the inverse of Settlers of Catan. It’s boardgameception.
Yep, that’s definitely Archipelago. Amazing bit of game design and easily one of my all-time favorites. And sadly, one that my group never liked as much as I did, so I didn’t get to play it as much as I would have liked.
The designer, Christopher Boelinger, did a dumbed down version with a sci-fi theme called Living Planet that I bought shortly before the pandemic. It’s no Archipelago.
-Tom
Well, pretty much any game about the era is the inverse of Spirit Island because Spirit Island is the inverse of colonialism. :)
But you’re right there are some interesting contrasts to Spirit Island: especially the co-op elements and the way the natives build up strength over time.
-Tom
I do love me some Archipelago, too. Even with your dismissal, I’ll have to look up Living Planet, I hadn’t heard about that.
I mean, Living Planet is fine, and it’s built on the same basic design as Archipelago, but I just don’t see any reason to play it instead of Archipelago.
(Note that I’ve never gotten to actually play it, though.)
-Tom
Well, great. I’ve got a copy ordered now, too. Not that I’ll get to play it in the next six months (at least), but hey, why not?
