Echoing the above, but Miniature Market has been my go-to for tabletop game purchases for a while now, both because they tend to have good prices on stuff and because of their $6 flat-rate shipping (something CSI seems to have only recently added - I know every time I’ve gone to order stuff from them in the past, I’ve backed out because of shipping costs). Since MM’s physical store is only about three hours from me, I usually get stuff from them within two days without paying extra for faster shipping.
Played a ton of Silent Victory this weekend.
Lots of fun. I just completed my 4th patrol and what seemed like a “quiet” voyage ended up with me sqeaking back to base in a nearly crocked sub which had been depth charged and bombed. What is cool is I would have died if my crew had not just been upgraded to veteran and so had an AA bonus. Good fun!
Ah, I didn’t realize that. Is the Lord of the Rings system something completely new? It doesn’t use the whole location advancement (remove X tokens, advance location) and engaged enemy (enemies “engage” characters to lock them down) concept? I must be misremembering, but I only played a friend’s copy a couple of times, and that was a few years ago.
The difficulty level variability strikes me as really lazy. You’re simply changing the distribution of the token pool. Gee, I can drop a -5 in there if I really want to? Thanks, Fantasy Flight! How clever of you!
It’s especially disappointing considering how many cool gameplay mechanisms you can build around token pools. Taking tokens out, putting new ones in, changing the frequency and distribution of various results, hanging possibilities over the players’ heads, implementing some sort of push-your-luck risk/reward mechanics. As near as I can tell, this game does exactly none of that. Instead, it’s just a dumb “how hard do you want the game to be” opt out.
Contrast this to Eldritch Horror where the Mythos deck has various card types and distributions to jigger difficulty level. There is furthermore difficulty variability based on your choice of Elder God. They even added in some cool starting bonus/penalty set-ups in one of the add-ons.
But Arkham Horror: The Card Selling Game is just, “hey, why not apply a negative modifier to your skill checks to add replayability”! As for deck concepts, don’t get me started. There aren’t enough cards in the game yet for any meaningful deck building. Each character has pretty much one possible deck, and all of them re-use cards for the other characters. Fantasy Flight will eventually sell the deck building aspect of this game once they release more add-ons.
(The werewolf scenario add-on is out now, but I haven’t seen what kinds of cards it adds.)
-Tom
Important question: does Miniature Market use those horrible styrofoam peanuts to pack their games? CSI is literally the only place I’ve gotten packages from in at least 5 years that does, and they’re a nightmare to get rid of.
Air packs and crumpled paper. I’ve never seen a packing peanut from them.
No. In LotR, you simply have locations pop up out of the encounter deck into the staging area, and then you try to clear them using card effects or “questing”. In AH locations are mostly permanent (though some can be locked or opened later in the scenario, depending on your progression). They act basically like board game locations…except that you set them up according to the instructions in the campaign guide, and they can change around depending on how you play the game.
[quote]
Fantasy Flight will eventually sell the deck building aspect of this game once they release more add-ons.[/quote]
Isn’t this pretty much the crux of collectible card games? Buy the starter, then buy boosters to add to your deck options? I’m not sure what the objection is.
Mine hasn’t arrived yet, but I believe the Rougarou one is just scenario cards. No new player cards. The first big box should be out by the end of the month.
That there’s not much you can do with the core set. I don’t recall Netrunner, for instance, feeling so limited in terms of the deck-building options. But after spending time with the core sets of Star Wars: Armada and the Arkham Horror card game, they seem calculated to limit how much you can do without buying more stuff. In other words, the content has less to do with the design and more to do with the business model. I’d be delighted by that if I were a shareholder. As a customer, I’m not exactly thrilled.
-Tom
Yep, you’re right. I just looked through them. Only scenario cards so still no meaningful deck-building. I guess this is how the Lord of the Rings game works, too? No meaningful deck-building unless you buy add-ons?
-Tom
It’s hard to do too much deckbuilding with just a single core set until new sets come out, yeah.
LotR had a scenario-only release before the first expansion packs came out, I think. “The Massing At Osgiliath”, IIRC. Similar idea with “Curse of the Rougarou” and the other one about the Carnavale.
For LotR, the BGG strategy forum has a good number of suggested decks using just the core set. I’m not good at deckbuilding myself, and own only the core set, and find these suggestions are more than enough to keep the game fresh and give me my own ideas on tweaking.
A random comment, apropos of nothing, but for fans of Sentinels of the Multiverse, I am finding that playing the Vengeance multi-villain setup is much, MUCH easier when you have a computer doing the heavy lifting for you. The recent Handelabra app update has, much to my surprise, made Vengeance my favorite way to play! I absolutely can’t wait for the Villains of the Multiverse update to give it even more options.
I just sold my whole collection of LOTR:TCG cards…got tired of deckbuilding for specific scenarios…and having so many cards and additional rules just became too much. I’m almost to the point of just playing games like Pandemic The Cure or Hostage Negotiator for their easy quick gameplay…now where did I put the rules for Robinson Crusoe.
I want to get a few comments off my chest with Eldritch Horror. tl;dr: First expansion great. Subsequent expansions good but annoying. Signs of Carcosa is probably the next best expansion in terms of being able to incorporate everything into the stacks.
I bought the game on a whim I guess when I was browsing the online store. I’d watched the Geek and Sundry playthrough of Elder Sign, was aware that Arkham Horror post expansions was a hot mess and that Eldritch Horror basically became a rewrite that played much better. So when the game came, I eagerly cracked it open onto my largish dining table that comfortably seats 6 people. Bear in mind I live alone, so having a game on the table is never a problem for me, thankfully, and this was the case with Eldritch Horror where I thankfully can walk away from the game easily, and come back to it later. And that is exactly how I played the game over a few days, with each game engrossing me substantially. As a result, it was an easy decision to purchase the expansions.
I had done a bit of research with the expansions, the general idea is that Forsaken Lore is the best (I agree) and the others were pretty good. I grabbed them all, including the recent Dreamlands in one hit. Christmas present for myself. Integrating Forsaken Lore wasn’t really a problem. It fleshed out the Ancient Ones from the base game giving more clues, more mysteries and increased replayability quite a lot. Then when it came time to the next expansion, Mountains of Madness, buyers regret started to come in. I knew there was a side board, but I never really considered where it would go. And looking at my table, I found myself thinking about how to easily accommodate the side board, plus the extra piles of cards. I’ve had to break down the status effect conditions to their own piles because those small cards don’t like to stack nicely when the pile gets too large. The sideboard just sits awkwardly wherever I fit it on this large table. Furthermore, I find myself wondering how on earth I can manage all the little bits and pieces for the side board, that aren’t always in use, such as the clue tokens that don’t get used unless the game setup specifically calls for said board.
I am happy to say that Tom is right about Fantasy Flight’s business model. More to the point, I wish I’d read his review first. With each expansion, there are the problems of what to do with each side board and associated tokens and cards. I’ve gone so far as to buy a box to keep the tokens organised, but the cards means creating a custom insert or some other storage method. I did see on BGG that a user has created token boxes, and that might be the answer for the short term perhaps. Even then, not the best answer. My gripe is that FFG provide a box whose sole purpose is to transport game materials from factory to house. When they essentially say integrate nearly everything into the game, what it means is have two boxes (at least) on standby to store everything, and make it a daunting prospect to show friends unfamiliar with it. Piles upon piles of cards, many of which aren’t used, coupled with boards that may or may not be used, a plastic box filled with monsters and investigators, and a second filled with tokens. That’s a hard sell to show friends on a boardgaming night under the promise that it is a easy game to pick up and learn. Good thing it is more of game that I’d rather play alone. Paizo at least did the right thing with the Pathfinder Adventure Card game where their stock organiser was functional enough. Sentinels of the Multiverse, well, that was a card game that does span across multiple boxes, but thankfully easy to manage. But Eldritch Horror leaves me shaking my head.
But with that remorse out of the way, I am also happy with the expansions once I get past the basic frustrations. There is a tonne of replayability present and the expansions haven’t really screwed the rules too much beyond a couple of new additions. I do wish that the mythos deck, when building it, was larger. Approximately 16 rounds has so far never felt like enough from a character development slant. In one game, an investigator can do some incredible things, or be beaten down, and then kicked over repeatedly, and that sort of story that develops in my head is great. Can’t get enough of it. I’d be tempted to try and solo with 8 investigators because currently running with two means I have each covering roughly half the map doing what they can. The sort of cohesion that this game is about feels absent with two. But managing 8 will undoubtedly be a lot of work for one person. Either that, or I spend a bunch of time building a foamcore organiser.
Also, Tom, you raised a question in your review of Mountains of Madness about why the waitress is a powerful magic user. The lore on the back of her card states that she struck her head and could recall a past life as a sorceress. For what it is worth, the only reason I found your review was because it wasn’t fully clear at the time of what to do with Antarctica clues and I had to hit google. If I read the rules more closely though, it does say to separate those, so naturally they need their own little spot, alongside the gates, in my plastic box. This separating thing should be a minor issue, but the annoyance is there.
Ah, Eldritch Horror storage woes…
I keep all the game content in two boxes (main game and MoM). I use the small expansion boxes to organize my cards and a plano box to store the tokens. Sort of works and I think I might be able to fit The Dreamlands in the same two boxes, but then I’m wondering whether I should throw away the other two big expansion boxes I would have by then. I always have issues throwing away perfectly good boxes with nice art, but my boardgame closet is too full right now.
As I said before, there’s this, but it’s crazy expensive (and then add shipping and customs to the EU and it becomes a small fortune).
Like the EU, Australia also cops the whole freight thing pretty bad. In saying that, a briefcase might be the answer! Well, a suitcase with an organiser built into it. I just don’t want to be reaching into a cupboard and grabbing a stack of boxes, especially when it comes to managing any boxes that could be stacked over them. Hard life, tough decisions.
I too have problems with throwing away boxes, but thankfully living in a house by myself means I can have empty boxes in one cupboard, and the full game in another. When they start filling up, I don’t know what I’ll do. I regret tossing away some of my old video game boxes for instance. Especially the Civ II one. Don’t want to repeat that mistake!
I don’t generally have a problem with Fantasy Flight’s “expand anything that sells” approach, but it’s definitely complicated by their complete inability to provide decent inserts or anything remotely resembling a storage solution. When I set them next to companies like Stonemaier that have thought of basically everything (and in Scythe’s case, even show you how to put everything away on the side of the box), it’s just amazing the difference - and there certainly doesn’t seem to be any cost savings being passed on to the consumer by not taking those steps.
Two very brief game comments while I have a second:
Nautilion may well be the thinkiest roll-to-move game of all time.
One-Deck Dungeon is The Real Deal. Setup time is non-existent, lots of interesting choices to make, tons of potential.
I’ve been playing the Solo Expansion to Conflict of Heroes/Awakening the Bear, and I’m really impressed. The solo expansion features a card-driven AI that behaves like an actual opponent. It reacts to board state and player actions, but not predictably. It doesn’t just play defense; it moves aggressively, and its moves make sense almost all the time. I think it’s more interesting than the solitaire opponents in excellent wargames like D-Day at Omaha Beach and Fields of Fire. As with most solo games, it’s tough; I’m 0-4 so far. But it’s fair. I’m getting better at the game, and my losses are narrower. I feel like I have a chance in every game.
All that said, I wouldn’t recommend this system unless you’re prepared to learn two sets of rules: the base rules for “Conflict of Heroes,” and the solitaire rules layered on top of it. COH is actually pretty easy to learn as wargames go; the rulebook is maybe 12 pages long. The solo expansion’s rules are about the same. For a veteran of ASL, these are a breeze. But for most gamers, they might seem daunting.
CoH with the solo expansion remains high on my wish list, as I’d like to find a good solution for solo tactical wargaming.
I’ve tried solo-ing the Band of Brothers system, but I wasn’t too fond of it. I’m considering trying Combat Commander, but have read mixed things about it.
Any other tactical systems that solo well?
I need to do this with my LotR and some other games as well. My closets are brimming with games that became too bloated to enjoy (or just replaced by better designs that have since been released). What venue did you use to sell them?