Yeah, there are some branches, but with limited overall impact.
Legends of Andor isn’t rules heavy in that it’s not as Ameritrash as it might look. There’s a definite German elegance+detail to the design. Things happen quickly and simply. It’s a very well paced game, which I can’t say for a lot of these co-op fantasy games.
For what it’s worth, this is no longer a Fantasy Flight game and it shows. For several years now, it’s been a Kosmos game, and they’ve addressed some translation issues that Fantasy Flight screwed up in the base game. Seriously clumsy stuff that seems to indicate they didn’t much care about the license. Kosmos also has top-notch customer support. I was missing a few of the bases for standees, which wasn’t a big deal, since I had enough to play the game. But since you were supposed to get enough bases for every standee, I contacted them and in about a week, I got more standees than I’ll ever need. Any need any standees of various colors?
-Tom
I had no idea Andor was under the FFG label! My copy is from Kosmos and at least 5 years old now.
I finally integrated all the bits and pieces from the most recent Eldritch Horror expansion into my game and played with it last night. Yog-Sothoth was the Elder God who needed to be defeated and it was up to the randomly chosen and unlikely duo of Jenny Barnes the Dilettante and Michael McGlen the Gangster to dish out the damage. Both characters can do combat encounters pretty well, but neither character has a strong lore stat and I knew I’d be in trouble if spells were needed. Defeating Yog’s cultists are one method of acquiring spells which is precisely how the gangster ended up becoming quite the proficient spell caster. It was an interesting character development to say the least.
The personal stories that come with the expansion I found didn’t add much to the mental overhead with these two characters. Jenny’s story involves drawing 3 random locations and doing an encounter on each of those spaces to earn the success. She never did manage to find her lost sister sadly, going insane after an agreement condition wiped her sanity immediately to zero. Ouch. The Gangster’s personal story involves defeating monsters, one that is shared with a few investigators I found. Unfortunately, only non-epic monsters count, and he was unable to finish his personal story either. A third character I brought in to replace Jenny was the actress, and her personal story actually did slow me down a bit - the first time I succeed at a test with a given attribute (eg: lore) I can add that token to the card, and when all 5 are on there, her personal story is done. It was easy to achieve, but remembering to add the token meant shuffling back through the cards a couple of times to see if I had remembered to put it on.
I absolutely enjoyed the moment to moment gameplay with this particular session of Eldritch Horror. The mythos deck had moments of generosity interspersed with absolute cruelty. My first rumour was an easy one that simply involved moving to a space and doing an other world encounter that featured closing a gate. The second rumour added a a lot of tension to the game, spawning an epic monster (Render of the Veil) who would move on every reckoning step to the space where the top Gate was in the stack, causing said gate to open. Every single yellow mythos card was producing 2 gates, and having a run of gates opening that were associated with the red omen symbol caused me to stop and really work out how to manage this disaster with only two investigators.
Despite my best efforts at closing gates, killing the Render of the Veil and bringing back the Omen track, it eventually clicked over to red and in one turn, I took a loss of 5 doom. Yog-Sothoth awakened. I’d only just completed the second mystery with the actress and the game was beginning to look like a loss. Flip over the third mystery, killing the Dunwich Horror. “Ok, great!” I thought. Gangster is hanging around North America, he can go ahead and kill the Horror easily enough, a stick of dynamite to begin with, then rolling a handful of dice thanks to his Tommy gun asset and it should die quickly. In one turn, he wiped it out, but the following Encounter card didn’t celebrate him as a hero, but rather a villain, detaining him thanks to a failed influence check. Come on, he only stole one item at the beginning of the game, the dynamite interestingly enough, but I guess at some point there is a price to be paid. When the mythos phase rolled around that turn, my actress died and that position was now completely eliminated from the game. Worse, her death added a second gate to loss condition, one more and it would be all over.
It was up to a detained Gangster to try and squeeze out a win. There was only one turn to do it because the Omen was going to add the final gate to the loss condition. He had to succeed an influence check (yes), then cast a spell to enable travel to the nearest gate (succeed) then do a special encounter to finish the game. He managed to get through the initial pass condition (another influence check), then had to roll three lore successes to completely pass this final test. He rolled two successes and got lost in space and time instead. Not a bad way to go out as the planet he knew as Earth became no more.
Best loss in a long time!
Also, most recent expansion. In general, don’t bother unless you have most of the Eldritch Horror expansions and this is on sale. The highlight is the story cards. A few extra gates on the main board are nice. The “resource” tokens are an ok addition because it reduces the need to take on debts, but are another addition that could have been served by focus tokens in my opinion.
It speaks volumes about what a mess of add-ons and expansions this game is that I can’t recall whether I have the personal stories…
Hmm, okay, I don’t think I do. This must be after my moratorium on Fantasy Flight add-ons. Which turned into a moratorium on Eldritch Horror add-ons because I caved and bought a bunch of Arkham Horror decks.
-Tom
They’re introduced in the very most recent expansion, so probably not.
Only in the most recent expansion, and about the only reason to get it beyond if the Ancient One/Investigators appear interesting.
I’m on vacation at the moment and tried out two games I had bought but not played, yet. I bounced off Arkham Horror LCG pretty hard. I felt like trying to read a novel while being forced to doing some chores every other minute. It is just too fiddly for me. I really wanted to like it but maybe this kind of game just isn’t for me. I don’t know why but playing it feels like an uphill battle with the rules and the concept. I can’t describe it any better. I like exploring the synergetic effects in Darkest Night, I like calculating a space flight in Leaving Earth (thanks to Tom for his reviews) but in AH LCG I have the feeling it would be too much work until I start to have fun. Or maybe I’m just thick (always an option)…
Then I tried something completey different: Samurai Spirit. I love it. It’s simple to learn, fast to play. A game for a short break. I don’t play the solo variant but play just four samurais which is very easy to manage. I didn’t win, yet but it’s a game where you try again at once and give it another go.
After playing a bunch of Gloomhaven solo with three characters (fun, but a lot of bookkeeping) I purchased a little solo game called The Lost Expedition. Such a small footprint and simple mechanics, it’s been like an after-dinner mint to the smorgasbord that is Gloomhaven. I love survival/explorer games like Robinson Crusoe, and this scratches some of that itch.
Looks like an expansion for The Lost Expedition coming out in a few weeks, at least according to Amazon.
I’ve been doinking about in Four Against Darkness, but the rulebook is laid out very poorly that I’m getting a bit tired of looking for rule answers almost constantly. I’ve read good things about another game d100 Dungeon, and I think I may pick that one up via pdf at Drive-Thru RPG.
Tom, thanks for recommending Andor. I’d never heard of it before I read your posts, and now I can’t stop playing it. I even managed to interest my kid. I was worried he wouldn’t like the limits on bashing monsters, but to my surprise he loves that he has to think about whether and where to attack.
Started playing Triplock. A little puzzler about lock picking in a steampunk setting. I love it. It’s the kind of game that makes me talk to myself aloud while I try to remember which mechanism was at what place, searching for a strategy to get all pieces in the order I need them to. The parts are gorgeous. Nothing feels cheap. You can play it competetive, coop or solo. There is a small solo campaing (three expansions are available). Some may argue that there is little replay value since the quests in the solo campaign are always the same. But the puzzles change due to the nature of the game, so I’d say there’s a lot of game in it.
This stupid game is breaking my head so hard. I hate you I hate you I hate you, @countzero! Arglebargleargle I thought the frickin’ spring was under that chip but it’s the key? WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN???LJO(U*(*#&%)
Thanks for the heads-up on this!
-Tom
For those who might be interested, Yggdrasil (a very clever solitaire game about - you know - that Norse stuff) is being reprinted by Ludonaute. Boardgamegeek.com is taking pre-orders. The price is $50 plus shipping. Secondhand copies are running $100-$150 plus shipping. So you might want to get in on it, or at least be on the lookout for it from others.
Wow, Triplock looks cool and definitely going on to my wishlist. I don’t know this company though so not sure how long they keep stock/reprint. I love the look of the Deluxe Playmat as well.
Oh man, just don’t take a look at Too Many Bones or you’ll be falling down the Chip Theory hole soon enough. Their components are top notch.
And the reprint is sold out. Boo.
Played my first game of Deep Madness. I lowered a few of the monster card spawns as I read it was brutal by the rules.
9 turns. On turn 3 it seemed too easy and wish I had not turned down the spawn. Uh, on turn 5, one of my 4 characters was stuck in a space with 3 enemies and could not escape but also was running out of oxygen and so could not do any actions as she was also low on health and any action while low on oxygen could cause enough damage to kill her.
Sent an SMG dude to clear out those few baddies which he did but on turn 6 the stuck chic could only move to the space with the SMG dude and as he was also low on oxygen, neither could try to do much, but she tried one last time to fight her way out as they were becoming surrounded and could not last long. She attacked but had to roll a damage check from low oxygen beforehand and failed and died.I
Everyone has to live to win the scenario so that was it.
This is a very cool, very tough horror sci-fi game.
Lots of expansions with tons of monsters, both regular and Elite. Lots of variables in setup.
Most games I usually play once, put it away and pull out another but I instantly reset this as it creates a fun and exciting story as you play.
I have a hard time with actually setting up and playing solitaire games, so I don’t usually buy them. I am starting to appreciate them now and had purchased Nemo’s War. Over the last week I’ve added Skies Above the Reich and Comancheria.
Comancheria is the one I’ve been reading through and watching the designer’s videos on. I never had Navajo Wars but apparently Comancheria is lighter in some respects and a little quicker to get through. I really enjoy the concept behind the series, guiding a first nation through its history and preserving it as long as possible. Comancheria seems to chronicle a more aggressive and expansionist nation. The 1700 beginning date has the Comanche looking at a sprawling map full of bison and small tribes to raid. Of course there are the Spanish to the South and West as well as hostile tribes to the North. The flow of history is against the Comanche and things just get rough from there. To drive home the aggressive nature of the Comanche you’re pushed to extend yourself even in the good times. You’ve got goals on the history cards you must meet or it’s counted as a defeat.
Yeah, I’m looking forward to playing it. I think Navajo Wars is heading towards a reprint and I hope the series goes on.