J'ai une âme solitaire: Solitaire Boardgaming Megathread!

Definitely! The one off, zero to hero of Massive Darkness 2 is great in an era saturated in 100 hour campaign board games. It also has solid rules for 10ish hour campaigns in several boxes too.

I gave my KS all-in of Massive Darkness 2 a few spins this weekend as well. I know it won’t be the cup of tea of many here, but I really, really enjoyed it. It is definitely a dice chucking dungeon crawler. But what I really like about it is that it is essentially a paper and plastic video game. It is part Diablo, part rogue-like, and part character class mini game. I too love how the classes are hugely different from each other. They are not deep thinky or anything, but each experience is pretty unique such that playing the same scenario as a Wizard instead of a Barbarian is refreshingly different than just some ability change ups.

The randomness is great too. I throughly enjoy the modularity that seeds random elements so that you can trim or go nuts with content from MD2, MD1, Zombicide Black Plague, and Zombicide Green Horde (the last 3 if you have the conversion packs). The way they adjusted special abilities of the enemies also gives them a lot more flavor than before. Fighting Imps that blow themselves up on heroes (totally a video game thing) is notably different than Nymphs that charm the heroes into beating themselves up. The same is true for the roaming monsters. The fire spewing Cerebus who’s fire never goes out is very different from the fallen angel Andra jumping off the game board to land on heroes in later turns (again, totally a video game move).

It’s all just…fun. I rate it very highly as a light, solo playable dungeon crawl as it can be played truly solo (one hero).

I’m not sure what you mean by double activation. The AI is very Zombicide in that Mobs (leader plus minions) go for the nearest hero. They all move/attack twice like a Zombicide runner. The roaming monsters only activate once, but that single activation tends to be two actions blended if they satisfy a special line in the AI, or 2 standard actions if their lines don’t apply. Bosses activate constantly (after every hero instead of the enemy phase).

My biggest issue so far is the game seems rather varied in difficulty, but that can be a plus in the toolbox sense. The first few scenarios and most of the critters in the core box seem easier than other scenarios or critters. I like my co-op or solo hard so I’ve already bumped things up. I give every model a black die (thus adding 1 via leader or roaming monsters instead of only minions) to make them hurt more and so characteristic specials go off more often. I might give the Roaming Monsters two passes at the AI like Descent, but I’m not sure. I’m also tinkering with the idea of giving enemies more shields each tier so that attack based special (claws) get their moment too. Even rules as written, I find it solid though.

A lot of it is not KS exclusive, but I do expect it to be out of print (and thus crazy expensive) fairly fast. Any character class box is a good idea to pick up ASAP. I also expect there could be some deals to be found on bit MD1 being sold off. If someone could snag a full MD1 KS and the upgrade card pack (or just the pack and proxy stuff) it would add a ton of content and maybe on the cheap as MD1 (without the upgrade card pack) is inferior in every way. That said the core box content is way more than they usually put in the core.

I can’t stop thinking about MD2 today. I find the randomness and character building via level choices and gear (very rogue-like) just so engaging. I’m totally going to prep more KS content over the week then play the heck outta it next weekend.

It’s been awhile but I remember Zombicide having cards in the AI deck that were “2X Zombie turns” so the zombies got to basically do the zombie activation phase twice in a row. This made it always a risk even if you thought you were “safe”.

I agree that MD2 might be a tad easy. I’ve been playing true solo and I am thinking about adding a second spawn point to get more mobs on the table. I like the idea of giving leaders a black die too.

I think the gear and player powers is just awesome in MD2! Hopefully I can tune up the difficulty just a smidge and I think it will be perfect.

I did order the Campaign expansion and the Monks/Necromancers expansion as well. I haven’t played the campaign at all though. I like having it as an option, but honestly the “one-off” adventure is a huge plus for me here.

I do regret not backing for all the stretch goals if I’m honest, but at the time it was funding I wasn’t playing any Boardgames (I had a friend who is the worst sort of Euro-Snob and was always hassling me about how the Euro was the superior form of game (Insert comic book guy voice for proper effect here). That soured me on Boardgames for a bit if I’m honest. MD2 campaign was during that “soured” period. Oh well.)

after my un-rage quit, I calmed down and tried another time the professor lady. And was successful. Instead of expecting 2 success, I expected mostly to roll blanks and tried to take failure into account.

The terror deck was brutal, made me discard 2 terror cards or half the terror deck. I had this twice, so lost a lot of time there too.

However, I extracted most of the hostages, let her kill some and then took her out with a sniper. Rescued the final student and won the game.

Well done! Congrats.

I know that it’s not much solace, but the game with this set of mechanics that I’ve put the most time into is indeed Hostage Negotiator, with the campaign mode that comes in that game’s final expansion. And that campaign gives you a few more chances at die roll mitigation.

FWIW, my understanding is that selling cards for 1 CP is not just an important thing to have missed but actively crucial to playing well, and that you should, as much as it goes against one’s sense of how one might play a game like this, actively have quiet turns where you don’t actually play any cards.

Final Girl also does this, but importantly its equivalent of CP is Time, and you refill to 6 every turn instead of returning to 0.

I was gonna mention this yesterday but I wasn’t sure if it applied to Hostage Negotiator. I definitely went through a learning curve with Final Girl. I started having better success when I stopped ignoring the Planning and Improvise cards. They help a lot!

But I don’t mind losing badly given the high-stakes theming and the low time commitment. It’s part of the fun when things go hellishly wrong.

I recently abandoned my fourth Sleeping Gods campaign after one event deck. I was playing with all the optional/expert rules which I think I could have handled. But I kept finding dead ends with my quests and wasting precious time. I only had one totem and my ship was almost sunk at the start of the second event deck. So I scrapped it and now I’m digging into Arkham Horror for the first time.

Huzzah! Once I get all moved and such, I have an itch there, too.

Card game? Third edition boardgame? Or even earlier?

-Tom

Card game! A few months ago I accidentally bought the original core set but trig set me straight and i exchanged it for the newer, revised box.

I have discovered that NOTHING makes me want to play a specific boardgame more than packing it into a moving box and then taping up the moving box to seal it up.

Ha! That’s hilarious and totally relatable.

I actually had a legit nightmare a few months ago right after I bought Sleeping Gods, Arkham Horror, and Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion. I was in a game store at the register with my wallet out buying four more large games. It wasn’t the financial outlay that was freaking me out, it was where the hell am I gonna store these things?

I had a similar experience when living away from home last year. I was living in a studio unit and all too often, I wanted to sit down and play game. But I had a shortage of space, and the game I did bring with me was Renegade and I was not at all interested in playing in. Plus even then, I still didn’t feel like I had the space to accomodate playing it. It was awkward, my laptop was in the way and the lighting was bad such that I always cast a shadow over everything.

I do hope your new place has some great gaming space for you though!

Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know you people. :(

You have a very important decision ahead of you, young man. Which is the first game that will make it to the table in your new place? Which game will you favor by releasing it first from the shackles of your packing? Sleeping Gods? Final Girl? Some mild time waster to break the ice? Or jump right into a new Arkham Horror or Pathfinder or Apocrypha campaign?

-Tom

OMG, I finally beat the Voracious Goddess curse in 7th Continent. I have no idea how many times I’ve run it, but I bought the game at the last game flea market before the pandemic lockdown, so – over two years ago (yeesh).

I think I got some lucky breaks this time – or maybe I’ve just gotten really unlucky all the other times! I had a good amount of favorable random events (it normally seems like they’re almost always bad). And when I did get a bad event, like getting attacked by a bear, I was well-equipped enough to take it on, and get more food as a bonus.

Plus of course I’ve done it enough times that I know where the stuff is you need to get, so that makes it much easier than all the backtracking you end up doing the first time(s).

I may have made some rules mistakes here and there, but I doubt it mattered that much, because in the end it wasn’t even close – I had almost the entire deck left, plus some food to spare. I never ran out of cards, although I did get down to 3 in the deck at one point. I thought I might have been hosed then, but I got an event which let me take a serenity card out of the discards – which of course was Remember, which let me take the fire starter out of the discards, which let me cook the food I was carrying around. Saved!

Oh, and I was using Amelia Earhart. I read somewhere that Frankenstein is easy mode, and I did try that several times, but Earhart is pretty darned good.

Man, that was epic. Probably gonna put it away for a while now, but who knows, maybe I will try to conquer some other curses before 7th Citadel comes out!

17 posts were merged into an existing topic: Fantasy Flight’s Marvel Champions! Excelsior, ‘nuff said, clobberin’ time, I can do this all day, etc., etc.!

I got Viticulture a few weeks back, and finally was able to table it today on a day of PTO

Wow! What a great solo experience. It is dead simple to play, and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on many of the mechanics from the normal, competitive game. The automa is super super simple and takes zero brain power to run, and it does effectively clog up the board.

I’m also a Viticulture newbie, but I thought the game was exceptionally difficult. I ended at 14pts, but the 7 round timer just feels aggressive. It does a great job making you feel like you’re always missing something - you don’t have a chance to really get a full engine going. For me, I couldn’t earn enough money to get a 5 workers on the board, and that killed my game I think… but I could see a different game not giving you enough vines, or enough visitor cards, or enough buildings.

It also plays quite fast. I think I ran the whole thing in 30 minutes, as my first game?

I’m going to play it until I beat it solo, then slide in the Tuscany expansion for the ‘true’ experience.

I’ve never played the solo variant but it’s pretty easy to get to five in a normal game. Did you sell a field?

No, but that is a good suggestion.

I was pretty cash poor after spending 8 gold to build 2 builders with a winter card (final cellar and the yoke).

The timer makes it tough to use all 3 fields anyway, so I’m going to do that next game

Played again this afternoon and won with 21 points. Sold a field right off, and used the extra worker on turn one. That let me get infrastructure in place fast, and was at 5 workers by turn 3.

Also benefitted from starting w a windmill. I planted 4 vines, and this let me earn an extra 4 vps, (one of which I used as currency for something else).

Thanks for the tips. I’m excited for Tuscany

I have played Viticulture many times 2-player and 3-player (though never solo), and we always, always sell a field. The times I’ve tried not selling, I ended in last place. I think the game is a little broken in that respect.