Wow, nice!
It’s a good game, but I finally petered out somewhere around the Heirs of Numenor. Maybe someday I’ll get back to it and at least finish the saga expansions.
I hauled out my Arkham Horror cards to prep for some Night of the Zealoting, and I found these oversized cards that hadn’t been integrated with the rest:
Does anyone know what those are from? They don’t appear in the ArkhamDB site. I’m not even sure which campaign they go with?
They seem to come from this set, though I couldn’t tell you how exactly one is supposed to actually use them.
Ah, yes, that’s exactly it, Otagan. Found it now in the Return to Circle Undone rules. They’re an optional variant that you can apply to any scenario before you play. Basically, draw a card and now you’ve got a global bonus or penalty for the whole game.
In other words, more junk that lets Fantasy Flight charge more money. :(
That said, the artwork is pretty cool.
The weekend is here and I’m diving in to Arkham!
For now, this is what I’m doing. There are a lot of cards and phases of gameplay to learn! Right now I’m working through the rulebook and trig’s video while I wait to discover how Roland will die. He just got attacked by a swarm of rats.
EDIT: I made us a thread for Arkham-ing…
I’m glad you said that because when you were mentioning Arkham Horror 3rd Ed in your prior post, I started a post asking about your thoughts on it based on the lukewarm reception it got on release, and whether you were playing with expansions, and if it became a good game. But I scrapped that post because honestly, Eldritch Horror is enough for me… and Arkham Horror LCG is enough for me, and I think I’ve been through enough iterations of the FF business model already to say enough is enough.
Though I am curious - are you playing AH with or without expansions?
As much as I complain about Fantasy Flight’s business model, I should point out that I’m not just a detractor, I’m also a sucker! I have every bit of content that Fantasy Flight has published for the Arkham Horror Living Card Game, with the exception of the painted minis. There was also some goofy dog-themed standalone adventure that I didn’t buy. But otherwise, I am a completionist with a healthy sense of self-loathing about it. :)
So the weird thing about Arkham Horror Third Edition is that it’s very different from its predecessors for the simple reason that it’s a carefully tuned action economy game instead of a wacky narrative engine. It’s my opinion that Arkham Horror Third Edition is one of the best designs Fantasy Flight has published in a long time, but it’s also one of the weakest storytelling engines, since it’s very nearly a Euro.
I didn’t care for it when I first got it. It was only through my recent playthroughs that I came to appreciate it, mostly through elements of the design I didn’t previously appreciate. I even think it bears up fine under the additional content Fantasy Flight sells, because the additional content tends to be discrete scenarios – like the Living Card Game, interestingly enough – rather than whole new systems jammed inelegantly onto, into, and underneath the existing content.
Nah that one was for a totally different game - Barkham horror. Completely different! 🤣
Also, going for obscene sums on the second hand market since they printed so few of them not anticipating high demand.
Ha! FF should be paying you for their marketing. In a vacuum, you could have sold me with your epiphany around the design and how the extra content doesn’t add bloat. But after thinking for a few moments, I still won’t touch AH 3rd ed because of the action economy rather than story telling component. I find too often in solo games I’ve played that games end too soon when there’s a tight action economy, normally right as I get the fun toys out to play with in a meaningful way. Mage Knight is the classic example in my mind, as both a game that has such a tight action economy, and a game that normally restricts opportunities to use “the good stuff.”
I’ve been playing a lot of Roll Player the last week or so. That is with both expansions which are a neccessary part of the experience. I mean, playing without the expansions is fine, but there’s no substantial wrinkles to influence decision making. The final foe and the various minions though add the much needed difficult decisions to the game. It’s not a game I’d recommend, but there are facets of the game I appreciate. I appreciate the sort of control I have over the random dice rolling, and the subsequent manipulation of dice, though I’m still trying to manage that better. I’m not sure if it is me, or a design aspect, but I never really think about how my character is developing more than a single turn in advance. I also appreciate how quick it is to set up and play. 30-45 minutes and I’m done. And related to what I said earlier, while there isn’t a lot of cool toys to play with, they don’t seem too gated off from use in a playthrough. It all depends on how the market deck shuffles out.
I went full into Roll Player and got both the expansions but it never really clicked with me. Maybe I haven’t been playing it often enough and going through three rulebooks for the setup was too much of a hassle but I just hadn’t enough fun. A while ago I tried the app (at the moment only base game) and liked it more but it will never be a favourite, especially for solo.
Then I discovered Intrepid and that was the game I was looking for. Love the theme (caring for the ISS during a meteor shower, a toxic leak, a solar storm), love how each player gets their box of dice and ISS modules and it’s a nice dice puzzler. The reviews aren’t overly enthusiastic. Maybe because if you play it with four people the lack of interaction becomes very apparent. I like it a lot for solo (two-handed) and for two players. Each country has its own rules for manipulating their dice, so there’s a lot to explore. So Intrepid is for me what Roll Player is for a lot of other players.
Life is too short for playing games that aren’t fun :) I would never consider Roll Player anywhere near a top 10 list for me but you did I think touch on where Roll Player falls short and that is the theme. Base game Roll Player is so meh… You create a character and that’s it? Score points, like wow ok. Game completely fails the vibe check. Even with the inclusion of the monster to fight at the end with the expansions, there’s still that missing narrative. You know, there’s a big bad Kracken, and in the course of preparing to fight it, I train up against a Kobold, a Zombie and a Satyr, none of which strike me as Kracken-related minions, with hodge-podge gear from the market like a crossbow that let’s me buy items for one gold cheaper? But Roll Player works for me right now simply because I can get it set up quickly. It isn’t a table hog, and feels right to play when melting in the Summer heat. And because my board gaming time is before bed currently, I’m not doing some brain burning in a game that takes forever to win where simple mistakes can seriously derail it.
For me, in the absence of other players, theme/narrative is a critical part of the fun I find in solo boardgaming. That is why something like Eldritch Horror or Darkest Night or even the Pathfinder ACG rate high in my own tastes. I’ve never heard of Intrepid, I had a quick look at BGG and yeah, the reviews really aren’t selling it. But in solo, I think, theme is critical, so you’re definitely on the right idea there.
Maybe theme is even more important when you’re playing solo because you are alone with your story. I don’t want to play WW II games (apart from Maquis) because I don’t want to play with this part of our history. So even if the mechanics are perfect it’s an adventure I don’t want to have. That’s also the reason I don’t want to play Hostage Negotiator. I guess everyone has their no go area in games or other media.
During my vacation I played a lot of Darkest Night (still grateful for Tom’s review that made me play it) and the stories told themselves. The exorcist could suddenly use the magic of the wind dancer and I was imagining how horryfying it must be for him to use a force he can’t control. Or Rising Tide (also seemingly not a crowd pleaser) where I have to save the Netherlands from, well, the rising tide and I feel as part of a team trying to find a strategy against floods. Sitting alone at my table I feel the London mist while looking for the dark lady in Black Sonata. So, yeah, theme matters a lot. It won’t make a bad game good, but I’m very willing to tolerate that a game is not absolutely amazing if it invites me into a world I like to enter.
Just received my copy of Hoplomachus Victorum.
I liked Origins fairly well so hoping those smaller battles but with more variety is sufficient for me to enjoy this campaign structure. Putting off Aeon Trespass for a few months to try this one out…plus my dog ate 8 of those Trespass cards so need replacements before diving in.
Gratz! I know well that rush when a new Chip Theory box – well, steamer trunk, if we’re being honest – first arrives! Now please play it forthwith and start sharing impressions. :) I really liked how streamlined Burn Cycle was, but I feel it was missing some of the personality of Too Many Bones and Cloudspire. So I’m eager to hear more about their Hoplomachus re-release.
I’m about to start my first full campaign of Jeremy White’s (possibly brilliant) Skies over Britain. I’ve finally worked through the 12 tutorial missions and I think I’m ready to dive into what looks like a whole new way to do boardgame dogfighting! As @Brooski put it when the game arrived, “you’re going to have so much fun learning Skies over Britain”, and he was right. Now let’s pull the chocks and see how this thing handles!
EDIT: Gah, I keep calling Skies over Britain Battle of Britain. The map is not the territory, Tom!
I really did not like Storms Above the Reich so I passed on this new Skies above Britain game but after your response I found a review that said it was different enough to give it a go even if one did not like the Reich game, so I might have to check this one out too…after Hoplo of course…cannot keep buying and not playing!
EDIT: Ordered. Told the wife to hide if till my bday the end of the month!
Make sure you use the historically accurate 303rd Squadron roster!
I recently acquired Skies Above Britain and am thoroughly enjoying it. The individual mechanics of the game are very easy to pick up and execute, it’s the interleaved turn sequence that I am finding difficult to get to grips with though. It bears some patience and attention to detail but I am slowly getting there…
Ooh, I almost pulled the trigger on that but didn’t. I haven’t played any of the Hoplomachus games, but did really enjoy Cloudspire. The solo focus made this sound like the one for me to try, but it also seemed like the most complicated. I’d love to hear your thoughts after some plays!
Set it up last night. Just love the feel of the map and the arena mats and I’ve always loved those Chip Theory chips. And even though it looks like it will take up a lot of space, most everything sits on the main map so it’s fairly space friendly. Reading the manual now, will post some impressions soon.
Actually, it’s Skies Above Britain