To be fair, he did it by getting pretty lucky. He spent the last two or three turns looking like he was going to lose.
I got the game for Christmas but due to various things it has yet to actually leave the box. I popped the bits but haven’t tried playing it, which makes me a little sad. Admittedly, the reported difficulty with a single deck is pretty intimidating though it seems like trying to make a mixed deck for more balance and a better level of challenge isn’t exactly something a new player can expect to do.
On a non-LotR front, I’m agonizing over how to spend my CSI coupon. Most of my gaming realistically is either solitaire or with my wife, but I’ve got two friends who are (as I posted above) getting more and more into games. I’m thinking I might pick up Mage Knight (for ME!) and then King of Tokyo as an evening-starter and then Pandemic for a more serious game. Though I don’t even know how they’d like co-op. Ora et Labora sounds interesting, but I’m thinking anything by Uwe will be just as deep end as opening up Dominant Species and dumping chits all over the place. I had a look at Olympus, but Dice Tower only reviewed Olympos and the pictures of Olympus posted on BGG look so boring I actually went into a coma.
Clearly I should just go with a trial by fire and see if Jason Lutes will let me borrow his copy of Dune.
Sorry if someone wrote a big post about this and I missed it, but how is Mage Knight single player? I really want to play it and think some of my group could get into it but they’re about to murder me if I introduce another game more complex than Dixit for a while.
UndeadViking scares the shit out of me.
Though his review of Innovation was pretty great, so maybe I’ll have a look when I get home.
This made me laugh out loud. :D UndeadViking may look intimidating, but he’s really got a super friendly personality. Definitely one of my favorite reviewers.
And just so you’re aware, Mage Knight is sold out at CSI (and most other places) and probably won’t be back in stock for at least a couple months.
I’ve heard from multiple sources that the solo play is fantastic. I’ve yet to try it solo, myself, though.
Well, that just happened. I keep fucking around like this and stuff disappears. I had the Claustrophobia expansion in my checkout cart for a day while I agonized and then it disappeared.
Bleh.
Obviously I should stop hoping I can hold out and get everything in one shipment for free shipping.
Lorini
4748
If you want to skip all the game rules/description stuff just go to the 26:00 mark, where he actually gives his opinion of the game, which I share 100%.
Cardhaus shows 92 in stock at a reasonable price. Their free shipping threshold is $150 though…
Jebus, he draws that review out way too long. 4 minutes or so of introduction, and then he overexplains almost all of the mechanics. That’s why I hate video reviews, I could have gotten through a written review in about 1/5th the time.
He also misses the obvious: Zeus is only the most powerful spot for the player who leads the worship. If you don’t need the mixed abilities, leading worship of another god gives you a stronger benefit than following worship of Zeus.
What he says about Apollo is more troubling. Obviously this depends a bit on the group, but if your group is at all competitive, it seems like someone is going to choose Apollo every round, so you need to reserve a priest to protect against the plague. Uh, I mean “plahgue.” Could someone who has played the game a few times comment on that?
Lorini
4752
Gus the first few games, people will be plaguing like mad, and it’s really there to reign in engines. But in the end, plaguing people doesn’t get you nearly as much as let’s say building, particularly if you can build two buildings. The two points you can get by taking Apollo will nearly every time put you in a better position than plaguing. BUT you have to keep it in mind. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to always keep a spare priest, but you need to have a plan b if you don’t have a spare priest. If you manage your population properly in conjunction with the rest of the board, you can eat a plague and still win easily.
The military is really where you have to be on guard. If someone goes nuts militarily and you have no military at all, you will be giving them the game. I always make sure that my military is within 1 of the person leading in military, even if I don’t ever plan to attack a player.
I know at least one Qt3er (Vesper or VegasRobb, perhaps?) expressed interest in playing in my Conquest of Nerath PBF game, but I wasn’t able to fit him in for Game 3. Well, Game 3 has concluded and I’m holding a lottery for Game 4, similar to what I’ve done in the past for SW/SWU. As always, fellow Qt3ers are invited to join the lottery!
If I play solo and combine two decks, the resulting deck needs to contain at least 50 cards, right? Since each deck has 30 cards, that simply means I can discard up to 10 cards?
The 50 card deck rule is only for tournament play and is by no means required for any play outside of a tournament.
I have found 50 cards to be a better “not to exceed” number than a minimum. More than fifty and it is hard to get cards you need and you will probably start getting dead draws.
apost8
4757
When I was playing solo, and with only access to the cards in the base set, I found building a 50 card deck which could complete Journey Down the Anduin impossible, but by combining two spheres and filtering down to 30 cards it was still challenging but now possible. So, I chose to ignore the 50 card rule with access to a limited pool of cards.
Ah, thanks. Seems like one can build a pretty sweet deck if there’s no lower limit to the number of cards.
Yeah, given how much this game hates you, particularly in SP, I wouldn’t worry about those card limits.
I do follow the 3 of a kind rule, since that’s all I have at most. Also I have been tempted to add a fourth hero for SP, but I like the challenge of getting a deck together too much…so far.
I never even considered adding a fourth hero. I assumed for some reason that the game prohibited it!
