Lorini
4922
You said you didn’t want to know about the broken strategy I thought.
Ah. Did you break it by playing it, or by reading about the broken strategy? Is the broken strategy really that obvious?
Lorini
4924
It’s only obvious to a deck builder, otherwise it’s not obvious at all.
I play a lot of deck builders, and with people who play deck builders, and I guess it’s not leaping out at me.
So you’re saying you independently discovered how to break it without ever reading anything about it at BGG?
No no no, different kind of deck building. :P
Lorini
4927
No Tracy, I didn’t like the game, it’s too slow for me as I’ve said at least twice in this thread. But once I saw the strategy from a deckbuilding point of view it’s fairly obvious. Also the map makes the issue worse.
Everything is obvious once you read about it. Hindsight is 20-20 and all that.
Which is why I was asking. I love BGG, but one of the worst things it does from a gamer’s perspective is provide a place for people who have played something hundreds of times (sometimes intentionally trying to break it) to lay bare a game. I love the design, and if I get even 20 plays out of it before getting tired of it or finding some unbeatable strategy on my own then I consider it a fair deal. You obviously didn’t figure out the killer strategy the few times you played it, despite being an expert at deck building games, so I should be OK.
Lorini
4929
And I would disagree with you in this specific case, Tracy. There are sometimes where people do what you say. But in this case the issue was bound to come up at some point because once you go down a certain path, it’s simply obvious.
I honestly don’t know how you can claim that when you’ve only played the game a few times, but here’s hoping I don’t stumble down the obvious path my first few plays and that Wallace’s recent rule changes mitigate the obvious path if I somehow do wander onto it.
Lorini
4931
I don’t know what to tell you Tracy. Let’s hope you don’t either.
It looks like Martin Wallace is dedicated to making it right through rules tweaks and errata. I don’t know if I’d be too concerned in the long run.
I wish I could fit in some two player games like this, but my group pretty much starts at 3 players and goes up to about 7 players.
It’s implemented very well at Yucata.de. Full rules enforcement and it even highlights what locations each card connects to when you mouse over the cards. I’m Baker on there if anyone wants to play that or something else (the site has licenses from the designers/publishers for all the games there, so it’s a legit way to play online).
Nikolaj
4934
I just signed on with that site, to play a game with Bruce, after reading his article on the front page. Browsing through the other games, I’m not seeing anything familiar, though. Can you recommend any of them?
Otherwise, I might be up for a second game of A Few Acres of Snow, although I’d like to wait at least a couple of days with that, to see how I like it.
dtolman
4935
Stone Age, St Pete, Roll Through The Ages, Torres, Thurn and Taxis, Ysphahan are all well regarded games that are on their, off the top of my head. Their are a ton of great games on there. Too many.
I haven’t played St. Petersburg, but will second all those other recommendations and add Arkadia, Campaign Manager 2008, Hacienda, Masons, Thunderstone, and Trias. I love Can’t Stop but can’t imagine playing it online. I’ve also heard good things about King of Siam and am trying to rope Bruce and Troy Goodfellow into a game because I’ve always wanted to try it.
Yeah, Mysterio, get on out here and we’ll get you into a game of Battlestar Galactica.
It’s certainly more of a time commitment than, say, the usual Knizia game. But in terms of the ROI for the time you spend, I think it’s one of the best boardgames ever made.
Caveat (that has probably been mentioned in this thread and for which I am deeply indebted to Mike “Not a Cylon” Cathcart): don’t just dump both expansions into it! They’re modular for a reason. I think you need to be very careful which bits and pieces you use, based on how familiar your players are with the base game.
I don’t want to color your experience, so I’m going to do something I would normally never do: use spoiler tags.
Click here for whinging ----->
I hate Space Alert with the fire of a thousand suns. It’s like running a chess clock while collaboratively working on a jigsaw puzzle and then occasionally rolling a die to mess up huge swathes of the jigsaw puzzle. DO NOT WANT! But that’s just me.
-Tom
OMG, mine came today too! :D
I sleeved up all of the LOTR cards, but didn’t look at them too much. Going to try to get things rolling there tomorrow (can’t wait to make a Rohan deck!)
Meanwhile, Mage Knight. OMFG. I’ve been playing out a solo game getting a feel for the game and I’m giddy at how awesome it seems to be right now. It really is the game that I desperately wanted Runebound to be with the wealth of options at your disposal at any given time. It also makes me envious of those that are able to play Magic Realm (somebody reprint this, god damn it!)
Only bad thing is that some of my monster tokens were apparently super-glued together, so, while still usable, I’ll need replacements. Hopefully, WizKids will come through for me.
In summation: Mage Knight rocks!
Agreed on Mage Knight being awesome! I’ve only played the tutorial but I love it already.
My components came in decent shape, with the exception of some of the minis being glued together a bit cock-eyed. I haven’t decided if I want to bother with trying to get replacements though, since I don’t really notice it much while I am playing.
As for LotR: LCG there are some super powerful player cards in there for dwarves. I’m tempted to disassemble my Elves n’ Eagles deck and put together a Dwarves of Doom deck.
What do you use to sleeve them with? I play enough that I am getting tempted to sleeve up LotR (normally I don’t bother, but most of my other games only get played about once a month or so)
I use a combination of sleeves. I’m using colored Ultra Pro sleeves for the player cards and have been really satisfied with them. They have a matte textured back, so they feel nice and it helps give the cards more thickness.
For the encounter deck I have to use penny sleeves because 1) I’m poor and 2) there are a TON of encounter cards.
Honestly though, sleeving makes shuffling cards both easier and less time consuming for me. You just force the sleeved cards into one another several times and you’re done. Takes like 10 seconds. I think it’s called riffle shuffling.
Fantasy Flight has some Lord of the Rings art sleeves coming soonish which I’ll probably get to replace the Ultra Pro sleeves though. And I definitely want some clear Ultra Pro sleeves for Mage Knight.
I play with my brother, so we run dual decks. He takes tactics and lore and I take spirit and leadership, so I’ll probably go with a Rohan/heavy resource deck and he’ll go with either an eagle focused or dwarf focused deck combined with healing and card draw.
I’m kind of thinking a dwarf focused deck will be better for the mines and eagles for the Mirkwood cycle quests.
