What are you playing?

[Rikku]

Savage game of Kingdom Death Monster today. Utterly brutal. 

 

We hadn't played in a few weeks and took a little while doing the settlement event from last session.  Things could have gone better, one of my characters ended up with a disorder and we were instructed to add an event to the next lantern year.   We decided to go and hunt a simple level 1 white lion to get back in to the swing of things, get ourselves some resources and start getting some upgrades to our gear.  The showdown itself went fine, we felt confident going back to our settlement and taking on the next nemesis. 

 

Will now pop in some spoilers:

 

Spoiler

Firstly, we drew a settlement event.  It was something about some cracks started to appear in the earth.  I had being rolling really badly so decided to let someone else do the roll on the table.  I don't want to name any names, but @Nathan Windrolled a 1 on the table.  The earth totally split and anyone wearing heavy gear got lost in the void. Dead.  Completely dead, so 2 out of our 4 returning survivors gone, with instructions to archive all of the gear they had.  Which was the majority of our best gear.

 

With the 2 remaining survivors, we proceeded to the Murder settlement event - which is the result of the disorder I got in the orevious settlement event.  My remaining survivor, Sarah, murdered the other remaining survivor, Marcus.  And then Sarah was sentenced to death.

 

11 remaining survivors.  4 of which were completely useless because of broken backs or being blind and various assortments of disorders meant that we would have gone straight in to a nemesis fight with 4 brand new survivors with no perks or decent gear.   We decided to cut our losses and call it a lost settlement.

 

We then had a couple of games of Project L just to take the edge off.

[Nathan Wind]

HeroQuest. Sometimes it's really hard to put up with those old mechanics. Quest 6 was utter bullshit - you've been captured and start with no equipment. You have to find it and then find the stairs to exit. No clue given as to where either could be. Until you find it, you're totally hobbled with just one attack dice and two for defence. Pure trial and error. I headed to the centre of the board and opened a room with six enemies in it, got absolutely shafted, then resorted to the in-app hint system (cheating, basically) to find my equipment, which was (obviously) in entirely the opposite direction. Anyway, I got it in the end after losing Barry the dwarf early.

 

Finding the exit was the next ball ache. There were stacks of doors to open and enemies to fight with Team Wind's hit points left dangerously low after the initial equipmentless batterings taken. After a heroic effort to make it that far, Dave the Barbarian lost his life to the boss, then Mildred the elf was next to fall. David Blaine the wizard managed to fudge a Genie spell and only land a single hit off a roll of five dice (obviously) but somehow, somehow, chipped away at the boss and legged it up the steps on his last hit point before the minions could finish him off. A win is a win.

 

I'm house ruling a couple of things to reduce the bullshit factor to sufferable levels - movement roll applies to the whole team, and they can take their turns in any order. That was the only thing that saved me from a total wipe and even then it was skin of teeth.

 

Absolutely hate it, but also absolutely love it. Which is just as well since I have another seven quests left in the base game, and both expansions to play through. Lord have mercy.

[therearerules]

Played Ark Nova twice yesterday, didn't think much of it at all. Some absolutely fundamental problems, such as board space meaning you have no idea what other players are doing, and a general inelegance which causes turns to drag. Selling it.

[jonnyalpha]

Ark Nova appears to be an extreme example of hype and scarcity pushing a game into a must have. I've only seen one negative review so far, which was on No pun included, with the vast majority of reviewers raving over it. 

 

I managed to resist as the theme didn't grab me. 

[revlob]

I haven't managed to play my copy yet, but after reading through the rules it's remarkable how much of the design I recognise from elsewhere. Most of it is obviously Terraforming Mars, but there's bits of La Granja in there too. I could teach it to my group almost entirely by referencing other games we've played. As big TM fans I hope that just means we recognise and enjoy it, but at the same time I hope it doesn't mean it's a poor imitator.

[therearerules]

The action selection mechanic is 100% from Civ a New dawn. Which seems really clever, but IMO just adds another layer to think about and makes things more slogging.

[Mortis]

Weirdly I find Ark Nova to move at a decent pace and pretty much everyone that's played it in my groups has loved it. 

[therearerules]

That's fair, it could just be a group thing, but it just didn't work for me pacing wise. There were moves people had which placed two animals, both of which gave extra moves, which moved markers on the various tracks, which unlocked extra bonuses and caused markers to be moved on other tracks which unlocked even more bonuses and in a four player game I was waiting up to half an hour before I could take my turn (because there's a lot to think about ahead). Could be an anomoly, but I like my games a lot more efficient, never a big fan of unlocking multiple things in a single turn, all of which require thought and consideration.

[Mortis]

Well our last 2 games at 4 took less than 3 hours each. I find most of the multi action stuff is pretty straightforward and mostly comes down to picking a card or taking a board unlock - all of which (unless it’s from the river) can be done while the next player takes their turn. 

[therearerules]

17 minutes ago, Mortis said:

Well our last 2 games at 4 took less than 3 hours each. I find most of the multi action stuff is pretty straightforward and mostly comes down to picking a card or taking a board unlock - all of which (unless it’s from the river) can be done while the next player takes their turn. 

That's the difference then, unless it's a simultaneous action game I never play my turn whilst other people are playing theirs, I love to see what other people are up to and what them to be engaged in my turn (also 3 hours is still quite a long time).

[Mortis]

Ah you’re that guy  we have one of them in the group - we usually add an hour to the playtime of anything when he joins

 We played Arkwright with him once - it took 7 hours

[therearerules]

Hour to the playtime of anything? I find it rare for a game to be possible to play like that, but then I tend to avoid non-simultaneous multiplayer solitaires.

[Mortis]

I’m only taking the piss btw  our group member talks through his turn no matter how long he’s had to make a choice, debates every choice out loud and generally drags any game to a standstill. 
 I’d be surprised if anyone was quite as bad. 

[jonnyalpha]

I've played a few games with TaR and he's not only quite quick but scarily good. He ran rings around me at Teotihuacan. 😅

[Spatial]

I've fallen waaaay behind on my Arkham Horror LCG'ing so decided to ease myself back in this week by revisiting the Core box and Night of the Zealot campaign. Not only the first time I've 'won' the final scenario but armed with only the starter decks and base characters too. Previously I've either died or resigned before I then moved on to the next campaign box.

 

So either I've improved since last playing or (more likely) there was some really lucky card pulls from both Investigator and Encounter decks.

 

Big scenario spoilers for anyone who hasn't played it;

 

 

Spoiler

As usual I flubbed getting close to stopping the ritual and the Agenda was pushing me big time into the final phase.

 

Luckily I'd done well enough in Midnight Masks to have only two cultists left. In what seemed like a huge mistake I ended a round with poor Wendy in the location where they spawn and she ended up engaged with them both. Spineless Roland slipped past the young urchin in danger and into the Ritual site. Then Wendy managed to not die horribly and play a card to disengage all and move to a connected revealed location after a successful Evade.

 

Hooray!

 

But then a treachery card pull and the crazy amount of Doom in play advanced the agenda and the big bad came out. Already heavily wounded, and on par with how he'd behaved all game (even letting poor little Wendy deal with most of the drawn enemies) Roland opted to take the spineless option with poor Lita who was drawn into his hand at the very last minute.

 

What an utter shit!   

 

But it felt delicious thematic and reminded me why I love this game so much. 😍

 

 

[uglifruit]

I've been playing Fields of Green recently. Because the complexity of drafting a tableau (with a strong spacial element) to build a farm - plus the 4 "harvests" of trying to puzzle out which abilities to trigger first so this water pays for this food that gets these points etc. is the just the right amount of brain burn.

 

Also, I'm a bit of a fan of the mundanity of the theme. 

 

It scratches the same itch for me as Race For The Galaxy. But with less icons, and more geese.

 

 

Also on the table has be A Few Acres Of Snow, Martin Wallace's card drive, deck building, area control battle for the northern territories. The aesthetic might be showing its age a little, but it's still a great game - and having through your cards in to defending a besieged Quebec, or finally getting Bateaux, Settlers and the town you already occupy are emotional moments that transcend the board, cubes and cards. And, yes, apparently there may be an "optimal strategy" but I don't know what it is, and I don't want to know.

It's a good alternative when we haven't the time of brain power for Twilight Struggle.

 

Lastly I had a game of Netrunnering. It's been a while since we've played, but by jove the thrill is still there. Running on a Jinketi bluff. The sweat of knowing you've undefended Agendas in archives. Hoping that the first run will cause the corp to spend cash on rezzing, so they can't afford to Rez on the next run you do. So many moments of drama. Brilliant. 

 

Enjoyed the day so much so the four of us are going to have a (core only) mini tournament, and finally do the draft evening we never did (despite having draft packs sitting here).

[phresh]

Played a few new games at the Chances & Counters in Cardiff last night -

 

1) Cubitos - this was ok, but the mechanics are a bit too close to the much better Quacks of Quedlinburg.

2) Flamme Rouge - absolutely loved this. Incredibly simple rules, didn't even have to reference them again after the first race. The slipstream and exhaustion mechanics are so simple yet give the gameplay a real tactical depth. Going to get this ordered as we only played with two and it looks like it would be absolute chaos with more.

3) Century : Spice Road - decent enough, not sure i'd go out of my way to play it again though. 

[Kzo]

Dune 

 

Hadn't gotten to play anything in a good while so was delighted to finally get this to table and with the full 6 players  Seems pretty daunting at the start as there are a lot of phases per round but most go by pretty quickly and by halfway through the game we were chugging along at a good pace. It being our first game, it was a bit of a shitshow in terms of rules and strategy. We weren't conservative enough with our forces and spice so we were all running pretty dry in the later half. Also got a couple of rules wrong that would've increased the spice available.

 

Absolutely love the variable player powers in this. All of them seem game-breakingly powerful and are only balanced by the absurd powers of the other players. Everyone was happy with their faction and nobody felt like they'd been dealt the short end of the stick. This game will absolutely benefit from repeat plays and everyone being familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of the other factions.

 

I feel like this is one of the best games I've played in terms of the tie-in between theme and mechanics. Everything from starting positions, powers and general strategies makes absolute sense when viewed through the context of the game world and lore. I played the Bene Gesserit and loved telling people what cards to play with the Voice power. I predicted Harkonnen to win on turn 8 (which would steal the win for me if my prediction came true) but helped them out a little too much and they were in a position to at turn 5. To avoid their early victory I had to Voice them into using a shield against my lasgun, creating a nuclear explosion that wiped both our armies out! Unfortunately they weren't able to recover from this and my forces weren't strong enough to win on their own. The last few turns played out with a few well-placed traitors knocking other players off potential wins and the Spacing Guild took the default victory.

 

Can't wait to play again!

[Lying Cat]

On 05/09/2022 at 11:29, Kzo said:

Dune 

 

Hadn't gotten to play anything in a good while so was delighted to finally get this to table and with the full 6 players  Seems pretty daunting at the start as there are a lot of phases per round but most go by pretty quickly and by halfway through the game we were chugging along at a good pace. It being our first game, it was a bit of a shitshow in terms of rules and strategy. We weren't conservative enough with our forces and spice so we were all running pretty dry in the later half. Also got a couple of rules wrong that would've increased the spice available.

 

Absolutely love the variable player powers in this. All of them seem game-breakingly powerful and are only balanced by the absurd powers of the other players. Everyone was happy with their faction and nobody felt like they'd been dealt the short end of the stick. This game will absolutely benefit from repeat plays and everyone being familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of the other factions.

 

I feel like this is one of the best games I've played in terms of the tie-in between theme and mechanics. Everything from starting positions, powers and general strategies makes absolute sense when viewed through the context of the game world and lore. I played the Bene Gesserit and loved telling people what cards to play with the Voice power. I predicted Harkonnen to win on turn 8 (which would steal the win for me if my prediction came true) but helped them out a little too much and they were in a position to at turn 5. To avoid their early victory I had to Voice them into using a shield against my lasgun, creating a nuclear explosion that wiped both our armies out! Unfortunately they weren't able to recover from this and my forces weren't strong enough to win on their own. The last few turns played out with a few well-placed traitors knocking other players off potential wins and the Spacing Guild took the default victory.

 

Can't wait to play again!

 

Dune has been so compelling for me since GF9 republished it. Easily one of my favourite Dudes-On-A-Map games and has been for a few years now. I think one of my proudest moments was having an enemy player in a position to take two of my forts, and I only had the resources to reinforce one of them. I ended up using the Truthtrance card at the beginning of the turn to ask "Are you going to attack me in Carthag this turn", forcing him to commit to one or the other basically.

We've had another 4 factions now through expansions and while their addition doesn't quite match up to the perfect balance of the OG6 (although if I am swapping, I'm mostly happy to swap out the Bene Gesserit, especially now that I've won a prediction victory), I wonder whether we might see a reincarnation of Grand Dune which was around for the first edition, supporting up to 10 people in an almighty clusterfuck that I'd like to partake in at least once before I die.

[Kzo]

19 hours ago, Lying Cat said:

 

Dune has been so compelling for me since GF9 republished it. Easily one of my favourite Dudes-On-A-Map games and has been for a few years now. I think one of my proudest moments was having an enemy player in a position to take two of my forts, and I only had the resources to reinforce one of them. I ended up using the Truthtrance card at the beginning of the turn to ask "Are you going to attack me in Carthag this turn", forcing him to commit to one or the other basically.

We've had another 4 factions now through expansions and while their addition doesn't quite match up to the perfect balance of the OG6 (although if I am swapping, I'm mostly happy to swap out the Bene Gesserit, especially now that I've won a prediction victory), I wonder whether we might see a reincarnation of Grand Dune which was around for the first edition, supporting up to 10 people in an almighty clusterfuck that I'd like to partake in at least once before I die.

 

That's an amazing play 

 

Do you guys play with the advanced rules? I had a look through them and am on-board for extra spice and player powers but the rule about paying spice during combat sounds a bit annoying and fiddly. I suppose dropping it would unfairly affect the factions who rely on their wealth though.

[Lying Cat]

10 hours ago, Kzo said:

 

That's an amazing play 

 

Do you guys play with the advanced rules? I had a look through them and am on-board for extra spice and player powers but the rule about paying spice during combat sounds a bit annoying and fiddly. I suppose dropping it would unfairly affect the factions who rely on their wealth though.

 

We just pick and choose what we want to play with. We tend to have the second Spice Blow because it opens up the map a little bit (or alternatively, makes everyone fight over one super-rich corner) - but you're right, the spending spice on combat is a little fiddly - it's pain to mess around with what you can or can't afford and pile it up so when we use that rule, you pitch the power you would be fighting with by spending, and then pay after reveal. If you can't afford what you bid, you lose the combat because Logistic Failure.

 

The problem with not doing that rule is that the economy bloats without it and in my (absolutely non expert). It's a pretty necessary drain on the resources - other than that it all ends up in the Emperors pockets as people bid absurd amounts for cards. Eat the Rich. Or rather, Squeeze The Water Out Of The Rich.

[Jackson]

Bristol 1350

Played this with 7 and 8 players today. Wow. What a fun time it can be accusing your family of having the plague. I love social deduction, the great difference here is that nobody starts the game 'evil', and as the game goes on, once some people start mingling, they may begin getting infected. It has a great narrative arc from this happy go lucky start to paranoia and backstabbing later on. Highly recommended.

 

I lost both games btw.

 

It was this no rolls barred video that introduced me to this btw...

https://youtu.be/4IvDSy6yTv4

[Captain Kelsten]

Has anyone got/played Nemesis aka “please don’t sue us Alien franchise”? It’s looks bloody brilliant. 

[Lying Cat]

3 hours ago, Captain Kelsten said:

Has anyone got/played Nemesis aka “please don’t sue us Alien franchise”? It’s looks bloody brilliant. 

 

It's excellent, but doesn't hit the table much here at all because it's another one of those games with lots of minis, and lots of piles of cards that none of us can really be bothered unpacking these days.

 

But, if that's not a deterrent for you - I don't think I've ever played another game that forces the players into the uncomfortable decision making space of "we need to split up or we'll die" and "if we split up, I'll die", all with the knowledge that there's a good chance somebody around the table is trying to murder you and there might be somebody looking to kill all of you. The sense of unease is palpable.

 

Nothing sums it up better than the drive repairs. If you run out of time, she ship jumps and if the drive is busted you're all dead. There's no a whole heap of stuff you want to be doing in the aft of the ship, so somebody is going to have to go back there and make sure their fixed. Alone? Not a great idea? With one other person? Not a great idea. With two other people? Can we afford the manpower? And once they've got to the drive they "fix" it by setting one of two tokens that nobody else can see - indicating that it's either broken or fixed.

 

You have to take their word for it that yeah, it's definitely repaired, or have somebody else go back to verify - and if they say different things who do you trust and ffs the guy who went back to check is now definitely fixing it and the guy who fixed it the first time is insisting he's breaking it. Layer upon layer upon layer of this shit. The game is great, I just wish a chopped down low-fi version existed. The art and design is all lovely, but it's such a faff.

[Captain Kelsten]

That’s a wonderful write up, thank you. It does sound/look amazing. I was watching a playthrough with the No rolls barred guys and it seems like a brilliant game if you get the right people round the table who will get into it. 

[Lying Cat]

It does benefit from people are into that sort of horror setting and it definitely benefits from people who don't get pissed off when they get randomly dicked over. I've played with people who simply can't get their head around the fact that the Xenos take variable amounts of damage to kill from turn to turn, and what might have done one the turn before simply isn't enough now.

 

I personally love it, and it really hammers home the sensation that you're dealing with some thing strange and alien and unknowable. You can't maths your way out of dealing with a coiled, snarling alien deathbeast that wants to drag you away so it's mum can lay eggs in you.

[Captain Kelsten]

Yes. Sold. Bought on pay day. Yes. 
 

In space my wife can’t see how much I spend. 

[phresh]

If your group is big enough (5+) then Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space is a sort of multiplayer battleships that does a great job of replicating 'the hunt' in a pretty neat and simple format.

[therearerules]

Playing a lot of Blood on the Clocktower at the moment, and I mean a lot. Started a pub group over the summer in York and we had 17 players last time we met (just under 2 weeks ago). Meeting again on Monday and cannot wait. We get through about 3 games each evening, and each one is just epic.

[Captain Kelsten]

 

Moments before the tower collapsed and my three year old was crowned the winner of the superhero brawl!