Catching Up on Games (3/21/24)

I didn’t realize it had been so long since the last one of these! There was a bit of a pause in our game days when our friend went on vacation in January. But things have picked back up, and I’ve been playing some solitaire games as well. I might have to do some reviews soon.

League of Dungeoneers

My brother and I had previously played the opening scenario which was a short skirmish, but hadn’t gotten LoD back out in a while. The rules are such a mess, and there are still things we haven’t found an answer to. It’s kind of impressive how sloppy the production was.

That aside, the game is fun. The second part of the introductory adventure was a short dungeon crawl (“short” being relative). There’s a lot of Warhammer Quest to the dungeon crawling but with a Warhammer Fantasy RP 2nd Edition for the combat. It’s a really solid match.

Maybe when they’ve ironed out all the problems and finished editing the rules, this will be easier to bring out.

Vikings: Scourge of the North

This was a Christmas gift and one I had been eyeing for a while, waiting for it to be back in print. A very obscure little solitaire wargame, and one that wasn’t reviewed particularly well. However, the version I have is a new one with some very important rules changes and corrections. One of the main complaints of the previous versions (other than unclear rules) was how incredibly punishing and near impossible the game was. Some rule changes have made the game much more palatable.

It’s still a pretty random game, but a neat little Viking adventure wargame. The rules take a bit to fully grasp (it might be light, but it’s still a wargame) but plays pretty smoothly once you get the hang of it. The first scenario is also pretty short, around 30 minutes? Other scenarios will definitely be more involved, but even the second one wasn’t very long.

Heat

We’ve played this one a few times now, partially online. And this time we used the automated bots as well to fill out the race. We also added all the upgrade cards. I really enjoy how Heat plays, and I appreciate the skill level involved in doing well. But there is still an element of luck. In this game, my friend got the perfect draw on his boosts and shot ahead during one of his turns. When I did the same, I drew two 1s and a 3. He won, but it was still close. I don’t mind the randomness too much because the game is so quick anyway.

Namiji + Aquamarine

We hadn’t played Namiji before, but we knew it was mostly Tokaido with a few changes, so we added Aquamarine right away. It was still pretty manageable.

I like some of the new things like the fishing and the puzzle of your rack. Namiji (with Aquamarine) is around the same complexity as Tokaido with its expansions (mainly Crossroads), but it’s still pretty light. The theme change is interesting, though the fishing theme is less unique. It’s still hard to tell if anyone needs both, though.

Islebound

For me, Red Raven has been pretty hit or miss, and this was a miss. Some parts of the game weren’t bad (the actions and crew-building), but other things just felt a bit tedious and grindy (the buildings, moving up on tracks!). I guess there’s a reason this one is getting a new edition to fix it up some. For me, the original came out to a pretty solid… meh.

Anno 1800 (2-player and solo)

This ended up pretty high on my top 100 for last year, so I just had to borrow it again. One of the things I love about it is that I get so focused on my own stuff, I don’t even care about winning. I don’t even remember how I did in these games. It’s just so much fun getting sucked into your own puzzle, but in multiplayer, what your opponents do still matters. And for such a crunchy game, it’s not that long or difficult to learn. Can’t wait for the expansion!

Knarr (solo)

A discussion on the BGG forums prompted me to make some possible replacement player boards that included a Reputation track to both make the track less fiddly with multiple cubes on it and make it easier to remember.

I did some playtests with the boards and they work pretty well. I did end up getting rid of the token slots because one: they would be very difficult to do for a PnP player board, and two: they’re not needed and even the real ones don’t work that well. Overall, I think the new boards came out pretty well. Nice and compact but functional.

Heat (solo)

I ended up borrowing my friend’s copy to try solo. The bots are so easy to run, and the games are fast. It’s a really fun solo game, though you lose out on some of the interaction, trying to guess what an opponent might do so you can either cut ahead of them or get a free slipstream. But what a great, elegant solo mode!

Legend of the Five Rings (solo)

I finally finished my collection (barring the few impossible-to-find items). I now have all of the dynasty packs! However, it doesn’t all quite fit comfortably into the core box and expansion box. I now have to keep some in a deck box, in addition to having two decks made.

I made a couple of new decks with the cards I have, Crane and Crab. It’s nice having a bigger collection so I can make more focused decks. These decks are primarily made for multiplayer, but I’ll have to put together a deck specific for playing against. The Agent AI, even with all of its rules, still doesn’t operate a player deck very well.

War of the Ring: The Card Game (solo)

This was difficult to find with the expansion in one place. It seems to be doing well enough that it’s hard to keep in stock! But I managed to not only find it but got a great deal on it. I’ve also been re-reading The Lord of the Rings.

My first few games were with the Fellowship of the Ring scenario, but it doesn’t appear that this scenario is functional with the bot. It’s a constant steamroll (once playing correctly). But the duel scenario seemed to work a lot better with more back and forth going on. Another expansion is right around the corner and has some exciting stuff shown already. Lots of iconic characters. I hope there are at least a couple more expansions planned. It doesn’t need to be a non-stop LCG-style release schedule, but enough to fully explore the system and the world would be great.

Last Aurora

All three of us had been wanting to play this since it came in (a while ago), but no one had broken down to pick it for game day. I was in the mood for something more action-y, so I picked it.

I really like the card play of the game. It’s very easy to get the hang of and offers some simple but difficult decisions. I’m glad my friend bought the extra stuff with it, though, because it does seem like the base game alone would get samey pretty quickly. There’s not that much variety to the cards. The main variation is the characters you bring into your crew, as each one is unique. Hard to say how often I’d want to bring it back out, but it’s fun.

Sleeping Gods

My brother really wanted to play this, so we finally got it to the table. I knew enough about it that I wasn’t surprised to like it. It’s way better than Islebound. Our friend has also finally conceded that he likes games with story to them. That said, it was a long session with some fiddling around with the rules, and we didn’t finish our first cycle of the deck. And we really don’t know how often we’d realistically get a campaign game to the table. It’s fun, but we’ll see if this goes far with us. Ongoing, story-driven campaigns are just kind of a drawback for us.

Great Western Trail: Argentina

I’ve had a long journey with GWT. We played the first edition years ago and I was very “meh” about it. A lot of abstracted elements, prone to dull turns, and it felt like for all the stuff in the game, there wasn’t really that much to do. Then we played second edition. It was improved a bit, but I still wasn’t big on the game. Then we played the expansion, and I enjoyed it a lot more. The expansion greatly improved the train part of the game and added more depth to the decisions (with a dab of more theme).

Argentina improved the game even more for me. I really enjoyed it, and it’s so far my favorite way to play GWT. I really enjoyed the ships, the farmers, the importance of feed for the cows, the new buildings are more interesting, and the board layout, allowing you to skip later sections once you’ve moved your train, was neat. I’m still looking forward to New Zealand, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed Argentina. I don’t really know that I’d want to play the basic version again (certainly not without the expansion).

Dune: Imperium (solo)

I received this as a late Christmas gift and brought it out for solo play. This time, I tried the app. I’m not really sure what the hype is for the app. It’s kind of annoying to use. If you step away from the game and come back, it takes like 100 clicks to get back into the game. And it’s essentially the same but with a different variant rule for clearing cards from the offer. I prefer the dice method from the expansion.

Other than that, I really enjoy the solo mode. If you pay attention to what the bots have done, you can get an idea of what they might do next, especially towards the end of the deck. And the bots are very competitive in score. I was only able to win this game on a tie-breaker after the final battle ended in a tie between the bots (denying the Countess 2 points). Not sure how I’ll handle the expansions; it barely fits on the table as-is.

War of the Ring: The Card Game

We had a 2-player game day so I could finally try this out multiplayer. It still could see play at 3-players someday (doing the trilogy scenario, not the 3-player duel). We just played the Fellowship scenario but played twice, swapping sides after the first game.

Multiplayer definitely adds some fun nuance to the game that just isn’t there in solo. But that’s the nature of the game. I look forward to playing more 2-player and maybe 3-player at some point. Really enjoying it so far.

Sorry about the glare, my friend’s kitchen table doesn’t have great lighting for photos.

Firefly: 10th Anniversary Edition

My brother and I had played 2 or 3 times before (I think I’ve only played twice?), and I just wasn’t a fan of it. The rules are annoying and the complexity doesn’t add up to an engaging experience for me. But my brother bought the recent anniversary edition and we played it 3-player. Since it was our friend’s first game, and the first in a while for us, we just did the learning scenario. It’s too short. The final amount of money you need to earn should have been higher. There’s just no real build-up to the game and luck plays such a huge role in who wins. Other than that, I’m still not sure if I like the game. It’s not awful, but I much prefer any other space pick-up-and-deliver sandbox game.

Apex Theropod Deck-Building Game

My friend and I had been interested in this one for a while. We both really like deck-building games and the dinosaur theme. But availability has always haunted this game. Finally, he was able to get a collector’s edition copy and let me borrow it to try solo.

Boy… it’s not what I was expecting. I don’t mind difficulty, but it’s the insane levels of randomness that comes with absurd challenge that starts to put me off. I feel helpless in this game. A flip of an environment card or the wrong hunt card can completely ruin the round for me. The game constantly forces you to discard cards, discard your whole hand, or eliminate cards left and right. It’s really frustrating having a good hand of cards destroyed before you get to use them. And how about throwing everything at the boss only to draw the wrong card from the affliction deck so you don’t even deal any damage? What about drawing most of your strongest cards on the turn the asteroid hits and forces you to eliminate all of them but one? Or when an alert card comes up and scares all the dinosaurs away except one that then becomes un-huntable?

I really wanted to love this one. But it feels like it needs serious house-ruling. And there’s no way we’ll play it 3-player, my brother would absolutely hate the game.

Tapestry (with all expansions)

Even though we hadn’t played with any expansions yet, my friend decided we should just add them all. Most just add card, civ, and city variety. Only the Arts & Architecture one adds something major. So we threw it all in.

I was pretty lukewarm on the base game. The bones weren’t bad, but it didn’t feel like it had any meat, and the randomness was very typical of Stonemaier. The game wanted to be a civilization game, but the theme was haphazardly thrown in. None of it made sense.

The expansions really improved the game a lot. The new tech cards and tapestry cards are a lot more interesting than the original ones. The new civilizations and city mats are more interesting (cities actually feel different now). And the new board was neat, even though I didn’t use it much. They have also given up on the civ theme and went full cartoon with aliens, magic, teleportation, etc. The game is just more fun now instead of trying to be a serious Euro.

Let’s Go! To Japan

As soon as this came in, I knew I wanted to play it soon. And it just happened to be my turn to pick the next gameday game. As it would happen, my copy of The White Castle was delivered early and arrived that same morning, so we had an impromptu Japan day.

Let’s Go! To Japan is lightning fast. The first several rounds really are only a few minutes. But the decisions get a lot tougher the further along you are. And it gets really tense toward the end when you’re looking for the last couple of perfect cards to fit your itinerary. And for such a fast, simple game, it really does offer a lot of theme.

In our first game, sadly, we forgot that when you go on walks, you also get research (but not for bonus walks). That would have helped. But it was still a lot of fun. I really hope they add a couple of new Japanese cities before moving on to another country. Yokohama or Osaka would be great. And the system seems flexible enough to introduce new things that don’t need whole new systems or components.

The White Castle (3-player and solo)

We had more than enough time for The White Castle afterward. Even This one is surprisingly quick for how much game is packed into it.

With three actions per round and only three rounds, you have a minimum of nine actions over the course of the game. But like a lot of great Euros, the game is about chaining actions. You could end up taking three actions in one single turn by getting a satisfying chain going. But they can be a challenge to line up just right. We also played without the bridges (one player couldn’t see the gardener cards) and it worked fine.

The next day, I tried the solo mode with the fan-made adjustments. It gave a good challenge for only my second game, so I can see why the official solo mode really is for experts only. But it’s a great solo game, otherwise. Really quick to play, an easy bot to manage, and still a fun puzzle to figure out.

Marrakesh

We had all been interested in trying this one out, especially as the “City Games” series seemed to get more expensive and more questionable with each set. Sadly, even though my friend spent loads of money on the deluxe version, Queen chose to deluxify only some components and not others? The coins, for example, are still just cardboard tokens, even though it’s often the first thing that companies upgrade in a deluxe version.

The game itself is fun and really tight. I was surprised that my brother enjoyed it as much as he did, but the game kind of lined up well for him. Not so much for me, though I still enjoyed it. It can be a bit chaotic (at least at 3) where some rounds, going last might mean a bit of a do-nothing round. The game is otherwise nothing especially new; it’s the cube tower of Amerigo with the point-salad sandbox of Trajan on steroids. But it’s a fun point-salad sandbox.

Let’s Go! To Japan (w/Passports)

Marrakesh was short enough that we had time to play another game of Let’s Go! To Japan (which really is like 40-60 minutes anyway, and that includes setup and teardown). We threw in Passports as well, a small asymmetric player-power module.

I think once you know the game, Passports is an auto-include each game. They give the game such a different feel where you have something else to guide your play while still engaging in the same tough decisions as before. A great little addition that’s easy to add. We’ll have to try the Day Trip expansion next.

Unsettled (Gniir)

Since the new planets came in, it was time to head back into Unsettled. This time to the frozen planet of Gniir. We also added the specialization module.

Without getting into spoilers, it was an interesting and tough challenge. Only the second time we lost, but it felt much closer than the last one. If we had enough leftover resources, I think we could have made it. Gniir has some fun twists that feel very different from the other planets. Kind of hard to describe without spoilers. Despite the loss, I think this is one of my favorite planets so far. The specializations also helped a lot and were fun to use. I think we might continue using those in the future.

Don’t read any of the text in the images below if you want to avoid spoilers!

Let’s Go! To Japan (solo)

I borrowed my friend’s copy to try out solo. It takes up quite a bit of space, but it’s really easy to run. It’s also interesting that you have some opportunities to disrupt the bot based on what card you give them and what order you place them (when placing more than one at once).

Having played three times, I appreciate how the game offers subtle ways to adjust your strategy. It’s a simple game, but there are decisions beyond just what to take and which slot in the day to put it in. For example, if you know you’re scoring extra for a particular type of experience, you can tank one of the others, ignoring cards that have it, and go all-in on the one you score extra for. You can also use Walks to interrupt the negative mood effects and prevent the loss of points. I like that there are little nuances to the gameplay you can look for. It doesn’t feel like the game becomes auto-pilot.

I didn’t use Passports this time since there’s nothing to let the bot use a Passport, but I might throw one in next time. The bot has an adjustable difficulty, as well.

The White Castle (solo)

Just had to bring this back out. It’s crazy that this and Let’s Go! To Japan are about the same length solitaire. However, this requires a lot more setup.

The White Castle is so much fun. Every turn is a little puzzle to solve. But sometimes, you might get cornered based on the state of the game. This last time, at one point I needed to place a gardener but there wasn’t a good place to get food, and later, I needed to place a samurai but there were training yard actions left available. You just have to adapt to the board as best you can. I was worried I was losing by a lot, but it was closer than that (still lost, though).

I really want to get my hands on the promos, but it doesn’t look like there are plans to make them available.