Catching up on Games (11/1/23)

We had some good weekends of getting games played, including a bunch of new ones (some just new to us).

1. Vindication + Chronicles
2. Beyond the Sun + Leaders of the New Dawn
3. Legend of the Five Rings
4. Great Western Trail + Northern Rails
5. Champions of Midgard (Solitaire)
6. Champions of Midgard (Multiplayer)
7. Final Girl
8. Oltréé (Solitaire)
9. Tamashii
10. Delta
11. Expeditions
12. Knarr
13. Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition
14. The Witcher: Old World
15. Call of Cthulhu LCG
16. Oltréé (Multiplayer)

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Vindication + Chronicles

I love Vindication. Chronicles adds a lot of narrative to the game to make it more immersive. This is a double-edged sword. Adding story is great, and there are some neat ways to customize your character now, but all the reading greatly increases the length of the game. So, I don’t know if we’ll always use Chronicles, but it’s a nice option to have for some variety. I certainly don’t mind the extra length every now and then, though Vindication’s normal length is really appreciated.

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Beyond the Sun + Leaders of the New Dawn

I’m still pretty mixed on this one. The system is interesting and easy to get the hang of, but for all the variety of technologies and planets, the game has felt pretty samey and repetitive for me. You can get resources a bit faster as the game goes on, but for the most part, the game doesn’t feel like it really changes any. It’s a pretty short game, at least. The expansion mostly adds solo but the leader cards are neat, just very minor.

Also, for us, the tech-heavy strategy has won every game. Even if it is possible to win with colonizing, it seems much easier to win with tech. Part of it (maybe the big reason) is that colonizing is really slow. You have to build up your fleet and move them around into position then colonize (which is expensive). Technology just doesn’t take as much time. The colonization achievements, especially one of them, just seem very unlikely to happen.

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Legend of the Five Rings

I bought more, including some new sleeves and deck boxes, so I had to play it again. Unicorn vs. Phoenix again. I think I made adjustments to the deck but only small adjustments.

I was also using a new solo mode I made based on the one I had been using. The previous mode really needed updating with clarifications and adding in some important missing rules. It was also on the easy side. So I made a new version with a lot of changes. I also re-wrote everything to use correct terminology and templating (also just clearer in general) and made a PDF that matched the look of the official rules. You can download my solo rules here.

The new solo rules (and adjustments) made for a much more intense game. The Phoenix clan broke 3 of my provinces and rebuffed some of my attacks. But a really close final round allowed me to break a 3rd Phoenix province and attack their stronghold in one round. It was close!

Another big sale online allowed me to grab a bunch of packs for very cheap. My collection is nearing completion (though, some stuff I may not ever be able to get; there just aren’t enough copies in the wild).

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Great Western Trail + Northern Rails

We were apparently in a mood to try expansions to games we’ve played before. This was our third game of GWT. Our first time was with the original edition a long time ago. Then we played with the much nicer 2nd Edition, and I liked it a bit more (there were some balance changes in addition to a huge aesthetic upgrade). The Northern Rail expansion replaces the basic rail track at the top of the board and adds new stuff to the game.

This hugely improved the game for me. The new rail map is way more interesting than the base game. Planning routes and earning unique bonuses is a lot more satisfying. I wouldn’t play without the expansion. It might be too much for someone new to the game, but it’s a massive improvement.

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Champions of Midgard (Solitaire)

There’s no official solo mode, but there are a whole bunch of fan-made ones, most of which seem to be based on the same one. I asked for recommendations and tried the first one that was recommended. I played twice and it works pretty well and is easy to operate. I also really like that it’s easy to face different numbers of bot opponents and you can add them into multiplayer games too. Might be a bit too easy, though. Only lost my first game because I had some really bad turns losing all my Vikings and getting nothing for it.

This was also my first time playing the physical game after my friend gifted me a copy as an early birthday gift. Just the base game, no component upgrades. It’s funny playing it now. If it came out today it would probably cost $20+ extra and have minis and all the deluxe wooden pieces would be the default pieces. The design itself, at least just the base game, also shows its age.

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Champions of Midgard (Multiplayer)

Played it 3-player. In the base game, luck can certainly be a huge factor if you get really lucky or unlucky. I had a couple battles that defied the odds and wrecked me. There was also an unusual amount of competition for the trolls so I wasn’t able to score the full amount of my Destiny card. It’s a really fun game but it’s easy to see how the Valhalla expansion kind of “fixes” the game. I’d still happily play the base game, though.

We also played with some deluxe-ified components. Minis from Fire & Axe, coins from Raiders of the North Sea, and some generic component upgrades for the wood and meat.

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Final Girl

I was always on the fence with Final Girl. The idea sounds fun, but the very tongue-in-cheek horror movie references aren’t my thing. My friend, for some reason, decided to buy all of series 1 and 2. He played it some and wasn’t entirely sure about it either, and wanted me to try it too (and I was interested).

While I like the main system of the action cards and how the dice work, the game felt a bit too bogged down in other fiddly rules and steps. It was only around an hour to play and still felt like it was overstaying its welcome. And the setup, at least for the scenario I played, was surprisingly tedious for such a small game. I might try it again with a different scenario, but my first impressions weren’t great.

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Oltréé (Solitaire)

This was on sale, so after looking into it again, I decided to grab a copy. It looked fun before, but maybe not quite worth the $70 MSRP. The game is insanely over-produced. It’s basically a $40-50 retail game but with super deluxe components.

The game is pretty easy to get into. It’s essentially in the same line as Ghost Stories and Last Bastion but with a focus on narrative. Instead of just fighting off monsters, the cards you have to widdle down are encounters with story and choices or tests. There are also scenario cards that add new objectives every now and then, and winning or losing is based on the scenario objectives, not just surviving. It’s a fun game, and I like that the scenario is only part of the experience, so I don’t think replays will feel stale. We’ll see.

It also has a really unusual insert.

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Tamashii

All of us in our game group have been interested in Awaken Realms’ games, but we hadn’t actually played one yet. But my brother decided to get Tamashii since it was a cyberpunk game and supposedly not as large and complicated as their normal games (it was made by a different development team, from what I understand).

We only played the tutorial mission which slowly introduced things, so it’s hard to say what the real game will play like. I think my brother liked it the most. I’m still on the fence. It was fine, but I need to see what the game is really like. The tutorial was just too limited in scope.

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Delta

Even though many have written off Game Brewer because of the Stronganov production issues, we’ve really enjoyed their games. Delta is one that seems to have completely gone under the radar, but it looked pretty interesting.

It’s a deck-building game where you play characters to different areas of the board to take various actions. It has really smooth gameplay (which is typical for GB) and tough decisions. And like most of their games, especially these days when everyone seems to be recycling each others’ designs, Game Brewer games feel fresh and unique.

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Expeditions

As soon as this was announced, we were all looking forward to it, and even though my friend bought a copy, I considered getting a copy too. It took a while to finally come in, but it was my first choice for game day once it had. And then…

All three of us were deeply disappointed with it. Even at 3-players, the movement (mainly, the inability to be in the same location as an opponent) felt incredibly restrictive and completely messed me up. It’s bad enough when someone is on the tile you need, but then they might hang around for a turn or two depending on the actions they take or if they need a reset.

And the grind of getting workers, getting cards, and accumulating resources was very slow. As usual with Stonemaier games, especially Jamey’s designs, you start with nothing and have to spend your first rounds just getting the things you need to actually start playing. At higher player counts, I’ve heard the workers especially become a problem in the beginning as only 2 worker tiles start in play. Max player count is reportedly miserable.

Ultimately, we decided it was not for us. After one play, it didn’t even feel like there was anything left to explore in the game. We’d seen everything it had to offer. Not enough strategies to pursue. Everyone ends up doing a lot of similar things, unlike Scythe where there is a greater variety to the goals. Biggest disappointment I’ve had in a board game in a long time.

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Knarr

My friend and I tried it out on Board Game Arena and I needed to have it. It wasn’t (still isn’t?) available in the US, so I bought it at a Canadian website. We played this the same day as Expeditions, and it was the palette cleanser we needed.

Knarr is a really fun, engaging little game. Two layers of set-collection and elements of engine building. But it’s all very easy to learn and get into. And it’s quick. 3-players was only around 30 minutes. I’ve played it solitaire too using a fan-made solo mode that works well enough (probably too easy though).

You can check out my review.

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Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition

It’s that time of year for horror, so we brought this back out. It was also our friend’s first experience with it.

Even though we played the first scenario again, it was interesting to see how some things changed. It won’t always play out the same way, and some plot points can even change. Something I really like about games like this is how players can end up focused on different things, providing a unique role in the team. My brother ended up doing most of the fighting while I collected items, supported the team with Mateo’s ability, and then saved the day by stopping the ritual and escaping. Our friend also found some important evidence items and solved one of the puzzles, but had to drop most of his items when his character broke their arm. We want to play it more often, but the length of some of the scenarios is definitely a problem.

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The Witcher: Old World

This was one I was interested in while it was on crowdfunding, but I didn’t have the money and both my brother and our friend weren’t sure about it and decided not to back it. But after watching the TV series, our friend decided to buy the base game and try it out.

We all enjoyed it, and I was pretty sure I would anyway, though the game has some issues. We’re just not a fan of the player-vs-player stuff, whether it’s the combat or forcing someone to play dice poker with you. We had one PvP fight (I was attacked but won) but probably won’t bother with it again. The dice poker is still an odd inclusion (we played it a lot at the public locations rather than directly challenging another player), though I get that it’s from the video games.

It’s also a really long game. There’s a TON of reading. Our first game was also slowed down checking the rules. Some aspects of the game are a little fiddly and the rules could have been organized a bit better. Still, it was fun, and I look forward to playing more.

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Call of Cthulhu LCG

It’s been ages since I played this. My brother swore off these types of games, and I haven’t brought this out to play with our friend because the theme isn’t one he’s much interested in. So, the day before Halloween, I decided to try a solo mode.

It was a rough experience. The Cthulhu Rising solo rules are a bit of a mess. Typos and errors, terminology confusion, very unclear writing, and not well organized. On top of that, the mode seems to be meant for playing with a larger collection with fine-tuned decks. I only have a bit outside the core box, and the jumpstart the Minion bot gets was such a huge hurdle to deal with that I ended up throwing in the towel after about 30 minutes of fighting over 1 story, struggling to get any headway.

Guess I’ll just have to play it 2-player.

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Oltréé (Multiplayer)

For Halloween, we brought this one out and tried the scenario featuring a haunted keep (“Things Were Better Before“). It’s a “long” chronicle, but the game was still roughly 90-120 minutes. We could have played more efficiently, and one problem card gave us some trouble because it needed 2 gold but we had spent the last of the money, so we had to grab other resources, go trade them for coins, and then clear the problem. It cost us a few turns because it was covering fire which we really needed.

We were close to avoiding failure but didn’t quite get there. I look forward to trying it again. I wish I could get the Undead & Alive expansion but the English version seemed to sell out everywhere immediately. I’ll have to wait for a reprint (and I hope they do one).