Catching Up on Games (4/9/25)

Whoops. It’s been a lot longer than I realized. There’s a LOT of catching up to do.

Top 100

For those who haven’t seen, I updated my Top 100 games (read here). It was a lot of work, especially since I wasn’t happy with the initial results and re-did the Pub Meeple ranking (which takes quite a bit of time!). But I’m happy with how it ultimately came out. Some surprising moves, for sure. And I’m sure there will be lots of moving around next year, too. Already played some games that would definitely have made it on there, like Journeys in Middle-earth.

Dorfromantik: Sakura (solo)

I wasn’t sure about this one but decided to grab a copy. I figured, given the style of co-op it is, this would end up being primarily a solo game. It’s one where the rules are basically the same no matter how many players you have; you just discuss each decision. That’s not really the sort of co-op my group is looking for, but these work just fine as a solo game.

It’s a pretty light puzzle, but Sakura has a little more going on than the original Dorfromantik (which was why I went with this one, other than the setting being much more up my alley). I ended playing several times and unlocking the first few boxes. The pictures below are just from the first two plays, so no spoilers. I really like the unlock system of the game, since it doesn’t really matter if you do well or poorly, you’ll eventually unlock stuff. But you do get a bit better at the game.

Dorfromantik: Sakura: 7/10 (first impressions) A neat, chill puzzle I can put down and come back to whenever I want

Marvel Champions

We’ve not played many times, and each play has been quite some time after the previous. But I’m still trying to get MC to finally click. The rules are a bit clunky, the game is a touch fiddly, and we’ve not played enough to get comfortable with it.

That said, I’m not feeling the Colossus pre-made deck. Some of the cards are very situational, and some don’t really seem to work well with the deck. Meanwhile, other than blocking damage, the deck just doesn’t seem to do anything particularly well. And the sequencing for some of Colossus’ defensive tricks are annoying to get to work, with turn order sometimes just preventing something from working cleanly.

Marvel Champions: 7/10 I keep trying, but I’m just not there with the game yet. It likely wouldn’t be on my top 100 at this point.

Star Wars: Unlimited (Shadows of the Galaxy)

By this point, the next set had come out, but I still had a lot of SotG boosters, and we hadn’t played our decks much, so I kind of skipped it.

Here, we continued our decks we previously made. I was still enjoying my Rei deck, comboing off Survivors’ Gauntlet. But my friend was struggling to figure out his deck and asked me to make him a deck with his existing pool for next time.

Star Wars: Unlimited: 9/10 Still loving it.

Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth (solo)

This was a surprise Christmas gift! I had often come close to buying it, but was just so unsure about the app, given that while I enjoy Destinies, the app wasn’t something I wanted to deal with very often.

After playing some of JiME solo, I actually really enjoyed the app. It felt less intrusive given that it cane just sit there while playing. I don’t have to keep picking it up to scan things, and the skill deck is a great system that keeps me engaged with the game in front of me more than with the app.

Given FFG’s history of letting games go out of print and how long it had been since they had concluded physical products for JiME, I decided to pick up everything that was out (there were some great deals, too). The biggest thing that convinced me, though, was how much I enjoyed the base game campaign, and it’s regarded as the weakest one.

LotR: Journeys in Middle-earth: 9/10 Quickly became a new favorite; I finished the first campaign in little time.

Ker Nethalas

On the rare occasion that I was ordering things from Amazon, I needed a bit more to hit free shipping, and while this was more than I needed, I was excited to try it out after watching The Dungeon Dive’s video on it. It’s sort of like a solitaire Dark Souls gamebook.

While the rules are a bit of a mess (with some notable clarity issues in the tutorial hidden in the very back of the book), and combat can be a bit repetitive without the right abilities, it was fun to dip my toes in. I haven’t had time to really dive in yet (partially because of the time spent figuring out the rules), so for now, it’s on hold. But I definitely want to get back to it.

Ker Nethalas: 7/10 (first impressions) A bit messy but fun

Middle-earth CCG (solo)

I was back at it with my dwarf deck. Sadly, this run went horribly wrong very quickly, and I called it after my 4th dwarf was killed.

I had also found a decent (not amazing) deal on a booster box of The White Hand. I was really interested in trying a fallen wizard deck, but the set, unfortunately, didn’t have any starter decks. So, in order to try it out, I needed to buy a lot, so it made sense to wait until there was a good deal on a booster box. Got some good pulls and made an Alatar deck.

Middle-earth CCG: 10/10 A game that feels like it was made for me

A Game of Thrones LCG 2nd Edition

My friend LOVES Game of Throne (the show; he doesn’t read), and after I had gotten him into card games, he ended up buying the core box for us to try. After that, he bought a full collection (including a lot of upgrades and playmats) and I made us a couple of decks. I have only a little previous experience with the game, and had only played 2nd edition that one other time with him, so there was no guaranteeing the decks would be good. But I’ve played a lot of a card games, including other FFG LCGs, so I had some idea of how to go about it (and intentionally avoided some of the more powerful cards that likely ruled the meta; we’re just here to have fun).

For myself, I made a Greyjoy ships/raiders deck. For my friend, I made a Jon Snow wildling deck. There was a lot of good back and forth (definitely more than when we played with the starter decks), but Greyjoy won in the end.

Game of Thrones LCG 2nd Edition: 8/10 One of FFG’s best LCGs

Kinfire Delve (Vainglory’s Grotto)

I had not looked into this at all, but my friend picked it up (which was very surprising; this is not his kind of theme, but he was looking for co-op card games).

I went in with no expectations, though I really dislike the flat and bland graphic design. The art’s… fine (too modern D&D for my tastes). The gameplay is pretty fun and allows for a lot of coordinating with the other player. Some co-ops are more like a shared puzzle, but this definitely had a lot of direct cooperation. And there’s no shortage of cool combos to pull off when you get things set up just right.

That said, there’s no theme. It’s dry as a bone.

Kinfire Delve: 7/10 Not bad, but probably not one I’ll be asking for at the table

Star Wars: Unlimited (Shadows of the Galaxy)

We played a couple of games of this back to back. First was my Rei deck against my friend’s new Han Solo deck (that I made for him). He’s still getting the hang of this style of game where board control and favorable trades are important aspects (not usually featured in FFG’s LCGs in the same way).

After the first game, I swapped to the Cad Bane deck I wanted to try (which shares about 6 or so cards with the Rei deck). The Cad Bane deck was super fun to play. Lots of neat tricks in this set. My friend was getting better (I recall that in the first game, he somehow had drawn all of the expensive units and few of the cheap ones, despite me loading the deck with cheap and mid-range units so it can play aggressively).

We also opened the other half of the booster box to make new decks. But we haven’t gotten to those decks yet (we’ve been distracted with Altered).

Star Wars: Unlimited: 9/10 A great game for sealed play; one box goes a long way

Altered TCG

I think this was our last game with just the starter decks before we opened some packs to make custom decks. After we split the packs, I ended up with all the ones with uniques in them! For the time, I only customized the Muna and Bravos decks.

We had also counted up the cards for the other factions (ones we didn’t have a starter for) and it wasn’t enough. Price-wise, since we were splitting the cost of a booster box, it was basically the same cost to buy a 2nd box as buying a second set of starter decks (and then splitting the factions the reverse of last time). We opted to just do a 2nd booster box.

Altered TCG: 9/10 It’s grown on me a lot; we’ll see if it has legs

Lord of the Rings: Trading Card Game (solo)

While I had previously migrated my LotR TCG collection to a bulk box, it wasn’t organized very well. It was a mess and wouldn’t be easy to bring out for some 2-player games. So, I spent some time rebuilding the starter decks so we would have something to play with. Just to fiddle with the game, I set it up and started a solo game, not intending to finish. But I couldn’t stop myself once I started, and finished it. Granted, the first starter decks were pretty weak, but it was still fun.

There was a lot of organizing left to do, however.

Lord of the Rings TCG: 9/10 A classic

Wingspan (+Oceania)

My friend had finally decided he liked Wingspan after playing it some more on BGA. So, he chose the Oceania expansion for gameday. This was the expansion with improved player boards that tried to reduce the need to just spam eggs in the final round (a very common issue in the base game).

To try out the expansion, we only played with the Oceania cards, and some lucky early draws made nectar ridiculously abundant in our game. The new effects were neat, and the new goals were interesting too. But by far, the best part were the re-balanced player boards (there sure is a common trend with this company and balance issues; at least this wasn’t about particular setups being busted).

Wingspan: 8/10 A fun game made even better with Oceania; people really need to stop hating on it for being popular

Ra

This finally came back out for a play. We all enjoyed it the first time, and it was still fun the second time. Lots of tough decisions. The tile pulls from the bag can be a little swingy sometimes, but it’s not a long game, so it’s not a huge deal. But every once in a while someone either gets really lucky or totally screwed with the tiles.

Ra: 7/10 A fun, very smooth experience

Page 2

Pages: 1 2 3

Dorfromantik: Sakura (solo)

Marvel Champions

Star Wars: Unlimited (Shadows of the Galaxy)

Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth (solo)

Ker Nethalas

Middle-earth CCG (solo)

A Game of Thrones LCG 2nd Edition

Kinfire Delve (Vainglory’s Grotto)

Star Wars: Unlimited (Shadows of the Galaxy)

Altered TCG

Lord of the Rings: Trading Card Game (solo)

Wingspan (+Oceania)

Ra

Share this:

Related

Leave a comment Cancel reply