Be Excellent To Each Other

I played Feast for Odin last night for the first time in two years. Back then I remember it as a massive, bewildering, and tedious worker-placement-cum-tangram mash up that went on for far too long. Having a massive action board with lots and lots of things for your Vikings to do is all well and good if you've played the game a lot and know the visual language but very, very off-putting if you're new to it and sitting just far enough away that you can't make out a third of it. I wasn't a fan back then and felt the Hype Train about it was more a broken Pacer than an amazing Mallard.

But I agreed to give it another go, and the set's owner had helpfully provided reference sheets explaining all the possible actions so I could pour over that whilst planning my turn rather than the huge player mat. And, to be fair, as the three hours went on I did start to appreciate its complexity and opportunities for point scoring. Whaling! Hunting! Raiding! Weaving! All good honest tasks to keep your Vikings happy. I found the pacing fine and the flow of the game worked with turns coming round quickly and combo kicking off as planned. I didn't notice the time going by. My thoughts about the game were changing.

Unfortunately, when the game was over and the scoring was done, I realised I'd totally misunderstood some of the iconography so what I thought was a player board filled with hundreds of lovely victory points was just a board covered in blue tiles. The numbers referred to what you could win on a good dice roll when you went a-raiding. I came fourth with a mighty 3 points. Third place went to someone with 80.

So now I'm unsure if I wasted my evening, or had a very good time doing so. I'm going to have to read up on strategy and play it again to decide if it really is worth spending a game session on or if my initial criticisms were justified.

Maybe it's just not my style of game? I tend to prefer ones that have opportunities for interacting with other players rather than spending my whole time concentrating on my own little spreadsheet. Other than occasional 'dam yous' for taking an action I wanted that turn, I can't think of moment in the game where what I was doing was affecting an opponent and vice versa. I'm not afraid of complexity in games, but I can think of plenty (eg Power Grid; Modern Art; the Estates; Raiders of the North Sea) that have depth without the need for a massive box and the better part of an evening.

Of course tastes change. After two seasons of 'Pandemic Legacy' I've had little inclination to play vanilla 'Pandemic' or even an expansion. I went off 'Scythe' too when it finally felt that too little was happening too infrequently. But then, I'm not going to refuse a game three others are eager to play.

Maybe, like modernist avant garde music, the fact this is troubling me is a sign it's having some sort of effect.

Or I'm just a bad loser.

Might be of interest to some here: https://cmon.com/special-campaigns/wack ... xe-edition

I am interested.

Eighty bux tho

pluzpost

Plus VAT, presumably.

pluzcuztums

Played this last night. Loved it. Recommended.

Also, hey that's my fish is good.

I love Takenoko. I think it’s our go-to cheery up game. There’s an expansion now with a girlfriend panda amount other devices, has anyone here played that?

Played 'Sheriff of Nottingham' with the expansion the other night. It really changes how you play the game and encourages people to lie and smuggle. In the base game, it's too easy to win by being honest and, well, where's the fun in that?

To encourage contraband, there are bonus points available for being the first to traffic particular quantities of banned products, or getting a particular combination past the Sheriff. You can even indulge in the illicit trade in Merry Men, and if one gets through you get either a bonus or a chance to screw another player. Adding to this, each turn the new Sheriff draws two cards from a 'special rule' deck and picks one, meaning that for the next two rounds chickens might be verboten or you have to pay a cheese tax or something else to affect your playing style. We only had four, so didn't get the experience the Sheriff and his deputy, the final addition.

We had a great time and it really revitalised the game for me. And, just like every other time I've played it, I was always too trusting or too suspicious and suffered for this. Bah.

Sheriff of Nottingham, in either of its forms, is excellent.

Once you've got people to understand that YOU CAN'T LIE ABOUT THE NUMBER OF ITEMS.

Tiny Towns

Everyone has a board with an empty 4x4 grid to make their town on. There's a pile of coloured cubes in the middle, and cards showing the types of buildings you could have in your town. Everyone also has a secret special building they can make which will help them in some way. There's also a pile of brightly coloured buildings to place in your town. So far, so good.

On your turn as dealer, you announce a colour and everyone takes that cube from the supply and places it on an empty space on their grid. If they make the Tetris-style shape of one of the building cards, they remove those cubes and place the building somewhere in the newly-created void, freeing up the other squares for more cubes. Different building types like to be near or avoid other types of buildings, so placement matters if you want to get points. As the game continues, you get fewer and fewer places to put your cubes and end up trapping yourself into deadends. Frustrating, but a fun puzzle nonetheless. Once your board's full, that's it for you and you just have to wait for everyone else to finish by scoring.

All in all, this would be a pretty reasonable way to fill 20 minutes or so. Complex enough to cause a minor headache and lots of swearing as a friend calls out the one colour you don't want.

Sadly, I won't be playing it again. Remember the special building I mentioned? One player at our table built his quickly, and that gave him the ability to place cubes anywhere on the grid, even if a building was occupying the space. This meant he covered his board with loads of high scoring builds and had a runaway victory, whilst the rest of us were cursing placing a fountain at a key intersection early on thus ruining our options. He was, in effect, playing a completely different game. That one bonus was just too powerful.

Anyone going to Tabletop Scotland? It’s a board game convention in Scotland setup by my friends and this is its second year. I’m running the gateway game area!

*casts net over Gilly*

You shan’t escape a second time.

Hiya!

When is it? We need deets, stat.

Hi Gilly!
Trust all's well.

Curious to know what you are offering as gateway games. Around 5 years ago I'd have just said Settlers , TTR, and Pandemic, but I reckon Flamme Rouge should definitely be on any such list now.

Gilly!

Good guess!

Flamme Rouge
Takenoko
Carcassonne
Catch The Moon
Ticket To Ride
Sushi Go
Splendor
Santorini I think

24th/25th August at the Dewar’s Centre in Perth which is around an hour from where I am (near St. Andrews.)

https://tabletopscotland.co.uk/

Played 2 games of this last night, got the big bad both times and smashed the other players both times. I am winner.

Bloody love that game, even though at the cottage our dice were so badly cursed.

I've always enjoyed it, although it's always a private shame when my dice rolls set off the Haunt.

My group are starting the Betrayal Legacy game soon. Nothing will ever top the experience of Pandemic Season 1, but I'm interested to see how they develop the base game.

Also Jacket can't read.

Paging @nervousPete :



https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/22 ... board-game

What is it?

Cheers Kern, looks and sounds good!

We could play it at the cottage, Z!

I'll go if Wookie picks me up in his Scimitar.

Netrunner regional competition this weekend! Should be done by 4pm. On Saturday.

I could see hiring a pro DM being a thing, especially if you had a gang of first timers with some spare cash.

We played this last night, initially as a filler but we spent about an hour on it in the end. It's a very fast push-your-luck style game with plenty of moments of drama as you decide whether to buy more cards to keep in the game then wait for each to be turned over, learning whether you overspent or if you'll go broke. I also got a run of really good hands and was the ultimate winner of a pile of plastic chips. Worth learning for a long train journey!

PDF rules, but we started with two face-up cards, dealing to a maximum of seven.

Look what arrived today!

Has anyone played the Legacy version of this game? I'm only two games in but it's brilliant. You get to alter map tiles and cards permanently and in each game you play as a descendant of your character in the previous game.

I bought a new board game table recently and when the haunt starts next time I play Betrayal, I'm going to turn all the lights to red

Yes! We played chapter three last night. I'm really enjoying it so far, particularly as the game's always lent itself to light-hearted references to teen horror tropes. We're enjoying writing up their "fates" on the back of the card after each game too.

EDIT: This spoiler relates to the game. If you are ever likely to play it, please don't open it.




Brilliant idea! Might suggest that to my group.

I did blue lights when we were playing a police game.

Ah! My brother got that a couple of days ago and we have been lined up for a game when we go down to London in a few days. I hope it’s good fun

Revising some game rules ahead of Cottage, I noticed that one of my games helpfully reminds me to punch out the components before starting.

Giphy "sigh":
https://media3.giphy.com/media/qsbpGsQJef8l2/giphy-loop.mp4

Do you like Flamme Rouge? Do you like complex statistical analysis? Are you struggling to sleep working out the number of unique courses in the game? Well, someone has done the sums.

You misread it. It says ‘opponents’.

Parks and recreation.

Let's get this out of the way first. This is the most beautiful game I own. From the wooden tokens, to the box inserts, to the gorgeously designed park cards themselves, everything is a visual delight. Better than that, the artwork doesn't get in the way of the graphic design, so once you've mastered the simple iconic language it's pretty clear what does what. My dimly lit pub photos simply can't do it justice.

So, does the game match up to its promise? Absolutely.

Each player controls a team of two interpid hikers. In this age of social-media-led bragging rights, you aim to have the best year in the outdoors by visiting the most US national parks. And what do parks mean? Points! You can also get additional points by taking Instagram worthy snapshots.

In each of the four seasons, your team trundle along a varied trail of mountains, forests, rivers, and valleys, gathering resources. Land on a mountain, take one home with you! Steal a tree from the forest! Put a sun in your backpack! Steal a bear (animal pieces are ... wait for it ... wild!)! This old Scout's creed of leaving nothing but footprints, taking nothing but photographs doesn't quite apply here, but I'm sure we can pass that by and find another thematic spin on this element. .

When a hiker reaches the end of the trail, they can either buy cool gear to help them on future treks, visit a park by paying its resource cost less any particular bonuses they hold, or "reserve" a park by taking it from the supply with the intent to visit it when funds allow. Different parks give you different amounts of bragging rights, so this is sometimes a good option to prevent an opponent from grabbing a high-scoring one.

However, to really appreciate the outdoors you need solitude, and no hiker (even your own) can share a space with another player. Once you've gone down the trail, there's no turning back either, so every turn you're having to decide whether to forgo a particularly useful resource another piece is hogging, or move your other piece hoping that space will come free. You can only share a space if you can light a fire, and once used up that ability is extinguished until one of your hikers reaches the end. Knowing when to burn the fire card is probably a useful strategy in this game.

Every player also carries a canteen with them to fill up on the way, because dehydration is not fun or clever in the wilderness. If you find water, you can fill it up, and get a bonus. You can carry as many canteens as you can obtain. It's evident that the key to getting the higher-scoring parks is to use canteens in combination with gear cards and the particular rules in play in each season (each of the four changes the rules slightly), as every effect affects everything so you can get multiple combos if you're cunning.

The game was really easy to teach and after the first season the four people I was playing it with had grasped the basic mechanics. It plays pretty fast, helped by the no-man-left-behind rule meaning that when all but one of the hikers has reached journey's end, the remaining one is airlifted to the end space too. Getting the balance between moving quickly along the trail to nab favoured resources and lingering to block others was satisfyingly tricky, and on at least two occasions I damaged my chances by moving too fast. The range of possible combinations of cards, resources, and special rules means each round plays differently. Grabbing a coveted park the guy to my left had been after for ages was a particular highlight too!

It's a fun game with clever mechanics and strategy whilst not being too heavy. And did I tell you how beautiful it looked? Recommended.

Did you bring this to the cottage? I meant to say I was interested. Whoops.

Nice, thanks for the write up! Have had my eye on this for Xmas.

Last night I watched this SU&SD video on "Don't get got". It's a metagame where each player has a wallet of five tasks ("convince someone a device is voice-activated when it isn't and get them to try it"; "make someone wear a hat") to carry out without people noticing. Sounds like it would be an excellent thing to play throughout the three days of Cottage or similar event.

I also watched the NPI review of train-and-stocks game "Irish Gauge" (or 5'3'') and bought it straight after as a present to myself. Because Trains.

This Christmas is just me and Donna, so we are having a board game Christmas.

Yesterday we finished off the last couple of games of Pandemic legacy season 1, and played the first 5 games of season 2.
Tomorrow I have Gloomhaven and Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective being delivered.

Plan is to stay in, play board games and order takeaways for the next week.

Dream plan.