Be Excellent To Each Other

I love that Sherlock game, though I’m not very good at it

Have a nice Christmas x

I'm very excited for Gloomhaven!

Has anyone played it?

Nope, too rich for my blood! Frosthaven has just been announced so I might be tempted when 2.0 comes out.

Yeah, it's super expensive, but 95 scenarios and each one takes a few hours, it should be worth it... Unless we hate the first game, in which case... Would anyone want to buy Gloomhaven, only played once!

All round to Troopers!

I like the idea you pick your character based on some arcane symbol on the otherwise blank box.

Gloomhaven is a seriously heavy box, 10kg! I don't feel quite so ripped off now.

It looks very complicated.

The biggest part of the game is trying to get everything back in the box after, I've heard.

The WH household will be having one (a games night) tonight.

Every year Mrs W buys a game to play on Christmas Eve, when we have Birthday Buffet (TM) for Miss WH and friends. Trouble is, we don't usually open it until we're about to play it, so we don't know the roolz, or if it's going to be any good. I usually get grumpy because I'm expected to assimilate the roolz within two minutes of starting to read them, and then Mrs W will say, "Let's just play it and we'll pick it up as we go along," which rarely works. We've had some rubbish over the years, and never played Diplomacy as we gave up after we opened the box and read the bit about allowing 4 hours for a short game.

But this year I got in first and bought the adults and kids version of Trivial Pursuit, which is piss easy to play and when I've slaughtered everyone at that we'll probably resort to "Who's in the bag" which always good, particularly after a few sherbets.

Pandemic legacy season 2 done, very enjoyable, not quite as slick and well thought out as the first, but if you liked the first season, you'll like this.

Gloomhaven begins post Xmas...

I don't think I'll ever have a gaming experience as intense as Pandemic Legacy 1. The sequel, whilst fun, will always be in its shade.

Downloaded a cheat sheet for the rules to Gloomhaven. The cheat sheet is 11 pages long...

Heh, the Avengers Crisis Protocol game has 27 pages of instructions with the cheerful fourth sentence "once you have played a few games using these rules which omit the [other ones] go and download the full rulebook at"

Update: Everyone except me ( the designated driver) got too pissed before even thinking about games, so we started with "Who's in the bag" at about 1.30am and only managed 3 rounds before it collapsed into a complete shambles, with one player, who's played it with us on several occasions, couldn't understand the rule of not being allowed to say any of the words on the card while giving clues to their team. They were getting slaughtered anyway.

I got Sal Dinosaur Island for Christmas. It’s really good!

My daughter had Operation for Christmas. That counts doesn't it?

I never had it as a child so I'm pleased.

The boys have got into Bears vs Babies and Boss Monster recently. Nice simple game mechanics so they can play on their own without someone helping, but the is enough to the games to make them quite cut throat and entertaining

Darwin got Narwhal in my Noodles (thanks Auntie GJ and Uncle Jones!) and the balancing tree.

Narwhal! Noodles!

In a similar vein to Operation, I've just discovered there was a Dr Mario game.

Gloomhaven plans have gone off the rails

D got a panicked call from her sister on xmas eve, so she had to go help her mother, who was freaking out over cooking xmas dinner etc... Cutting short our gaming time, and she came back yesterday riddled with illness, so no boardgames here!

I've got my cheat sheet ready and everything.

That looks hilarious! I hope Darwin is enjoying it.

We have been playing Dobble and some stabby game. Jones be vicious. Pics when Chloe has stopped playing with bath cannons.

"On your marks" apparently.

Time for some Unstable Unicorns.

Love me some unstable unicorns.

I got T.I.M.E Stories for Christmas, and it's great. It's clever, it does some really cute things, the artwork is lovely and it's compelling as fuck.

Look at the sexy lady I played as!

Oh my, it's uncanny!





*Proceeds to Amazon*

Gloomhaven...

Started setup at about 11am, actually started playing our first game around noon. Played till around 10pm (with breaks for food and Overcooked sessions) 3 Scenarios completed.

Initial thoughts:
The initial setup is long, very long. Punching out all the pieces, organising everything, setting up your first characters etc... Not helped by the rule book being crap. Luckily some folks online have done a starter guide to get you going, which helps a lot. Do this in adanvce of your first game if possible, and make sure you have lots of bags to put stuff in. Once everything is punched out, without bags, you just have to dump the whole lot back into the box at the end, which would be a nightmare to sort out. There must be 600+ pieces in total, not including cards etc...

The rule book is just rubbish. It's basically a reference manual written by someone who knows the game inside and out, there is no guide to how to start, or what's important. It mentions rules in passing that aren't explained yet, but doesn't tell you where in the 50 page book the rule is to go look it up. In a lot of places it is ambiguous or just poorly written, so searching online for what people think it means is essential. In other places there are things that happen in the game, or are written on cards, that simply aren't explained at all, anywhere in the rule book!

We did the "pick your character by the icon" thing, which ended up with me as a Mindthief (psychic rogue), D as a Brute (tank) and J as a spellslinging flower thingy, who's role is to fuck shit up, then have a nap to recover. No healer in the group, but that didn't seem to matter.

The first scenario is quite easy in terms of the rooms and monsters, but there is no easing you in gradually to the rules, everything is in play right from the off, so make sure you are playing with people who either know the game already, or won't be put off by a fair amount of waiting around while you work out what actually needs to happen, made worse by the shit rule book.

Once you get going, the game is really good fun, and plays really well, the mechanics are nice and the pieces and artwork is really good quality.

The rule book is atrocious.

You need a big table! There are a gazillion pieces and cards in play. (bonus Lady Wiggleton under the table)


The scenario book has spoilers in it for the person who is running the game, but there is an app on the play store that dynamically hides the setup of all the rooms until you progress through the dungeon, which is really nice. It meant I could be as surprised as to the other players as to what was in the next room.

The rule book could be better.

Even with the above, we really enjoyed the experience and are itching to get back into the world and explore more, as the actual game itself is just lovely, and the persistant nature of growing your characters and the town itself will draw you back in.

All in all, two thumbs up.

p.s. the rule book is shit.

Not a game for Sal and me then, she gets annoyed when we have to check rules in relatively simple games.

Hehe, do you remember that horse racing game we played? That was good fun.

We had a board-game night at Chez JemChap the other night, and (as usual) it basically ended up being Codenames - all varieties.

We also played a bit more of Decrypto (which I *love*, a great game) and some Boss Monster.

A couple of our guests brought a copy of Killer Bunnies - which I'd not heard of. Bit of an odd game, in that you have to plan your moves two turns in advance, but by the time you get to play those moves the situation might have changed quite drastically meaning you might not be able to carry out those moves. Essentially, the goal of the game is to keep at least one of your bunnies alive until the end of the game *and* make sure that you have at least one carrot.

It's pretty good, quite funny and plenty of opportunity to ruin your opponents' game and further your own.

The only thing, IMO, that lets it down is some Mario Party style weapons-grade bullshit at the end whereby the actual winner is determined entirely randomly from all of the players that have a bunny alive and at least one carrot.

I had it, and a few expansions.

I think it went to the charity shop... Didn't seem to be a fun game to go with the concept.

This "Shut Up & Sit Down" video of 2-player war game "Undaunted" is one of the best reviews they've done. Even if you're not into gaming, it's worth spending some time with this one.

.

SU&SD are consistently great. I watch their videos even if I’m not interested in the game itself.

Has anyone played 7th Continent? I've very tempted to get the classic box, but it's £60...

No help at all, were you...

Hit a milestone in Gloomhaven yesterday. 13 scenarios done and we retired our first character, plus did something else to level up the town (no spoilers).
More items on the shop, new characters to play, and the story has picked up. Exciting times.

Unfortunately, it was our tank who reached his personal quest goal and retired, and our party is now a rogue, a mage and a bard (to use the standard tropes, it's not quite that simple when it come to classes, but good enough). I predict the next scenario is going to be amusing, and involve lots of running away...

D and I are most likely going to go to the UK boardgame expo thing this year, on the Saturday, if anyone else is thinking of going.

https://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/

It's end of may in Birmingham.

It’s hosting the X-Wing, Armada and Legion Grand Championships so it’s tempting – I’d have to book some time off though.

The digital version of Gloom is available on Steam for the princely sum of 1.98 (Including DLC)...or 1.29 for the base game.

Edit: Smashup bundle for just over 7 pounds on there as well.

Is it, though?

Moved to August...always a good day out (and bank account depleting).

We tried to play Jackbox games over Twitch last night but the delay rendered them unplayable. So we all went over to Boardgamearena but as I didn't have an account I tried to set one up. Due to overloaded servers they were operating a "one in - one out" policy for new members, so I couldn't get in. Managed to set up an account this morning so at least I should be getting some boardgaming whilst we're all indoors.

Did whoever was running the Twitch stream have "low latency mode" turned on?

You can also increase the timers at the Jackbox end. But some games are far more suitable than others.

or just use zoom

Harder on a PS4.

Get a 360

https://print-and-play.asmodee.fun/ print and play games Dixit, dobble and some others