Looks nice, but boy is that a lot of special terms. I wonder how many of them are mechanically necessary, and how many are flavor renamings of mundane concepts.
- Druid - Playing pieces.
- Unravel - Remove tile from the board.
- Site - Tile
- Exhausted - a druid that has been used that turn, or that somehow otherwise can't be used this turn.
- Haven - Tiles where druids can be summoned.
- Exile - remove druid from play.
- Sole -a word that means single. Not sure the confusion here?
- End step - Really? Almost every modern game has an End Step. That's kind of unfair to pick on.
- Eldrid - Special Super Druid.
- Seed - Energy tokens granted by doing various things..
- Summon - add druids to the board.
- Energy - Seed Type. There are 3 energies.
- Unlocked -Can be removed without splitting the board.
- Space -an open...space. You can move it to any open tile adjacency.
- Astral -a special, advanced Tile-type made specially for the KS.
Many I can make an educated guess at, but quite a few are opaque. And on top of that there are several icons. This is on just four tiles! I feel like this design could have used a bit of pruning.
The sand timer icon means any time. The token with arrow means to flip your druid, thus exhausting it.
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Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
Since I rarely let a chance go by to waste my time on something trivial, I've decided to take on the 10x10 challenge from BGG. The idea being that you pick 10 games from your collection and you try to play them 10 times each in one year. It sounds like a lot, but depending on which games you pick it may or may not be doable. Ten games of Twilight Imperium 3 in a year is kind of a pipe dream. Whereas ten games of Love Letter could probably be wrapped up in an evening or two.
I've gone through my collection and chosen about five games so far, but I can't decide on the rest. If you're the kind of person who is always happy to give advice and/or suggestions to people you barely know.... read on after the spoiler tag!
I've ruled out all games that have seen a lot of play already (or that I simply don't want to play), and divided the rest into three categories based on length.
Long games: Doom, Fury of Dracula, Pret-A-Porter Mid-length: 51st State/The New Era, Chaos in the Old World, City of Horror, Cosmic Encounter
Elder Sign, DungeonQuest, Flash Point, Legacy - The Testament of Duke de Crecy, Pandemic, Rex, Robo Rally, Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas Short games: Cheaty Mages, Coup Reformation, Di Renjie, Office 21
I'm trying to guess which games might be interesting enough on their own to be played multiple times in relatively short succession. It's surprisingly difficult to do.
AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
I mean, Coup's a giveaway, but it's fun if you've got 4+ bodies and some to fill.
Out of that list, I'd want to play DungeonQuest and Flashpoint, from things I've heard on here. Pandemic's a solid choice, too, since the difficulty scales.
I've played Legendary, Love Letter, Lords of Waterdeep, Coup, Smash Up and Age of War well over 10 times this year. Legendary is probably more like 20 times. Love that so much.
I've played Study In Emerald and Risk Legacy about 7 or so times.
Not sure what else I've played a lot. My group tends to play a lot of new games. We have some hardcore collectors who always get the new hotness to the table. And I love the longer games really. My high points have been games like Archipelago, Eldritch Horror, Fire In The Lake.
Study in Emerald was the big surprise for me this year. I didn't enjoy A Few Acres, and Discworld is fine but nothing special. But SiE mixes together so many things I like - deckbuilding, hidden roles, semi-co-op, Mythos, Holmes, Bolsheviks, revolution, the short story itself. It could only appeal to me more if it was made out of chocolate.
A couple of games I played, don't own, but was very impressed by, were Valley of the Kings and Lewis and Clark.
So I've picked up the Sentinels of the Multiverse iOS app, which I assume is a fairly faithful adaptation of the board game.
Is it just me or is Citizen Dawn way harder than the other villains? I can take out Blade and Omnitron pretty easily. Voss is a bid harder but if you have enough defense and "hit everyone" cards he's survivable.
Dawn, however:
- Requires you to allow her to build a board up to make her flip once she's merged with the sun
- Can destroy everyone's board with a single card that is pretty common in her deck
My only win was by keeping all her flame-damage people in play, have Ra protect everyone from fire, and having someone (I think Visionary) sift through her deck to remove the Aurora cards. That seems like a highly specific set of cards to allow me to win. Every other attempt hasn't even been close, and if she gets Truth and Anvil out at the same time the game is pretty much over right there as it's very difficult to break through that much armor.
She just seems so disproportionately hard that I think I must be missing something.
You're not missing anything. She's definitely the (consistently) hardest base game villain.
Blade is a tutorial. A joke once you know the game.
Omnitron you have to be hit with some pretty bad luck to lose.
Voss lives or dies 100% based on his ships and forced deployment coming out at bad times. His minions deal in nothing but straight damage and never throw wrenches into your plans. He never forces heroes to discard. I believe it to be a hard rule that if you get Wraith's infrared eye piece out, then you've won against Voss.
You listed all the reasons Dawn is tough. Truth and Anvil are definitely her toughest citizens to deal with (not sure how Ra's fire immunity helps; Citizen Hammer is the only thing in her deck that deals fire damage iirc). If you're not using deck manipulation (or at least trash manipulation like Haka's savage mana), then you're just rolling the die against Dawn and the die is stacked against you.
One aspect is that there's really lean options for "survival mode" which is what you need when Dawn merges with the sun. There's Bunker's recharge mode, Visionary's telekinetic cacoon (which prevents you from deck manipulating), Tempest's cleansing downpour heal, uhhhh....not sure what else? Even that is shattered by devastating aurora.
Even when you put all the expansions together, I think Dawn is still rated 3rd hardest (after Chairman and Iron Legacy).
As far as base game environment difficulty, I feel it goes Mars Base->Dinosaur Island->City->Atlantis.
Mars is full of cards that are either benign or actively help you. Meteor swarm can be manipulated so badly that it feels like cheating.
Dinosaur island whatever it's called can deal moderate damage to you but almost no total fuck you cards.
The city has the damage of dinosaur island plus some cards that can totally screw you over if they come out at bad times. Not being able to draw/play cards or use powers for a turn can spell instant game over.
Atlantis has a lot of cards that can send you into a death spiral. You're getting lots of damage piled onto you plus turn skipping plus discarding entire hands.
Kingdom Death finally posted an excerpt of one of the play tester's logs. It's pretty confusing but there is some cool stuff in there:
Play testing
So here is, a quick, unedited grab from one of our play testers log. Some of it, might not make any sense… you have been warned!
**After Hunt**
Settlement name: Beta
Population: 8
Death Count: 23
Survival Limit: 4
Departing Survivors gain 3 Survival
Innovations: Language, Paint, Inner Lantern, Symposium, Lantern oven, Guidepost, Face painting, Ammonia, Shield mastery, Scrap Smelting
Principles: Life - Protect the children, Death - Graves, Conviction - Romantic
Locations: Lantern hoard! Bone smith, Skinnery, Organ grinder, Catarium, Stone circle, Weapon crafter, Leather worker, Plumery
Quarries: White lion, Screaming antelope, Phoenix
Nemeses: The butcher, The king’s man, The hand
5 Endeavors gained from butching the Butcher.
An acid storm ravages the settlement. Kristina must skip the next hunt. Sara skips while fiddling around with useless Butcher bits in a dark corner. A corner darker than the darkness that surrounds the settlement. Survivors pass some time with wildly fun face painting.
Available resources:
White fur, 2 Monster organ, 2 Love Juice, 4 Broken Lanterns
Small Feathers, Tail Feathers, Phoenix Finger, Muculent Droppings, Pustules, Phoenix Eye, Shimmering Halo, Rainbow Droppings
Some scrap was smelted into iron for working on the phoenix gear. Lance and Jose took the time to get crazy in the acid through innovative battle painting. Tracie then took the time to scavenge for scrap near the end of the storm.
No new items were made.
With a murder looming over the settlement, it is determined that Shane II leaves for this hunt without Tracie so that he can die in her stead. What a sick game these survivors are playing among themselves…
Shane II
Ins 4, Sur 1, 9 xp, Grand W. prof: 0
1 Str, 1 Acc
4 Und, 1 Cou (Tinker)
Fighting Arts: Rhythm Chaser, Combo Master, Mighty Strike
Impairments: Destroyed genitals
Jose
Ins 3, Sur 2, 2 xp, Sword prof: 0
1 Acc
4 Und, 1 Cou (Analyze)
Other notable survivors:
Marcy
Ins 4, Sur 4, 3 xp
3 Und, 2 Cou (Analyze)
Fighting Arts: Double Dash, Scavenger
Kristina
Ins 7, Sur 4, 3 xp, Katar prof: 1
1 Str
3 Und, 3 Cou, (Analyze, Stalwart)
Fighting Arts: Combo Master, Pickaxe Power
Sara
Ins 3, Sur 1, 1 xp
2 Und, 1 Cou
Disorders: Secretive
Tracie
Ins 2, Sur 2, 10 xp, Grand W. prof: 1
1 Str, 1 Acc, 1 Mov
3 Und, 1 Cou (Explore)
Fighting Arts: Clutch Fighter, Legendary Lungs
Hunt for a level 2 Antelope (with Manhunter additions)
William finds a dead antelope! No one wants to mess with a level 3 lion, it thankfully doesn’t happen. He then leads the party to a strange statue. Lance ends up touching it and switching existences with Ishi, the indecisive rageholic that loves him an axe. Ishi then leads his newfound friends to some wailing smoke. Jose straggles, but something in the smoke gives him a new perspective on life and death. In fact, he stops believing in either and embraces a sort of immortality. Shane finds a Vomit Pile that Ishi and Jose each scavenge for some courage. Ishi gains survival and Jose found some understanding and a pelt. Jose found a relic and got some insanity for it. William then led this fresh batch of men to a swarm of Man-stealers… What a friend. Jose had his genitals destroyed.
The darkness overwhelmed.
William took 4 damage to the head and 2 to the arms.
Ishi gained insanity and courage.
Jose lashed out and dealt 1 arm dmg to Will, 1 body dmg to Ishi, and 1 body dmg to Shane II.
Shane unnaturally cried out, dealing damage to everyone’s brains.
Jose tried to gather some minerals, but destroyed his axe with his furor. (rolled 1)
Ishi gained the Careful fighting art and 1 survival. Jose gained the Scavenger fighting art. William gained the Careful fighting art. Shane II did nothing with his report. While wrapping up the report, the survivors learned that the place they decided to pause at before approaching the antelope was actually covered in a carpet of ticks! Bill and Jose freaked out and lost their will to survive.
Screaming Antelope Shodown
An ore vein was discovered! This is auspicious. Iron was gained. Awesome. William goes a bit crazy, but then becomes a Rageholic. Wonderful. Then the Antelope eats a Lion Katar… Shenanigans.
Well, since Lance died, the settlement is looking at 2 endeavors. There’s still a full party, so that’s 5 more. Shane II tinkers for 1 more… And Shane is going to die after returning next year… 9 endeavors is a good number. I’m ok with this.
So I bought Castles of Burgundy on a whim from Amazon because it was on sale. I've been trying to find a game that I can play with my better half. She's not super into board games but will play Agricola with me if I nag enough.
I've read that Castles of Burgundy plays well at 2 player.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
Oh, sweet. And there's my copy of Lagoon arrived.
I love it when a kickstarter does Canada distribution right.
So I've picked up the Sentinels of the Multiverse iOS app, which I assume is a fairly faithful adaptation of the board game.
Is it just me or is Citizen Dawn way harder than the other villains? I can take out Blade and Omnitron pretty easily. Voss is a bid harder but if you have enough defense and "hit everyone" cards he's survivable.
Dawn, however:
- Requires you to allow her to build a board up to make her flip once she's merged with the sun
- Can destroy everyone's board with a single card that is pretty common in her deck
My only win was by keeping all her flame-damage people in play, have Ra protect everyone from fire, and having someone (I think Visionary) sift through her deck to remove the Aurora cards. That seems like a highly specific set of cards to allow me to win. Every other attempt hasn't even been close, and if she gets Truth and Anvil out at the same time the game is pretty much over right there as it's very difficult to break through that much armor.
She just seems so disproportionately hard that I think I must be missing something.
Completely agree with you. In the card game plus expansions, I think she is by far the most difficult villain to beat. As you say, the heroes need a very carefully tailored team to stand a chance against her.
Personally, I think the award goes to either Cosmic Omnitron or Ennead (Advanced). On Advanced, the Ennead unleash a new villain EVERY TURN, which makes them considerably harder. Cosmic Omnitron can easily turn a losing situation to one where the heroes are on the ropes and he has a full army again. New Spite is pretty nasty, too, but I don't know where to place him on the continuum. Honestly, I also think the Chairman is harder than Citizen Dawn.
Citizen Dawn has some nasty tricks, but if you have a scout hero (someone who can view the top two cards and rearrange them), you can avoid a lot of them. She has some nasty initial flops, too, with some combinations of citizens. She can force several discards from everyone's hand, have a citizen out who blocks all damage to other citizens, and have another citizen that gives damage reduction to the non-immune citizen, all before the heroes' first turns. Some initial flops are almost impossible to recover from (similar to Iron Legacy).
It lists Citizen Dawn at a 28% win ratio (the heroes win about 72% of the time), and 8th in the overall rankings. Without some of the stronger heroes (limiting yourself to the App's heroes), though, like Team Leader Tachyon or some of the stronger scouts like Dark Visionary, I think that win ratio would be a tad bit higher.
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jergarmarhollow man crewgoes pew pew pewRegistered Userregular
So I bought Castles of Burgundy on a whim from Amazon because it was on sale. I've been trying to find a game that I can play with my better half. She's not super into board games but will play Agricola with me if I nag enough.
I've read that Castles of Burgundy plays well at 2 player.
By my experience, you have a high chance for a good result. CoB is not only good for 2 players, but tends to be liked by serious and non-serious gamers alike. The only real criticism of the game is that it's a bit dry, but as a game it's pretty satisfying.
When I was a child, I had a fever... My BoardGameGeek profile
Battle.net: TheGerm#1430 (Hearthstone, Destiny 2)
I heard some good stuff about Sentinels of the Multiverse, so I bought the iPad version.
Two quick things about that version:
It crashes a lot
It destroys my battery and I got a low battery warning after playing for an hour.
It's pretty fun, but I'm a bit annoyed at the balance. Now, I haven't really considered which hero is good against what villain and how they synergize, but I get destroyed a whole lot.
Anyone played it and have anything to say about the physical version? Better balance with some expansions?
edit: oh hey posts about it on this very page.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Balance and SotM are not words that go together. It's more about the adventure of figuring out what's broken in your selection of heroes that can overcome what's broken in your villain.
1: That was a really fun review and it took me a while to realize what they were doing.
2: That game sounds fun, and I don't really care for zombies.
3: I'm not making up 15 points, but yeah, setup on some games can be a real pain in the neck. It's nice though when you can have multiple people working at the same time though. ie. Galaxy Trucker - 1 person can be getting out the boards and bits, another sorting and shuffling the cards and making the trip deck, and another 1 or 2 are getting all the ship bits out and turned face down.
I heard some good stuff about Sentinels of the Multiverse, so I bought the iPad version.
Two quick things about that version:
It crashes a lot
It destroys my battery and I got a low battery warning after playing for an hour.
It's pretty fun, but I'm a bit annoyed at the balance. Now, I haven't really considered which hero is good against what villain and how they synergize, but I get destroyed a whole lot.
Anyone played it and have anything to say about the physical version? Better balance with some expansions?
edit: oh hey posts about it on this very page.
Sentinels of the Multiverse isn't balanced. Not in the slightest. There are some heroes who aren't even situationally strong (in the situations where they are strong, other heroes fill that role significantly better). There are some villains that you can steamroll 9 times out of 10 (Ambuscade, I'm looking at YOU). It would be nice if the game came with recommendations for easy or hard villains, or easy or hard heroes. I actually have a cheatsheet chart that I use when recommending heroes for people in physical games that show relative power levels and team roles that they fill. You can find a similar chart at Boardgamegeek, I think.
Roles that you should look at to fill out your team:
* a "pause button" - Heroes that can stop all incoming damage for the whole team for a round. Some heroes can stop all damage from just one source, other heroes can stop all damage from all sources, and still others can only stop Villain damage. These give you a round of "breather" or prevent large devastating attacks from wiping the team. Examples: Haka has Ground Pound, Tachyon has Hypersonic Assault, Legacy has a card that can redirect damage to himself while nullifying the damage type with a specific card, Wraith can prevent a single enemy from dealing damage with Throat Jab, etc.
* a "scout" - Heroes that can view the top two cards and rearrange them, putting one at the bottom. This allows you to thin out the powerful villain cards by putting them at the bottom of the deck. This is key to winning a lot of the harder fights. Examples include Wraith's Infrared Eyepiece, half of Visionary's deck. Tempest has a roundabout one in Into the Stratosphere, which returns a Villain card to the top of the deck (thus allowing you to "stack" the Villain deck for one turn with a guaranteed card, delaying the Villain for a turn).
* Healing - Some heroes have no self-healing whatsoever. Tachyon is one of them. Other heroes can heal other heroes every round, which buys you resources and time. You can win pretty without any healing, but healing makes it easier. Examples include Legacy's Motivational Charge, Tempest's Cleansing Downpour, etc.
For a good team "core", I can highly recommend Wraith + Tempest + Legacy from the original set, as this is a great mix of scouting, healing, and damage that can handle many bosses. I'd avoid Bunker or Absolute Zero, as they don't fill any roles better than other heroes.
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FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
I heard some good stuff about Sentinels of the Multiverse, so I bought the iPad version.
Two quick things about that version:
It crashes a lot
It destroys my battery and I got a low battery warning after playing for an hour.
It's pretty fun, but I'm a bit annoyed at the balance. Now, I haven't really considered which hero is good against what villain and how they synergize, but I get destroyed a whole lot.
Anyone played it and have anything to say about the physical version? Better balance with some expansions?
edit: oh hey posts about it on this very page.
Sentinels of the Multiverse isn't balanced. Not in the slightest. There are some heroes who aren't even situationally strong (in the situations where they are strong, other heroes fill that role significantly better). There are some villains that you can steamroll 9 times out of 10 (Ambuscade, I'm looking at YOU). It would be nice if the game came with recommendations for easy or hard villains, or easy or hard heroes. I actually have a cheatsheet chart that I use when recommending heroes for people in physical games that show relative power levels and team roles that they fill. You can find a similar chart at Boardgamegeek, I think.
Roles that you should look at to fill out your team:
* a "pause button" - Heroes that can stop all incoming damage for the whole team for a round. Some heroes can stop all damage from just one source, other heroes can stop all damage from all sources, and still others can only stop Villain damage. These give you a round of "breather" or prevent large devastating attacks from wiping the team. Examples: Haka has Ground Pound, Tachyon has Hypersonic Assault, Legacy has a card that can redirect damage to himself while nullifying the damage type with a specific card, Wraith can prevent a single enemy from dealing damage with Throat Jab, etc.
* a "scout" - Heroes that can view the top two cards and rearrange them, putting one at the bottom. This allows you to thin out the powerful villain cards by putting them at the bottom of the deck. This is key to winning a lot of the harder fights. Examples include Wraith's Infrared Eyepiece, half of Visionary's deck. Tempest has a roundabout one in Into the Stratosphere, which returns a Villain card to the top of the deck (thus allowing you to "stack" the Villain deck for one turn with a guaranteed card, delaying the Villain for a turn).
* Healing - Some heroes have no self-healing whatsoever. Tachyon is one of them. Other heroes can heal other heroes every round, which buys you resources and time. You can win pretty without any healing, but healing makes it easier. Examples include Legacy's Motivational Charge, Tempest's Cleansing Downpour, etc.
For a good team "core", I can highly recommend Wraith + Tempest + Legacy from the original set, as this is a great mix of scouting, healing, and damage that can handle many bosses. I'd avoid Bunker or Absolute Zero, as they don't fill any roles better than other heroes.
Good post. I'd also add Heroes with the ability to inflict multiple types of damage. Ra, an otherwise awesome-ly powerful character, is limited to Fire damage, and there are many villains with the ability to ignore one specific type of damage. Fanatic is a favorite of mine because she has the actually has the ability to choose her damage type. And she also causes Radiant damage, which very few enemies/environments can deflect.
I heard some good stuff about Sentinels of the Multiverse, so I bought the iPad version.
Two quick things about that version:
It crashes a lot
It destroys my battery and I got a low battery warning after playing for an hour.
It's pretty fun, but I'm a bit annoyed at the balance. Now, I haven't really considered which hero is good against what villain and how they synergize, but I get destroyed a whole lot.
Anyone played it and have anything to say about the physical version? Better balance with some expansions?
edit: oh hey posts about it on this very page.
Sentinels of the Multiverse isn't balanced. Not in the slightest. There are some heroes who aren't even situationally strong (in the situations where they are strong, other heroes fill that role significantly better). There are some villains that you can steamroll 9 times out of 10 (Ambuscade, I'm looking at YOU). It would be nice if the game came with recommendations for easy or hard villains, or easy or hard heroes. I actually have a cheatsheet chart that I use when recommending heroes for people in physical games that show relative power levels and team roles that they fill. You can find a similar chart at Boardgamegeek, I think.
Roles that you should look at to fill out your team:
* a "pause button" - Heroes that can stop all incoming damage for the whole team for a round. Some heroes can stop all damage from just one source, other heroes can stop all damage from all sources, and still others can only stop Villain damage. These give you a round of "breather" or prevent large devastating attacks from wiping the team. Examples: Haka has Ground Pound, Tachyon has Hypersonic Assault, Legacy has a card that can redirect damage to himself while nullifying the damage type with a specific card, Wraith can prevent a single enemy from dealing damage with Throat Jab, etc.
* a "scout" - Heroes that can view the top two cards and rearrange them, putting one at the bottom. This allows you to thin out the powerful villain cards by putting them at the bottom of the deck. This is key to winning a lot of the harder fights. Examples include Wraith's Infrared Eyepiece, half of Visionary's deck. Tempest has a roundabout one in Into the Stratosphere, which returns a Villain card to the top of the deck (thus allowing you to "stack" the Villain deck for one turn with a guaranteed card, delaying the Villain for a turn).
* Healing - Some heroes have no self-healing whatsoever. Tachyon is one of them. Other heroes can heal other heroes every round, which buys you resources and time. You can win pretty without any healing, but healing makes it easier. Examples include Legacy's Motivational Charge, Tempest's Cleansing Downpour, etc.
For a good team "core", I can highly recommend Wraith + Tempest + Legacy from the original set, as this is a great mix of scouting, healing, and damage that can handle many bosses. I'd avoid Bunker or Absolute Zero, as they don't fill any roles better than other heroes.
Good post. I'd also add Heroes with the ability to inflict multiple types of damage. Ra, an otherwise awesome-ly powerful character, is limited to Fire damage, and there are many villains with the ability to ignore one specific type of damage. Fanatic is a favorite of mine because she has the actually has the ability to choose her damage type. And she also causes Radiant damage, which very few enemies/environments can deflect.
She also has End of Days, which is a hugely awesome reset button.
For people who watched the Zombie 15 review, one important thing to note is that they missed a very important time-saving tip (which admittedly needed to be clearer in the manual). You don't have to match each tile to its specific code, just to its layout. So there are lots of straight street tiles with 1 building. Any of those will work for where ever they are on the map.
And the time drops even further if you play a second scenario. rahdo in the comments of SU&SD review puts it at 3-5 minutes, and I'd have to agree from my experience.
Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
My Tiny Epic Kingdoms copy came. Its pretty fun! There's a lot of game in that tiny box too. Definitely seems like it would be more fun with more than 2p, because then you get into alliances and stuff, but the 2p game was good fun. Probably not going to be an all time great or anything, but for the $20 I think it came out well.
Also, Rahdo's run through for Fields of Are basically totally killed my interest in that game. It looks like there is a total lack of tension in that game, and is just a wide open sandbox that you get some points for at the end. I mean I'm sure it's fun in its own way but ehhh.
This is some kind of bizzaro world where Pandemic: The Cure is available on Amazon before CSI or MM. Anyway, I'll have my copy tonight and be able to play it tomorrow, so I'll be sure to report back!
Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
Desert Island on Kickstarter looks like it might be my kind of thing, but for whatever reason I'm deeply hesitant.
I need to hear from both sides on this.
On first glance, a playtime of 1-2 hours seems really long for a hidden roles card game. Especially one where you can die but still win, meaning you might sit there not playing for an hour while you watch everybody else play.
Edit: But the rules seem fine, a few oddities aside. Why not try printing and playing to see if you like it before putting money down?
"It'll all be fine as long as you don't roll an 8..."
We were playing the Enterprise shaped 3A ships. I performed an unintended saucer separation manoeuvre and watched half my crew and all my guns and loot float serenely off into space.
So, I am seriously impressed by the component quality in Pandemic: The Cure. Comes with a really nice dice bag, the disease track is two pieces of really nice plastic that interlock, and the pegs are shaped like syringes!
The only thing that could be improved would be minis ala Flash Point instead of pawns. But really nice product all together. Looking forward to playing a 2p game tomorrow after I get home from work.
Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
Ended up getting a game in tonight. We won on Standard difficulty, though it was close. The words "this seems pretty easy. I wonder if we're doing something wrong" were uttered before a single turn almost wiped us out.
Like most of these games though, it's usually easier with two players, as more people populating the board adds up.
Really enjoyable game though, and will probably replace Forbidden Desert for the foreseeable future, at least in 2 player.
Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
The only thing that could be improved would be minis ala Flash Point instead of pawns. But really nice product all together. Looking forward to playing a 2p game tomorrow after I get home from work.
I haven't seen The Cure specifically, but I find myself wishing more games used colored / metal pawns or something else generic-looking that wasn't Meeples, minis, or cardboard stand-ups. It's probably down to my having played a lot of chess, but I enjoy moving those little round-headed dudes around and kind of miss the weight of them.
The only thing that could be improved would be minis ala Flash Point instead of pawns. But really nice product all together. Looking forward to playing a 2p game tomorrow after I get home from work.
I haven't seen The Cure specifically, but I find myself wishing more games used colored / metal pawns or something else generic-looking that wasn't Meeples, minis, or cardboard stand-ups. It's probably down to my having played a lot of chess, but I enjoy moving those little round-headed dudes around and kind of miss the weight of them.
The Cure uses colored plastic pawns, but they aren't heavy by any means. I'm personally a fan of cardboard stand ups if they're done well, like in Dead of Winter.
Origin for Dragon Age: Inquisition Shenanigans: Inksplat776
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
The only thing that could be improved would be minis ala Flash Point instead of pawns. But really nice product all together. Looking forward to playing a 2p game tomorrow after I get home from work.
I haven't seen The Cure specifically, but I find myself wishing more games used colored / metal pawns or something else generic-looking that wasn't Meeples, minis, or cardboard stand-ups. It's probably down to my having played a lot of chess, but I enjoy moving those little round-headed dudes around and kind of miss the weight of them.
The Cure uses colored plastic pawns, but they aren't heavy by any means. I'm personally a fan of cardboard stand ups if they're done well, like in Dead of Winter.
DoW's use of stand-ups is totally appropriate to that game. Battlestar, on the other hand, doesn't need them that badly (though you probably couldn't go totally generic), and Ghost Stories doesn't really need the minis at all, as with Betrayal at House on the Hill. It's more the trend to gussy up your components just because you can to which I object In a generalized way. It's weirdly inelegant.
The only thing that could be improved would be minis ala Flash Point instead of pawns. But really nice product all together. Looking forward to playing a 2p game tomorrow after I get home from work.
I haven't seen The Cure specifically, but I find myself wishing more games used colored / metal pawns or something else generic-looking that wasn't Meeples, minis, or cardboard stand-ups. It's probably down to my having played a lot of chess, but I enjoy moving those little round-headed dudes around and kind of miss the weight of them.
The Cure uses colored plastic pawns, but they aren't heavy by any means. I'm personally a fan of cardboard stand ups if they're done well, like in Dead of Winter.
DoW's use of stand-ups is totally appropriate to that game. Battlestar, on the other hand, doesn't need them that badly (though you probably couldn't go totally generic), and Ghost Stories doesn't really need the minis at all, as with Betrayal at House on the Hill. It's more the trend to gussy up your components just because you can to which I object In a generalized way. It's weirdly inelegant.
And also, again, I like pawns.
It depends for me. Like, I absolutely love the minis in Flash Point. But at the same time, the wooden blocks in C&C win out over the minis in Battle Cry or BattleLore, just due to playability. In DoW, I'd rather have the cardboard standees than minis, because the art on them is fantastic, and unless the minis were painted, they'd lose a ton of character, where the chunky minis from Flash Point actually have more character than their associated role cards. So, yeah, it really depends on the art design and such. Like, thinking about it, it'd probably prefer really well done standees in Zombie 15 than the minis, because you just lose so much until their painted.
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Lifeboat arrived yesterday. Might be able to get a game in tonight, but I'm not hopeful. Plays 4-6 in about an hour. I'm looking forward tonit.
Anyone have experience with that one?
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
I wonder if there's a site that would make some nice steel/wood pawns in different colors you could get, and use them in appropriate games?
I could see where that would be desired, but I can see too different games have different needs. Flash Point especially benefitted from custom minis so you know what role is where, and I wish I had them. Fief has cardboard stand ups with the different lords printed on them, and making minis for each wouldn't work, nor would generic pawns.
But for games that could use pawns, it'd be neat to have a nice set.
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HedgethornAssociate Professor of Historical Hobby HorsesIn the Lions' DenRegistered Userregular
Lifeboat arrived yesterday. Might be able to get a game in tonight, but I'm not hopeful. Plays 4-6 in about an hour. I'm looking forward tonit.
Anyone have experience with that one?
I received it for free about six months ago but have never gotten it to the table. The player count of only 4-6 is just a bit restrictive; whenever I've tried to sell my gaming group on it, they've either opted for lighter fare if there are 5-6 of us, or heavier fare if there are just 4.
My scheme is to try to bring it out some night when my wife and I have another couple over for dinner and a game, though I worry a bit as I've heard it's a bit of a relationship-wrecker, given that you are trying to kill off some of the other people in the boat.
Played my first game of Dead of Winter last week, winning as "All for One" Betrayer in a three-er. Was wondering how you guys deal with the fact that it's possible to suss out who contributed which cards to the Crisis due to the location labels on them. Is that just something you have to consider if you're a betrayer?
Played my first game of Dead of Winter last week, winning as "All for One" Betrayer in a three-er. Was wondering how you guys deal with the fact that it's possible to suss out who contributed which cards to the Crisis due to the location labels on them. Is that just something you have to consider if you're a betrayer?
Coming off a game of Battlestar where a Cylon played cards we knew they'd just taken and couldn't normally to tank a check, thus revealing their loyalties, I'm gonna go with yes.
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The sand timer icon means any time. The token with arrow means to flip your druid, thus exhausting it.
Not had a chance to play yet, hopefully get a game or 2 tonight.
I've gone through my collection and chosen about five games so far, but I can't decide on the rest. If you're the kind of person who is always happy to give advice and/or suggestions to people you barely know.... read on after the spoiler tag!
Long games: Doom, Fury of Dracula, Pret-A-Porter
Mid-length: 51st State/The New Era, Chaos in the Old World, City of Horror, Cosmic Encounter
Elder Sign, DungeonQuest, Flash Point, Legacy - The Testament of Duke de Crecy, Pandemic, Rex, Robo Rally, Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas
Short games: Cheaty Mages, Coup Reformation, Di Renjie, Office 21
I'm trying to guess which games might be interesting enough on their own to be played multiple times in relatively short succession. It's surprisingly difficult to do.
Out of that list, I'd want to play DungeonQuest and Flashpoint, from things I've heard on here. Pandemic's a solid choice, too, since the difficulty scales.
I've played Study In Emerald and Risk Legacy about 7 or so times.
Not sure what else I've played a lot. My group tends to play a lot of new games. We have some hardcore collectors who always get the new hotness to the table. And I love the longer games really. My high points have been games like Archipelago, Eldritch Horror, Fire In The Lake.
Study in Emerald was the big surprise for me this year. I didn't enjoy A Few Acres, and Discworld is fine but nothing special. But SiE mixes together so many things I like - deckbuilding, hidden roles, semi-co-op, Mythos, Holmes, Bolsheviks, revolution, the short story itself. It could only appeal to me more if it was made out of chocolate.
A couple of games I played, don't own, but was very impressed by, were Valley of the Kings and Lewis and Clark.
You're not missing anything. She's definitely the (consistently) hardest base game villain.
Blade is a tutorial. A joke once you know the game.
Omnitron you have to be hit with some pretty bad luck to lose.
Voss lives or dies 100% based on his ships and forced deployment coming out at bad times. His minions deal in nothing but straight damage and never throw wrenches into your plans. He never forces heroes to discard. I believe it to be a hard rule that if you get Wraith's infrared eye piece out, then you've won against Voss.
You listed all the reasons Dawn is tough. Truth and Anvil are definitely her toughest citizens to deal with (not sure how Ra's fire immunity helps; Citizen Hammer is the only thing in her deck that deals fire damage iirc). If you're not using deck manipulation (or at least trash manipulation like Haka's savage mana), then you're just rolling the die against Dawn and the die is stacked against you.
One aspect is that there's really lean options for "survival mode" which is what you need when Dawn merges with the sun. There's Bunker's recharge mode, Visionary's telekinetic cacoon (which prevents you from deck manipulating), Tempest's cleansing downpour heal, uhhhh....not sure what else? Even that is shattered by devastating aurora.
Even when you put all the expansions together, I think Dawn is still rated 3rd hardest (after Chairman and Iron Legacy).
As far as base game environment difficulty, I feel it goes Mars Base->Dinosaur Island->City->Atlantis.
Mars is full of cards that are either benign or actively help you. Meteor swarm can be manipulated so badly that it feels like cheating.
Dinosaur island whatever it's called can deal moderate damage to you but almost no total fuck you cards.
The city has the damage of dinosaur island plus some cards that can totally screw you over if they come out at bad times. Not being able to draw/play cards or use powers for a turn can spell instant game over.
Atlantis has a lot of cards that can send you into a death spiral. You're getting lots of damage piled onto you plus turn skipping plus discarding entire hands.
'Love Juice' and destroyed genitals eh?
Kingdom Death. It's quite a thing.
I've read that Castles of Burgundy plays well at 2 player.
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I love it when a kickstarter does Canada distribution right.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
One Night of Werewolf
City of Horror
Ghost Stories
Eldritch Horror
I don't think I'll get to all of them, but I love all of those games.
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
Son of bitch...
Citizen Dawn has some nasty tricks, but if you have a scout hero (someone who can view the top two cards and rearrange them), you can avoid a lot of them. She has some nasty initial flops, too, with some combinations of citizens. She can force several discards from everyone's hand, have a citizen out who blocks all damage to other citizens, and have another citizen that gives damage reduction to the non-immune citizen, all before the heroes' first turns. Some initial flops are almost impossible to recover from (similar to Iron Legacy).
EDIT: To see current rankings of the villains based on the Sentinels Statistics Project (using actual gameplay from actual players), you can go to this link here:
http://public.tableausoftware.com/profile/arathorn#!/vizhome/Sentinels1/Overview
It lists Citizen Dawn at a 28% win ratio (the heroes win about 72% of the time), and 8th in the overall rankings. Without some of the stronger heroes (limiting yourself to the App's heroes), though, like Team Leader Tachyon or some of the stronger scouts like Dark Visionary, I think that win ratio would be a tad bit higher.
By my experience, you have a high chance for a good result. CoB is not only good for 2 players, but tends to be liked by serious and non-serious gamers alike. The only real criticism of the game is that it's a bit dry, but as a game it's pretty satisfying.
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Two quick things about that version:
It's pretty fun, but I'm a bit annoyed at the balance. Now, I haven't really considered which hero is good against what villain and how they synergize, but I get destroyed a whole lot.
Anyone played it and have anything to say about the physical version? Better balance with some expansions?
edit: oh hey posts about it on this very page.
1: That was a really fun review and it took me a while to realize what they were doing.
2: That game sounds fun, and I don't really care for zombies.
3: I'm not making up 15 points, but yeah, setup on some games can be a real pain in the neck. It's nice though when you can have multiple people working at the same time though. ie. Galaxy Trucker - 1 person can be getting out the boards and bits, another sorting and shuffling the cards and making the trip deck, and another 1 or 2 are getting all the ship bits out and turned face down.
Roles that you should look at to fill out your team:
* a "pause button" - Heroes that can stop all incoming damage for the whole team for a round. Some heroes can stop all damage from just one source, other heroes can stop all damage from all sources, and still others can only stop Villain damage. These give you a round of "breather" or prevent large devastating attacks from wiping the team. Examples: Haka has Ground Pound, Tachyon has Hypersonic Assault, Legacy has a card that can redirect damage to himself while nullifying the damage type with a specific card, Wraith can prevent a single enemy from dealing damage with Throat Jab, etc.
* a "scout" - Heroes that can view the top two cards and rearrange them, putting one at the bottom. This allows you to thin out the powerful villain cards by putting them at the bottom of the deck. This is key to winning a lot of the harder fights. Examples include Wraith's Infrared Eyepiece, half of Visionary's deck. Tempest has a roundabout one in Into the Stratosphere, which returns a Villain card to the top of the deck (thus allowing you to "stack" the Villain deck for one turn with a guaranteed card, delaying the Villain for a turn).
* Healing - Some heroes have no self-healing whatsoever. Tachyon is one of them. Other heroes can heal other heroes every round, which buys you resources and time. You can win pretty without any healing, but healing makes it easier. Examples include Legacy's Motivational Charge, Tempest's Cleansing Downpour, etc.
For a good team "core", I can highly recommend Wraith + Tempest + Legacy from the original set, as this is a great mix of scouting, healing, and damage that can handle many bosses. I'd avoid Bunker or Absolute Zero, as they don't fill any roles better than other heroes.
Good post. I'd also add Heroes with the ability to inflict multiple types of damage. Ra, an otherwise awesome-ly powerful character, is limited to Fire damage, and there are many villains with the ability to ignore one specific type of damage. Fanatic is a favorite of mine because she has the actually has the ability to choose her damage type. And she also causes Radiant damage, which very few enemies/environments can deflect.
And the time drops even further if you play a second scenario. rahdo in the comments of SU&SD review puts it at 3-5 minutes, and I'd have to agree from my experience.
Also, Rahdo's run through for Fields of Are basically totally killed my interest in that game. It looks like there is a total lack of tension in that game, and is just a wide open sandbox that you get some points for at the end. I mean I'm sure it's fun in its own way but ehhh.
Found the Firefly merchants and Maraudersesque for lower than amazon. Ghost Stories for same as amazon.
And today, 3 copies of Dead of Winter for retail while amazon has it for $100
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I need to hear from both sides on this.
On first glance, a playtime of 1-2 hours seems really long for a hidden roles card game. Especially one where you can die but still win, meaning you might sit there not playing for an hour while you watch everybody else play.
Edit: But the rules seem fine, a few oddities aside. Why not try printing and playing to see if you like it before putting money down?
"It'll all be fine as long as you don't roll an 8..."
We were playing the Enterprise shaped 3A ships. I performed an unintended saucer separation manoeuvre and watched half my crew and all my guns and loot float serenely off into space.
The only thing that could be improved would be minis ala Flash Point instead of pawns. But really nice product all together. Looking forward to playing a 2p game tomorrow after I get home from work.
Like most of these games though, it's usually easier with two players, as more people populating the board adds up.
Really enjoyable game though, and will probably replace Forbidden Desert for the foreseeable future, at least in 2 player.
I haven't seen The Cure specifically, but I find myself wishing more games used colored / metal pawns or something else generic-looking that wasn't Meeples, minis, or cardboard stand-ups. It's probably down to my having played a lot of chess, but I enjoy moving those little round-headed dudes around and kind of miss the weight of them.
The Cure uses colored plastic pawns, but they aren't heavy by any means. I'm personally a fan of cardboard stand ups if they're done well, like in Dead of Winter.
DoW's use of stand-ups is totally appropriate to that game. Battlestar, on the other hand, doesn't need them that badly (though you probably couldn't go totally generic), and Ghost Stories doesn't really need the minis at all, as with Betrayal at House on the Hill. It's more the trend to gussy up your components just because you can to which I object In a generalized way. It's weirdly inelegant.
And also, again, I like pawns.
It depends for me. Like, I absolutely love the minis in Flash Point. But at the same time, the wooden blocks in C&C win out over the minis in Battle Cry or BattleLore, just due to playability. In DoW, I'd rather have the cardboard standees than minis, because the art on them is fantastic, and unless the minis were painted, they'd lose a ton of character, where the chunky minis from Flash Point actually have more character than their associated role cards. So, yeah, it really depends on the art design and such. Like, thinking about it, it'd probably prefer really well done standees in Zombie 15 than the minis, because you just lose so much until their painted.
Anyone have experience with that one?
I only heard about it in a podcast, but it sounded really interesting. Be sure to post about it if you get to try a game!
I could see where that would be desired, but I can see too different games have different needs. Flash Point especially benefitted from custom minis so you know what role is where, and I wish I had them. Fief has cardboard stand ups with the different lords printed on them, and making minis for each wouldn't work, nor would generic pawns.
But for games that could use pawns, it'd be neat to have a nice set.
I received it for free about six months ago but have never gotten it to the table. The player count of only 4-6 is just a bit restrictive; whenever I've tried to sell my gaming group on it, they've either opted for lighter fare if there are 5-6 of us, or heavier fare if there are just 4.
My scheme is to try to bring it out some night when my wife and I have another couple over for dinner and a game, though I worry a bit as I've heard it's a bit of a relationship-wrecker, given that you are trying to kill off some of the other people in the boat.
Coming off a game of Battlestar where a Cylon played cards we knew they'd just taken and couldn't normally to tank a check, thus revealing their loyalties, I'm gonna go with yes.