Mr. Fixer and Expatriette have the disadvantage of being in the first Sentinels expansion AND have seen more play in early games against Rook City villains (which are universally tough), which skews their statistics somewhat. However, compared to someone like KNYFE, Expatriette definitely comes up weaker as a damage fountain (although her Unload burst damage is godlike, if you can get it setup). Her alternate is pretty good, too (give herself a +1 damage buff until the end of her NEXT turn... you lose out on a double play, but you gain a lot of damage, especially once you get Pride and Prejudice in play). I like her for the Rocket Launcher alone (which is a nice damage + utility card which a lot of other damage fountains do NOT have).
EDIT: Both Mr. Fixer and Expatriette would be substantially improved with good card retrieval and deck thinning options. Expatriette has SOME, but it's not enough. Later heroes in SotM have good to excellent card retrieval abilities, which greatly improve their utility.
The key to the Spite fight, I feel, is to ignore the innocents. I'm not sure that's what the designers were going for. Dumping them into the safehouse just doesn't feel vital enough to do consistently in all games, considering Spite can just break into there.
I'll never play a legacy game if it involves actual change of components, like writing on them or whatever. Changing contents of decks or available locations or what have you? Fine.
But writing on components or using permanent stickers is just so so incredibly dumb I can't even believe it.
That seems like a bit much. You don't like it, fine. No need to go around calling people who might enjoy it names.
I'll never play a legacy game if it involves actual change of components, like writing on them or whatever. Changing contents of decks or available locations or what have you? Fine.
But writing on components or using permanent stickers is just so so incredibly dumb I can't even believe it.
Counter-points:
Signing your name on the board when you win is awesome.
Getting to name a continent is awesome.
Getting to tear that one card up because John keeps turtling in that territory is awesome.
Discovering when you open up a new packet just how much of the game has changed, and that you are directly responsible for this happening is awesome.
Etc.
Cons:
[*] Only ever to play the game once without buying it again
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
Mr. Fixer and Expatriette have the disadvantage of being in the first Sentinels expansion AND have seen more play in early games against Rook City villains (which are universally tough), which skews their statistics somewhat. However, compared to someone like KNYFE, Expatriette definitely comes up weaker as a damage fountain (although her Unload burst damage is godlike, if you can get it setup). Her alternate is pretty good, too (give herself a +1 damage buff until the end of her NEXT turn... you lose out on a double play, but you gain a lot of damage, especially once you get Pride and Prejudice in play). I like her for the Rocket Launcher alone (which is a nice damage + utility card which a lot of other damage fountains do NOT have).
EDIT: Both Mr. Fixer and Expatriette would be substantially improved with good card retrieval and deck thinning options. Expatriette has SOME, but it's not enough. Later heroes in SotM have good to excellent card retrieval abilities, which greatly improve their utility.
The key to the Spite fight, I feel, is to ignore the innocents. I'm not sure that's what the designers were going for. Dumping them into the safehouse just doesn't feel vital enough to do consistently in all games, considering Spite can just break into there.
Yeah, the Safehouse mechanic is, I think, meant to give you some sort of way to get ahead once he flips, sort of like Citizen Dawn's flip-back, but it's just stupid-hard to get ahead of him in the first place if things aren't going well for you. To also be trying to save the victim cards slows you down that much more.
I think maybe his health should've capped lower, to be honest.
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FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
Mr. Fixer and Expatriette have the disadvantage of being in the first Sentinels expansion AND have seen more play in early games against Rook City villains (which are universally tough), which skews their statistics somewhat. However, compared to someone like KNYFE, Expatriette definitely comes up weaker as a damage fountain (although her Unload burst damage is godlike, if you can get it setup). Her alternate is pretty good, too (give herself a +1 damage buff until the end of her NEXT turn... you lose out on a double play, but you gain a lot of damage, especially once you get Pride and Prejudice in play). I like her for the Rocket Launcher alone (which is a nice damage + utility card which a lot of other damage fountains do NOT have).
EDIT: Both Mr. Fixer and Expatriette would be substantially improved with good card retrieval and deck thinning options. Expatriette has SOME, but it's not enough. Later heroes in SotM have good to excellent card retrieval abilities, which greatly improve their utility.
The key to the Spite fight, I feel, is to ignore the innocents. I'm not sure that's what the designers were going for. Dumping them into the safehouse just doesn't feel vital enough to do consistently in all games, considering Spite can just break into there.
Yeah, the Safehouse mechanic is, I think, meant to give you some sort of way to get ahead once he flips, sort of like Citizen Dawn's flip-back, but it's just stupid-hard to get ahead of him in the first place if things aren't going well for you. To also be trying to save the victim cards slows you down that much more.
I think maybe his health should've capped lower, to be honest.
Agreed, I think the Innocents were meant to counter Spite's crushing damage debuff, but you're right, you just can't devote resources to saving them when Spite has so many cards in his hand which allow him to pull them out of the Safehouse and kill them anyway.
BTW, even if you don't like Tom's reviews and hate top 10 lists, the Dice Towers recent game designer interviews from the Gathering of Friends are pretty interesting.
Relevant to the current discussion is Rob Daviau explaining how in Risk Legacy he had you rip up a card immediately just so people would know if the game was for them right away. Also, these legacy style games are apparently a ton more work to design than the regular versions because of the difficulty in playtesting all the possible ways each play could go.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
I finally got around to picking up Samurai Spirit. We got a 3 player game in last night and a 2 player in today, and it's pretty well crushing it with people so far. It hits a nice balance between having enough options on your turn to be interesting and having few enough that the game moves along. Too, we've been finding that the cardboard quarterback syndrome isn't too bad here; people want to help and advise on other players' turns, but it's usually less "do this, this, and this" and more "if you send that guy my way, I can support the other guy on my turn and then this..." It feels like you're helping, directing.
Very good stuff. I'd highly recommend it to people who are after a co-op game.
I'll never play a legacy game if it involves actual change of components, like writing on them or whatever. Changing contents of decks or available locations or what have you? Fine.
But writing on components or using permanent stickers is just so so incredibly dumb I can't even believe it.
Counter-points:
Signing your name on the board when you win is awesome.
Getting to name a continent is awesome.
Getting to tear that one card up because John keeps turtling in that territory is awesome.
Discovering when you open up a new packet just how much of the game has changed, and that you are directly responsible for this happening is awesome.
Etc.
Cons:
[*] Only ever to play the game once without buying it again
You're wrong.
Risk Legacy is designed to be played fifteen times.
There's nothing to stop you from playing it after those fifteen games, either. It's just that after fifteen games, you won't be modifying it any more.
And honestly, how many board games do you own that you haven't played fifteen times? A fair amount, no doubt.
I'll never play a legacy game if it involves actual change of components, like writing on them or whatever. Changing contents of decks or available locations or what have you? Fine.
But writing on components or using permanent stickers is just so so incredibly dumb I can't even believe it.
That seems like a bit much. You don't like it, fine. No need to go around calling people who might enjoy it names.
Thank goodness I'm not. Like, at all.
No, you're just calling the activities in the game they enjoy "incredibly dumb"
Game day today, played Karesansui 2 more times, one more time for Vegas Showdown, and tried Smashup for the first time.
I still really like Karesansui, some things about it get clearer the more you play, but other things become more vague. You become more aware of the time limit, and trying to push and aim for an ending at a certain length. It's very good for only really having one mechanic, play gets very intense.
Vegas Showdown is something I should really play more often, I like the combination of auctions and tile laying for your casinos. It has just enough interaction with the bidding to not quite feel like multiplayer solitaire, and the point scoring feels more like you have to aim for a holistic building approach, rather than just scoring points for anything and everything.
Smashup was fun, though I had some shit draws where I couldn't do anything on my turn. It seems pretty good for a light quick game though, the combinations add variety each time you play, and there's just enough strategy to feel like you are doing well due to your own skill.
Mr. Fixer and Expatriette have the disadvantage of being in the first Sentinels expansion AND have seen more play in early games against Rook City villains (which are universally tough), which skews their statistics somewhat. However, compared to someone like KNYFE, Expatriette definitely comes up weaker as a damage fountain (although her Unload burst damage is godlike, if you can get it setup). Her alternate is pretty good, too (give herself a +1 damage buff until the end of her NEXT turn... you lose out on a double play, but you gain a lot of damage, especially once you get Pride and Prejudice in play). I like her for the Rocket Launcher alone (which is a nice damage + utility card which a lot of other damage fountains do NOT have).
EDIT: Both Mr. Fixer and Expatriette would be substantially improved with good card retrieval and deck thinning options. Expatriette has SOME, but it's not enough. Later heroes in SotM have good to excellent card retrieval abilities, which greatly improve their utility.
The key to the Spite fight, I feel, is to ignore the innocents. I'm not sure that's what the designers were going for. Dumping them into the safehouse just doesn't feel vital enough to do consistently in all games, considering Spite can just break into there.
Yeah, the Safehouse mechanic is, I think, meant to give you some sort of way to get ahead once he flips, sort of like Citizen Dawn's flip-back, but it's just stupid-hard to get ahead of him in the first place if things aren't going well for you. To also be trying to save the victim cards slows you down that much more.
I think maybe his health should've capped lower, to be honest.
Agreed, I think the Innocents were meant to counter Spite's crushing damage debuff, but you're right, you just can't devote resources to saving them when Spite has so many cards in his hand which allow him to pull them out of the Safehouse and kill them anyway.
Yeah I've learned to totally ignore the innocents. If you ignore them and he kills them, he mostly just heals which is pointless because he's going to be at full health the entire pre-flip phase anyway. If you spend resources to put the victims in the safe house, it's wasted when his Break In card just puts them back on the board anyway. I only ever bother to save a victim when he's one drug card away from flipping.
To me, he feels harder than Iron Legacy. His flipped state plays a lot like fighting advance difficulty Iron Legacy, only he has more health AND he's already been wailing on you for a bunch of turns. So his pre-flip is Citizen Dawn's Merged with the Sun state, and post-flip is double health Iron Legacy. Beating him seems be going with a very specific setup and getting lucky with the order his drug cards come out (you want the damage dealing ones to come out last).
My problem with Fanatic is her gimmick is supposed to be balls out damage, encouraging herself to take damage so she can unload with that "inflict 1 damage for every missing health point" card. But she has a bunch of healing which goes against that, and she doesn't have enough cards to support going kamikaze (only 2 resurrection cards, and her nuke requires discarding 3 cards). She also has what I think is the single most useless card in the game. "Play this card next to a target. At the start of your turn, discard a card to inflict 2 damage then deal 4 damage to yourself to keep this card." So it's the exact same thing as Bunker's gatling gun, only it's locked into one target, you don't get the option of not using it each turn, AND you have to deal yourself 4 damage every turn. I can't think of a worse card in the entire game.
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
My problem with Fanatic is her gimmick is supposed to be balls out damage, encouraging herself to take damage so she can unload with that "inflict 1 damage for every missing health point" card. But she has a bunch of healing which goes against that, and she doesn't have enough cards to support going kamikaze (only 2 resurrection cards, and her nuke requires discarding 3 cards). She also has what I think is the single most useless card in the game. "Play this card next to a target. At the start of your turn, discard a card to inflict 2 damage then deal 4 damage to yourself to keep this card." So it's the exact same thing as Bunker's gatling gun, only it's locked into one target, you don't get the option of not using it each turn, AND you have to deal yourself 4 damage every turn. I can't think of a worse card in the entire game.
See, I always assumed she was supposed to be a utility / tank character with steady output and a bomb, so sort-of similar to Haka (who's tougher and also has some duds, but his core play is fine) and Tachyon (who leans more towards damage but has about the same amount of utility). She's not way off-message from that notion. A couple of her cards that are only sort-of suicidal, like Chastise and Embolden, are even pretty good.
The idea of Legacy games seems great to me - a constantly evolving rules set just seems the bomb. What's stopped me picking up Risk Legacy is the "player attached" nature of some of the Legacy changes. I'm a member of gaming clubs (or was until baby got in the way), part of the joy of that is having a large pool of players, Risk Legacy seems keyed to basically the opposite way that I enjoy board games - I like having a wide and ever changing pool of opponents, Risk Legacy is designed (as far as I understand it) to be played by the same group again and again. That's just a very different culture of boardgaming from what I am comfortable with.
My problem with Fanatic is her gimmick is supposed to be balls out damage, encouraging herself to take damage so she can unload with that "inflict 1 damage for every missing health point" card. But she has a bunch of healing which goes against that, and she doesn't have enough cards to support going kamikaze (only 2 resurrection cards, and her nuke requires discarding 3 cards). She also has what I think is the single most useless card in the game. "Play this card next to a target. At the start of your turn, discard a card to inflict 2 damage then deal 4 damage to yourself to keep this card." So it's the exact same thing as Bunker's gatling gun, only it's locked into one target, you don't get the option of not using it each turn, AND you have to deal yourself 4 damage every turn. I can't think of a worse card in the entire game.
Two corrections:
1) The target is the villain card with the highest HP, though it used to just target the villain character.
2) Divine focus actually allows you to discard for damage at the start of every turn(each hero, villain, and environment). This makes it really good, as it basically turns each card in your hand into 2 damage. And it really shines when you receive damage buffs. You would then be looking at doing 3+ damage up to 5-7 times.
A powerful combo is Divine Focus + Prayer of Desperation. Prayer of Desperation will give you up to 6 new cards, so you can basically sacrifice your entire hand to Divine Focus then decide whether to let it lapse or keep it going for a whole new round of discarding for damage.
added:
As for her gimmick, I would look at it more broadly as "damage self to do X" rather than specifically "kamikaze self to power Wrathful Retribution". Now her healing makes sense, as it allows her to do more self damage. If you aren't actively trying to get her HP as low as possible, her resurrection cards are convenient rather than necessary. Retribution is a great card, but there is only 1 in the deck and hinging your strategy on it may be a bit too risky.
My problem with Fanatic is her gimmick is supposed to be balls out damage, encouraging herself to take damage so she can unload with that "inflict 1 damage for every missing health point" card. But she has a bunch of healing which goes against that, and she doesn't have enough cards to support going kamikaze (only 2 resurrection cards, and her nuke requires discarding 3 cards). She also has what I think is the single most useless card in the game. "Play this card next to a target. At the start of your turn, discard a card to inflict 2 damage then deal 4 damage to yourself to keep this card." So it's the exact same thing as Bunker's gatling gun, only it's locked into one target, you don't get the option of not using it each turn, AND you have to deal yourself 4 damage every turn. I can't think of a worse card in the entire game.
Divine Focus is actually really good, since you can discard for damage at the start of every turn(each hero, villain, and environment). It basically turns each card in your hand into 2 damage. And it really shines when you receive damage buffs. You would then be looking at doing 3+ damage potentially up to 5-7 times. Another correction is that the target is the villain card with the highest HP, though it used to just target the villain character.
A powerful combo is Divine Focus + Prayer of Desperation. Prayer of Desperation will give you 6 new cards, so you can basically sacrifice your entire hand to Divine Focus then decide whether to let it lapse or keep it going for a whole new round of discarding for damage.
So while she can take damage and martyr herself, what you should also be doing is drawing cards to fuel Divine Focus and find Prayer.
Yeah Divine Focus is amazing if you have a full grip and some damage boosting going on. Legacy + Divine Focus can often make short work of your problem.
One of my favorite unique things Fanatic brings to the table is Final Dive (straight-up murder a target with 4hp or less and then probably take out another small problem too); most other effects like this require the target to be at 1 or 2 hp. We often look for this when there's a bodyguard or other damage-reducing minion on the board.
And then of course there's End of Days. No other hero has this kind of board-sweeping effect (hell, only a few villains have a card this strong), and there's absolutely nothing the villain can do about it since it fires at the beginning of the environment turn. This is a damned Get Out of Jail Free card. It's a little inconvenient with "set up" heroes, but if you need it badly enough you won't care. And if the Fanatic player is at all competent they'll warn you the minute they have access to it so you don't get too fucked.
Base-game and Redeemer Fanatic have some trouble keeping Zealous Offensive around (have to deal 3 damage every turn) but if you have Absolution (or again, any damage buff for the base version's Exorcise) in play it's a cheap way to turn off the two most annoying non-character cards on the table. Prime Warden Fanatic makes that a joke since her inherent power is to hurt herself for 3 anyway.
The kamikaze thing is a neat subtheme running through her, but Wrathful Retribution is only one card. Don't plan around it unless you draw it.
End of Days is such a broken auto-win against The Dreamer.
And as I painfully discovered, completely useless against Spite
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FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
And then of course there's End of Days. No other hero has this kind of board-sweeping effect (hell, only a few villains have a card this strong), and there's absolutely nothing the villain can do about it since it fires at the beginning of the environment turn. This is a damned Get Out of Jail Free card. It's a little inconvenient with "set up" heroes, but if you need it badly enough you won't care. And if the Fanatic player is at all competent they'll warn you the minute they have access to it so you don't get too fucked.
Word. This is a crucial ability, one of the best in the game, and turns Fanatic into my favorite hero. Once she gets the sword Absolution into play she also turns into a reliable damage dealer, and she can make that Radiant damage, which few villains can counter.
finally got Alchemists back to the table and it went swimmingly. 2nd game lasted right at 2 hours, which i think is roughly where its going to remain for us. the deduction and gameplay really clicked for both of us the second time through and we had a lot of fun. we both made a fatal error in deduction at some point and tried to bounce back from it, which i think helped us figure out the minutiae of the deduction a little better. we lost hell of points at the end for wrong publications, but hey what are you gonna do
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
Cracked out Homeland again yesterday. This time I made it clear that it's not a co-op but a game with 0-1 winners. So we played much too cut throat and handed the terrorist a fairly easy victory (although he played it well enough that nobody even suspected he was one, so when the game ending masterstroke occurred we were mainly just impressed).
We also played Puerto Rico, which remains excellent and apparently I own an expansion for that I've never even opened, and a few large group little things like masquerade
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Also available at Boardgameguru for those in the UK.
Why would you order from there when you could order from CSI?
"We're still trying to find all the pieces of the victim. So far the sheriff's department has only come up with a severed lower leg. The pants match those worn by our robbery suspect when he was last seen. Supposedly he was in big time debt to the mob."
*picks up severed leg*
"Looks like they were done playing games with him."
"No, Frank. Looks like the game..."
"...is a foot."
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
I picked up a copy of argent at my local store this weekend. I'll be trying a two player game tonight. Is there anything I should know, going into a first game?
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
I picked up a copy of argent at my local store this weekend. I'll be trying a two player game tonight. Is there anything I should know, going into a first game?
You're gonna be there a while.
It's mostly just that, honestly. Remember that in most cases things don't happen when you place guys but when you pick them up and to read left-right, top-bottom in terms of slots and rooms and you should be okay.
Argent really takes off on Turn 3, usually.
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
I had my annual big birthday board game bash on Saturday. Awesome as usual. Had about 20 people playing from 2pm to midnight. Personally I got in Rampage, Doodle Quest, Dominion Adventures, Euphoria, Camel Up, and Pandemic. Plus a couple playtests of my works in progress. Great stuff.
On Sunday I tried Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small for the first time. It is a two-player-only spinoff game, not an expansion, and it is fantastic. At first blush I like it better than its big brother. While the scoring uses a similar "get a bit of everything if at all possible" system, the fact that you don't have to feed workers means that the whole thing feels less punishing while remaining tight. And my wife didn't have to feel bad about cooking animals. The spatial aspects of the game are way more advanced, so it isn't just "plop fields on the right, buildings on the left, and fence the middle" anymore. Building walls count as fences, so clever positioning can save you a lot of resources and actions. Verdict: Strongly recommended.
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
I had my annual big birthday board game bash on Saturday. Awesome as usual. Had about 20 people playing from 2pm to midnight. Personally I got in Rampage, Doodle Quest, Dominion Adventures, Euphoria, Camel Up, and Pandemic. Plus a couple playtests of my works in progress. Great stuff.
On Sunday I tried Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small for the first time. It is a two-player-only spinoff game, not an expansion, and it is fantastic. At first blush I like it better than its big brother. While the scoring uses a similar "get a bit of everything if at all possible" system, the fact that you don't have to feed workers means that the whole thing feels less punishing while remaining tight. And my wife didn't have to feel bad about cooking animals. The spatial aspects of the game are way more advanced, so it isn't just "plop fields on the right, buildings on the left, and fence the middle" anymore. Building walls count as fences, so clever positioning can save you a lot of resources and actions. Verdict: Strongly recommended.
ACBAS is really good. It gets the essential Agricola experience down in a quicker, more portable package. I wouldn't say it's better or worse than regular, it's just different and fills a different need. Regular Agricola is more excruciating, and has a lot more options I feel.
If you like ACBAS at all, the expansion is a total no brainer. It just adds more buildings to add variety to the game and so every game doesn't play out exactly the same. It kind of sort of does a similar role to the card in Agricola, although they're public and up for grabs.
I wish I could play it three more times in a row, instead of just the one time I got to play it.
Oh man we're rife with topics that I can comment on (instead of SotM)!
I like Five Tribes a lot, however, I think it is not so great at two players. The AP is too massive for some people. I usually play in a very general "go by instinct, shoot from the hip" style, but my girlfriend does not. As such, she usually takes pretty long turns. I think a two player game for us took almost two hours once which is a really, really long time for what Five Tribes is, especially when I spend a lot of that time just kind of twiddling my thumbs.
The problem is, she still really likes it at that player count, since she's pretty engaged the whole time and I play pretty quickly. I don't want to discourage her from the game for any reason, since if she wants to play any game I'm not going to complain. I also don't want her to feel self conscious about how long it takes or otherwise ruin a game for her that she otherwise likes.
At 3 or 4, you only get one move per turn so you don't have to spend so much time iterating and figuring out every possible permutation of your moves. You just need to find one good move and that's it, instead of figuring out if you can find one good move which enables a good move, or a mediocre move that enables an even better move, etc. I think maybe it would solve the AP by changing turn order to say that the high bidder always goes first and third, and the low bidder always goes second and fourth, but that seems like it would make first player way better. Then again, that's how it plays at other counts so maybe it's fine.
I played it with four people and the person who owned it said it plays a lot differently than when you're playing with 2 people.
It does, and my first game with it was with three and it went fine. Fortunately I have a regular game night every week so we can get more than two, but if you're going to play it primarily with two, I wouldn't recommend it.
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
I have to disagree, to a point. My wife and I play 2p Five Tribes and it works out great IF both players have a time limit to eliminate AP.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
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UtsanomikoBros before DoesRollin' in the thlayRegistered Userregular
Anyone else play Sheriff of Nottingham? I picked it up recently and have played it twice, got screwed out of a win due to letting a merchant get away with a bag of 5 contraband, did better in the second game but it's really highlighting how little poker I've played in my life. If the scoring system was more streamlined (especially with ties) or even just included a pad of score-keeping paper it'd bump it up another rank in my mind, but otherwise it's a good party game. Definitely has a little more meat on its rules than similar games in my collection but still easy enough to teach a bunch of drunks in 5 minutes.
Anyone else play Sheriff of Nottingham? I picked it up recently and have played it twice, got screwed out of a win due to letting a merchant get away with a bag of 5 contraband, did better in the second game but it's really highlighting how little poker I've played in my life. If the scoring system was more streamlined (especially with ties) or even just included a pad of score-keeping paper it'd bump it up another rank in my mind, but otherwise it's a good party game. Definitely has a little more meat on its rules than similar games in my collection but still easy enough to teach a bunch of drunks in 5 minutes.
There's a free app for it that provides a timer, atmospheric sound effects and easy score calculation, too. It's quite helpful!
And did I mention free?
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CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
The app is essential, in my opinion.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
Posts
EDIT: Both Mr. Fixer and Expatriette would be substantially improved with good card retrieval and deck thinning options. Expatriette has SOME, but it's not enough. Later heroes in SotM have good to excellent card retrieval abilities, which greatly improve their utility.
The key to the Spite fight, I feel, is to ignore the innocents.
Thank goodness I'm not. Like, at all.
Cons:
[*] Only ever to play the game once without buying it again
Yeah, the Safehouse mechanic is, I think, meant to give you some sort of way to get ahead once he flips, sort of like Citizen Dawn's flip-back, but it's just stupid-hard to get ahead of him in the first place if things aren't going well for you. To also be trying to save the victim cards slows you down that much more.
I think maybe his health should've capped lower, to be honest.
Agreed, I think the Innocents were meant to counter Spite's crushing damage debuff, but you're right, you just can't devote resources to saving them when Spite has so many cards in his hand which allow him to pull them out of the Safehouse and kill them anyway.
Relevant to the current discussion is Rob Daviau explaining how in Risk Legacy he had you rip up a card immediately just so people would know if the game was for them right away. Also, these legacy style games are apparently a ton more work to design than the regular versions because of the difficulty in playtesting all the possible ways each play could go.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Very good stuff. I'd highly recommend it to people who are after a co-op game.
Risk Legacy is designed to be played fifteen times.
There's nothing to stop you from playing it after those fifteen games, either. It's just that after fifteen games, you won't be modifying it any more.
And honestly, how many board games do you own that you haven't played fifteen times? A fair amount, no doubt.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
But don't make a statement like "you can only play it once before you have to buy it again" without expecting to be called out on your goosiness.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
No, you're just calling the activities in the game they enjoy "incredibly dumb"
I still really like Karesansui, some things about it get clearer the more you play, but other things become more vague. You become more aware of the time limit, and trying to push and aim for an ending at a certain length. It's very good for only really having one mechanic, play gets very intense.
Vegas Showdown is something I should really play more often, I like the combination of auctions and tile laying for your casinos. It has just enough interaction with the bidding to not quite feel like multiplayer solitaire, and the point scoring feels more like you have to aim for a holistic building approach, rather than just scoring points for anything and everything.
Smashup was fun, though I had some shit draws where I couldn't do anything on my turn. It seems pretty good for a light quick game though, the combinations add variety each time you play, and there's just enough strategy to feel like you are doing well due to your own skill.
Yeah I've learned to totally ignore the innocents. If you ignore them and he kills them, he mostly just heals which is pointless because he's going to be at full health the entire pre-flip phase anyway. If you spend resources to put the victims in the safe house, it's wasted when his Break In card just puts them back on the board anyway. I only ever bother to save a victim when he's one drug card away from flipping.
To me, he feels harder than Iron Legacy. His flipped state plays a lot like fighting advance difficulty Iron Legacy, only he has more health AND he's already been wailing on you for a bunch of turns. So his pre-flip is Citizen Dawn's Merged with the Sun state, and post-flip is double health Iron Legacy. Beating him seems be going with a very specific setup and getting lucky with the order his drug cards come out (you want the damage dealing ones to come out last).
My problem with Fanatic is her gimmick is supposed to be balls out damage, encouraging herself to take damage so she can unload with that "inflict 1 damage for every missing health point" card. But she has a bunch of healing which goes against that, and she doesn't have enough cards to support going kamikaze (only 2 resurrection cards, and her nuke requires discarding 3 cards). She also has what I think is the single most useless card in the game. "Play this card next to a target. At the start of your turn, discard a card to inflict 2 damage then deal 4 damage to yourself to keep this card." So it's the exact same thing as Bunker's gatling gun, only it's locked into one target, you don't get the option of not using it each turn, AND you have to deal yourself 4 damage every turn. I can't think of a worse card in the entire game.
See, I always assumed she was supposed to be a utility / tank character with steady output and a bomb, so sort-of similar to Haka (who's tougher and also has some duds, but his core play is fine) and Tachyon (who leans more towards damage but has about the same amount of utility). She's not way off-message from that notion. A couple of her cards that are only sort-of suicidal, like Chastise and Embolden, are even pretty good.
Also available at Boardgameguru for those in the UK.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Two corrections:
1) The target is the villain card with the highest HP, though it used to just target the villain character.
2) Divine focus actually allows you to discard for damage at the start of every turn(each hero, villain, and environment). This makes it really good, as it basically turns each card in your hand into 2 damage. And it really shines when you receive damage buffs. You would then be looking at doing 3+ damage up to 5-7 times.
A powerful combo is Divine Focus + Prayer of Desperation. Prayer of Desperation will give you up to 6 new cards, so you can basically sacrifice your entire hand to Divine Focus then decide whether to let it lapse or keep it going for a whole new round of discarding for damage.
added:
As for her gimmick, I would look at it more broadly as "damage self to do X" rather than specifically "kamikaze self to power Wrathful Retribution". Now her healing makes sense, as it allows her to do more self damage. If you aren't actively trying to get her HP as low as possible, her resurrection cards are convenient rather than necessary. Retribution is a great card, but there is only 1 in the deck and hinging your strategy on it may be a bit too risky.
Yeah Divine Focus is amazing if you have a full grip and some damage boosting going on. Legacy + Divine Focus can often make short work of your problem.
One of my favorite unique things Fanatic brings to the table is Final Dive (straight-up murder a target with 4hp or less and then probably take out another small problem too); most other effects like this require the target to be at 1 or 2 hp. We often look for this when there's a bodyguard or other damage-reducing minion on the board.
And then of course there's End of Days. No other hero has this kind of board-sweeping effect (hell, only a few villains have a card this strong), and there's absolutely nothing the villain can do about it since it fires at the beginning of the environment turn. This is a damned Get Out of Jail Free card. It's a little inconvenient with "set up" heroes, but if you need it badly enough you won't care. And if the Fanatic player is at all competent they'll warn you the minute they have access to it so you don't get too fucked.
Base-game and Redeemer Fanatic have some trouble keeping Zealous Offensive around (have to deal 3 damage every turn) but if you have Absolution (or again, any damage buff for the base version's Exorcise) in play it's a cheap way to turn off the two most annoying non-character cards on the table. Prime Warden Fanatic makes that a joke since her inherent power is to hurt herself for 3 anyway.
The kamikaze thing is a neat subtheme running through her, but Wrathful Retribution is only one card. Don't plan around it unless you draw it.
And as I painfully discovered, completely useless against Spite
Word. This is a crucial ability, one of the best in the game, and turns Fanatic into my favorite hero. Once she gets the sword Absolution into play she also turns into a reliable damage dealer, and she can make that Radiant damage, which few villains can counter.
We also played Puerto Rico, which remains excellent and apparently I own an expansion for that I've never even opened, and a few large group little things like masquerade
Why would you order from there when you could order from CSI?
"We're still trying to find all the pieces of the victim. So far the sheriff's department has only come up with a severed lower leg. The pants match those worn by our robbery suspect when he was last seen. Supposedly he was in big time debt to the mob."
*picks up severed leg*
"Looks like they were done playing games with him."
"No, Frank. Looks like the game..."
"...is a foot."
You're gonna be there a while.
It's mostly just that, honestly. Remember that in most cases things don't happen when you place guys but when you pick them up and to read left-right, top-bottom in terms of slots and rooms and you should be okay.
Argent really takes off on Turn 3, usually.
On Sunday I tried Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small for the first time. It is a two-player-only spinoff game, not an expansion, and it is fantastic. At first blush I like it better than its big brother. While the scoring uses a similar "get a bit of everything if at all possible" system, the fact that you don't have to feed workers means that the whole thing feels less punishing while remaining tight. And my wife didn't have to feel bad about cooking animals.
ACBAS is really good. It gets the essential Agricola experience down in a quicker, more portable package. I wouldn't say it's better or worse than regular, it's just different and fills a different need. Regular Agricola is more excruciating, and has a lot more options I feel.
If you like ACBAS at all, the expansion is a total no brainer. It just adds more buildings to add variety to the game and so every game doesn't play out exactly the same. It kind of sort of does a similar role to the card in Agricola, although they're public and up for grabs.
I wish I could play it three more times in a row, instead of just the one time I got to play it.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Also, Dice Brewing is FINALLY on the way for delivery. Yay!
Oh man we're rife with topics that I can comment on (instead of SotM)!
I like Five Tribes a lot, however, I think it is not so great at two players. The AP is too massive for some people. I usually play in a very general "go by instinct, shoot from the hip" style, but my girlfriend does not. As such, she usually takes pretty long turns. I think a two player game for us took almost two hours once which is a really, really long time for what Five Tribes is, especially when I spend a lot of that time just kind of twiddling my thumbs.
The problem is, she still really likes it at that player count, since she's pretty engaged the whole time and I play pretty quickly. I don't want to discourage her from the game for any reason, since if she wants to play any game I'm not going to complain. I also don't want her to feel self conscious about how long it takes or otherwise ruin a game for her that she otherwise likes.
At 3 or 4, you only get one move per turn so you don't have to spend so much time iterating and figuring out every possible permutation of your moves. You just need to find one good move and that's it, instead of figuring out if you can find one good move which enables a good move, or a mediocre move that enables an even better move, etc. I think maybe it would solve the AP by changing turn order to say that the high bidder always goes first and third, and the low bidder always goes second and fourth, but that seems like it would make first player way better. Then again, that's how it plays at other counts so maybe it's fine.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
It does, and my first game with it was with three and it went fine. Fortunately I have a regular game night every week so we can get more than two, but if you're going to play it primarily with two, I wouldn't recommend it.
There's a free app for it that provides a timer, atmospheric sound effects and easy score calculation, too. It's quite helpful!
And did I mention free?
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar