As the boardgame person in my family I usually end up providing some kind of after lunch Christmas game for everybody that has met with general success compared to some spectacular memories of when others tried (my uncle demanding that everybody play the iPad game of a daytime quiz show in turn and in silence being a particular highlight)
This year I won't be there. So I was thinking of sending something and marking it to be opened after lunch. But there is zero chance that anybody aside from my brother will be sufficiently sober to try read rules and then teach others (and that wouldn't be that great anyway)
So I was wondering about boardgame adjacent activities. Ideally ones that are designed to be learnt and played simultaneously. I presume such things exist like those "escape room" things and murder mystery whatnots.
Any thoughts? Bit of a weird one, I know
I just realised the answer was obviously Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective
And if they are drunk they wont notice the typos and massive case ruining errors.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds.2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Ah. I have to remember - I agreed to MC our holiday party again with Quiplash 2, and need to write a custom game involving holiday/Christmas stuff. The company-aimed one was fun, but some people were turned off.
I'll probably scour the interwebs for some choices.
A little while ago a friend bought TI4, and he tasked me with arranging a group to play it, which I managed to do over the weekend. Six players, four newbies (including myself), with two who had played TI3 before.
We started around 3:00, and finished at 9:30 with a break for tea. We had said that we’d finish whatever round we were in 9:00. At the time we had 3 public objectives left to reveal.
I really liked it, and would like to play it again. I’d like to be able to play without constantly referring to the rule book, which was only starting to happen towards the end.
I had the most VPs going after the last scoring, I grabbed Rex in round 4 and managed to hold it, which was nearly my undoing as I left my homeworlds vulnerable. Had we not put a clock on the game I definitely wouldn’t have won, as I would have stopped being able to score objectives when I lost my homeworlds the next round.
Glad we played even if my wife managed to play 6 games in the same amount of time.
We played our first real month of Pandemic Legacy season 2 tonight! January spoilers:
We lost the first game because we experimented with distributing the cubes more heavily in the cities than the havens at the start.
We had forgotten how important it is to scoop up haven cubes on your way to other cities. We did manage to explore and open the first package, though, and we were on turn away from assured victory, so bad draws really did us in.
Game 2 went much better, holding more cubes on character sheets, laying down 2 supplies and holding on to 1 or 2 when addressing empty cities, and having access to a couple of upgrades. It was still pretty tight, though.
The sheer speed of attrition is pretty brutal, and it feels really hard to take the time to share cards when trying to slow the flow of cubes. I think the main thing that makes this challenging is the weaker player abilities, though--there is a lot less opportunity for strong combo turns, so far.
For upgrades we're focusing on the city card buffs so far, because it seems crucial to get those in early. But I feel like the city population upgrades will directly contribute to the final score, so it might be good to start throwing those out there as well.
We played our first real month of Pandemic Legacy season 2 tonight! January spoilers:
We lost the first game because we experimented with distributing the cubes more heavily in the cities than the havens at the start.
We had forgotten how important it is to scoop up haven cubes on your way to other cities. We did manage to explore and open the first package, though, and we were on turn away from assured victory, so bad draws really did us in.
Game 2 went much better, holding more cubes on character sheets, laying down 2 supplies and holding on to 1 or 2 when addressing empty cities, and having access to a couple of upgrades. It was still pretty tight, though.
The sheer speed of attrition is pretty brutal, and it feels really hard to take the time to share cards when trying to slow the flow of cubes. I think the main thing that makes this challenging is the weaker player abilities, though--there is a lot less opportunity for strong combo turns, so far.
For upgrades we're focusing on the city card buffs so far, because it seems crucial to get those in early. But I feel like the city population upgrades will directly contribute to the final score, so it might be good to start throwing those out there as well.
We won January 1, but lost February 1. Spoilers up to February
The adding of cities to the network is interesting. The cities added wont be coming out of the infection deck quite as often as the original network as the "new" cities don't add as many cards to the deck, which will be good cos at the moment they're harder to get to if something goes wrong. There must be something else coming, because you get fewer resource cubes at the beginning. Hopefully gonna bash out a few more games this weekend
We played our first real month of Pandemic Legacy season 2 tonight! January spoilers:
We lost the first game because we experimented with distributing the cubes more heavily in the cities than the havens at the start.
We had forgotten how important it is to scoop up haven cubes on your way to other cities. We did manage to explore and open the first package, though, and we were on turn away from assured victory, so bad draws really did us in.
Game 2 went much better, holding more cubes on character sheets, laying down 2 supplies and holding on to 1 or 2 when addressing empty cities, and having access to a couple of upgrades. It was still pretty tight, though.
The sheer speed of attrition is pretty brutal, and it feels really hard to take the time to share cards when trying to slow the flow of cubes. I think the main thing that makes this challenging is the weaker player abilities, though--there is a lot less opportunity for strong combo turns, so far.
For upgrades we're focusing on the city card buffs so far, because it seems crucial to get those in early. But I feel like the city population upgrades will directly contribute to the final score, so it might be good to start throwing those out there as well.
It explicitly says in the rulebook that final scoring is "largely based on how many months you won (winning in the earlier part of the month is better). The population of the grid will have a (lesser) impact on your score. There will be other criteria that will also add to or subtract from your score."
Not spoiling this because it is in the core rulebook, pre stickers.
Darn. Friend just linked me the BoxThrone Kickstarter. I think I'm safe because I already have unique matching shelves in my game room but I know that in short order I may need a third.
Darn. Friend just linked me the BoxThrone Kickstarter. I think I'm safe because I already have unique matching shelves in my game room but I know that in short order I may need a third.
Yeah, I'm super interested in these. Trying to figure out where I'd put them all in my apartment, but I'll probably end up backing them now and figuring out where they go later.
Diagnosed with AML on 6/1/12. Read about it: www.effleukemia.com
Darn. Friend just linked me the BoxThrone Kickstarter. I think I'm safe because I already have unique matching shelves in my game room but I know that in short order I may need a third.
Yeah, I'm super interested in these. Trying to figure out where I'd put them all in my apartment, but I'll probably end up backing them now and figuring out where they go later.
It's tough because getting the double would essentially be the same price as if I bought a third matching bookcase (they're irregularly shaped, and a neat finish). Being able to pull and store games from any side is neat, as well as the acrylic shelves to store/display miniatures, which is something I was looking for anyway. I had hoped to find small wall shelves to organize all of my Zombicide/D&D stuff and maybe eventually all of my X-Wing fleets.
So this weekend we played Gloomhaven again, this time in a group of 4. The first game me and a friend played was more for testing the waters, and we did some things wrong. This time we got the rules pretty correct, with two more people that had not played it before. it was a bit slow cause a baby was present and the two newbies were the parents, but thats to be expected.
I think we did okay...we replayed the first scenario (Which apparently we were not suppose to do for some reason but I don't think it will break anything) and me and the other person from the first game played our same characters. I played a lot more conservatively with my card usage, opting for only using my discard effects in the first and second rooms, while the newbies and the other guy were a little more daring and of the 4 people, one became exhausted, and the other two were damn close by the end. I had a decent set of cards in my hand by the end, so i think they learned to go a little slower, but by the last room it was getting tense and failure was almost expected due to most of the higher level attacks having been used. We managed to eek out mostly because i finally used my rat swarm summon (giving up my juicy 4 move effect), which gave us both a distraction (little guys took 4 hits for us), and some attack power that let us finish off the skeletons (whos armor was the problem), and with some lucky action draws from the archers in the room, we were able to have the craigheart do some last ditch aoe. I even got to be extra Rat-like as a mindthief and scoop up a bunch of coins that everyone else was too busy to collect in the last few rounds while cleaning up. (To be fair i had nothing i could do...the last guy was cornered inbtween the wall an an obsticle and the craigheart was in my way, so why not grab these coins with my loot 2 cards while waiting...)
Any suggestions on my next purchase as a mindthief? We probably will go directly into the second scenario next time we play, but ive collected a decent amount of cash, so should be able to outfit myself better. Hopefully with something that will improve my base attack or movement?
Hopefully everyone has learned a good bit, and the next run will be better, but i will admit it was more difficult than i expected the first scenario to be with 4 people. Mostly due to the large quantity of monsters we had to face.
Stercus, Stercus, Stercus, Morituri Sum
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
So this weekend we played Gloomhaven again, this time in a group of 4. The first game me and a friend played was more for testing the waters, and we did some things wrong. This time we got the rules pretty correct, with two more people that had not played it before. it was a bit slow cause a baby was present and the two newbies were the parents, but thats to be expected.
I think we did okay...we replayed the first scenario (Which apparently we were not suppose to do for some reason but I don't think it will break anything) and me and the other person from the first game played our same characters. I played a lot more conservatively with my card usage, opting for only using my discard effects in the first and second rooms, while the newbies and the other guy were a little more daring and of the 4 people, one became exhausted, and the other two were damn close by the end. I had a decent set of cards in my hand by the end, so i think they learned to go a little slower, but by the last room it was getting tense and failure was almost expected due to most of the higher level attacks having been used. We managed to eek out mostly because i finally used my rat swarm summon (giving up my juicy 4 move effect), which gave us both a distraction (little guys took 4 hits for us), and some attack power that let us finish off the skeletons (whos armor was the problem), and with some lucky action draws from the archers in the room, we were able to have the craigheart do some last ditch aoe. I even got to be extra Rat-like as a mindthief and scoop up a bunch of coins that everyone else was too busy to collect in the last few rounds while cleaning up. (To be fair i had nothing i could do...the last guy was cornered inbtween the wall an an obsticle and the craigheart was in my way, so why not grab these coins with my loot 2 cards while waiting...)
Any suggestions on my next purchase as a mindthief? We probably will go directly into the second scenario next time we play, but ive collected a decent amount of cash, so should be able to outfit myself better. Hopefully with something that will improve my base attack or movement?
Hopefully everyone has learned a good bit, and the next run will be better, but i will admit it was more difficult than i expected the first scenario to be with 4 people. Mostly due to the large quantity of monsters we had to face.
For literally everyone except maybe Cragheart and Brute who have big decks (and probably even them), one of the first things you want to buy is the stamina potions - pulling back 2 discards of your choice stretches scenarios out a lot longer and enables you to throw your medium-big stuff more.
Ignore the suggestion that Cragheart wants the hammer; he wants the bow to turn Dirt Tornado into a cloud of inconvenient thing removal.
I recall our Mindthief ending up pretty fond of the +2 movement boots, as well.
Oh that BoxThrone storage is great looking. I don't know if I can justify it right now though. I'll have to wait for the possible online store they mention in the FAQ.
So this weekend we played Gloomhaven again, this time in a group of 4. The first game me and a friend played was more for testing the waters, and we did some things wrong. This time we got the rules pretty correct, with two more people that had not played it before. it was a bit slow cause a baby was present and the two newbies were the parents, but thats to be expected.
I think we did okay...we replayed the first scenario (Which apparently we were not suppose to do for some reason but I don't think it will break anything) and me and the other person from the first game played our same characters. I played a lot more conservatively with my card usage, opting for only using my discard effects in the first and second rooms, while the newbies and the other guy were a little more daring and of the 4 people, one became exhausted, and the other two were damn close by the end. I had a decent set of cards in my hand by the end, so i think they learned to go a little slower, but by the last room it was getting tense and failure was almost expected due to most of the higher level attacks having been used. We managed to eek out mostly because i finally used my rat swarm summon (giving up my juicy 4 move effect), which gave us both a distraction (little guys took 4 hits for us), and some attack power that let us finish off the skeletons (whos armor was the problem), and with some lucky action draws from the archers in the room, we were able to have the craigheart do some last ditch aoe. I even got to be extra Rat-like as a mindthief and scoop up a bunch of coins that everyone else was too busy to collect in the last few rounds while cleaning up. (To be fair i had nothing i could do...the last guy was cornered inbtween the wall an an obsticle and the craigheart was in my way, so why not grab these coins with my loot 2 cards while waiting...)
Any suggestions on my next purchase as a mindthief? We probably will go directly into the second scenario next time we play, but ive collected a decent amount of cash, so should be able to outfit myself better. Hopefully with something that will improve my base attack or movement?
Hopefully everyone has learned a good bit, and the next run will be better, but i will admit it was more difficult than i expected the first scenario to be with 4 people. Mostly due to the large quantity of monsters we had to face.
For literally everyone except maybe Cragheart and Brute who have big decks (and probably even them), one of the first things you want to buy is the stamina potions - pulling back 2 discards of your choice stretches scenarios out a lot longer and enables you to throw your medium-big stuff more.
Ignore the suggestion that Cragheart wants the hammer; he wants the bow to turn Dirt Tornado into a cloud of inconvenient thing removal.
I recall our Mindthief ending up pretty fond of the +2 movement boots, as well.
Probably so, I think my biggest issue has been needing to conserve my movement cards. So +2 movement boots are like just increasing my base move right? so like every action i always can move 2 even if my action card does not list a move??
Stercus, Stercus, Stercus, Morituri Sum
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
So this weekend we played Gloomhaven again, this time in a group of 4. The first game me and a friend played was more for testing the waters, and we did some things wrong. This time we got the rules pretty correct, with two more people that had not played it before. it was a bit slow cause a baby was present and the two newbies were the parents, but thats to be expected.
I think we did okay...we replayed the first scenario (Which apparently we were not suppose to do for some reason but I don't think it will break anything) and me and the other person from the first game played our same characters. I played a lot more conservatively with my card usage, opting for only using my discard effects in the first and second rooms, while the newbies and the other guy were a little more daring and of the 4 people, one became exhausted, and the other two were damn close by the end. I had a decent set of cards in my hand by the end, so i think they learned to go a little slower, but by the last room it was getting tense and failure was almost expected due to most of the higher level attacks having been used. We managed to eek out mostly because i finally used my rat swarm summon (giving up my juicy 4 move effect), which gave us both a distraction (little guys took 4 hits for us), and some attack power that let us finish off the skeletons (whos armor was the problem), and with some lucky action draws from the archers in the room, we were able to have the craigheart do some last ditch aoe. I even got to be extra Rat-like as a mindthief and scoop up a bunch of coins that everyone else was too busy to collect in the last few rounds while cleaning up. (To be fair i had nothing i could do...the last guy was cornered inbtween the wall an an obsticle and the craigheart was in my way, so why not grab these coins with my loot 2 cards while waiting...)
Any suggestions on my next purchase as a mindthief? We probably will go directly into the second scenario next time we play, but ive collected a decent amount of cash, so should be able to outfit myself better. Hopefully with something that will improve my base attack or movement?
Hopefully everyone has learned a good bit, and the next run will be better, but i will admit it was more difficult than i expected the first scenario to be with 4 people. Mostly due to the large quantity of monsters we had to face.
For literally everyone except maybe Cragheart and Brute who have big decks (and probably even them), one of the first things you want to buy is the stamina potions - pulling back 2 discards of your choice stretches scenarios out a lot longer and enables you to throw your medium-big stuff more.
Ignore the suggestion that Cragheart wants the hammer; he wants the bow to turn Dirt Tornado into a cloud of inconvenient thing removal.
I recall our Mindthief ending up pretty fond of the +2 movement boots, as well.
Probably so, I think my biggest issue has been needing to conserve my movement cards. So +2 movement boots are like just increasing my base move right? so like every action i always can move 2 even if my action card does not list a move??
You can do that period - all cards can be played as 2 attack (top) or 2 movement (bottom).
The boots can be exhausted (used until you rest) once to add 2 more to a move. So that time you find yourself needing to hustle, you use them.
Or, if you're my group's Brute / a later box which also contains a Tank player, you use them immediately to get into position then get them back between rooms. Whatever.
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mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
Made it to my 3rd Yomi tournament grand finals for the year! The set started off preeeetty bad, with me going 0-3 in a first-to-four, and then I won four in a row to make it to winner's side of grand finals. Now I get a bit of a break while the lower bracket winds down.
So this weekend we played Gloomhaven again, this time in a group of 4. The first game me and a friend played was more for testing the waters, and we did some things wrong. This time we got the rules pretty correct, with two more people that had not played it before. it was a bit slow cause a baby was present and the two newbies were the parents, but thats to be expected.
I think we did okay...we replayed the first scenario (Which apparently we were not suppose to do for some reason but I don't think it will break anything) and me and the other person from the first game played our same characters. I played a lot more conservatively with my card usage, opting for only using my discard effects in the first and second rooms, while the newbies and the other guy were a little more daring and of the 4 people, one became exhausted, and the other two were damn close by the end. I had a decent set of cards in my hand by the end, so i think they learned to go a little slower, but by the last room it was getting tense and failure was almost expected due to most of the higher level attacks having been used. We managed to eek out mostly because i finally used my rat swarm summon (giving up my juicy 4 move effect), which gave us both a distraction (little guys took 4 hits for us), and some attack power that let us finish off the skeletons (whos armor was the problem), and with some lucky action draws from the archers in the room, we were able to have the craigheart do some last ditch aoe. I even got to be extra Rat-like as a mindthief and scoop up a bunch of coins that everyone else was too busy to collect in the last few rounds while cleaning up. (To be fair i had nothing i could do...the last guy was cornered inbtween the wall an an obsticle and the craigheart was in my way, so why not grab these coins with my loot 2 cards while waiting...)
Any suggestions on my next purchase as a mindthief? We probably will go directly into the second scenario next time we play, but ive collected a decent amount of cash, so should be able to outfit myself better. Hopefully with something that will improve my base attack or movement?
Hopefully everyone has learned a good bit, and the next run will be better, but i will admit it was more difficult than i expected the first scenario to be with 4 people. Mostly due to the large quantity of monsters we had to face.
For literally everyone except maybe Cragheart and Brute who have big decks (and probably even them), one of the first things you want to buy is the stamina potions - pulling back 2 discards of your choice stretches scenarios out a lot longer and enables you to throw your medium-big stuff more.
Ignore the suggestion that Cragheart wants the hammer; he wants the bow to turn Dirt Tornado into a cloud of inconvenient thing removal.
I recall our Mindthief ending up pretty fond of the +2 movement boots, as well.
Probably so, I think my biggest issue has been needing to conserve my movement cards. So +2 movement boots are like just increasing my base move right? so like every action i always can move 2 even if my action card does not list a move??
You can do that period - all cards can be played as 2 attack (top) or 2 movement (bottom).
The boots can be exhausted (used until you rest) once to add 2 more to a move. So that time you find yourself needing to hustle, you use them.
Or, if you're my group's Brute / a later box which also contains a Tank player, you use them immediately to get into position then get them back between rooms. Whatever.
No, i knew that part. I havent really looked at the item cards outside the suggested first purchase, so i was under the impression that some cards would increase your 'base' move and attack passively without having to be 'used up', and thus not only improve movement on an action card but impart it if it was not there in the first place, so you would always for instance have a base movement allowed each turn even if your two action cards did not specify move on them.
So this weekend we played Gloomhaven again, this time in a group of 4. The first game me and a friend played was more for testing the waters, and we did some things wrong. This time we got the rules pretty correct, with two more people that had not played it before. it was a bit slow cause a baby was present and the two newbies were the parents, but thats to be expected.
I think we did okay...we replayed the first scenario (Which apparently we were not suppose to do for some reason but I don't think it will break anything) and me and the other person from the first game played our same characters. I played a lot more conservatively with my card usage, opting for only using my discard effects in the first and second rooms, while the newbies and the other guy were a little more daring and of the 4 people, one became exhausted, and the other two were damn close by the end. I had a decent set of cards in my hand by the end, so i think they learned to go a little slower, but by the last room it was getting tense and failure was almost expected due to most of the higher level attacks having been used. We managed to eek out mostly because i finally used my rat swarm summon (giving up my juicy 4 move effect), which gave us both a distraction (little guys took 4 hits for us), and some attack power that let us finish off the skeletons (whos armor was the problem), and with some lucky action draws from the archers in the room, we were able to have the craigheart do some last ditch aoe. I even got to be extra Rat-like as a mindthief and scoop up a bunch of coins that everyone else was too busy to collect in the last few rounds while cleaning up. (To be fair i had nothing i could do...the last guy was cornered inbtween the wall an an obsticle and the craigheart was in my way, so why not grab these coins with my loot 2 cards while waiting...)
Any suggestions on my next purchase as a mindthief? We probably will go directly into the second scenario next time we play, but ive collected a decent amount of cash, so should be able to outfit myself better. Hopefully with something that will improve my base attack or movement?
Hopefully everyone has learned a good bit, and the next run will be better, but i will admit it was more difficult than i expected the first scenario to be with 4 people. Mostly due to the large quantity of monsters we had to face.
For literally everyone except maybe Cragheart and Brute who have big decks (and probably even them), one of the first things you want to buy is the stamina potions - pulling back 2 discards of your choice stretches scenarios out a lot longer and enables you to throw your medium-big stuff more.
Ignore the suggestion that Cragheart wants the hammer; he wants the bow to turn Dirt Tornado into a cloud of inconvenient thing removal.
I recall our Mindthief ending up pretty fond of the +2 movement boots, as well.
Probably so, I think my biggest issue has been needing to conserve my movement cards. So +2 movement boots are like just increasing my base move right? so like every action i always can move 2 even if my action card does not list a move??
You can do that period - all cards can be played as 2 attack (top) or 2 movement (bottom).
The boots can be exhausted (used until you rest) once to add 2 more to a move. So that time you find yourself needing to hustle, you use them.
Or, if you're my group's Brute / a later box which also contains a Tank player, you use them immediately to get into position then get them back between rooms. Whatever.
No, i knew that part. I havent really looked at the item cards outside the suggested first purchase, so i was under the impression that some cards would increase your 'base' move and attack passively without having to be 'used up', and thus not only improve movement on an action card but impart it if it was not there in the first place, so you would always for instance have a base movement allowed each turn even if your two action cards did not specify move on them.
Item deck spoilers
There are items at later Prosperity that increase the basic "move 2/attack 2" powers on cards to 3, but there's nothing that just adds movement or attack actions to a card that doesn't have it already.
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
Darn. Friend just linked me the BoxThrone Kickstarter. I think I'm safe because I already have unique matching shelves in my game room but I know that in short order I may need a third.
These just look like ugly shelves that are probably annoying to use with the lack of perpendicular base struts
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Darn. Friend just linked me the BoxThrone Kickstarter. I think I'm safe because I already have unique matching shelves in my game room but I know that in short order I may need a third.
These just look like ugly shelves that are probably annoying to use with the lack of perpendicular base struts
I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by "perpendicular base struts". Help?
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
Darn. Friend just linked me the BoxThrone Kickstarter. I think I'm safe because I already have unique matching shelves in my game room but I know that in short order I may need a third.
These just look like ugly shelves that are probably annoying to use with the lack of perpendicular base struts
I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by "perpendicular base struts". Help?
Each shelf is made of three bars parallel to the front face. It needs a perpendicular guide or every time you try to push in a box it will catch
Mojo_Jojo on
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Darn. Friend just linked me the BoxThrone Kickstarter. I think I'm safe because I already have unique matching shelves in my game room but I know that in short order I may need a third.
These just look like ugly shelves that are probably annoying to use with the lack of perpendicular base struts
I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by "perpendicular base struts". Help?
Each shelf is made of three bars parallel to the front face. It needs a perpendicular guide or every time you try to push in a box of will catch
Ah, I see what you mean now. You expect that the bottom corner of the back of the box will dip into the gap and get caught.
Darn. Friend just linked me the BoxThrone Kickstarter. I think I'm safe because I already have unique matching shelves in my game room but I know that in short order I may need a third.
Ugh, these look fantastic, but my minimum buy in would be $300 for the king plus extra shelves for a 3 stack system.
The whole "king" and medieval speech thing they've got going on in the updates is hilarious and fun as well.
I just played a demo of Sidereal Confluence and met a dev. Two sentence review:
Its Century, but you're trading with your friends. Its two hours of yelling and I love it.
I've played this game 4 times over the last week and I'm still crazy about it. Everything about it just feels so good, every trade you make feels good, every time you run your economy it feels good, sharing techs feels good, having techs shared with you, upgrading your converters with techs.... it's beautiful!
Darn. Friend just linked me the BoxThrone Kickstarter. I think I'm safe because I already have unique matching shelves in my game room but I know that in short order I may need a third.
These just look like ugly shelves that are probably annoying to use with the lack of perpendicular base struts
I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by "perpendicular base struts". Help?
Each shelf is made of three bars parallel to the front face. It needs a perpendicular guide or every time you try to push in a box of will catch
Ah, I see what you mean now. You expect that the bottom corner of the back of the box will dip into the gap and get caught.
Yeah, I wonder why they didn't add a central cross beam, maybe it's something about the manufacturing process that makes it cheaper. I don't think it would be a huge deal for the big square boxes or larger, but I see them put a bunch of little games on a single shelf, and I'm kind of giving that the side eye. It looks pretty good to me overall though.
Those Boxthrone shelves look expensive as fuck. $80 for a shelf that holds 5 games, plus $9 for the ability to hold 3 more games in that shelf, plus $20 shipping. For what looks to be run of the mill metal closet organizer stuff that's been churned out to specific dimensions.
I mean, there's definitely cheaper options that are close enough for most people, but this seems like something for people who want to pay for EXACTLY what they want. There's a lot of businesses based around churning out something cheap at very specific dimensions.
Some final thoughts on Pandemic Season 2, after finishing December:
Double tagging just in case.
Overall, I have to agree with SUSD’s assessment that the game isn’t as exciting as S1, and ends up too easy. S1 had two major twists that defined the story: the zombie reveal and the Zodiac reveal. Both were extremely effective IMO for mixing both narrative and gameplay changes so well. With the zombies, Pandemic was always defined by cubes, and suddenly having figures on the board made for a memorable change up. The Zodiac reveal was paired with losing the traitor, which was again a totally unexpected and therefore memorable gameplay change (and one that I will always consider brilliant for deliberately making the “traitorous” power too strong).
S2 has two similar twists, the Hollow Men figurines and the Utopia heel turn, and neither is executed as well. After hearing about Hollow Men constantly, them appearing on the map as figures was less “wow” and more “finally”. And Utopia? If you weren’t at least a little suspicious that “the mysterious place the Hollow Men come from” and “the mysterious place that everyone says is awesome” were going to end up being the same place, I don’t know what to tell you. What’s worse, the twist didn’t even come with a significant gameplay change. You put Utopia on the map, and the game says “hey, these people are evil. You’ll do stuff about that later” and then you just keep going. They even hide what I would consider one of the few effective parts of that storyline, the murder of the Haven leaders, behind an optional search that our group didn’t find until we went through the cards after December.
Arguably the reveal that you’re all Faded is a third twist, but it’s handled even less well than the others, being a purely narrative twist with zero gameplay repercussions.
As for difficulty... the early months were a challenge, but after the first half of the year, the only month we lost was December, and that was a deliberate choice to focus on setting up for the Carrier (we put a permanent supply center and satellite tower on Lake Baikal). I’m not a balance expert, but I think there was a fundamental problem with their upgrade system. I understand why they let you spend upgrade points even if you lose a month, but I think it gives you so much of a boost that you end up coasting further down the line. If it were up to me, I would’ve placed far less emphasis on character upgrades; most of the new characters were never touched because our originals all had 3-5 upgrades on them by that point. I think a better system would have focused more on card and map stickers, leaving the new characters at roughly the same power level as the originals (higher if players got hit with a lot of exposures).
By June, the only source of difficulty was the randomness of search cards coming up. We were a little too eager about searching early on, leaving us with a deficit of options once we ran out of Recon locations and “search 2 cities” effectively became a mandatory objective. Supply centers were almost ridiculously easy; our Laborer took Architect after the very first game, letting her make centers with just 3 cards. Finding the companion that reduced that to 2, plus the creation of permanent satellite towers on permanent supply centers (which could be used to hand over that companion as soon as she appeared in anyone’s hand), meant she was often creating one or more centers every turn. The game bumps in difficulty, e.g. the extra epidemics and the “it’s wearing off”, just couldn’t keep up.
For the record, all three of us liked the game a lot and had a great experience with it. But it’s definitely a game whose flaws can sometimes seem more pronounced than its strengths. Between this and Seafall, I hope Daviau goes back to the drawing board when it comes to balancing Legacy games. I know it’s a very difficult thing to do, but I feel like neither game was a step in the right direction.
Are there any games about running a shop? Preferably heavy euro or simulation?
I’m waiting for Kitchen Rush to make it to my door. Check that one out @jakobagger
Also, can a kind soul handle Elder Signs for us in Cthulhu Wars game 3? Just need to randomise a list of 32 numbers and message them off the top to the players as they message you for them.
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jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
Are there any games about running a shop? Preferably heavy euro or simulation?
I’m waiting for Kitchen Rush to make it to my door. Check that one out @jakobagger
Also, can a kind soul handle Elder Signs for us in Cthulhu Wars game 3? Just need to randomise a list of 32 numbers and message them off the top to the players as they message you for them.
Seems fun and basically a board game version of that video game (Overcooked or something?) that's been pretty well received. But not quite what I'm looking for with this very specific and weird request.
Maybe I will just have to design Grocery Store Manager myself. Maybe start a whole series of eurogames based on the various crappy minimum wage jobs I've worked.
I currently work construction, specifically grading and demolition and I spend a good chunk of most work days thinking about turning my job into a boardgame as well.
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jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
I currently work construction, specifically grading and demolition and I spend a good chunk of most work days thinking about turning my job into a boardgame as well.
Tried Deception: Murder in Hong Kong with a group that hadn't tried it before. I thought it would be a hit because literally over 90% of the games they play are nothing but Secret Hitler, The Resistance, and Werewolf (Ultimate and One Night).
And...they mostly didn't like it. Their unanimous complaint was that there was no incentive to accuse someone early and no penalty for waiting for all the clues to be out.
I just didn't understand how that was a negative. Even if that was a mechanic you cared about (for some reason), how does One Night Werewolf not fall under that category?
My only nitpick is that sometimes it falls prone to "Guess Who Syndrome", where you can be screwed by cards that allow the forensic scientist to provide specific clues that instantly narrow it down to you (named after the tendency for someone to be screwed in Guess Who if they got someone with glasses or a black person, since there were only about 3 of each in the whole game). For example, I was the murderer and I figured I'd go with kerosene as the murder weapon because the only means of murder clue that would fit is "accident" and that could mean anything. Well, the scientist draws a "state of the scene" card with the clue "ashes" on it. There were only TWO cards on the table related to fire so everyone instantly narrowed it down to me and my kerosene.
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And if they are drunk they wont notice the typos and massive case ruining errors.
Perfect!
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'd say more than kind of tempting! That's a great price. Did I miss it?!
So now I'm frantically re-learning all the rules so I don't bog down the proceedings.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I'll probably scour the interwebs for some choices.
We started around 3:00, and finished at 9:30 with a break for tea. We had said that we’d finish whatever round we were in 9:00. At the time we had 3 public objectives left to reveal.
I really liked it, and would like to play it again. I’d like to be able to play without constantly referring to the rule book, which was only starting to happen towards the end.
I had the most VPs going after the last scoring, I grabbed Rex in round 4 and managed to hold it, which was nearly my undoing as I left my homeworlds vulnerable. Had we not put a clock on the game I definitely wouldn’t have won, as I would have stopped being able to score objectives when I lost my homeworlds the next round.
Glad we played even if my wife managed to play 6 games in the same amount of time.
We had forgotten how important it is to scoop up haven cubes on your way to other cities. We did manage to explore and open the first package, though, and we were on turn away from assured victory, so bad draws really did us in.
Game 2 went much better, holding more cubes on character sheets, laying down 2 supplies and holding on to 1 or 2 when addressing empty cities, and having access to a couple of upgrades. It was still pretty tight, though.
The sheer speed of attrition is pretty brutal, and it feels really hard to take the time to share cards when trying to slow the flow of cubes. I think the main thing that makes this challenging is the weaker player abilities, though--there is a lot less opportunity for strong combo turns, so far.
For upgrades we're focusing on the city card buffs so far, because it seems crucial to get those in early. But I feel like the city population upgrades will directly contribute to the final score, so it might be good to start throwing those out there as well.
It explicitly says in the rulebook that final scoring is "largely based on how many months you won (winning in the earlier part of the month is better). The population of the grid will have a (lesser) impact on your score. There will be other criteria that will also add to or subtract from your score."
Not spoiling this because it is in the core rulebook, pre stickers.
Yeah, I'm super interested in these. Trying to figure out where I'd put them all in my apartment, but I'll probably end up backing them now and figuring out where they go later.
It's tough because getting the double would essentially be the same price as if I bought a third matching bookcase (they're irregularly shaped, and a neat finish). Being able to pull and store games from any side is neat, as well as the acrylic shelves to store/display miniatures, which is something I was looking for anyway. I had hoped to find small wall shelves to organize all of my Zombicide/D&D stuff and maybe eventually all of my X-Wing fleets.
I think we did okay...we replayed the first scenario (Which apparently we were not suppose to do for some reason but I don't think it will break anything) and me and the other person from the first game played our same characters. I played a lot more conservatively with my card usage, opting for only using my discard effects in the first and second rooms, while the newbies and the other guy were a little more daring and of the 4 people, one became exhausted, and the other two were damn close by the end. I had a decent set of cards in my hand by the end, so i think they learned to go a little slower, but by the last room it was getting tense and failure was almost expected due to most of the higher level attacks having been used. We managed to eek out mostly because i finally used my rat swarm summon (giving up my juicy 4 move effect), which gave us both a distraction (little guys took 4 hits for us), and some attack power that let us finish off the skeletons (whos armor was the problem), and with some lucky action draws from the archers in the room, we were able to have the craigheart do some last ditch aoe. I even got to be extra Rat-like as a mindthief and scoop up a bunch of coins that everyone else was too busy to collect in the last few rounds while cleaning up. (To be fair i had nothing i could do...the last guy was cornered inbtween the wall an an obsticle and the craigheart was in my way, so why not grab these coins with my loot 2 cards while waiting...)
Any suggestions on my next purchase as a mindthief? We probably will go directly into the second scenario next time we play, but ive collected a decent amount of cash, so should be able to outfit myself better. Hopefully with something that will improve my base attack or movement?
Hopefully everyone has learned a good bit, and the next run will be better, but i will admit it was more difficult than i expected the first scenario to be with 4 people. Mostly due to the large quantity of monsters we had to face.
For literally everyone except maybe Cragheart and Brute who have big decks (and probably even them), one of the first things you want to buy is the stamina potions - pulling back 2 discards of your choice stretches scenarios out a lot longer and enables you to throw your medium-big stuff more.
Ignore the suggestion that Cragheart wants the hammer; he wants the bow to turn Dirt Tornado into a cloud of inconvenient thing removal.
I recall our Mindthief ending up pretty fond of the +2 movement boots, as well.
Probably so, I think my biggest issue has been needing to conserve my movement cards. So +2 movement boots are like just increasing my base move right? so like every action i always can move 2 even if my action card does not list a move??
You can do that period - all cards can be played as 2 attack (top) or 2 movement (bottom).
The boots can be exhausted (used until you rest) once to add 2 more to a move. So that time you find yourself needing to hustle, you use them.
Or, if you're my group's Brute / a later box which also contains a Tank player, you use them immediately to get into position then get them back between rooms. Whatever.
No, i knew that part. I havent really looked at the item cards outside the suggested first purchase, so i was under the impression that some cards would increase your 'base' move and attack passively without having to be 'used up', and thus not only improve movement on an action card but impart it if it was not there in the first place, so you would always for instance have a base movement allowed each turn even if your two action cards did not specify move on them.
Item deck spoilers
These just look like ugly shelves that are probably annoying to use with the lack of perpendicular base struts
I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by "perpendicular base struts". Help?
Each shelf is made of three bars parallel to the front face. It needs a perpendicular guide or every time you try to push in a box it will catch
Ah, I see what you mean now. You expect that the bottom corner of the back of the box will dip into the gap and get caught.
Ugh, these look fantastic, but my minimum buy in would be $300 for the king plus extra shelves for a 3 stack system.
The whole "king" and medieval speech thing they've got going on in the updates is hilarious and fun as well.
I've played this game 4 times over the last week and I'm still crazy about it. Everything about it just feels so good, every trade you make feels good, every time you run your economy it feels good, sharing techs feels good, having techs shared with you, upgrading your converters with techs.... it's beautiful!
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
Yeah, I wonder why they didn't add a central cross beam, maybe it's something about the manufacturing process that makes it cheaper. I don't think it would be a huge deal for the big square boxes or larger, but I see them put a bunch of little games on a single shelf, and I'm kind of giving that the side eye. It looks pretty good to me overall though.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
S2 has two similar twists, the Hollow Men figurines and the Utopia heel turn, and neither is executed as well. After hearing about Hollow Men constantly, them appearing on the map as figures was less “wow” and more “finally”. And Utopia? If you weren’t at least a little suspicious that “the mysterious place the Hollow Men come from” and “the mysterious place that everyone says is awesome” were going to end up being the same place, I don’t know what to tell you. What’s worse, the twist didn’t even come with a significant gameplay change. You put Utopia on the map, and the game says “hey, these people are evil. You’ll do stuff about that later” and then you just keep going. They even hide what I would consider one of the few effective parts of that storyline, the murder of the Haven leaders, behind an optional search that our group didn’t find until we went through the cards after December.
Arguably the reveal that you’re all Faded is a third twist, but it’s handled even less well than the others, being a purely narrative twist with zero gameplay repercussions.
As for difficulty... the early months were a challenge, but after the first half of the year, the only month we lost was December, and that was a deliberate choice to focus on setting up for the Carrier (we put a permanent supply center and satellite tower on Lake Baikal). I’m not a balance expert, but I think there was a fundamental problem with their upgrade system. I understand why they let you spend upgrade points even if you lose a month, but I think it gives you so much of a boost that you end up coasting further down the line. If it were up to me, I would’ve placed far less emphasis on character upgrades; most of the new characters were never touched because our originals all had 3-5 upgrades on them by that point. I think a better system would have focused more on card and map stickers, leaving the new characters at roughly the same power level as the originals (higher if players got hit with a lot of exposures).
By June, the only source of difficulty was the randomness of search cards coming up. We were a little too eager about searching early on, leaving us with a deficit of options once we ran out of Recon locations and “search 2 cities” effectively became a mandatory objective. Supply centers were almost ridiculously easy; our Laborer took Architect after the very first game, letting her make centers with just 3 cards. Finding the companion that reduced that to 2, plus the creation of permanent satellite towers on permanent supply centers (which could be used to hand over that companion as soon as she appeared in anyone’s hand), meant she was often creating one or more centers every turn. The game bumps in difficulty, e.g. the extra epidemics and the “it’s wearing off”, just couldn’t keep up.
For the record, all three of us liked the game a lot and had a great experience with it. But it’s definitely a game whose flaws can sometimes seem more pronounced than its strengths. Between this and Seafall, I hope Daviau goes back to the drawing board when it comes to balancing Legacy games. I know it’s a very difficult thing to do, but I feel like neither game was a step in the right direction.
Yeah...
(sigh)
Yeah.
Also, can a kind soul handle Elder Signs for us in Cthulhu Wars game 3? Just need to randomise a list of 32 numbers and message them off the top to the players as they message you for them.
Seems fun and basically a board game version of that video game (Overcooked or something?) that's been pretty well received. But not quite what I'm looking for with this very specific and weird request.
Maybe I will just have to design Grocery Store Manager myself. Maybe start a whole series of eurogames based on the various crappy minimum wage jobs I've worked.
Haha, glad to see I'm not the only one!
Played and bought a copy at PAX. It's cool, I like it. It's a very cute/clever light drafting game.
And...they mostly didn't like it. Their unanimous complaint was that there was no incentive to accuse someone early and no penalty for waiting for all the clues to be out.
I just didn't understand how that was a negative. Even if that was a mechanic you cared about (for some reason), how does One Night Werewolf not fall under that category?
My only nitpick is that sometimes it falls prone to "Guess Who Syndrome", where you can be screwed by cards that allow the forensic scientist to provide specific clues that instantly narrow it down to you (named after the tendency for someone to be screwed in Guess Who if they got someone with glasses or a black person, since there were only about 3 of each in the whole game). For example, I was the murderer and I figured I'd go with kerosene as the murder weapon because the only means of murder clue that would fit is "accident" and that could mean anything. Well, the scientist draws a "state of the scene" card with the clue "ashes" on it. There were only TWO cards on the table related to fire so everyone instantly narrowed it down to me and my kerosene.