Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
I've been playing a ton of TI4 on async but I went to 3 board game nights this week. Dune Imperium with our small houserules continues to be top of one group's list (we remove some intrigue cards and remove atomics and say if you buy 2 cards from the draft row in one turn, you may trash one card you didn't buy from your hand or discard). I think we played with the graft expansion this time and I was ahead for most of the game but my deck never really came together and I finished at 9.
I played Pan Am for a second time but I didn't learn much because I fell behind on destination cards and just failed for the rest of the game. Surprisingly good for how we heard about it and how much it cost but maybe not a top tier game with staying power for us
I played Food Chain Magnate on Friday with some new people and it's always a blast. I went starting marketing guy since they were all new and advised they all go starting Recruiting Girl or starting Trainer and it was anybody's game when we called it after 3 hours (including setup and teach)
Finally getting the time to watch this, I found this one of their more frustrating recent videos. I'll preface this by saying I've never played any D:I and was never particularly interested in it, so possible biases? Probably! Who knows?
By happenstance, I've also seen the No Pun Intended video for this and it felt a lot easier to follow his narrative. "I played DIU and it gave me a better understanding of the original game, so I appreciate it more now." SU&SD's video is a scattered mess that really feels like it's 20 minutes of pandering to people who didn't agree with the original review. Simply could not understand anything they were saying or pitching, and there's nothing in there that sells the game if you weren't already invested in it. Similarly, to what I mentioned about NPI's review, it's nice when his review wasn't about how "he was wrong" but how his views had changed. Tom seems to want to convey the same message, but they spend a very long time literally saying "I was wrong."
The video after the 20 minute mark where they start taking about Uprising is what the video should have been all along. Again, as someone who hasn't really followed this game's lifespan, it's a confusing mess of a product now. If your FLGS had both of these boxes beside each other you'd wonder what the hell was going on. I'm really glad they took the time to touch on that, and explaining the differences between both versions of the game felt very worthwhile. And that's why the first 20 minutes should have been cut down to 5. If this was coming from anybody else, I would have turned off the video after 5 minutes.
I really couldn't follow it either. "It's worker placement. You can only place workers if you have a card for that space. Actions are tight early game, too loose later" was the only gameplay impression I could get out of it.
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
Finally getting the time to watch this, I found this one of their more frustrating recent videos. I'll preface this by saying I've never played any D:I and was never particularly interested in it, so possible biases? Probably! Who knows?
By happenstance, I've also seen the No Pun Intended video for this and it felt a lot easier to follow his narrative. "I played DIU and it gave me a better understanding of the original game, so I appreciate it more now." SU&SD's video is a scattered mess that really feels like it's 20 minutes of pandering to people who didn't agree with the original review. Simply could not understand anything they were saying or pitching, and there's nothing in there that sells the game if you weren't already invested in it. Similarly, to what I mentioned about NPI's review, it's nice when his review wasn't about how "he was wrong" but how his views had changed. Tom seems to want to convey the same message, but they spend a very long time literally saying "I was wrong."
The video after the 20 minute mark where they start taking about Uprising is what the video should have been all along. Again, as someone who hasn't really followed this game's lifespan, it's a confusing mess of a product now. If your FLGS had both of these boxes beside each other you'd wonder what the hell was going on. I'm really glad they took the time to touch on that, and explaining the differences between both versions of the game felt very worthwhile. And that's why the first 20 minutes should have been cut down to 5. If this was coming from anybody else, I would have turned off the video after 5 minutes.
I really couldn't follow it either. "It's worker placement. You can only place workers if you have a card for that space. Actions are tight early game, too loose later" was the only gameplay impression I could get out of it.
I can do better than that! It's half deckbuilding, half worker placement. It's a very tight brutal point salad game with only ten points total. You never have enough actions to do what you want to do and you have to split your workers between engine building and the 3 main sources of points. One of the three is a single battlefield that produces much of the player interaction. One of the three is a set of 4 point tracks with points for two jumps or more and points for most jumps. The last is buying point cards that clog your deck like provinces in dominion
Spirit Island hilarity: Generated 4 fear cards in one turn.
Mainly off a monster turn using Irrestible Call to grab everything and dump it into a jungle, and then the rats ate everyone and it cascaded. 5 towns, 5+ explorers, 4+ cities all died in one turn. We won the very next round on fear cards because, yeeeeah.
How is Spirit Island as a solo game? I keep hearing good things about it, but don't have anyone to play more complicated games with, yet.
Tri-Optimum reminds you that there are only one-hundred-sixty-three shopping days until Christmas. Just 1 extra work cycle twice a week will give you the spending money you need to make this holiday a very special one.
Spirit Island is excellent solo. Everything scales per player, so the main thing you miss out on is the cooperation between spirits. And if you want that you can play as many spirits as your brain can handle. But it’s easier to focus on what your one spirit can/needs to do when you aren’t trying to teach other players at the same time. Every spirit is viable up until the absolute highest difficulties.
The folks at BGG have rated it as the #1 solo game for several years running, so it’s doing something right.
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
This was a two player game, and like, my first ever full game of it.
Two is the best way to learn SI, in my opinion. If you don't have at least a couple of smaller-scale games under your belt bigger player counts lead to a weird bordergore type situation where everyone has handled their board as best they could and somewhere there's a thriving metropolis that nobody has a good way to attend to.
Also, several spirits really come into their own in 4-player and play very different there, but without a solid knowledge of the fundamentals they're just going to chug.
My only real frustration right now is it likes like if i want to get physical copies to play with my partner, this is a going to be: Arse, and B: Expensive (especially to fill everything out). So probably going to go with "Get the base game, grab the two small expansion packs sometime, and grab the bigger packs as i can". And maybe pick up Horizons at some point to get the extra spirits, but i'll worry about that another time.
I very much do want to grab a copy of it, it'll be a nice change to our competitive co-operative in Wingspan, or our flatout cut-throat deathbrawl that is Oceans with Legends of the Deep.
Finally getting the time to watch this, I found this one of their more frustrating recent videos. I'll preface this by saying I've never played any D:I and was never particularly interested in it, so possible biases? Probably! Who knows?
By happenstance, I've also seen the No Pun Intended video for this and it felt a lot easier to follow his narrative. "I played DIU and it gave me a better understanding of the original game, so I appreciate it more now." SU&SD's video is a scattered mess that really feels like it's 20 minutes of pandering to people who didn't agree with the original review. Simply could not understand anything they were saying or pitching, and there's nothing in there that sells the game if you weren't already invested in it. Similarly, to what I mentioned about NPI's review, it's nice when his review wasn't about how "he was wrong" but how his views had changed. Tom seems to want to convey the same message, but they spend a very long time literally saying "I was wrong."
The video after the 20 minute mark where they start taking about Uprising is what the video should have been all along. Again, as someone who hasn't really followed this game's lifespan, it's a confusing mess of a product now. If your FLGS had both of these boxes beside each other you'd wonder what the hell was going on. I'm really glad they took the time to touch on that, and explaining the differences between both versions of the game felt very worthwhile. And that's why the first 20 minutes should have been cut down to 5. If this was coming from anybody else, I would have turned off the video after 5 minutes.
I really couldn't follow it either. "It's worker placement. You can only place workers if you have a card for that space. Actions are tight early game, too loose later" was the only gameplay impression I could get out of it.
I can do better than that! It's half deckbuilding, half worker placement. It's a very tight brutal point salad game with only ten points total. You never have enough actions to do what you want to do and you have to split your workers between engine building and the 3 main sources of points. One of the three is a single battlefield that produces much of the player interaction. One of the three is a set of 4 point tracks with points for two jumps or more and points for most jumps. The last is buying point cards that clog your deck like provinces in dominion
You would think they could have fit that short summary somewhere in that 30 minute video!
Does anyone have a different opinion than them on the Ix/Immortality/Uprising comparisons?
How long would you say the teach is for Uprising?
MrBody on
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
Finally getting the time to watch this, I found this one of their more frustrating recent videos. I'll preface this by saying I've never played any D:I and was never particularly interested in it, so possible biases? Probably! Who knows?
By happenstance, I've also seen the No Pun Intended video for this and it felt a lot easier to follow his narrative. "I played DIU and it gave me a better understanding of the original game, so I appreciate it more now." SU&SD's video is a scattered mess that really feels like it's 20 minutes of pandering to people who didn't agree with the original review. Simply could not understand anything they were saying or pitching, and there's nothing in there that sells the game if you weren't already invested in it. Similarly, to what I mentioned about NPI's review, it's nice when his review wasn't about how "he was wrong" but how his views had changed. Tom seems to want to convey the same message, but they spend a very long time literally saying "I was wrong."
The video after the 20 minute mark where they start taking about Uprising is what the video should have been all along. Again, as someone who hasn't really followed this game's lifespan, it's a confusing mess of a product now. If your FLGS had both of these boxes beside each other you'd wonder what the hell was going on. I'm really glad they took the time to touch on that, and explaining the differences between both versions of the game felt very worthwhile. And that's why the first 20 minutes should have been cut down to 5. If this was coming from anybody else, I would have turned off the video after 5 minutes.
I really couldn't follow it either. "It's worker placement. You can only place workers if you have a card for that space. Actions are tight early game, too loose later" was the only gameplay impression I could get out of it.
I can do better than that! It's half deckbuilding, half worker placement. It's a very tight brutal point salad game with only ten points total. You never have enough actions to do what you want to do and you have to split your workers between engine building and the 3 main sources of points. One of the three is a single battlefield that produces much of the player interaction. One of the three is a set of 4 point tracks with points for two jumps or more and points for most jumps. The last is buying point cards that clog your deck like provinces in dominion
You would think they could have fit that short summary somewhere in that 30 minute video!
Does anyone have a different opinion than them on the Ix/Immortality/Uprising comparisons?
How long would you say the teach is for Uprising?
I haven't learned uprising
We really like the original with a few houserules and we thought each expansion made it way less tight and brutal so we're not very impressed with the design iteration
It seems a little like the base game was a lightning strike and they can't duplicate it, to us
Finally getting the time to watch this, I found this one of their more frustrating recent videos. I'll preface this by saying I've never played any D:I and was never particularly interested in it, so possible biases? Probably! Who knows?
By happenstance, I've also seen the No Pun Intended video for this and it felt a lot easier to follow his narrative. "I played DIU and it gave me a better understanding of the original game, so I appreciate it more now." SU&SD's video is a scattered mess that really feels like it's 20 minutes of pandering to people who didn't agree with the original review. Simply could not understand anything they were saying or pitching, and there's nothing in there that sells the game if you weren't already invested in it. Similarly, to what I mentioned about NPI's review, it's nice when his review wasn't about how "he was wrong" but how his views had changed. Tom seems to want to convey the same message, but they spend a very long time literally saying "I was wrong."
The video after the 20 minute mark where they start taking about Uprising is what the video should have been all along. Again, as someone who hasn't really followed this game's lifespan, it's a confusing mess of a product now. If your FLGS had both of these boxes beside each other you'd wonder what the hell was going on. I'm really glad they took the time to touch on that, and explaining the differences between both versions of the game felt very worthwhile. And that's why the first 20 minutes should have been cut down to 5. If this was coming from anybody else, I would have turned off the video after 5 minutes.
I really couldn't follow it either. "It's worker placement. You can only place workers if you have a card for that space. Actions are tight early game, too loose later" was the only gameplay impression I could get out of it.
I can do better than that! It's half deckbuilding, half worker placement. It's a very tight brutal point salad game with only ten points total. You never have enough actions to do what you want to do and you have to split your workers between engine building and the 3 main sources of points. One of the three is a single battlefield that produces much of the player interaction. One of the three is a set of 4 point tracks with points for two jumps or more and points for most jumps. The last is buying point cards that clog your deck like provinces in dominion
You would think they could have fit that short summary somewhere in that 30 minute video!
Does anyone have a different opinion than them on the Ix/Immortality/Uprising comparisons?
How long would you say the teach is for Uprising?
I haven't learned uprising
We really like the original with a few houserules and we thought each expansion made it way less tight and brutal so we're not very impressed with the design iteration
It seems a little like the base game was a lightning strike and they can't duplicate it, to us
I think uprising is more popular maybe though?
This is roughly where the people in my game group that love The game landed, though I'm not really sure their thoughts on uprising.
Any Final Girl aficionados in here besides Athenor?
I'm utterly addicted, and since getting the starter for Camp Happy Trails I've picked up Frightmare on Maple Lane and a A Knock at the Door, and the series 2 playmats.
This is such a great value of a game for people that don't mind solo play.
I'm a big fan of the game. My family doesn't like horror board games and it's hard to get a group together lately so being able to run through Final Girl in the basement while listening to some horror soundtracks is a great way to relax. I got Camp Happy Trails and Panic at Station 2891 to start and enjoyed them. Backed S3 and got the North Pole Nightmare feature which is great and adds some fun mechanics and came with minis in the box which was cool. Still waiting on delivery for the rest of the goodies.
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Decently high, because you never use all the cards available for a given feature film scenario. I'm going off the top of my head...
- Each box has 2 final girls (and their secret envelopes)
- Each killer has 3 finale cards and 1 epic finale card - you choose one (random)
- Each killer has 3 dark power cards and 1 epic dark power card - you choose one (random)
- After combining the killer and location terror cards, you only use 10 of them, or approx. 1/3.
- You only use 12 of the total item cards out of.. I wanna say 25 or so?
- There are multiple setups that dictate where you, the killer, and victims all start. I want to say like 4-6 variants?
- There are quite a few event cards, and you are only ever guaranteed to see 1 - the rest are drawn by the terror deck
- The final hit point for the FG and the killer is also randomized and unknown at the start - you could think you win, but in reality you still need to deal 1, 2, or 3 more damage.
And that's just the baseline variations. Feature films can have other things that can swap out, and then you can always swap killers and locations.
Spirit Island funnies: Using Wandering Voices Keen Delirium to chase a Town from a desert, through Wetlands, and into Mountains... where it promptly fell over dead, causing the city also in that mountain to suffer a heart attack out of shock, also dying, and then the lone explorer who was wandering WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON got smited by the power of the sun.
Anyway, Wandering Voices Keen Delirium is pretty good and very funny.
(aside for how much I hate reddit moderators. It's against their "rules" to start a thread asking about any particular game and you will get deleted. You have to post in a specific recommendation thread, but a new one is made every day and if no one answers you the same day, your question is pushed down into past threads.)
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
edited March 22
Belated updates from game night earlier this week:
Played Brian Boru 4-player for the second time. I brought the game out because it's been sitting on my shelf and I was wondering if it was worth keeping, so thought it would be nice to get to the table again. This one is interesting because "how do I play this well?" seems very non-obvious. My recollection is that I got smashed in the first game, and I sure did also get smashed in this game too. However the game also doesn't take that long to play, and if you played it regularly you could definitely bang it out in under an hour, and the way the draft and card-play work are still fun. I think it's just a matter of getting a better grip on "what a good hand actually looks like."
Anyway largely due to the production values being great, the box being small, and the game being quick, I'm happy to continue holding onto this one for now. Unlike a lot of my games, it feels reasonable to expect this could actually hit the table a bit more often simply because it doesn't take up a whole evening.
After that we played Faux Diamonds - this is a much more traditional trick taking game than Brian Boru. The main wrinkle is that the suits are gemstones, and each gemstone has its own market value that changes pretty frequently. Players are trying to win hands (or play off-suit) at the right times to maximize their sales values every round, and then you just total points across a number of rounds == number of players. There are many different setups, so scoring ranges and the way each type of gemstone scores can vary quite a bit. It wasn't my favourite trick taking game, but it's certainly not a bad one. I might've been coloured a bit by the particular set of markets we had in play? Since there are many more opportunities to score points playing off-trump, the game seemed to encourage a kind of asymmetry where - ideally - your whole hand doesn't interact with other players gems and you just score every play. It both feels cool to rake in all the cash, and lame in that you're playing a trick-taking game that rewards you for not interacting with the main play. Practically-speaking, there's too many big-name games these days that are multiplayer solitaire, so I'm rather anemic towards small-box games doing the same.
Finally I suggested we break out The Mind to foster that engagement with each other. We played three games and actually made it to level 8 on the third play before collapsing. One of our players was just a little too renegade throughout, but honestly that "finding the shared tempo" is what makes the game a delight with friends.
Everybody knows this game by now and how they feel about it. Somehow this remains one of my favourite little boxes.
Does it work at all officially supported player counts?
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
edited March 22
Oh hey, unexpected (2nd?) box today!
Space Base is one of my favorite board games. Sadly I haven't gotten to play with Saga Edition 2 yet, so its mysteries are still waiting for me.
Last year, AEG did a.. weird kickstarter that was like "Here's expansions for 4 of our popular games. We're gonna lump them all together and use this as a preorder." Or.. something like that. Naturally, Space Base was part of that.
The expansion boxes look so lonely without the saga component hidden boxes in them.
That said, I was worried that this would spoil mechanics from the expansions. Turns out, it does not. Any mechanics introduced in the expansion are reprinted in the rulebook, but this instead focuses on one-time use powers and more stuff to interact with other players. Which is cool!
We played Nuns on the Run again this evening, it remains the best hidden movement game and a lot of fun for the novices. I played the guards and it kinda sucked because I only heard something 3 times and only saw someone once all game against 4 novices. The player count goes up to 8, but with 8 you split the guards role, so I'd say it's really just for 7 instead.
Argh. I got myself hyped up to late pledge for Earthborne Rangers, and realized there's just too many reasons against:
- over $100 for just the base game shipped, no addons
- won't arrive for nine months
- may not ever arrive because it's crowd funding despite being a second printing of something that presumably did well enough to merit a second print
I'll try to forget about it, and be pleasantly surprised when I randomly see it on a store shelf in like three years.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
You won't see it on store shelves because their environmentally-friendly production means they can't sell it through standard distributors.
Does it work at all officially supported player counts?
Dune Imperium? I have not tried 3v3 and don't care to, but I do know that:
At solo or two players, the AI deck works fine as a spoiler to keep things tense.
And at 3 players the game is comfortable and 4 is most tense.
So because people in WoW were talking about Halo Flashpoint. I looked it up my Halo knowledge is very limited to old as it only goes to 3/ODST era but they were talking about how it's deadzone with a halo skin?
Because it was reveled at Adepticon there was various videos on YT breaking down the other revels other than Games Workshop's stuff. It is interesting how personal bias and lack of interest does creep into their talks.
Star Wars Legion I don't play it as I know of no one in the area showed off various things. But I do find it funny how Shatterpoint did bounce off hard various people so the general talk is meh There was a lot more than I knew about shown at it but I am not feeling like watching hours of video
I’ve done a couple of scenarios from 7th Citadel and I’m really liking it. It’s much more manageable a size to run a scenario in an evening than 7th Continent was.
Dune Imperium (with both expansions) has become one of my favorite games over the last year or so. I think the old SU&SD video made a good point that the theme is pretty thin. You could take the exact same mechanics and probably apply a totally different theme with no gameplay changes. And also it is a game whose first expansion (Rise of Ix) fixed some real problems to the point I cannot recommend just the base game. And I hate it when games do that. But it is just so good that it makes up for those failings.
I also have Uprising and played that a few times both alone and with Rise of Ix. I am a bit torn. The card set in Uprising has too many very special-purpose cards for my taste. It really needs to be bulked out with the more "generic" cards from the base game. And I don't think spies add enough to be worth the extra fiddle. Still quite good from the base Dune Imperium mechanics though.
Attacked by tweeeeeeees!
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
Dune Imperium (with both expansions) has become one of my favorite games over the last year or so. I think the old SU&SD video made a good point that the theme is pretty thin. You could take the exact same mechanics and probably apply a totally different theme with no gameplay changes. And also it is a game whose first expansion (Rise of Ix) fixed some real problems to the point I cannot recommend just the base game. And I hate it when games do that. But it is just so good that it makes up for those failings.
I also have Uprising and played that a few times both alone and with Rise of Ix. I am a bit torn. The card set in Uprising has too many very special-purpose cards for my taste. It really needs to be bulked out with the more "generic" cards from the base game. And I don't think spies add enough to be worth the extra fiddle. Still quite good from the base Dune Imperium mechanics though.
We immediately took some internet houserules to make the draft options turn over more quickly. Was it just Atomics you were thinking of to fix a real problem of stagnant card purchase options?
We've played dune Imperium base a million times and like it better than the expansions, but it's easy to forget we tweaked a couple things
Dune Imperium (with both expansions) has become one of my favorite games over the last year or so. I think the old SU&SD video made a good point that the theme is pretty thin. You could take the exact same mechanics and probably apply a totally different theme with no gameplay changes. And also it is a game whose first expansion (Rise of Ix) fixed some real problems to the point I cannot recommend just the base game. And I hate it when games do that. But it is just so good that it makes up for those failings.
I also have Uprising and played that a few times both alone and with Rise of Ix. I am a bit torn. The card set in Uprising has too many very special-purpose cards for my taste. It really needs to be bulked out with the more "generic" cards from the base game. And I don't think spies add enough to be worth the extra fiddle. Still quite good from the base Dune Imperium mechanics though.
We immediately took some internet houserules to make the draft options turn over more quickly. Was it just Atomics you were thinking of to fix a real problem of stagnant card purchase options?
We've played dune Imperium base a million times and like it better than the expansions, but it's easy to forget we tweaked a couple things
Atomics is from the 2nd expansion. What I thought needed fixing in the base game was the area covered by the new board from Ix having some poorly designed actions (especially Sell Melange). Also Research Station (draw 3) is just too good even for 2 water.
edit: Also I just really like the techs, dreadnaughts and new cards from Rise of Ix. Makes for a wider range of possible ways to win (especially the techs with endgame points). But those are more "good additions" than fixing problems.
Further edit: also we almost always play 4 player and with just the base game you get quite a few turns with no interesting choices for where to send an agent once people start unlocking their swordmasters. Just having a few more spaces on the board helps.
RiemannLives on
Attacked by tweeeeeeees!
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Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
Dune Imperium (with both expansions) has become one of my favorite games over the last year or so. I think the old SU&SD video made a good point that the theme is pretty thin. You could take the exact same mechanics and probably apply a totally different theme with no gameplay changes. And also it is a game whose first expansion (Rise of Ix) fixed some real problems to the point I cannot recommend just the base game. And I hate it when games do that. But it is just so good that it makes up for those failings.
I also have Uprising and played that a few times both alone and with Rise of Ix. I am a bit torn. The card set in Uprising has too many very special-purpose cards for my taste. It really needs to be bulked out with the more "generic" cards from the base game. And I don't think spies add enough to be worth the extra fiddle. Still quite good from the base Dune Imperium mechanics though.
We immediately took some internet houserules to make the draft options turn over more quickly. Was it just Atomics you were thinking of to fix a real problem of stagnant card purchase options?
We've played dune Imperium base a million times and like it better than the expansions, but it's easy to forget we tweaked a couple things
Atomics is from the 2nd expansion. What I thought needed fixing in the base game was the area covered by the new board from Ix having some poorly designed actions (especially Sell Melange). Also Research Station (draw 3) is just too good even for 2 water.
edit: Also I just really like the techs, dreadnaughts and new cards from Rise of Ix. Makes for a wider range of possible ways to win (especially the techs with endgame points). But those are more "good additions" than fixing problems.
Further edit: also we almost always play 4 player and with just the base game you get quite a few turns with no interesting choices for where to send an agent once people start unlocking their swordmasters. Just having a few more spaces on the board helps.
Yeah we always play 4p as well, and we still start at 0vp for a slightly longer game. I think we really like the tightness of the congested board, though more wouldn't be good.
My friend, after playing Dune Imperium, is a massive Dune fan and got me reading the books. She is on the side that the game is thematic. She said it made her "feel like a Bene Gesserit." So I guess that it depends on your perception.
My friend, after playing Dune Imperium, is a massive Dune fan and got me reading the books. She is on the side that the game is thematic. She said it made her "feel like a Bene Gesserit." So I guess that it depends on your perception.
Probably a big thing hanging over Dune Imperium (unfairly!) in that regard is the old 1970s Dune game that got reprinted a couple years ago. And was just reprinted again with art from the movies so every character is no longer a white guy!
That is one of the most important and interesting games ever made when it comes to meshing together theme and mechanics. So I think Imperium might suffer a bit in comparison.
Matt Colville did an excellent job in both teaching that wackity ass old game to his friends but also explaining what makes it so interesting. And he really delves into some stuff that Quinns entirely missed in the SU&SD review (which is still a good review though)
Dune Imperium (with both expansions) has become one of my favorite games over the last year or so. I think the old SU&SD video made a good point that the theme is pretty thin. You could take the exact same mechanics and probably apply a totally different theme with no gameplay changes. And also it is a game whose first expansion (Rise of Ix) fixed some real problems to the point I cannot recommend just the base game. And I hate it when games do that. But it is just so good that it makes up for those failings.
I also have Uprising and played that a few times both alone and with Rise of Ix. I am a bit torn. The card set in Uprising has too many very special-purpose cards for my taste. It really needs to be bulked out with the more "generic" cards from the base game. And I don't think spies add enough to be worth the extra fiddle. Still quite good from the base Dune Imperium mechanics though.
We immediately took some internet houserules to make the draft options turn over more quickly. Was it just Atomics you were thinking of to fix a real problem of stagnant card purchase options?
We've played dune Imperium base a million times and like it better than the expansions, but it's easy to forget we tweaked a couple things
Atomics is from the 2nd expansion. What I thought needed fixing in the base game was the area covered by the new board from Ix having some poorly designed actions (especially Sell Melange). Also Research Station (draw 3) is just too good even for 2 water.
edit: Also I just really like the techs, dreadnaughts and new cards from Rise of Ix. Makes for a wider range of possible ways to win (especially the techs with endgame points). But those are more "good additions" than fixing problems.
Further edit: also we almost always play 4 player and with just the base game you get quite a few turns with no interesting choices for where to send an agent once people start unlocking their swordmasters. Just having a few more spaces on the board helps.
Yeah we always play 4p as well, and we still start at 0vp for a slightly longer game. I think we really like the tightness of the congested board, though more wouldn't be good.
What are your thoughts on sell melange?
I think it pumps too much solari into the game for too few actions making getting the swordmaster early a dominating strategy. With both expansions you need the swordmaster at some point to win but you can go for it later if you use your early turns for different good things.
edit: at least one, possibly 2 people can get their swordmaster before the end of the second round
oh also the optional 12 vp version where you use the optional card Control the Spice is fun as long as everyone has played before. We don't use that mode every time but its pretty neat.
My friend, after playing Dune Imperium, is a massive Dune fan and got me reading the books. She is on the side that the game is thematic. She said it made her "feel like a Bene Gesserit." So I guess that it depends on your perception.
Probably a big thing hanging over Dune Imperium (unfairly!) in that regard is the old 1970s Dune game that got reprinted a couple years ago. And was just reprinted again with art from the movies so every character is no longer a white guy!
That is one of the most important and interesting games ever made when it comes to meshing together theme and mechanics. So I think Imperium might suffer a bit in comparison.
Matt Colville did an excellent job in both teaching that wackity ass old game to his friends but also explaining what makes it so interesting. And he really delves into some stuff that Quinns entirely missed in the SU&SD review (which is still a good review though)
I picked up a copy of the Dune reprint and copies of all the expansions. It is surprisingly modern in its design feel, very thematic and once you learn the rules quite quick to play each turn. Also, with all the expansions you can have up to 12 players, which is a high player count and may not be the best gameplay, but it's a fun option to have when you get a large group of people who have played before out to game night.
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I played Pan Am for a second time but I didn't learn much because I fell behind on destination cards and just failed for the rest of the game. Surprisingly good for how we heard about it and how much it cost but maybe not a top tier game with staying power for us
I played Food Chain Magnate on Friday with some new people and it's always a blast. I went starting marketing guy since they were all new and advised they all go starting Recruiting Girl or starting Trainer and it was anybody's game when we called it after 3 hours (including setup and teach)
I really couldn't follow it either. "It's worker placement. You can only place workers if you have a card for that space. Actions are tight early game, too loose later" was the only gameplay impression I could get out of it.
I can do better than that! It's half deckbuilding, half worker placement. It's a very tight brutal point salad game with only ten points total. You never have enough actions to do what you want to do and you have to split your workers between engine building and the 3 main sources of points. One of the three is a single battlefield that produces much of the player interaction. One of the three is a set of 4 point tracks with points for two jumps or more and points for most jumps. The last is buying point cards that clog your deck like provinces in dominion
Mainly off a monster turn using Irrestible Call to grab everything and dump it into a jungle, and then the rats ate everyone and it cascaded. 5 towns, 5+ explorers, 4+ cities all died in one turn. We won the very next round on fear cards because, yeeeeah.
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Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
The folks at BGG have rated it as the #1 solo game for several years running, so it’s doing something right.
Two is the best way to learn SI, in my opinion. If you don't have at least a couple of smaller-scale games under your belt bigger player counts lead to a weird bordergore type situation where everyone has handled their board as best they could and somewhere there's a thriving metropolis that nobody has a good way to attend to.
Also, several spirits really come into their own in 4-player and play very different there, but without a solid knowledge of the fundamentals they're just going to chug.
I very much do want to grab a copy of it, it'll be a nice change to our competitive co-operative in Wingspan, or our flatout cut-throat deathbrawl that is Oceans with Legends of the Deep.
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You would think they could have fit that short summary somewhere in that 30 minute video!
Does anyone have a different opinion than them on the Ix/Immortality/Uprising comparisons?
How long would you say the teach is for Uprising?
I haven't learned uprising
We really like the original with a few houserules and we thought each expansion made it way less tight and brutal so we're not very impressed with the design iteration
It seems a little like the base game was a lightning strike and they can't duplicate it, to us
I think uprising is more popular maybe though?
This is roughly where the people in my game group that love The game landed, though I'm not really sure their thoughts on uprising.
I'm a big fan of the game. My family doesn't like horror board games and it's hard to get a group together lately so being able to run through Final Girl in the basement while listening to some horror soundtracks is a great way to relax. I got Camp Happy Trails and Panic at Station 2891 to start and enjoyed them. Backed S3 and got the North Pole Nightmare feature which is great and adds some fun mechanics and came with minis in the box which was cool. Still waiting on delivery for the rest of the goodies.
- Each box has 2 final girls (and their secret envelopes)
- Each killer has 3 finale cards and 1 epic finale card - you choose one (random)
- Each killer has 3 dark power cards and 1 epic dark power card - you choose one (random)
- After combining the killer and location terror cards, you only use 10 of them, or approx. 1/3.
- You only use 12 of the total item cards out of.. I wanna say 25 or so?
- There are multiple setups that dictate where you, the killer, and victims all start. I want to say like 4-6 variants?
- There are quite a few event cards, and you are only ever guaranteed to see 1 - the rest are drawn by the terror deck
- The final hit point for the FG and the killer is also randomized and unknown at the start - you could think you win, but in reality you still need to deal 1, 2, or 3 more damage.
And that's just the baseline variations. Feature films can have other things that can swap out, and then you can always swap killers and locations.
Absolutely top tier solo game, in my opinion. I've probably played it more solo than with a group.
I think.... I might like it more than the mainline game? Just feels a heck of a lot less fiddly and a lot smoother to play.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Anyway, Wandering Voices Keen Delirium is pretty good and very funny.
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Have you seen the Frosthaven box in stores? Ho-lee shit. 35 lbs.!!!
Europe Divided
Suspects
Stifling Dark?
(aside for how much I hate reddit moderators. It's against their "rules" to start a thread asking about any particular game and you will get deleted. You have to post in a specific recommendation thread, but a new one is made every day and if no one answers you the same day, your question is pushed down into past threads.)
Played Brian Boru 4-player for the second time. I brought the game out because it's been sitting on my shelf and I was wondering if it was worth keeping, so thought it would be nice to get to the table again. This one is interesting because "how do I play this well?" seems very non-obvious. My recollection is that I got smashed in the first game, and I sure did also get smashed in this game too. However the game also doesn't take that long to play, and if you played it regularly you could definitely bang it out in under an hour, and the way the draft and card-play work are still fun. I think it's just a matter of getting a better grip on "what a good hand actually looks like."
Anyway largely due to the production values being great, the box being small, and the game being quick, I'm happy to continue holding onto this one for now. Unlike a lot of my games, it feels reasonable to expect this could actually hit the table a bit more often simply because it doesn't take up a whole evening.
After that we played Faux Diamonds - this is a much more traditional trick taking game than Brian Boru. The main wrinkle is that the suits are gemstones, and each gemstone has its own market value that changes pretty frequently. Players are trying to win hands (or play off-suit) at the right times to maximize their sales values every round, and then you just total points across a number of rounds == number of players. There are many different setups, so scoring ranges and the way each type of gemstone scores can vary quite a bit. It wasn't my favourite trick taking game, but it's certainly not a bad one. I might've been coloured a bit by the particular set of markets we had in play? Since there are many more opportunities to score points playing off-trump, the game seemed to encourage a kind of asymmetry where - ideally - your whole hand doesn't interact with other players gems and you just score every play. It both feels cool to rake in all the cash, and lame in that you're playing a trick-taking game that rewards you for not interacting with the main play. Practically-speaking, there's too many big-name games these days that are multiplayer solitaire, so I'm rather anemic towards small-box games doing the same.
Finally I suggested we break out The Mind to foster that engagement with each other. We played three games and actually made it to level 8 on the third play before collapsing. One of our players was just a little too renegade throughout, but honestly that "finding the shared tempo" is what makes the game a delight with friends.
Everybody knows this game by now and how they feel about it. Somehow this remains one of my favourite little boxes.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Does it work at all officially supported player counts?
Space Base is one of my favorite board games. Sadly I haven't gotten to play with Saga Edition 2 yet, so its mysteries are still waiting for me.
Last year, AEG did a.. weird kickstarter that was like "Here's expansions for 4 of our popular games. We're gonna lump them all together and use this as a preorder." Or.. something like that. Naturally, Space Base was part of that.
The expansion boxes look so lonely without the saga component hidden boxes in them.
That said, I was worried that this would spoil mechanics from the expansions. Turns out, it does not. Any mechanics introduced in the expansion are reprinted in the rulebook, but this instead focuses on one-time use powers and more stuff to interact with other players. Which is cool!
Edit: Oooh! Another instant-win card!
- over $100 for just the base game shipped, no addons
- won't arrive for nine months
- may not ever arrive because it's crowd funding despite being a second printing of something that presumably did well enough to merit a second print
I'll try to forget about it, and be pleasantly surprised when I randomly see it on a store shelf in like three years.
Dune Imperium? I have not tried 3v3 and don't care to, but I do know that:
At solo or two players, the AI deck works fine as a spoiler to keep things tense.
And at 3 players the game is comfortable and 4 is most tense.
Because it was reveled at Adepticon there was various videos on YT breaking down the other revels other than Games Workshop's stuff. It is interesting how personal bias and lack of interest does creep into their talks.
Star Wars Legion I don't play it as I know of no one in the area showed off various things. But I do find it funny how Shatterpoint did bounce off hard various people so the general talk is meh There was a lot more than I knew about shown at it but I am not feeling like watching hours of video
I also have Uprising and played that a few times both alone and with Rise of Ix. I am a bit torn. The card set in Uprising has too many very special-purpose cards for my taste. It really needs to be bulked out with the more "generic" cards from the base game. And I don't think spies add enough to be worth the extra fiddle. Still quite good from the base Dune Imperium mechanics though.
We immediately took some internet houserules to make the draft options turn over more quickly. Was it just Atomics you were thinking of to fix a real problem of stagnant card purchase options?
We've played dune Imperium base a million times and like it better than the expansions, but it's easy to forget we tweaked a couple things
Atomics is from the 2nd expansion. What I thought needed fixing in the base game was the area covered by the new board from Ix having some poorly designed actions (especially Sell Melange). Also Research Station (draw 3) is just too good even for 2 water.
edit: Also I just really like the techs, dreadnaughts and new cards from Rise of Ix. Makes for a wider range of possible ways to win (especially the techs with endgame points). But those are more "good additions" than fixing problems.
Further edit: also we almost always play 4 player and with just the base game you get quite a few turns with no interesting choices for where to send an agent once people start unlocking their swordmasters. Just having a few more spaces on the board helps.
Yeah we always play 4p as well, and we still start at 0vp for a slightly longer game. I think we really like the tightness of the congested board, though more wouldn't be good.
What are your thoughts on sell melange?
Probably a big thing hanging over Dune Imperium (unfairly!) in that regard is the old 1970s Dune game that got reprinted a couple years ago. And was just reprinted again with art from the movies so every character is no longer a white guy!
That is one of the most important and interesting games ever made when it comes to meshing together theme and mechanics. So I think Imperium might suffer a bit in comparison.
Matt Colville did an excellent job in both teaching that wackity ass old game to his friends but also explaining what makes it so interesting. And he really delves into some stuff that Quinns entirely missed in the SU&SD review (which is still a good review though)
I think it pumps too much solari into the game for too few actions making getting the swordmaster early a dominating strategy. With both expansions you need the swordmaster at some point to win but you can go for it later if you use your early turns for different good things.
edit: at least one, possibly 2 people can get their swordmaster before the end of the second round
I picked up a copy of the Dune reprint and copies of all the expansions. It is surprisingly modern in its design feel, very thematic and once you learn the rules quite quick to play each turn. Also, with all the expansions you can have up to 12 players, which is a high player count and may not be the best gameplay, but it's a fun option to have when you get a large group of people who have played before out to game night.