Well, huge disappointment with Run, Fight, or Die and it flopped hard all 3 times we tried to play it.
It's basically King of Tokyo with zombies. That, plus it seemed to have a great mechanic where you got victory points based on the number of survivor followers you had, with survivors being worth more points the less helpful they were (an army veteran worth less points than a screaming cheerleader who attracted more zombies every turn).
You have hordes of zombies advancing on each player with long, medium, and short distance. Rolling a gun can kill one zombie at any distance, while a bat kills 2 zombies at short distance. Zombies advance one zone every turn and every one that gets through past short distance inflicts a wound on you.
It seemed like a fun King of Tokyo meets the fun zombie trope theme of the cards in Last Night on Earth. What could go wrong?
But it's so horribly, horribly drawn out, dragging, fiddly, and boring. You have to roll a separate event die every turn with hard to see symbols and consult a separate chart to see what that does (necklace? moon?). Then 2 of the die rolls have their own charts you have to consult. 2 "book of the dead"s lets you draw 2 events and choose 1 or draw 1 location, 3 books lets you draw 2 keep 1 survivors or 2 locations, 4 lets you take 2 survivors while 5 lets you steal. Okay, now let's consult the chart for the discovery die result...
It's just a mess that drags. Everyone is just staring at the 3 charts every turn trying to figure out what to do with your roll. The only thing that matters for ending the game and winning is followers, yet you're messing around with FOUR different card decks: events, locations, equipment, and survivors. Many cards require you to check something at the start of your next turn. Everything is a constant slog of consulting 3 charts to figure out how many of which cards from 4 decks you draw, then keeping track of effects that kick in one time next turn.
90% of your time is spent keeping zombies at bay or dealing with cards unrelated to drawing more survivors. Unlike King of Tokyo where the game eventually ends because statistically more wounds are rolled than heals, or everyone is always getting points, RFoD takes forever because no one is guaranteed to eventually die and the only other way to end the game is to gather a bunch of survivors which takes forever because most of your dice have to go towards fending off zombies and you only get survivors by rolling two or three of the same 1 in 6 symbols, and on top of that there are a ton of cards that make you lose survivors. Every game dragged and people just wanted it to end.
Huge disappointment. It might be more fun if you house ruled it by just getting rid of the event die and merging the 2 "get survivors" die facings into the same one so it's easier to get survivors. Unfortunately we'll never get to try it since it will never reach the table again.
Two things about DoW: first, I always play with the variant where it very likely that there's a traitor. Even if everybody loses, I still like the game better that way.
Second, I think the basic flaws with DoW are pretty well established: the traitor can go twice in certain circumstances, can kill off his own people with basically no repercussions, and searching is like a triple benefit: it makes noise, takes out the best cards, and allows the traitor to fill up the trash. DoW is a game that, for the sake of approachability and game length, is missing that last "layer" of game mechanics, where the players can hold back resources for last-minute mitigation or limiting of traitor actions. BSG is the game infamous for having soul-crushing traitor actions, but ironically it's pretty hard to tank multiple things at once. I would have LOVED a DoW expansion that added this layer, or that contained modules to directly hinder (or aid) the traitor. Like how you can seamlessly add roles in Werewolf to strengthen one side or the other.
I've never liked the "pseudo traitor" mechanic, that I think I first saw with the Cylon leaders in BSG. There's just so little meaningful tells between the pseudo traitor's and full blown traitor's actions that you often can't make an informed decision against them until it's too late.
Dark Moon has ruined all other traitor games for me. It has a simplicity that keeps things moving, with just enough meatiness to make it interesting without slowing things down, and the best balance of plausible deniability for the traitors.
I'm looking forward to "Who Goes There?", the hidden traitor game based on the book that The Thing was based on, hopefully making it a better The Thing game than The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31. Looks like it has an interesting twist where players can start human but secretly become infected during the game. I think it works something like every time a player goes off alone, they have to draw a loyalty card that might make them infected. They don't draw if they're with someone else, but time/resource constraints makes it necessary to split up and go it alone at some point.
Two things about DoW: first, I always play with the variant where it very likely that there's a traitor. Even if everybody loses, I still like the game better that way.
Second, I think the basic flaws with DoW are pretty well established: the traitor can go twice in certain circumstances, can kill off his own people with basically no repercussions, and searching is like a triple benefit: it makes noise, takes out the best cards, and allows the traitor to fill up the trash. DoW is a game that, for the sake of approachability and game length, is missing that last "layer" of game mechanics, where the players can hold back resources for last-minute mitigation or limiting of traitor actions. BSG is the game infamous for having soul-crushing traitor actions, but ironically it's pretty hard to tank multiple things at once. I would have LOVED a DoW expansion that added this layer, or that contained modules to directly hinder (or aid) the traitor. Like how you can seamlessly add roles in Werewolf to strengthen one side or the other.
I've never liked the "pseudo traitor" mechanic, that I think I first saw with the Cylon leaders in BSG. There's just so little meaningful tells between the pseudo traitor's and full blown traitor's actions that you often can't make an informed decision against them until it's too late.
Dark Moon has ruined all other traitor games for me. It has a simplicity that keeps things moving, with just enough meatiness to make it interesting without slowing things down, and the best balance of plausible deniability for the traitors.
See, I like that about DoW, that the difference between full-blown traitor and selfish motivations are often difficult to distinguish. Archipelago is a much different game but has that same kind of "selfish motivation" feel. But since the DoW traitor can do so much damage in a single turn, there's not much wiggle room.
This remind me that I've seriously considered adding a house rule to DoW for searching. One idea is to make a rule where you can only "make noise" while searching twice on your turn, but you get two extra "search" tokens at the end of your turn, that allow you to make further noise while searching, and they can be traded away. If someone starts to hoard them or won't share, that's pretty suspicious. But hey, house rules are like elbows -- everybody's got a couple of them.
But anyway, I've heard of Dark Moon but haven't played. I'll put it on my "keep an eye out" list, that sounds neat.
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When I was a child, I had a fever... My BoardGameGeek profile
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Speaking of Dead of Winter, I just picked up DoW: The Long Night at the local swap meet for $30. It was technically used, but never played. Components were punched out and bagged. The guy selling it mentioned New Angeles (Fantasy Flight, based in the Netrunner setting that I know nothing about) was the next level up and really cool. I drove home listening to reviews about it, but now I'll see what Dark Moon is about.
Eventually I want a kind of lean board game collection where I have the apex predator in each category.
Dark Moon started out as a fan made streamlined BSG that took out the space portion. Instead of cards, you have hidden die rolls. 4 of the faces are negative numbers and only 2 are positive. Everyone chooses to roll their dice secretly for a crises then submit at least one to contribute. Someone submits a negative claiming it's all they rolled and the meat is determining if they are lying. They eventually re themed it to a different setting to sell it as a different game.
Plays in about 1 hour. The dice work so much better than the BSG skill cards. You know exactly who contributed what but now they claim probability as an excuse.
Best game was where one player revealed as infected early, then nobody made any questionable play the rest of the game. Everyone going out of their way to help out the team. We blazed through the events with almost no damage until the game was nearly over. Where the heck is the 2nd infected? Everyone wondered. Then I glanced at the final event'a fine print.
"Protect destruct codes. If the event is completed and the commander (I.e. Admiral) is infected, the infected team wins."
The commander has to be infected, I shouted! That's the only way staying hidden and never making a play makes sense! We should throw him in quarantine (brig) and transfer command right before the end!
The commander protested, and pointed out that I must be infected, because it would be my turn before his and the commander title would go to me if he was quarantined since I had called the vote. This made everyone suspicious of me and opinion was split. Okay then, I issued an order (executive order) to another player and told him to call the quarantine vote and make himself commander. The former commander was silent for a while before admitting that made sense. Vote was cast, commander put in quarantine, command passed. Next turn th final crises was passed and the game ended. Former commander flips to reveal an infected role card. He said he had no argument left against me when I proposed changing command to someone else besides myself. If we hadn't caught that fine print literally one turn before the end, the infected would have won a stealth victory.
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
Interesting, I've only heard fairly negative things about Dark Moon before (largely because you can now hide behind probability).
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Having played Reef Encounter 4p now I think it might not be it's best 4p. I'm thinking 3 night be the sweet spot. It's a really crunchy tactical puzzle, but that means the more stuff changes by the time it comes back around to your the longer you have to crunch on your turn. The lack of being able to plan plus the wildly different board state that can come back around to you on your turn made it a little less than ideal downtime wise 4p. Still fun, but I think 3 would hit the sweet spot between downtime and fluidity of the board state. 2 is great also but way way more in your face (naturally).
Interesting, I've only heard fairly negative things about Dark Moon before (largely because you can now hide behind probability).
Well there's other stuff too. They take the "draw 2, choose 1" mechanic from the BSG destiny deck (and sort of Secret Hitler laws) and expand it. Now everyone secretly draws 2 crises at the end of their turn and chooses 1 to play. Also there are "events" which are the equivalent of the BSG destiny deck that the commander (admiral) secretly chooses from 2 choices. You can start getting an idea who an infected is based off their choices. Also everyone has a limited die pool that's used up and replenished on their turn. Someone can choose to roll with only 2 or 1 dice which further puts them under suspicion since the probability of rolling a positive isn't really in your favor at that point. You can also choose sneaky stuff like maybe you rolled a +1 and +4, but only submit the +1 so you can say you helped and are totally an average joe uninfected human.
Plus half the crises cards aren't rolls at all, but more "trust fall" choices. You choose a player for an act of trust and if they refuse, the base is damaged (like damaging Galactica locations), but if you accept, you progress on the victory path. Stuff like choose a player to decide if they permanently give you one of their dice, or a blood test where you choose a player and they decide to show (only) you their loyalty card. The benefits of agreeing are huge because it's like a free advance on the BSG jump prep track, and if both players are human you have nothing to worry about! But paranoia stops you from agreeing all the time because an infected could cause trouble with them, also infecteds can refuse and make arguments to support it.
So you have all those factors giving you an idea to start judging people on. I've never played a game where I wasn't totally satisfied in the bluff options.
(well, there was one game where the infamous "Sally" joined and instantly blew her fellow infected's cover while breaking 3 different rules)
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
It remains interesting to me that BSG remains the king of long form hidden traitor games and there are so few attempts to dethrone it. I can think of Dead of Winter and Dark Moon. Maybe Homeland?
I'd at the very least like to see FFG revise it as it is dated by modern standards (even if they were to rebadge it with the Rex setting)
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Tried the Exit game Polar Station last night with the fam.
Ouch! We did the Abandoned Cabin before and only had to look up one puzzle in that (crescent moon). This one we had to look up at least partial hints on all but one or two puzzles. I'd say about a quarter of them we had to look up the full solution and some of them still barely made sense (the screen with the letters and numbers?). There were a bunch that required placement of objects and even after the solution told us exactly where to place them, we still had trouble getting the right code numbers.
And it was only considered difficulty level 3/5 compared to Abandoned Cabin's 2.5/5! I dread to even open the Pharoah's Tomb. Was considering Secret Lab next.
Tried the Exit game Polar Station last night with the fam.
Ouch! We did the Abandoned Cabin before and only had to look up one puzzle in that (crescent moon). This one we had to look up at least partial hints on all but one or two puzzles. I'd say about a quarter of them we had to look up the full solution and some of them still barely made sense (the screen with the letters and numbers?). There were a bunch that required placement of objects and even after the solution told us exactly where to place them, we still had trouble getting the right code numbers.
And it was only considered difficulty level 3/5 compared to Abandoned Cabin's 2.5/5! I dread to even open the Pharoah's Tomb. Was considering Secret Lab next.
Pharoah's Tomb is the one we had the hardest time with I think. Maybe the Forgotten Castle.
One the topic of escape room games, has anyone tried Escape Room In A Box: The Werewolf Experiment. Haven't heard of it before and it showed up when I was looking for the new Exit games, and I'm a sucker for escape rooms.
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38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
It remains interesting to me that BSG remains the king of long form hidden traitor games and there are so few attempts to dethrone it. I can think of Dead of Winter and Dark Moon. Maybe Homeland?
I'd at the very least like to see FFG revise it as it is dated by modern standards (even if they were to rebadge it with the Rex setting)
Well, at least at the 5 player niche.
They must still have the license I thought I heard there is a space combat x-wing type game coming out from FFG soon.
Soloed through the tutorial first legend of Legends of Andorra just now to learn the rules. It seems really rad. Also, really really tight and brutal 0_0 I won the tutorial on the last possible turn...
Played Azul for the first time today. It is a game! I don't know that I was super excited about it, but it didn't do anything to turn me off, so I imagine I will be playing it again at some point.
Also finally got in another game of Mechs vs Minions. It had been a long time since we had last played, but fortunately the new scenario was pretty laid back, so we had plenty of time to build up strong programs and then go stomp a ton of minions. Hopefully we will not have to wait as long for the next game!
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Soloed through the tutorial first legend of Legends of Andorra just now to learn the rules. It seems really rad. Also, really really tight and brutal 0_0 I won the tutorial on the last possible turn...
Legends of Andor? If so it IS fucking brutal. We have finished scenarios on the last turn by the skin of our teeth, and have easily lost more games than we have won. It is fun though!
They must still have the license I thought I heard there is a space combat x-wing type game coming out from FFG soon.
Ares is putting out the upcoming X-Wing equivalent in the BSG universe, not FFG.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
I played Scythe for the first time!
Some thoughts:
-I spent the first half of the game upset because I was clearly losing—compared to my two opponents, who were spreading faster and getting their mechs out sooner while I plugged away ineptly eking my way towards some goddamn wood. Then I ended up winning with 80-something points to their 40-something and 30-something.
-The way the action board works is really good and helps the game move fast. It didn’t take long before I knew how to do what I wanted to do, even if I wasn’t sure about overal strategy until near the end.
-If you start with two objective cards and never draw any more, why does the deck go on the board?
-Playing with three definitely seemed to discourage combat, or even serious interaction. Nobody really even needed to jockey for space, we only had one fight, and other than that, one instance of extortion, and some mild race to the event token moments, it really felt like competitive econ engine solitaire. Fighting overall seemed prohibitively expensive for what you get even if you win. Possibly it’s a better tool in the hands of more strategic (or simply more numerous) players, but it feels like a narrow one.
Overall I respect that the game is a really good effort at making a better Euro, but it still feels like a dry-ass Euro to me. The lore of alt-history European nation states infighting with dieselpunk mechs is super cool, but the game does not mechanically represent that very well (you can make a cool little plastic mini but it still plays like a van or a tank or whatever). That doesn’t make it a bad game but it does make it not really to my taste.
Fighting isn't something you do frivolously but it does have benefits. The winner does get that star which is kinda a big deal, TWO stars if it ties into an objective. There's a chance you'll capture stuff.
There's also how it hurts your opponent. Maybe you bluffed him to throw away all his power. You're also sending his units back to the starting space which sets him back actions, the most valuable resource of Scythe. This especially can hurt if it's his character you send back to start and cut him off from encounter tokens or the factory.
And speaking of that, fighting really comes into play at the end since holding the factory is a big deal. Usually around a 15 coin swing.
I'm not sure that there's ever an opportunity to steal much in Scythe.
It seems like you should be focusing on actions that either provide the resources to perform their own lower action or those that fire of each other in a 2-cycle.
Which leaves either only surplus or unwanted resources on the board, and not much of either.
Perhaps after someone has finished an encounter and been awarded a stockpile of resources far away from their base?
But that just devalues that encounter option compared to the others, and the encounter itself is basically a third action for the turn, so doing another option or losing the resources later is not that much of a problem.
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
My experience with fighting was also that
1 - It's mechanically pretty boring and bland, and
2 - It almost never happens unless someone knows they can't lose, and
3 - Possibly a really shitty idea to try depending on the factions in question, making #2 even more common.
Fighting isn't something you do frivolously but it does have benefits. The winner does get that star which is kinda a big deal, TWO stars if it ties into an objective. There's a chance you'll capture stuff.
There's also how it hurts your opponent. Maybe you bluffed him to throw away all his power. You're also sending his units back to the starting space which sets him back actions, the most valuable resource of Scythe. This especially can hurt if it's his character you send back to start and cut him off from encounter tokens or the factory.
And speaking of that, fighting really comes into play at the end since holding the factory is a big deal. Usually around a 15 coin swing.
Fighting isn't something you do frivolously but it does have benefits. The winner does get that star which is kinda a big deal, TWO stars if it ties into an objective. There's a chance you'll capture stuff.
There's also how it hurts your opponent. Maybe you bluffed him to throw away all his power. You're also sending his units back to the starting space which sets him back actions, the most valuable resource of Scythe. This especially can hurt if it's his character you send back to start and cut him off from encounter tokens or the factory.
And speaking of that, fighting really comes into play at the end since holding the factory is a big deal. Usually around a 15 coin swing.
What do you get for holding the factory?
The factory counts as 3 territories instead of 1 for purposes of final scoring (where each territory is worth 3-5 coins depending on your popularity level).
Not only do you get it by taking the factory at the end, but you're denying it from someone else.
MrBody on
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Hah, I don’t think any of us remembered that. Nobody held the factory at the end, and I probably could have since I ended the game with a move action that spread my troops out to three new territories.
Not that it would have mattered to the outcome.
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
Hah, I don’t think any of us remembered that. Nobody held the factory at the end, and I probably could have since I ended the game with a move action that spread my troops out to three new territories.
Not that it would have mattered to the outcome.
If it makes you feel any better I threw a game of Explorers of the North Sea Friday by forgetting to leave my dudes in place to take over an island and chasing a boat instead.
The objective deck thing in Scythe is something that had confused me since my first play. We never put the rest of the deck on the board, just to save a tiny bit of clutter.
The objective deck thing in Scythe is something that had confused me since my first play. We never put the rest of the deck on the board, just to save a tiny bit of clutter.
The official reason was always to support future expansions (same reason that every faction's board says to draw two cards). So either Rise of Fenris will use the objective deck in some way, or it just never became necessary.
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
edited June 2018
Mmm, the Tang Garden kickstarter went up, and I'm mostly disappointed it's a kickstarter. =_= I'd been following it for a couple of months and thought it was just nearing release, so this kinda sucks. Also, all the usual kickstarter bells and whistles, which, like, I realized is actually really turning me off the format? Make your game feature complete ... fuckin' eh. Sure, upgrade components to be a bit nicer or something, toss in some bonus for supporting, but stop doing shit like doubling the number of components in the box. I hate it so much because I know exactly why it makes those campaigns successful.
Kickstarter has tanked my overall enthusiasm about boardgames substantially.
Join me on the grumpy side.
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Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
Alternatively: Kickstarter is great for boardgames as it's given a route for all kinds of new stuff to get a release
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KasynI'm not saying I don't like our chances.She called me the master.Registered Userregular
Kickstarter is almost becoming a matter of process in the development of every board game, with the exception of titles being developed/published by an extremely small number of incredibly well established people. If you resent it right now, you are in for a tough time in this hobby.
Embrace it! I think it's a pretty great way to discover upcoming games and stay up on the pulse of the industry.
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
Alternatively: Kickstarter is great for boardgames as it's given a route for all kinds of new stuff to get a release
This is true.
But I am also totally burned out on Kickstarter and find myself generally preferring traditional retail releases these days. I'll only back a kickstarter lately if it's a small indy company I'm already familiar with and it's unlikely their game will ever be available otherwise.
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38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
Kickstarter is almost becoming a matter of process in the development of every board game, with the exception of titles being developed/published by an extremely small number of incredibly well established people. If you resent it right now, you are in for a tough time in this hobby.
Embrace it! I think it's a pretty great way to discover upcoming games and stay up on the pulse of the industry.
When I play a game I like and want to buy it I want to hear "You can buy it right over there" not "Find a time machine"
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It's basically King of Tokyo with zombies. That, plus it seemed to have a great mechanic where you got victory points based on the number of survivor followers you had, with survivors being worth more points the less helpful they were (an army veteran worth less points than a screaming cheerleader who attracted more zombies every turn).
You have hordes of zombies advancing on each player with long, medium, and short distance. Rolling a gun can kill one zombie at any distance, while a bat kills 2 zombies at short distance. Zombies advance one zone every turn and every one that gets through past short distance inflicts a wound on you.
It seemed like a fun King of Tokyo meets the fun zombie trope theme of the cards in Last Night on Earth. What could go wrong?
But it's so horribly, horribly drawn out, dragging, fiddly, and boring. You have to roll a separate event die every turn with hard to see symbols and consult a separate chart to see what that does (necklace? moon?). Then 2 of the die rolls have their own charts you have to consult. 2 "book of the dead"s lets you draw 2 events and choose 1 or draw 1 location, 3 books lets you draw 2 keep 1 survivors or 2 locations, 4 lets you take 2 survivors while 5 lets you steal. Okay, now let's consult the chart for the discovery die result...
It's just a mess that drags. Everyone is just staring at the 3 charts every turn trying to figure out what to do with your roll. The only thing that matters for ending the game and winning is followers, yet you're messing around with FOUR different card decks: events, locations, equipment, and survivors. Many cards require you to check something at the start of your next turn. Everything is a constant slog of consulting 3 charts to figure out how many of which cards from 4 decks you draw, then keeping track of effects that kick in one time next turn.
90% of your time is spent keeping zombies at bay or dealing with cards unrelated to drawing more survivors. Unlike King of Tokyo where the game eventually ends because statistically more wounds are rolled than heals, or everyone is always getting points, RFoD takes forever because no one is guaranteed to eventually die and the only other way to end the game is to gather a bunch of survivors which takes forever because most of your dice have to go towards fending off zombies and you only get survivors by rolling two or three of the same 1 in 6 symbols, and on top of that there are a ton of cards that make you lose survivors. Every game dragged and people just wanted it to end.
Huge disappointment. It might be more fun if you house ruled it by just getting rid of the event die and merging the 2 "get survivors" die facings into the same one so it's easier to get survivors. Unfortunately we'll never get to try it since it will never reach the table again.
I've never liked the "pseudo traitor" mechanic, that I think I first saw with the Cylon leaders in BSG. There's just so little meaningful tells between the pseudo traitor's and full blown traitor's actions that you often can't make an informed decision against them until it's too late.
Dark Moon has ruined all other traitor games for me. It has a simplicity that keeps things moving, with just enough meatiness to make it interesting without slowing things down, and the best balance of plausible deniability for the traitors.
I'm looking forward to "Who Goes There?", the hidden traitor game based on the book that The Thing was based on, hopefully making it a better The Thing game than The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31. Looks like it has an interesting twist where players can start human but secretly become infected during the game. I think it works something like every time a player goes off alone, they have to draw a loyalty card that might make them infected. They don't draw if they're with someone else, but time/resource constraints makes it necessary to split up and go it alone at some point.
See, I like that about DoW, that the difference between full-blown traitor and selfish motivations are often difficult to distinguish. Archipelago is a much different game but has that same kind of "selfish motivation" feel. But since the DoW traitor can do so much damage in a single turn, there's not much wiggle room.
This remind me that I've seriously considered adding a house rule to DoW for searching. One idea is to make a rule where you can only "make noise" while searching twice on your turn, but you get two extra "search" tokens at the end of your turn, that allow you to make further noise while searching, and they can be traded away. If someone starts to hoard them or won't share, that's pretty suspicious. But hey, house rules are like elbows -- everybody's got a couple of them.
But anyway, I've heard of Dark Moon but haven't played. I'll put it on my "keep an eye out" list, that sounds neat.
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Eventually I want a kind of lean board game collection where I have the apex predator in each category.
Plays in about 1 hour. The dice work so much better than the BSG skill cards. You know exactly who contributed what but now they claim probability as an excuse.
Best game was where one player revealed as infected early, then nobody made any questionable play the rest of the game. Everyone going out of their way to help out the team. We blazed through the events with almost no damage until the game was nearly over. Where the heck is the 2nd infected? Everyone wondered. Then I glanced at the final event'a fine print.
"Protect destruct codes. If the event is completed and the commander (I.e. Admiral) is infected, the infected team wins."
The commander has to be infected, I shouted! That's the only way staying hidden and never making a play makes sense! We should throw him in quarantine (brig) and transfer command right before the end!
The commander protested, and pointed out that I must be infected, because it would be my turn before his and the commander title would go to me if he was quarantined since I had called the vote. This made everyone suspicious of me and opinion was split. Okay then, I issued an order (executive order) to another player and told him to call the quarantine vote and make himself commander. The former commander was silent for a while before admitting that made sense. Vote was cast, commander put in quarantine, command passed. Next turn th final crises was passed and the game ended. Former commander flips to reveal an infected role card. He said he had no argument left against me when I proposed changing command to someone else besides myself. If we hadn't caught that fine print literally one turn before the end, the infected would have won a stealth victory.
Well there's other stuff too. They take the "draw 2, choose 1" mechanic from the BSG destiny deck (and sort of Secret Hitler laws) and expand it. Now everyone secretly draws 2 crises at the end of their turn and chooses 1 to play. Also there are "events" which are the equivalent of the BSG destiny deck that the commander (admiral) secretly chooses from 2 choices. You can start getting an idea who an infected is based off their choices. Also everyone has a limited die pool that's used up and replenished on their turn. Someone can choose to roll with only 2 or 1 dice which further puts them under suspicion since the probability of rolling a positive isn't really in your favor at that point. You can also choose sneaky stuff like maybe you rolled a +1 and +4, but only submit the +1 so you can say you helped and are totally an average joe uninfected human.
Plus half the crises cards aren't rolls at all, but more "trust fall" choices. You choose a player for an act of trust and if they refuse, the base is damaged (like damaging Galactica locations), but if you accept, you progress on the victory path. Stuff like choose a player to decide if they permanently give you one of their dice, or a blood test where you choose a player and they decide to show (only) you their loyalty card. The benefits of agreeing are huge because it's like a free advance on the BSG jump prep track, and if both players are human you have nothing to worry about! But paranoia stops you from agreeing all the time because an infected could cause trouble with them, also infecteds can refuse and make arguments to support it.
So you have all those factors giving you an idea to start judging people on. I've never played a game where I wasn't totally satisfied in the bluff options.
(well, there was one game where the infamous "Sally" joined and instantly blew her fellow infected's cover while breaking 3 different rules)
I'd at the very least like to see FFG revise it as it is dated by modern standards (even if they were to rebadge it with the Rex setting)
Ouch! We did the Abandoned Cabin before and only had to look up one puzzle in that (crescent moon). This one we had to look up at least partial hints on all but one or two puzzles. I'd say about a quarter of them we had to look up the full solution and some of them still barely made sense (the screen with the letters and numbers?). There were a bunch that required placement of objects and even after the solution told us exactly where to place them, we still had trouble getting the right code numbers.
And it was only considered difficulty level 3/5 compared to Abandoned Cabin's 2.5/5! I dread to even open the Pharoah's Tomb. Was considering Secret Lab next.
Pharoah's Tomb is the one we had the hardest time with I think. Maybe the Forgotten Castle.
One the topic of escape room games, has anyone tried Escape Room In A Box: The Werewolf Experiment. Haven't heard of it before and it showed up when I was looking for the new Exit games, and I'm a sucker for escape rooms.
Well, at least at the 5 player niche.
They must still have the license I thought I heard there is a space combat x-wing type game coming out from FFG soon.
Also finally got in another game of Mechs vs Minions. It had been a long time since we had last played, but fortunately the new scenario was pretty laid back, so we had plenty of time to build up strong programs and then go stomp a ton of minions. Hopefully we will not have to wait as long for the next game!
Legends of Andor? If so it IS fucking brutal. We have finished scenarios on the last turn by the skin of our teeth, and have easily lost more games than we have won. It is fun though!
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Ares is putting out the upcoming X-Wing equivalent in the BSG universe, not FFG.
Some thoughts:
-I spent the first half of the game upset because I was clearly losing—compared to my two opponents, who were spreading faster and getting their mechs out sooner while I plugged away ineptly eking my way towards some goddamn wood. Then I ended up winning with 80-something points to their 40-something and 30-something.
-The way the action board works is really good and helps the game move fast. It didn’t take long before I knew how to do what I wanted to do, even if I wasn’t sure about overal strategy until near the end.
-If you start with two objective cards and never draw any more, why does the deck go on the board?
-Playing with three definitely seemed to discourage combat, or even serious interaction. Nobody really even needed to jockey for space, we only had one fight, and other than that, one instance of extortion, and some mild race to the event token moments, it really felt like competitive econ engine solitaire. Fighting overall seemed prohibitively expensive for what you get even if you win. Possibly it’s a better tool in the hands of more strategic (or simply more numerous) players, but it feels like a narrow one.
Overall I respect that the game is a really good effort at making a better Euro, but it still feels like a dry-ass Euro to me. The lore of alt-history European nation states infighting with dieselpunk mechs is super cool, but the game does not mechanically represent that very well (you can make a cool little plastic mini but it still plays like a van or a tank or whatever). That doesn’t make it a bad game but it does make it not really to my taste.
There's also how it hurts your opponent. Maybe you bluffed him to throw away all his power. You're also sending his units back to the starting space which sets him back actions, the most valuable resource of Scythe. This especially can hurt if it's his character you send back to start and cut him off from encounter tokens or the factory.
And speaking of that, fighting really comes into play at the end since holding the factory is a big deal. Usually around a 15 coin swing.
It seems like you should be focusing on actions that either provide the resources to perform their own lower action or those that fire of each other in a 2-cycle.
Which leaves either only surplus or unwanted resources on the board, and not much of either.
Perhaps after someone has finished an encounter and been awarded a stockpile of resources far away from their base?
But that just devalues that encounter option compared to the others, and the encounter itself is basically a third action for the turn, so doing another option or losing the resources later is not that much of a problem.
1 - It's mechanically pretty boring and bland, and
2 - It almost never happens unless someone knows they can't lose, and
3 - Possibly a really shitty idea to try depending on the factions in question, making #2 even more common.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Kingsport Festival $10 deal of the day, if anyone wants Cthulhu Kingsburg
What do you get for holding the factory?
The factory counts as 3 territories instead of 1 for purposes of final scoring (where each territory is worth 3-5 coins depending on your popularity level).
Not only do you get it by taking the factory at the end, but you're denying it from someone else.
Not that it would have mattered to the outcome.
If it makes you feel any better I threw a game of Explorers of the North Sea Friday by forgetting to leave my dudes in place to take over an island and chasing a boat instead.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
I've mostly pared my collection down to games I can say I truly love. It doesn't mean any of them get played.
Yeah, that's the truly sad part.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
The official reason was always to support future expansions (same reason that every faction's board says to draw two cards). So either Rise of Fenris will use the objective deck in some way, or it just never became necessary.
Ugh.
How long have I been a grumpy old man?
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Join me on the grumpy side.
Embrace it! I think it's a pretty great way to discover upcoming games and stay up on the pulse of the industry.
This is true.
But I am also totally burned out on Kickstarter and find myself generally preferring traditional retail releases these days. I'll only back a kickstarter lately if it's a small indy company I'm already familiar with and it's unlikely their game will ever be available otherwise.
When I play a game I like and want to buy it I want to hear "You can buy it right over there" not "Find a time machine"
...and self control.