The "What did you play last week?" thread

For me, I played War of the Ring second edition for the first time. Me as the good guys, my opponent was the baddie for his third game. It was fun and challenging, definitely want to try again. I want revenge as the good guys! 😊

My main gripe is the dice heavy combat system. I would have loved if this game had combat cards with various values (many low, some medium and few high). In addition to the existing cards that can be used in combat, but instead of the dices. Especially when this is a potentially very long and strategical game.

Also played Frontier Wars. A game I backed on Kickstarter many years ago. Haven't been played for ages. Was a relatively quick and fun two player game. Small map, so were just a few critical encounters that decided the outcome. Both had chances to win, but at the end I was one point away and my opponent managed to take it. It's much lighter than WotR, but less random combat, as you really only have one unknown factor (the defender may play a card from hand). Two very different games though, each fun in their own way.

In this game, some of the cards are very strong, while some are more situational.. Especially when you play a small map and just two players, you can get a bit unlucky.
 
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I played five games of Canvas with my girlfriend. It's a beautiful, fast card game game that has more meat to it than meets the eye. Need to open up the expansion soon.

I also played War of The Ring for the first time (as the good guys). I need to try that again, and find a better strategy. It has fun card play, but not sure how I feel about the dice combat.
 
I demolished a couple of scrubs in War of the Ring.
I tried a new game, Frontier Wars, along with thread starter. It was pretty lightweight, but still interesting and highly tactical. Luck-of-the-draw can play a big part, but it can be mitigated by some good tactical handling. Very interested in trying more games here. I am not sure how a Free for all would work, but coop should be very interesting.
I also love playing solo games, and I tend to favor big campaign RPG games. Last week I managed a couple of hours more into Aeons Trespass Odyssey. Cycle II day 39. Got my revenge on The Nietzschean. Amazing game, amazing value for money (core game increased from $130 (KS) to $300 (preorder) during development).
 
terpal said:
I demolished a couple of scrubs in War of the Ring.
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LOL. Remind us again how your first Maracaibo game went ;)

Honestly though, yeah it was not easy. Being the good guys, you are spread really thin. First game is best played as the dark side, more straight forward. Two end game approaches, and without knowing what cards and effects are in the game, it was hard to know the optimal line. I know now that keeping the fellowship together I think is a huge mistake, as many cards in the good guy deck require certain characters to be certain places, or just in general companions being somewhere/in battle.

Yeah Frontier Wars was a lot of fun. I am looking forward to testing this game 2v2 on a big map!

terpal said:
Amazing game, amazing value for money (core game increased from $130 (KS) to $300 (preorder) during development).
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Holy smokes, that is one large increase in price!
 
For this week, I played Western Legends 3 player game. Won with a big margin (10 points), my first win in WL. I've played it two times previously, one aborted due to time and one that finished.

Game is a fun sandbox western game with lots of things to do. However, it can be pretty punishing if you get some bad luck on the cards or rolls, or if opponents get really nice cards when they are fighting or playing poker against you (as the NPC).. This happened to one of the players today, and it wasn't a very fun experience I think for him... :P So the game do have some flaws.
 
It's been hard to make time to host game nights or make the FLGS nights lately, so I've mainly been playing Tabletop Simulator. I was able to test out a few ongoing Kickstarters/late pledges to inoculate myself from being tempted to back them so TTS continues to be a great money-saving investment, haha.

Paperback Adventures also launched on Steam by Fowers Games yesterday. It's great, and I love the physical copy. The digital version has slight rule changes and plays quicker, though.
 
Otter said:
It's been hard to make time to host game nights or make the FLGS nights lately, so I've mainly been playing Tabletop Simulator. I was able to test out a few ongoing Kickstarters/late pledges to inoculate myself from being tempted to back them so TTS continues to be a great money-saving investment, haha.

Paperback Adventures also launched on Steam by Fowers Games yesterday. It's great, and I love the physical copy. The digital version has slight rule changes and plays quicker, though.
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Testing games on TTS before backing is a very smart choice.. :) (I should definitely do this more often!)
 
This week we played Terraforming Mars, one of my favorites. Played with all expansions, on base map. Haven't played it in almost 9 months, so it was long overdue! It took waaay longer than planned (from around 20.00-02.30 I think..!), but it was a really fun and tight round. I think the scores were 80-75-68-63.

Definitely not gonna let it be another 9 months until next time! :)

Good Game Zombieorpheus GIF by zoefannet
 
Yesterday we played Civilization: A New Dawn, 4 player game. It was fun, but one of the players just got a really good run-away, so it ended with 4 VP, 1 VP, 0 VP, 0 VP 😅
It was well played!
I do think some of the victory cards can produce a bit unbalanced strategies (as the cards which requires wonders are easier than most of the others), so we will consider changing the combinations in the future if some are deemed too close.
 
Busy week for gaming!

Thursday: 4 player game of Dune Imperium.
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Ah, annoying round.. Lost by 3 points I think at the end (2nd place), but I had a good chance at a win in the mid game, but got punished badly for not picking up my third worker early on when I was near the cash for it. I really needed it for deploying enough troops at the end, as well as forgetting about my faction ability until it was too late lol. You really need 3 workers during the end game, but I blame that on my last play (which was my first and only of this game) was almost 10 months ago. 😅 I do know some adjustments I need to make for the next game.
The eventual winner got a solid upgrade card engine going with the council upgrade and the 3rd worker, even though he was trailing a bit behind me and my friend who led the pack for the mid game in points. At the end my hand was a bit weak and I didn't get enough of a hand upgrade with scrapping the poor cards in time. Was a good game though, and I really like Dune Imprerium. It's a really solid strategy game!

Friday: 3 player game of ROOT.
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Eyrie vs Keepers vs Woodland on the base map.
Me as Eyrie went for blitzkrieg with fast expansion for placing roosts and picking the leader that provides bonus points for destroying enemy pieces (mostly for the woodland player, but also vs with keeper buildings in mind in terms of them being the biggest threat early on). I got a run-away lead which led them both to naturally focus all on stopping me, which eventually caused my algorithm to crash near the end (unable to recruit at bunny clearing), but it was too late thankfully to stop me from winning something like 30-24-12 two rounds later. Keeper had to sacrifice and do some sub-optimal plays to stop me while the woodland player had a very slow start. Fun round, but I'm not a big fan of the combat mechanics. War game with dices and very little in terms of strategy to affect them. (some cards can be crafted, but you will have to do so in advance and it will require you to have cards to spare, correct clearings etc).

Saturday: 2 player game of Terraforming Mars.
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Ending the week with a true nail-biter!
After our last session @terpal wanted to revenge his bitter loss.. And it nearly worked..
I picked up the corporation that enables me to use a blue card action again in the same generation, which was perfect together with my start of 2 steel production and blue action card that enabled me to convert steel/plant to 7 M cash. So that's 2 steel each generation for 14 M cash :) And in heads up there are many more generations than in a higher player count session..
Both players focused a lot early on the engine, building blue action cards, and little on terraforming. I had some early points on heat, was all. Then in the mid game my engine was more balanced and I was able to start pumping out green tiles due to good production and placing a lot of water tiles (I had the blue effect card that provides me with 2 plants every time a water is placed), plus the placement bonus. So overall, lots of plants :P My opponent had literally a billion blue action cards lol, ranging from microbes, venus/floater engine, animals and so forth. I think he had like -3 on all cards at the end and -5 on venus cards.

For almost the entire game I was 5-10 TR ahead, but he nibbed it at the end by maxing the Venus track with his V/floater engine. (also I tried to not take the last few oxygen points to get another generation). I secured 2 milestones, he 1. He got 2 awards, me 1. The map I was ahead by a bit, but the cards were really close.. So close that we ended up on the SAME POINT.
124-124. Thankfully I had a bit more cash income, so I secured the win in the tightest of margins, 83 M vs 77 M. GG!

Score with tiebreaker:
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Table overview at the end:
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Hubbe said:
Played Woodcraft last thursday, 3-player game. I really like this one. I think there are multiple different equaly good strategies for victory, wich is great for replayability.
This is only my second play. Started out great but stopped to a halt at the end :p
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The game visually looks great as well, and seems like a fun euro game with interesting mechanics, though I have yet to test it myself yet.
How's the luck factor? Anything you didn't like at first/second impressions?

Monday this week I played a 3 player game of Glen More II Chronicles.
We played with the bidding/event chronicle from the expansion only, as it was a long time since we had played it.
This game is also a bit unique in the way that the rounds work. You have rondel the characters go around with the building tiles on them, and it is always the character at the back that takes his round. So if you skip a bit ahead to snag a very important/good tile, then you potentially will have to wait a bit as the others take their rounds until you are once again the one at the back. I like this as it takes another element into the building selection and strategy. One of my friends did not appreciate it as much, as he did some skipping forward and thus had some downtime before it was his turn again. (which is understandable, although in a way working as intended).

It was fairly close between two of us the whole game, but the final player rocketed past us all by getting too much resources and negating my huge advantage in whiskey barrels and the other friends advantage in clans (person tiles). Not really sure what went wrong, but I had fun nonetheless :P
 
Tex said:
The game visually looks great as well, and seems like a fun euro game with interesting mechanics, though I have yet to test it myself yet.
How's the luck factor? Anything you didn't like at first/second impressions?
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Hardly any luck at all. It will come out new assignments on the board and some of those requirements could be better for some players than others regarding rescources, but that's pretty much it.
I can't think of a thing I dislike with this game. Second impression just verified my first impressions really. But it its a type of game where you always wish you could do more.
 
Tex said:
For almost the entire game I was 5-10 TR ahead, but he nibbed it at the end by maxing the Venus track with his V/floater engine. (also I tried to not take the last few oxygen points to get another generation). I secured 2 milestones, he 1. He got 2 awards, me 1. The map I was ahead by a bit, but the cards were really close.. So close that we ended up on the SAME POINT.
124-124. Thankfully I had a bit more cash income, so I secured the win in the tightest of margins, 83 M vs 77 M. GG!
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In situations like this we agree that there is a tie and move on: the tiebreakers are sometimes too arbitrary.
 
Hubbe said:
Hardly any luck at all. It will come out new assignments on the board and some of those requirements could be better for some players than others regarding rescources, but that's pretty much it.
I can't think of a thing I dislike with this game. Second impression just verified my first impressions really. But it its a type of game where you always wish you could do more.
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Sounds really nice, I approve ^^ Looks like I'll have to try it some day!

Oni said:
In situations like this we agree that there is a tie and move on: the tiebreakers are sometimes too arbitrary.
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Hmm, well sure you may house rule it as such. In some games, the tiebreakers are vital and definitely justifiable, while in others they may seem more bordering on "unfair". I think the money being the main tiebreaker in TM is valid though, cash is very important. For example in Game of Thrones board game, all the tiebreakers are very thematic and fits well to the game. (and you can't have two winners anyway in that game..)

Other games I like the tiebreaker as well in, is Citadels. There, it is the highest character on the final round. It may seem silly, but picking a higher character is often more risky or provides less powerful moves on the final round as the ones that can kill/rob/steal cards are generally among the lower ones. The queen (9, top number) is basically useless unless you are next to the king, but it wins all tiebreakers in a tight game..

Also, some games are more likely to end on a tie (for example in games that feature much less VPs in total to distribute the players among) and in such you will more often need tiebreakers. None likes to share a win all the time :P

But I do agree that maybe in games that features a tie extremely rarely, and the tiebreaker seems completely weird and unfair, you can always just say that it was a tied win.
 
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