Hosted a board game night last night. A friend brought Letters from Whitechapel which I enjoyed a lot. It's the type of game where you finish it thinking of all the different strategies you want to try the next time.

The game is based around Jack the Ripper. One player plays Jack and the other players play the police. There are four nights on which Jack makes a kill and must make it back to his hideout without getting caught by the police. Each night the police gather more information about where they think the hideout is and must try to catch Jack before the end of the 4th night.

Definitely recommend.

 

Xia: Legends of a Drift System finally came back in print this week. I've been waiting for a better part of a year to get my hands on it without having to pay $150+ for a used copy of it. Looking forward to it quite a lot, and it should arrive in the mail sometime next week. Looks like it has pretty much everything I could possibly want out of a space game that isn't Twilight Imperium.

Other than that, have been playing a ton of Terraforming Mars. Probably 20+ games at this point. Really satisfying when the synergies start working together, but on the other hand, can quickly spiral out of control when they don't. Having a plant-based corporation sucks when he never draw any plant cards, things like that. I bought 2 expansions for it, prelude and colonies. Colonies feels like a waste of money so far, but prelude is pretty nice. It jumpstarts the early game, though I will say that in a 5 player game, it makes it end way too quick.

Also, picked up Pulsar, which has been on my list for awhile now. It's got a really cool setup, and really isn't as complicated as it looks. Its one of those games where you only get 8 rounds, and 2 actions per round, which doesn't seem all that much gameplay, but somehow it works. I've only done 2 games, but both were fun.

 

Xia is a lot of fun, although I think the expansion is needed to really make it shine. The miniatures are fantastic - highest quality I've seen. Everything about the game feels good - the currency tokens are metal and have a great weight, the ships are beautifully painted, etc.

The only thing I don't love about it is that it doesn't score high on the interactive meter. Unless combat happens, you pretty much just take your turn and do your own thing.

Twilight Imperium is so much fun. Shame about the game length - I don't think I've ever had one go under 6 hours. Really fantastic game though; making a day of it is really quite fun.

 

I've got 3 games of Xia under my belt. But funny story first. I pretty much ordered my copy online as soon as it came in stock, since I had been put under the assumption that my local store wouldn't be getting it in. But they did get it in, and were selling it for 20% less than amazon. Hurts a bit, but it is what it is I guess, though it's funny that they're treating it as a new release when the game is actually 5 years old.

Anyways, the game is really good. Definitely worth the wait. It's very fiddly though. Very easy to lose track of a rules interaction, and some bits in the rulebook are a bit vague. So first game was a 3 player game, first game for all 3 of us, so we did the beginner's playthrough which was a normal game without NPC's. Was fun, even though we all knew the point of it was to just get used to the rules, which like most games, isn't that bad once you learn how everything works, though there's always cornercases.

Second game was a mega epic game. 5 players going to 20fp... took 6 hours just to get to 15 before we had to call it quits at 2 am. was pretty fun since it was using all the expansions (I have them all myself except the sellsword, which no one even bothered with in this game anyways). Expansion definitely makes it feel like a full game, though sometimes you are quite literally just two ships passing in the night. Game did take forever, though it never stopped feeling fun. Just that turns started to take a long time, and the NPCs are a bit fiddly as well. And, there was a bit of a divide, since three of the guys learned the game one way, and me and my friend learned it the previous night, and our understanding of the rules didn't always line up the same, so that was always interesting. They had some weird notion about how combat worked, but whatever, it was really fun. So many potentially cool ship ability combinations.

Third game was just a two player game. Now, in the base Xia, it says that it's 3-5 players. The expansion says 1-5. Not really sure why. There is a solo variant that comes with its own manual (haven't tried it, seems like way too much setup just to play by yourself even if you're reaaaally bored), but for two players, it's only like a 200 word blurb, essentially telling you that mission targets now count NPCs, and that the lone wolf's autopilot gets +2 range, and that's actually it. My guess is that the expansion adds enough elements that a two player game can actually work. And, I guess it sort of does. But there really wasn't enough interaction. I was able to do a trader run without buying any weapons at all, which meant that it was up to the other player to react to me and try and kill me to prevent me from pulling too far ahead. When that failed, he essentially had to start farming the enforcer every turn for 2 FP just to try and catch up, but it was too little too late. Still very fun, though I don't think it's ideal.

Ultimate, it's an A+ game, but I don't know how easy it will be to teach, or to adapt to my play group. That 6+ hour game I had gives me pause. We could get two games of terraforming mars done in that time and still leave before midnight.

 

Got a couple new boardgames under my belt.

First off, still been playing Terraforming Mars. We slowly worked up our way to playing with all the expansions. I honestly love the Venus and Colony stuff. Really fun, but we started to diversify. There's another Expansion coming out in a few months as well.

Tried out the Bioshock: Infinite boardgame. Kinda fun, not really worth it though. Only played it once, had a lot of cool stuff going on (really like the ability unlock stuff). Didn't really feel like it worked as a 2 player game though. Could snowball too fast with only one other person to keep you in check, and the NPC (Booker) just randomly fucks over whoever. Might have to try it again with 4 players and see if it's different.

Lost Legends: Really, really fun with 5 players. It's a roguelike boardgame, which is pretty cool. There's a really cool draft element to get your equipment before each wave of enemies. Replayability is probably only a medium, but for what it is, it's fun. Main issue is that the difficulty is all over the place. We've had a crazy difficult wave 2 where 3/5 people died, but then in the most recent game we had players not taking any damage at all in wave 3. I really think this game would benefit from a wave 4.

Through the Ages. This is one of the highest rated games on BGG. I've had it for a few months now, but have heard how long the games can take so it wasn't something I could just bust out at 10 PM after a magic tournament. Only played the intro game so far, which doesn't have an age 3. Took 4 hours, but it was really, really fun. Loved every minute of it, even though keeping all the rules and subrules straight was pretty hard. Everything has it's own little special rule, despite everything more-or-less working the same. I can really see how it would take a long time. Add in the third age, and then add in extra players, as it had been 4 hours for just 2 of us. I could see it taking as long as a 20point Xia game. It's always funny how bullshit the estimated playtime on the box is.

 

2 new games under my belt since the last post:

Hyperborea. Saw it on the shelf and read the description, and kinda fell in love immediately. Essentially, an ancient advanced magical society shieldbubbled itself off from the world a thousand years ago. Catastrophe happened, that shield fell, and then the players are all outside kingdoms doing a gold rush to loot everything. Think along the likes of Shards of Alara, except more medieval. It's an empire development game, pretty straightforward with how you slowly build up resources and stuff, which is sort of done Ascension style. Doesn't take too long either. 9/10

Scythe. One of the big name games. Finally got around to learning it, and subsequently playing it. I will say the game is far more intimidating than it actually is. It's about as complicated as Terraforming Mars, though gameplay is more dependent upon what your opponents are doing as well. I messed that up a lot, as it felt like I was doing everything in reverse order with how the game flowed. Also, I had no idea how scoring at the end work, though I did better than I should have, getting second place. I ended up luckily winning every battle I got in by having a lot of 5 power cards, and I was the first to hit 6 stars. Even with 7 players, the game was much quicker than I was expecting. I'd say it's 9/10 as well.

Edit- I'll give some ratings to previous games I posted (or have played and didn't care enough to post about)

Terraforming Mars - 10/10
Bioshock - 6/10
Lost Legends - 7.5/10
Through the Ages - 8.5/10
Xia - 9/10
Firefly - 8/10
Firefly Adventures - 5/10
Pulsar - 8/10
Fallout - 8.5/10 with house scoring rules, 7.5/10 without
Alien Artifact - 7.5/10
Star Realms - 8/10
Takenoko - 9/10
Seven Wonders: Duel - 9/10
Boss Monster - 6/10
Gizmos - 8.5/10
Res Arcana - 7/10
Photosynthesis - 7/10
King of Tokyo - 8/10
First Martians - TBD
Keyforge - 7/10

 

Did you have any of the expansions for Scythe?

I've got the first two (Japan/UK addition, and Airships), but have been holding off on picking up the campaign mode until my gaming group can start meeting back up on the regular again.

 

I don't know what all the expansions are tbh. I know the airships were one, but we didn't use them. There was also the 6th and 7th player which was another. Idk what else, but there were some errata tokens from one as well.

 

Three more games under my belt. I've played Grimm Forest twice, and the other two just once.

Grimm Forest. I've seen this game sitting on the shelf for years now, and I always marveled at how nice the box art is. As the name suggests, it's based on Grimm's fairy tales, and I do like that sort of thing. Only played it 2 players so far, and even so, it was intensely fun and the strategy and be surprisingly deep. There's a lot of bluffing that can be done, which can make for an interesting game. 7.5/10

Carpe Diem. I don't know why the game is named that, though maybe the game has some lore I wasn't aware of. Anyways, really fun game, not too hard to learn and do well with your first time. You're building a city using components that you draft from a central board, with the pieces going together sort of like Carcassone. I managed to win my first game against the store owner (in a 4 player game) by never missing any points during the victory point claiming phase and getting almost all of my build board bonuses. I would definitely play again. 8/10, maybe higher.

T'Zolkin, the Mayan Calendar. This game has a really cool board with a bunch of gears, representing the turning of seasons. Played this with four people. It's a pretty complicated game, and doing well at it in the first playthrough is going to be tough. There's a lot of stuff going on, with a lot of different symbols on the board. You'll pick up how everything works and interacts with each other at around the halfway point. It feels sort of like Scythe, as you get really rewarded for figuring out the correct way to sequence your turns based upon what everyone else is going. Really fun game though, and I look forward to trying out the expansion. 9/10.

 

So, yall may scoff at this rec, but Disney: Villainous is hella fucking fun, especially if you buy a few of the expansions for more character options / combinations and have a decent sized group to play with (3+).

You play as one of a dozen Disney villains, and are essentially working toward achieving your chosen villain's respective story arc goal (killing snow white, cursing the kingdom with everlasting sleep, becoming the most powerful genie in the world, etc etc). Every villain has a unique style of gameplay, and unique conditions they have to meet in order to reach their own story goal.

It is easy enough to pick up after a playthrough or two, and every playthrough is going to be really REALLY different, because it all revolves around RNG from your villain's own unique card deck, and a healthy amount of player choice (i.e. backstabbing other players, working together with other villains to backstab other players, backstabbing the people you just teamed up with when they get an edge, tricking your allies into thinking you aren't close to winning). A single game can end in 20 mins, or go on for a half a day.

Even more fun after beers and wine have been had. Drunken renditions of Disney songs every few turns are bound to ensue.

 

Played Scythe again. My opinion on it isn't too high. It's fun, but you're sort of dependent on everyone else's willingness to interact with others, else you're just two ships in the night, simulating a growing colony up until the end where you maybe attack a couple times at the end. The trick is mostly to just see how your two boards interact and find the correct sequence of operations to build your shit. Considering how long it takes to set it up, I wish there was more interaction

Played Carpe Diem against twice as well. Still pretty fun.

Played Alhambra. Decent game, quick, but kind of punishing depending on turn order. Probably better with fewer players, as everything I wanted to build got sniped every time.

Lords of Vegas. Okay-ish game. Turns take way too long though, and you can get royally shafted by the deck in two ways, not getting strip properties, and not hitting the right colors at the right time. I'd probably not play it again. Games where you do everything right and still lose aren't terribly interesting, especially if the game drags.

(Game that I forget the name of), dice rolling game where you have 1 red, 1 blue, 1 green, 1 yellow and 2 white dice, filling in corresponding color tracks (white is pseudo-wild). 2 of the tracks go from 2 to 12, and the others go from 12 to 2, and you can only fill left to right. Pretty fun.

Wizard (card game). More fun that I was expecting, would play again.

Tzolk'in. This is my flavor of the month. Can't really get enough of it

 

Quixx is the name of the game. I agree, it's pretty fun.

I've played through most of Legends of Andor with a few friends. It's pretty fun, as long as everyone is roughly on the same level. When playing it with someone less experienced, the experienced players tend to tell the newbie what to do, which I imagine is not much fun.

Star Wars: Imperial Assault is good fun, somewhat complex but not extremely. It pitches one person (the Emperor) against the group of Rebellion players in a campaign over ~10 missions. As a group we routinely won against the Emperor, which irritated the mood somewhat. You'll have to be a fixed group to play the campaign properly, but you can also play single battles as 1v1 or 2v2.

 

Tapestry - really fun civilization "lite" game, quite new as well. Played twice so far. Still working out some kinks in the rules but i'm looking forward to playing it again. Deceptively simple, yet complex in the strategy. 9/10

Western Legends. Hard to describe this. A mix between Fallout and Firefly. I just wasn't impressed by this game at all, and I guess first impressions are very important. Main issue is that you get 3 actions per turn, as well as bonuses and reactions and a bit of bookkeeping, it's just tedious. It's quick in that you don't need that many rounds to trigger end phase, but in a five player game with a lot of long turns it's tiresome because you need to route everything efficiently. Not a fun dichotomy with what the game is trying to do. 6/10

Updated list of my rankings:

Terraforming Mars - 10/10
Tzolk'in - 10/10
Wizard - 9/10
Tapestry - 9/10
Takenoko - 9/10
Seven Wonders Duel - 9/10
Gizmos - 9/10
Carpe Diem - 9/10
Kingsburg - 8.5/10
Through the Ages - 8.5/10
Fallout - 8.5/10 (using house rules - 7.5/10 without)
Xia, Legends of a Drift System - 8/10
Firefly - 8/10
Pulsar - 8/10
King of Tokyo - 8/10
Scythe - 8/10
Hyperborea - 8/10
Quixx - 8/10
Lost Legends - 7.5/10
Alien Artifact - 7.5/10
Grimm Forest - 7.5/10
Res Arcana - 7/10
Photosynthesis - 7/10
Keyforge - 7/10
Alhambra - 7/10
Lords of Vegas - 7/10
Bioshock - 6/10
Western Legends - 6/10
Boss Monster - 4/10
Firefly Adventures - 3/10

Wingspan - TBD
First Martians - TBD
Star Wars Outer Rim - TBD

 

If you haven't tried them already, there are a bunch of great deck building games out there that aren't based on the Magic build-your-deck-and-fight type. Also, I second the 9/10 on Takenoko. It's got great gameplay and a wonderful aesthetic. I love it.

Dominion is a classic, but a fun one with a ton of expansions that are usually well balanced and of high quality. You play as a feudal lord who is seeking to expand his dominion. You do this by purchasing new additions to your realm that allow you to do new things. There are action cards like the Festival that let you draw/play extra cards, have a bit more money to spend in the Buy phase (or give you the option of buying more than 1 card). You can also purchase better money cards so that you can more reliably afford to buy other cards with the eventual goal of buying the victory point cards Estates, Duchies and Provinces, for 1, 3 & 6 points each. Winner is whoever has the most points at the end of the game. Works very well with any number of players, in my experience.

Marvel Legendary is of the same ilk, but is co-operative rather than competitive (well, semi-competitive; you get victory points from defeating villains but the main, shared goal is to defeat the Mastermind). Difficulty can be tailored to your wants by selecting stronger or weaker Masterminds/Schemes/Villains/Heroes. It's my go to game with the other half, though I wouldn't recommend it for more than 3-4 players. It's technically able to do 5 but at that point you're getting two rounds before the Mastermind stomps you and that's just not fun.

Villagers is a bit lighter in tone and gameplay, where you're trying to make as much money as possible by building up a village. You do that by collecting various kind of villagers (Carpenters, Blacksmiths, Vintners, etc.) where some villagers require you to have one higher up in the chain (like the Jeweller requires a Miner, Seeker & Spelunker but nets you 20 gold if you get it. You also don't play it as a traditional deck building game as you pick up the cards you want to use from a face-up market and can then play a set number of them onto your board, aiming to maximise your income when the two Market Rounds hit and points are tallied.

It's relaxing in comparison to Dominion and Legendary, but there's plenty of room for analysis in there as you play the odds on what villagers are going to be revealed next.

If I was going to rate them I'd give:

Dominion - 9/10 - It's almost perfect as a base game. We've had it for years and still get enjoyment out of just the base game even though there are some really good expansions out there.

Marvel Legendary - 8/10 - The core gameplay is better than Dominion. It's more engaging as you draw villain cards and the table groans in concert. Unfortunately the base game heroes and villains get pretty stale after a while so you're more reliant on expansion packs to get the most out of the game. I'd still heavily recommend this game to anyone who enjoys deck builders, just keep in mind that you may forking out £10-40 for any given expansion pack (Dark City, widely regarded of the best pack, is out of print and has been for ages so it's ridiculously hard to get).

Villagers - 7/10 - This is more of a relaxing game for me. If you're not in to heavier games like Dominion, Lords of Waterdeep and Root like I am then it may be more middle of the road for you. I recommend it because it's got a nice aesthetic, you can treat it as a friendly game or you can be as cutthroat as you like (buying up the only Carpenter in the deck when your opponent is going for a Wood-based game can net you some nice cash) and you'll get just as much enjoyment out of it. It's just not got as much meat to it as the other games so I'd rate it lower than either.

 

Lots more games under my belt:

Trickerion. I cool little game set in the 1850's-ish where you're a stage magician buying supplies, making magic tricks and performing. Deceptively complex, one of most difficult to understand games I've seen so far short of something like Through the Ages, despite the game just taking 5 turns. Every single rule had a subrule, and we barely managed to figure out how everything worked by the end of the first game. Lots of nuance, but quite fun and I look forward to playing it again. It's type of game that would benefit great from one person in a play group knowing how to play (well) instead of a group all learning at the same time. 8.5/10?

Tapestry. Rated it last time, played it again, rating still holds up. Only thing I'll add is that the variance is a bit too punishing. Entire game can be decided by a single roll of the science die and that's not really fun since it is a surprisingly deep game despite how simple it is. Some games it's okay to do everything right and still lose because the other guy got lucky but I haven't gotten the impression that it's that type of game.

Wayfinder. Cool little game, don't really have much to say. Simple to learn, difficult to master really, since you have to be able to see your path to victory at any given moment. 8/10

Paladins of the the West Kingdom. Super intense worker placement game where you have a million different options and sequence chains can make or break you. The game just clicked for me when I played it, and it was really fun. Only issue is that there can be a lot of bookkeeping 9/10

Star Wars Outer Rim. This was on my to-play list and I got to play it today. It's excellent. Takes all good the elements of Firefly and Fallout boardgames and combines it into one streamlined version that just works. It's good enough that I'm temped to pick up a copy for myself despite being still unemployed. 9.5/10

Point Salad. Neat little filler game. It's pretty much just the Carpe Diem point card system. Hard to rate since it's like a 5 minute game, so 7/10 is probably right.

Las Vegas. Another short game, probably not really filler if you play it with 5 people. Short but fun dice rolling thing. 7.5/10

Stone Age. Simplistic worker placement game that is surprisingly fun, giving the theme doesn't really mean anything. 7.5/10
-edit- noticed I already rated western legends, and forgot to put stone age

 

Azul. Fun 30 minute game. Trying to fill in a mosaic for points. Interesting tile fill/scoring. -7/10?

Tichu. another addicting card game. I'm at the point of knowing how to play, and trying to figure out how to play well. 9/10

Planet. Kinda boring tile drafting game. You place your tiles on a planet globe base which is magnetic. really easy to get shafted. 6/10?

Wingspan. finally played it. pretty cool, simpler than it looks, shorter than it looks. Does feel like it's missing something though, idk. 8/10

 

Splendor. A quick simple resource engine building game. 7/10

Catan: Starfarers. It's Catan with a twist. The twist is pretty good, but at the end of the day, it's still Catan. It's a remake as well, so anything I'd say about them trying to reinvent the game to stay relevant would be a lie. It's fun, and fun is fun, but it's still dated. If Catan is the gateway drug of boardgames, then this is the next step for that crowd. It's fine but unremarkable. 7/10.

Everdale. Interesting game that gives a sort of Redwall vibe. Worker placement, resource gathering, VP, etc. Didn't seem like there was anything particularly revolutionary in it, but it's still a fun game that doesn't take too long to learn. 8/10

Dreamscape. I don't know if this is a good game or not. I'm super wary of games where the turn order has yo going 4 actions in a row + bonus actions before passing to the next person. Leads to way too much downtime, and in my case, taking 6 whole turns in 3 hours. Underneath it all, I think it is a good game, and I need to play with people who can make decisions in a timely manner. 8/10, but probably won't ever play it again.

Azul. Got a little more experience, and it really is a fun little game that anyone can play, and I actually want to try out some of the variants. So, I'm revising it to an 8/10

-edit- forgot I played Reavers of Midgard this weekend. was the first game I played actually. All 4 of us learned it together, and it went pretty smoothly, and it was pretty fun. Supposedly takes elements from champions of midgard, which I haven't played. Plays kinda similarly to Dreamscape, which I played the next day, so perhaps that's why I didn't mind trying that one out. 8.5/10

 

Couple more -

Space Base. Dice rolling game. kiiiinda like Quixx, in that you get bonus when your opponent rolls a dice on their turn. Game is pretty susceptible to variance which can cause the game to cascade a bit, but still pretty fun. Essentially you have a grid full of resource producing ships, numbered 1 to 12. If you roll a 1 & 6, you can either take those numbers or a 7, and opponents can do the same thing if they've unlocked those number slots. You essentially spend the game slowly accumulating resources to upgrade those slots with better ships. 7.5/10

Circadians: First Light. Game I've seen on the shelf for a couple months now and finally got to play. Really fun dice placement game (think Pulsar of Kingsburg). Tons of components and a beefy manual so it can be intimidating, but it's actually surprisingly easy to get the hang of. There's not that many symbols to learn, and you alternate taking turn, so there's very little dead time. I think it's made by the same people who made Paladins, which I had a similar experience with. Not quite sure about replayability yet, but I think this is a solid 9/10. Only critique I would have is that it can take a couple minutes figuring out which dice values you want to assign to which spaces, and then on top of that during actual gameplay trying to remember what you wanted to use each dice for, and you can get sunk if someone takes your spot. That's probably where most of the complexity comes from, and I guess if your instinct is to want to get a pencil and paper to keep track of your plan, it's probably complex.

I essentially boardgame 2 days in a row, 12 hours each day, and honestly it can be hard to remember every game I've played and to keep track of any new game I come across. That being said, if anyone from the store reads this site they would be able to figure out exactly who I am, which is kinda funny.

 

Why do you board game 2 days in a row, 12hrs a day? Are you testing or just got a really solid crew?

 

I go to a boardgame shop. I pretty much get there when the doors open and just play boardgames all day with out people who have the same exact idea.

terra mystica. Highly rated game on BGG, but I guess it just wasn't for me. I had fun playing it, though I will say I don't think it's as complicated as it looks. With only one playthrough perhaps I don't have enough information. It just sort of clicked for me, like with Paladins of the West Kingdom (which it actually played quite similarly too. You have a resource engine, you place upradeable buildings, you collect victory points. Standard stuff.Anyways, the game was decent fun and I finished less than 10 points behind the leader, but I just didn't find the game that interesting. 7/10

egizia. brand new game, except for the fact that it's a remake of an older game. It's a worker placement game. Pretty simply to learn though there is some nuance to it. It was good enough that I want to play it again, so probably a 8/10

five crowns. A Rummy variant. There's a fifth suit, and it's a double deck, but I found there to be way too much variance. There are jokers, and there are wilds (wild = to round it is, so it changes), and the goal is to have as little points as possible at the end of the game. Anyways, way too much variance since it wasn't that hard to go out within the first 3 turns and completely screwing people. Also, the double deck + jokers was waaaay to big to shuffle easily. 6/10