Back to form this month from the crazy number of games from last month. The only notable thing is that my kids have been asking for much fewer games as they are spending most of their time outside. While not ideal for the gaming statistics we count this as “overall a win” for growing some functional human beings. I am sure it will all reverse in the winter months anyway.
Everything I played!
The good
There is no bad this month only good lets go!
- Guards of Atlantis2: Well I joined up with a new group that is intent on only playing this game. Considering I enjoy this game I am totally down for this. They definitely treat it as more of a lifestyle game (with remembering values far better than I ever will). I played Tigerclaw for both games which is not my favourite hero but one I can play competently. I made a few misplays but ultimately I think I handled myself quite well and kept the team going far better than they had any right to keep going forward. I seem to do better at this game playing a brawler than a sneaky disruptive character. Either way GOA2 is always a fun time and I can’t wait to play more with some more complex characters, maybe even an 8 player game.
- Slay the Spire: This was requested by my regular gaming group so we got together and started a new campaign with myself playing the defect this time. This time we also went with a 4 player game. Our first game was cut short by us being a little too aggressive on the first elite and getting stomped. We restarted quickly and went through just fine into act 2 after we got our act together. There are some meetups expected in October to finish up act 2 and act 3 for this game. The game continues to be fun. I think the ability to look at our hands and go “well we can win this, this turn as I can do x amount of damage” and just scoop up to rewards definitely makes the whole thing go faster.
- Spirit Island: OK, so I got a bit weak and acquired Branch and Claw this month for Spirit Island even though I haven’t even played that much. The problem with this is that up to now I haven’t actually played the full base game. What i mean by that is I haven’t played a game using an adversary and a blight card and everything else. How can I justify throwing in events and all the tokens without this? Well I can’t. so I did something radical. I pulled up a solo game! Yes a true solo game which spirit island allows for. For simplicity I used a spirit I already kind of knew with River Surges against Prussia. Now the game was rough at the beginning. I could handle areas with a single town but a lot of my efforts went into making sure no Cities would spawn as I had no real way of dealing with them. Eventually I got a major power that would do (if I hit the thresholds) 14 damage to a single land which managed to earn me 2 fear cards and destroy most cities on the board. The following turn I was able to defeat the last city and hitting fear level 3 at the same time which won me the game instantly (before 2 more cities were about to be built in that build phase so…phew). Honestly the true one player solo for spirit island was fun. I should do it a bit more. Maybe even with some more complex spirits now that I can see how this works.
- Knaar: Introduced this to both my kid and my usual group as a quick engine builder. Both games ended up being quite close with me triumphantly winning. I guess I am a bad teacher in that case 😛
Kids Corner
One game of Knaar with my oldest which he definitely enjoyed and saw the interesting choices there are to make which was fun. The other big hit was introducing my younger kid to Deep Sea Adventure. He really did enjoy the push your luck aspect and the choice of when to turn around or when to intentionally burden yourself for more treasure. Wasn’t much of a risk taker though and usually returned to the ship well before anything bad could happen to him. Maybe the adventurous spirit will be stronger in the coming games.
Hopes for next month
Well not too much going strong for next month. Usual game group meetings so hopefully normal meetups continue. Will attempt more solo gaming with Spirit Island and maybe some other impromptu weekend games. Who knows maybe the spouse will want to game at some point as well. Pretty short updated for this month but that’s just the busyness that is the fall.