New Year, New Me! Or something we all tell ourselves about how we are going to hit the gym. And get our lives together….and actually play our games instead of looking them on our shelves! Hah! But what can I say? We are dreamers and we must at least dream big otherwise our forward progress is more of a death march isn’t it? Hmmm….that got a little more grim than I expected. I am going to blame Blue Monday….even though its February already… Time is meaningless
Everything I played!
The New
So let’s get this started with our favourite place to be!
Ankh: Gods of Egypt Did you know it took me 3 tries to spell ANKH!? 3 tries…..man what a word. And man what a game. This honestly did not feel like a standard troops on a map game. In fact often getting many of your troops both out and to where you wanted them to be felt like a chore unless you had the right upgrades and multiple turns of set up. I’ve heard the game described as Eric Lang doing his best Knizia impression and I have to agree with it. We can talk about the controversial parts of the game as well. I was part of the merge, and honestly it was fine. We definitely felt as the merge gods that we were able to push forward a lot faster but we did make a few gaffe’s in our control and basically I sadly got to trigger almost no events in the whole game (which is probably why I did so poorly overall). The game ended very early in the final combat phase and I think everyone had a good time and experience with the system. I liked it and enjoyed it, though I don’t get to pull out troops on a map games often and when I have to pick between Ankh, Blood Rage, Kemet, and Chaos in the Old World there is definitely a strong argument for it not being Ankh every time.
Verdict: The good
Indonesia: I wrote a whole other post about this! This game was wild and great! Literally, absolute bonkers. We went hog wild with our strategy and the game was able to both support what we were doing and keep up with us. I feel like different games are going to end up so different depending on how cities get populated (we had a big wall of cities in the south and a lot less support everywhere else), and how shipping lanes and companies evolve especially in the second age. I was seriously considering selling off Indonesia and not dealing with the effort of getting people together to play it but the game managed to both go quite fast overall and was pretty simple with how it functioned. The players were the ones in control and it’s really funny how invested you get in those merger auctions where you start to question, what is the worth of this company, and am I underestimating or is the other person willing to just overpay for it? I think this is exactly the kind of economic game I love and while many people say it is not at it’s best with five, I would still like to try it at that player count as I am told the game length is significantly cut down at that point which may make it more bearable for some of my gaming group (though our 4 player game clocked in nicely at about 3 hours). I can definitely see how this could be a top 5 game for me if I can crack a few more plays with this one.
Verdict: The good
The good
Spirit Island: Continues to be interesting. And I continue to play it like a coward. I’ve played a single solo game with an adversary and a blight card. This particular play was with my oldest and the first time I played with him without one of us being lightning swift strike (which I like to think of as a crutch for beginners since it lets you do just about anything in the fast phase which often feels quite powerful). The game went well and once we got things going I was able to destroy any land adjacent to a jungle as spread of rampant green and he was able to have the Dahan decimate any land where there was three or four Dahan as river surges in sunlight. Maybe I will start playing the “standard” way soon so I can start adding in Branch and Claw and making the game a bit harder.
Pandemic The Cure: Pulled this one out and this time remembered how to play it properly. We got absolutely demolished. Too many big outbreaks that all led to hot spots exploding. We just couldn’t keep up. This was a two player game with my youngest and the game is at about the top of rules load he can process and he did his best. That being said, its good when you don’t win a co-op game every time. Sometimes you just get your butt kicked. Game is still fun and the roles (especially some of the expansion ones) are fun.
Rhino Hero Super Battle: This is where I out myself as a bad rules reader. I have been playing this game wrong for YEARS! You are supposed to set up three ground tiles at the start and this allows for a huge sprawling building rather than a medium sized one. This is the second time I have played correctly (I think the first was in December) and I have to put respect that this rule change makes the game better in every way.
The Rest:
A bunch of other good games. I wanted to point out that when I have people who I haven’t seen for a while and I bring out a game for a game night I have found that I will bring out the same game for the same group, subconsciously, even not remember that I brought out this game like four months ago for the same group (I don’t notice this until I record the game). This was the case of Dro Polter which is still a marvelous little fast game and enjoyed by all.
Hopes for Next Month:
Well I write this as February is half done and I am going to be honest with you. It isn’t going to be a very board gaming kind of month. Mostly because I have been sick with a bad flu for the past two weeks. Does that mean no games at all? Well I hope not but it will definitely be a slow down. Even had to cancel my monthly game night. That being said March is looking to still be on track to host RamiCON so that should lead to a lot of interesting games being played!