Hot off the heels of having the biggest month of gaming I have had in a while comes a …..quiet month. Interestingly enough its not that bad when you look at it. Two of the weeks I was at the cottage with the family which means that there was a lot less gaming and any gaming that did exist was notably for the children rather than for me but I still managed to get some fun experiences for me in.
Everything I played
The New
Dnup: I mean you look above and you can see 6 plays. For a new game that says one of two things its either really good or it is pretty light and fast. Well Dnup is really fast….as for really good I can’t quite place it yet. I can see the roots to it’s predecessor SCOUT and it does a good job to simplify the formula in SCOUT but, and this is a big but, I don’t know if it really has too much going on inside it. I feel like it is a weird race and exercise where if someone has a good hand or is leading there is little you can do to stop them or slow them down unless everyone is doing it and that requires everyone putting a lot more emphasis and effort into a short 20 minute filler than it seems necessary to. I like it, I really do but I don’t know if in a year I will be pulling it out constantly like I still do with Scout.
Verdict: The Meh (but maybe good?)
The Good
Cthulhu: Death May Die: Got another game of this in with the kiddos and the game continues to be amazing. It’s not too complex, its not too easy but it is fun while making you work for it. You can’t pick your heroes completely randomly as you will often want at least one brawler and at least one shooter. This time we got to play with three players (both the kiddos wanted in) and it was a great time beating down the great one. I tried Hastur for the first time this game and while definitely easier than Cthulhu as a great old one he still posed a challenge and forced us into some fun situations near the end of the game.
Blood on the Clock Tower: Ugh…. this game just can’t find where it should stay! After last months game where I felt there was too much poison/drunkenness the game master pulled back a bit and we played a game that was a bit more grounded. I was the Philosopher which let me become any role I wanted later on in the game. I spent the early rounds figuring out who to trust and what roles were safe to take and then later rounds when I had most of the info becomes the Dreamer (who was killed) letting me solidify my knowledge about who the demon was. The last two executions were basically me running the table and doing my best Hercule Poirot impression as I detailed exactly who was evil and how I knew it. I continue to enjoy the communication rules of BotCT but the game sometimes hits real good and sometimes flubs by. It may end up one of those things where the composition and storyteller end up doing a lot to whether I enjoy the game or not. I look forward to more and even threw my hat into storytelling in the future if the host wants to play.
Kingdom Death: Monster: The campaign continues this time with us fighting the butcher. We kind of messed up the rules the first time and got absolutely destroyed in like 3 rounds….and we reset and tried again rather than wipe. We then still managed to mess up a bunch of rules but actually come out with a lucky win. I feel like KDM sometimes just has too many rules to remember especially when we aren’t player super frequently that we forget how some combat mechanics work. I am still enjoying the game and I just got the Butchers cleavers so that should be fun!
Blood Rage: Haven’t broken out a game of blood rage in a while (like several years at this point), but I brought this out for my monthly game group and they loved it. One of my favourite part of the draft is explaining the basic cards in age 1 and saying “They just kinda….get crazier from here” and boy do they! The look on everyone’s face during the age 3 draft where every card is ridiculous in it’s own was was kind of magical. I do feel a little bad about this game. I tried to warn people about the Loki strategy and then….proceeded to go the Loki Strategy myself (its how the draft shook out) and in the last round made a metric buttload of points from having all my units die during ragnarok and then be brought back from valhalla for a cool 6 points each (plus having the Valhalla mission that netted me another 11 points) to jump up something like 60 points from deaths alone. To be fair I wasn’t exactly hiding that this was my strategy. I think everyone got a kick out of it and maybe we can bring it up again sometime soon. This game is great and makes me want to set up a game of Chaos in the Old World as well!
Hot Streak: I haven’t got it to the table in a while but the second I did I instantly remember that the game is amazing. Life is just better with more Hot Streak in it!
The Rest
A bunch of kids games. A game of Minecreaft: Portal Dash as well. Which I have to say is a weirdly swingy co-op game where if you can get over the initial equipment hump you usually have an OK time getting through it.
What I am looking forward to next month.
Now is the..Fall.. of our discontent. So looking at my historical game plays my plays drops off pretty hard starting in September to December, mostly due to the responsibilities of a new school year for the kiddos and the barrage of birthdays/holidays that are met in this time. I am hoping I can try to keep my regular game nights a thing, but it always starts to get a little dicey. That being said I want to try to get Capital Lux to the table and a few other things….Maybe this is finally the month of Cysmic!