Sentinels of the Multiverse. Legacy heard that Ambuscade was causing trouble in Atlantis - and that he was grabbing their technology, which is not okay. So Wraith, Tempest, and Unity joined in and gave Ambuscade a good beating. Not even Kraken and a Cloaking Device could help him.
Spieleblog - 1.1.2015 - 17.3.2015
Waggle Dance. Another round of beehive. Played up to 9 honey, but my lead was not catchable for Juliana, even though she made a few really clever moves and I almost destroyed my lead - but only almost. So it ended 9 to 7 honey.
San Juan. Another practice game with Juliana, this time with her using a purple building strategy (including the palace), while I gambled on a production building strategy - the guild hall came very late, but it came. And Juliana's chapel came late, so she couldn't really use it. 36 to 35 for me in the end. Two more cards under the chapel or a 4-building instead of a 2-building for Juliana would have been enough to beat me.
Thunderstone Advance: Towers of Ruin. Still one of my favorites for solo play, because you can either face a random challenge or a selected adventure, making the game exciting but frustration-free. This round, water mages and Bhoidwood showed what they can do, supported by Glamercast and a stack of pikes. 66 to 52 may sound solid, but it didn't feel that safe during the game because I didn't have the level 3 heroes in sight, without whom it would have been much closer (59 to 52 - Bhoidwood only brings 1 victory point).
Race for the Galaxy. I'm still having major problems against the bot, just can't find a good way to tackle it. However, this is probably still strongly due to my limited knowledge of the strategy in this game, which is far more complex than in San Juan.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Celeborn and Galadriel have had some very strange company lately: Grima Wormtongue was hanging around with the Wood Elves. Well, he probably told them about the Forest of Druadan, and they went to check it out, the Wargs sounded very interesting. After several skirmishes with these Wargs, they surprisingly came out of the forest alive, but only just and I think they cheated massively. But I was more interested in seeing if Grima works as a good cost reduction and resource machine - together with Galadriel it works great. However, I do need more card advantage to get to what I want, I will give Galadriel her mirror. The forest, however, I find quite stupid - something like an event that removes every hero without resources from the game just isn't fun. Combined with the many archers that attack you from the staging area and the many actions that remove resources, you just can't build a good position, unless you have massive luck with the encounter deck. Sneak as a keyword also prevents a strategy where you start late and save resources. The whole thing just leads to frustration in the game.
Race for the Galaxy. Again against the bot from Gathering Storm, lost 36 to 47. I had Epsilon Eridiani, he had Ancient Race. Although I had two harmonizing 6 Developments - Galactic Imperium and New Galactic Order, both of which like military strategies - I just couldn't find enough high-quality military planets and especially rebel planets, despite explore+5. Several late Consume phases made all VPs disappear in the bot's account.
Race for the Galaxy. The first time against the Gathering Storm AI - wow. Completely crushed - 32 to something around 50. Even though I had two 6-point Developments out - but my worlds were relatively small, so not many points, and the robot had 18 VP chips and 3 6-point Developments and another stack of worlds and Developments. No chance for me. But after some initial stuttering in the game, it ran quite smoothly afterwards - definitely fun on paper.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Aragorn found the Elves' whining about the Ford of Isen quite silly and set off again. He met Hirluin, Theodred, and a whole group of men from the Outer Fords and a few Gondor guards and Rohan. Off we went and a massacre with the Dunlanders - and they had no serious chance. An Outer Fords deck really makes a good impression, even if a mono-Leadership deck doesn't have the necessary pulling power to quickly reach all relevant allies - especially the attack boosts were missing. But boosts via the Broken Sword and later Faramir made questing easy and a suitable event and the Leadership book at least provided short-term boosts. Nevertheless, I should consider whether Lore-Aragorn or perhaps even Beravor would offer better help. Boosts should actually be provided by the Outer Fords themselves, but Card Advantage only delivers Lore in a serious way. Okay, a good story also works, but I don't have that.
Race for the Galaxy. At the moment only against the Keldon AI on the computer, which is already a lot of fun, soon also against the Gathering Storm Bot. Very interesting game, San Juan on steroids, and of course interesting for me because of the SciFi theme. With Juliana, however, we'll stick with San Juan, it's more accessible for her.
San Juan. Played for the first time with Juliana, so just a practice game, but still a lot of fun. Juliana had a production strategy with a guild hall running, I hesitated for a long time until a purple building strategy with a very late town hall emerged. I won with 33 to 32 and that only thanks to an early chapel and a few monuments.
Onirim. Relaxing solitaire game that can also be played by two. The theme is relatively abstract, but somehow it fits with the cards. However, you really shuffle a lot and the cards suffer after the first few games, so it's probably better to put them in sleeves in the long run, then the shuffling also goes faster.
Valley of the Kings. I had actually speculated about playing a round of Super Motherload, but Juliana wanted to play something more familiar, and so we ended up at the Valley of the Kings again. A very beautiful deckbuilder, my strategy of aggressive grave-laying combined with a lean deck and a few powerful cards paid off, and the aggressive attack cards were also helpful - in the end 137 to 85. And in my case, a perfect set of all colors. Wow.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. The House of Elrond took up Celebrimbor's secret - and unlike the wimpy Wood Elves, the Noldor have given the Orcs a good beating. However, Galadriel was no longer there; she had returned to her husband, with whom she was once again at the Fords of Isen - and was sent home due to a rules violation. Ouch. But hey, Elrond and his people were successful. Instead of Galadriel, Frodo was there, with low threat, usable willpower, and in an emergency, quite useful as an Orc stopper. And with the amount of threat reduction and low starting threat, the deck can also handle a few quests with Glorfindel without the Light of Valinor.
Waggle Dance. Again with Juliana, playtime is around 7 honey somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes, including setup and teardown. It's getting more strategic now that we have a better eye for combinations. Interesting how the perception of individual parts changes - at the beginning it was "wow, queen cards are strong", now they are rather something you take if nothing else is free.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. The attempt to give the Tactics deck more willpower for adventures by incorporating Theoden failed - but I'm starting to think that's just because of this rather stupid Ford of Isen. I have to say, I enjoyed the Khazad-dûm quests much more than the Ringmaker quests. The player cards from the Ringmaker expansions are good, but the adventures have actually annoyed me so far.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Legolas, Mablung, and Hama wanted to investigate these strange invisible Dunlanders again. They were driven off in the first attempt, but they were successful in the next attempt. However, this was in easy mode and the threat was already 48 - the deck is crying out for core Gandalf for threat manipulation. Especially since he also helps a lot with questing. Unfortunately, Trained for War did not appear this time, which would make questing much easier. And whether Hama is really so central, I still have to consider - I only used his action once. But basically, the deck also works under time pressure - and in general, it is well set up for the hand-hate of the Ringmaker quests, a tactics deck wants to play everything it has.
Sentinels of the Multiverse. Again Legacy, Wraith, Tempest - together with Unity, who did a lot more work here, even if they started a bit slowly. Baron Blade certainly did not conquer Metropolis.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. At the Fords of Isen, Dunlanders gathered and Grima failed with his diplomacy. Hama rode with Legolas and Mablung. They were accompanied by a group of Eagles and also met some Ents at the river. But it was all in vain, during the massive attack of invisible Dunlanders in stage 2B, all Eagles, Ents, and heroes were destroyed. This "X damage with X equal to cards in hand" mechanism on a time 2 trigger is highly stupid, especially when there are no more Dunlanders in the staging area or in combat. And wandering Ents are also stupid if there is no Treebeard to play them. One is the fault of the deck builder, the other is the designer of this scenario.
Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island. The ship's carpenter and a fellow traveling researcher made it to an island, even the ship's dog survived and a friendly native joined them, but it didn't help - the researcher starved to death first. An island is not a pony farm after all. And Robinson Crusoe is a coop game that simply runs over an inexperienced team - without good preparation, the later rounds are brutally difficult. Thematically and mechanically, however, wonderfully implemented.
Sentinels of the Multiverse. A time hole to Silver Gulch in the Wild West era and Ambuscade lurking around? A case for Legacy, Wraith, Unity and Tempest. Ambuscade might be a bit frustrated now, as cleanly as he was dismissed. The first mini-expansion for Sentinels is really nice, although I still have to get used to Unity, she didn't really come into her own. Wraith was the star today. And Tempest was solid as always.
Sentinels of the Multiverse. Someone messed up while scrapping Omnitron - he showed up again in Megapolis! Legacy, Wraith, Ra, and Tempest took care of it again. But Omnitron was probably still weakened from the last battle, he was only a shadow of himself and was sovereignly dismantled into his individual parts.
Waggle Dance. Played for the first time with four players today. I actually only wanted to show it briefly, but then we just played a game up to 5 as a digestif. It really explains well and is also pleasantly fast with 4, as you only place one die and then the next player is up. With two new players in the first game, it took about an hour and everyone was close in points, which is a good sign.
Legends of Andor. Today was Legend 5's turn, the one with the dragon. I guess we'll agree on a draw. The dragon was indeed defeated sovereignly, and as Münster residents, we are tolerant of squatting monsters in the Rietburg, it was just an old building that would have needed to be renovated. Highlight of the evening: I find the abducted Prince Thorald, Juliana grabs the Gor, the prince stands up, the narrator brings the next Legend card, and it places the dragon directly on the prince. Ouch. The game is always fun, but I really don't know how to achieve it in the 60-90 minutes indicated on the box. Martin and Klaus brought the Journey to the North, so: there is replenishment. But first, there are still the Star Shield and the Battle for Cavern.
Waggle Dance. The more I play, the more fun I have. Today I largely ignored the queen cards, focused more on honeycombs and nectar. In the short game, Juliana was more focused on the 5 honey, but as we continued playing, I was first at 7 and then at 9. You don't need that many bees, I only had 7 - although more would have allowed several honey actions. There's a lot of tactics and strategy in this game.
Sentinels of the Multiverse. Omnitron appeared in Megapolis and Legacy, Wraith, Ra, and Tempest took care of the problem. Although Omnitron initially put up a strong fight, destroying equipment and blocking abilities, annoying paparazzi and hostage situations hindered the heroes, the quartet ultimately got the job done with ease. Omnitron will be sent to the scrap metal recycling.
One Zero One. Played a test game at the regulars' table. Nice, small, fast card game. Easy to learn, but enough content to make you think sometimes.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Celeborn is slowly getting frustrated - Galadriel and Elrond are taking care of Celebrimbor's Secret, so he looked into what the antlered crown is all about with the Dunlanders - he took Legolas with him, always good to have an archer and weapon enthusiast around. A disaster. A total disaster - the Dunlanders simply drove his Elves before them, they got lost and generally behaved very stupidly. He is now planning a relaxing vacation on the Anduin. And I have rebuilt the Woodland Realm deck back to Leadership-Lore with Milronde and an Ent package, tri-sphere just isn't stable enough with the Elves. Celeborn is no Dain, I'm not even sure if he's really worth his 11 threat. The Ringmaker Adventures are brutally difficult and very fiddly due to the time mechanic.
Elder Sign. The researcher (Juliana) and the private detective (me) managed to push Glaaki or whatever the sausage head was called back into his silly portal. Although the detective klutz early on caught a curse and couldn't get rid of it and threw himself into suicide commands on monsters, Arkham was actually never in great danger. Even after many games, I still find it one of the nicer dice games - Juliana has no idea about the stories behind it and just plays for the dice combinations, but for me there's a bit of theme painted on, and it's also entertaining. But don't expect deeper strategy (apart from "grab as many clue markers as possible").
Forbidden Desert. The mountaineer (me) and the meteorologist (Juliana) turned out to be the absolute dream team and dug out all the parts of the airplane in no time and flew back to civilization sovereignly, not even a breeze or thirst came up. The game is really fun, but I think we can soon leave the beginner mode - otherwise it is too easy. But that it went so quickly today I owe to the really perfectly running combination.
San Juan. Still a nice filler, but I don't know if it doesn't become frustrating in real play against other players (instead of in the app against AIs) - the player with the guild hall and production focus is hard to catch up with, the difference in points is enormous. If one of the end evaluation buildings comes up, the corresponding player makes a huge leap, there are no useful catch-up mechanisms, except to have luck as well. In the second game of the evening I noticed this myself - no end evaluation standing except the triumphal arch for me and no monuments that I could have built. It can quickly become frustrating when opponents already have an evaluation building out early.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Celeborn sent Aragorn into the woods after the last failures and set out with Haldir and Beravor to uncover Celebrimbor's secret. Unfortunately, another failure, the threat was too great and forced them to retreat. But it went better than with the woodlander klutz who is so smitten with Celeborn's granddaughter. No idea what the girl sees in him, nothing will ever come of it.
Waggle Dance. Wow, so much fun for more. We played again as two players, it really works well. However, it's still quite difficult to assess the tactical potential of the queen cards. And somehow I also need to pay more attention to my own strategy so that I can win sometimes.
Sentinels of the Multiverse. This time, Legacy, Wraith, Ra and Tempest faced off against Baron Blade and although he really gave it his all, he didn't stand a chance. Insula Primalis was particularly annoying this time, but the superheroes were not impressed by either thieving Pterodactyls or lava flows. Epic!
Waggle Dance. Today's first game with Juliana, and it really worked well - definitely a good gateway, but also interesting strategies. The exchange actions, for example, were my saviors, even though I initially rated them as rather weak. And the victory scoring - great. Efficiency is so much cooler than just victory points in a field. Both of us had 5 honey (here the leader would have won), both 9 bees (here the lower one would have been the winner), but Juliana had more nectar and was thus the winner. Very friendly, visually beautiful and elegant worker placement game system.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Twice, Aragorn, Celeborn, and Beravor attempted to find the secret of Celebrimbor from the Orc troops of Bolg, but both times they failed, despite support from the Ents. On the second attempt, they already had the mold, but were then overrun by the Orcs.
Waggle Dance. Just a test flight of the busy bees to get a feel for it, but I like the game! Pretty colorful and a simple, catchy worker placement with enough tactical options. Definitely a good decision to join the Kickstarter. Nice gateway game that even advanced players can have fun with.
Gears of War: The Board Game. On the day of his arrival at his new post, Markus Fenix made a truly pitiful figure - Dom would laugh at him. But it was only flesh wounds, quickly patched up by the medic and right back in, that damned hole must be plugged. And this time it worked. The grenade launcher that the Boomer lost, which suddenly appeared in front of his Lancer - where do these big guys always hide? - and which he couldn't grab, did bother him a bit.
Forbidden Desert. Navigator and water carrier had no major problems finding their way out of the desert, despite the storm picking up and the scorching sun. The game is really nice, relaxing, and fluid to play, even for the first game - although I had of course read the instructions and watched the game on Tabletop. Can definitely become a regular guest with us, and offers space for 2-5.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Aragorn and Frodo visited Celeborn and helped him get a captured Orc through Fangorn. The Huorns were a nuisance but could be kept under control and the group made it through with a few scratches. The deck isn't running really smoothly yet, I still need to optimize, even though it achieved its goal here.
Sentinels of the Multiverse. Baron Blade destroyed Legacy, Ra and Fanatic on Insula Primalis. I guess I need to get better.
Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer. And another time killer on the plane. Offline against the AI.
San Juan. On the return flight from Gran Canaria, this was the perfect relaxation in the plane, even if only against the simple AIs.