boardgames

I finally got to try The crew: Mission deep sea. I like it, but I think I prefered the simplicity of the first one. The game is basically the same but I have to constantly remind people what the meaning of the goal cards are.

We spent most of our week discovering 2 kickstarters that just landed, The Witcher and Isoforian guard.

The Witcher is very easily becoming a slog when playing at higher levels. We played a 4 player game that lasted 3 to 4 hours. It is a lot of fun, but the sweetspot for the game feels around 1 or 2 players. Lastly we are thinking anout adding some extra homerules, as you can now win the game by only fighting lvl 1 monsters. This is also something I see a lot of on BGG forums.

The Isoforian guard is so much fun! Really like the bag drafting gameplay, and the story. The game is tougher than we thought. We wanted to continue with the story, but we got our asses kicked and learned that grinding might be needed to get some better equipment and abilities.

On Tuesday my group played Die Zwerge - Big Box Scenario 2 and so far I'm not a fan. There's no real mitigation option for bad dice rolls making combat really unsatisfying and the final three challenges were just ridiculously impossible.

On Sunday I played Mystic Vale with my girlfriend. She had a powerful totem that gave her a free mana and a VP for every upgrade that she bought. This meant that she was quickly racking up pretty sizeable mana pools and getting a constant trickle of VPs. I on the other hand was stuck with two sun elements and a hugely expensive leader which I couldn't upgrade until well into the second half. I focused (perhaps a bit too much) on getting a decent set of elements to buy vale cards which let me rack up a good amount of VP that way. Ultimately the game ended really tight with 64-62 VP in her favor.

Also on Sunday my group met for DnD. We're almost done with the Lost Mines of Phandelver - or so we though. Almost got TPK'd. A 28 damage fireball took out half of our party, a third tried to ram open a door and knocked himself out leaving only our halfling - down to 2 HP - trying to save everyone. Miraculously she remembered that the healer still carried a healing potion, used it on him who was then able to heal everyone up with a lucky dice roll on his group healing spell. In the ensuing retreat the knight managed to alert another horde of monsters to our presence.

Knocked out some Dominion! I have all the original cycle expansion, plus the 2nd edition updates. First game was crazy, Platinums/Colonies, Tiara, Pirate, Tide Pools, all lead to crazy and big plays. Second game was grindy as hell, only trashing was Lookout and Jack of All Trades, and only draw or action engine was doing nonsense with Trail. First game I got to try Tournament though, which is a really interesting power-curve throughout a game.

We played our first game of Ark Nova (2 Players). There are lost of mechanics to take into account at first and while the start was slow, I am eager for our next session. Since its raining outside, this might even be today.

We also had a session of Splendor Duel. I love this tiny duel game, currently its my favorite in our collection.

• The Toledo War - Two player Schotten-Totten style fun, quick card game from Amabel Holland @ Hollandspiele about the historical conditions of Michigan becoming a state. Was the free game giveaway for their 2019 Holiday Sale. Played a couple rounds before everyone arrived.

• Land and Freedom: The Spanish Civil War - Three players (max). Currently, my favorite game. The Semi-Cooperative nature of it is fantastic. You have to work together with your political opponents to defeat the fascists. Unfortunately, we lost at the beginning of Year 3 this round.

• 7 Wonders Duel - Two players. First time playing, but neither of us cared much for it.

• Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition - Two player variant. First time playing with only two. Usually love this game, but there aren't enough interesting things going on in the two-player version in my opinion and probably will stick to 3+ players from now on.