What I considered worth reading during the week and did not want to link separately, collected here and uncommented.
Archive November 2015
I finally managed to bring Mage Knight Board Game to the table for a solo learning game. Still with reduced walkthrough rules to get a feel for the ruleset first, then next time I'll dive into the full walkthrough rules. There are quite a few corners to consider, and unfortunately, the setup is a bit more involved (though not much worse than, for example, The Gallerist). I still need to come up with something for organization. But overall, it's already an impressive game. I like these more puzzle-oriented cooperative or solo games, and the theme definitely appeals to me. This will definitely be repeated. And I'm also looking forward to the re-releases of the expansions, especially the Lost Legion and the brand new expansion, which offer a lot for solo play.
Here's what I found worth reading this week and didn't want to link separately, collected and uncommented:
7 Wonders: Duel I pre-ordered for Essen and then - because of my cancellation - had a colleague bring it for me. As with Tides of Time, I'm fascinated by the idea of a two-person drafting. Here, especially interesting is the open drafting - you see the opponent's choices and at least parts of the upcoming cards. Then there's a reveal mechanism like Jaipur, where you have to be very careful not to give the opponent too many options and interesting side paths to win with military or science. Buildings build on each other and form chains like Progress and then there are the Wonders of the World, which all offer powerful effects. And the scientific achievements, which can provide decisive advantages for a player. All of this in a compact package with manageable playtime and - despite the many options - quite compact rules. I already like it after the first practice game and I hope that after a few games Juliana will too.
Tides of Time I bought because microgames always fascinate me, especially when there's actually a real game behind them. It's also a drafting game, and even for two players, although drafting often doesn't work so well with two. But here it really fits well and the game offers surprisingly many decisions where you really have to think. It requires much more consideration than other typical fillers, but it still plays very quickly. It also has a compact box (could be even more compact with standard cards instead of the monster cards that Pegasus chooses for "Microgames") and a really compact setup that also fits on café tables. Cool. Because of the really good illustrations, I even forgive the huge cards.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is a regular guest on the table, at least when I play solo. Not every round is remarkable, even though the games are usually fun. But yesterday, I sent my renovated Ent deck into the race for the first time, this time against the first scenario of the Black Rider. And the result was impressive. The deck didn't run smoothly at all - only a few Ents, only one of the Ent Grave events (where you can take all Ent cards from the top 5). No Shadowmane for Gandalf. So not really optimal - and yet the deck held up extremely well. The situation never really became dangerous, the black riders (though also with a lot of luck, none of them got their mount) were not a real threat, as I could almost always pull them out of staging to block them cleanly and then shred them with a few Ents. Thanks to some Quick Knots, the Hobbits were always available to send them to hiding tests and in case of emergency they could be improved with Ents. And Treebeard was soon there as a solid defender and quester and additional resource source. The switch away from Treebeard as a hero to Gandalf definitely gives me a good piece of control over the player deck, which helps a lot with a sluggish start of the deck - especially with poorer development in the first rounds, the old version was quickly overwhelmed and here I had to face 9-11 threat in the lineup very quickly. A really nice deck and I think I can let it run against the whole campaign.
The Gallerist hit the table for the first solo game today. Wow. It's almost like work. But it's a lot of fun, even though I made way too many mistakes in the first solo game - the game system was already quite recognizable. The actions make sense and are thematically very well founded, which makes learning much easier. And the best part: it's really fun. The two hours flew by. This will definitely be repeated.
Selection for the next big game that Juliana and I learned together was over the weekend The Golden Ages and we have the first learning game behind us. It was still a bit bumpy, the game has significantly more moving parts than anything we have played so far. But it was fun and the structure is quite logical. You just have to think about a few things during the change of epochs. All in all, however, a really beautiful game with a lot of possibilities and variable setup, that should keep us busy for a good while. But I don't think Progress will be dethroned so quickly.
Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented: