Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords – Base Set. Lem, Lini, and Harsk set off for Sandpoint and stumbled upon a goblin fortress on the way. Topatch Lem also got tangled up and summoned a Sandspitter Devil in the process, but in the end, they managed to make it through at the last minute. Harsk even found a better crossbow and a second set of armor to change into (you never know when you might encounter a Sandspitter Devil). I'm still amazed by the game system, even though the first base set was a bit simple in structure. I think when the Pirate set comes out in June, I'll get it again and try to get Juliana involved. I just have to sell the pirates as Johnny Depp's crew...
Linkblog - 2.2.2015 - 29.5.2015
Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:
Friday is a new addition to my solo games. A small, fine solo deckbuilder in which you play Friday, who helps the clumsy Robinson to survive. Very nice and rounded concept and a pleasant playtime. Above all, very little space on the table is necessary, ideal as a travel game.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game: Merry, Pippin, and Mablung visited the Fords of Isen, along with a pack of Ents led by Treebeard and a few Eagles. The Dunlanders were flattened. Very solid performance, especially Merry as Voltron, which I liked, as well as the ingeniously low starting threat of the deck. Everything fit this time, the low threat allows time to build up and allows selective fighting. Pippin was a bit less impressive, but Lore is important for quick questing.
Shadowrift. Received yesterday, first game today. A lot of setup for such a compact box, compared to Runeage it simply has more scenarios that can be played cooperatively, albeit two-handed. On the other hand, there are no PvP card effects like in Runeage. The flow is also more pleasant than in other rather brutal coops, but at least the Drow felt too easy. Deckbuilding is also not as pronounced, there is actually no thinning, but various bloating and even late in the game you quickly have a hand without an attack. The goal is also less to eliminate the monsters, but rather to survive until you have closed the rifts, which is noticeably less action than, for example, in Shadowrun: Crossfire. Definitely needs more rounds on the table for a final verdict.
Shadow of the Elder Gods. Arrived today and immediately played a solo game with two investigators. Interesting mechanics with the threat deck, which is randomly assembled and combines open threats on the front of the cards with hidden threats on the back at the bottom of the stack. This way, even if you know the cards, the combination is unpredictable. And the best part: the game is downright tiny. Tiny Epic Cthulhu, anyone?
Lost Legacy. A playtest with Juliana, but she had some issues with the game, which is much more about observing the other players, deduction, and bluffing than about strategy and tactics. Let's see if it makes it to the table again, it is quite interesting, but rather something for 3+ players.
Sentinels of the Multiverse. Recently went to Rook City and searched for Plague Rat with my tried-and-true team of Wraith, Haka, Ra, and Tempest. It was a damn close call, but ultimately successful, even though Tempest and Ra went KO - Ra through self-mutilation, he just plays with fire too much. Haka was the boss in this game, Wraith also did good work but mainly her thing this time was to survive. Tempest is still a boss even when KO.
A Call to Arms indeed delivers some interesting heroes - Theoden could bring Rohan back to the front again, as a swarm deck benefits from cheaper allies. And his weapon is quite a hammer for a Spirit hero. And Treebeard is also very interesting - provides very good attack or quest for a few life points, which you can easily repeat in Lore. The only downside is that I then have to think about which Treebeard I want to play, because the ally version is also very good. But for example Aragorn or Elrond with Athelas brings him back on his feet quickly after he briefly went amok. Ok, 13 threat is heavy, but on the other hand, this could be a real Lore fighting machine.
RedJak's Automated Overlord Variant. Ok, I think this makes Descent really interesting - the Overlord automation offers real coop and solo - and Descent is a living game system with many expansions.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Saruman visited Celeborn and Galadriel and went on a picnic tour down to the Anduin. But of course, Saruman and Grima are doomed, so the picnic wasn't really relaxing. Hill Trolls are just real picnic poopers. Well, with the help of Gandalf, who dropped in briefly, and a series of Wood Elves, they somehow managed to pull it off, even though Galadruel really messed up with her mirror. Grima with the keys is really practical and Galadriel can keep the combo well in check. Saruman as a thug is also not to be sneezed at, especially his blanking helped against the troll, which I had to stop until Gandalf came. It went quite well, but still bumpier than the Elrond deck.
Waggle Dance. Since we've been playing Paperback a lot lately, today we're back to the bees. Always enjoyed playing this, it runs quite smoothly for us. Although I only narrowly won today because I really played poorly at times ...
Paperback. Hah! Juliana starts developing her own strategies! Simply cleared the 8 cent fame cards in the midgame and beat me 34 to 25.
Paperback. Another two-player game with Juliana and she clearly beat me 44 to 30, even though I had a good start, but she had a few big moves and thus the more valuable glory cards, while I often failed by the last cent for the next level. In the rematch, I then won 55 to 20, in the two-player game, acquiring the only 15-point glory card is usually the victory. Special success: Juliana asked if we could play! Second special success: she also wanted a second game!
Paperback. Played as a digestif after the Legends, okay, maybe it was a bit too brain-burning after the big game, but it was a lot of fun, even with four players. The funniest part is definitely the discussion about whether a word exists or not. My final Hussar's hat brought me the victory by a narrow margin.
The Legends of Andor: The Star Shield. And again an evening with The Legends of Andor, this time with The Star Shield. A solid victory that surprised us a little in the end because it went so smoothly - ok, there was some dice luck, but still, the strategy worked perfectly and the planning was spot on and I think we didn't break any rules. Cool.
Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:
Why Go’s design is a disservice to intelligent programmers | Nomad Software. Some of the points addressed there also irritate me a bit about Go. By now, I have the feeling of being strongly reminded of Niklaus Wirth (keyword: Oberon). Yes, you can certainly design simple languages, but dumbing down is not the right approach for that. As much as some of the concepts for asynchrony in Go excite me, the base language irritates me.
What I considered worth reading during the week and did not want to link separately, collected here and uncommented.
Paperback. Yesterday I received my German PnP edition of Paperback. Unfortunately, I didn't prepare the card for Printstudio optimally, now they have some awkward edges on the front, but who cares, they are playable anyway. And the game is really fun, I played semi-coop with Juliana, so both of us pondered for both players and afterwards we looked who had more victory points. At the real end probably Juliana, but we somehow messed up and cleared an additional victory card stack and there I was with a mega move that brought me flat 20 additional victory points right away.
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.
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.
Mental Meta 2: Every Day I’m Shuffling | Dojo Of Lies. Interesting article about the effectiveness of various card shuffling methods. Particularly interesting for me is that the "Ripple-Shuffle" and "Mash-Shuffle" don't fare so well compared to a randomized "Pile-Shuffle". In MTG circles, the Riffle-Shuffle is often considered the gold standard - but it seems that a mixed method is actually more correct (which I probably also achieve with my Overhand-Shuffle and Mash-Shuffle).
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.
Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:
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.
What I considered worth reading during the week and did not want to link separately, collected here and uncommented.
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.
Download Free Smartwatch Faces for Moto 360, LG G Series, Samsung Gear, Sony SmartWatch 3 and Asus ZenWatch | FaceRepo. It says: Watch Faces. For WatchMaker and facer.
[start [[Watchmaker Wiki]]](http://watchmaker.haz.wiki/). Noted for later, just because it's practical. Watchmaker has a lot of cool stuff in it that you can use for watches. And the weird effects when dimming, which I had initially, are not happening at the moment.
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.
Here's what I found worth reading this week, collected and uncommented:
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 MĂĽnster 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.