Category: Syndicated

Nice review. I got the game a few days ago myself, played it for the first time today and really enjoyed it. A nice, tight feel to the game play, no superfluous “fluff”. I guess this will hit the table more often, as it can be taught to new players quite easily, only the culture track threw my wife off for a bit in our first play. I would put it in the same complexity range as San Juan and both have a bit of a “similar” feel to me.

yeah, the usual thing would have been to Shabti the Book of the Dead away in case you can’t get it yourself, for the simple reason that the risk that your opponent gets it, is too high. Still, a Book of the Dead is not the end to the game, it is just a…

by TheGargoyle
My biggest problem after my first plays is that there is no reliable luck mitigation – if you don’t roll moves, you can’t move. If you don’t roll enough attacks, you won’t be able to attack. If you don’t draw useful stuff, you can’t m…

I decided that as a bard, he likes to hang out in Rivendell and so is in my Elrond deck. Together with the star gazer, which are in there for Elrond anyway, his targeted draw really shines. Together with Erestor, they provide with solid card draw (and …

well, there is Grima, who is really good if you can manage his threat increase (which is why he resides in my silvan deck, because of Galadriel – yeah, my elves are weird like that) – together with power of Orthanc he can help a lot with ressource prod…

Waggle Dance goes pretty fast, both the whole game and a single player action. You place one worker bee as your action, then the next player, until all bees are placed, then actions are resolved, then it is the next round allready. Worker bees are actu…

It is my favourite time and money sink, as it combines deck construction and coop/solo play in a very fun way. That said, the core box has a rather unfortunate selection of adventures. The first is ok as an introductory thing, but has low replay value later on when you get better. The second one – actually one of my favourite – is quite hard with just a core box and stays hard with later adventure sets and even if you have everything in cards, it is a good baseline to test against. If your deck can’t beat the journey down the anduin, it might not be really good. The third core adventure is a beast that needs a specially constructed deck and IMO is a really bad selection for a core box. It is brutal. Adventures get more diverse over the difficulty scale and more diverse on what is needed to defend them with later expansions, there are good buying guides out there on what to get next. My personal preferences are the Khazad Dum stuff, I really like the adventures there. But whatever you get, don’t be fooled into thinking it is just a luck-fest. Almost all adventures can be “solved” in that you can build a deck that consistently beats it in a majority of plays. A notable exception being the escape from Dol Guldur, even specifically constructed decks only beat that one 50/50.

Nope, no cards in hand in that one, so no deck building and no hand management. And it is solely cooperative and not competitive. And no levelling whatsoever.

well, it is cooperative, so the major goal for me is to have an enjoying game, not a competition. Which essentially translates for me into “there is no cheating unless it breaks the fun”. Which again means, digging through an FAQ is quite far away from the definition of fun for me. So quite often I go for a “common sense” solution, because in my own frame of mind, that’s more enjoyable than looking up stuff in a document. It’s the same for me with LOTR:LCG – if I know about errata on a card (like for example for Zigil Miner), of course I play according to it’s errata. But if I don’t know about it, I don’t dig into the big pile of errata to see if a card I added to my deck needs to be played differently from what is written on the card or from what I understand the card does. Sure, if I later learn about changes, I play them like that from then on – but I don’t really see much enjoyment in hunting errors in games 😉 TLDR: with coop games, I’m fine with some leeway with regards to how tight I follow rules and especially rules updates / errata, as long as it keeps the game flowing and fun.

Nah, so far most games where introductory games for other people, so I am fine with easy and cake. I prefer to tighten the thumb-screws later on, when they think they “solved” it 😉

For me so far it was **Robinson Crusoe, Adventure on a Cursed Island** and **Space Hulk: Death Angels**.

so far all plays of Forbidden Desert have been cakewalks. I admit, though, it was on easy difficulty 😉

by TheGargoyle
Athlas has similar troubles with the german Spieleschmiede crowdfunding – Spieleschmiede can’t get any communication with GEG and doesn’t know about status of the stuff they are supposed to send to german backers. And again, GEG split…

**Waggle Dance** made it to the table of our new (still small) weekly play group. Went over very well with people, but definitely more on the “heavy” side of things for most of them. Will use that insight to calibrate further game selections. But again, this game is really a lot of fun, and can be taught to new players easily. Other than that only some **Sentinels of the Multiverse** and **Shadowrift** as solo games.

**Shadow of the Elder Gods** was new to me, and since it is a Kickstarter, I guess for many others, too. I don’t kniw if it stands the test of time, but I am sure it will work for a few monster romps in my future. The biggest thing it has going for it …

by TheGargoyle
Sjeng wrote:Awesome. Posted some suggestions.2. if you think shipping can start even before november, how about an Essen pickup?7. Shipping estimates please.One of the pledge levels probably is named “Essen pickup” for a reason, and w…

that is the one that came to my mind after reading the description, too.

Got a kickstarter delivered – **Shadow of the Elder Gods** – and played it. Interesting system, don’t agree with some rather dismissive comments on reddit about the game, I actually thought it was quite neat. The rule book is a bit clumsy, but not horrible, and the game has a few interesting twists and mechanics. Components could have been a bit better quality, though, but well, it definitely gives me the Ctulhu vibe in a very compact box. First game was solo with two investigators. And I got my copy of **Shadowrift** and played it. Again, quite a fun game. Part of it felt a bit long in the teeth, though, and the win con “seal all shadowrifts” can come a good bit earlier than you would expect, but there are ways around that (shuffle rifts into the lower third of the monster deck for example). All in all interesting mechanics and feels like it will be a good coop deckbuilder that is not brutally hard. Again, solo with two hands. And I got my weekly boardgame event going, so hopefully the future will hold more game playing for me. This time around it was **Forbidden Desert** and **Paperback**. Both games went over very well. I think Forbidden Desert is great to get people into boardgames, because it has an “understandable” theme. Unlink Cthulhu you aren’t asked what the heck that thing is, how many tentacles it has and how you pronounce it’s name 😉 For conventsions, I only go to Essen Spiel, went there last year and definitely plan to go this year, too. Conventions are quite a bit too hectic for me, but Essen is closeby, so it would be silly not to go. Regarding research vs. play time – yeah, guilty of investing far too much time into reading about and talking about games than actually playing them. But it is getting better.

actually I think LOTR:LCG can be quite portable if you carry your favorite deck with your favorite scenario in a typical 100-card deckbox together with a few colored dice instead of tokens (and two 10-sided dice for the threat counter). Swasp out the scenario every now and then and you have a great small package of fun. I use the Ultra Pro Satin Towers for deck boxes, because they have the additional storage area for dice. Other than that, a great portable solo-able game is **Space Hulk: Deathangels** – it gives you multiple scenarios, too, and you can just decide how many groups of marines you want to play. It is Warhammer 40K theamed. **Onirim** itself is quite replayable if you look at it’s expansions, too, especially with the 2nd edition which comes with 7 expansions (be careful, sometimes it is sold as 1st edition, 2nd printing – that one only has 3 expansions). “Problem” with Onirim is that you will shuffle your deck a lot. If you go with a pack-a-deckbox-for-fun solution, **Thunderstone Advance** can be an option, too, because you can just pre-pack a scenario with selected monsters and villager cards and a starter deck and go with that. If you get bored of the scenario, just switch the contents of the box. The included play map isn’t really needed if you just memorize the layout on the table. But from all of those above, I probably would go with Deathangels, because it provides the most replayability and variance right out of the box without any preparation and can be played with some other people if the occasion arises, too.

Oh man, that one is the one I am curious about the most. Golems! It is what I built the most as avatar for myself in Second Life aside from Gargoyles. Hmm, any chapter with Gargoyles in it?

Lord of the Ice Garden just finished their kickstarter for 2nd edition, so could become available again, if they produce more than they deliver to backers.

**Lord of the Ice Garden** is a worker placement game with miniatures and asymmetric player powers. Quite a cool mix, and the miniatures look nice. **Hyperborea** is a bag-building and area control game with good looking miniatures. **Kemet** and **Cyc…

Mike Selinker is here, too.

by TheGargoyle
well, with those changes I will be in it from the start when it hits KS.

by TheGargoyle
voodoobunny wrote:The biggest boon to solo play, however, will be that since the Missions are non-linear, you can pop back and forth from solo and group play with the same character without missing a beat. Now that sounds interesting,…

I just love their radar watchface – so went with the subscription to get animated radar and some other enhancements. The radar often gives me much better planning than a simple graph. It is just 7 a year for subscription and so far the app nicely devel…

by TheGargoyle
One thing I would like to know is how the solo play is. With PACG I usually run 2 or 3 characters. Will this be the same here, or will it be truly soloable with one character? How does that interact with the spacial aspects of memory …

works great now. thanks!

Aaaaargh! My wallet! The pain!