by Michelle
5/22/14Thunderstone Advance
5 player coop, 120 mins
2014 Progress: 12/20
Total Plays: 43
This was a fun, but long play. We specifically chose the heroes Woodguard, Strong, Glamercast and Thundermage. Woodguard worked out tremendously well, maybe too well. We all took a few Woodguards so everyone could benefit from the draws. Some turns towards the end, we were all going into our turns with 10+ cards in our hand. That probably made the game way too easy.
I mostly tried to focus on Glamercast, but I did buy a few Strongs and Thundermages along the way. Again, I think I focused too much on breadth vs depth and didn't get any level 3s, but had quite a few level 2s. I was disappointed though that nobody got a level 3 Thundermage. I thought her level 3 would be really beneficial for coop mode.
Anyway, we all had a lot of fun with this, despite it taking 2 hours. Woodguard definitely made things easier for us. I think for our next game we will probably still use him, but randomly pick the rest instead of assembling an all-star cast. We'll see if the difficulty level becomes harder, but not super hard.
Homesteaders
4 player, 90 mins
2014 Progress: 2/10
Total Plays: 10
Another fun play of Homesteaders. I really need to play this more often. This game I managed to build some money buildings along with using my workers to get gold and steel. By the town phase I was surprisingly able to generate enough each turn that I didn't need to take loans to pay for the auctions and resources to build the buildings. I think I maybe passed at most twice in the game. I tried not to pass in the beginning and focused on building an engine, and I think it worked out pretty well for the rest of the game.
I managed to snag a cow building towards the end of the town phase for $3 because nobody else wanted it. It was the first time I ever produced cows, so I was pretty excited about that and put it to good use. I think I'm still trying to do more breadth than depth, so next play I will try harder to focus in one or two specific areas. I had end game points per railroad, workers, and other types of buildings, but I only had a little bit in each category.
5/26/14
Space Alert
5 players, 3 plays, 20 mins/each
2014 Progress: 6/20
Total Plays: 43
The first play was a warmup game so no advanced threats. It was a piece of cake, so the second game we added advanced external threats. Much more chaotic and we got completely owned by the kamikaze. The 3rd game we stuck with the advanced externals and we managed to win, although we did take a fair amount of damage. We played this with 2 AP players and I thought it was a success. The real-time aspect made them think on their toes and they still seemed to have a good time.
K2
5 players, 90 mins
2014 Progress: 2/5
Total Plays: 14
We played the hard side with summer weather. The weather was not bad. Early on, we got the high altitude storms that didn't affect anyone, but at the end, we did get some more storms that were painful for many.
Timing was not on my side, plus I made a few mistakes early on. I reached the top last, which meant that I ended up having one guy sit in his tent near the top waiting for everyone else to die or come back down. I wasted a bit of acclimization doing that and at the end I didn't have enough oxygen to share between both my climbers to get them to the very top.
Another mistake I made was to try to evenly move both my climbers up in the beginning. My ending hand in the first cycle had all the oxygen cards but both my climbers were already at 6, so those cards were wasted. I should have moved one climber further out so those oxygen cards would not be wasted.
In our group, we had one casualty and a few close calls. Lots of tension near the top. It sometimes does induce a bit of AP though when you're near death and trying to determine if you want to take a risk or not.
5/29/14
Nightfall
4 players, 90 mins
2014 Progress: 3/? (not tracked bc for trade)
Total Plays: 22
We tried the 2v2 variant with a win condition of the team member that got the least wounds in an attempt to encourage more equal distribution of wounds.
I enjoyed playing this variant. I think it solves many things that I do not like with 2 player, and still reduces the politics that I do not enjoy in a multi-player game. Since there are more players, there are more chances to be able to chain when it's not your turn, whereas in a 2-player game, the consequences seem worse when you can't chain on your opponents turn.
But it seemed to fall flat with the rest of my group. The claim phase took a long time because everyone was trying to find the good chains and kicker combos, which dragged out the game. Also, it seemed a little too swingy for their tastes. On some turns, one person could end getting a huge chain while the others can't do anything.
Sadly, I think it is time for me to let go of Nightfall. I don't really enjoy playing it 2 player anymore, and the rest of my group doesn't really want to play either. I guess I'll have to try out the ios app to satisfy my craving.
6/5/14
Castles of Burgundy
3 player, 90 mins
2014 Progress: 1/10
Total Plays: 13
I can't believe it took me half a year to play this again. Another fun game that I really need to play more. I taught 2 new players, so there wasn't that much denial going on and I took a staggering lead. It's the first game I have managed to score more than 200 pts! Still, the other two seemed to enjoy the play.
This game I started with placing my castle in the corner of my board that was surrounded by the most 1 and 2-spot areas. It happened to be mines, ships and science, so I went for those first. I tried to also focus on creating the quickest path to the next castle space. This worked out pretty well, as I was able to finish those areas in the first 2 phases. Also I was first player for many turns so I was able to grab all the mines as well. The mines were incredibly useful. With 3 silverlings per phase I was able to buy a lot of good tiles from the market.
I originally wasn't going to go for animals, but a great opportunity appeared with cows. Over two phases, I was able to fill up my 4-spot area with 14 cows, which gave me lots of points (4 + 7 + 11 + 14 + area completion). Towards the end, I was able to complete both my 6-spot building areas for some good points there too.
If I was playing against more experienced players, they probably would have denied me more tiles, as well as fighting harder over first player. I think the first player advantage helped tremendously in securing the most important tiles for me. This game, I focused on 2 things that I typically haven't focused on in the past: early mines and ships. They both played had a big positive impact on my game, so I will have to continue to focus on these in future plays.