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Bobby Warren
United States
Glendale
Arizona
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Boy, I hope the translation of the title of this post "Interrupted game playing!"
My FLGS is running a large Games Workshop tournament this weekend, so we will not be playing games at the store. As is the norm when that happens, I will not be nominating a game for me to take to try and get played.
This is fine because there are still a bunch of the previous games I would like to try and get played and we'll see if I can get any of them in this weekend during any of the game playing I do get to do.
Last week
Apparently the camels were spitting like mad because we didn't play Yspahan. By spitting camels, I mean that Rick (hi Rick!) came by with prototypes and hijacked our playing of completed and finished games.
Sarcasm aside, he did trot out an updated version of a card game we played a few months ago and it is now more of a polished game which just might be ready to think about publishing.
He also had us play a game which let me rant on about English professors and their insistence on torturing their students with James Joyce's writings. Is it just me, or should that tripe be relegated to advanced psychology classes and not literature? (Maybe there was some sarcasm there...) I didn't like that game. Part of it was the theme and part of it was I spent several turn fishing through a random deck trying to get the resource I needed to actually be able to complete something.
No one brought up the Solved Game or Fluxx Advance so it was my rant for the day and I felt good after getting to make it, so it was nice to see Rick again. Jeff, who was the only one listening to me, probably wanted to kill himself, or me. 
After the prototypes there were six of us, so Yspahan was out then. I think I should have tried to get it played at the beginning of the day, which may well be the best strategy going forward.
Games played last week
• Keltis: Das Kartenspiel x2
• King of Tokyo x2
• Nightfall: Coldest War x3
• Pandemic w/On the Brink
• Revolver: The Wild West Gunfighting Game
• Thunderstone w/original format expansions
• Unpublished Prototype: A.L.F. game.
• Unpublished Prototype: card game
• Würfel Bohnanza
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Bobby Warren
United States
Glendale
Arizona
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Once again, the miniatures games pop their heads up and end up on my radar.
First up is Malifaux. I finally got around to putting together all of Colette's Showgirls figures and got them shipped out to be painted. When I get them back I will have a fully-painted faction which I will then have to play. I've started painting so many figures but just haven't reached the point where I was inspired enough to finish painting that much.
I have actually decided that I am going to strip the paint off my Neverborn Nephilim and start over since I think dipping them would be better than what I was doing and I want to change the color of the skin I was going to have on them from a medium gray to a light gray with some human flesh tone highlights. Plus the dipping will shade in the areas I already used a wash on before I decided dipping would work.
Since they are metal miniatures, I am going to buy some acetone which will strip them clean as clean can be, but it also means I will probably have to re-build them because it can also dissolve super glue and make green stuff spongy (though it will harden back up when it dries).
Right now I am inspired to get a force for Warmachine/Hordes done. My FLGS is holding a Mangled Metal/Claw & Fang tourney next month. Simply put, it is a tournament format which has the leader figure and only Warjacks (for Warmachine) or beasts (for Hordes).
My Warmachine Rhulic mercenaries do not look like a good fit for that format, so I am leaning towards making a Trollbloods list. I already had the beasts I want to use and just needed to pick up the warlock, which I did.
I spent a lot of time the past couple of evenings building the the big beat stick (literally) of the force, Mulg the Ancient. I tried finding a picture which shows how big this figure is compared to most others, but was unsuccessful. As you can see from the official picture, he does tower over most human-sized figures. Heck, the club he's carrying is about 5" long! He is the second dire troll I've put together and will likely be the next to last metal one. They require a lot of work to fill gaps and align the pieces. It's a good thing there is now a plastic Dire Troll kit that will work as either a Mauler, Blitzer, or Bomber, in case I ever decide to build a Blitzer. If you would be interested in acquiring a Dire Troll Mauler unassembled and still in the box, contact me. I also have a built and primed Troll Impaler I'd be willing to sell or trade.
My list is going to be only three models, which might not work. Luckily, I will be able to test it out against Mike sometime this week and maybe a few more times before the tourney.
After I get the three figures prepped, I will try and get them painted. I also need to finish up some of the mercenary figures which I started late last year. I just need to add some final colors and then I can dip them and be almost done with them.
I also want to strip the paint off some of the Trolls I got in an auction, including some plastic Fennblade warriors, so I will get some Simple Green to remove their paint and will use the acetone for the metals. These are the models used in the Burrownomicon force I mentioned in a post last year. The person who I bought them from use black primer and I an not a fan. I've always preferred using white, so since I will have the tool available to strip them, I will get it done.
I probably should focus on finishing up the mercenaries before diving into painting the trolls, other than the ones for the tournament. This is how I manage to lose focus when I do the painting myself.
We'll see how things progress.
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Bobby Warren
United States
Glendale
Arizona
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It's got camels!
It's got dice!
It's got tiny, tiny cubes that hurt when you step on them with your bare feet!
Yspahan!
So it's not as fun to yell as Ra! I still like it.
It's a clever game which is dice-driven, but I wouldn't necessarily call it a dice game. The dice are rolled and then grouped by number. The dice with the lowest number rolled go on the lowest "floor" of the action tower, the dice with the highest number on the highest floor of the tower. The rest of the dice are placed on the tower, in ascending order, beginning with the the second floor.
The the current player takes the dice off the floor which represents the action they will take. The number of dice is the number of times the player can take that action.
Usually the action is placing cubes on the board, but there is also taking coins, camels, cars, and placing on the caravan board. There are several mechanisms which are woven together to make a fun game which is really fairly simple to explain and play while remaining challenging.
Last week
Last week was a bummer as far as getting Ra played. It was just Michael and I for the full day, and the sun god just won't get off his lazy arse and come out of the box if there are not at least three people.
Really, what god is so picky that he/she/it has a worhsipper quota? I bet the Etruscan god, Tuchulcha, would have made an appearance for two!
We had several good games which played just fine with the two of us, but none of the required shouting.
Maybe some other time, Sunshine? But you can bet we'll yell the name out with a little less aplomb than we might have last week.
I wonder if Osiris wants a game named after him?
Games played last week
• Castles of Burgundy
• Commands & Colors Ancients
• Keltis: Das Würfelspiel
• Knights of Ten
• Mondo
• Pandemic w/On the Brink x2
• Race for the Galaxy w/The Gathering Storm x4
• Thunderstone Advance: Towers of Ruin
• Thurn and Taxis
• Würfel Bohnanza
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Bobby Warren
United States
Glendale
Arizona
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This week I decided to go with the granddaddy of the alea line, Ra!
Is it an auction game?
Is it a push-you-luck game?
Is it a set collection game?
Yes. Yes, it is.
I have the original Rio Grande edition with the number 1 on the box spine and my copy has hardly been played, so getting it played will be a real treat.
The game is simple. You either draw a tile and add it to the display or start an auction for the tiles in the display. Each player can win a maximum of three auctions (four with three players) before each of the three scorings. The currency for the auctions are the sun tiles each player has. Initially, they are distributed evenly but when an auction is won, the sun tile which won it is put in the display and it will go to the winner of the next auction.
An auction can also be triggered by a Ra tile being drawn.
At the end of the three rounds, there is a final scoring and the player with the most points wins.
Last week
There was no game of the week so I wanted to try and get some of the previously-unplayed games to the table. I did play Tier auf Tier from week 25 with Michael and his daughters. As far as the alea challenges goes, nothing new was played but I did teach Castles of Burgundy to Michael and John. Now much of the Saturday players have been exposed to it.
Games played last week
• Castles of Burgundy
• Fast Flowing Forest Fellers
• Nightfall: Coldest War x3
• Race for the Galaxy w/Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm x2
• Ticket to Ride: India & Switzerland
• Tier auf Tier x2
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Bobby Warren
United States
Glendale
Arizona
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Not much to add this month, except I really, really missed going to the Gathering of Friends this year. I am leaning towards trying to go next year, but the date is so close to the time of year that is busiest at work that it could be prevented at the last minute. Ahh, well, I will have to ponder the decision.
I didn't make much headway in the different alea challenges, just being able to mark off one game in Alea Small Box Challenge.
I played 24 different games a total of 43 times with four of them being new to me and eight of them being games I played in March. I played four expansions a total of 10 times with two of them being new and one of them being played last month.
Here are the games I played in April.
Castles of Burgundy
Times Played: 2
Last Month Played: 3/12
I taught Alex how to play and he did really well. He started off focusing on buildings, which has been my favorite tactic in the last couple of games, so I started working on collecting ships and animals and grabbed the buildings I could when they were useful.
I also taught John and Michael how to play and thought I would try to focus more on the long-term goals over the immediate scoring, so the two one-hex areas didn't get scored until they were worth significantly less points later in the game. In the end, those points might have made the difference since John won by around 10 points.
Fast Flowing Forest Fellers
Times Played: 1
Last Month Played: 3/12
Last month, I mentioned that Michael had picked this up because he thought his daughters would be able to play this. They can, and he and I played this with his them. The youngest ended up winning, in part because we didn't actively attack the youngesters, but she played consistently. She moved the fastest she could on every turn, with Michael and I pointing out the best way to use the movememnt. Occasionally, she would stick to her guns about which figure she wanted to move and it worked out.
In a way, I won. I finished third but Michael didn't get either of his racers off the board and lost badly, so I will claim the moral victory!
Finstere Flure
Times Played: 1
Last Month Played: 8/11
Eighteen entered.
Two left.
Kyle was the one who was successful at leading the monster to grab the others.
Flash Point: Fire Rescue
Times Played: 2
Last Month Played: 2/12
Ben and I taught Kyle to play, we then played a second game, then Kyle bought it.
We played it on a slightly harder level than we had been playing, and we still won both games. Time to make it harder again.
Geschenkt
Times Played: 2
Last Month Played: 2/11
Always fun and I really like the tension near the end of the game when you are waiting to see if that card you really need is even available. The deck keeps running out, and you keep hoping…
Awesome!
Keltis
Times Played: 1
Last Month Played: 11/10
With the dice game being a current favorite, I thought it would be a good idea to get this, or one of the other variations of it, played. I explained it to Ben and then gave a quick refresher to Kyle, who arrived near the end of the explanation, and we went hunting for ancient cities, err, collecting Lucky Charms!
I did really well in this game because both Ben and Kyle were discarding the dark red cards and I was collecting them while some of my other colors were advancing, then I sprinted to the top of the red column and used the remaining cards to move the colors that had gotten because of poor card play on my part, or a lack of drawing those colors.
Keltis: Das Würfelspiel
Times Played: 2
Last Month Played: 3/12
Playing this is what inspired the original game to be played this month. Well, not the original game, but the game which this was named after...
Kingdom Builder
Times Played: 1
Last Month Played: 2/12
Michael and I taught this to Kyle who schooled us.
I'm looking forward to the expansion quite a bit!
Lords of Waterdeep
Times Played: 2
Last Month Played: New to me
I wasn't expecting much from this, but it turned out to be a nice worker placement game with the world's worst box design, ever. Maybe I exaggerate a little, but it is only a little…
Los Banditos
Times Played: 1
Last Month Played: 11/10
It's a very light filler dice game, which is also fairly quick to play.
Mondo
Times Played: 1
Last Month Played: New to me
A speed game which I don't mind. I won't be buying it, but I'll play it when asked.
Nightfall: Coldest War
Times Played: 3
Last Month Played: New to me
The additions to the original game made in this set have made the game a keeper from something I was going to trade away. Mike and I played three games and this will be joining the games we play on Thursdays as two-player games. I am now of the opinion that the game works best with two.
Quarriors
Times Played: 2
Last Month Played: 3/12
Expansion Played: Rise of the Demons for all games.
Played a couple of games at Mike's. I did learn that three dragons can beat two dragons. That's good to know since my previous experience showed that four dragons is a loser to one dragon.
Race for the Galaxy
Times Played: 4
Last Month Played: 1/12
Expansion Played: The Gathering Storm for all the games.
Michael, Kyle, and I raced through a couple of games and late rin the month, it was just Michael nd I for a couple of games.
Rat Hot
Times Played: 1
Last Month Played: 3/11
It is always a good thing when this comes out and gets played. It's a quick, clever, two-player game. I thought I was dominating the game, but I suspect I became too concerned about making Mike's rats stay visible that I lost sight of covering his visible points, and he handily won when we counted up the end-game scoring.
Sentinels of the Multiverse
Times Played: 1
Last Month Played: 9/11
Expansion Played: Rook City.
Expatriette and Mr. Fixer took on Spite at the Industrial Park where he manufactured his nefarious concoctions. After Expatriette fell, Mr. Fixer's zen mastery was almost enough to outlast the villain, but he was defeated as victory was just in sight.
Mike and I played without a dummy third player, and I guess the game is designed to work with at least three players, but it was still fun and we really did come close to a victory.
The Speicherstadt
Times Played: 2
Last Month Played: 3/12
First I taught Ben to play. Then later, Ben and I taught Kyle to play since it was something we could fit into the 45-minute we had to play something.
Thunderstone Advance: Towers of Ruin
Times Played: 2
Last Month Played: 3/12
One of the games we were setting up to play with three and Kevin and Anne showed up and we decided to play it with five, which is not ideal. It was made worse when a Magma Drake breached and destroyed two cards off the top of the village and hero decks. That slowed down an already slow game. The next time someone suggests this with five, I need to remember what Nancy Reagan said: Just say no!
Ticket to Ride: India
Times Played: 1
Last Month Played: New to me
This was a fun map to play and I like the bonus scoring for being able to connect a ticket by more than one path.
Our game started out with Michael and John competing heavily for the northwest while I was left mostly alone to start in the east and move across the south. I quickly connected my inital two tickets and continued to draw and complete tickets the rest of the game and ended up with a fairly easy win.
Tier auf Tier
Times Played: 2
Last Month Played: 8/09
Two games, with Michael and his daughters. The youngest won the first game the older won the second game. I did better than I usually do in the second game, not causing a collapse. The one big collapse happened just before the last placement when the younger one tried placing on top of a huge stack which caused a giant collapse. Sometimes, that is more fun than the actual building of the stack.
Würfel Bohnanza
Times Played: 4
Last Month Played: 3/12
I don't know if I will ever know when to give up on a card and start my next one. I always seem to hold out just a little too long.
I taught this to Michael and Alex one Saturday while waiting to see if anyone else would show up. Michael had my usual luck during the game. Nothing anyone rolled helped him. Alex had Hilary luck and ended up winning the game.
I did manage to win a four-player game, which shocked me. Of course it was like Michael kept rolling for me, because I managed to finish several orders on his rolls, and being the true bean-capitalist that I am I did not return the favor!
Wyatt Earp
Times Played: 1
Last Month Played: 4/11
I asked Michael to play this and was able to get this game from the Alea challenges marked off. Going into the third hand I was ahead $24,000 to $18,000 and there was $5,000 on the Sundance Kid and Michael dealt me four of him. I just need to be able to go out to win. I ended up scoring enough with the Kid and two other outlaws while shutting Michael out of them to make it a massacre on my part.
Zombie Dice
Times Played: 3
Last Month Played: 1/11
Expansion Played: both parts of Zombie Dice 2: Double Feature.
Alex had a couple of minutes before he had to leave and I had the expansion which I wanted to try out, so we played this simple, yet fun dice game with the Hunk, the Hotties, and Santa Clause. Zombie Alex was foiled in his attempt to be the best Zombie when the Hotties shotgunned him!
I also got this played a couple of times later in the month. We played with five players and it was a "blast," as always. Michael won both those games with one being an overtime shootout against John.
Zooloretto Würfelspiel
Times Played: 1
Last Month Played: 3/12
I had four of the score sheets laminated at Staples and made the mistake of asking that they be cut. Lamination, $0.89 for a single sheet of laminate. Cutting, $8.00. Yikes!
The lamination did work with the dry erase marker for keeping track of the scores, so running out of score sheets will not be a problem.
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Bobby Warren
United States
Glendale
Arizona
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When Nightfall came out I had really high expectations for it. I really liked the idea of chaining colors and super-bonuses if the card which was chained from matched a particular color. I liked that the wound cards which were collected had some uses but still clogged the deck. Everything about it made me think I was really going to like it.
As I played it, it never really grabbed me. I picked up Martial Law, the first expansion, and hoped it would ignite a fire for the game for me, but it didn't. There always seemed to be something missing, and by the time the Blood Country expansion came out, I decided I would divest myself of the game.
I tried trading both Nightfall and Martial Law as a single lot in a few math trades, but it never traded.
Then I picked up an iPad and purchased Nightfall for the iPad/iPhone and began playing the app. It rekindled my interest in the game, but I was still leaning towards trading it away.
One of the things I checked out because of the renewed interest was the new starter cards in the third expansion, The Coldest War. While looking at the cards, and really liking them, I noticed the new wound effect created in this expansion.
This card chains to and from any card. This does not count toward your 1 wound effect per turn limit.
It helps players who are stuck by allowing them to play cards when they might not normally be able to play.
The set also introduces a global condition, which the players can change during the game, called the Moon Phases. These give bonuses for playing certain cards, based on the traits of the card or the type of the card. It adds some chaos to the game, but also some flavor and incentive for making certain plays.
Another addition is cards which attach to minion cards, essentially equipment for the minion, which helps them. There are also cards which can be played directly from a player's hand instead of being chained. Their effects are usually less than their effect if chained. All-in-all, this looked to tweak the game just the way I hoped it would have been with the first expansion.
So I picked up The Coldest War and Mike and I gave it a whirl, playing three games with just cards from the set.
We liked it, and it will be in our regular rotation of games to play when I go over to his place. After we get to know the cards from this set, I'll pick up Blood Country, the second expansion and then will eventually mix in all the cards.
I've changed my earlier assessment that the game is better with three or four players and now prefer it with two, though I would play with three on occasion.
I do have some wishes...
1. Keep the expansions to once a year, or every nine months. Mike mentioned an article that suggested Thunderstone had to be rebooted because of bloat and I would hate to have Nightfall reach that point.
2. Expansions for the iPad/iPhone version. I'm already feeling like I need more for the game. More, dag nab it!
3. More lycanthropes.
4. More ways to kill vampires.
5. One of these for my birthday! 
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Bobby Warren
United States
Glendale
Arizona
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(Or Ludum hebdomadis interrupta for those of you using non-WB Latin...)
Once again we will be breaking from meeting at the store because of the hordes of people looking to get their cardboard crack fix with the newest pre-release. I'll still have a chance to play games and could try to get some of the unplayed GotW selections played. The unplayed list includes:
• Augsburg 1520 week 24
• Boomtown week 15
• Cuba week 3
• Hermagor week 8
• New England week 21
• Royal Turf week 19
• Tier auf Tier week 25
Fur not flying, animals contained
The animal jokes have to wait for another day to be played. It was a hectic, and crowded week. At one point, there were eleven of us playing three different games. Near the end of the day, when there were just four, we were rolling through the new dice games I had and it seemed like the thing to continue doing.
Games played last week
• Finstere Flure
• Geschenkt x2
• Keltis: Das Würfelspiel
• Kingdom Builder
• Lords of Waterdeep
• Mondo
• Race for the Galaxy w/Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm x2
• Sentinels of the Multiverse w/Sentinels of the Multiverse: Rook City
• Würfel Bohnanza
• Zombie Dice w/Zombie Dice 2: Double Feature x2
• Zooloretto Würfelspiel
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Bobby Warren
United States
Glendale
Arizona
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A quick note...
I'm going to start selling off some of my games to make space. I was hoping to have several inventoried and readied by now, but so far only have one listed.
Currently for sale in the BGG Marketplace, Funkenschlag: EnBW Edition (Power Grid).
You put the monkey's face where?!?!?
Some games create bad jokes, puns, and innuendo when they hit the table. Some, when they are mentioned. Then there is this game, which creates innuendo and comments which even the most pious can't help but join in on.
I am, of course, talking about the innocent children's game, Tier auf Tier (Animal Upon Animal).
It's a children's stacking game where they goal is to be the first player to stack all your animals upon each other, beginning with a crocodile which is places in the middle of the table. Each player has seven animals, one each of a monkey, a snake, a (wood) sheep, a crested lizard, a toucan, a hedgehog, and a penguin. If, while placing a figure on the stack, the player causes any of the animals to fall off the stack, they take two of them and put the rest back in the box and out of the game. On their turn, the active player rolls a die and does what it indicates.
• If a 1 (which is on two of the six sides) or a 2 is rolled, the player tries to place one or two of the animals in their possession on the crocodile or one one of the animals already stacked on it.
• If a question mark is rolled, the other players get to pick which of the active player's animals they will have to be try and place on the stack.
• If a crocodile is rolled, the player can place one of their animals on the table but it has to touch the crocodile or one of the other animals already placed in this way.
• If a hand is rolled, the player picks one of their animals another player has to place, and that other player will get the fallen pieces if they fail.
Like every game from Haba I have seen, the components are really nice. The figures are well-crafted and shaped such that stacking them isn't too hard for younger hands, but we adults seem to have more problems that the kids do.
We always play with the variant that if a player has one piece left when it is their turn, they do not roll the die and have to successfully place the last piece to win the game.
This was really popular when I fist discovered it in pictures from Gulf Games 16. When I would order imports, I would often have to add several copies of this. Some people bought multiple copies because they ended up giving their copy away to someone else who wanted it. And it was popular because it is a good game, not because of the suggestive humor that happens when it is played. The humor is just a bonus!
Since the original came out in 2005, there have been all kinds of sequels and re-implementations. I knew of some of them, but was surprised by many of them. I'm sure glad I didn't know about the Crow promo at Essen last year. I probably would have gone all out to try and get four copies of it to add to my set!
I decided to make this the game for the week because it looks like Christa will be joining us for the first time in a long time, and this is a favorite of her's. Plus, there are a lot of newer people coming to game that might not have seen it before.
Plans get Fuggered up...
Playing Augsburg 1520 last weekend just didn't work out. I can't see trying again this weekend since Christa will be there and she is not a fan of auction games, though I suspect she wouldn't hate this one. But I also think she wouldn't really enjoy it.
I will be making an effort to get this played as soon as possible just so I can mark it off as played on the Alea Medium Box Challenge.
Games played last week
• Keltis: Das Würfelspiel
• Quarriors w/Rise of the Demons x2
• Rat Hot
• Thunderstone Advance: Towers of Ruin x2
• Würfel Bohnanza x2
• Wyatt Earp
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Bobby Warren
United States
Glendale
Arizona
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Running through the various alea challenges I mentioned last month, I've decided to make Augsburg 1520 the game I am going to try and get played this week.
It's an auction game where each player is a merchant and has cards which represent debts from the court of Maximilian I which they can turn in to favors from the court and the Emperor himself. The favors are used generate prestige and more money for the players until one of the becomes the greatest of the merchants.
There are a number of rounds equal to the number of players plus two. In each round the players visit four nobles seeking favors, then visit Maximilian. The visits are auctions which begin with the start player, who makes an offer of a number of cards. Then, in order around the table, the players can either pass, call, or raise. A pass means the player is out of the bidding for this noble's favors. A call means the player is willing to offer as many cards as bid. A raise increases the number of cards offered. Once everyone has called or passed, the players who are in this auction reveal a number of cards that were bid, and the player with the highest value card from that noble wins the bid and takes the privilege card and takes two of the actions on it. The second highest bidder gets 100 guilders, and the third highest gets 50.
There are four normal auctions for favors and then auction for Maximilian's favor. His auction is different because there are no cards for him. The cards used are any of the cards for the four nobles can be used.
The privilege cards have actions which increase the player's level on their privilege tracks in either finance, nobility, or civic offices. These give the player more money, victory points, or debt certificates with which to bid.
At the end of the round, the players are dealt a number of cards equal to the number indicated by their level on the offices track. They then have to pay for the cards which they want to keep and another round begins.
As always, I didn't cover the entire game, just the overall flow.
I like auction games and think that this is a clever one which has some other rules that make it tricky to play, but not too tricky. Because the players bid for favors in the cards they have, the values of the commodities in the game are pretty easy to determine, but they are also not set in stone because one player's need may inflate the value of the commodity for them.
Last week's game: The luck of the Irish...
We did play Keltis last week. Ben and I had were finishing another game and Kyle texted that he was on his way, I pulled the game out and explained it Ben and gave Kyle a refresher when he arrived. I had nothing but middle cards to start, so I began discarding. Both Ben and Kyle started discarding the dark red, which I started gathering up as I was moving up a couple of the other columns, then I made a dash with the dark red. When that one reached the last spot, I still had several playable cards, so I was able to move other pieces. And when the game ended, I was slightly ahead of Kyle and Ben was way behind, but he tends to do much better the second time he plays a game. So I will have to make sure we get the chance to play it again soon.
Games played this past week
• Castles of Burgundy
• Flash Point: Fire Rescue x2
• Keltis
• Lords of Waterdeep
• Los Banditos
• The Speicherstadt x2
• Würfel Bohnanza
• Zombie Dice w/Zombie Dice 2: Double Feature
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Bobby Warren
United States
Glendale
Arizona
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Mike taught Lords of Waterdeep to Hilary and I the other night and playing it only once has made me a total expert on it and given me enough information to make a full, comprehensive review.
All right, all right! Calm down! I really only know enough about it to make some comments which will likely bear out over time.
First up, the box. Whoever designed this poor excuse for a game container should lose their job, be flogged, rehired just so they can suffer the humiliation of being fired again. In other words, it's poopy. Maybe I am being a little dramatic? The box isn't sealed on all four corners and while the insert looks like it would hold everything, if some poor sot placed it on a shelf like a book, the shallow cover would likely come off and spill the contents everywhere. It's something I would not expect from such a big company.
On to the game!
Take the Dungeons & Dragons theme, add some Forgotten Realms, and some flavor text on the cards. Got it? Now toss it all out and let's look at the game because what we have here is a basic Euro worker placement game which has less nothing (which is a really small amount) to do with the theme. Not that it is a bad thing. For me, theme is best used when explaining a game and I think it would help those who need to explain the game to players not familiar with standard Euro conventions. In our playing, we were about 1/4 of the way through the game when Mike held up a black cube and said, "Oh, these are rogues." Until that point, who knew?
The game is about collecting resources (hiring adventurers) and completing goals (quests) by paying the collected resource cubes and, sometimes, cold flexible (because it is cardboard) cash. This is done by visiting locations in Waterdeep, a city in the Forgotten Realms. Most locations have one room for one worker meeple a round and two of them have space for three. When a meeple is placed on a location, the player which placed said meeple collects the resources indicated on the space, or takes some other action, like taking the start player marker.
There are five or six different types of quests and each player will be dealt a "Lord of Waterdeep" card which gives bonus pints at the end of the game for each of two types of quests that are completed*, which adds one more layer of the information the players need to track. I was looking to complete Warfare and Commerce quests and I believe there were Arcana and Skullduggery and others.
One of the actions is completing one of three face-up building tiles, which creates a new space on the board which players can visit. The player that built the building will get a bonus when other players use the building. There is a stack of building tiles which is shuffled at the beginning of the game, so the available buildings will be different every game.
The other location with three spaces is where one of four face-up Quests are taken. Each space allows the player to take a Quests, with a bonus. One space gives the player two coins, one gives an Intrigue card, and one discards the face-up Quests and replaces them with four new ones before the player has to choose one.
Quests are completed after placing a meeple. A player can only complete one Quest after placing a meeple. Usually the Quests are placed face down in a completed quest pile, but some of them give the completing player an ongoing bonus, such as collect an extra fighter (orange cube) anytime the player takes an action which gives them any fighters.
There are also Intrigue cards, which give bonuses to the player that played them and/or sometimes have a minor annoying effect on an opponent. They can only be played when visiting the harbor space (which has room for three meeples) and meeples on the harbor are placed on different spaces in the town at the end of the round. So the cost of being able to play one of the cards is losing out at the better spaces available earlier in the round. A fair trade off in my book.
The Intrigue cards are what almost stopped me from wanting to try the game. Severe screw your neighbor effects really can ruin a good game, especially random ones. If a game is set up so every player has the same effects which they can play on others, then it is fair and everyone knows what can (and likely will) happen during the game. But drawing cards randomly which can then be played on another player really can ruin a good game.
What I saw of the Intrigue cards during the game we played made me believe they are all pretty equal. Sure, some might be better than others for a particular task at the moment, but overall the designers look to have done a great job with them.
I enjoyed my playing and will happily play again, though I am sure each playing with come with some kind of taunt made at the stupid box design. Yes, I obsess over small things.
It's a good Euro-style game, and one which might lead some of the RPG fans to the world of board gaming. Since Mike has it, I see no reason to buy it. Plus the box wouldn't work well with how my games are stored. (See? Small things!) We can play whenever he is up for it and it might also be something Nico buys, which means I would be able to play on Saturdays when he's not playing at being shark bait.
Mike has played it with two, three, and four players and said it scales well with that number of players.
I wonder how much I would have to say about something I actually knew more about? Sheesh!
* I see from perusing the pictures for the game that at least one of the Lords of Waterdeep gives bonus points for constructing/controlling buildings.
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