by Bobby Warren
I played 33 games a total of 66 times and recorded playing seven expansions a total of nine times. I played 13 of the games and one of the expansions in May. Five of the games and two of the expansions were new to me.I played some really good new games this month and hope to get more playings out of them in the near future. I received one of the board games I backed on Kickstarter and it looks like another one or two will show up in July.
Here is what I played in June.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 5/13
My Rating: 8
Six players and I managed a fairly hefty green strategy win, even though I ran out of money a couple of times.
I've still only played the Cities expansion only once, which was right after it was released. I really need to get it back to the table, which would mean taking my copy along to play on Saturdays. I don't think Alex owns it or Leaders.
Times Played:2
Last Month Played: 5/13
My Rating: 6
Alex, Michael, and I played a "short" three-player game. It took about two hours to play, including explanation for Michael. The public scoring goal was most cash. My secret goal was also for the most cash, so I made sure I had the cash when the game looked to be ending. I also diversified by holdings and had one of each building, but a temple, and two ports and two markets. I ended up with the win.
Alex and I later played a game with Trent. I dislike the secret VP cards which have players hoarding resource cubes. They are harder to predict than actually predicting the scoring from the player's actually building and onto the board and buying cards, and once someone starts hoarding there is no way to overtake them because they control the market as long as they want to.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 12/07
My Rating: 8
I taught Alex to play without the tactics cards. Overall there wasn't much tension in this game which made it less appealing for the new player.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 10/11
My Rating: 7
Nico brought this along and taught it. I played the Wood Elves, Nico was the Dwarves, Michael was the Orcs, and Rob was Chaos. Michael won with 47 fans. Now I need to get my copy played soon so the rules stick.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: New to me
My Rating: 8
Late in the month I received this game which I backed through Kickstarter. Mike and I broke it out and played a two-player game. My shuffling of the castle cards left a little to be desired as we got all kinds of duplicates early on, so a further shuffling was called for. As we played more the duplicate draws were less of an issue, but they didn't entirely vanish because there are lots of duplicates in the card decks. At least drawing three in a row of the same card stopped happening.
It was a close game an Mike ended up with a slim, one-point victory. I'm looking forward to trying it out again soon, including with more players.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 6/12
My Rating: 7
Patty had been asking me to bring this along because she wanted to play it again. The one time I played it was without her so I will be bringing it along for a while, until the stars line up and she is able to play.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 3/13
My Rating: 8
I came close to winning a five-player game by building a lot of expensive buildings, helped by making a few good calls with the thief and avoiding the wrath of said thief and the assassin. Of course, it was my last call where I used the Magician swapped hands with the wrong player, because there wasn't anything I could build in his hand.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 5/13
My Rating: 9
Expansions Played:Normandy.
Mike and I lost a tough one on the Operation Tonga map. We didn't recruit enough troops and the machine guns were very, very deadly.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 12/12
My Rating: 7
Nico brought his copy along and we played a four-player game. I thought I was doing well, but Michael pulled out the win.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 5/13
My Rating: 7
One game with four players. It was going to be five, but one of the Erics dropped out. Better than the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Deck-Building Game with five players, it is why I brought it along after suffering through a couple of games with that many players.
Times Played:4
Last Month Played: 5/13
My Rating: 9
Expansions Played:Seaside for two of the games.
Two two-player games with Alex, who had not played with the Seaside cards before. Later in the month I played a couple of games with just the cards from the original set with Christa. Mike also played in the second base-only game.
Guilds released this month, but I still haven't played Dark Ages yet.
Times Played:2
Last Month Played: 4/13
My Rating: 8
Expansions Played:Unseen Forces for one of the games.
While waiting for the arrival of the pending Unseen Forces looming on the horizon, Yig thought he might sneak in while the forces of good were preparing. All we had to say to him is "NO SOULS FOR YOU!"
Our second foray into the dark recesses of Arkham had newcomers Jim Culver, Mark Harrigan, and Diana Stanley facing off against Glaaki's evil plans.
Times Played:3
Last Month Played: 5/13
My Rating: 9
Six players and we beat the game, though it was tough. I was the fire truck driver and it proved to be a fairly essential role. I was able to keep the fire suppressed as it started getting really big.
Game two was with five players and the center of building was constantly on fire and nothing we did managed to save the building, which collapsed after we rescued two people, the dog and the cat.
The last game started with six and became five half way through as John had to leave. He didn't miss much, because the house became fully engulfed because some doofus* decided to switch bios role from the Driver/Operator to the Hazmat Technician.
*i.e., me.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: New to me
My Rating: 7
Mike bought this after reading reviews and the rules, and we broke it open. We muddled through the beginning of the game, but the game started to flow and shine from that point on. I really liked the simple rules and the interaction of the cards and started reading up on Guildhall: Job Faire.
Times Played:2
Last Month Played: New to me
My Rating: 7
The same game as [Guildhall with different card abilities. I picked this up at the store and broke it out right away to teach to John and Nick. After we finished, Eric joined us for another game. I suspect this and Guildhall will be played again fairly regularly for a while.
Times Played:5
Last Month Played: New to me
My Rating: 8
What a clever cooperative game. Sure, losing is not something that should happen that often, but trying to maximize the score is still quite challenging. I might pick this up at some point if we are looking for a card game to play.
Times Played:3
Last Month Played: 4/13
My Rating: 7
Still a quick and fun filler dice game that plays well with two.
Times Played:2
Last Month Played: 5/13
My Rating: 8
Expansions Played:Power Up! for all the plays.
Two games with six players. I did miserably in both.
Times Played:2
Last Month Played: 11/12
My Rating: 7
Mike decided to pull this out. So while he was setting it up, I ran to the store, got a haircut, and the grabbed dinner. It doesn't take that long to set-up, but it does take quite a while, and there is a lot of tear down time needed.
The font they used for the game sucks, the graphic design of the cards makes it hard to tell which one(s) are played. I'm even less interested in getting the game after playing it again. I will play it when Mike wants to bring it out, and I am sure we will play with the expansion when he gets it.
Times Played:5
Last Month Played: 5/13
My Rating: 7
Twice we played a five-player game and both times it was completely miserable. Too often we would have burned turns because we would have one or two cards left in our hands because of all the attacks. I do not recommend this with more than four players, and I suspect I will end up preferring it with just two or three players.
Times Played:3
Last Month Played: 5/13
My Rating: 8
We had an odd game. I think there might have been one complete set collected in five or six hands. I also won every hand, and one person winning every hand is something which I don't recall having seen before.
Times Played:2
Last Month Played: 4/13
My Rating: 8
We played without the expansion because Alex pulled out his new copy of the current edition which nuked Toronto. I like the smaller plastic cubes and the graphic design is nice, but not that much better than the original edition.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: New to me
My Rating:
A fun, card-driven baseball game which gives up some of the realistic simulation for the sake of easier, quicker game play. I expect they will publish it at some point, and wish them all the luck in the world. They have a Facebook page which has some info on the game and their progress. It's here.
Times Played:2
Last Month Played: 1/11
My Rating: 6
Mike picked this up again because he heard that the third edition fixed some of the issues with the game. I still am not overwhelmed by the game but will play it when Mike wants to play.
Times Played:2
Last Month Played: 5/13
My Rating: 8
A favorite which Mike and I have been playing fairly regularly the past six months.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 10/12
My Rating: 8
Expansion Played:The Gathering Storm for all the games.
We played a four-player game which was a lot of fun to play again. I am so done with two-player games, especially with Michael, because we've played so many games together that a few turns into most games will tell us who will likely win the game. With more players, we are no longer picking two actions a round and it becomes more about picking an optimal action with the occasional gamble on what the other players will choose.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 11/11
My Rating: 8
Kevin had time for a short game before he had to leave at the end of the day, so I suggested this since I know he and Anne own and like it. We played a three-player game with none of the expansions. It had been a while and I needed to refresh the rules as we set up the game because it had been a while since we had played.
Times Played:2
Last Month Played: 5/13
My Rating: 7
I'll restate what I said last month: the Merlin/Assassin roles suck.
Times Played:2
Last Month Played: 5/13
My Rating: 8
Mike and I played a two-player game which he dominated. I thought I was doing quite well until the last couple of rounds, when Mike closed out the game quickly and almost doubled my score, in part because he forced me to take two minus five point hits.
The second game was the first time Ben or Christa had played. Ben attracted the attention of the pirates quite a bit while Christa avoided them completely. Mike and I each took a single hit from them. Mike finished first with me a point behind and Christa another point or two behind me. Ben erased his board instead of calculating the shame which would have been his score.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 12/12
My Rating: 8
Expansion Played: all parts of Enchanted Kingdom.
First time playing with the expansion. The global effects really change the game and I can see not using them in the future. Adding more cards to the deck may mean that some of the cards which were seen every game before hand might now be out of the mix during any game, which is a good thing. I'm not real sure this is the case because our global power was the one which lets player play only one card a turn from their hand, so we had fewer cards played than in other games.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 10/12
My Rating: 7
Another game which we played after a long time off. It's not as long a time as I thought. We really enjoyed the game and Eddie won by grabbing a lot of the cards. I bought three of the "market" cards and never rolled a six to get that extra agriculture. Stupid wooden dice. :)
Times Played:7
Last Month Played: 5/13
My Rating: 8
Still a fairly popular game around here. We've had a couple of long-ish games of late because the dice gods were not being kind to anyone playing.
Times Played:1
Last Month Played: 12/12
My Rating: 8
Expansion Played: both parts of Zombie Dice 2: Double Feature.
A filler while waiting for Rob to arrive one Saturday. We learned that Santa giveth, and Santa taketh away.