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Mycelia Board Game Review

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12 Aug 2020 11:48 #313017 by dysjunct
Playing Rallyman GT with Sag and Greg has been a lot of fun. It supports up to 6p, so holler if you'd like in on our next game.

The GT-5 cars are definitely the way to go; the boost die opens up so many more options. The GT-4 and GT-6 cars don't have as much decision space -- it's usually obvious what to do. Unfortunately, the physical game only comes with GT-6. GT-5 (and -4) were, I guess, optional add-ons from the Kickstarter and are now OOP. They are being reprinted. Of course you can add your own green d6 (treat 1 as a warning) but it's not quite the same.

I agree that the tracks are critical; you have to plan out where you're going but also watch what other people are doing. There's a lot of sneaky ways to hose people due to the turn order system.

I think if you're playing turn-based (which on BGA just means you have a day or two to take your turn before being disqualified, instead of several minutes) then you might as well play at least two laps, with at least a medium-length track. In a short game, bad luck at the start can immediately take you out of contention without enough time to catch up, or for the luck to even out.

Playing a live game, shorter is probably better. But on BGA, I don't see much reason to ever play live, maybe if you're playing with strangers and you want to finish a game before bed? The three of us played a couple of turn-based games the other night, 12 hours to take your turn, but we were all online at the same time so the turns went lickety-split and it was de facto live. Then if you want to take a break or if something comes up, the game just drops down to normal slow speed instead of DQing you.


Compared to other racing games I've played:

Formule De/D is really slow and plodding. There's so much counting of spaces and it's just tedious. I do like how hard braking causes damage to accumulate to your tires; in Rallyman GT the only reason to change your tires in a pit stop is to switch from rain to asphalt or vice versa. Also non-modular tracks limit your options.

Pitchcar is fun but takes up a bunch of space, weighs a ton, and is more racing-themed carroms instead of a real race game.

Flamme Rogue is probably still my favorite as it's more accessible and I like the deck-destruction part of it. Rallyman GT is so close though; it's really a toss-up.

Downforce is pretty fun. After playing on BGA I picked it up, and the family likes it. But yeah, it's not really a racing game. More billionaire playboys making idle bets on their expensive hobby. I'd play more on BGA if premium members created tables and invited me, hint hint.


I passed on Rallyman Dirt (Kickstarter wrapped up a couple weeks ago) because it looked more like you were racing against the track/clock than other people. The tracks looked cool though, and I really liked the rules for drifting sideways around corners. I might pick it up for the tracks but use GT rules. Once it hits retail. We'll see.

My only nitpick about the game (other than the lack of tire wear & tear) is that sometimes the "each die may be used once per turn, max" results in unthematic situations. There's some track setups (meant to emulate famous tracks, I think) that have long straightaways. But you can't stay in your highest gear and fly down them; you can still only move a maximum of seven spaces per turn. This is really just a track problem though; choose one with lots of twists & turns, and you'll never notice because you'll never be in 5th gear more than one space anyway.

Oh, and the one expansion I picked up (Team Challenge) seems weird. Adds another six cars, which I guess you play on a team, and a bunch of tracks that cross or run parallel so you can have two distinct tracks that occasionally intersect. Then you race one of your team cars on one track, and one on the other. It moves pretty far outside the core idea of the game in a mostly unappealing way. It's not implemented on BGA, which is fine with me.
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12 Aug 2020 19:51 #313026 by charlest
While I'd never buy it for that mode, playing solo and racing against the clock is very enjoyable, particularly when comparing your time to others on the solo BGG challenge threads.

The new Dirt is actually closer to the original Rallyman game GT was based on, and I expect it to be excellent.

Also, great points and I agree with placing this game up there with Flamme Rouge.
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12 Aug 2020 21:50 - 12 Aug 2020 21:51 #313031 by Sagrilarus
Rallyman GT -- Pigs flew at about 5pm this afternoon, as both us rookies managed to beat dysjunct for the first time!

Gregarius did it with style, finishing well ahead of the other two of us.

My win over him wasn't exactly pretty, but they all count! Dysjunct and I shared a solid dose of bad luck and were neck and neck at the finish. D's car stopped one spot short of the finish. I had just enough dice to reach it. Got a whammy on die roll one, another on die roll two. I could spend kachows to avoid a couple of rolls but none left for the final three. I had to get a little lucky.

The first two die rolls were good, the third a whammy! I literally crashed across the finish, losing control on my final die roll. It painted a picture of my car airborne and flying sideways over the line, my guy waving to the crowd in celebration.

So, both G and I managed to steal a win off the master for the first time. Good racing, good gaming. The best I've had since February.
Last edit: 12 Aug 2020 21:51 by Sagrilarus.
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12 Aug 2020 22:49 #313034 by DarthJoJo
I haven't played 7 Wonders Duel, but I can't fathom why it would need to exist when there's the two-player variant to 7 Wonders. I pulled it out for the first time in a while when my wife finally remembered the title wasn't Lost Cities. Still great. Using the dummy player to hate draft and funnel coins into your coffers and pump military to negate your wife's strategy is pretty solid. Still lost by two points when my blue push couldn't keep up with her science push, but just happy to get it out again.
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12 Aug 2020 22:53 #313035 by Jackwraith
Got another play of Tiny Epic Dinosaurs in, so review is forthcoming. This was a 3-person, which is a little less constrained for action than a 4-player (obvsly), but even in 4-player we weren't dumping ranchers to use the best spots very often. That might be a familiarity thing. One player ended up with the Breeding Center in the first round and that contributed heavily to her eventual win, albeit by one point: 82-81-75. I was the 75 because I was one rancher or Dracorex/Spinosaurus short of being able to bring another dinosaur immediately out of the holding area to my ranch. That would've let me score my other private contract, which would've given my 90 points. I screwed up a couple times in placement, which is indicative of the game's play. The action economy is EXTREMELY tight and one wrong decision (raises hand) can have rippling impacts through subsequent rounds. I also don't understand the concerns about private contracts that have been expressed on BGG. In every game we've played, every player has been able to fulfill at least one, if not both, and the points margins have been so narrow that they definitely have impact to the overall game.

Followed that with a Neuroshima Hex game, me vs a new player, Neojungle vs Hegemony. I picked the Jungle because I hadn't played them in a while and because they're both tougher to win with, in general, and an excellent lesson in placement strategy. I was pointing out exactly why I was making each move so that he could pick up on some of the nuances of anticipation (i.e. "I'm covering this spot because I'm expecting you to draw a warrior next turn that I don't want there", etc.) These are also two of the best netting factions in the game, as well.

I put a Symbiont Gamma down as my first tile, which meant that for the rest of the game, the Motherland was faster and fiercer. I also managed to keep a steady line of tiles right up the center of the board so that most of the Motherland was able to partake of said Symbiont. That let me take some significant chunks out of his HQ in early battles with a couple Crushers and Slicers and later a Monster and the dreaded Nightshade. The venom alone accounted for 4 points of his HQ's life. He tried nets and got the Boss and a couple Officers out to support his Gangers and Universal Soldiers, but I had more nets and the faster dudes with that lone Symbiont supercharging everything. In the end, the final battle was a non-damaging affair, as I had killed everything I was touching, but it did take one more point off his HQ, of course, and I won 14-5. He was totally geeked, though, and definitely wants to play again. (Another convert! Hail to the hex!)
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12 Aug 2020 23:14 #313036 by dysjunct

Sagrilarus wrote: Rallyman GT -- Pigs flew at about 5pm this afternoon, as both us rookies managed to beat dysjunct for the first time!

Gregarius did it with style, finishing well ahead of the other two of us.

My win over him wasn't exactly pretty, but they all count! Dysjunct and I shared a solid dose of bad luck and were neck and neck at the finish. D's car stopped one spot short of the finish. I had just enough dice to reach it. Got a whammy on die roll one, another on die roll two. I could spend kachows to avoid a couple of rolls but none left for the final three. I had to get a little lucky.

The first two die rolls were good, the third a whammy! I literally crashed across the finish, losing control on my final die roll. It painted a picture of my car airborne and flying sideways over the line, my guy waving to the crowd in celebration.

So, both G and I managed to steal a win off the master for the first time. Good racing, good gaming. The best I've had since February.


broken
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12 Aug 2020 23:58 #313037 by Jexik

DarthJoJo wrote: I haven't played 7 Wonders Duel, but I can't fathom why it would need to exist when there's the two-player variant to 7 Wonders. I pulled it out for the first time in a while when my wife finally remembered the title wasn't Lost Cities. Still great. Using the dummy player to hate draft and funnel coins into your coffers and pump military to negate your wife's strategy is pretty solid. Still lost by two points when my blue push couldn't keep up with her science push, but just happy to get it out again.


Yeah, 2p 7 Wonders is surprisingly good. I think most people's ho-hum experiences with the game are with 5-7 players. Although the game supports that many, I prefer 2-4 where you see the hands twice and are able to hate draft and/or gamble on what you think will wheel back to you.
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13 Aug 2020 00:04 - 13 Aug 2020 00:17 #313039 by Gary Sax
Played some Empyreal: Spells and Steam with Jexik and ScottF, ScottF teaching (thanks!). Dead, dead simple core pick up and deliver mechanism with just a mountain of options, player powers, train powers, etc piled on like any good Lvl99 game. Enjoyed it very much and it was *snappy.* Taught and played in two hours. I could see it being a very confrontational game.
Last edit: 13 Aug 2020 00:17 by Gary Sax.
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13 Aug 2020 00:13 #313041 by Andi Lennon
Super heavy schedule has put paid to many BG sessions the last couple of weeks. I did a couple of playthroughs of Weirding Woods which whilst fun skewed too light and young for me to really hook into. Tainted Grail is on hold as weekends are currently being spent in the studio but i have managed a few midweek games of DCC including some classic funnels like "Sailors on a Starless Sea" and some of my own homebrew shit. At the moment i'm looking forward to getting back into TG but in addition to that my FLGS recently shut down (another victim of covid) and i managed to grab Journey:Wrath of Demons, Memoir 44 and The Boldest for ridiculously cheap. My cup runneth over and my free time is nil. Adulthood. How do you people with kids find time to play anything, ever?
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13 Aug 2020 08:27 #313048 by hotseatgames
All of my board game time has been Phantom Division Phantom Division Phantom Division.

I am very happy with how this game is playing.
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13 Aug 2020 08:57 #313049 by OhBollox
SEAL Team Flix was one of the GOTY. Hoping PD is even better,
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13 Aug 2020 08:59 #313050 by hotseatgames
If I have anything to say about it, it will surpass STF in every way.
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15 Aug 2020 17:49 #313150 by Ah_Pook
played some fun with my wife today. first up was Council of 4, which I grabbed on super clearance at Ollie's recently. its a solid lighter euro. basically you collect cards to build up a route, and as you extend your route all your previous connected bits fire off again and give you an ever increasing cascade of comboey stuff. youre racing to be the first person to do various things (build in all the cities in a region, or all the cities of one color etc), and the game ends once someone builds all their merchants onto the map. Nothing revolutionary, but it was really a good example of that class of lighter euro game (think next step up from TTR kind of). the dumb combos you get to by the end of the game feel good.

Then we won The Game, and followed up by winning The Mind (and got to round 6 in the post credits HARD MODE follow up where you play with the cards face down and see how far you can get).

Also I got a trade unpunched copy of D-Day At Omaha Beach in the mail today, and kinda poked at the rulebook for a bit. going to be a while getting through that ruleset, looks like.

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15 Aug 2020 20:45 #313152 by jason10mm
So I have almost all of Runebound 2nd edition and bought an opened lot of most everything Descent 1st edition maybe 7-8 years ago. Finally decided to do an inventory of all that stuff. Turns out my 3 year old daughter absconded with all the descent monsters and started organizing them by "family" with the larger or red variants being mommy and daddy and the white ones the kids.

Then I had the Descent conversion pack out (48 hero cards) and all the Runebound hero cards (38 of those) to see just how many hero minis I have (turns out the lot I bought had almost no hero minis [if this was disclosed to me then I've long since forgotten] and there is 1 Descent expansion and 1 runebound expansion that don't overlap heros, so I'm down a few). I painted a few of them years ago and my 7 year old son got enamored with painting his own mins. Took a while to sort out but the kids just loved playing with all the crap in the bin.

That led to me looking at all my old paints and realizing virtually all of them were dried. But most are still a little sticky so I'm trying to rehydrate them.

Anyway, long story short, I busted out DnD Adventure Ravenloft and my son and I made a run for the amulet in the chapel. Went pretty well since I could run most of the game and just let him pick which attack he wanted to use and roll the dice (he isn't much of a reader).

He REALLY wanted to be the bad guy and set loose beasties on me, so I sense a budding Overlord player :p

And my daughter can already distinguish between zombie, werewolf, and dragon minis. Should I be worried?
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15 Aug 2020 22:33 #313153 by Sagrilarus

Ah_Pook wrote: Also I got a trade unpunched copy of D-Day At Omaha Beach in the mail today, and kinda poked at the rulebook for a bit. going to be a while getting through that ruleset, looks like.


It’s not as bad as it looks. The game is pretty sensical once you have one or two turns under you. First or second edition?

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