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Mycelia Board Game Review

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20 Jan 2019 11:29 - 20 Jan 2019 11:30 #290298 by repoman
There was a game day over at the Lair of the True Believers yesterday. It should have been bigger but a snow storm was coming and many people opted to stay home rather than risk driving home in the snow. To them I say "Cowards!" So it was the hard core that were there.

Josh had a game of Monster Slaughter set up when I arrived. Not surprisingly the game centers around a bunch of different monster families trying to slaughter the most singularly unlucky group of teenagers ever to spend a weekend in a remote forest cabin. The players choose a group of three monsters ranging from Creatures from the Black Lagoon to Mummies to Vampires etc etc. Then they take tokens representing the hapless teens and secretly arrange them in the order they wish to see them killed. With the aid of some cards and clever timing, the monster family that kills the most and has the targets killed as close to the order they've chosen will win!

Sounds a bit gruesome but it's certainly got a "tongue in cheek" vibe going. Lots of references to horror tropes and "guest stars" that can show up to help the campers from Buffy to Doc Brown to many others.

The production is top notch. The sculpts are cool and the board is a neat 3 dimensional-ish affair representing the cabin and the fortified Tool Shed. The artwork on the cards is also great.

It was a good time with a decent amount of planning required for success. I, naturally came in last place but had a good time making up catch phrases for the monsters. My female mummies phrase was "Come to Mummy!" which I thought far more hilarious than the humorless wretches I was playing with. Also acting out the dysfunctional father/son dynamic between Pappa Mummy and Son Mummy was also great fun.

Ascending Empires, or as it has become known "The Al Wins Again" board game came out. Still awesome. Still a classic. Still a blast each and every time we play it. For those curious, Al won again.

Western Legends was next. We played with five and as hoped, a high player count led to a great deal of interaction between players. No "prospecting" to victory here. Everybody came out with guns blazing and bodies were strewn across the countryside. I couldn't get anything to happen as Butch Cassidy, mainly because I failed to follow my own advice and did not get a horse early. Not sure who won but I had a great time losing.

The we played The Gothic Game which I had never played before. What a stupid but fun game. Reminding me of a very stripped down version of Dungeon Quest. Everybody dies. Everybody but one person and that person was ME! Haha. Ending the day by throttling Al Rose to death with a knotted rope was fantastic. Saul killing Shellie with a spike of some kind only to be killed in turn by her ghost was a close runner up.
Last edit: 20 Jan 2019 11:30 by repoman.
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20 Jan 2019 14:42 #290302 by Msample
Got in another game of CATACLYSM yesterday. This game continues to impress.
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20 Jan 2019 17:20 #290309 by mc

Ah_Pook wrote:

mc wrote:
Her little gamer brain is firing at the moment, and she's also really digging Blue Lagoon which was a christmas present. I am too, but, it needs more plays to develop that insight into what points to go for and when - what's really worth it? . So simple though, just that neat little twist to set up for the second round with the huts. .


We got this for Christmas as well and have really been digging it. I think I've thrown 90% of the games I've played by over focusing on making a long train hitting all the islands instead of contesting the goods tokens I need harder. Something about making that long train is like a siren call to my brain, even though it has proven to not be a winning strategy by itself. I think you do that if it happens to work out, but don't give up tokens for it (especially if they're tokens someone else needs badly too).


Yep, spot on about the making a long chain. It does have the secondary use of cutting off your opponents though.
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20 Jan 2019 17:56 #290310 by Michael Barnes
Ha ha! I do that in Blue Lagoon too! We’ve long had a running joke that such fail-bait strategies are “vanity projects”...started back with Catan actually...it’s also like when you try to make a giant castle in Carcassonne...

Love that game...2018 was such a great year for Knizia games.
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21 Jan 2019 01:16 #290323 by san il defanso
My son has started showing interest in ancient civilizations like Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and so I thought he might enjoy playing 7 Wonders: Duel. This was somewhat selfish, because I love the game, and it gets crowded out by other two-player titles.

I gave him some guidance in our first game, but I largely let him make his own decisions. He actually played a solid game, and went for the throat with military. He didn't auto-win me, but he pushed hard enough, and got enough lucky breaks, to actually beat me pretty soundly. We played again a couple days later, and I won this time. He really has enjoyed it, I think he is really enamored by the big wonders and the trappings of ancient stuff.

As for the game itself, it has had a lot of staying power for me. As much as I dislike its big brother, I just love the Duel version. I think it fulfills the promise of a super stripped-down civ card game much more fully than regular 7 Wonders. The auto-win conditions provide some good thematic grit that feels on-point, and while drafting in the original game never felt very interesting to me, the new method in Duel is pretty compelling.

I bought the game blind, which I try to not do. But this time it worked out really well for me.
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21 Jan 2019 06:31 #290334 by Erik Twice

mezike wrote: I saw some comments on High Frontier in the Spacecorp thread that neatly sums up how I feel about most of Eklunds stuff. There is so much going on in them that the complexity on entry hides what is often somewhat diaphanous gameplay. They also tend to be prone to random elements with extreme effect that more or less reset people to square one which I find a bit hokey.

High Frontier is pretty much a roll and move game except that instead of rolling dice you auction cards to see who moves faster. In other words, if you took Parcheese, added 120 different paths and you could buy the dice you roll from a huge, fairly complex pool of them you would get a very similar game.

I really enjoyed my plays of High Frontier but I can see it being a "dumb" game at its core. This is why you have to add more stuff on top of it, if you don't, you'll quickly realize which cards or destinations are the best and the game is over. There's a small amount of depth buried under a pile of cards and a huge map.

I think the game would improve if it had randomized goals in each game and you had more "tools" and less "events" to determine what you do.

Sending a solar sail around the Sun to land on an asteroid is great, though.
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21 Jan 2019 06:40 #290335 by Erik Twice
In other news, I went to Barcelona to participate in a Netrunner tournament.

How did I miss this! I needed this kind of fulfilling game experience to an even larger degree than I thought I needed. It made me realize that, as fun as casual boardgaming can be, it's so hollow compared to playing with other people who engage deep into a game. I kept thinking about all the times I've played a game and felt bad and unfulfilled because my opponents had only played once or twice and couldn't meaningfully understand the game. I remember how I felt playing 18XX the other day and realizing that I would always be ten steps ahead of my opponents and hence feel no tension.

Losing and seeing my hands shake and get excited over plays and tricking my opponent is something I've missed. I ended up in the middle ranks of the tournament and deservedly so. And the idea that I could improve and get better again and learn is more exciting than playing the next ok game at the club.

I realized that I had more fun talking, just talking about the game with other people than I have had in most boardgame nights.

I really need "lifestyle" games in my life. I'll keep playing boardgames and videogames and so on but the hole playing Netrunner regularly left has to be filled with something.
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21 Jan 2019 06:58 #290338 by mads b.
Played a couple of chapters of STUFFED FABLES with the kids (6 and 10). It's a great looking game and the story is pretty good. But for some reason it's a game that always has them bickering about all manner of small things - something that doesn't happen with other coop games. f

And maybe the reason is that there is too little to do in the game. Each chapter of the story is a small board in the story book (which is a cool thing since you can visit very different locations and make all manner of board layouts), but you rarely have a lot to do. Visit a couple of board spaces, make a skill test, and maybe fight an enemy or two. So rather than being a game of adventure and helping each other, it bogs down with who gets to visit the one encounter space, who gets what equipment, and whatnot. So even with cool minis and a nifty dice drawing mechanism, there's just not enough *game* in the game.
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21 Jan 2019 08:48 #290340 by the_jake_1973
We played an intro game of Spartacus at work with 4 players, random house picks. One of the guys hadn't played before and the rest of us were getting familiar with the game again. Still had a fun time. I came in a close second due to grabbing Gannicus in the Market and having some superlative rolls. I unfortunately went poor since I forgot to sell my Intrigue cards while I was stuck with some useless reactions. Had I money, I may have forced a tiebreaker tournament.


We are starting the mid length game this week, possibly with a 5th person.
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21 Jan 2019 08:55 - 21 Jan 2019 09:04 #290341 by charlest
Went to Geekway Mini Friday and Saturday this weekend. Played the following:

The Expanse with Doors and Corners expansion (great expansion)
That's Not Lemonade (still a fan)
Western Legends (my 8th play and still very much interested in playing more)
No Thanks!
Condottiere
Lords & Ladies (dull)
Dune
Inis
MEQ
R-Eco
Lady and the Tiger (meh)
Cosmic Encounter
Just One (surprisingly fantastic)

I think I've mentioned this before but I've come to the realization that my favorite mindset for conventions is to go with a plan on what I want to play in general (need to be a bit flexible), and try to get old or recent games I've wanted to play again to the table. I play so much new stuff at my regular game nights conventions sort of let me get back to things I've been itching to play.

Dune was the only game I scheduled, two newbies and the other four of us had played once prior (in my book club game). Fantastic experience and I nearly won on turn 4 as Harkonnen with my Guild ally. Everyone conspired against us to bring us down and my homestead in Carthag was busted up. Fremen and Bene Gesserit won with an amazing play by BG to launch a massive assault that was totally unexpected.

Highlight for me was a turn 3 betrayal where Caid led the Empire's troops to their death as I pulled the strings in my ally's battle. It shook the table at the time and led to our near-victory.

It was nice seeing a non-Guild time limit win.

Condottiere is still one of the best 30-40 minute games in existence.

Western Legends is a bit strange. I'm a big fan (it made it as my #10 for the year), but there's no individual mechanism or system that is really mind blowing. It really simply lives on its interaction and the law hunting the outlaws. Every time I play it I just get a real feel-good reaction and want to play it again.

I still think MEQ is slightly overrated. I enjoy it, but the best part as a hero is your turn, and there's so much uninteresting shit going on for long bouts between those moments. I like many things about it, but it's simply too slow and the great parts too scattered. I'll still play it, but it's not top tier for me.

I have two plays of the Doors and Corners expansion in now and I have some opinions. I'd always include the Tech and Protomolecule modules, I'd never use variable setup (eats up too much time), and I'd use the other two modules less than 40% of the time.

The expanded tech options for each faction are fantastic. It deepends asymmetry and provides meaningful variation between plays. The Protomolecule is wonderful because it adds a hotspot to the board which opens up additional scoring as well as possibly resulting in a space blowing up and being removed from play (this happened to me in our first play of it as I tried to control the space).
Last edit: 21 Jan 2019 09:04 by charlest.
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21 Jan 2019 08:57 #290342 by Jackwraith

Erik Twice wrote: In other news, I went to Barcelona to participate in a Netrunner tournament.


Any details? What factions did you play?

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21 Jan 2019 09:16 #290345 by Legomancer
Played Obsession recently. This is a sort of tableau game set in the world of the English aristocracy. Think Downton Abbey. You are a faded estate trying to increase your standing and get one of your kids married back into the high life. To do so you add to your estate, schedule events, entertain visitors, and so forth. It's extremely luck based and random, but that's honestly part of the charm. The stories it generates are a blast. My pal Matt ended up with a house full of dowagers and one-legged war vets. I was on a perpetual quest for breakfast. It's very goofy fun.

A few comments on mentioned games:

Xia: I also finally bit on the third KS and should be seeing it soon. I'll definitely be looking to see what people recommend for playing it.

High Frontier: I enjoyed my play of it a lot. Love the theme, and the gameplay was not nearly as complex as the game would have you believe. But my issue is, I would love to play a game like this but with a fixed, definitive set of rules. I have no idea what "version" of HF we played. Living rules are some bullshit that wargamers can waste their time with; I want solid rules. I want to be able to buy a game and play that game multiple times. If there's a game like HF out there that doesn't include the utter nonsense one has to tolerate in a Phil Eklund game, I'd like to see it, because his is a shtick (and this goes beyond his idiotic politics) I don't have the patience for. Plenty of designers can make games that have workable rulebooks with defined rules and easily described versions; he doesn't do anything so amazing I need to go to his games instead.
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21 Jan 2019 09:56 #290348 by Gary Sax
That could be a whole column. Eklund's constant rule tinkering is unforgivable. As you said, I play wargames. They do have living rules. But the vast majority of those living rules are in service of creating a definitive rulebook and fixing holes stemming from being large games with insufficient development resources, not creating a monstrous living game that constantly changes.
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21 Jan 2019 10:31 #290352 by Michael Barnes
Still waiting for the rest of you to reach the Eklund Epiphany...his games are NOT worth the effort. It took me years to admit it and quit trying to enjoy their bullshit.
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21 Jan 2019 10:38 #290353 by Shellhead
Many years ago, I owned a game that might have been Phil Eklund's first published effort: Lords of the Sierra Madre. The concept of the game is almost identical to this Western Legends that everybody has been talking about lately. I was surprised and disappointed by the contents, which were comparable to an average quality playtest prototype. The rulebook was minimal and some of the rules were scattered across reference sheets or on cards. I never got around to playing Lords of the Sierra Madre and ended up trading it away to a euro-loving friend. I did play High Frontier about ten years ago, and found that to be disappointing and annoying, though the board was lovely.

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