On the weekend I played...

SonOfScray

Norm Smith Medallist
Apr 7, 2002
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What was Wonderlands War like? We have (just a retail version), but haven’t gotten to playing it yet.
I am selling my copy of Rising Sun and all expansions because this game fills the niche in the collection better to our groups taste. The best bits of Quacks smooshed with the area control and drafting vibes you get from a Blood Rage/Rising Sun style game.

One of our group gave it a hard 9/10.
 

SonOfScray

Norm Smith Medallist
Apr 7, 2002
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western legends off the shelf of shame, mixed in with all the expansions and smashed out a tonne of games in a few days. Seriously fun, game that evokes the theme perfectly.
 
Sep 3, 2002
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First game of Skeptics this weekend. Proved the existence of the Child Ghost in the Asylum. A dice rolling game, to find clues and items, to help you then prove a ghost exists. Simple mechanics, so I’d classify as a light game. There’s 8 ghosts and two different areas (Asylum one side of the board, Museum the other) in total. There’s a storybook mode (campaign light) of run through the ghosts in order and get a perk for each completed one for your character (as ghosts are either easy, medium or hard). Not going to displace any in my top 10 list, but will definitely (eventually since so many games to play!) get through all 8 ghosts overtime.



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Oct 2, 2012
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This weekend I will be playing 2nd ed War Room.

Will be huge if we go full war. Anyone got any hints?

There is a 2 hour tutorial on YT which I dont really want to watch.

I was going to back this on KS but got scared off by the scale and uncertainty of how often I’d get to actually play it. Let us know how it goes.


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Jul 13, 2015
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I was going to back this on KS but got scared off by the scale and uncertainty of how often I’d get to actually play it. Let us know how it goes.


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Will be a 2 player game first. We may then introduce it to the group. We have set aside the entire Saturday for it. Should be fun !
 
Jul 13, 2015
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Sadly illness and potential COVID stopped War Room as I was home alone, but I did play Mrs Thatcher's War. The tutorials ran for about 6 hours on youtube but I skipped a lot - still took about 2 hours.

I think I played it all correctly and managed to win - when many fail often, so maybe I didnt play it right.

I did do well with the weather though, and got some good rolls, so perhaps it was a legit win. The 6 hour tutorial game ended in failure because he had a lpt of bad luck with weather rolls.

I really enjoy the game but I do wonder if luck comes too much in to it. The theme is awesome and the mechanics are great. I love the idea of rolling for News at the end of each turn and seeing how the world reacts to events and what external influences there are.

The game really is about air superiority and taking out the Argentinian air force and sinking their fleet as quickly as possible, and hoping the Exocets dont rip you apart. The ground combat is almost incidental and is about slowing you down rather than getting defeated.

Its an interesting game, hoping Pinochet (the brutal murderer) is on your side.

Will definitely play it again after finding a shorter tutorial to see if I did it right.
 

mickelboy182

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Sep 30, 2008
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Nearly purchased Ark Nova but decided the missus wasn't going to cope with the mental load and opted for The Search for Planet X. Great deduction game that can be enjoyed by anyone. Only managed a few plays on the easy mode but it is balanced in a way where you feel rather stupid for a while until you get an avalanche of solving that makes you feel really clever.
 
Oct 2, 2012
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Sadly illness and potential COVID stopped War Room as I was home alone, but I did play Mrs Thatcher's War. The tutorials ran for about 6 hours on youtube but I skipped a lot - still took about 2 hours.

I think I played it all correctly and managed to win - when many fail often, so maybe I didnt play it right.

I did do well with the weather though, and got some good rolls, so perhaps it was a legit win. The 6 hour tutorial game ended in failure because he had a lpt of bad luck with weather rolls.

I really enjoy the game but I do wonder if luck comes too much in to it. The theme is awesome and the mechanics are great. I love the idea of rolling for News at the end of each turn and seeing how the world reacts to events and what external influences there are.

The game really is about air superiority and taking out the Argentinian air force and sinking their fleet as quickly as possible, and hoping the Exocets dont rip you apart. The ground combat is almost incidental and is about slowing you down rather than getting defeated.

Its an interesting game, hoping Pinochet (the brutal murderer) is on your side.

Will definitely play it again after finding a shorter tutorial to see if I did it right.

That sounds good. Haven’t seen a Falklands war game before.


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Jul 13, 2015
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That sounds good. Haven’t seen a Falklands war game before.


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Its very good. Heaps of different actions in a number of phases. A fair bit of luck involved but its a solo game so youre going to get that.

19 turns to get the game won, wirh the first 6 just about air and sea superiority.

Will play it again for sure.
 
Jul 13, 2015
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Played War of the Ring yesterday. Setup took an hour, and every move made saw us reaching for the rulebook.

Shadow sent an army to Rivendell and camped just outside. Next turn they moved all the Nazgul to their army and on the next action used a card that had every Nazgul cause a casualty to Rivendell on 5+ and they got 3 from their 5 rolls. Action after that they moved in to Rivendell and took out the Stronghold in 1 round of combat. 4 units vs 1. Easy win.

The Elves had no way to stop it and no way to Muster more troops.

The Fellowship were also there so they were all defeated and the game was over after maybe 5 turns - but subsequently we realised the Fellowship should have moved the previous turn when they were revealed.

Shadow also had a card which stopped inactive nations from advancing down the political chart. So only the Elves could move down to war, but I didnt use enough Musters for that.

Shadow had 8 or 10 units in a heap of armies and were moving on strongholds with 2 or 3 armies. Not sure how they are meant to be stopped.

After the game I watched a youtube walkthrough and it was completely different. The Shadow had a few good sized armies and took a fortress and stronghold down south but at great loss. Also attacked up north and lost.

In my game they steamrolled everything. And I was using cards to recruit as often as possible.
 

SonOfScray

Norm Smith Medallist
Apr 7, 2002
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Few games dished up this weekend, might play a few solo games tonight.

wutaki
dig
rescuing robin hood
tiny turbo cars
cartographers
 

SonOfScray

Norm Smith Medallist
Apr 7, 2002
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It’s a great game. Actually does a great job of being quite immersive in its theme. When I was a kid I had an Amstrad CPC464 computer and we had a game called ‘The Wild Bunch’ that I loved. It really feels quite like that,
 
Jul 13, 2015
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Played a couple of games of Weatern Legends. Still learning the rules but in some turns people were getting 6 or 8 LP which seems a lot when we qere playing to 15 for victory.

In the 2nd game I realised we made a couple of mistakes in the 1st game so Im sure we made some mistakes in the 2nd.

Overall a cool game but Mining really seems like by far the best way to win.
 
Jul 13, 2015
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Played a couple more games of War of the Ring. Still have Shadow far too focussed on only attacking a few places. Really need to be more widely aggressive.

Both games the Fellowship just made it to Mount Doom and survived without getting 12 Corruption.

Once Strongholds get well defended they are near impossible to take out. Really need Shadow to spread out.
 

SonOfScray

Norm Smith Medallist
Apr 7, 2002
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Smashed out quite a few the past couple of days.

BEAR RAID - Ryan Courtney is a terrific designer and this was a neat stock market game.
Long Shot - terrific game, can always get multiple rounds in.
Azul - played the classic one, it’s just a really good game.
Puzzle Strike 2 - recent kickstarter, looks atrocious on the box, but it a well made, well designed game.
VOLT - robot battle programming game
 
Jul 13, 2015
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So I bought LOTR Revised Core card game and am using the Fighting starter set with a total Willpower of 4 for the initial scenario. Playing solo.

The game begins with the enemy having Forest and Spiders in Staging for a total Strength of 4. I do my resources and play cards, then the enemy draws a card (another spider) so their Strength is now 6 meaning even if I send all 3 heroes on quest I gain 2 threat, and then only have allies for any combat which may happen?

If I hold back a hero so I can travel to the Forest and fight a spider I would gain 3 threat instead of 2 (Legolas has 1 Willpower). Legolas has a weapon which means when I kill an enemy I get an extra progress token meaning when the spider dies I add 3 progress (Legolas also adds 2 progress when killing enemies) to the Forest and it is cleared.

Next turn the enemy draws another location so I again have 6 enemy strength to overcome (failing and again taking more threat damage) and go to a new location and kill the spider there. Again 3 progress tokens added meaning the location clears, but I also picked up more threat again.

From this point on I dont ever draw enemies and am only drawing a location each round meaning I just get more and more threat and because I never got my Gandalf card I never got enough Willpower to defeat the total enemy Strength (with 4 locations in staging I am up against 8 threat per round but even with allies my total Willpower is 6).

I assume I am doing something wrong, or is this correct and I do keep drawing an enemy encounter each round and do add it to Staging and do include its strength in the Quest calculation?

Also, if there are no locations and only enemy cards in the staging area, does combat still happen? Characters chosen for questing cannot be involved but any other characters not questing can attack and defend?
 
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