OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Malificent
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Malificent »

Wife and I have been playing Dice Throne Adventures since the Kickstarter arrived a week or so ago.

Dice Throne Adventures is a co-op version of Dice Throne, which can best be described as Battle Yahtzee. Each of the 16 classes available in Dice Throne has their own set of 5 custom dice and unique powers. For example, the Paladin has dice where the 1 and 2 have sword symbols, 3 and 4 are helmets, 5 is a heart, and 6 is a prayer symbol. In a battle, you roll the dice 3 times (like Yahtzee) and pick and choose which ones to re-roll. He then has powers that trigger on various dice combinations. 3 swords and 2 helmets gets you a damage power that also has some positive random side effects. 2 hearts gets you a healing ability based on the total number of hearts you rolled. And if you get the equivalent of a Yahtzee, you get an Ultimate, which for the paladin, does a chunky bit of unblockable damage, heals him, and gives him a unique status.

All the dice rolling is mitigated by the deck building portion of the game - each class has its own deck, made up of some cards to upgrade your powers and some cards to allow you to tweak your rolls - one lets you change any die to a 6, one allows you to "tip" the die up or down one value, etc. You start with 2 Combat Points (CP) and get 1 a turn (and can sell unwanted cards for 1 CP each). Those combat points are used to play cards, so you have to make choices about whether to hold on to that upgrade until you can afford it or sell it to give you the CP needed to play that dice tweaking card that could prevent you from failing your roll.

In normal Dice Throne, its 1vs 1 combat. In Adventures, you are running through an 8 scenario campaign. Each campaign consists of 4 Portal Crawls, each followed by a Boss Battle. A Portal Crawl is running around a randomized tile based map fighting various minions and getting loot (new cards for your deck). There's a scoring system for the campaign, where you get points based on efficiency if you win. if you lose, you get some negative points and you replay the scenario with 3 more healing salves than you started the scenario with the last time.

We're having a real blast playing this. It took my wife a bit to find the character that worked for her - she had never even played Yahtzee before, so she was kind of jumping in the deep end. But once you get the hang of it, it plays pretty quick and has a solid amount of meaningful tactical choices to make as you play. The deckbuilding is fun and each character is pretty unique. And a big shoutout to the quality of the artwork and components in this game. The inserts are perfect and high quality, the rulebook is super well organized and includes a section listing all components and showing you how to organize them in the insert, something I wish all games did. Each character has a nice insert that explains their various status tokens and includes a complexity rating and mini FAQ, which was super helpful while playing.

Now that we're through our first campaign, we're looking forward to trying out some more characters and upping the difficulty level for the next runthrough.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Played two more games this morning that went...less well. I think I’ll end up with a similar opinion of Altar Quest as I do of Street Masters: A very fun game that I really enjoy, and one that I have absolutely no idea how anyone ever actually wins. :lol:

The amount of damage mitigation you have to somehow do each turn seems kinda nuts. Playing The Prisoner quest with the Frox and Bolx. Bolx has me discard a supply every turn or take a damage, which means I have to kill a mob every single turn to gain a supply. Which proves difficult when they spawn across the room and I have to use up two of my three actions simply getting in range to attack. Then I have to Resist the Villain card or take damage, then Resist the Objective Card or take damage, then Resist the attack of multiple mobs or take damage, etc.. In the last game, Quella died in the second room because there was simply no way to keep up with it all.

Gonna need to figure out how to get better at mitigating, or I’m gonna be dead every game in a hurry.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Smoove_B »

Skinypupy wrote: Sun Feb 14, 2021 2:19 pmGonna need to figure out how to get better at mitigating, or I’m gonna be dead every game in a hurry.
So much of the game (imho) is using what you know about the enemy behavior (namely how and where they're going to move) and then figuring out how to control the flow of combat to be able to stay out of range while still dealing them damage. This might involve using rhunes, the environmental feature in the room and/or a character's special ability.

I think (for me) the hardest part of understanding all of the modular deck systems was getting the turn flow down and then figuring out how you get to break/manipulate/modify a standard round to do extra free things with your specific character. However, that's what I love so much about the system overall, and SM in particular. Every character does something different to "bend' the core rules and figuring that all out is a blast.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by malchior »

I broke out Gloomhaven again after a long hiatus. The 'difficulty' curve feels insanely tight. I've only completed 6 scenarios but I've tried some of them up to 3 times. I won the scenario tonight by the skin of my teeth. I have with what feels like little exaggeration drawn a null on what should be a killing blow...I don't know...like 10 times. It was a factor in sidelining the game for a little while. I don't know if this is normal or if I'm just not getting the system. In any case, I'll probably get another game in tomorrow morning as I have a very light schedule and see if this is just the way it is and is supposed to be semi-Dark Souls like.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

malchior wrote: see if this is just the way it is and is supposed to be semi-Dark Souls like.
I've played the entire GH campaign, Forgotten Circles expansion, and Jaws of the Lion. While it can be very challenging, it's not supposed to be unfairly so.

One nice thing about the game is that the difficulty level is extremely easy to adjust, so you may want to bump it down a level or two until you get a good feel for the mechanics. There's no shame in this - it's built into the game and rewards are adjusted down accordingly so you're not "cheating" the system in any way. Unfortunately GH starts off with some really difficult scenarios early on. This is where Jaws of the Lion really shines - it introduces the card mechanics gradually and really hand holds the player through a few scenarios before turning them loose. I wish the core game had done this, as I'm sure a lot of players experience similar frustrations.

GH is all about learning your character's cards and how to most effectively use them. That sounds common sensical, but it is a HUGE part of the game above and beyond just knowing the rules. And the only way to learn your character is practice and repeated play. The good news is once it clicks, it's easily one of the most enjoyable and satisfying board games I've ever played.

If you run across any specific questions or frustrations, let me know. I doubt there is any scenario or rules question I haven't run across. Our group has literally played this game once a week for nearly 2 years now. :shock:
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Moat_Man »

I have Gloomhaven and we played it once a year or so ago. The kids liked it but I don't think they will be in it for the long haul. I've been itching to play it solo recently. Should I just relearn the rules and dive in or should I get Jaws of the Lion and once that's done circle back to the main game?
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

I've now played a round of Altar Quest with all the base game heroes, and Myreen Duvall (the Vampire Warrior) is easily my favorite of the four. I actually won The Prisoner quest with her, mainly because I got lucky and the prisoner spawned in the room right next to the altar.

I have realized that it's absolutely necessary to completely familiarize yourself with the mission cards, variables, and win conditions before starting a round. I tried not peeking on a couple so I'd be surprised, and they both ended in utter disaster because I didn't quite know what triggers to look for.

One clarifying question on Engage. Some mobs say: "Engage. Inflict (5)". The means they will move to within range first, then do their action. If the mob says: "Inflict (5). If unable to Inflict, Engage then X (gain armor token, etc.)", it means that if they are out of range at the start of the turn, they will use the Engage command to move within range, but will not actually Inflict until the next turn. Am I understanding that right?

Side note: I have all the boxes kinda spread across my room so I have easy access to the cards and minis. One of them was on top of a footstool. When the Wonder Twins came down to play the PS4, I heard a crash/clatter, then an "oops". They knocked the box that held all of the base game decks off the stool, and sent the cards flying everywhere. Took me a good 20 minutes to get everything back in order with the dividers again. Now I know how Tom Vasel must feel after filming a review. ;)
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by malchior »

YellowKing wrote: Sun Feb 14, 2021 11:36 pm
malchior wrote: see if this is just the way it is and is supposed to be semi-Dark Souls like.
I've played the entire GH campaign, Forgotten Circles expansion, and Jaws of the Lion. While it can be very challenging, it's not supposed to be unfairly so.

One nice thing about the game is that the difficulty level is extremely easy to adjust, so you may want to bump it down a level or two until you get a good feel for the mechanics.
I did that for the 2nd scenario for the 2nd and 3rd time. Since then, I figured I'd leveled up and didn't need training wheels anymore. I also dumped out the -1 cards, etc. since my attack modifier pulls are what are killing me IMO. But then again it is the 'null' one that I seem to consistently hit that is driving my frustration. My thought is I'll use perks that stuff in good modifier cards to reduce the chances of pulling one. I also got a bit unlucky and got quests that'll make it tough to retire the starting 2 characters I am using (Brute/Spellweaver). I'm going to add a third once I level up Gloomhaven - I'm one away from 2 Prosperity.
GH is all about learning your character's cards and how to most effectively use them. That sounds common sensical, but it is a HUGE part of the game above and beyond just knowing the rules. And the only way to learn your character is practice and repeated play. The good news is once it clicks, it's easily one of the most enjoyable and satisfying board games I've ever played.
Like I said my gripe is almost purely attack modifier based. I wasn't sure if I was riding the actual edge of the difficulty curve and just not liking it. Maybe it is just an epic run of bad luck. It sounds like it so I'll keep at it.
If you run across any specific questions or frustrations, let me know. I doubt there is any scenario or rules question I haven't run across. Our group has literally played this game once a week for nearly 2 years now. :shock:
Cool - thanks. Will do.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

Skinypupy wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 2:16 am One clarifying question on Engage. Some mobs say: "Engage. Inflict (5)". The means they will move to within range first, then do their action. If the mob says: "Inflict (5). If unable to Inflict, Engage then X (gain armor token, etc.)", it means that if they are out of range at the start of the turn, they will use the Engage command to move within range, but will not actually Inflict until the next turn. Am I understanding that right?
That is correct.

...and I’ve knocked my base copy off my table twice now. :oops:
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

malchior wrote:Like I said my gripe is almost purely attack modifier based. I wasn't sure if I was riding the actual edge of the difficulty curve and just not liking it. Maybe it is just an epic run of bad luck. It sounds like it so I'll keep at it.
Yeah sounds like some bad luck. As you level, prioritize getting the perks to ditch negative modifiers out of your deck. I had several characters throughout the campaign with no negative modifiers in their deck at all (except for the standard miss).
Moat_Man wrote:I have Gloomhaven and we played it once a year or so ago. The kids liked it but I don't think they will be in it for the long haul. I've been itching to play it solo recently. Should I just relearn the rules and dive in or should I get Jaws of the Lion and once that's done circle back to the main game?
If you have the means, my recommendation would be to get Jaws of the Lion. As I mentioned to malchior, it's a MUCH better introduction to the rules than the base game is, and IMO a more enjoyable solo experience because of the quicker set up and more tightly contained maps. Once you've run through the JotL campaign, you should be more than equipped to handle base GH. Note that there are some *minor* rules changes in JotL, mainly around monster focus and treasure. However, they're minor enough that we wound up incorporating them into Forgotten Circles halfway through our campaign with no ill effects. If I was restarting base GH, I'd likely just use the new rules tweaks in JotL and roll with it.

And if you're not averse to app-assistance in games, I'd HIGHLY recommend Gloomhaven Helper to handle monster tracking/ability cards/attack decks. You can track player initiative in the app as well, but our group found it wasn't worth the trouble so we just use it for enemies. It will save you a TON of time and effort in shuffling monster decks and tracking HP with fiddly damage tokens.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by malchior »

YellowKing wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:41 am
malchior wrote:Like I said my gripe is almost purely attack modifier based. I wasn't sure if I was riding the actual edge of the difficulty curve and just not liking it. Maybe it is just an epic run of bad luck. It sounds like it so I'll keep at it.
Yeah sounds like some bad luck. As you level, prioritize getting the perks to ditch negative modifiers out of your deck. I had several characters throughout the campaign with no negative modifiers in their deck at all (except for the standard miss).
Yeah my first perk on the brute was to dump the 2 -1 modifiers. But that just increased the liklihood of a miss by shortening the deck. I added the +3 next and then will try to keep adding in more cards. I'll take consistent damage and hopefully some 'muddles' over 'miss' any day of the week. :)
And if you're not averse to app-assistance in games, I'd HIGHLY recommend Gloomhaven Helper to handle monster tracking/ability cards/attack decks. You can track player initiative in the app as well, but our group found it wasn't worth the trouble so we just use it for enemies. It will save you a TON of time and effort in shuffling monster decks and tracking HP with fiddly damage tokens.
The Gloomhaven Helper is a *major time saver*. Just not having to set up the monster draw decks and track damage by hand is at least a 25% savings in time. And it'll help prevent rule mistakes. It doesn't do a few things I wish it did like automatically deduct wound damage but it does flash to remind you. It did remind me last night that the Boss in the scenario was immune to Poison damage which I overlooked.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Malificent »

malchior wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:48 am
YellowKing wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:41 am
malchior wrote:Like I said my gripe is almost purely attack modifier based. I wasn't sure if I was riding the actual edge of the difficulty curve and just not liking it. Maybe it is just an epic run of bad luck. It sounds like it so I'll keep at it.
Yeah sounds like some bad luck. As you level, prioritize getting the perks to ditch negative modifiers out of your deck. I had several characters throughout the campaign with no negative modifiers in their deck at all (except for the standard miss).
Yeah my first perk on the brute was to dump the 2 -1 modifiers. But that just increased the liklihood of a miss by shortening the deck. I added the +3 next and then will try to keep adding in more cards. I'll take consistent damage and hopefully some 'muddles' over 'miss' any day of the week. :)
And if you're not averse to app-assistance in games, I'd HIGHLY recommend Gloomhaven Helper to handle monster tracking/ability cards/attack decks. You can track player initiative in the app as well, but our group found it wasn't worth the trouble so we just use it for enemies. It will save you a TON of time and effort in shuffling monster decks and tracking HP with fiddly damage tokens.
The Gloomhaven Helper is a *major time saver*. Just not having to set up the monster draw decks and track damage by hand is at least a 25% savings in time. And it'll help prevent rule mistakes. It doesn't do a few things I wish it did like automatically deduct wound damage but it does flash to remind you. It did remind me last night that the Boss in the scenario was immune to Poison damage which I overlooked.
I think attack modifier deck building strategy also partially depends on your character. I've had some characters, that due to their build, rarely use their deck at all, so I built it big to make sure I'd almost never hit a null.

And a second recommendation for Gloomhaven Helper. I played through the entire main campaign without and then started Forgotten Circles with it and now I don't know how I got along without it.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

Malificent wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 11:04 am And a second recommendation for Gloomhaven Helper. I played through the entire main campaign without and then started Forgotten Circles with it and now I don't know how I got along without it.
A third from me. I can’t imagine playing without it.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Also, if you have the means (i.e. gold), don't forget to donate to the church. In addition to helping with the prosperity of the town, it also gives you 2 blessings for the next adventure. They are one-shots, but could potentially save the day.

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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Oh, and if, like me, you have trouble figuring out the unlocked scenarios, you may also want to check out:

https://dmungin.github.io/gloomhaven-scenario-tree-ng/

It was a huge help for my group. Though it is a bit of a spoiler, maybe. For us it showed us which choice we should have made in order to unlock my character's retirement. Once you start getting choices, it can become easy to lose track of what's open and what's no longer available. And it shows the relationships. On the map, they are just stickers. With this we could look at a sticker, then check it on the site to see what enabled the sticker. We don't play very often, so it was helpful to go back and look at the completed scenario to get the back story.

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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Little B 11.11 won yet another two games of Machi Koro this morning without ever building a single improvement which required two dice.

While I like the general idea of it, I think I'm done with this game. Nearly every game we play is won without even using half the cards, which makes it quite boring.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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This weekend I played Mystic Vale, the deck-builder where you're slapping new abilities onto your cards instead of acquiring new cards. It's a gimmick, but it's a nifty gimmick that I enjoy. We played with an expansion for the first time, and I really like the addition of "leader" cards that can help focus your strategy. In our game, my leader let me hoover up vale cards for ongoing bonuses and end-game points, while my wife's leader generated piles of in-game points. I squeaked out a win at the end.

I also tried Iberian Gauge (same designer, publisher, and aesthetic as Irish Gauge) on TTS. I really liked how much it pushes you to cooperate, while still leaving space to mess with your opponents. On the very last move of our game, the final player could have extended the Red railway into Barcelona, driving up its share price. But he only owned one share in the Red railway, while I owned two shares. So instead of making us both a little richer, he built a track to nowhere. Deliciously cruel.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Earlier this week I tried Nidavellir, a game that's not about the place Thor goes to forge a new weapon in Avengers: Infinity War.

It's a set-collection auction game. Each round, you secretly bid for the right to be first to take a dwarf from a display. Collecting multiples of the same dwarf type will score you points, and each type of dwarf has a different scoring formula: Explorers simply tally up the points on each card, Hunters are worth the number of Hunters you have squared, etc. If you collect one of each type, you immediately get to take a Hero dwarf with a unique special ability. Some hero abilities are basic, such as the Blacksmith hero who just counts as two Blacksmiths. Others are more interesting, like the hero who lets you see everyone else's bid before placing you own.

The bidding makes gameplay very interactive, and it plays quickly. We were able to get in 3 games in one evening, with a break for dinner. The rulebook is not great -- it was definitely not translated or proofread by a native English speaker -- but it gets the job done. I think Nivadellir is a great choice for any group that doesn't mind a little math.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

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Malificent wrote: Sun Feb 14, 2021 1:32 pm Wife and I have been playing Dice Throne Adventures since the Kickstarter arrived a week or so ago.

Dice Throne Adventures is a co-op version of Dice Throne, which can best be described as Battle Yahtzee. Each of the 16 classes available in Dice Throne has their own set of 5 custom dice and unique powers. For example, the Paladin has dice where the 1 and 2 have sword symbols, 3 and 4 are helmets, 5 is a heart, and 6 is a prayer symbol. In a battle, you roll the dice 3 times (like Yahtzee) and pick and choose which ones to re-roll. He then has powers that trigger on various dice combinations. 3 swords and 2 helmets gets you a damage power that also has some positive random side effects. 2 hearts gets you a healing ability based on the total number of hearts you rolled. And if you get the equivalent of a Yahtzee, you get an Ultimate, which for the paladin, does a chunky bit of unblockable damage, heals him, and gives him a unique status.

All the dice rolling is mitigated by the deck building portion of the game - each class has its own deck, made up of some cards to upgrade your powers and some cards to allow you to tweak your rolls - one lets you change any die to a 6, one allows you to "tip" the die up or down one value, etc. You start with 2 Combat Points (CP) and get 1 a turn (and can sell unwanted cards for 1 CP each). Those combat points are used to play cards, so you have to make choices about whether to hold on to that upgrade until you can afford it or sell it to give you the CP needed to play that dice tweaking card that could prevent you from failing your roll.

In normal Dice Throne, its 1vs 1 combat. In Adventures, you are running through an 8 scenario campaign. Each campaign consists of 4 Portal Crawls, each followed by a Boss Battle. A Portal Crawl is running around a randomized tile based map fighting various minions and getting loot (new cards for your deck). There's a scoring system for the campaign, where you get points based on efficiency if you win. if you lose, you get some negative points and you replay the scenario with 3 more healing salves than you started the scenario with the last time.

We're having a real blast playing this. It took my wife a bit to find the character that worked for her - she had never even played Yahtzee before, so she was kind of jumping in the deep end. But once you get the hang of it, it plays pretty quick and has a solid amount of meaningful tactical choices to make as you play. The deckbuilding is fun and each character is pretty unique. And a big shoutout to the quality of the artwork and components in this game. The inserts are perfect and high quality, the rulebook is super well organized and includes a section listing all components and showing you how to organize them in the insert, something I wish all games did. Each character has a nice insert that explains their various status tokens and includes a complexity rating and mini FAQ, which was super helpful while playing.

Now that we're through our first campaign, we're looking forward to trying out some more characters and upping the difficulty level for the next runthrough.
I am curious of your impression of the difficulty of DTA? Based on my own experience and from what I have read the game feels downright brutal. Some of the comments I am reading online indicate the game is designed as sort of a board game version of Dark Souls, your supposed to die over and over again until you figure it out or collect enough stuff (loot cards) to move on to the next level. A perfect campaign run would be 8 sessions, 4 crawls and 4 bosses, I am reading comments from people stating it took them 20-25 attempts to complete a single campaign. I've tried a couple of test games to get a feel for the rules and mechanics and in my second try on tile third tile (room) one hero was down to 1 hit point the other was at less than half life and I had already expended a salve. I didn't complete the crawl as the hero with 1 health was in a position such that he was going to die no matter what I did on my next turn. Looking through the various heroes to decide which to play, I also immediately noticed several heroes have abilities which simply do not work in DTA. Rather than come up with an alternative or balancing mechanic the develop just said, "pretend you don't have that ability, just ignore it". Glad to hear you and your wife are really enjoying it, again just curious how many attempts it took to complete a single campaign?
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Malificent »

Tao wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 4:30 pm
I am curious of your impression of the difficulty of DTA? Based on my own experience and from what I have read the game feels downright brutal. Some of the comments I am reading online indicate the game is designed as sort of a board game version of Dark Souls, your supposed to die over and over again until you figure it out or collect enough stuff (loot cards) to move on to the next level. A perfect campaign run would be 8 sessions, 4 crawls and 4 bosses, I am reading comments from people stating it took them 20-25 attempts to complete a single campaign. I've tried a couple of test games to get a feel for the rules and mechanics and in my second try on tile third tile (room) one hero was down to 1 hit point the other was at less than half life and I had already expended a salve. I didn't complete the crawl as the hero with 1 health was in a position such that he was going to die no matter what I did on my next turn. Looking through the various heroes to decide which to play, I also immediately noticed several heroes have abilities which simply do not work in DTA. Rather than come up with an alternative or balancing mechanic the develop just said, "pretend you don't have that ability, just ignore it". Glad to hear you and your wife are really enjoying it, again just curious how many attempts it took to complete a single campaign?
We were playing as the Paladin and Pyromancer and it took us 15 sessions. The first 4 scenarios were straight through. Then the 5th scenario took us two tries. Same for the 6th scenario. 7th scenario took us 3 times and we beat the Mad King on the 4th try.

So I'd say it is difficult, but not impossible. Losing is okay, because you still get loot after a loss, both the loot for scenario end and the unidentified loot that you find during the portal crawl. And, of course, starting salves go up by 3.

Full disclosure, we stopped after the first scenario our first runthrough because my wife had picked the Moon Elf and didn't enjoy her. Switched to Pyromancer and it kicked. The second campaign, I was the one that stopped us twice because it didn't feel like a good combo. As you said, some of the heroes will be more challenging, especially solo. Cursed Pirate, for example, has basically no healing and at a certain point, flips her board and becomes more powerful...but takes 4 health a turn. I tried her and it just didn't feel right, plus I think there was one card of hers that made no sense. I just discarded and drew another.

I'd be curious what the other abilities are that don't work. So far, I haven't found much that didn't work, as long as I made sure to consider the Boss/Minion as a player/opponent. I also haven't played half the classes, so lots less for me to figure out.

Here's our scenario record:
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

Our gaming group finished Forgotten Circles tonight, and with that, I've completed every official Gloomhaven scenario. Yes, we even went back and played scenarios we didn't unlock through the main campaign.

This has been a two year adventure. We started base GH in February of 2019 and finished it in March 2020. Switched to Tabletop Simulator and went virtual due to the pandemic on March 17th, and have been playing that way ever since. We did take a few weeks to play the BGG community campaign that Isaac Childress created, so we didn't actually start Forgotten Circles until late May 2020.

So what's next? We've tossed around the idea of doing Jaws of the Lion, but two of our group (including myself) played that through solo. I wouldn't actually mind playing it again with the full group, but I think everyone's ready for a change of pace. Particularly since Frosthaven will be arriving at some point, and another year+ adventure will start up again. :shock:

Current plan is to just hit some of our other backlogged titles. Pandemic Legacy: Season 0 is the top contender if we are able to get back together in person.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

YellowKing wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 11:55 pm Our gaming group finished Forgotten Circles tonight, and with that, I've completed every official Gloomhaven scenario. Yes, we even went back and played scenarios we didn't unlock through the main campaign.
:shock: Wow, that's impressive.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Malificent »

Skinypupy wrote: Fri Feb 19, 2021 10:10 am
YellowKing wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 11:55 pm Our gaming group finished Forgotten Circles tonight, and with that, I've completed every official Gloomhaven scenario. Yes, we even went back and played scenarios we didn't unlock through the main campaign.
:shock: Wow, that's impressive.
Damn right it is.

My group is close, but not there. We finished Gloomhaven, then went back through and played through the scenarios we missed using a low reputation party. We started Forgotten Circles and stopped part way through. We're back at it now and I think a couple months out, as we only get 3 scenarios done every 2 weeks.

Big congrats.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

Mystic Vale arrived today. I've been playing it on the iPad app quite a bit, but wanted to see how it fared in a live setting. Did surprisingly well with the Wonder Twins 7.8, actually. Look a bit longer than their attention spans typically allow, but I think that will get better once we get the flow of the game down (I had to help them set up their next hand, for example). Little B 11.11 wasn't home, but I think she's going to love it.

I really liked how you physically build the cards using the transparent inserts. A very cool idea and very satisfying in a tactile sense. I do find some of the later turns to get a bit challenging (when you have a bazillion mana, spirits, and VP's to add up), but overall I was very impressed. Will start looking at xpacs now.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by disarm »

We've been having a lot of fun with My First Carcassonne and 5-Minute Marvel over the past week.

My First Carcassonne is a greatly simplified, but really fun, take on the original. They've stripped the rules down enough that my 6yo had to no trouble picking it up, and figuring out the important bits of strategy, in only a few rounds. A game only takes about 15 minutes, and we've played too many times to count, but everyone is still having a great time (even our 12yo girls). We borrowed this one from the library, but will probably wind up buying our own copy. I highly recommend checking it out if you have younger kids and want a game they can fully understand.


5-Minute Marvel is a cooperative card game that's a Marvel-themes spinoff of 5-Minute Dungeon. Each player picks a superhero with a special power and has a stack of resource cards that must be played in combination with cards from teammates to match symbols on a stack of enemy cards in order to 'defeat' them. Defeat a card and move on to the next. Get to the bottom of the enemy stack and face a final boss that requires a large number of matching resource cards to defeat. There are six different Marvel comic-themed bad guys to defeat, each with an increasing number of enemy cards to beat in their stack. The big catch? You only have five minutes to get past all the cards and the boss. The first few are relatively easy, but the final boss (Thanos) requires a pace of beating a card roughly every eight seconds to finish the stack...not an easy task, especially when there are a few other catches that I won't get into here. The game has a very simple concept that wouldn't be much fun on its own, but the pressure of a time limit makes it an intense, chaotice, and fun game for all ages.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by EzeKieL »

I'll save what I played for my February video but I'll share this instead.

A while ago I checked out the BGG store and I bought way too much :lol: , soooo I decided to make a video of it as well ^^.

Beware visiting the BGG store (or Etsy for that matter), your pockets empty quick :oops: .

For whoever likes chillout downtempo music (or HipHop) ->
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by AWS260 »

This weekend I played Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy. I have now played Eclipse four times: won twice, came in last twice. I guess that means I'm average at the game?
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

I set up Star Wars Outer Rim today, but never actually got around to playing it. Does that count as playing something this weekend? :lol:
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by disarm »

Keeping up with the kid-versions of great games, we've been playing Catan Junior this week, and it's another really well done simplification of a classic game. They strip the rules back enough that my 6yo totally understands the rules and strategy, but it's still interesting enough for the rest of us to enjoy playing as well. I look forward to when we can move up to real Catan, but I think it's just a little too involved for my youngest to keep up for now.

Ultimately, I'm most excited that my kids (and wife!) are staying interested in playing games as I bring new ones home to try. Our local library has been a great resource for trying out different games, and we've purchased a few of the best to keep playing. Overall, I would say that introducing board games beyond the "classics" has been a major hit in our home, and I hope to keep it going!
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by paulbaxter »

My middle son is really into anything weapon and war related right now. I don't have the mental energy to take on learning any of the many serious war games out there, but I got him Risk Legacy for his birthday this past weekend and that was a big hit.

We'd played quite a bit of Risk Europe, which is considerably better than original Risk, but I still don't have as much patience for it as my kids do. Really dug Risk Legacy though. The map is pretty much the original map, so it feels very familiar to me from the 80's, and some of the same dynamics are at work, like consistent buildups in Brazil and N Africa, someone always starting in Australia, people ruinously trying to hold Europe or N America, etc. The differences are in the set up (you only start in one territory and expand from there), plus stickers and other legacy effects, so a particular territory might have a special defensive advantage or disadvantage. Also, you pick a player mat for each game and each one has slightly different special abilities.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Anonymous Bosch »

paulbaxter wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 9:39 pm My middle son is really into anything weapon and war related right now. I don't have the mental energy to take on learning any of the many serious war games out there, but I got him Risk Legacy for his birthday this past weekend and that was a big hit.

We'd played quite a bit of Risk Europe, which is considerably better than original Risk, but I still don't have as much patience for it as my kids do. Really dug Risk Legacy though. The map is pretty much the original map, so it feels very familiar to me from the 80's, and some of the same dynamics are at work, like consistent buildups in Brazil and N Africa, someone always starting in Australia, people ruinously trying to hold Europe or N America, etc. The differences are in the set up (you only start in one territory and expand from there), plus stickers and other legacy effects, so a particular territory might have a special defensive advantage or disadvantage. Also, you pick a player mat for each game and each one has slightly different special abilities.
Depending upon his age and attention span, it sounds like your son would go bonkers for Memoir '44:

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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Blackhawk »

+1. In fact, Shut Up & Sit Down (my favorite board game show) covered it in their very first episode:

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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

I have fond memories of Memoir '44. It was one of the first games I bought when I got into (real) board gaming, along with Ticket to Ride and Pandemic. I love that it marries the theme of a hardcore WWII war game with simple, fun mechanics that anyone can learn.

I've been in a board gaming slump lately. I did set up and run through a 3-handed play of CTHULHU: DEATH MAY DIE over the weekend, but aside from that I just haven't had much energy for it.

At this point I think I may just take a break for a bit and focus on painting until Middara arrives.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by Skinypupy »

YellowKing wrote: Tue Mar 02, 2021 10:35 am At this point I think I may just take a break for a bit and focus on painting until Middara arrives.
Eventually. :(
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by coopasonic »

Finally got to play another human (my 14yo son) in The Search for Planet X and it was a pretty satisfying experience. I am not sure I would call it exactly fun because it is basically a deductive/logic race so more tense and stressful with few “woohoo” moments, like having your uncertain theory pass peer review. I want to play more and with more players. I like the difficulty scaling option though it seems like it would give a pretty significant advantage.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hentzau »

Memoir '44 is one of those games that I will play anytime someone asks me to, no hesitation.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by YellowKing »

Tonight my gaming group decided to try out SUB TERRA, as one of the group is in the Kickstarter for SUB TERRA II.

After watching a tutorial video, my first impression was that it looked a bit dull, but didn't mind giving it a go. Happy to say I was wrong.

This is one of those games I love where entertaining gameplay situations arise out of an extremely simple ruleset. You can teach this game in 5-10 minutes easily, but it still felt plenty challenging and led to some laugh out loud moments.

It's a cooperative tile-laying exploration game in which you play a group of miners trapped in a cave looking for the exit. As you make your way through the cave, you'll encounter flooded caverns, rockslides, gas pockets, and mysterious horrors which when spawned will relentlessly hunt you down. Every caver has a special ability they can use to help overcome these obstacles, and in typical cooperative game fashion you have a limited number of actions you can take - move, reveal a tile, explore (move + reveal), heal, dig, etc.

You win overall if one player finds and makes it to the exit, though there are varying levels (gold, silver, bronze) based on how many players make it out. You lose if all miners die, or if you run out of event cards (technically you still have a chance to make it out after running out of events, but the danger escalates so high it's a very remote chance).

Unfortunately the original game is hard to get right now, but is being reprinted with the sequel's Kickstarter. With various expansions, game modes, and the true randomness of the layout every game, there's definitely a ton of replayability there. Was very pleasantly surprised with this one and I'm looking forward to playing the sequel in physical form soon.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hentzau »

We’ve been playing Flash Point for the past several months via Zoom. It’s a great physical game to play via zoom if you can set up an overhead cam. Once everyone knows their roles they can just relay their orders to the owner of the physical copy of the game.

Despite having the game forever, we just got around to playing the High Rise supplement and man that was a fun game. 3 players playing on Veteran level and we started with a CAFS Firefighter, a Hazmat Specialist, and the Engine operator. This was a great team to start with, kept the fires under control and explsions to a minimum. After 3 of 4 hazmats were dealt with, I switched over to the paramedic, and that was key to getting the rest of the victims out of the building. Ended the game only losing 2 victims.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by AWS260 »

Tonight I got my ass kicked by a shoggoth. Good old Mansions of Madness 2nd edition. I wish you didn't take up so much shelf space, but you're still a lot of fun.
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Re: OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

Post by hepcat »

Mansions of Madness 2nd edition is my absolute favorite. There’s a group of about 4 of us that play marathon sessions every Christmas when I visit my father. Since this last Christmas got postponed, we waited until he got his vaccine shots, so now we’re planning on playing at the end of this month.

It really is the closest I’ve ever come to a good old fashioned night of Call of Cthulhu RPG’ing...without the actual RPG side of things. :wub:

This year we may toss in Cthulhu: Death May Die as that also had the same kind of feel...but with much more action and less thinking.
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