Tabletop Game Play Session Reports #14

This article is the compilation of my play session reports #14. The Play sessions for this entry happened from 27 January 2025 until around 24 February 2025. This is the 3rd one since no longer a weekly or monthly entry. I’m just going to enjoy playing the game more and less about writing this report.

Usually, I do short reports per week on my BGG blog. or for the Daily Session here. For pictures of each play session, check out my TikTok account in slideshow form. Maybe I’ll add more social media accounts to share in the future and the best way to find out is to check my LinkTree account.

By writing the session reports, it helps me to write the review for the game later. So, it is part of the review process even though I may not even write the review.

Sometimes, I also write a longer session report for one game where I describe what happened turn by turn with more pictures. There are links at the bottom of each entry to BGG post of that long report.

Some new games get more play until it reaches the target minimum of play. They might appear in multiple months. I also revisit some older ones from time to time. These are just games in my collection.

Click or tab on any sections from the table of contents to jump right to that part. Use the red arrow button on the bottom right corner of the screen to head back to the top.

List of Games

Here are the links to the Weekly Session Reports for shorter version.

February 2025: #62, #63, #64, #65.

Compilation of links to reports of individual games can be found in this article. Those are just for newer games and my initial impression for each. This is the list for all games with a Full Review.

Here are links to previous entries.
#1. November to December 2023
#2. 2024 Week 1 to Week 4 (January)
#3 2024 Week 5 to Week 8 (February)
#4 2024 Week 9 to Week 12 (March)
#5 2024 Week 13 to Week 16 (April)
#6 2024 Week 17 to Week 20 (May)
#7 2024 Week 21 to Week 24 (June)
#8 2024 Week 25 to Week 28 (June – July)
#9 2024 Week 29 to Week 32 (July – August)
#10 2024 Week 33 to Week 36 (August – September)
#11 2024 Week 37 to Week 40 (September)
#12 2025 1st Entry (October to December 2024)
#13 2025 2nd Entry (January)

Horizons of Spirit Island

More pictures of this Horizons of Spirit Island game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

This was my first time playing with the Spirit Island: Jagged Earth expansion content. Yes, I skipped the base game, the 2 small box expansions, and went straight to this big box expansion. The designer said it was possible but not ideal.

Some people recommended the Branch and Claw first since that small expansion introduced a couple of stuff that is available in the Jagged Earth. No, you don’t need to have that Branch and Claw in order to play with Jagged Earth. Unfortunately, at that time, Branch and Claws was no longer available locally.

So, either I bought the base game which is more expensive or the Jagged Earth. I went with just this expansion.

Honestly, I was and still am a bit overwhelmed. Still have some buyer remorse even though after this one play, I can definitely say, the amount of content is worth the price.

The thing is, I don’t usually buy expansion and this one is the biggest one so far. Buying this makes Horizons of Spirit Island, the most expensive game in my collection at this moment.

The day before trying this expansion, I had to spend times thinking how to approach these 2 boxes. After looking at all of the contents, it feels like this expansion can even become its own stand alone game. So, I was not sure which to include from Horizons and which to just leave them alone.

Not to mention, I have to learn a lot of new things here. So, I had a question like, should I play Spirit from Horizons but use all other contents from the Jagged Earth? Or should I try the Spirit from Jagged Earth and play with just the content from Horizons?

For this session I ended up focusing on the expansion and included as little content from the Horizons as possible. I play mostly solo and maybe up to 2 Spirits. I also tried to use as little duplicates from the expansion as possible.

So, what do you need from the Horizons or base game?

From the expansion, you have 10 Spirits and their starting cards with 2 sets of presence discs and 2 sets of action markers. You get a whole new set of Major and Minor Power cards.

While those cards are available in base game and playable for the expansion, the contents from expansions may include additional mechanism. If you want to learn a bit about the new features, you probably want to use the new set of cards. Keep in mind that based on what I’ve seen so far, the complexity of those cards is higher than what’s in the Horizons.

Some duplicates you can use just from the base game are the Fear Tokens, Energy tokens and the figures / miniatures. While I prefer the plastic white invaders and the wooden Dahan to their Cardboard from Horizons, I am not sure about the Blight tokens. I ended up using the cardboard.

The thing is, how you put those components in the base game and how easy you switch boxes probably can help you decide which to use. You need to include some anyway.

What’s missing? There are only 6 new Fear Cards so you need to add a couple more from the base game. Don’t forget the 2 Terror Level cards. No Invader cards, so you need that as well. If you come from the Horizons, that means you don’t have the track for Fear Cards, Invader cards, Blight and Fear Pool as they are part of the board but not modular island.

I personally don’t need them but maybe some people might want to have them. In that case, maybe you should also use the board from Horizons. I think they sell the Invader and Fear Board separately as an upgrade for retail purchase.

That is all you need to play like the Horizons but with content from Jagged Earth. So, what is new?

First, if you come from Horizons skipping the Base game, there are a lot of things you can try that actually are available in base game. Here you get 2 Adversaries, Blight Cards. So, here is the thing.

Even though the component is enough, the rulebook assumes you already have the base game. With the exception of Event cards, the rulebook doesn’t teach you how to use them. Just clarification of new contents of those types. So, I suggest before digging in this expansion, learn also the rule from the base game.

Horizons has the main board that tells you the general structure of the round. The Invader part has 2 more steps before resolving the Fear card or cards, the Blight card effects and then the Event. You can see this in the rulebook of Jagged Earth but since you probably don’t have the invader board, just know that it is a bit different.

Actually, if you are not lazy like me, there is a Spirit Island Wiki page. From there you can find and try to incorporate those additional things into your the Horizons. You might need to do some PnP or just taking notes but doable for free, no need to purchase. Otherwise, if you learn them from the Jagged Earth, they also include the new stuffs as well, like new adversary using new tokens not in the base game.

What’s next from the new things? They also include some new mechanisms from the Branch and Claw expansion. As mentioned earlier and even the rulebook says it a lot, you have everything you need related to those idea from Branch and Claw in this Jagged Earth.

Well, the Branch and Claw introduced 4 tokens, Beast, Wilds, Disease and Strife. Beasts require Power cards to increase the effect of those cards. Wilds prevents Explore action from Invader while Disease prevents Build. While Strife prevents damage to land and/or Dahan. So having them across the island can help you stall the Invaders action.

Honestly, I cannot say much. During my first play, I only encountered 2 of them, the Disease and Beast tokens. They are also part of the setup. I got some cards that reference them but probably skipped them for other cards during drafting.

Another new thing that is already in the Branch of Claw but not base game or Horizons is the EVENT CARDS.

Basically, you draw Event before resolving every Fear card or Ravage action each round. Basically there are 3 things you need to resolve from every Event card. First is the Bad thing happening to you, then you get some help from Beast and then extra action based on Dahan. Adding a bit of randomness to the game.

If I understand correctly, those are the only things from Branch and Claws. So, these next new additions are from Jagged Earth.

First, they introduce a new token, BADLANDS. Didn’t encounter this yet. Basically this will increase the damage to both sides, Invader and Dahan.

2nd, they introduce the idea of ELEMENT MARKERS. Instead of relying on the elements on cards you play, you can store element and then use it to cover the missing part to activate further action of the cards. Some Spirit can only play up to 3 cards so having every required element is a bit of challenge and this is useful for that.

3rd, they added new idea to BLIGHT CARDS. For those coming from Horizons but not the base game, using Blight card, you have 2 steps before running out of Blight tokens. First you have only 2 per player plus 1. When you run out, you flip the Blight card and got new set of Blight tokens which varies from card to card but usually like 4 or more. That blighted side also have things you need to resolve like additional penalty.

The new idea means that you may not get Blighted Island side but instead STILL HEALTHY ISLAND which is less punishing. Also, if you play with the Event cards from Jagged Earth, not only you need to include Beast tokens, but also the Blight cards, a bit different from cards from Branch and Claws.

There are still a lot of things I have not explored yet. Or I did and incorrectly. For example, I haven’t tried the ISOLATE power. There was idea of SAVING FROM DESTRUCTION. After reading the rule again, I noticed that I got it wrong. basically, the damage is done and the Blight happens to Dahan. However, the Dahan itself is safe.

Initial Impression after First Play.

I picked SHIFTING MEMORY OF AGES as the first Spirit to play with. The back side of each Spirit will tell you the complexity rating and whether they use new tokens or not. If you use this approach and start with the lowest one, you probably choose this one as well as the first.

It says that the complexity itself is MODERATE. This is the lowest complexity in the box and this is not the only one. Maybe like half of those 10 Spirits included have Moderate complexity.

While it says it doesn’t use additional tokens, but it still involves using new ideas from this expansion, specifically the Element Markers. This one can actually accumulate and give Elements to other Spirits or to themselves.

I think I already got it wrong with one of the Power card. The card says I need to collect 3 first before giving them to any target Spirit. I ended up playing just spend immediately. Especially since the Spirit itself generates them through their Growth and Innate Power.

This one also has 4 options for GROWTH and one of them is to get 9 Energy. Somebody even wrote a Strategy guide as how to play 2 MAJOR CARDS very early by utilizing that Growth option. The Spirit itself can choose to not forget a Power card and has starting card to get Minor Power.

However, the challenge is that they can only play up to 3 cards and even then it takes a while before reaching that. Shifting Memory also don’t add Permanent Elements after removing discs. You have to choose with the Marker.

I actually got the great Major Power for this Spirit during this game. The card was UNLEASH A TORRENT OF THE SELF’S OWN ESSENCE which allows you to get up to 8 Energy and spend each of them for 1 damage. That really helped me to destroy 2 Cities at once and more.

Focusing on Major cards can be very super powerful for this. However, it seems a bit of luck as well. You really need to work on making sure you can use those cards. I got a card that can target only Forest but if the land doesn’t have Blight. Got stuck since I kept moving invaders there. The card can also deal damage but requires sets of elements.

There is a forum discussion where player manages to win during first level of Terror card by using this Spirit and that strategy. Well, I guess I was not that good and won after first Stage 3 Invader.

I mentioned earlier that in general the cards and Spirit probably have higher complexity in general compared to Horizons. What that means is, when looking at cards from Horizons during drafting, I can probably say whether the card is good or not for current situation. However, in this one, there are a couple of things, I am not sure what it means. Luckily, of course, at least one of the other 3 is a bit clearer.

So, from Horizons, I added more complex Spirit, at least 2 new tokens, Blight cards, Event Cards and the Russia Adversary.

I stupidly chose Level 3 of that Adversary. This is the first time playing with Adversary at all. I was not expecting that they can Ravage twice if one land also has 3 or more Explorers. Got stuck a couple of rounds before finally got a card to remove some of them. But then during the escalation, they always add more explorers.

I think I also forgot the 2nd Level where you cannot destroy the first Explorers of each action a couple of times. Instead I have to push it away from the land and get 1 Fear instead. Since their powers don’t happen everytime, usually it is easy for me to forget. They do include a token as reminder but not sure it is enough. It’s like you have to keep checking the Adversary card for every Phase or action within that Phase.

I think the biggest challenge with this extra complexity from expansion is from Power cards and the Spirit itself. Those from Fear, Event or Blight cards might be not really clear but they are random and sometimes the effect is inconsequential. Not really something you need to understand and incorporate to make a good plan ahead.

At least from this one play I’m sure that the complexity is not too much for me to handle. Well, at least, with this lowest complexity Spirit. I just need to play more and slowly. Maybe eventually I learn and understand everything. This is going to take a while for me. Not that I want to add more content after this one.

Now, I’m still not sure whether to combine contents from two boxes and just put them into this bigger box from the expansion or keep them separately. I kind of hate the idea of one box full of contents like Gloomhaven, especially if you just one to explore small parts of it one at a time.

Playing time for this first time learning this expansion content was about 144 minutes.

Sky Team

More pictures of this Sky Team game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Stop talking and start preparing to land the airplane in Sky Team.

This was also 2nd play of Sky Team. Last time, with the learning game, I tried playing the regular game 2-handed while a lot of people already have suggestion for their own solo mode. This time I got a chance to play one of the solo variant.

One user here, on my previous post, actually suggested a variant that I thought a bit different than the rest. While you still roll all dice for the main role right away, but for the 2nd role, instead of rolling just 1 die per turn, you roll 2 at the start of their turn. While keeping one of them, then roll one each in subsequent turn.

This way, the other role has two dice most of the time but you still don’t know for sure what will be the other 2. Well, I think I like this variant. However, it does seem a bit easier. Usually in a game with dice rolling like this, it can push me towards rerolling if I thought I got bad roll. It didn’t seem to happen.

Maybe I just got good rolls that I didn’t even think of using the rerolling options at all in my 2 sessions. Well, I just stick with this for now while exploring the other variants if I have the chance. Maybe the difficulty of the airport can still make this variant interesting.

I did play the Montreal again before trying the next one in the book. During my first game, I still forgot about how I should proceed to the last round. Reach the airport first in 2nd to last round!

In the 2nd session I tried the Heathrow Airport green. This one has shorter lane, only 6 compared to Montreal’s 7. No additional module except you will be rolling one black die once every two steps forwards at the start of the round. The black die will add an airplane you need to clear out first in a number of space away indicated by the die to where you are rolling.

This way, the closer you get to the airport, rolling high value from the black doesn’t add anything. With the Green variant, it can happen up to 3 times unless you skip by moving two spaces ahead like I did.

However, if you do so, you will be spending in the next couple of rounds stalling the speed so you don’t move. You still need to wait until you reach the altitude. So, during my play I think the black die only added one.

So, here is how the 2nd session with Heathrow went, using this solo variant.

1st round. 2, 3, 6, 6.

Rolled the Black die and got a 4, adding 3rd plane to that space.

Pilot first deployed the 3rd Landing Gear with one of the 6s. Co-Pilot rolled 2 1s. So, Co-Pilot deployed the first Flap hoping for higher dice later.

Since Pilot had a 2 to remove the only plane there, Pilot played the 6 to the Engine since it would be safe to move 2 spaces. Co-Pilot rolled a 2 this time with 1 from previous turn. The 2 from Co-Pilot removed that plane 2 spaces away.

Pilot then played the 3 for the Axis. Co-Pilot also rolled a 3 in addition to the 1 from before. This 3 was played also for the Axis so they maintained the orientation.

Pilot played the 2 to deploy the 1st Gear. Last die for Co-Pilot went to the Engine. The total value was 7, a value between the gear and flap so the airplane moved one space.

2nd ROUND. 2, 3, 4, 5.

Co-Pilot started with a 2 for Radio to clear the only airplane there. Pilot then rolled 2 3s and Pilot also used one of them for the Radio, removing one of 3 there.

Co-Pilot then played the 3 for the Axis. Pilot rolled 3rd die and got a 4 this time. Played the 3 for the axis first so they maintained the plane axis.

Co-Pilot then played the 5 for the Engine. Pilot rolled a 1 in addition to the 4 before. This was when I wanted the airplane to advance 2 spaces and it required at least a total of 10. So, they needed to change the 4 into 5 first. To do so, the Pilot played the 1 to make coffee.

Co-Pilot played the last one, the 4 for 2nd Radio, removing one of 2 planes there. Then using the Coffee, Pilot changed the 4 to a 5 for the Engine and the plane moved 2 spaces.

3rd ROUND. 1, 2, 3, 3.

Pilot played the 1 first for the Radio removing 1 of 2 planes there. Co-Pilot rolled a 1 and a 5. Played the 1 for the Radio so the next space was clear.

Pilot then played a 3 for the Axis. Co-Pilot rolled another 1 with a 5 from before. The 5 was played for the Engine.

Pilot followed by playing the 2 and the plane advanced one space. Co-Pilot rolled a 3 this time. They had to continue deploying Flap with the 3 so the last 1 had to be for Axis.

The plane tilted to the left. Pilot played the last 3 to deploy the 2nd Gear. Co-Pilot deployed the 2nd Flap.

4th ROUND. 1, 1, 3, 3.

Rolled the Black die again and got a 4 so nothing to add. Co-Pilot played 1 first for the Radio, clearing the only plane there. Pilot rolled a 4 and a 6. Not great for Axis but maybe the 4 for Engine. So, played the 6 for Coffee.

Needed a 2 to remove the planes so Co-Pilot played a 1 for more coffee. Co-Pilot rolled another 4 so they got 2 4s. Pilot played the 4 for Axis.

Co-Pilot had to spend Coffee to change their 3 into 4 so the Axis stayed and the plane didn’t rolled. Pilot then rolled a 5 with 4 from earlier. They decided not to advance the plane. So 4 for the Engine.

Co-Pilot played their last one, the 3 to the Engine and it was below the threshold. Pilot then played the 5 for more coffee.

5th ROUND. 2, 2, 5, 6.

Rolled Black die again and got a 2 so added 3rd plane to that last space. So, advancing too fast didn’t really help in this variant. Pilot played a 2 for the Radio, removing one plane. Co-Pilot rolled a 4 and a 5. Played the 5 for the Axis to return it to ideal position.

Pilot played 2nd 2 for 1st BRAKE. Co-Pilot then rolled a 3. Played the 4 to deploy 3rd Flap.

Pilot had to play the 5 for Axis so the plane stayed in that tilted position. Co-Pilot rolled a 1 with a 3 from earlier. They decided not to advance still so 1 was for Engine then the 3 was to remove the plane. Spent a coffee to change the 3 into 2 for Radio. One plane left.

Pilot played the 6 for Engine and Co-Pilot played the 1. The total was 7, below threshold.

6th round. 1, 3, 5, 6.

Rolled a 4 so no additional plane. Co-Pilot played the 6 for Axis. Pilot rolled a 2 and a 6. Played the 2 for Radio, clearing the last space.

Co-Pilot played the 5 to deploy the last Flap. Pilot rolled a 5. It seems I got this one wrong. I played that for Axis so it should have moved only one angle towards the right instead of 2. But I still had a coffee for it.

Co-Pilot then played a 3 for the Engine. Pilot rolled a 2 and played the 6 for the Engine so the plane moved forward 1 space, ready to land.

Both of them played their last die for 2 more coffee.

7th round. 1, 2, 3, 4.

Pilot played the 4 for 2nd BRAKE. Co-Pilot rolled a 2 and a 4. Played a 2 for the Axis.

Pilot followed also with their 2. Co-Pilot rolled a 3. This was for Engine.

Pilot then played the 1 also for Engine. The total value was 4 which was below the BRAKES so they safely landed.

Playing time was about 30 minutes per session.

Aquamarine

More pictures of this Aquamarine game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Dive through the depth of oceans to explore the underwater world while managing your oxygen tanks in Aquamarine.

Back to playing Map 1: EXPLORATORY EXPEDITION with solo mode, aiming for the hard difficulty. Started during the night with 6, 4 rounds before the daylight.

1st ROUND. 2 and 5.

Dived from the right boat trying to go with the right route. Picked the 2 and covered just the white coral from the closest 2.

2nd ROUND. 3 and 6.

Chose the 3 to go vertical to the right. Unfortunately couldn’t reach the animal.

3rd ROUND. 6 and 6.

So I got free form with the size of 8. I covered that creature then going in straight vertical line. This covered the 2 corals with different colors and reached the Bubble.

4th ROUND. 4 and 5.

Couldn’t use the 5 so I went with the 4, making a square shape covering 2 fishes. I had to start spending 1 oxygen because of the depth.

5th ROUND. 3 and 5.

Still couldn’t use the 5 because of this position. Either 3 vertically or horizontally. I chose the latter since I was still hoping to get the flag later. This covered one more fish.

6th ROUND. 2 and 4.

I guess I had to let go of the flag and chose the 4 in square form. Covering nothing but bubble and trying to aim for the shipwreck. At this point, Hard mode was achieved.

7th ROUND. 3 and 3.

Another free form with the size of 5. Used it to reach and cover 2 parts of shipwreck. I had to start losing 2 oxygen from this depth.

8th ROUND. 5 and 5.

Free form again with the size of 7. Covering the last part of the shipwreck and going to the left and covered the 3 corals with all black colors. Chose the coral bonus from Shipwreck.

That was the end of 1st DIVE.

9th ROUND. 3 and 6.

Chose the left boat for 2nd dive and used the 6 in rectangular form to cover 2 black corals. I had to spend 3 oxygen then.

10th ROUND. 4 and 6.

I used the 6 to create vertical line to reach the 2 parts on the left of the Shipwreck.

11th ROUND. 6 and 6.

Free form with size of 8. Covered the other 4 parts of shipwreck and just kept going down. Chose shipwreck bonus for every shipwreck covered.

12th ROUND. 4 and 4.

Another free form with size 6. Unfortunately not good enough to reach anything from that position so I just used it as vertical line. Stopped at above the jellyfish. I had to start spending oxygen due to the depth.

13th ROUND. 5 and 5.

Got free form size 7. From that position I was able to cover the group of 4 fishes with one extra. I went to the right, trying to cover the nearby shipwreck. At this point, the Hard mode requirement was achieved and I also had to start spending 2 oxygen.

14th ROUND. 4 and 5.

I used the 5. The shipwreck was exactly below my current position and the 5 was enough to cover it. Spent 1 oxygen plus 2 and chose the animal bonus from shipwreck.

That was the end of 2nd DIVE.

15th ROUND. 3 and 5.

Dived from middle boat. Chose the 5 to cover the 2 nearby fishes in the same column. Spent 2 oxygen.

16th ROUND. 5 and 5.

Free form size 7. I went to the right a bit. The free form allowed me to cover one white Coral, the flag value 4 and reach the end before I had to start spending oxygen due to depth.

17th ROUND. 3 and 4.

There was daylight creature nearby but I was already in the night again. So I aimed for the next nearby shipwreck and went to the left using horizontal line size 4. This covered a fish and a bubble.

18th ROUND. 4 and 6.

I chose the 4 vertical instead of the 6 and this allowed me to reach just before the Shipwreck part. Spent oxygen due to depth.

19th ROUND. 3 and 6.

Chose the 6 obviously in rectangular shape instead of line and this was enough to cover the entire shipwreck. It seems I forgot to choose bonus and I think I could have gone with Flag.

20th ROUND. 4 and 4.

Got free form size 6. From this middle shipwreck I could cover 3 fishes nearby.

21st ROUND. 1 and 2.

I used the 2 vertically just to reach the line before I had to spend more oxygen due to depth. Still had to spend 1 and I only had 2 left. Also, I achieved the last hard mode requirement depth.

22nd ROUND. 3 and 5.

I used the 5 vertically. This covered a bubble and 2 fishes so I didn’t have to spend any oxygen.

23rd ROUND. 2 and 4.

Unfortunately this was my last movement since I had no more oxygen and no nearby bubble. I couldn’t use the 4 so I went with the 2 just to cover a fish.

That was the end of 3rd dive and the game.

SCORING.

I got 5 from one creature, 14 from Corals, 4 from single Flag, 30 from 7 groups of fishes and I should have gotten 34 from 4 shipwreck bonuses.

TOTAL SCORE was 87.

Playing time was about 45 minutes.

Villages of Valeria

More pictures of this Villages of Valeria game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Build your village to attract adventurers to stay by providing locations for their clans in Villages of Valeria.

This was a solo session. I think I have been playing this solo mode wrong. Apparently you have to pay 2 coins to recruit instead of 1 like in the multiplayer mode. If you also play with Monuments, then you also need to pay 2 Gold for the Monument card with a total of 4 gold to spend.

I started with Forager’s Den to develop and added Wood as resources to the Castle. The 5 cards were Honor Tower, Monastery, Cloister, Fountain and Mine.

First turn, I did HARVEST and got 3 cards, Archery Range, Tannery and Armory. Then I built the TANNERY with just 1 Wild. Got me extra Gold, one time only. I had to draw 1 and I chose SMITHY.

0 point so far.

3rd turn, I did DEVELOP again using ARCHERY RANGE to add Stone to the Castle. Had to discard card so I let go ARMORY. 4th turn, I did BUILD again, this time for SMITHY with one Food, one Stone and one Wood. Took Holy Shrine as the new card. Smithy got me 1 Gold.

2 points so far.

5th turn, I did DEVELOP for Magic using Fountains card. Letting go the Holy Shrine. 6th turn I did HARVEST again, taking Fountains, Thieves Den and Monastery.

7th turn, I did BUILD again. This time was the MONASTERY by spending 2 Magic, 1 Stone and 1 Wood. This got me 2 points and permanent Magic resource for future build of Holy building type. I took an Inn card which I used on 8th turn to DEVELOP, adding Food to my castle. Letting go a Fountain.

4 points so far.

9th turn, I did HARVEST again, taking Armory, Laborium and Harbor. Another BUILD on 10th and this time for MINE. Spent 1 Food, 2 Wood and 1 Magic. This got me 1 point and permanent stone resource for Future Build action. Then on 10th turn, I did TAX, removing the other Mine card I took as bonus from previous action to get 1 Gold.

11th turn, I did BUILD again for HONOR TOWER, a soldier type so I could start recruiting Summoner. This got me 3 points and scoring that didn’t work for solo I guess. With inspiration from other games, they could have implemented the idea of having at least a number of soldier type buildings in order to get 3 points or so.

On 12th turn, I did RECRUIT. For that Summoner, paying 2 Gold. As mentioned earlier, I did take a Monument but I returned it since I got it wrong. 1 point from the Character.

8 points so far.

13th turn, I did BUILD, this time for LABORIUM. Spent 2 Magic and Wood as the Stone was automatically added. This got me 1 point plus permanent Magic resource for future build. 14th turn and I did TAX again. Removing Monastery card to get a Gold.

9 points so far.

15th turn, I did RECRUIT again for WIZARD. Spent 2 Gold but got 1 back thanks to Summoner. Then on 16th, I did BUILD again this time for THIEVES DEN. Spent 2 Food and 2 Wood but discount from Wizard. This got me 2 points and 2 Gold. I also had to draw and got HIDEOUT. Also 2 points from the character.

13 points so far.

17th turn, removed that Hideout card for TAX and got 1 Gold. 18th turn and I did BUILD again, 2nd of soldier type, the ARMORY. Spent only 1 Stone since I had discount from Wizard and the Mine. This got me 2 points. Took Encampment as the new card.

15 points so far.

19th turn, I did RECRUIT again and this time with the Monument. Got the WARLORD since I had 2 soldier type buildings and the Cathedral of St. Aquila. 3 points from the Character and permanent wild resource for future build of soldier type again. With discount from Monastery, Wizard, Mine and Laborium, I only needed to spend 2 Wood and a Food to build that Monument. Got 6 points, 2nd Holy type and got a Farm card.

24 points so far.

21st turn, I did TAX again for 1 Gold, removing the Cloister card. 22nd turn and I did BUILD for the Farm. Spent only 2 woods for it. Got 1 point, 4th of Worker type and permanent food.

25 points so far.

23rd turn, another BUILD and this time for MARKET, 5th of Worker type. Spent a Wood and a wild only for the 2nd food and got me 3 points. It seems I forgot to take 2 Gold as one time bonus. I got a new card and it was Wizard’s Tower.

28 points so far.

24th turn, BUILD again for that Wizard Tower, 3rd of Holy Type. Spent only 1 Stone and 1 Magic. Got me 2 points, Gold bonus for future Build action and a Mine card. Also Build again for 25th and this time the Harbor, 3rd of Shadow type. Spent only a Wood and a Wild for 2nd wood. Got me a Gold, 1 point per shadow type and 1 point.

34 points so far.

26th turn, RECRUIT again plus MONUMENT. Spent 2 for the KNIGHT and another 2 Gold for Emerald Stronghold. Got 1 gold back from Summoner, 1 point from the Knight plus 1 per Soldier type.

37 points so far.

27th turn and I did BUILD again for that 2nd Monument. After all of the discounts, I only needed to spend 1 Food and 1 Stone for 6 points and 3rd of Soldier type. Also got a Gold bonus from Wizard Tower and Oracle card.

44 points so far.

28th, more BUILD action this time for TAVERN, 4th of Shadow type. This one I forgot to spend one more resources but I still had one from before. Got 1 point plus 1 per character and a Gold. Got a Keep card.

49 points so far.

29th turn and I got RECRUIT again for BUTCHER. Spent 2 Gold discounted 1 and got me 1 point plus 1 per Worker type and that was 6 points.

55 points so far.

30th turn was another BUILD for Wizard’s Hut, 5th of Shadow type. Spent only 1 Gold and got 1 point. Also got Headquarter and bonus Gold.

57 points so far.

31st turn was also BUILD for that 2nd MONUMENT. Spent 3 resources after discount and got 6th of Worker type, 6 points. Got bonus Gold and a Laborium card.

64 points so far.

3 cards left from the market. Another Build action on 32nd turn and this was for that Headquarter. Only needed to spend 1 Stone and got me 4th Soldier, with 2 points. Also got a Gold and another Headquarter card.

67 points so far.

33rd and RECRUIT PLUS MONUMENT again. Spent 4 discounted 1, for ALCHEMIST and The Orb of Urdr. 3 points from it plus one per character.

71 points so far.

34th was for BUILD again, that monument. Spent only 2 resources and got 6th of Shadow type with 6 points. Got 1 Gold bonus, another after discarding 2 cards and got Monastery card again.

78 points so far.

35th and probably the last turn. I did BUILD for the KEEP card, 5th of Soldier type. Got 3 points plus 1 per Soldier type. I had to take the last card from the market.

Final Score was 82 points.

Playing time was about 51 minutes.

Learn more about the game from my Villages of Valeria Review.

Rescuing Robin Hood

More pictures of this Rescuing Robin Hood game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Rescue our heroic Outlaw with the chance of beating the Sheriff of Nottingham as well in Rescuing Robin Hood.

Played with 3 characters, Maid Marian, Friar Tuck and Much the Miller’s Son. There were 3 groups of villagers captured by Sheriff’s Guards.

Day 1 and 2.

Maid Marian led the attack with William, Geoffrey Miller, Agnes Daisy and Gontier. They attacked the first group with only 5 Blue guards. After a bit of prayer along with other Bands, some other guards that were weak in Wits joined that group.

Maid Marian had 12 of Wits and removed all 4 Guards. There were 4 left guarding 2 villagers on that group. Maid Marian led a 2nd attack to the 2nd group with her Stealth of 3 plus 3 from Jolliness, removing 2 guards only.

Friar Tuck, along with Noah Guy, Gertrude, John and Myles Tugo, continued the attack to that 2nd group. They were planning to use stealth of 9. After a bit more praying and moved some guards that were weak on stealth, they attacked. They took down 4 guards and there were 3 left. Friar Tuck continued with 2nd attack using BRAWN. The enemy’s total was 8 minus 3 and the band had 16, more than enough. So, they rescued 4 villagers.

Much, the 3rd band leader, along with Odo, Sybil Wright, Gamelus and Sawney Walker launched attack to the 1st group. They had Stealth of 9 against 3 guards. Total from those 3 were only 6 so they rescued 2 villagers.

2nd attack from Much group was to the 3rd line with 8 Guards. After transferring their entire jolliness, they got Brawn power of 25. Those guards only had 20 minus 8 so they rescued 4 villagers.

Day 3 and 4.

This time there were 4 groups of villagers captured by both Blue and Red Guards. From the 3 bands they got Scouting of 7. Spent everything to reveal all 14 guards from 3 lines.

Friar Tuck led the first attack along with Mold de Bouilion, Andreas, the Noah Guy and Joan. First attack was to use their Brawn to the first group against just 3 Red Guards. Those guards’ Brawn power was only 11 and Friar Tuck had 15 so they rescued 2 villagers.

Then they went to the 4th line for the 2nd attack. This time with Stealth of 14. From the 7 visible red guards of 9, they took down the first one, and the 4th to 7th with the Stealth value of 14. 4 more guards before rescuing 4 villagers.

Much the Miller’s son was next along with Augustine Sawyer, Anne Dittover, Tib Fortat and Hyldeiard. Their 1st attack was to the 2nd group against 7 guards using their Stealth also. Well, I guess I cheated a bit here. I got the number wrong. They only had 7 Stealth plus 2 from Jolliness. Those guards had stealth of 19. So they only removed 4 guards and there were 3 left.

Then with 2nd attack they went to the 4th line against 4 red guards using Brawn power. They had 23 and those 4 guards had only 15 so they rescued 4 villagers.

2 groups left. Maid Marian led the last 2 attacks along with Ernest Lee, Jimmy Thalocke, Dot Yoreis and Frank Le Mydear. First attack was to the 3rd row with 5 blue guards using Wits. With 30 wits from the band against the Guards’ 17, they easily destroyed those guards, rescuing the 2 villagers.

So, Maid Marian still had 2nd attack and they could finish what Much failed to do earlier. Maid Marian had 12 of Brawns to beat 10 of those 3 guards, rescuing the 2 villagers. Everybody was safe.

Day 5.

This time, Much the Miller’s Son led the first attack to take down the Castle. Along with Augustine Sawyer, Anne Dittover, Faromond Cheeseman and Cassandra Fletcher, they planned to use Brawn power of 26 to take down the Castle’s 24.

They did it and got 10 Jolliness from about 30 villagers. After using 3 Scouts and revealing 6 guards of the first line and a bit of prayer to move guards to that line, they launched 2nd attack. This time, using the Stealth of 20. Took down 6 red guards and there were 4 left.

Friar Tuck’s group was next along with Mold de Bouilion, Andreas, Hugh Jeego and Roger Carter. After a bit more prayer and moved 2 guards to this front line, they launched 1st attack with their Wits of 22. Those red guards only had 18 so they finished the first line.

2nd attack to the 2nd line and they were planning to use 29 of stealth power. There were 6 guards. The 3 revealed had stealth power of 13. Assuming the other 3 were only 15, they had more than enough to beat this 2nd line of defense. They did it.

Last line of defense before rescuing Robin Hood. Maid Marian led the attack. First one was using Stealth of 16. Those 4 Guards only had 12 so they rescued ROBIN HOOD!

Robin Hood joined the fight and started attacking the last line of defense before getting to Sheriff. They used Brawn of 54 against 11 guards. After revealing, the guards had 38 Brawn power so they destroyed that line easily.

All that’s left was the Sheriff. Nobody was captured in previous days so he only got 12 of anything. Robin Hood got more than enough to beat the Sheriff and they won.

Playing time was about 85 minutes.

Pocket Master Builder

More pictures of this Pocket Master Builder game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Build the best city by laying out blueprints, assigning workers to gather resources required by the buildings in Pocket Master Builder.

While this game has official solo mode, this time, I tried playing 2-handed. White player as the first and the Black as the 2nd player.

1st ROUND.

First player had the Oracle card to have the longest contiguous buildings in the grid. The 3 starting cards were Fortress, Chapel and Gold Workshop.

The top left corner had purple wood at the top and brown brick which was perfect to lay the FORTRESS. White player placed their 2 workers on those 2 sides so that 1 Worker had 2 Stone plus 1 Wood and the other had 1 Wood and 1 Clay.

Spent all of those resources and they immediately built the BARRACK. This gave them advancing 1 space on the Wall and got extra cube. During rest, they took 2 Cards.

Black player when to the bottom left, placing Church. The left side had matching purple with 2 Stone and 1 Clay while the bottom had matching brown with 1 Gold and 1 Wood. Black player didn’t build anything this time and took 2 cards during Rest.

2nd ROUND.

White player placed CHAPEL on 2nd row, 1st column, placing 2 workers. The left side had matching red for 2 Stone while the top they either had to choose 2 Stone or 1 Gold. Nothing to build for them this time and still took 2 cards during rest.

Black player placed FOUNTAIN on 2nd column, 1st row with 2 workers. The top had matching red with 2 Stone and 1 Clay while the left was either a Gold or a Stone. This time, they built GATE, leftmost card first row. This required 2 clays and 3 stones. They had to take 2 workers that had 2 Clays and 4 stones total. The building let them moved 1 space on Wall track and gave them 1 extra card. They took 2 more cards during rest.

Both had 1 building each.

3rd ROUND.

White player then placed their STAGING POST at 2nd row 2nd column with 2 workers. The top gave them 2 Clay and the left gave them a Gold plus 2 Wood. Still not building.

Black player stayed at the top, placing BARRACK, 3rd column, first row with 2 workers. This gave them 3 stones from the left and a Gold plus a Stone from the top. Black also didn’t build anything.

4th ROUND.

White player placed their SENTRY, 1st row, 4th column, 2 workers. The top gave them a Stone and a Clay while the left gave them a Stone and 2 Wood. This time they did build CHAPEL, 2nd row, 1st column. This required 3 Wood and 3 Stone. They had to spend 4 rewards to advance the donkey so they could use 3 workers at a time. 2 Workers around Chapel and 1 around the Sentry was enough to build it. The building gave them 1 card, Smithy and 2nd Oracle and 1 reward.

Black player placed CABIN, at 4th row, 2nd column, placing 2 workers. The left gave them 2 Wood and Stone while the bottom was either Gold or Clay. This time, they also built, the SENTRY recently placed by White player at the top row which required 3 Wood and 3 Stone.

They also had to advance the donkey as they needed to use resources from 3 workers. One around Barrack and 2 around Church gave them 4 stones, 3 woods and a Gold. They could have just picked the gold around cabin. The building gave them 4 points, advancing on the wall 2 spaces and donkey bonus of 1 space.

5th ROUND.

White player placed their SMITHY at the 4th row, 3rd column for just 1 worker. The left gave them 2 Stone and a Wood. Built nothing this time.

Black followed by placing Manor to its right. After spending rewards for one more worker they placed 2. One gave them 2 wood and a clay while the other gave them 1 stone and 1 clay.

Black built their 3rd, the Smithy that White just placed again. This required 2 Wood, 1 Clay, 2 Stone and 1 Gold. They took the resources from 2 workers they just placed and the 3rd was around Barrack at the top for 1 Gold and 1 Stone. The building gave them 4 points, advancing 2 spaces on the wall and bonus reward for future Orange type building.

2 for White and 3 for Black.

6th ROUND.

White player finally completed the 1st column with Gold Workshop at 3rd row and with 2 workers. The left gave them a stone and a wood while the bottom had either stone or wood. Cube bonus from the column to both.

This time, White player built their 3rd, the Barrack at the top placed by the Black player. This required 2 Wood, 2 Stone and a Clay. They took 2 workers, one from Smithy with 1 Stone and 1 Clay and the other from recent placement, the wood and stone. So they were missing 1 wood and they supplied it with one card. The building gave them 3 points, 1 space on the Wall and bonus 1 worker.

Black player then placed PRISON at 2nd row, 3rd column with 2 workers. The top gave them wood and clay while the left a clay and 2 stones. Nothing to build for them this time.

Both had 3 buildings.

7th ROUND.

Whie player completed another column, also 3rd row with Stone Workshop. and 2 workers. The top gave them 2 stone and 1 wood while the bottom was either gold or stone. They finally built FORTRESS, 2nd of 1st row that required 2 Wood, 4 Stone and 2 Gold. Those 2 recent workers gave them 2 stone a wood and a Gold. So the missing wood was supplied by card with a gold. The building gave them 6 points, 2 movement on Wall, free card and increase of hand size.

Black placed GATE at 1st row, rightmost with 1 worker. The top for 1 Gold and 1 Clay. This time, they built PRISON at 2nd row rightmost that required 2 clay, 3 stone and 2 Gold. With the recent worker, plus one around Cabin they still missed a stone which they supplied with a card.

The building gave them 5 points and advancing on the wall to reach the rightmost space already. Building power from the prison itself became useless actually.

Both had 4 buildings.

8th ROUND.

White player placed another Wood Workshop, this time at 2nd row, 4th column with 2 workers. The top gave them 2 wood and a stone while the left a gold and a wood. Not building anything.

Black completed 3rd column with a Tower at 3rd row, 1 worker only for 2 clay and 1 stone. Also not building anything.

9th ROUND.

White continued on 2nd row with Tower but only 1 worker, 3 clays from its left. They built 5th building, a GOLD WORKSHOP from 3rd row, 2nd building. This required 2 wood, 3 clay and 2 stone. 3 clay from the recent worker, 2 wood and a stone from the previous worker at wood workshop and the last stone was from that Gold workshop. The building gave them 4 points, 2 rewards, with discount of gold per subsequent building.

Black completed 5th column with Tavern at 3rd row using 2 workers. The left was either gold or stone while the bottom was either wood or stone. Not building anything this time.

10th ROUND.

White continued with 3rd row, another SENTRY with 2 workers. The left got them a clay and stone while the top got them either stone or 2 wood. They built again, WOOD WORKSHOP, 3rd row, 3rd building that required a wood, 2 clay and 3 stone. They already got 2 stone and a clay from the recent 2 workers, 2 clay from worker around Staging Post and the last stone was supplied by card.

The building got them 4 points, 1 reward and discount of 1 stone for future build. This was their 6th so the end game was triggered.

Black placed and built MARKET at the top row, 2nd to last space. After placing 2 workers for 3 clays and gold plus wood, they had to spend 3 wood and 3 clay. It seems the gold was for wood and the last came from a card. The building itself gave them 3 points, 2 rewards, donkey onus and future donkey bonus for every green building.

FINAL ROUND.

White player added BRICK WORKSHOP, top row right most and got 2 gold plus 2 clays. Total resources they had were 3 wood, 2 clay, and 4 gold. They used it to build UNIVERSITY, one of the landmark. Got 4 points, 2 rewards and 3 points for a set of a building of each type.

Black completed 6th column and from the remaining workers, they got a wood, 3 clay, 3 stone and 2 gold. Those were enough to build BELL TOWER, a landmark for 3 points, 3 rewards and a point for every orange type building.

That was the end of the game.

White scored 8 points from 2 Oracle cards, 0 from either Donkey or Wall, 6 points from the Landmark and 26 from 7 buildings. Final score was 40.

Black scored 4 points from the Oracle card, 4 from Donkey, 8 from Wall, 4 points from Landmark, 22 from 6 buildings. Final score was 42 so Black won.

Playing time was about 106 minutes.

Castellion

More pictures of this Castellion game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Assemble the Denizens to form Towers, Ranks or Keeps as defense for the Castle from 3 attacks in Castellion.

Played with the expert mode but not the harder variant.

First tile was the traitor so discarded it with no penalty for me. Then I got Blue Square so I used it for revealing the next 4 tiles which I got Blue Triangle, Green Square, Red Square and Purple Triangle.

Placed the Green then Red on the right and then the Purple on the rightmost. Used the Blue again to reveal the next 4 which I got Green Circle, Red Square, 2 Blue Square. Placed the Green on top of the existing Green and one of the blue above the purple. Red when to the rightmost. So, I used the last Blue to reveal again.

Got red Triangle, Blue Circle, Green Square and the Traitor that I couldn’t discard, 1st one so far. Green continued on 3rd level, almost completed as a tower. Same goes with Red but only 2nd level. Revealing 4 more tiles with the Blue and I got Blue Circle and triangle, Traitor and the Green Triangle.

First I finished the Green Tower. According to that first card I needed to have 2 Bastion or 2×2 or lose 16 tiles. Then I placed both Blue to create a tower while discarding the Traitor. I let 2 of Green Tower got destroyed along with the Purple and Red at the bottom right.

Another Green Circle but I couldn’t place it on 3rd level so I worked on Bastion to the left. A Red Triangle next and I placed it on the rightmost. Followed by Purple Circle which completed the base at the rightmost.

After that, another traitor showed up and I let it destroyed 4 tiles, 2 green and red and purple on the right.

Got Blue triangle and completed the 2nd Tower. The 2nd card says that I needed 3 Barriers or lose 12 tiles.

Got Green Circle and I placed on 2nd level above existing green. I continued with the Safe Tiles. Got Green Triangle and 2 Purple, a Square and Triangle. All of them completed the base again.

Finally got a Blue Circle to reveal the next 4 tiles from the regular pile. Got Green Triangle, Red Square, Blue Circle and Purple Square. Red continued the 3rd part of 3rd tower. While the Green couldn’t be used to complete its Bastion on the left, it was swapped with the Purple and along with the drawn tile, completed the 2nd Bastion first. Blue revealed 4 more tiles.

Purple Triangle, Traitor, Blue Triangle and Red Circle. Red completed the tower, revealing the 3rd card. During the Ordeal, the bottom 3 rows would be wiped out. Purple then had to be placed above the Green group for Bastion.

Then I let the Traitor took out 4 tiles. 2 Blue from the Tower, Red top from the tower and that Purple. Last Blue tile was to reveal the next 4 which I got Blue Square, Green triangle, Purple Square and Green Triangle again.

One of the Green Triangle swapped color with Red and used it ability to change position of the 2 bottommost green. This way I could placed the other Green Triangle above the now Square on 2nd level. Green Bastion was complete and the Purple was placed above it. Last Blue revealed tiles again.

Red Triangle, 2 Traitors and a Purple. I let one Traitor triggered the first Ordeal. Nothing happened since I had 2 Bastions. Then I let the 2nd Traitor also advanced the 2nd card. Discarded the last purple to destroy one Purple of the Bastion and then moved the other to the top left. I had to make horizontal lines so Bastion should go on the left.

Back to Blue or Safe Pile. Got Purple Circle and I was planning to create a line on that 3rd level so it was on 4th column. Then I got a Blue and back to reveal 4 from regular pile.

Got Blue Square, Purple Circle, Green Square and Red Circle. Red Circle first to 2nd level, 2nd from the right so Red was about to create a line here. Then the Green swapped color with Red and placed on the right from that previous red. I just needed to swap position of 2 tiles to finish red line. The Purple Circle was on 4th level above the Red. Another red power needed and I could complete the 2nd line. Blue revealed the next 4.

Got Blue Circle and Triangle, Red Circle and Traitor. So I let the Traitor hit first, removing 4 tiles. The 2 blue and red from previous 2 towers at the bottom and purple circle. Because of this, Red line would be at the bottom and on 2nd or 3rd, the purple.

One Blue had to be played so I placed on 3rd level on the right, maybe a line later. The last Blue to reveal the next 4, 2 Purple Triangle, Red Square and Green Circle.

Discarded the Red first to swap between purple at the bottom right most with the red above it so I finished the first line. Then Green swapped into Red to also swap position between the triangle red and circle so that one Purple triangle could be placed above the red circle. Last Purple triangle when to top left.

After that, I got Green Circle from safe pile and swapped color with Blue so I could place it on 3rd level to start working on last Barrier. The next 3 were Green Square, Red Circle and Blue Square. 3rd for 3rd line was added with that Blue. Placed the red above it. Green Square swapped to red and start working on 4th line.

Last safe tile was Red Triangle and placed it rightmost 4th level. Back to regular and got Green Circle. Swapped the color to Purple and completed 2nd Bastion above the Green Bastion.

So next I got Red Circle but I couldn’t place it on the pit above another circle. Instead I used it for the power for swapping with the next shape without changing the line. Luckily I got Red Square next and it could fit on the pit. I needed a Blue, ideally not a square or circle and a Red to swap.

Got Purple Circle, placed at the top right. Then a Red Triangle, placed above the bastion. Finally got a Blue triangle and placed it to complete the 4th row. Then I got a Gren triangle to swap the two colors so I got not just 3 but 4 Barriers. At this point I was ready for the 2nd and even 3rd Ordeal.

After that I even created 5th line with purple. Then with Blue circle, revealed 4 tiles and got the traitor to trigger the 2nd Ordeal. There was another one. Last traitor was the last 2 tiles but the Castle survived the last Ordeal.

Well, this one was also not without cheating. Oh, well.

Playing time was about 30 minutes.

Burgle Bros.

More pictures of this Burgle Bros. game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Assemble your heist crews to distract the building’s guards while you find and open the safe in Burgle Bros. game.

2nd play of Burgle Bros. game. This time, using only the Office Job Variant with just 2 floors. Definitely faster and should have started with this one instead the standard 3 floors.

I definitely had better time than my previous play which was my learning game. So, I already got better idea of what’s coming and play accordingly. Even though I think I still made some errors here and there. This time I played with the Acrobat and the Rigger. I heard the former is considered as a lot of people’s favorite.

His ability is to move to a tile with a Guard without losing Stealth point. This gives him flexibility, A LOT. Especially when you are stuck in the corner and the guard is approaching you. You’ll be using his ability a lot. So, I guess that made the game easier for me as well.

On the other hand, the other character, the Rigger didn’t use much. Well, that is my fault for reading the card incorrectly. Apparently, you are supposed to draw 2 Tool cards when ANY player finds one. I thought this should happen to the Rigger himself so I didn’t use it.

However, it’s not like finding tools happens a lot. Besides when opening the safe and that one room, you get a chance to use it 3 times in this Office Job Variant. Even then, you may still draw something that doesn’t really help your specific situation and only keep 1.

On the other hand, the Rigger has 2nd bonus that I almost forgot. He starts with a Dynamite Tool. Somehow this helped me not just from losing the game but also in a very dramatic moment.

So, here is what happened in that session.

Using the same layout as presented in the rulebook for Office Job variant, the Guard started at C2. I picked A4 as starting position. Guess what? The Guard next destination was that A4. It was 4 spaces away from the Guard from either route so they would be moving down next.

I let the Rigger moved first. He went up one space to A3 and it was Camera room. He took a peek to the right and it was Motion room. Then he proceeded to the top left corner room. A2 was also a Camera room while A1 was a Foyer.

Then the Guard moved 2 spaces down.

Next was the Acrobat’s 1st turn. He moved to the right first and found a Laboratory. As mentioned above, I didn’t draw two tools but I got INVISIBLE SUIT. He was 1 space away from the Guard but using his special ability, he entered that room and it was the SAFE! 2 more actions, he peeked at the room above it and it required a Keypad. As the last move, he got into the right or D4 and it was WALKWAY.

The Guard then moved 2 spaces to the left and reached their destination. Their next one was D3.

RIGGER’S 2ND TURN. From A1, he moved back down 2 spaces and entered the Motion Room. That was 3 actions. He took a chance that next room above it was safe and moved out, triggering the Alarm at B3 so the Guard changed their next destination. The Rigger got to a room with SECRET DOOR.

The Guard moved exactly 2 spaces to disable the alarm. I think this was another error of me with the Guard movement rule. The Guard was supposed to move 3 spaces because of that alarm. I played it as they decreased the speed after disabling it while the actual rule states that doesn’t. So, after disabling it, their next destination was B4. Instead of staying at B3, the guard should have moved 1 space to the left.

I just continued what happened during the game.

ACROBAT’S 2ND TURN. Since he was 1 space away from the safe, he just went back to the safe and added a die. Then he moved back to the D4 since there was a chance the Guard to move to his direction.

The Guard moved 2 spaces but had not reached their next destination which was B4, 1 space away from it.

RIGGER’S 3RD TURN. From B2, Rigger peeked the top room and it was the STAIRS. But he still needed to help Acrobat revealed 2 more rooms in the column c. So, he kept moving using 3 action points to the top right. First two rooms were SERVICE DUCT which was useless. The last one at the top right, or D1 was room with MOTION detector. He stopped so no alarm was triggered.

The Guard moved 1 space to B4. Their next one after that was B3 so he went back 1 space to the left.

ACROBAT’S 3RD TURN. Well, The Acrobat was still doing the same. Moved to Safe, added a die and went back. I guess he could have tried to roll them as all of the numbers were revealed already, 1, 3, 5, 6.

The Guard moved 2 spaces and reached B3. From there, their next one was D4, where the Acrobat was. There were 2 paths both required 5 spaces so their next move was up.

RIGGER’S 4TH TURN. He moved back 4 spaces and reached the Stairs but not ascending yet.

The Guard then moved 2 spaces, one up and then to the right, stopped at C2.

ACROBAT’S 4TH TURN. He moved 1 space to safe, added 3rd die and moved to the left again.

The Guard reached the safe room but not yet to their next Destination, the D4.

RIGGER’S 5TH TURN. He went up to 2nd floor. It was THERMO room. I was not sure but I guessed it triggered the alarm immediately. Even worse, the 2nd floor Guard started at C1, next to that room. Rigger decided to lose his stealth by entering that room where the Guard was. He peeked to the right and it was COMPUTER room so he moved there.

This time it was 2nd Floor’s guard. I got completely wrong this time. The Guard was supposed to move 4 spaces total because of that alarm and they could have reached it by 1. After that, their next one was B2 which they could have reached it as well in that same turn but somehow I stopped their action. Well, I guess I didn’t really win.

ACROBAT’S 5TH TURN. From D4 1st floor, he moved to the Safe, 1 space away. The Guard was there. He then tried to open the safe twice and rolled a 1, a 5 and a 6. 1 more number, a 3. The Acrobat finished his action by moving to the Laboratory.

The Guard then moved 1 space to D4, their destination. Their next one was A3 so they moved back 1 space to the safe.

RIGGER’S 6TH TURN. I got something wrong again here. The Rigger moved to the left which was a FOYER and the Guard was next to it so he should have lost his 2nd Stealth that I didn’t remove. But then the Guard was there because I played it wrong. Then he peeked at the room below it and it was a WALKWAY. He continued moving there. One action left and he used to peek the next room which was DEADBOLT. So he couldn’t enter anyway.

The Guard on 2nd floor moved 1 space to their destination. After that they went to C4 from B2. They got to B4.

ACROBAT’S 6TH TURN. He moved to the Safe room where the Guard was. Rolled twice and didn’t get the last number. He moved to the D4.

The 1st Floor guard moved 2 spaces to the left, 1 space away from their destination, the A3.

RIGGER’S 7TH TURN. Rigger had to move to that Deadbolt room with 3 actions. He took a risk and moved to D3. Luckily, it was another Computer room to hack the Fingerprint sensor.

The Guard on 2nd floor moved from B4 to C4. Their next one was B4 so they moved back. After that, they aimed for D1 and moved up 1 space.

ACROBAT’S 7TH TURN. He finally opened the Safe and found CURSE GOBLET, forcing him to lose one Stealth. The Tool was CRYSTAL BALL and I didn’t draw the 2nd one. Acrobat moved back to D4.

The Guard increased their speed to 3. He reached their first destination, A3 by 1 space. Next one was C4, the safe again so they moved back 2 spaces, 1 space away from C4.

RIGGER’S 8TH TURN. From D3 2nd floor, he peeked at D2. IT WAS THE SAFE ROOM! So, he had to reveal 3 more rooms to reveal the combination. Instead of going there, he spent 3 action points to move to that Deadlock.

The 2nd Floor Guard still had not reached their destination, the D1, 1 space away.

ACROBAT’S 8TH TURN. From D4, 1st floor, he moved 3 spaces to the left and up passing through the Guard. This also triggered the LASER ROOM alarm so the Guard changed their destination to A4 while Acrobat was at A3.

The Guard did that and disarmed the alarm. However, their next destination was B3 and Acrobat had to lose Stealth. Those were 3 movements and their next one was C1. The Guard should have moved again 1 space to B2 but I got it wrong.

RIGGER’S 9TH TURN. From C3 Deadbolt room, he peeked the C4. It was a room with KEYPAD. Luckily, he got to open it on first attempt. From there he peeked the two adjacent rooms, revealing one of the required room to open the safe. The other one was LAVATORY at B4.

The Guard finally reached D1 with 1 movement. Then they moved 2 spaces to C2. Their next one after that was A4.

ACROBAT’S 9TH TURN. From Camera room A3, Acrobat moved to A2 and entered B2 through Secret Door. Then he reached the Stairs and stayed there.

The Guard on 1st floor, moved from B3 to C1, 3 movement. Their next destination was B2.

RIGGER’S 10TH TURN. From Keypad room C4, he moved up to the Deadbolt again with 3 AP and entered the computer room at D3.

The 2nd Floor Guard after moving 3 spaces, had not reached the A4, 1 space away.

ACROBAT’S 10TH TURN. In the Stairs room, he went up and triggered the Thermo sensor so the 2nd floor Guard changed their destination there. While on 2nd floor, he peeked at the room on A1 another Alarm room based on Fingerprint. Well, he could have peeked the B2 as well but he descended down.

The 1st Floor Guard reached B2 with 2 movement. Their next one was A4 which they should have moved 1 space farther down.

RIGGER’S 11TH TURN. From Computer Room D3, he moved to the Safe Room D2, added a die and rolled it. Got a 3, a required number.

The 2nd Floor Guard moved 3 spaces from B4 to the Alarm B1. Their next one was D2, the Safe room where Rigger was and they should have moved 1 space farther to the right.

ACROBAT’S 11TH TURN. From the Stairs room, he went up, not triggering the Alarm since the Guard was incorrectly there. Then he moved down. Another DEADBOLT ROOM so he spent 3 movements just to enter.

The 2nd Floor Guard reached C3, 2 spaces away from D2, their destination.

RIGGER’S 12TH TURN. He was about to get caught by the Guard. This was the time he used his Dynamite to blow one of the 2 Walls. The only current path took 3 movements to reach the Safe anyway so maybe opening a path helped. After adding a die to open the safe, Rigger blew up the wall between D1 and D2, alarming the Guard. Then he moved 2 spaces to C1.

The Guard went to where the explosion happened with 2 movement. After that, their next one was D3 so he still moved there. The Guard was supposed to move back to D2.

ACROBAT’S 12TH TURN. He from B2 moved 2 spaced down to Lavatory and from there peeked the left room. It was the STAIRS to get away later.

The Guard, after reaching D2, moved to B2 next. Unfortunately Rigger had to lose stealth still while on Foyer C1. Maybe he should have lost twice and ended the game. Oh, well.

RIGGER’S 13TH TURN. He moved back from C1 to D2 to the Safe and added 3rd die.

The Guard reached B2 after 2 movements. Their next one was A4, the stairs so they proceeded one space farther.

ACROBAT’S 13TH TURN. From Lavatory B4, he moved to B3 with a Guard there and then B2, the Deadlock.

The Guard reached A4 and next one was C2 Walkway 4 spaces away. They moved one space to Lavatory.

RIGGER’S 14TH TURN. In the Safe Room, he tried to open at least 3 time with 3 dice and unlocked the 2, 4, 5 and 1. They still had not revealed the last room yet.

The Guard reached C2 with all 3 movements and they were aiming to D1 next.

ACROBAT’S 14TH TURN. From B2, he moved to B1, A1, triggering both alarm. From A1, he peeked on A2, revealing the last required room. Then he went back to B1 to Stairs. Discarding his Invisible Suit, he moved down to 1st floor.

1st Floor Guard was at B1 and reached A4. They aimed for D3 next.

RIGGER’S 15TH TURN. He finally unlocked the Safe. From there he got BLUEPRINTS and GOLD BAR. Apparently there was 2nd Gold Bar in the other Safe and the Acrobat had to take it.

Rigger then moved down and triggered an event: JUMP THE GUN. He got next move, not the Acrobat.

The Guard moved 2 spaces, to B1, disarming the first alarm. Then one space to A1, disarming 2nd alarm. With their next one being C3 which should have ended their movement at C1.

Rigger got next action. Since the Guard was about to reach the same point as him, he instead moved up to D1, after hacking the Fingerprint sensor.

The Guard reached C3 and then continued down almost reaching B4, their next one.

ACROBAT’S 15TH TURN. From the B1 Stairs, he moved down 2 spaces to trigger the Motion sensor and moved back up and to the right to C2.

The Guard from A4 moved to disarm it, 2 movements to B3. Their next one was B4 which they should have enough to reach but incorrectly I stopped it at A1.

RIGGER’S 16TH TURN. From D1, moved to B1 to trigger the alarm. Then he went back to C2, knowing that the Guard from C4 would be moving via Column B.

Guard disarmed it and their next one was C1.

ACROBAT’S 16TH TURN. From C2, moved down passing through Keypad after 2nd attempt and reached the Safe again to pick up the Gold Bar. Last one was to move to D4.

The Guard from A4 moved to B4 and then to B3. Then their next one was D4.

RIGGER’S 17TH TURN. From C2, spent 3 AP to enter the Deadlock C3, and with good luck, the Keypad of C4.

The Guard moved from B1 to C1. Then to D3 and their next one was D2.

ACROBAT’S 17TH TURN. From D4, moved to C4, then first attempt got them to c3 keypad. He continued to C1.

The Guard only reached the C4 not D4 their destination.

RIGGER’S 18TH TURN. From C4, he just moved 2 spaces to the Stairs, the escape path with the Gold Bar loot.

The Guard didn’t move then.

ACROBAT’S 18TH TURN. From C1 first floor, he reached the Stairs and 2nd floor. 2nd Floor Guard went from C4 to B4 and then 3 spaces towards C1.

19th turn. Acrobat moved through Deadlock and reach a Computer room B3. The Guard went to C1 one space, then continued to D1, 2nd space. 2 spaces againn to C2 and then their next one was B2.

20th turn. Acrobat finally reached the Stairs with 2 movement and going up with a Curse Goblet and a Gold Bar with him. The 2 met on the roof and escaped.

Well, still a lot of errors, especially the Guard movement after Alarm and I guess I thought all of the Alarm was the same. So, hopefully my next play I can get them right.

Playing time was about 82 minutes.

Forage: A 9 card solitaire game

More pictures of this Forage: A 9 card solitaire game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Explore the woodland areas to harvest blackberries, chestnuts and edible mushrooms carefully so the hungry mice don’t take them away from you in Forage: A 9 card solitaire game.

First time revisiting this game after the first one like 2 months ago while I was in burnout mode in life. I didn’t even write a session report for a couple of games I played including this one.

So, I came back to this, relatively still new to me and I got 4 sessions just with the basic game. Forgot about the half part of the terrain will take some score from the dice. I also forgot that you really need to take time, having a diverse terrain in adjacent spaces.

First one only scored 22 with 2 dice mice and 2 dice on double terrain types. Highest value of the dice was 6. In the 2nd one I got one die to value 10. Total was 36 minus 4 from 2 dice mice and none of the dice were on the double terrains.

In 3rd play I got 2 Baskets so 30 points from there. However the total was only 42 minus 4. Then in the last play I got a basket and a 10 but also the wooden mice. Total score was 38 minus 5 and minus 4 from 2 dice mice.

So, I’m just going to write my best play out of these 4.

The 3rd play started with a card that had from top left to right and down, double of brown and yellow, green with blackberry, green and blackberry again, mushroom, mushroom and chestnuts.

From the 2 starting cards in my hand, I got 2 adjacent blackberry next to 2 adjacent chestnuts both vertically. The bottom had mushroom and half of green and brown. The 2nd card had also 2 adjacent blackberries but this time 2 adjacent mushrooms. With the half at the top right between green and yellow and the chestnuts at the bottom left.

I played my 1st card first, vertically to the existing card so that I added 1 green and 1 brown. After that, rotated the new card 90 counterclockwise, overlapped 4 spaces of the existing. Green 1 became 3 along with brown 1 to Brown 3. Added 2nd Green 1 with the half terrain overlapped the same half.

After that, another 2 adjacent resources to their own self, between the mushroom and the Chestnuts. Played my previous card instead, rotated 180 to overlap 3 spaces of the existing, top half. This turned a Green 3 into 6, added 3rd Green and changed the half terrains to Green and yellow.

5th card only had chestnuts adjacent to each other. Well, I played the previous one, rotated 90 to overlap 3 spaces at the top left of the exiting group. This added 2nd Brown with value 1, 1st yellow with value 1 and changed the half terrains to color green and brown.

6th card also had 2 chestnuts adjacent to each other but on one of the end. Rotated the card 180 to overlap 3 spaces at the bottom right. This turned the brown 3 into 6, first error with Green on top of yellow so first dice mice. Then the half terrain changed its color to green and yellow.

7th had nothing adjacent from the same type. But I played the one with 2 chestnuts in the middle now. Rotated the card 90 degrees to overlap 4 spaces from the right side, middle part of the existing group. This turned both green and brown 6 to 10 each, adding a Yellow 1 and changed the half terrain into yellow.

8th was another card with nothing adjacent between the same type but the half was one of the middle space. I played the previous one first since this gave me a chance to increase both 10s green and brown even if I added Green Mice. Also turned Yellow 1 to 3.

Then the last card overlapped 4 spaces at the top, middle part. This turned Green 1 into 3, Brown 1 into 3, added Yellow 1 and just changed the color of brown into half green and brown.

That was the end of the game. As mentioned above, scored 42 but minus 4 from 2 dice mice.

I mentioned that my 2nd play scored 32. However, I just realized that I probably made some mistakes here. Apparently, you don’t add a die unless both the overlapping card and the overlapped space show a food. Yet, I added them a couple of times. Good thing was I realized this and the 3rd play had no mistake.

Playing time took about 54 minutes, playing 4 times.

Trailblazers

More pictures of this Trailblazers game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Pave the trails for hiking, biking and kayaking from and to their campsites as Trailblazers.

Continuing with the solo challenge using just one objective. This time the challenge was SAUCY CYCLER. If I understand correctly, for solo mode, you need to have 2 biking loops, encircling the other camps. The picture shows even 3 which I don’t think is possible, based on my play from this.

1ST ROUND.

So, this is like the previous challenge. I was not sure what it would look like so I just followed the picture from that challenge card. Since the main point is the red camp or Biking, usually I choose that one as the starting camp. However, I decided to pick the Blue camp first.

For encircling, the L shape is the best option, if you play it at the corner. I think I almost used every of that variant in the deck. From the starting 8, there were 4 L-shape. One was red with one straight Blue. Also similar to that but with brown. The other was all red and the last one was L-Blue but with small red.

I picked the one with Straight Blue and the Blue L with straight red, both at the top of the Blue camp.

Then the next 6 had 2 L but both were Brown as the main line. The other were 3 S, one of each color and one C Red. I picked the S Blue and S Red as they both had the other color while the Brown was with Blue.

S Blue extended on the right, top right corner of the blue camp, vertically. While the S Red was on the left side, horizontally, creating an open blue loop while continuing the red line at the top.

The last 4 of this round had 2 C, Blue and Red and 2 S, Brown and Blue. I decided not to just close the 2 blue line at the top of the camp with that C with a value of 4. Then with the Blue S, I placed it on the right, vertically, creating 2 openings for Blue camp while extending the red line a bit to the right.

2nd ROUND.

From the first 8 of this round, there were 2 L Red, 2 L Brown, 2 L Blue and 2 S brown. None of the Red and Blue combination were great for my situation. Also I had to think where to place the next Camp.

I decided to focus on Brown camo for now, trying to match the position according to the card. First I picked the S Brown with 2 Red and placed it at the top right corner of the Brown camp, connected to the leftmost tile of the existing group. Then with Red L and one straight brown, I placed that tile above the S, extending the Brown S connected to the camp. The main line L almost connected the red lines encircling the brown camp.

Then the next 6 had 2 straights, 2 C, an L and an S. One of the Straight was red and 2 brown which was perfect to encircle the right side of the brown camp while creating 2 openings. Then with S brown with small red at the bottom right, I finally connected the 2 lines encircling the Brown camp while a chance to create a loop back to the brown at the top.

Last 4 of the round had S Red, C Brown, L brown and Straight all blue. First, the Brown L to the right and down was perfect to continue the brown loop on the right of the camp, while the small straight red, extended the line encircling the blue camp. However, this cut the blue loop on the left of blue camp.

Then the 2nd one I picked the S Red with one blue and 1 Red. I placed this vertically on the right, bottom of blue camp. The small blue at the corner closed the blue line there with a value of just 2. This way, the Main S Red was ready to be connected with the bigger line encircling the Blue camp. All I needed was just a C Red.

3rd ROUND.

So, I had to place the last camp, which was red. Not sure I had enough time so I just placed the camp adjacent to the Brown camp, not really aligned, just half part of each. This way the current line encircling the brown was already connected to the Red Camp. I needed 6 spaces to finally completed the loop. While for 8 I still needed 8 more spaces just to connect to 2 ends of the line.

First I picked the Straight Red. Unfortunately it had only 1 small blue and the other was brown. This I placed at the bottom of Blue camp so the end line on the right was extended closer to the Red Camp. The 2nd one, I picked the L Red, which I placed horizontally on the right bottom side of the red camp. The Line was pointed up so it was only 2 spaces away from being connected to the one end of the encircling line.

For the Right camp, I needed an S, an L and a C to complete the loop.

From the next 6, there was exactly the L that I needed for the right. Somehow I chose another. I picked the straight all brown to put them at the top of brown camp, extending the 2 brown lines so they could be connected later with a C Brown for 6 points. This was a gamble.

Then as the 2nd one, I picked the L Red to encircle the top left of Brown camp. So this main line was only 4 spaces away from being completed.

I needed 6 more at least if I got the perfect shape. I still had 8 chances including this one. There was a C brown to close the loop at the top of brown camp so I got my 6 points. I picked the L Red but to make the line longer for the one encircling the Blue on the right. With this I still needed 6 more.

4th ROUND.

From these 8, I got one L Red which I used to create an opening on the left top of red camp, trying to connect the one encircling the Brown. Then, inefficiently, I picked L brown with small red to almost close it. I guess I was hoping to create another brown loop.

Unfortunately, from the next 6, I got that matching L and small red but with Blue color so the brown loop was failed. However, I completed the line encircling the Brown camp. Got 14 points.

As the 2nd card, I picked the L red again and this was for the line encircling the blue. I still needed 4 spaces and exactly with the same L Red. This was very unlikely to happen.

So from the last 4, I got my last L, perfectly fit. While the other had to be shorter with just a C. But I completed the 2nd big loop, encircling the Blue. That was 20 points.

SCORING. I scored 10 points not 6 from the Brown loop at the top. That was the only brown loop. Then the 14 for Red encircling the Brown. 20 for encircling the Blue. Got 2 Blue loops with total value of 6.

So, even with this, I got exactly 50. Not great.

Playing time was about 45 minutes.

Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs

More pictures of this Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Time to face the King Button and beat him in Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs.

This session was Scenario 5: BUTTON’S ARENA, still continuing with Bruiser and his journey of returning back to his size. An interesting scenario since this is the first one where the enemies ignite elements during their turn. They also have other turns to consume them. However, somehow the elements they generate, they don’t use themselves. It can be the other enemy or us, the player’s character.

So, this increases the complexity since you can also have active element and the opponent can actually use it. The thing is, do you even remember to keep track of it? Because the elements that you generate, are on cards, either on your hand or still in active mode. Unlike the big, original Gloomhaven when you actually have next turn to use, in this one, either the action that uses those elements happens on the same round or not.

So, in my play, it doesn’t seem the enemy get a chance for that combo. Maybe when the two parts happened at the same time, it was for an attack and the enemy was still far away from my character.

If anything, maybe it is better for player to take advantage using some of the items. Choosing the items to bring into the mission becomes a consideration.

I actually got 2 plays. Somehow for my first session, my phone camera, particularly the SD card failed to take pictures correctly. So, I had to play again and it seems it was significantly easier since I knew what’s coming.

Anyway, here is how it went.

1st ROUND.

Bruiser brought along Button Shield Rosethorn Knife and Drop of Clean Water. First I played the top of Warding Strength and the bottom of Leaping Cleave with initiative either 32 or 54. King Button was last with 76, Rending Beetle was 2nd from last with 59 and the Arena Sorcerer was 51. So I got to go first.

The Leaping Cleave allowed me to move 3 spaces next to the Beetle on the left. Then the Warding Strength with plus 1 dealt 4 damage to it. The Beetle had HP of 12 and shield value 2. So only 2 damage but it got pushed back to the trap. The trap injured the Beetle with 1 damage and put a Wound.

I think I got something wrong here. The push was for 2 spaces back so I was supposed to push farther. Had I played correctly, the Beetle only moved 1 space this turn and unable to reach Bruiser to hit twice. Instead I had to use the Shield and suffered 2 damage total.

The Sorcerer and the King only moved closer.

2nd ROUND.

I let the Leaping Cleave stayed active for the Wind element while turning the Warding Strength into Unstoppable Charge. Played the top of SHIELD BASH and the bottom of HOOK AND CHAIN with initiative of either 42 or 15. Button went with 43, Sorcerer with 22 and the Beetle with 59.

So, I went first with 2 attacks to the Beetle and extra shield. Beetle still had HP of 8 and after 2 attacks, went down to 3. Next, the Sorcerer kept getting closer but this time he was not doing ranged attack and he was still 2 spaces away. The King was also getting closer, 4 spaces away.

Finally, the Beetle. After suffering 1 damage due to the wound, its 2 attacks failed to inflict any damage.

3rd ROUND.

So, I got Qietus and Skewer from the other side of both cards. Played the Skewer, trying to take advantage of the Wind element with the top part and the bottom part of Qietus. Initiative was either 35 or 57. Beetle went fast with 33, then 68 for Sorcerer and 76 for the King.

So, either way, beetle went first and from those 2 attacks, only dealt 1 damage to Bruiser. Bruiser then moved closer to the Sorcerer. 3 damage from Skewer plus 1 from the Wind and 1 from modifier plus another 1 from the movement. That was 6 danage total but the Sorcerer was not done yet. Also, a retaliation of 1 damage to Bruiser.

The Sorcerer was next and he moved back 1 space before attacking with ranged attack of 3 damage. Then finally the King managed to be in range. 2 more damage to Bruiser.

4th ROUND.

I had to start healing using the back of leaping Cleave card. With Unstoppable Charge as the top part. Initiative was either 18 or 86, obviously this had to happen first. The King and Sorcerer went fast while Beetle took it slow.

While I wanted to heal first but I had no adjacent enemy for my top attack. So I went last. Well, the Beetle died due to the wound.

Sorcerer got closer and he was supposed to use the element from the King but I had no Shield anyway. 2 damage to Bruiser and 2 HP left.

The King did nothing beside that element. Bruiser healed and then, dealt double damage of 4 to Sorcerer. That was more than enough to kil him.

5th ROUND.

Only Bruiser and the King left. Bruiser took long rest and let go the Warding Strength. The King was still healing. How nice of him to give Bruiser a fair chance in this fight.

6th ROUND.

Played the top part of Hook and Chain and the bottom of Shield Bash with initiative of either 15 or 42. Button went with 43 so either way, I went first.

Bruiser moved to the left, next to the trap with Wound effect again. It was 3 spaces away from the King so he got the King hooked and pulled him to that trap again. 4 damage from the attack plus 1 minus 3 from King’s shield. But the King suffered 1 more damage due to the trap.

After suffering from the wound, the King moved away and did ranged attack, dealing only 1 damage to Bruiser.

7th ROUND.

Button went with 43 again and using The Skewer, Bruiser went first with 35. Bruiser moved closer to the King, dealing 3 damage plus 1 from Wind element, plus 2 to the shield and plus 1 from the movement. That was 4 damage total even after Button’s shield and Button had only 3 health left so he was defeated.

Button yielded and agreed to help with anything. However, he asked Bruiser and the Collector to do him a favor first with some Pest Problem.

To be continued.

Playing time was about 50 minutes.

Marvel United: X-Men

More pictures of this Marvel United: X-Men game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Team up with X-Men members to save the future of mutants in Marvel United: X-Men.

This was solo play with 3 characters, first time against Mystique. The team was Magneto, Prof. X and Beast from the First Class story. Apparently this one is a bit tricky since there is additional character, the Senator Kelly that Mystique and her henchmen are trying to kill.

Senator Kelly is considered as “Hero” but if he takes any damage, he dies and game over. At first, I didn’t realize the hero status on him so I left him alone. So, you need a real Hero to accompany him and take damages instead of him.

The tricky part is, when activating the BAM! which include like 3 henchmen, they could actually create a combo. At first, you probably think that as long as hero but not Kelly is there, you don’t need to worry about the KO. Apparently, the KO will push Kelly to move the other direction and if there is Henchman attack happening there, with no other hero to take damage, that is when you probably lose the game.

Those henchmen also don’t just attack on one spot but they either move or may attack adjacent locations as well. This means, not only you need to make sure that Kelly has bodyguard but also has a safe location in counterclockwise direction during the next masterplan. Failing to do so can lead to just instant lose.

Honestly, since I was not prepared, I think I cheated and just drew a different card for Mystique just to keep the game going. Otherwise, the hero was KOed by Mystique and the Senator moved, killed by Toad. Maybe I should retry again.

Anyway, here is how it went.

The X-Men team started at Xavier School, at the top right. Destiny, the henchman was there. Mystique started from Genosha and her first move was the METAMORPH, moving to where Senator was right away. Since this was early, no civilian was added and no damage until next turn didn’t matter.

The BAM! dealt 2 damage to Magneto and activated Pyro at the next clockwise location, the Asteroid M to deal damage to Prof. X. Avalanche at Genosha just removed 3 civilians, one from each location. Nothing from Toad or Destiny.

Magneto started with dealing 2 damage to Destiny. Prof. X was next, dealing 2 more damage that finally beat Destiny while saving 1 Civilian and beat 1 Thug. Healed thanks to the laction.

Beast then moved away counterclockwise to Muir Island with the no Henchman threat card. He brought along Senator, and disabling the threat with 2 heroic actions. Wasted a punch there.

2nd Masterplan. Mystique moved 3 spaces back to Genosha but no BAM! Instead adding a Civilian and a Thug in her location and the 2 adjacent locations. None of them overflowed.

Magneto’s turn again and he just moved to Muir Island, completely removed the threat and back to the school with the Senator. Got 3 cards thanks to the location.

Prof. X moved to the Asteroid M and dealt 2 damage to Pyro, 3 more to take him down. Beast from Muir Island moved 2 spaces passing the X-Jet and stopped at Genosha while taking 2 Thugs, one from each location.

3rd Masterplan. Mystique moved 5 spaces to Hangar Bay and BAM!. No hero was there. Avalanched removed 3 civilians from nearest location. Toad moved to Muir Island but no hero was there. Pyro dealt 1 damage each to Prof. X and to Magneto. Then Mystique added 1 thug and 1 Civilian each to the 3 nearest locations. None of them overflowed.

Magneto again, moved to Asteroid M along with Senator and dealt 3 damage all to Pyro, taking him down. The bonus from location removed a thug from that location.

Prof. X followed Mystique to Hangar Bay. Dealing 2 damage to thugs there and started working to disable the threat. 2 more.

Beast moved back 2 spaces to Muir Island. Rescued 1 Civilian from the X-Jet and dealt 1 damage to Toad.

4th MASTERPLAN. Mystique moved 3 spaces and BAM! She landed at Muir Island, dealing 2 damage to Beast. Toad moved to the School but no hero was there. Avalanche only removed 2 civilians but the X-jet had nobody there. The Metamorph power added a Civilian there.

Magneto moved back to School and dealt 3 damage, taking down the Toad and one more attack to thug from Asteroid M. One mission was complete. Prof. X didn’t do much but kept progressing to disable the threat card at Hangar Bay. One more. With his leaderhip, he gave 2 Heroic Action tokens to Beast. 2 more thugs to complete 2nd mission.

5th MASTERPLAN. Mystique moved 0 space and BAM! Still at Muir Island dealing 2 damage to Beast and KO’ed him. Senator then run away to School. Only Avalanche left as the Henchman and he removed 3 Civilians. Mystique then added a thug and a civilian to 3 nearest location.

Beast went up immediately. I think I forgot to move Senator Kelly so he was still in the same location as Beast. Beast with his Genius Intelligence, using 2 Heroic tokens and 2 more from the card as wild, moved 2 spaces to Genosha with Senator and beat 2 Thugs, completing the 2nd mission.

Magneto from the School moved to Muir Island and started attacking Mystique. One of her threat card was still up so the hit was to Avalanche. He also rescued a Civilian.

6th MASTERPLAN. Mystique moved straight to where Senator was. He was with Beast again and Beast took 2 damage. Avalanche was there and no Civilian at Genosha or Hangar Bay. So 1 damage to Beast KO’ed him and one to Prof. X. which moved Senator to Hangar Bay.

Prof. X was next and he brought Senator Kelly back to school after completely disabled the 2nd threat, non henchman card. The location healed him.

Beast was up again and started attacking Mystique. 3 damage with his Genius Intelligence.

7th MASTERPLAN. Mystique moved 4 spaces to Asteroid M and BAM! No hero was there and the Avalanche did one damage to Beast. Mystique also added 2 thugs at Asteroid M and 1 thug to adjacent locations each. The Asteroid was full but none was overflowing.

Magneto didn’t do much. He just moved 1 space from Muir island and to school, rescuing 1 Civilian.

While letting Magneto guarded Senator, Prof. X. moved to Asteroid M, rescuing another Civilian to make a room. He also used his TELEPATHY allowing Magneto to get back his card with 2 attack.

8th MASTERPLAN. Mystique jumped straight to where Senator was, the School. Dealing 2 damage to Magneto.

Beast couldn’t reach the School so he stayed at Genosha and hit 2 damage to Avalanche.

Magneto then finished the job with dealing the last 3 damage to Mystique. The X Men saved their future.

Well, I definitely had to try again. I still got things wrong and a bit cheating.

Playing time was about 48 minutes.

Voyages

More pictures of this Voyages game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Explore the sea, find the legendary items from various shipwreck to help you win the race at Coral Rocks in Voyages.

This was a solo play session with the Map #5, Race at Coral Rocks. As part of the setup, the nearest shipwreck was number 3.

1st round. 1, 3, 5.

From the starting land, I used the 5 for direction and 3 for speed to reach the land at the bottom left corner. The land had the Idols to let me cross 2 dive spaces which I chose both 3rd row. The duty die was for dive space 1. Got 2 Sailors from Dives.

2nd ROUND. 1, 4, 6.

I used the 1 for direction and 6 for speed. From this bottom left island, top hex, 6 was enough to reach the island at the top left. Got 6 gold from the island and the 4 was for Duty, 1st space which was empty.

3rd ROUND. 1, 2, 3.

I tried to aim for the Shipwreck. For that 3 had to be the direction and whatever speed was blocked by the reef. So I used the 2 for duty and 1 for the speed. The Legendary Item from that shipwreck allowed me to pass through Reefs freely.

4th ROUND. 2, 3, 5.

There were 2 islands nearby beside the previous top left corner. I decided to go to the island at direction 2 and speed of 5 just to pass through the unexplored area. Got 5 Gold and the Duty 3 completed the row with a bonus of Heroic Sailor.

5th ROUND. 2, 3, 4.

There was a nearby gate. To cross it, I first had to move direction 4 with speed 1 then drifted with direction 3. Got 1 point for doing so.

6th ROUND. 3, 5, 5.

I was within range with the Star at the top middle of the map. Changed the 3 into 2 using Sailor and one 5 became the Speed. Got my first Star and filled the first row 5 of Duty which got me another Heroic. I also crossed 2nd unexplored area.

7th ROUND. 1, 5, 6.

No dice to go right. At least I changed the 5 into 4 to go down. With the speed of 6, I at least crossed 3rd unexplored area in the middle of the map. So, the 1 was for Duty, 2nd space of that row, no bonus.

8th ROUND. 3, 5, 5.

3 for duty was already useless. But if I used both 5s for speed and direction, I could use the 3 to drift and land on the island at the middle while also cross 4th unexplored area. Got 5 more gold from it.

9th ROUND. 2, 4, 5.

Ideally, I wanted to go to the right. But I decided to cross the near gate on the left from that middle bottom island. To do so, I used 5 for direction and 2 as speed to reach the bottom. Then after changing the 4 into 6 with one Heroic, I drifted to cross that Gate. This was 2nd gate so I got 3 points at the end.

10th ROUND. 1, 2, 6.

This was a good chance to go to the right very far but I decided to aim for the closest Shipwreck which was number 3. To do so I had to use 2 2s for speed and direction. So I changed the 1 into 2 first with 1 Sailor. This way, the 6 for duty completely filled the first column and I got a Heroic. The Legendary item allowed me to immediately get a Heroic for every Sailor I got subsequently.

11th ROUND. 1, 2, 3.

There was an island in the middle with Idol again and I could reach from that Shipwreck using these 3. I used the 2 for direction and 3 for speed. Then the 1 became the drift, 2 spaces and I reached that Idol. Filled the last 2 spaces of row 6 and I got a Sailor and a Heroic.

12th ROUND. 2, 2, 5.

5 rounds left and I only got 1 Star so far. I needed 1 more Shipwreck, 2 more gates, 3 more sailors or filling 3 duty spaces to do so. Used the 2 for direction and 5 for speed. This put me in position to either cross a gate or reach the shipwreck next. The other 2 became the 2nd space of that duty row.

13th ROUND. 1, 4, 4.

With 4 as direction, I could cross the next gate, as long as the speed was at least 2. I decided that the other 4 became the speed. Then I changed the 1 into 2 with 1 Sailor to fill the last space of duty 2. Got Sailor and Heroic as bonus.

14th ROUND. 2, 3, 6.

From current position with direction 3 and speed at least 4, I got to cross the gate at the bottom right to get the 2nd Star. Then I changed the 2 into 5 with Heroic to fill the 2nd space of that duty row. I also reached the land at the bottom right corner and got 9 Gold.

15th ROUND. 2, 3, 5.

5 for direction and 2 for speed were all I needed to reach the 3rd shipwreck for the last Star. It was number 1 but I got my 3rd STAR. Then the 3 for duty was useless but I changed it into 4, even using Heroic to finally complete the 2nd column. So, I got my 4th STAR.

16th ROUND. 1, 5, 6.

I needed 2 more Sailor to get the last Star. I could use the 1 for direction and 6 for speed to pick a Sailor which became Heroic. Then the 5 for last space of that duty row got me the last Sailor so I got my 5th STAR.

That was the end of the game. Scored 25 from the islands with Gold, 16 for 4 ocean regions explored, 8 from 4 Heroic Sailors, 12 from 3 Legendary Items, 20 from the Coral Gates, 15 from 5 Stars.

Total score was 96. Unfortunately, that was not without cheating with rerolling to get good dice since there were moments where I got stuck.

Playing time was about 37 minutes.

Learn more about the game from Voyages Review.

Nautilion

More pictures of this Nautilion game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Race to the Abyss while gathering crews for your submarine to defeat the Darkhouse before their Phantom minion reaches the Happy Isle in Nautilion.

Still another solo session with the last Nautilion board and with all expansion modules. Also, for the 5 Darkhouse cards, I used all red cards.

1st ROUND.

Darkhouse swaps tokens between the 2. Rolled a 1, a 2 and a 3. Gave the 1 to Darkhouse. 2 was for Phantom so I got Crew 5 while Nautilion got to move 3 and gave Crew 9 to Phantom.

2nd ROUND.

Darkhouse set the dice to 2, 3 and 4. I let Darkhouse took the 2 so no penalty. 3 for Phantom so they removed Crew 4 while Nautilion moved 4 to a Mercenary on a reef. Nautilion then got stuck with the reef. The Mercenary was placed on Crew 1 space.

3rd ROUND.

This time, I had to choose one figure and roll one die first before rolling the other 2 for the other 2 figures. Chose Darkhouse and rolled a 2. The other roll was a 2 for Phantom since Nautilion was stuck. Phantom removed a 9 and a reef.

4th ROUND.

Rolled 2, 2 and 3. I gave 2 to Phantom and I had to reroll with a result of 3 so either way I lost a token. 3 for Phantom was Mercenary so I gave a 1 and let them removed Mage C. Nautilion moved 3 and got another mercenary themselves which they placed at space 6. It was on a reef and Nautilion was stuck again.

5th ROUND.

So I had to roll one die and assign one by one. Got 2 either way for those 2 figures. Phantom removed another Crew 9.

6th ROUND.

I had to trade token with Phantom. This time just to move farther, Nautilion moved 3 spaces to a reef and gave Mercenary to Phantom while Phantom moved 2 giving Nautilion Crew 7. Couldn’t place it on Nautilion board so it went to Mage. I had to lose token since I gave Darkhouse a 3. I don’t know why but it seems I chose to spend 2 to pick specific die face. Nautilion got stuck again.

7th ROUND.

No roll and had to assign 2, 3 and 4. 2 for Darkhouse and 3 for Phantom allowing them to remove a reef and Crew 1.

8th ROUND.

Chose Darkhouse again and rolled a 1. Then I rolled a 1 and a 4. 1 for Phantom and they removed Mage B. Nautilion moved 4 and got Mage A.

9th ROUND.

Rolled a 1, 2 and 2. Gave the 1 for Darkhouse. Phantom got Crew 5 with a harpoon and Nautilion also moved 2 and got Crew 2 with harpoon. Nautilion was atuck again with the reef.

10th ROUND.

Rolled a 4 and then a 3. Either way Darkhouse took a token from me. 3 for Phantom was Crew 8 with harpoon so I let them took the 4 and they removed Crew 7.

11th ROUND.

Rolled a 2, 2 and 3. 2 for Darkhouse. Phantom moved 2 and gave Crew 7 to Nautilion while Nautilion moved 3, giving Crew 3. This time they were not stuck to the reef.

12th ROUND.

Had to assign 2, 3 and 4. 2 obviously for Darkhouse. 3 for Phantom and let them took Crew 2 with Harpoon while Nautilion moved 4 and got 3rd Mercenary. Actually, I swapped it with Crew 8 very close to it. The 2 were just 2 spaces from each other.

13th ROUND.

I guess I chose Darkhouse again and rolled a 1. Then I rolled a 2 and 3. Whichever I gave to Phantom they would just stop and trigger the collision. Probably should have given Nautilion the 2. Either way they got another Mercenary which was useless at that point but I planned on swapping with Mage A, very close to Happy isle.

Collision happened. Nautilion got 7 harpoons, Phantom, with the easy side got only 6 so Nautilion won. They took Crew 1 on board.

14th ROUND.

Rolled 2 1s and a 2. Gave the 1 to Darkhouse. 1 for Nautilion to get Mage B while Phantom moved 2 to remove Crew 1.

15th ROUND.

Rolled 1, gave it to Darkhouse. Another 1 and I gave it to Phantom and let them removed Crew 9. Nautilion got a 2 and got Mage C. So all 3 mages were on board. They still needed 3 more Crews, a 3, 6 and 9.

16th ROUND.

Gave a 2 to Darkhouse. Since there was a trade, I gave the 1 to Phantom so they gave me Crew 6. Nautilion moved 3 and gave Phantom Crew 8.

17th ROUND.

Gave the 2 for Darkhouse. 4 for Phantom and let them removed Crew 4 while Nautilion reached a reef with Mercenary. They got stuck again.

18th ROUND.

Chose Darkhouse and rolled a 2 for them. Then the 2 were 1 and 4. 4 for Nautilion since they couldn’t move and the 1 for Phantom and they removed crew 6.

19th ROUND.

Rolled a 1, 1 and 3. Gave the 1 to Darkhouse, 3 to Phantom and let them removed Crew 4. Nautilion with 1 was supposed to get Crew 3 but there was another 3 close to Abyss so spent 2 tokens to swap this one with Crew 9.

20th ROUND.

Rolled a 2, gave it to Darkhouse and the other 2 both got a 1. A token for Nautilion and another Crew 6 was removed.

21st ROUND.

Nautilion was just 3 spaces away from the Abyss and the only Crew they needed was the 3. However, at this point, none of the Heroic cards had been activated yet and there was not enough time for it. Somehow I still tried it and of course, I failed.

I just assumed that I ignored that and continue this as if I didn’t play with them and see if I could still make it. Trade had to happen this time so before landing on Crew 3, I spent 2 tokens to swap them back. So, I finished both Nautilion and Mage board. Phantom was still 4 spaces away and Nautilion was only 2. But Nautilion got stuck again with the reef.

22nd ROUND.

I could have given a 3 or 4 for Darkhouse since I didn’t have any token. Phantom only moved 2 spaces, removing Mage B and a reef.

23rd ROUND.

Chose Nautilion and rolled a 4. Then the 2 were both 1, maybe after a couple of rerolls thanks to mages. This way, Nautilion reached the abyss first and beat the Darkhouse before the Phantom reached the Happy Isle.

Well, that was not really what happened so I should try again next time. Playing time was about 30 minutes.

Moving Wild

More pictures of this Moving Wild game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Discover different habitats and improve them while wild animals keep moving until they find and settle in the perfect environment in Moving Wild.

This was a new game to me and a new one from Oink Games. Usually Oink games are meant for higher player counts, sometimes leaning towards party atmosphere. Moving Wild is one of the few titles that has official solo mode.

Last year, at least there were at least 2 people who like this game and considered this as the best solo game which is the reason I picked this one. After my experience playing a game with casual player, I started looking for games from Oink because of the size and the complexity level.

Moving Wild is a reimplementation of older game called Zuuli from the same designer, Chris Priscott. I assume that the game and the theme is the same but as Moving Wild, it got the minimalistic art style and the signature small box size of Oink. I think some might argue that the art of Zuuli is better, more colorful.

How does this one play?

The main mechanism is closed drafting like in Sushi Go or 7 Wonders. At least that is in multiplayer game. You start every round with a hand of cards, choose one to keep and pass the rest of your cards to the next player. The game is played over 3 rounds and each subsequent round you play with less number of cards to draft.

The cards you draft are either ANIMAL CARDS, HABITAT CARDS or IMPROVEMENT CARDS in addition to your starting identical Habitat card. Let’s start with the Habitats. Each habitat card has size and one or two different types of habitats. Either Forest, land or Water, shown by a line of color on the card either green, yellow or blue in that respective order.

The size can be from 1 up to 10 spaces per card. Each animal itself takes different sizes. Small animals like Penguin take just 1 space while the biggest one, the Elephant takes 6 each. Each habitat cannot have more than its capacity but there is no limit to how many animals each habitat can have.

If you take IMPROVEMENT CARDS, you can modify one Habitat per card. Maybe you can add the size by two. Or maybe you can add the type for it. You can also add some observatory so if you have empty space on that habitat, you don’t lose points from the penalty.

Animals themselves can be either one of 2 types, friendly or predatory. Friendly animals can be in the same habitat even if they are different animals. Predator animals can only occupy a habitat with their own kind. Specifically, Hippos can be both depending on the type of habitats it occupies. Then there is an Improvement card to change any animal into Friendly.

Your goal is to score the most points by creating the best ecosystem for these animals. You score at the end of each round. Every habitat with empty space will give you -2 points. The same as every animal card without a home.

Here is what makes this game unique. After you draft the card you have not assigned the card yet. Only when all cards are taken, then you start creating those groups of habitats filled with animals. Then at the end of the round, you score.

The thing is, these groups are temporary. At the end of subsequent rounds, you get more habitats, animals and improvements. You can then create different groups. Maybe during first round you have a Wetland with Anteater and Penguin in it. Then in 2nd round, you can move those 2 to a Lake while the Wetlands itself accommodates two new Lions.

So, the animals keep moving, hence it is called MOVING WILDS, until the end of the game.

Maybe you first have a Forest with a Bear, a predator in it. Then later, you get an improvement card that makes every animal friendly that you attach to it so later you add an Elephant to it.

While the animals are moving but the improvements stay with that Habitat. So, while drafting you can kind of calculate whether the size is enough or you may need to add new habitat and different habitat. Do you keep drafting more animals or do you need to get some improvements?

As mentioned above scoring happens at the end of each round. The same goes with penalties. So maybe, you don’t want to lose more points, you accommodate 2 smaller animals in a single habitat instead of a single one but bigger. Even though later, those 2 animals move to a different place while the excluded one gets that exact place.

Some animals can score very straight forward, just that one possible score while other can give higher points if you fulfill the requirement. Like Sloth will score more if it is not alone while Bear is the opposite. Penguins, Red Panda and Lions prefer to be in a group.

That’s all of it. You draft, arrange or rearrange cards and score, do it 3 times and whoever score the most wins. The game comes with 90 cards for up to 6 players. With more player, you draft less number of cards per round. In 2 players, 10-9-8 and with 6 players 6-5-4.

The Solo Mode and First Impression.

In the solo mode, you play against the Collector with the same number of cards as in 2 players. Instead of having a number of cards right from the start that you draft and pass, you only draw 2 cards each turn. You keep one and give the other to the Collector. You do that 10 times in first round, 9 in 2nd and 8 in 3rd. At the end of each round, like in multiplayer mode, you arrange or rearrange the animals to score.

The Collector will just get score from the Animal cards you give to them. If you give them in 1st round, that animal card will score 3 times. Habitats or Improvement don’t give any score for them but you probably need them early.

If the animal has 2 potential scores, the Collector only score the base value which can be higher or lower depending on the animal. So, you can kind of control how many points you are giving them while thinking about whether you can provide for more animals if you take them. You may not give them 5 points but you can end up losing 2 points.

There is a chance that the 2 cards you have to choose one from are the same so the choice doesn’t matter. Sometimes the choice can be between 5 points and 1 or 5 points and an improvement or habitat that you need.

There is a bit of randomness of not knowing what’s coming since you only see 2 cards at a time. You kind of have to take some risk. Get the animal but not the right or enough habitat space or get the habitat but not the animal. Especially if the Animal works well with their own type.

In one of my play, the Collector got 8 animals in first round with total of 5 non-animal cards showed up. They got 17 points per round for that. With the 2nd and 3rd only 4 and 3 animals. I think in my 2nd play, I got some habitats early but all of them are Lake while the animals in that round don’t fit so I have to lose points.

Taking predator early is also a bit risky since you really cannot combine them as easily as with the friendly animals.

Maybe it was just my first play but I got a bit overwhelmed with the amount of things you need to consider at first. To the point, I gave up after first round and reset. I realized I made a lot of mess.

Sometimes you fill a habitat with animals and it stays like that until the end. However, as you have more choices and more potential sets of animal and habitats you can make. Even more with the Improvement. Should you lock the improvement for that habitat or the other?

Hopefully I got it right and in my last play, I scored 102 minus 14 points or 88 while the opponent got 73. Actually, I just realized that one Habitat with 2 Bears didn’t have a proper habitat for the 2 Lions. So, I probably lost 6 more points, bringing it down to 82 and I still won.

This is with the easiest difficulty and the game has 4 difficulty settings for solo mode. While you don’t do anything different but the Collector will get a couple of starting Animals so they get higher points. At the same time, you lose access to those animal cards as well.

There is already a discussion thread here where the designer offers suggestions to make the solo mode even more difficult. There are also family or expert variant when playing the multiplayer mode.

From 90 cards in the box, you see like 54 cards or about half in a single solo session. So, while the order of cards and what cards in play may change how you play, there are not much variety. To be fair, it is a small box game.

Based on my initial plays, I like this game. It is simple but can be thinky as well. As a slow player, it took almost 30 minutes for my last play.

I guess one negative thing about putting the game back to the box mainly because of those small scoring tokens. Part of this is because I decided to use card sleeves. The cards have weird shape and tall, a bit thin to fit the small box. They will get a lot of shuffling and moving hands so I thought I needed to sleeve them. This means I have to put the card a bit standing instead of lay them and they lift the lid.

The remaining space has more than enough room for those tokens but putting them back is a bit hard and annoying. Especially if you want to keep them in order and neatly.

The thing is, you kind of have to use all of those tokens even when playing solo. You score early very low with 1 or 2 points maybe up to 5. Then you have to trade them for bigger value tokens. Somehow it feels like I run out the 2-point tokens if I don’t exchange them. So, if you just dump everything into and out of the box, you will want to sort them anyway. Well, that is a minor complaint but I want to say, maybe it is easier to write the score instead of using them.

Well, that is my first impression of Moving Wild. Let’s see if with more plays I change my opinion about this game.

Oh My Goods!: Longsdale in Revolt

More pictures of this Oh My Goods! game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Help the King to save the capital of Longsdale and prepare for war in Oh My Goods!: Longsdale in Revolt.

This is my first time playing with the expansion. A bit of interesting story about me and the game. Oh My Goods! is one of my earliest game in my collection and I already knew and interested with this expansion at that time. However, at that time, the expansion was not available or out of stock. I even considered importing it myself until I learned that Asmodee, the publisher tends to make their popular game more available.

As time went on, I also learned that maybe I got better value with buying different games than just the expansion. So, when the expansion became available again, I didn’t buy them right away. Now, I had enough games to the point where learning a new one is harder than just learning new rules with the expansion. So, I started buying expansion more and eventually got this one when it was probably the last stock at the moment.

The funny thing is that the publisher recently released a Big Box version that includes both expansions and the base game. With Asmodee, I knew that the big box version will eventually come to my local stores. It got me thinking whether I should just wait for it and got another base game or just go with the expansion separately.

As you can probably tell, I went with the latter option. Not sure if it actually helps my local store but I thought it does. Unless of course, they decide to restock both the expansion and the new big box version in the future. I mean I saw a lot of stores had expansions of games where the base game is no longer available in their store. I thought buying expansions helps more people in the industry not just the retail while most people are less likely to buy them. Well, at least, I hope so.

There is another reason why I was reluctant in buying this expansion. Even though this actually has an official solo mode. I heard that the solo mode is hard, mostly because of the randomness. Even the designer somewhat agreed and suggested skipping the Chapter 2 from the campaign.

And I thought Oh My Goods! itself is already 90 percent multiplayer solitaire. The only interaction between players is who goes first hiring assistant and trigger the end game. So, I can easily just play the basic game as solo, BYOS.

Either way, I already got the expansion and my first solo play with it. So, what do you get from this expansion?

First, you get 34 NEW BUILDING CARDS, 6 types with various number of copies each. Then you have 19 EVENT CARDS where at the start of every round, you flip one and it will tell you the twist to the rule just for that round.

You also get 4 PERSON CARDS. These are characters of the setting that will be included in the main deck of building cards. When one of these comes out from the deck face up, there is another twist of rules you resolve right away, mostly positive things to help the player.

You also get 6 cards of 5 GOODS. So, if your building has 5 goods, you can return the 5 cards and use this one instead, especially in multiplayer game.

These remaining should be considered a set. You get 8 SETUP CARDS, 7 CHAPTER CARDS, 7 SOLO CHAPTER CARDS and 3 END GAME CARDS. The highlight of this expansion is the story campaign set using this chapters.

You have 5 chapters with 2 chapters having alternate conclusions. Each chapter will tell you how to setup the Event deck. One end game card usually at the bottom. Above this end game cards are 2 parts of Event Cards. Most cards are numbered. Which number to use in each section is explained by the Setup cards.

Chapter cards will tell you the story, its aftermath and the winning conditions. Solo Chapter cards are specific just for solo play. There is an 8th Setup card and this is for playing without the story that includes every new elements added by this expansion.

Event cards are designed so that certain cards show up early while other cards show up later. Some of them will become the introduction of new elements. For example, the first chapter will introduce Tony Merz, the Person Card and 2 types of new buildings, The Corn Farm and Small Watchtower.

When introduced, Person card will go straight to the main deck, shuffled. Which event card will tell you to do will also be random but it will happen because the setup card tells you to include. However, the new buildings are not included in the deck. Instead, they are available to purchase just like the Assistant. This only applies for that Chapter. When you proceed to the next chapter, both those Person and new building cards will be combined to the main deck while the event introduces other stuffs.

If you fail to meet the requirements to win, the game tells you to retry. Otherwise, you can read the aftermath on the back of the Chapter card and proceed to the next one. After 5 chapters, you are ready to play All-In with its own Setup card. It will still use one random Chapter cards with the specific extra winning conditions.

The rule sheet also tells you the rule change from the base game. Most of them are the same except that you play with exact number of rounds determined by the number of event cards according to the setup. For example, Chapter 1 has 9 rounds.

Because of this rule, you are now allowed to both build buildings and hire Assistant as long as you pay them separately. Last change is that you cannot move this Assistant as you like even though you pay like in base game. You need to wait until the Event says so.

My First Impression after First Play.

I don’t know how complex the game becomes if you include everything right away but I am glad I just went with the Chapter and just slowly learning new stuffs.

I’m not sure I like the idea of Fixed number of rounds mostly because of the randomness of the market. It is possible for the market to only have like 5 cards total in a round which doesn’t help your production at all. Some event cards do say to keep revealing cards until there are 3 half sun icons for a phase. While it helps but it can also happen in the earlier rounds when having more doesn’t matter since you still have one or 2 buildings anyway.

Compared to that, I played multiplayer game and maybe not truly like a race, I ended the game after 12 rounds or so. With this expansion, it seems like you need to be as efficient as possible.

I do like the Event cards where it will alter or twist the rule slightly. Since they show up at the start, you can kind of take advantage. Sometimes they do nothing of course for your situation. Because of the way they are setup, I assume you need to expect them to come out.

That means, before setting up that Event Deck, maybe you should just read them first. Something that allows you to move Assistant can be very helpful when you know it’s going to happen.

If then you don’t like memorizing the event, maybe you can put them face up. When you are about to resolve them, you just roll a die or something to randomly choose which one.

So, in my play, I actually failed to fulfill the requirements to win. You need at least goods worth 40 coins, 32 points beside that plus a Power Strength of one. I thought the coins are part of the 32 points and that is not the case.

Got only 26 points after paying the 40 points from Bakery. After paying I got like 18 coins left so only 3 points from it. I still needed 6 more. The coins requirement must come from specific type of goods. Usually there are 3 to 4 goods that qualify for each Chapter. You are supposed to focus on one of them.

I think in the solo mode, you are supposed to hire both available Assistants. Even if they probably produce just 1 goods at a time and you cannot afford to boost with production chain, you still get VP and money back. This also means you need to really diversify the type of goods from those buildings.

I don’t know if I want to keep trying with this winning conditions. Maybe I just continue with the next chapter and who knows? Maybe I will revisit those chapters again or just keep playing the All In mode. Especially after seeing all of the frustration from other players and the recommendation from designer to skip chapter.

Somehow it feels like these chapters give you more focus on the production line you should chase. Usually in the base game, I was not sure until a couple of rounds. Even if it opens up for any variations, usually I ended up choosing what I already know.

But that’s just from one play. Maybe I change my views after playing it more.

Playing time was about 54 minutes.

Learn more about the game from Oh My Goods! Review.

Dinosaur Island: Rawr ‘n Write

More pictures of this Dinosaur Island: Rawr ‘n Write game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Build your Dinosaur theme park by hiring specialists to make sure the safety and excitement of your visitors in Dinosaur Island: Rawr ‘n Write.

This was another solo session. The 3 buildings were Monorail Station, DNA Archive and Carnivore Colosseum. While the 3 Specialists were Jack of All Trades, Paramedics and Lawyer. The 3 solo objectives were hiring 3 specialists, having 3 Small Carnivore Paddocks and one paddock of each type for 2 VP each.

ROUND 1. Development Phase 1.

Make Dino and Build action were occupied. 2 dice with 2 coins, a Ride Attraction or green DNA, and either Orange DNA or Security. Picked the 4 coins and the Ride Attraction so got 1 threat from the last die. 4 coins were to hire Jack of All trades. I used the bonus to get 2 excitement levels. The attraction was placed along the top perimeter to the right from HQ connected to first exit.

I doubled the 2 coins and got 2 more coins from Raise Funds. 3 were spent to hire Security Chief and the other 3 for hiring Jr. Scientist. Got 2 security and 2 Advanced DNA.

ROUND 1. Development Phase 2.

Make Dino and Raise Fund were occupied. No money this time, either blue DNA, Red, Green or 2 Red, Green or Security. Took the Security die and the Green DNA. That means either way I had to take 3 threats, currently at 4, 3 were secured. Took the Blue as the last die.

I used both dice on Build action so I got 5th threat. First one was to build a RESTAURANT, placed at the top right corner. Then the 2nd die was to create 3 roads connecting HQ and the first 2 attractions.

ROUND 1. RUN PARK PHASE.

Got 1 excitement level from the Ride and 1 money from Restaurant which I used to hire Tour Guide but not enough yet. Security Chief got me 1 security. Jr. Scientist then allowed me to make 2 Dinos, Velociraptor and Triceratops. The Paddock for the herbivore was next to the 2nd exit to the right and part of the Tour Route. While the Purple one was just 1 space away from any of the other 3 buildings.

Got 1 more threat and 3 excitement levels, currently at 5. Also one more money from Jack of All Trades which I spent for Tour Guide but needed 1 more.

Run the Tour and got 3 more excitement Level so reached 8. Got 2 more money, 1 security, and 2 regular DNA from the bonus. The money allowed me to completely hire Tour Guide and got 3 more excitement levels, currently at 11. One more security so I managed to secure all 6 threats. The DNA were Red and Blue.

ROUND 2. Development Phase 1.

Make Dino and Duplicate were occupied so I got a purple and Blue DNA. One die with 2 coins, a green and yellow, either Merch store or Orange, Road and Yellow.

I took the 2 coins to continue paying the Paramedics, needed 1 more. Then I took the Merch Store which I placed at the top left corner of the Park. Then I also took the road and yellow DNA where the road connected the Merch Store to HQ. No threat from the last die.

I used both dice on BUILD Action. One was to build 2nd Ride which I placed to the left from Velociraptor Paddock. 2nd die was to get 3 roads to connect those 2 and whatever 2 adjacent buildings to them.

ROUND 2. DEVELOPMENT PHASE 2.

Make Dino and Extract DNA were occupied. I had a choice of 2 dice with 1 orange DNA, 2 coins, 1 Coin and 1 Yellow DNA.

Picked the 2 coins to finally hire Paramedics and started the fund for Carnivore Colosseum. Got 7th security from the Paramedics. Took the 1 coin to keep paying for Colosseum and got yellow DNA. So from the 2 left I got 2 threats and 2nd orange DNA. 1 unsecured threat.

Then I doubled the 2 coins so I got 4 all to pay the Colosseum and that was enough. I placed it so it was 1 space away between Merch Store and the 2nd Ride Attraction. 2nd die was to build 3rd Ride attraction which I placed next to 3rd exit to the right from HQ after leaving enough room for Large Carnivore paddock.

ROUND 2. RUN PARK PHASE.

I got to roll 1 die from Merch which got me another Merch store for one more die. Got 1 coin and purple DNA from it. The 2nd Merch store was close to south exit and the recent Ride attraction. Then I got 3 more excitement levels from Ride attractions, currently at 14.

The money from Restaurant was to start building Monorail Station, 9 more. Got 8th security so everything was secured. Then 2 roads from Tour Guide to connect the 1st Merch, Colosseum, Ride and Purple Paddock.

Jr. Scientist made 2 new Dinos, Megalosaurus and Petranodon. The large paddock was already planned to be part of 2nd tour route and it was already connected to 3rd exit. While the new purple paddock was next to the South Exit. 3 more unsecured threats then from these 2 Dinos.

Got one more coin from Jack of all trades, 2nd for Monorail. Then I got 3 security from the Paramedics from both dice. All threats were already secured at this point.

Finally run the Park Tour, through 6 new buildings and got 6 more excitement levels, currently at 25. The bonus got me 3 money, all for Monorail, 3 security points, 2 each of regular and advanced DNA. Monorail still needed 4 more money.

ROUND 3. Development Phase 1.

Raise Funds and Duplicate were occupied. Got a Blue and a Road. The road connected the Pteranodon paddock with the Merch store next to it. From the leftover dice, I got 2 coins, 1 Orange DNA, 1 Red and 2 threats. All money went to building Monorail but still not enough.

Using 1st die, I built 4th Ride attraction. This was placed between the Megalosaurus Paddock and the 2nd Merch Store. 2nd die was used to build 4 DINOS. One was for T-Rex, a new large carnivore, the Dilophosaurus, the last of the small Carnivore, made 2 dinos for that. Last one was Ankvlosaurus, a Herbivore.

The green paddock was next to the bottom right exit. No chance to connect it with the last Tour Route. While the 2 paddocks were in the 3rd row, leaving just enough rooms for Monorail and the DNA Archive. The plan was to use 2nd route, creating a branch to the Dilophosaurus, then to T-Rex, Monorail, then the Ride attraction, Merch Store and finally to Pteranodon paddock connected to the south exit.

Got 8 excitement levels, currently at 33, and 4 more threats, one unsecured.

ROUND 3. DEVELOPMENT PHASE 2.

Duplicate and Build action were occupied. Got a Red from duplicate. The choices were 2 roads, 2 coins, 2 red DNA, 1 coin and yellow DNA. Picked the 3 coins to finally build the Monorail and started the funds for DNA Archive. Also took the 2 Red DNA as the 2 roads didn’t give me any threat.

Even though Duplicate was occupied, I duplicated the 2 coins and got 4, suffering 3 more threats. Still needed 5 more to build the Archive. 4 unsecured threats so far. The last die was to raise Funds 2 more coins, 3 left to build.

ROUND 3. RUN PARK PHASE.

Rolled 2 dice from 2 Merch stores and got a Blue and a money. Another money from 1 restaurant and 4 excitement levels from Ride attractions, currently at 37.

1 security from the Chief so 3 unsecured left. The 2 roads from Tour Guide finally connected the 2 paddocks, HQ and 4 buildings to that south exit.

Jr. Scientist couldn’t make new dino but duplicate of existing dinos. Unfortunately, not enough Advanced DNA so only 2 herbivores for 2 excitement levels, currently at 39.

The last money from Jack of All trades was finally enough to build DNA Archive. I think I forgot extra security from Paramedics even though I probably had enough from the current excitement level bonuses.

Finally run the last tour through 6 new buildings, ended at South Exit. Excitement levels went up to 43. The money from bonuses got me to hire Lawyer but useless. I had more than enough security.

That was the end of the game.

I scored 8 points from 4 HERBIVORES, 12 points from 3 Small Carnivores, 10 points from 2 Large Carnivores, 18 points from 6 Specialists, 23 points from all 3 buildings, 23 points from the 3 exits, 19 points from Excitement Levels, 6 from 12 leftover DNAs and 6 from 3 objectives.

Total score was 125.

Playing time was about 80 minutes.

Curious Cargo

More pictures of this Curious Cargo game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Build adjustable conveyor system of your logistic facility for automatic loading and unloading cargos in Curious Cargo.

After realizing that I have been ignoring an end game trigger condition, this time I was back with board #1 for solo play, official variant. Still with the easiest difficulty with 4 countdown cards and the 2 goods variant.

1st ROUND.

Drew 3 tiles and got all L Shape, one red and 2 blues as the main line. Stored them separating the 2 blues on both storage at the top. The opponent was still doing countdown.

In trucking phase, I trade size 5 truck card for 2 tiles. Got another L shape Red and a C Blue. Placed both on the right so there were 3 with the C shape on top.

2nd ROUND.

This time, played 3 tiles. The C was for the 3 machines at the top. So the 2 outlets at the center had Blue. Similarly with the 3 machines at the bottom, using L Blue, the two outlets at the center had Blue. Then as the last tile, I played the L Red from the machine closest to Shipping dock 4 pointing to that dock. Just needed a straight small red to finally connect it.

The opponent was still doing countdown.

During trucking I played Size 3 truck to my side and no opening until dock 4 with this board.

3rd ROUND.

Played 2 tiles and drew 1. One L Blue had a short straight red which I used to get first shipping connection to dock 4. Then with another L red I similarly placed it at the 3 top machines mirroring the bottom so it was close to receiving dock 4. Then I drew a tile and it was S Blue all blue.

The opponent was still doing countdown.

Played another size 3 truck, same variant to my shipping side again, pushing the first one 3 spaces. Now the empty space of that truck was at dock 5. My plan was to make blue connection there.

4th ROUND.

I drew 3 tiles again. Got S Red, S Blue and Straight Blue. Placed all of them on the right, which was empty with one S at the top so I could trade it along with the S from the left for truck card.

The opponent was still doing the last countdown.

Traded 2 S tiles one from each storage for truck card size 4.

5th ROUND.

First I played the Straight from the right vertically along the shipping dock 4 and 5 so both had short straight line ready for connection. Then I drew 2 more tiles, got another C Blue and Straight all red. Stored both on the left which was empty with the straight one at the bottom.

The opponent got 1st connection to their shipping dock 6, claiming the first player turn order. So, they played a truck card, a size 3 on their side which was doing nothing.

I traded my size 4 truck for 2 tiles. Got all Red S and a Blue L with 2 red. Both were stored on the right, with the L at the top.

6th ROUND.

The opponent started first this round and only changed the connection at shipping dock 6 from red to blue.

First I played the Blue L, extending the existing line from 2nd Outlet, bottom machine pointing to shipping dock 5. Connection had not happened yet but it covered a Gear token. Then I drew 2 tiles, got a Straight Red with one blue and another L Blue with straight small blue. Spent the Gear token for 2 more actions. The former drawn tile was placed at receiving dock 4 and 5, creating 2nd connection while the latter completed the shipping blue line to dock 5. This was 3rd and got me a Gear token and I claimed the first turn order back.

During Trucking Phase, I traded a tile from each, the S and the C for truck card size 6. The opponent played a card and it was size 2, on their side, pushing the previous size 3 but the open space was not to active dock. I also loaded my first Blue goods to the truck via dock 5.

7th ROUND.

I drew 3 tiles and got Blue L and 2 S Reds. Spent a Gear to place the 2 S trying to connect shipping dock 7 to any machine at the top. The opponent created 2nd connection to their shipping dock 9 with Red goods.

For trucking, I played my only card, size 6 to my side. The open space from that truck stopped at dock 4 so I loaded my first red and got truck token bonus. Also, the truck with my first blue was already entering the opponent receiving.

The opponent played another Size 2 truck on their side. No loading still. If they made a connection at dock 5 shipping, they were ready to load something.

8th ROUND.

Drew 3 more tiles and got C all Red, Blue L with straight red and Red L double blue. I placed the C and the Blue L on the right, planning to trade it for card. The other one was on the left, the top part. The opponent only took a tile this time.

For trucking, I traded 2 tiles from the right storage and got size 4 with only 1 empty space. The opponent had no card so they drew 1.

9th ROUND.

Played 2 L from my left storage trying to make shipping from top machine to dock 8 with Blue. I still needed a blue just at the corner and I got lucky from my next draw.

The opponent made shipping line to their dock 4 with Blue. This got them 2 tokens so they spent immediately one and made another connection to dock 5 shipping with Red. Now they were ready to load first red. They also claimed first player order.

It seems I got it wrong. Apparently I didn’t load any red for them and went straight to playing truck size 3 on their side again. This way, they loaded 2 trucks both with Blue.

I traded the truck card for 3 tiles. Got Blue S, and 2 Blue L. All S were stored on my right and the L went to the left.

10th ROUND.

The opponent made shipping connection again to dock 7 with Red. By having gear they made another connection, still with red to shipping dock 8. Based on this, my error from previous one was irrelevant.

Played the Blue S to finally had active shipping dock 8 to one of the machines at the top. Then I played Blue L to get an active connection to Receiving Dock 5. Got me 2 new cards, a size 2 and size 6.

The opponent loaded their first red. Then they played Size 5 with only 1 occupied space so it went to their side. This way, they loaded their 2nd Red, 3rd and 4th Blue.

By having a truck token, they drew a card and immediately played it. It was size 6 with only 1 empty space so it went to my side. This actually allowed me to load my 2nd red.

On my turn, I spent my truck token to draw a card and got size 6 all empty. I immediately played that to my side and loaded 3rd red and blue. Probably could have played the size 2 as well and loaded 4th red and 4th blue.

11th ROUND.

Another connection for the opponent and first Receiving dock at number 8 with Blue. They got gear token and the 2nd action had already happened with shipping red at dock 5.

First I played 2 tiles with main straight lines. One was Blue with small red to overlap some part near the top machine. This was to maintain connection at shipping 8 while opening a chance to active connection at shipping dock 7. Then the 2nd one was Straight all red, horizontally next to receiving dock 7. Trying to connect it to bottom machine.

It seems I cheated a bit here. I couldn’t have played another S tile Red as it was at the bottom without playing the S blue above it first. But after spending gear, I did get another S Red and Straight Red. Still wrong though.

Then during trucking, the opponent played size 5 to my side since it had only one opening. Couldn’t load anything to that truck.

I had a truck token so I spent it and got Size 2 which I immediately played to my side allowing me to load a blue to that opponent size 5. This could have been the 9th goods for me and triggered the end of the game. In that case, my score was 17 and the opponent was only 11.

12th ROUND.

Instead, the opponent managed to get Red goods from their Receiving dock 4, extra point for 8th connection.

I finally got active connection to Shipping dock 7 with red and receiving red at dock 7. Also a token for covering a gear icon on the board.

During trucking phase, the opponent played 2 trucks on their side and they managed to load 3rd and 4th red with 5th blue, triggering the end of the game. Both of us only received one goods which was a red. I played a truck to my side and delivered 5th blue.

That was the end of the game. Scored 20 for me and 24 for the opponent. At least, I knew, I actually had a chance to win earlier.

Playing time was about 68 minutes.

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine

More pictures of this The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Even without much communication, work together as a team to accomplish missions in The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine.

Back with the Crew. Like before this is not really a solo or cooperative game to be played multi handed so I tried not to look the other hand of cards while playing one side. This was with mission #35 and #36, 2 players plus the Jarvis.

In mission #35, there are 7 task cards and the first 3 had to be accomplish in order. Green 8 before Red 7 and before Blue 7. The other 4 were Yellow 9 and 4, Pink 4 and Green 5.

Left player was first as they actually got all Trump cards. They picked the Pink 7 task. Then for Jarvis, they picked Blue 7 as it was one of the face up cards.

Right player had a lot of strong green so they picked Green 8 task. Back with the Commander, they had some strong Pink so they chose Pink 4 which was not in their hand. Then assigned the Yellow 4 to the Jarvis. Right player then picked Yellow 9, indicating that they might had the card and strong other yellows. Last one, the Green 5 went to the Commander.

The Left or Commander started first trying to allow the right player accomplished the Green 8 first. So, they played Green 3. Jarvis then had no Green from the face up so Commander picked Yellow 2. Right player had that Green 8 and won the trick, accomplished their task.

2nd round. Right player went first and trying to help Commander accomplish the Pink 7. The card itself was in Jarvis but the Commander chose not to pick. So, the right player assumed the Commander had other strong cards or capable to use the trump.

On the other hand, right player also had the Pink 9. This was a risky move. Commander could have used the Communication token to left the others know that they had Pink 8 or so. Right player took the risk and played weak Pink, Pink 2.

Left player had the Pink 8 so it was lucky and got it out, along with Pink 7 from Jarvis. Commander won this trick.

3rd ROUND. Time for Jarvis to accomplish the Blue 7, not really necessary for it to happen this time. Everybody could see Jarvis had Blue 8 and 7. Commander themselves only had Blue 5 and 3. Chances are the Right player had 9 and only 9 or the other cards. There were 4 unknown cards left from Jarvis.

Right player could have used their token to let the others know which Blue they had. Commander took the risk and just played Blue 5 with Jarvis playing Blue 7.

Right player had 4 Blue cards and the highest was 6. So, from Right Player’s perspective, they didn’t worry but it was still risky for Commander to just play it. Right player then played their highest, letting Jarvis accomplished their task. So, what was left could be accomplished in any order.

4th ROUND. Jarvis went first so Commander made the decision. From their perspective, they wanted to work on Yellow 4 on Jarvis and Yellow 9 on Right Player. Yellow 4 itself was with Commander and Jarvis could have won it with their face up Yellow 7 or even 5. But it was risky if then Right player only had a 9.

So, Commander decided to let Right player won first. Commander played Yellow 3 first from Jarvis. Right player had Yellow 9 and 6 so they played the 9 to accomplish theirs. Commander followed by losing with Yellow 8. Right player already accomplished all of their tasks.

5th ROUND. Right Player could also see Jarvis Yellow 7 and Jarvis wanted to win Yellow 4. Since the Commander was the one to assign the task, Right Player assumed that the Commander had the 4.

So, Right player played their last Yellow, a 6. Commander, of course played the 4 and Jarvis played the 7. Jarvis had accomplished all of their tasks. 2 tasks left and both were on Commander side, Pink 4 and Green 5.

6th ROUND. Jarvis’ turn and Jarvis had the Pink 4. Commander had the Pink 6 to win it but unless the Right player had something lower, this was risky. So, instead, they took time and tried to reveal the last 2 cards of Jarvis first.

Blue 8 went first. Right Player had 3 Blues and the 4 was the highest. Played that with Commander playing the 3. Behind that card was Pink 5.

7th ROUND. Jarvis again. From Commander’s perspective, they could see Jarvis had Pink 3, 4, 5 with the 6 in Commander’s hand. Previously, Pink 8, 7 and 2 were already played. One card was still unknown on Jarvis. So there was a chance that Right Player had both 1 and 9.

Commander played the 5 from Jarvis first. Right Player had 1 and 9 but not knowing Commander had the 6 and could have assumed it was the last Jarvis card. However, Right Player also knew that Commander had all 4 trumps and had not played any of them yet.

But then Right Player could have asked themselves, why Commander played the 5 first not the 4 from Jarvis. The important part was when the 4 was played which was not this time.

So, Right Player decided to play the 9 first. Even if they won, they could have easily played the 1 later as the leading suit. Commander then played the 6 so Right Player won.

8th ROUND. Right Player then played the Pink 1 so the Commander had full control. They played their Rocket 1 along with Pink 4 from Jarvis. Commander won and accomplished their 2nd task. One more, Green 5 and it was on Jarvis.

9th ROUND. Besides the 3 remaining trumps, Commander also had the Green 7. Green 1, 2 and 5 were in Jarvis. Previously, 3 and 8 were already out very early in this game. So, there was a chance Right Player had all of the remaining, including Green 9. Even if the last card in Jarvis was Green 4, they could assume that Right Player also had the 6.

So, the safe play to win the last task and the game for Commander was to lead with the Trump, along with Green 5 from Jarvis. Turns out Right Player had Green 4, 6 and 9.

In the actual play, Commander played the 7, taking the risk, expecting the Right Player not to play the 9. Jarvis played the 5 and Right Player played the 6. The last task was accomplished and they won the game, completing Mission #35.

Well, I could have written the #36 as well but maybe I played that one again next time. Some passing cards occurred after the Distress signal right from the start.

Playing time was about 16 minutes per session.

Chomp

More pictures of this Chomp game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Form herds of herbivore and carnivore dinosaurs and make sure they have their own food source or one will eat the other in a game of Chomp.

This was solo play and I got 3 sessions. First one scored 49 and the 2nd one scored only 42. After that 2nd play, I thought I should get more score cards rather than keep building the lands. In both I didn’t take any additional scoring cards. In the first one, I got 13 from 2 Goals while in the 2nd, I got only 6.

Then this last one, I got very high, 27 just from the Goal cards, which made me a bit not sure I got it right. The total score was 56 which was still reasonable. Here is how it went.

The first Goal card was to score 3 points for every Tar Pit. Unfortunately, I just realized that I was not supposed to take the first Goal card as the setup as it doesn’t have solo symbol. Maybe I could just assume that I took it later.

Then the 2nd Goal card was 1 point for every Group of Mountains in your Land. I think this 2nd Goal was the one that contributed the most points. Well, at least this one was correct.

The starting Land had a Large Carnivore, a nest and a Plant. First 6 cards had one Land with a Tar Pit, so I thought I should take that. That land also had a food source for Carnivore so I just placed it so the Tar Pit was on outer part while the food source was connected to the Carnivore. That card also had an egg so I filled my starting nest.

Then for 2nd round, no more tar pit. I took the only one with another nest. It had 2 smaller herbivores, a medium herbivore and a plant. This was placed adjacent to previous card but not to the starting land. I connected the Medium herbivore with a small herbivore. The 2 smaller herbivores from the new cards needed to be connected with that same card Plant.

3rd turn. A card with Tar Pit showed up with 3 medium dinosaurs, 2 herbivore and 1 carnivore. The Tar Pit itself was only adjacent to the Carnivore. I placed this on the right of previous card but not adjacent to anything else. This way, the group of herbivore became larger, now with 3 medium and 1 small. They were not connected to plant though.

4th turn. Another Tar Pit showed up with 2 medium dino, one of each type and a plant. Well, I took this one and placed it between the previous card and the 1st one. The plant was now feeding the largest group. But this way, the 2 dinos were next to Tar pit.

5th turn and no more Tar Pit. I took the one with Large Herbivore, a plant and medium carnivore. This was placed at the bottom left of my land. I was hoping to connect the 2 small herbivores from before with the Plant of the same card using this Large herbivore. Unfortunately, there was a Mountain wall blocking the access to that Plant.

6th turn and now there was another Tar Pit. It also had a nest, a plant and medium herbivore. Even though the tar pit was next to the dino, there was a Mountain separating it. I took it and covered the half left of the previous one. This way, I got 2nd group of fed Herbivores with 4 dinos.

7th turn. No more tar pit so I took the one with Large Carnivore, food source and a plant. This was placed next to the first fed Large Carnivore so they made a herd.

8th turn. The new card also had large carnivore, a nest and medium herbivore. During the game, I took this one and fed the large carnivore for 3 points. The Goal card next to it actually could have given me 4 points by just taking it.

9th turn, last one. During the game I took another Goal card without a solo symbol. Since I got the setup wrong, this was the only time to make it right. I could have assumed that the last Goal card to show up was the Tar Pit scoring. If I assumed whatever goal card with solo symbol was to replace my error, the only available one in this last round was giving me 0 instead of 4. Oh, well.

Anyway, that was the end of the game. I still got 12 points from Large Dinos, 10 from Medium, 3 for Small and 4 for 2 eggs. The Goal cards were just the Mountains and Tar Pits. 4 tar pits so I got 12 and the Mountains, I got like 9. So, my actual cheating score was only 50 points.

Playing time was about 16 minutes per session.

The Isle of Cats: Explore & Draw

More pictures of this The Isle of Cats: Explore & Draw game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Fill your boat with as many cats as possible to save them from evil Lord Vesh in The Isle of Cats: Explore & Draw.

This was a solo play with one extra Advanced Solo lesson against the Sister. First lesson for the Sister was 10 points if I have fewer than 9 treasures. 2nd lesson was 5 points per visible rat and for 3rd, 5 points for every cat over 15. The extra advanced one was 3 points per cat not touching any treasure. Based on these, focusing on getting more treasures than cats are better.

1st ROUND. BLUE.

So Blue cats were bad but the other colors were still not clear yet. The market only had 1 card with a blue from the 4th column. I decided to go with the 3rd column so added only 1 color with Green. There was an Onyx cat that I used for the 2nd Green. The first card was also 2 treasures.

On my boat the Green treasure was in the leftmost room so I started there. First with the T-Shape Green covering all 3 rats on leftmost column. Then the S Shape Onyx was placed above it, covering the Green treasure and connected it to the middle top room. The bonus for covering the treasure was a small L shape common treasure which I placed within the leftmost room between the 2 cats.

Lastly, from the treasure card, I had 2 choices. Both also had an L but the other was a straight either size 2 or 3. I chose the 2, placing both still in the leftmost room next to the 1st cat. Now that room still had 1 empty space at the bottom right corner.

2nd ROUND. Blue, Red.

1st, 2nd and 3rd column all had red and blue cats leaving just the 4th to choose. Took lesson #1 and 2 treasure cards. 1st of those 2 gave me a choice of 2 common treasures but I could pick any of the 2 shown. I chose an L common which I used to fill the last gap of the leftmost room then reaching to the middle bottom room.

After that, I picked straight shape size 3 which I placed vertically next to previous treasure so it covered the rat in the middle room. Then from 2nd treasure card it offered a Rare, either Plus shape or L shape with same hand size. I chose the plus shape and placed it still in that middle bottom room, covering one of the Rats.

3rd ROUND. Blue, Red, Green.

This means the best value colors were Yellow and Purple. 1st column had both. 2nd and 3rd had red and blue so they were not good. 4th one had Purple and Onyx. While Onyx gave me flexibility but I decided to go with 1st column with 2 Yellow and 1 Purple. The room with the Purple was 2nd to the right while the Yellow was the top middle.

First with the Cross shape Yellow, I placed it next to the S Shape Green in the middle top room. The shape covered both Treasure of the yellow and a Rat outside the room. I placed the bonus of size 2 still at the middle bottom room to make better reach for the purple.

Then the E shape Yellow was placed just next to the other yellow so that top middle room was only 1 space away to be completely filled. The Purple also had cross shape and I placed it starting from the middle bottom room pointing to the right. This bottom room was fully covered.

4th ROUND. Blue, Red, Green, Yellow.

1st column had green and yellow which was good. 2nd had treasure, purple and green, also good. 3rd and 4th had blue so I avoided them. I chose the 2nd so I got more purple which was the best value for me.

I wanted the L shape rare treasure to cover 4 rats at the bottom right. To connect with the existing, the Y shape purple had to be placed in between the existing purple and that treasure.

The Green cat itself was a bit tricky as it was just straight shape but size 5. I had to place it in the top row of middle room, top left corner just one space out to connect with the existing green. This way, however, left a rat between that shape and the Yellow in a size 2 room. I was hoping to find a treasure for it.

5th ROUND. Blue, Red, Green, yellow, Purple.

First 3 columns had all red and a blue. Unfortunately my only option was the 4th one with 1 green and 2 lessons, #14 and #25. No way I could score the 25 but the 14 was still viable. The Green cat had Z shape but in 2 lines. I placed it at the bottom left corner of middle room.

Since I had not used any power I chose to get 1 more card. Chose the 2nd card of 1st column with 2 choices of Rare treasure. Both had size 5, either L shape or T shape. I chose the L, placing it at the top right of middle room, going out to cover two of nearby rats. Unfortunately this left small gap if the middle room.

6th ROUND. Blue, Red, Green, yellow, Purple.

Red or Blue in 1st, 2nd and 4th column. However, the first row only had Green, Purple and Onyx and another Rare treasure. So I used the 2nd power to pick this row.

This straight shape treasure and the C Shape Green completely filled the middle room. Then the Onyx with J shape became yellow which I placed connected to the existing yellow and around the previous L shape treasure. This also covered the last 2 rats in that middle area. Then the purple T was just filling the 2nd to the right room from the bottom.

7th ROUND. Blue, Red, Green, yellow, Purple.

Last one and red cats were in 1st, 2nd and 4th column. So I chose the 3rd with Yellow, treasure and Onyx. This was my chance to get the #14 lesson by having exactly 4 yellow and 4 purple so the Onyx became the 4th purple.

The Onyx had weird shape so it was no longer possible to completely fill any room on the right. I just made sure that it was still connected to the Purple and covered the treasure. With the bonus, I used the last power to double the treasure and picked the size 2. One was to cover the Rat between yellow and green and the other was to fill the last space of the top middle room.

Then from Treasure card, I chose one Rare S shape over 2 Common L. This was placed in that 2nd to the right room, covering the last rat. Lastly, the T shape Yellow while still connected to the family, reached this last rare treasure to avoid giving points to the Sister.

That was the end of the game.

I scored only 48. The Sister got absolutely nothing from the 4 lesson cards. So, their score was only 27 from 3 family of cats. So, I won but to be fair, I did choose the lesson that I think works better for me.

Playing time was about 54 minutes.

Sagrada

More pictures of this Sagrada game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Construct the best Stained-Glass Window to decorate the iconic building of Barcelona in a game of Sagrada.

As usual, I played 2 sessions of Sagrada game, one with solo mode and the other 2-handed. The first one solo was using BATTLO player card and the 5 tools were Eglomise Brush, Grozing Pliers, Lens Cutter, Glazing Hammer, Copper Foil Burnisher. I had to choose between Shades of Yellow or Purple and the 2 scoring cards were Color Variety and Shade Variety.

1st ROUND. Red 3, Yellow 2, Green 6 and Purple 4.

I chose to keep the 2 highest so Purple 4 first to column 2 row 4 and then above it a space that required a green with Green 6. This means the opponent got 5.

2nd ROUND. Yellow 6, Blue 1, Green 1 and 4.

I took the Green 1 to place it at the bottom left corner. Then just so I didn’t give the 6 I picked that one and placed it in one of the empty space, no requirement, row 2 column 1. The opponent got 5 more, making their score 10.

3rd ROUND. Yellow 1, Red 3, 5 and Blue 1.

I picked both Red. Placed the 3 in 1st column row 3 as it required a 3 and then the 5 was row and column 2 that required a 5. The opponent got 4, with 14 total.

4th ROUND. Green 4, 6, Yellow and Purple 5.

Yellow 5 went to the middle column that required a Yellow. Then the Green 4 for row 2 4th column that required a 4. The opponent got 11 and their total was 25.

5th ROUND. Purple 3, 6 Blue and Green 5.

The 6 was for the top row in middle space that required a 6. I guess I could have chose Blue 5 instead of Green 5 for the row 4, column 4 that required a 5, considering that the space in between already required purple. The opponent got 8 with total of 33 points.

6th ROUND. Red 5×2, Blue 6 and Yellow 2.

First the 2 was for Column 5 row 3 as it required a 2. Then I chose the Blue, first one for 2nd row, 5th column. The opponent got 10 with total of 43.

7th ROUND. Purple 1, 3, Blue 5 and Green 2.

I could have chosen the Blue but I went with both Purple. 3 was for the bottom right as it required a 3. Then the 1 was for the 3rd row, 4th column. The opponent got 7 with total of 50.

8th ROUND. Blue 1, 2, Yellow 2 and Red 2.

I picked the Red 2 and Blue 2 to complete all spaces with requirement. Blue for the 2nd row and red for the 4th. The opponent got 3, with total of 53.

9th ROUND. Purple 4, 6, Red 6 and Green 1.

I could no longer use any 6 for the last 4 spaces. So the Purple 4 for top left and green 1 next to it. The opponent got 12 with total of 65.

10th ROUND. Yellow 3 and 6, Blue 5, Green 1.

Blue 5 and Yellow 3 for the last two spaces. The opponent got 7 and their final score was 72.

I had purple with 17 while Yellow was only 13. Got only 3 sets of Color variety so 12 points while 3 sets also for Shade variety so 15 points. Final score was 44. The tools were actually useful this time but I didn’t feel like using any of them and so those scores.

Then the 2nd session, 2-handed. Red board with Battlo as the 2nd player while Green with Aurora Sagradis as the first. I used the first 3 tools from before and the 3rd public goal was MEDIUM SHADES.

1st ROUND. Green 2, 4, Blue 4, Red 3 and Purple 2.

1st player took the Blue 4 first and placed it 2nd row, leftmost column. 2nd player started with Red 3 for 3rd row, left column, followed by Green 2 to its left. Back to 1st player and they used Purple 2 to the right from first die.

2nd ROUND. 2 Yellow 2, Green 2, 4, Blue 3.

2nd player picked Blue 3 first and placed it 2nd row, 3rd column, the space that required that number. 1st player then picked Green 2 first for 3rd row, 3rd column, empty space, followed by Green 4 to the only space that required a green. Back to 2nd and they only had Yellow 2 to choose so it was placed at 2nd row, 1st column.

3rd ROUND. Blue 3, 6, Purple 6, 2 yellow 4.

Purple 6 first by 1st player for row 4, middle column. 2nd player then picked both Yellow, one for 3rd row that required a yellow and the other for 2nd row, 4th column that required a 4. 1st player then took the Blue 3 for 3rd row, 5th column.

4th ROUND. Yellow 6, Purple 4, Red 5, Blue 4, Green 6.

Red 5 first by 2nd player for their 2nd row and column. 1st player picked the yellow for the top right along with Blue 4 which was for 4th column row 4. 2nd player then picked Purple 4 for row 4, column 2.

5th ROUND. Yellow 6, Purple 1 and 6, Red 6, Blue 4.

Red 6 was taken first for top left of 1st player. Then the 2 purple were taken by 2nd player, the 6 for the top row that required it and the 1 for the space that required a purple. 1st Player then took Yellow 6 for row 3 column 1.

6th ROUND. Purple 2, Green 1 and 5, Red 1 and 4.

Green 5 first by 2nd player for the bottom row space that required a 5. 1st player then took Purple 2 for their row 2 that required that number along with Red 1 for their row 3 for the space that required it. 2nd player then took Green 1 for their bottom left corner.

7th ROUND. Purple 1, 5, Yellow 5, Red 6 and Green 5.

Yellow 5 first for row 3 of 1st player. Red 6 for row 4 of 2nd player that required a 6 followed by purple 5 for their top left corner. Last for 1st player was purple 1 for their bottom left.

8th ROUND. Purple 4, Green 6, Yellow 3, Blue 1 and Red 5.

2nd player took the 3 for the bottom right. Blue 1 for Blue space of 1st player along with Red 5 to the right of it. 2nd player took Purple 4 for their top right.

9th ROUND. Blue 4, Red 3, 5, Purple 2, Green 1.

Red 3 was taken first for 2nd row of 1st player. 2nd player took Blue 4 first for row 1 column 2. Then they spent 1 Favor token to use Lens Cutter and swapped between Green 1 and Blue 6. The Blue 6 was for their rightmost row 2. 1st player couldn’t use any purple again so Red 5 for their bottom right.

10th ROUND. Blue 1, 6, Green 1, 6 and Yellow 4.

2nd player could only use Blue 1 for their column 4 row 1. 1st player took Yellow 4 first for their last space of row 4. Then they spent 1st Favor token to use Glazing Hammer Tool, rerolling the last 3. They got Green 3 and 5 and Blue 3. Green 3 worked for their last space.

2nd player had last space that required a 2 so the last 2 dice didn’t work. Lens Cutter was also useless so they spent 2 more for Glazing Hammer, rerolling both and got Green 2 and Blue 6. That was lucky and Green 2 worked for their last space.

1st player scored 3 points first from their Favor tokens, 21 from their Yellow Private goal, 6 for 3 sets of medium Shade, 15 from 3 sets of Shade Variety and 12 for 3 sets of Color variety. Total was 57 points.

2nd Player scored 2 from Favor tokens, 20 from Purple Private goal, 6 points from Medium Shade, 15 from Shade Variety, 12 from Color Variety. Total score was 56 points. So, 1st player won but that was close.

Playing time was about 20 minutes per session.

Witchdom

More pictures of this Witchdom game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Recruit Witches to help you find ingredients and magical tools, even animals so you can brew potions in Witchdom.

This was 2nd solo play against the Ostara the White Witch, playing with the hardest difficulty setting.

In this one play, I didn’t even take the REST action to retrieve cards back to my hand. Maybe playing this mode with limited turns is a bit restrictive?

Another note for myself. This was my 2nd play of this game and I forgot about the tool. So, I actually got 2 plays and I had to stop the first one after realizing I forgot about that part to brew potions previously.

Anyway, here is how the correct play session went.

1st ROUND.

Ostara’s first action was to take just 1 resource. So, she took the blue for her starting Potion.

I played as Molly Jolly, the Red one, not that it matters. With my apprentice that can refresh market, I was supposed to take 1 from top and middle row. Apparently, even in this one, I already got it wrong. I actually took 3, an orange resource, a Red Potion and a Witch, even took it from the wrong row. I guess that error kind of ruined the flow for me. Luckily, I could have just assumed that I played the other Apprentice, still with one item too much but correct row.

2nd ROUND.

Ostara took first Animal, a red one and 2 resources, a green and a blue. She needed a purple but it was not available. I guess she could have chosen 2 green and used both to replace the missing item.

Played the Blue Witch I just took and this one allowed me to take 3, 1 from the top and 2 from the bottom. I got 2 Witches, a Red and Blue and a resource. I also needed a Purple but it was not available.

3rd ROUND.

Ostara took Witch / Potion plus 2 resources. There was an objective to score 2 Blue Witches so she took a Blue. Then for the 2 resources, a Purple and an orange. So she could complete that potion now.

I played another Blue Witch also taking 3 like before. I took 2 Witches, a Green and Purple with Purple resource. Well, I completed the starting potion with that Blue Witch and got 10 points.

4th ROUND.

Ostara took potion but none from the market worked for the Objective except the one to brew 3 different potions. So, she took a Green with highest value, 6 points. The potion required another Purple resource and there was none so she took 2, a green and Blue.

I played my Purple Witch to take 1 item from each row. Took Purple and Yellow tools plus a red.

5th ROUND.

Ostara took a Witch and a Potion, highest value available for each. A Green Witch worth 5 and a Red Potion so she could complete the previous Green Potion.

I played my other Apprentice, taking 2 items, Yellow Witch and a Green resource. Still missing red tool for my red potion.

6th ROUND.

Ostara took a potion and a Witch with the highest value again. This time, a Purple Witch and a Blue Potion.

Played my Green Witch that could also make red Potion while taking 1 item, a Red Tool. Now I had everything to make that Red potion. Scored both tools, 6 and 9 points.

7th ROUND.

Ostara already had 2 Potions so she took a Witch, a purple one that worked for one of the objectives plus 2 resources, a Green and a Red. This way, she had everything to finish the Blue Potion.

Played my Yellow Witch to take 3 items from the middle. I got a Yellow potion and 2 Purple Witches.

8th ROUND.

Ostara took 2nd Animal, a Yellow one with 1 resource, a green. She still needed 1 more green resource to finish her only potion.

I played one of my Purple, taking 2 items from the top and 1 from the bottom. A Blue Potion, Blue resource and Purple so I had everything for my Yellow Potion. Scored 6 points only.

9th ROUND.

Ostara only took 1 resource, a Green. She got everything to finish that potion and scored 9.

I played my Purple Witch to take 1 item from each row. Got an orange, purple resource plus a red Witch.

10th ROUND.

Ostara took 2 resources this time without having any Potion card. So, randomly just took 2 reds.

Played one of my 2 Red Witches to take 1 item each from top and middle. Got 2nd Purple and a Green Witch.

11th ROUND.

Ostara was supposed to take 3rd animal but the market only had 2 animals that she already had. In addition, she took 2 resources still without any potion and got 3rd red and first blue.

Played my Green Witch, taking Yellow potion from the middle and blue tool from the bottom. Didn’t make any potion.

12th ROUND.

Ostara took another resource randomly and it was 2nd Blue.

Played my red Witch just to take 1, a Yellow Witch from the top.

13th ROUND.

Ostara finally took 1 Witch and 1 Potion with the highest value, Yellow witch and Red Potion.

I played my Yellow Witch to take 2 items, a Blue Witch and Green Resource. Finished the Yellow potion and got yellow tool. Scored 11 from it.

14th ROUND.

Ostara took 2 resources again. While she had more than enough to replace the missing resources for the Potion, she didn’t have the right Witch.

I played my Blue to get a Green Tool and a Orange resource. I finished the potion and got another 11 points. The Tool was a waste probably.

15th ROUND.

Ostara’s last action was taking a Red Witch for her only potion and a single resource. She finished that last potion for 13 points.

The last thing I could do was to get an Animal, a blue one since I had extra resource left.

That was the end of the game.

I got 5 potions of 3 different colors, 2 yellows so I scored 2 objectives. Scored 2 Blue Witches, a Green, Purple and yellow so 3rd objective. This means I gave the other 3 objectives to Ostara.

Scored 18 from 3 objectives, 28 from 5 potions, 25 from 5 Witches, 10 from 4 tools and 3 from 1 Animal. Total score was 84.

Ostara scored also 18 from 3 objectives, 31 from 5 potions, 24 from 5 Witches and 7 from 2 unique Animals. Her total score was 80.

I thought her score was 68 so I guess I got it wrong. That was a close score. Actually I thought about increasing the difficulty by removing some of her weak tiles but apparently this one was challenging enough.

I could have lost had she got 3rd unique animal for extra 5 points and I was short by 1.

Playing time was about 43 minutes.

Arkwright: The Card Game

More pictures of this Arkwright: The Card Game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Run the most profitable business during Industrial Revolution by managing factories, workers, productions and advertising in Arkwright: The Card Game.

This was a solo session. Last time I played this was over 6 months ago and apparently it took a bit to remember some of the rules again. There is a chance I got something wrong here.

Started with the Clothes and Lamp factories and the development I took was the Quality. Purple opened Food and Clothes factory while Green started with Cutlery and Lamps.

1st DECADE, 1st ROUND.

I decided not to open Food factory this time so instead focusing on the next round with the Clothes. The action was to upgrade quality by 2 points to that factory. As development, I took the Engineer card.

The cube was purple, so nobody else competing or opening new factory. Green bought 1 share and Purple easily increased their value by 2.

Current Value for Green: 13 x 12, Purple: 12 x 14.

1st DECADE, 2nd ROUND.

I increased the quality again to this Clothes Factory competing against Purple. My factory was producing only 2. The demand was still at 1 and if I tried to sell both, I needed to set the appeal to 4 at least.

Assuming the purple was going to do something, they would increase their appeal to 6 and I had to increase mine to 5. I decided to win the war by setting it at 7 so I won the appeal. Somehow I decided to even push it to 8 so Purple could only sell 1. Set the price at 5 each.

So, that was what happened. Sold 2 goods so I got 10, but the cost was 10 from Workers and machine plus 9 from the factory. So I lost 9, 41 left.

For development, I improved the Quality, 3rd space.

Green and Purple bought a share. Current Value was 14 x 12 for Green and 13 x 14 for Purple.

1st DECADE, 3rd ROUND.

I had no Cutlery factory so I decided to put quality again but to the Lamp Factory with a value of 2. The development this time was Stock Exchange as I planned on buying next round.

Green was the only one with factory and got their cube out so they increased their value by 2. Purple bought a share this time.

Current Value was 14 x 14 for Green and 14 x 14 for Purple.

1st DECADE, 4th ROUND.

I took a risk this time and decided to buy shares. After setting the appeal at 5 trying to sell 2 lamps at 8 each, I should have lost about 11 money. With 41 left I still got 30. So, with my current value of 12, I bought 3 shares, one at half price and I run out of money.

The cube was neutral. Green’s appeal was still at 4 then I increased the demand to also 4 so they couldn’t sell anything. Both Purple and Green bought a share while I increased my value by 2.

Current Value was 15 x 14 for Green and 15 x 14 for Purple.

2nd DECADE, 1st ROUND.

This time, I opened and upgraded Factory. Since I had no money, trying to compete with the Food factory was kind of useless. So, I opened the Cutlery while upgrading the other 2. As for development, I pushed the Quality so I could add 3 from that point.

The Cube was Green, opening a new factory, this almost increased the wage. Purple got bought a share and the 2 sold more than 2 with Purple winning the appeal. Green increased value by 1, Purple by 2.

Current Value was 15 x 15 for Green and 16 x 16 for Purple.

2nd DECADE, 2nd ROUND.

I increase quality by 3, 2 for Clothes, currently at 6 and 1 for Cutlery. Still producing only 2 goods, I set the appeal to 8 with price at 9 each.

The cube was green, opening another Factory. Appeal was at 5 so Green didn’t sell anything and Purple’s appeal at 6 sold only 1 while I won the appeal. Purple bought 2 shares and I increased my value by 2.

However, I had no money. The revenue was 18 but the cost was 24 so I had to take a loan with half the value. Before increasing, it was 14 so I only got 7 pounds and I had 1 left.

Current Value was 16 x 15 for Green and 18 x 16 for Purple.

2nd DECADE, 3rd ROUND.

Cutlery round and I just opened a factory. This time I decided to add workers. One for this factory and 1 more for the Lamps. Nothing for Clothes.

This way I could sell at least 2 goods, 3 actually. So far, only Green competition. Set the appeal at 7 and price at 7 each. For development, I took the card to give discount wages for 4 workers and applied it to this Cutlery factory. As development, I increased the Automation.

Apparently the cube was Purple, opening another factory. After everything, both Purple and Green had appeal of 5 with the demand of 4 so they only sold 1 each. I won and sold 3.

Revenue was 21 minus 8 from workers, 2 from machines and 13 from factory. It seems I was supposed to take another emergency fund since I was short by 1 but maybe I miscalculated during the game. So my share value was 16 and got only 8 minus 1.

Green bought 2 shares, Purple bought 1. Current Value was 18 x 15 for Green and 19 x 16 for Purple.

2nd DECADE, 4th ROUND.

This time I automated the factory, turning up to 3 and all of them were on this Lamp factory. Set the appeal at 6 and price at 11 trying to sell 4 lamps with 4 machines and 4 workers. As for development I discarded the discount wage from previous factory while adding more development cards.

The cube was green and after everything, the demand was only 2. Green sold more than 2 and increased their share. Purple bought a share while I won the appeal and also sold more than 2.

The revenue was 44, minus 4 from machines and 16 from workers and another 15 from Factory. Profit was only 9. 16 pounds left.

Current Value was 18 x 16 for Green and 20 x 16 for Purple.

3rd DECADE, 1st ROUND.

I did another upgrade and I opened Food factory while upgrading the workers of other factory. Set the appeal to 3 with price at 6 trying to sell just 2 foods. As for development, I did for Marketing.

The cube was green but the demand was still at 1. Every player sold 2 or more. Purple increased the value and bought a share. Green won the appeal and increased their share by 2. I only increased by 1.

Got 12 from 2 foods, minus 8 from workers and 11 from factories. So I lost 7. 9 pounds left.

Current Value was 18 x 18 for Green and 21 x 17 for Purple.

3rd DECADE, 2nd ROUND.

Currently producing 4 clothes. I automated the process of 3 workers into 3 machines, one for this factory and the other for Cutlery. Set the appeal at 9 and price at 8. I added the card to cut wages to the Lamp factory.

Cube was purple so Green bought a share. Appeal was at 5 and Green sold nothing while Purple sold more than 2. I won the appeal.

Revenue was 32, minus 8 from workers and 2 from machines, 11 from Factory so I got 11 for profit. 20 pounds left.

Current Value was 20 x 18 for Green and 21 x 18 for Purple.

3rd DECADE, 3rd ROUND.

I added quality again, all 3 to Lamp factory. As for Cutlery, set the appeal at 8, price at 6 trying to sell 3 goods. For development, I added to this factory, the DEVELOPER card to reduce the factory cost by 2.

The cube was green so Purple bought a share. After everything, the demand was at 5 so Purple got another share for selling nothing. Green was at 7 so sold 2 and increased their share. I won the appeal and sold everything.

Got 18 revenue, minus 4 from machines, 8 from workers and 11 from factory. So lost 5 money, 15 left.

Current Value was 20 x 19 for Green and 23 x 18 for Purple.

3rd DECADE, 4th ROUND.

I only did MARKETING to this factory by 3. Set the appeal at 7, price at 16 per goods, producing 5.

Cube was neutral so both Green and Purple bought a share. The demand was at 2 so Green still sold more than 2 and increased their value by 1. I won the appeal and sold everything.

Got 80 revenue, minus 12 from workers, 4 from machines and 15 from factory so profit was 49. 64 pounds left.

Current Value was 21 x 20 for Green and 24 x 18 for Purple.

That was the end of the game. Green scored 420 and Purple scored 432.

My share value was 27 and I could only buy 2 with the leftover money. So I got 15 shares but took 2 emergency funds. So my score was only 351.

I think this was my first time pushing to take that emergency funds. Somehow I still managed to score better than last time with just 338. But no win yet against those 2.

Playing time was about 97 minutes.

Adventure of D (Second Edition)

More pictures of this Adventure of D (Second Edition) game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Defeat Elzoof, the Chaos Wizard to liberate the island and save the kingdom in Adventure of D.

This was a solo session. Playing as the Fighter with Red or Strength +1. The Tower of Death was the Blue version. All other locations were the one with underline.

1st ROUND.

The starting hand was Red 2, Red 3, Yellow 5, White 1, White 2 and Blue 2. Frozen Cloud was happening at the Great Chasm and the Teacher was kidnapped at Plain of Sorrow.

2 Reds but the total value was more than 4. So, the first thing to do was to visit Village of Dawn to learn more Skill, which was 2 spaces away from the Castle of Light.

First action was move with White 1 to Mountain of Mage. After CHECK 1 it was a 3 so a safe journey. Then Move again to Village of Dawn with White 2. The CHECK 1 result was 4 so it was a safe journey.

Discarded the Blue 2 to learn skill. Learned PROFIT from Merchant. The Fighter then took a rest at Village of Dawn with danger level of 1.

2nd ROUND.

Got Red 1, Red 2 and Red 3, Yellow 3 and 5. Necromancer Event happened at Tower of Death and Mad Goblin at Garden of Mushrooms with the previous 2 were still available.

The Fighter discarded the Red 3 to learn another skill. Learned SHINING ARMOR from Knight.

Next, Fighter moved to the Garden of Mushroom with Yellow 3. The result was a 5 so it was a safe journey. The Mad Goblin increased the Fighter’s Strength to 2 but since the Fighter had no item, lost 1 health.

The Fighter had 2 health left so he visited OLD VILLAGE OF DEW, by moving with Red 1. The result was a 4 so it was a safe journey. Then The Fighter took a rest with danger level of 1.

3rd ROUND.

Got Red 2, 4, 3, Blue 2, Yellow 1. The event at Tower of Death was gone. Master Ernie happened to appear at Plain of Sorrow while a Red Goblorc attacked the Old Village of Dew, where the Fighter was.

The Fighter challenged the Goblorc and he needed Red 10 to beat him. Started with Red 4, so the Fighter healed. The result was 3 plus 2 from the Fighter’ stats so he beat the Goblorc and got an item. The strength was increased to 3.

The Fighter continued his journey by visiting Master Ernie at Plains of Sorrow. He moved using Blue 2. The result was a 1 so he had to deal with a Shadow. With Red 3, he beat that Shadow.

To beat Master Eernie, the Fighter needed Yellow 9. He started with Red 5 so no healing. The result was a 4 so it was the exact value. Got Intelligence +1 and a new skill. Learned STEALTH from THIEF.

2 health left. The Fighter decided to take a rest at Village of Dawn, 1 space away. Moved with Yellow 1 and the result was a 6 so it was a safe journey. He took a rest.

4th ROUND.

Got Red 2, Red 3, Blue 1, 2 and 5. The Frozen Cloud finally disappeared from The Great Chasm. But a Storm was happening at Tower of Death so any Teleport would move the character there with a damage. Goblin Traveler also appeared at Lake of Hope.

The Fighter learned another skill with BLUE 5. Learned SHURIKEN from NINJA.

Next, the Fighter was trying to deal with the Goblin Traveler. While it didn’t increase his strength, the item bonus could be handy for the Tower of Death later.

The Fighter moved 1 space to Plain of Sorrow with Blue 1 and the result was 5 so it was a safe journey. He moved again with Blue 2 with result of 4 so another safe journey. Then he challenged the Traveler.

To win, he needed Red 6. Started with Red 3 so the Fighter healed. The result was a 4 plus 3 from the stats and it was more than enough. Got item, SCROLL OF POWER.

The Fighter decided to take a rest at Lake of Hope with danger level of 2. He was trying to safe 2 Red cards with total value of 4.

5th ROUND.

Got 2 Red 2, Blue 1 and Blue 3. Yellow Zombie appeared at Village of Dawn.

The Fighter moved to SWAMP OF TALIS with Blue 1 and the result was a 2 so a Shadow appeared. He beat the shadow using the Magic.

Then he met with Master Harris with 2 red 2. His Strength went up to 4. One more to enter the Tower of Death.

The Fighter had 1 health left so he had to take a rest there with danger level of 2.

6th ROUND.

Got Red 5, White 2 and 4, Blue 3. Troll Warrior appeared at Tower of Death and Giant Killer Bat at Garden of Mushroom.

The Fighter decided to take down that Troll Warrior, which was next to where he was. Moved with White 2 and the result was a 4. A Shadow attacked him and he got rid of it with Magic. Then, he challenged the Troll.

Started with Red 5 so he healed. The result was a 3 plus 4 from the Fighter’ stat. So he beat the troll and he finally got Strength of 5, ready to enter the Tower of Death. However, the Troll took some of his Magic away so he had only 3 left.

The Fighter decided to rest at Castle of Light, next to the Tower of death. He moved with White 4 and the result was 2 so, safe journey. Then he took some rest.

7th ROUND.

Got Blue 3, 4, Yellow 1 and 2, Red 4 and White 1. Pink Ice Slime appeared at Forest of Gloom. At the Castle of Light, they run Javelin contest. The Fighter decided to participate just to get more item before entering the Tower of death.

To win he only needed a 6. Started with blue 4 so he healed back. The result was a 2 so it was enough. As the reward he got RED SCROLL.

Time to beat Elzoof at Tower of death.

The fighter moved to that tower with White 1 with result of 0. A Shadow appeared and he spent magic to beat it. 2 Magic left.

The Fighter’ strenght was 5 so he managed to bypass the Magic Barrier. Next room was a trap but the Shining Armor skill protected the Fighter.

At the Altar, the Fighter discarded all 3 items and got 3 Yellow cards. He confronted Elzoof and beat him, liberating the island.

Playing time was about 33 minutes.

Learn more about the game from Adventure of D Review.

Onirim (Second Edition)

More pictures of this Onirim (Second Edition) game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Find your way out of the dream world by opening many Oneiric Doors in Onirim.

This was another solo play with every module except the Incubi pawn as usual. The 4 Dark Premonitions would have given me penalty if I got 2 Blue doors, 2 red Doors, 3 doors of any colors and 2 of one color.

The 4 Towers and 1st Door.

The Door was supposed to be Red. I got White Moon, Red Moon, Green Sun, Blue Key and Blue Glyph. First, I used the Key to reveal 5 and remove one of them. There was a Dead End so it got removed while the rest was Green Tower, Blue Sun, Blue Door and a Dream Card.

I let the Blue Sun and Green Tower got to my hand before discarding the Glyph to reveal 5 more cards. I also played my Red Moon. With the Glyph, there was a Blue Door and I couldn’t swap location so it went to the bottom of the deck with 2 Nightmares and a Dream card. Apparently I forgot one more.

Then I discarded the Green Tower to peek 4 cards since both sides had Sun. The 4 cards were Happy Dream, White Tower, Green and Blue Suns. With Happy Dream, I neutralized the Dark Premonition that would give me penalty for having 2 doors of any of the same color.

After that, I played my White Tower. Now I got White Moon, Green Sun, Dead End, 2 Blue Suns. Discarded one Blue Sun and I got Red Sun which I immediately played, replaced by another Green Sun.

Discarded the Green Sun again and I got one of the Denizen, the rainbow one to change the door color. I discarded the other Blue Sun to keep the Denizen.

Now I got 2 Dead Ends, 2 White Moons, a Green Sun. I did ESCAPE to discard all of them.

The 5 new cards were Blue Sun, White Tower, White Moon, Wild Sun and another Happy Dream. In the process of getting new hand of cards, a Nightmare and a Red Door were captured by Dreamcatcher.

I then used the 2nd Happy Dream to neutralize another Dark Premonition. This time was the one to punish me for having 3 doors of any color. Then I got a Blue Tower.

I was going to play that Blue Tower to the right of my played White. To avoid drawing a Nightmare, I discarded the other White Tower to peek 5, Green key, Blue Door, White Key, Blue Moon and Red Tower.

I got the Tower out first along with Blue Moon and White Key. Played the Blue and Red Tower. Then I discarded the White Key. Green Key and Blue Door was still there, now with another Red Tower, Dead End and a Nightmare that got removed.

I think I let the Blue Door got into Limbo and got captured before I drew the Green Key. Then I discarded the Key to reveal 5 cards. The previous Dead End was removed as the last card. Red Tower, Blue Key, a Denizen Hammer Bird and Red Door were next.

I let the Red Door got out first to be captured by 3rd Dreamcatcher. Didn’t pick the Denizen and finally got the Red Tower. Discarded it to reveal 3. There was the GREEN TOWER, last one I needed and I could use, along with Blue key and Green Sun.

Played that Green Tower and fortified everything. No need to worry the Nightmare would destroy it.

Even though I already started the set of 2 reds, I gave it up and worked on Blue. Played the Blue Moon and then the Blue Sun. Now I had White Moon, Wild Sun, Blue Key, Red Sun and Green Moon. Before that I also found the Denizen to cancel Nightmare which I took by discarding a Green Sun.

From the discard pile, I spent 7 of them to change position of the Door, 1st one which was Red with the 2nd one, the Blue. Then I played the Blue Key to finish the set and opened the Door. There was a Door at one of the Dreamcatcher and I took it from there, no need to shuffle the deck.

2nd Door.

Back to Red Door. After finishing the blue set I got Red Glyph. I took a chance and looked at the next 5 cards. There was no Door but 2 Dead Ends. All 5 cards went to the bottom of the deck.

Got Blue Moon again. After the Blue Key, I played the Wild Sun so it had some flexibility. The replacement was White Sun. So I could finish the White Doors with the Moon and Sun.

Spent 7 cards again with the Spell to change position of the Door. The Red at 2nd with White at 5th. Then I finished the set. I had to search for the White door and shuffled the deck.

3rd Door.

Still with Red Sun, Blue Moon, Green Moon and the new card were Green Glyph and Wild Key. Next Door was supposed to be Blue but the Dark Premonition for 2 Blue Doors was still active.

This means I had to change position again anyway. So, I started my Green Set with Green Moon after the White Sun. I had to play my Green Glyph as the 2nd one, planning to use the Wild Key if I didn’t get any.

I got Blue Tower and also red Moon. Discarded the Tower to peek at the next 5. There was Wild Moon, Blue Door, Blue Glyph and Red Key. I let the Wild Moon got out first.

Then I spent 7 cards again to swap position, Blue Door at 3rd with Green at 9th. After that I finished the Green Set, searched through the deck and found the Door, shuffling the deck.

4th DOOR.

Next one was White. I still had Red Sun, Blue Moon, Wild Key, Red Moon and the new one Green Sun. I decided to start a Red set. Played the Red Sun after Wild Moon then the Red Moon with a Blue Sun and White Tower as replacement.

Discarded the Tower to reveal 3. There was White Glyph, Nightmare and Blue Moon. To avoid the Nightmare, I let the Glyph got out first so I could use it to send cards to the bottom. There was Blue Moon, Nightmare, Green Door, Happy Dream and White Key. While there was a Door, I had not enough card to cast the spell to swap position. So those 5 went to the bottom of the deck. I was hoping to get the Happy Dream back so it was the bottommost.

Somehow I got the 4th of the Happy Dream Card. Played it to neutralize the one with 2 Blue Doors. After that, a Nightmare showed up.

My Denizen friend then just sent it straight to the Limbo, not removing it. It got captured along with Red Door. Unfortunately, there was another Nightmare and I had no choice but to use the Wild Key to remove it.

Now I had Blue Moon, Blue Sun, Red Sun, Blue Moon and Green Tower. I had enough to swap position so I swapped the White Goal at 4th with the Red after it. Then I finished the Red set with Red Sun. Took the door from 3rd Dreamcatcher.

5th Door.

Next one was White. Got another Red Sun as replacement. Discarded the Green Tower to reveal 3 which were Red Tower, Green Key and Red Sun.

I had 3 cards for another Blue Door but I needed something other than Sun before that. Let the Red sun out first and discarded it. With the Red Tower next, I used it to reveal 5. Green Key was there along with White key, Nightmare, Blue Sun and White Moon.

So, I let the only Moon out first and played it along with Blue Sun. Got the 2 keys, kept the White and discarded the Green to remove a Nightmare. The other 4 were 2 Blue Sun, a Denizen and White Sun.

I discarded the Blue Moon to take in the Denizen, which was another rainbow. Before completing the Blue set, I spent 7 cards again to swap position, the White at 5th with Blue at 9th.

Then I completed the set with Blue Sun as the last. I had to search through the deck to find the door and shuffled the deck.

6th Door.

A White Door again for 6th. I still had Blue Sun, Red Sun, White Key, White Sun and Blue Key.

Discarded the Blue Key to see the next 5. There was a Nightmare that I got rid but also a Dead End. Along with Red Key and Green Moon was a Wild Door. I had the White Key so I decided to just opened the 6th Door using this one.

7th Door.

Next one was Green. I had 2 Dead Ends, Blue and White Sun and Red Key. I discarded the Key and the 5 cards had Red Key, Red Sun, Blue Glyph, Green Door and Green Sun. So I could complete the next door with the Glyph.

That was what I did. I completed the 7th Door, a Green while sending 4 cards to the bottom of the deck with 3 red and 1 green.

8th Door.

Next one was Red Door. I had Blue and White Sun and the 2 Dead Ends with the new card being Wild Moon. I still couldn’t finish the red since the Dark premonition was still active.

So, I decided to finish another White. Played the White Sun after Green Moon, followed by Wild Moon. Got another White Sun to finish it. Before that, I swapped position again between Red at 8th and White at 9th.

Then I finished the set, opening the White Door. I had to shuffle the deck again.

9th Door.

Back to Red Door and the Dark Premonition was still there. My hand had Blue Sun, 2 Dead Ends, Red Key and Sun.

Discarded the Red Key to see the next 5. Got rid of Dead End and there were White Glyph, Red Door, Wild Sun and White Sun. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use the Glyph to open the door or I had to lose all remaining red cards in the deck.

So, instead I used the White Glyph to start the last White set. I forgot when it happened but I actually got another Denizen, the Treasure Keeper. I let it kept my Wild Sun.

Another Denizen showed up which was the Harpoon. I invited that one by removing a Red Sun. Got Green Key, Blue Tower, White Sun and 2 Dead Ends.

I discarded the Tower first just to make sure the next 3 were safe. They were 2 reds and a Green. So I swapped position again between the Red at 9th and the White at 12th.

This is where I got it wrong. Last set was White Sun, Wild Moon and White Sun. After that I started a new one with White Glyph, thinking it was 2nd of the new set instead of 1st. This was 2nd time that I got it wrong because I mixed it with Wild color.

Oh, well so I didn’t really win.

Anyway, with that incorrect play, I played another White sun, thinking I finished the set or this 9th door.

10th Door.

Next one was Green. I still had 2 Dead Ends, Green Key, Green Sun and Red Moon. Played the Red Moon to start a set or just letting me play a Sun card in the line. I was hoping that I could use the Key just to open the Door but then again, I still had a couple of Nightmares in the deck.

So, I discarded it and there were 2 Nightmares, along with Dream card, Blue Door and Red Key. I actually let the other Nightmare took all my hand of cards with 2 Dead Ends, Green and Red suns.

The 4 Dreamcatchers were already full so before it was triggered, I had to use one release card. I got Red Key, Happy Dream, Blue Moon and Suns and a Dead End. That Dreamcatcher was full again with 3 doors.

I finally neutralized the last Dark Premonition. Got White Key and I played Red Key in the line as 2nd card for the Red Set. Discarded the Key and found Blue Moon, Green Door, Green Glyph and 2 Dead Ends, removing one.

I let the Glyph out first to finish the Door while sending Dead End, 2 White Sun and a Dream card at the bottom of the deck.

11th Door.

Almost finish a red set but the next door was supposed to be Blue. I had Blue Moon, Dead End, Blue Sun, Blue Moon again and Red Moon. So I could finish the red set.

Spent 7 cards again to swap position between the Blue at 11th with Red after it. Then I finished the set with Red Moon. I had to search in the deck and shuffle it.

12th Door.

Back to Blue again. I already had everything for the Blue Door. First I let the Harpoon Denizen checked the next 5 cards to remove any Nightmare. They only got 1. Also found Red Glyph, Green Moon and Sun and Dream card.

I had to use another release card to empty one Dreamcatcher after one of them got overloaded. After that I started the Blue set with Blue Sun, got 2nd Dead End in hand. Followed by Blue Moon and got White Sun. I finished it with Wild Sun that was kept by The Treasure Keeper.

13th Door.

Last door which was a Red. I knew there was one more Glyph card, a red one and I had not enough to complete a set of 3.

So I played the Blue Moon and Red Sun before I got Nightmare. I let it removed all cards in hand.

Last 10 cards and I got 2 Green Sun and a Moon, Red Glyph and White Sun. I knew that if I used the Glyph, I could find the last Door in the last 5 cards.

Here is the thing. The other 4 cards were 3 Dream Cards and a Nightmare. So, even if I could finish the Door, I had not enough cards to refill back my hand. The remaining 2 Dreamcatchers were already full as well and no way to release it.

On top of that, I still got that White set wrong. So, I didn’t win.

Playing time was about 64 minutes.

Long Shot: The Dice Game

More pictures of this Long Shot: The Dice Game solo session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Make the most profit in Horse Race by buying, betting on horses and run business with the concession area in Long Shot: The Dice Game.

This was my 2nd time playing the game and first time with the solo mode. Last play was over 2 months ago and I have to say, even if I still need to check the rules again, it is not that hard to come back with the main rule.

A bit overview with the solo mode. In this one, you are playing against Roland Wright, the solo opponent. They have their own player board that will tell you what they will do based on the dice roll of that round. The opponent will still make bet and buy horses, getting money or even influence the position of horses. No concession part for them but they still use the starting bets for 2 horses just like regular player.

In general, it is not that difficult to run this solo bot. However, some of them are still unclear even after some clarification in the rulebook. Then I found out that the solo mode is designed by game developer, not the main designer themselves.

The weird thing is that there was disagreement with how to interpret the rule in the game between the 2 parties. Even worse and weirder to see that the developer has to ask for more money from the publisher in public in order to release FAQ for the solo mode. Now I wish I rather not see that or know about it before purchasing the game. Oh, well. As a result, none of them are answering the questions anymore and new players have to rely on the community for some answers and interpretation.

Well, regardless, I still had fun with the solo mode, luckily.

Here is how it went. My starting bet was to #4 and 8 while the opponent with #4 and 6.

1st ROUND. #8 and 2.

8 was 2 spaces ahead with 2 and 4 followed by 1 space. I used for concession while somehow the opponent pushed that #8 2 spaces back.

2nd ROUND. #1 and 2.

With #6 moved 1 space. I decided to buy this one, CHAIN REACTION for 10 so I had 2 money left. The opponent made a $2 bet on the lead horse which was that #1.

3rd ROUND. #8 and 3.

8th moved again and was in the lead, dragging along 2 and 4 so they caught up with #1. Still used this for Concession. So this one it seems I misunderstood the rule for the opponent. With those 2 dice, the opponent was supposed to mark the horse card they owned with the number itself. However, at this point, they had not bought anything. So it was supposed to take the *, the bottom action which was placing bet in the lead which was that #8.

4th ROUND. #7 and 2.

7th moved 2 spaces, catching up with 2 and 6, pushing 1 to catch up with 8 and dragging #3 1 space. I used this one for Concession as well. This time the opponent pushed back my horse in the lead 2 spaces. It was #1.

5th ROUND. #5 and 3.

This moved 3 spaces so with #4 and 8, were in the lead. Also pushed #1 to 2nd space from the starting line. Another concession action for me and still not completing any row or column. This time they mark #4 on card #7.

6th ROUND. #2 and 2.

2 was in the lead now with #5. I used it to mark the jersey. This time I got it right with the opponent. They didn’t have horse yet so they did the bottom action, pushing #4 2 spaces ahead since it had their highest bet.

7th ROUND. #4 and 3.

#4 was in the lead, not that close to the 2nd, especially since it added 1 more movement on its card. 2nd place was #2. I marked the Jersey to mark the #1. The opponent got more money back to 20.

8th ROUND. #1 and 3.

#1 got to 2nd place but still 3 spaces behind the lead while dragging #6, 2nd from behind. So, I used this for concession to complete a column. Thanks to the power from the horse, I also completed the 1st row so I got 2 bonuses. Got 7 money and the free bet which I placed to my horse. The opponent added $3 bet to #4.

9th ROUND. #2 and 3.

#2 was in 2nd place with #1 right behind it. I marked the helmet so got the pair for this one. The opponent added $2 to #4 again, currently at 7.

10th ROUND. #3 and 1.

With 6 and 7, the 3 were 2 spaces from starting line while pushing #1, catching up with #2. This time I used the wild to mark #4, the helmet. The opponent finally bought horse #4. This is where I learned to anticipate what the opponent was about to do and I could have bought the horse myself.

11th ROUND. #6 and 2.

This pushed #2 and #3 so the #2 caught up with the lead and 7 was the only left behind. I marked concession, no bonus yet. Free Bet for #4 from the opponent, currently at 8.

12th ROUND. #7 and 2.

7 caught up with 3 and 6 so 8 was the last. This also pushed 1 and 4 so 4 was winning. Another concession action for me. The opponent pushed my horse back 2 spaces.

13th ROUND. #6 and 2.

6 almost caught up with #1 but pushed 2 so it caught up with #4. I used wild to change it to 4 for concession. This completed 3rd column and 4th row so I got 2 bonuses. My horse also allowed me for one more concession space so I also completed 3rd row.

So I got 3 bonuses. I chose #7, then bought a horse, #2 for 10, $6 left and picked free bet for that #2. The opponent added bet to their #4, currently at 9.

14th ROUND. #3 and 2.

#3 and #1 were in 3rd position, while #8 was still the last. I marked the jersey for number 2. $1 extra bet for #4 from the opponent, currently at 10.

15th ROUND. #8 and 1.

#8 caught up with #7 as the last while pushed both #2 and #4 as the lead. Marking the jersey as well for this for #1. The opponent bought random horse but it was #3 for 8. It was at 4th position so it was not bad.

16th ROUND. #4 and 3.

#4 moved total 4 spaces while dragging #2 and #1. I used it to mark concession, completing a column. I could have completed another column and a row thanks to my horse but it seems I forgot. The bonus was to push that #4 back 3 spaces. The opponent got $3 so they had 5.

17th ROUND. #1 and 2.

I marked the helmet so I could still add some bet for this one. Oh, I got wrong with the opponent this time. I resolved column 3 instead. They should have added more bet to their #4, not just marking.

18th ROUND. #7 and 2.

#7 was still 3rd from behind but this pushed #4, #3 and #1. I made additional bet to #2 after using my last wild, adding $3. For the 3rd time, they pushed my #1 back 2 spaces. Lucky that my horses were in the same spaces.

19th ROUND. #5 and 2.

#5 was 5th along with #6 and this pushed #4 and #1. Marked the Jersey for the number 2. The opponent made $2 bet to 2 horses in the lead, #4 and #2. They had $1 left.

20th ROUND. #1 and 2.

#1 now in 2nd, dragging #6. Made additional bet to this horse and no money left for me. Unfortunately, this actually pushed their highest bet horse which was #4 to finally cross the finish line instead of making bet since they had not enough money.

21st ROUND. #5 and 3.

Currently at 4th place while pushing #2 and #1. Marked the helmet for this just in case I could make more bet. The opponent’s highest bet right now was #6 and they marked the 8th card.

22nd ROUND. #6 and 3.

Currently taking 4th place while pushing #2 and 3. Marked the helmet again. The opponent only gained $1 since that card only had 1 mark.

23rd ROUND. #1 and 2.

My #1 crossed the finish line as 2nd place while dragging #6 at 4th. I marked the Jersey for #2. The opponent finally had money to make bet on my #2.

24th ROUND. #2 and 1.

Almost won 3rd place while pushing #5 at 5th. I marked the last space of concession and completed 2 bonuses. Got money and marked helmet #3. The opponent got $3.

25th ROUND. #6 AND 2.

#6 was 4th in no bet zone and only that horse while pushing #2 to cross the finish line as 3rd place. That was the end of the game.

I scored 40 from the 2 winning horses, 30 from 6 sets of helmet and jersey, 54 from bets and 9 money left. Total score was 133.

Roland Wright scored 35 for winning horse, $3 left and 86 from the bet with total score 124. However, had I played correctly they might have gotten 12 to 24 extra points from additional bets to their winning horse. So they could have won the game. On the other hand, I did have the chance to buy that horse myself before them. Well, maybe next time.

Playing time was about 64 minutes.

Firm with Brownies

More pictures of this Firm with Brownies game session on TikTok and on Instagram.

Work together with the Brownies Spirit to expand your business in Firm with Brownies.

This was another solo play with the official solo variant but only the base game content. One thing I just realized from this play is, if you have taken all of the Level 1 goods early, there is a good chance you will not see them again. This can affect how you choose to build those production chains.

This made me understand the idea of losing a turn just to completely refresh the market. Even then, you might still not see them again and if you choose to get points by getting more buildings, you probably have shorter game.

Also, having some small value buildings at the end could help you to buy them by selling highest value level 2 products along with other goods. It may shorten the game if it is done early but in the last round, that could be a viable strategy, even if you don’t plan to use its function at all.

Anyway, here is what happened.

1st ROUND. The Level 2 goods were Iron, Bread, Stone Wall, Leather and Fishing Rod. I don’t usually choose this but this time I decided to take advantage of the Stone to Cut Stone and Stone Wall chain, especially since Cut Stone was available at the start.

So, with my first action, I traded 3 coins for 2 Clays and 1 Stone. Letting go the Spinning Mill.

2nd ROUND. I upgraded the Stone into Cut Stone, Level 1, increasing its value from 1 to 3. A Brick then became available. I let go the Charcoal Hut.

3rd ROUND. I upgraded one of the Clay into that Brick, increasing its value from 1 to 3. Another Cut Stone showed up. Letting go Milk Shop.

4th ROUND. I spent the other Clay and the Cut Stone and turned them into a Stone Wall, Level 2 and the value became 8 from 4. Brick Factory was out.

5th ROUND. I sold that Stone Wall with value of 8 to buy Sheep for 5 and 3 value 1 resource, a Stone, Wood and Clay. Meat was not available in this session so Butcher was out.

6th ROUND. I spent a Clay to build Quarry so the value became 6 from 3. Then with that building, I spent my Stone to make Cut Stone and the value became 3 from 1. Tough decision but I let go Cattle Ranch even though I could use it for the Leather chain.

7th ROUND. With Cut Stone and Clay again, I made that Stone Wall, value 8. Cloth was not in this game so I let go Tailor.

8th ROUND. I sold again that Stone Wall for 8 to buy Masonry for 6 and 2 resources, a Wheat and another Clay, trying to get Cattle. 2 VP so far. Iron was available but I let go Ironworks.

9th ROUND. I took Cattle by spending Wheat and Clay. Restaurant was out since there was no meat.

10th ROUND. I had Sheep and I could get Thread by just showing my Sheep. Sawmill was out.

11th ROUND. I had Thread and Wood so I made the Fishing Rod with a value of 8. Fish Shop was out.

12th ROUND. I sold that Fishing Rod for 8 to buy Tannery for 6 along with Stone and Clay. Then I immediately used that building to turn my Cattle into Leather. No Milk so Dairy building was out.

13th ROUND. I sold that Leather for 8 to buy Cattle for 5 and Charcoal for 3. Turned the Cattle into Leather again. Finally letting go Water Mill, the last of 5 starting buildings.

14th ROUND. I had Charcoal and Sheep for the value of 8, sold them to buy Market Building. Then I used the Market to sell Leather and bought Brick, Charcoal again, Wheat and Stone. 4 VP so far. Letting go the Castle.

15th ROUND. The Wheat I just took was converted into Flour with a value of 3. No Milk so Cheese Factory was out.

16th ROUND. I had Brick so I spent it to build Bread Factory, 1 VP. Then with Charcoal and Flour, the Bread Factory made a Bread. I sold the Bread using Market to buy BAKERY for 11. I think I let go Abattoir since there was no Meat.

17th ROUND. I had a stone and I used it to catch a Fish from value 1 to 5. No Cloth so Textile Factory was out.

18th ROUND. I sold that Fish for 5 to buy Charcoal, Cotton and Wheat. Mansion was out of the game.

19th ROUND. I converted the Cotton into Thread since it was available again. Fishing Pond was out.

20th ROUND. The building deck run out of cards so this was the last round. I just realized, I made a mistake here and I failed to win.

First, I had Wheat and converted it into Flour. With flour and Charcoal, I made Bread in Bread Factory. Then I sold the Bread again using Market to buy Barrel Factory and Sheep.

I still had Stone which I converted into Cut Stone using Quarry. Then the Cut Stone with Clay was turned into Stone Wall by using Masonry building.

So, here is where it failed. I already did my main action so I couldn’t make this next one, to sell Stone Wall and Sheep for 13 to buy Shoe Store for 2 VP.

That means without that Shoe Store, I only got 8 VP from the target of 10. The better option was to use the Bread for Bakery to get 2 VP instead of buying Barrel Factory for 1. Still that got me only 9 VP and I still failed. Oh, well. Maybe I should have just stayed with the Bread Production chains right from the start.

I think I still had a chance. Maybe during the 19th ROUND, I skipped turning Cotton into Thread but instead Wheat to Flour just to get 1 more action. Then I did the rest of my 20th actions and I still had a Sheep and Stone Wall to buy that Shoe Store. So I could have scored 10 exact points.

Playing time was about 52 minutes.

Learn more about the game from Firm with Brownies Review.

Final Words

So, those are all of the games I played. Hope that entertains or helps to give some idea what kind of tabletop games we can find on the market.

Some are new and some are older games. The complete list of the older games and my reviews about them can be found from this list and this one for the more recent games and if you are interested in previous reports of each game.

I keep saying that these tabletop games can be a good way to spend some time without looking at the screen of our gadget. If we do have someone close, that we can play with, there are other games where we can play cooperatively or competitively but with a lot of player interaction.

The game can be very fast or like a filler type or it can take hours to play. Some games can also be played in solitaire mode and they are still more engaging than other entertainment activity. Some may say, it’s like a workout for the gray matter of our brain.

Thanks for reading.

 

Mark M.