we had a busy week and only managed to get our group together for a long session Terraforming Mars- it was a 4 player game with one new player at the table. While the newcomer did good, it came down to us other three to see who contributes the most.

I had a terrible start with almost all cards being useless early game. I had the Tardigrade card as my only card for 3 generations. I managed to claw my back back into the game by pursuing aggressive card-drawing strats. Placing oceans on the card-drawing hexes and take every opportunity to draw more until I had some decent cards on the table. Only ever build 2 cities and 2 greeneries but managed to get a head in the terraforming score by having some good science cards. In the end it was not enough still. My gf won the game scoring a whooping 23 points just from her cards and additional 10 points being first with 3 cities and 8 construction cards. She also got the Titan/Iron competition and flew ahead by 3 points. In-between me and her was our third player who is a longtime veteran of the game. While she had an amazing early game, her late-game faultered a bit.

For me, the game plays extremely well with 4 even though it can be a bit long.

I played a few hours of an ongoing Carcassonne game. Currently fighting over a massive field and losing…

A little bit of Go when I’m not too frustrated from loosing the last game (don’t know why this happens only with Go, but I can’t help it) and Netrunner.

Tuesday our group met. First we played some weird memory game about being an orchestra conductor which was really bad. Then we tried the 5th mission in Port Royal Big Box… twice… in vain. We ended the evening early because:

On Wednesday we met again to play DnD. My character had an emotional reunion with a lost family member and we encountered our first gelatinous monster.

On Friday there was a public game night in town which I attended. The group I landed with first played two rounds of Frantic - a domestic UNO alternative but for some of them it was too chaotic so we cut the game short. We then played Ricochet Robots and the ladies at the table completely trunced me out of the gate. But after about 4 rounds I got up to speed and managed to race ahead after all. From this we moved on to X-Code where we managed to win the 4 basic missions and the first mission of the blue box. At this point we believed that the evening would wind down soon so we snuck in a quick game of Shark Attacks - where I finally did not come in in last place! Only to then learn that the game night would go on a bit longer this time. So picked up Las Vegas as well. I hadn’t played so many different games in one setting in ages and really enjoyed it. The evening also served as a nice way to cap off the organizer’s 5 year run in hosting these game nights.

The week started with

Flamecraft. Still cute. Still like the game.

Thursday a brand new Kickstarter was played:

Voidfall. We only managed 2/3 since it was for all players their first game. Once you get the hang of the game each turn plays smoothly.

Cabo. There is always time for a quick round and the opportunity to play a kamikaze move. And fail miserably.

Fort. Introduced the game to two new groups. Everyone just likes this entry friendly game.

Terraforming Mars. When is the right time to buy into the goals? I still don’t understand it 🥲

Got to break out The Witcher: Old World for the second time. This time with 3 players (first time was 2P) and it went over really well. It was definitely one that everyone wants to play again, especially after getting a feel for how a lot of the deckbuilding and fighting works.

The games from the Nerdz Day sale have finally arrived so we had lots of new stuff to get through.

• Ark Nova: First play had a rough start because I haven’t spent enough time with the rules beforehand so some of it didn’t click until the second half of the play. The game really stuck with both of us though and we are very much looking forward to our next try. I think it will play a lot more smoothly once we are solid with the rules. Got in some BGA plays too since.
• Orichalcum this is a fun one too, spatial puzzle combined with some light engine building. Only concern is that the 2p rules are a bit fiddly, might try some changes to streamline it a bit. It doesn’t feel good to discard half of the card-tile (and sometimes monster) combos that we carefully assemble in the draft area and the turn-order check is very easy to forget.
• Flamecraft fell a little flat, feels both too little and too much (table hog!) at the same time. Will have to see how it fares after a few more plays.
• Mille Fiori is neat and looks really good on the table. Feels a bit like a roll & write but with nice tactile components. The shared board play reminded me of Faiyum a bit. We are planning another play soon with a 2p variant from BGG that tightens up the board.

We also got some expansions that we’ve yet to try. And the biggest project to tackle is the LOTR LCG. Watched a bunch of videos and studied the rules so I think I am almost ready to dive in. Will try solo first, I want to make sure that I have a very solid understanding of it before we try the co-op.

Edit: turns out we made a pretty big rules mistake in Orichalcum, we were refilling the draft board after every pick! I think it will be even better once we play it right :)