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Arkham LCG basically killed my interest in any other Lovecraft-themed game
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Nov 2, 2021 02:51
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Because you love it so much?
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Nov 2, 2021 03:07
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Did a Halloween themed game day on the weekend and I'll probably post a wrap of that tomorrow when I get some time. Been catching up on the AwShux previews, and hooooo boy does Brian Boru look like a lot of fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3WEzaCpifM&t=41s Trick taking + area control in a euro? Yes please and thank you.
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Nov 2, 2021 11:45
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Infinitum posted:Because you love it so much? Don't know if that's what Llyranor meant, but for me, kinda yeah. There's way too many Lovecraft games, feels like it's become this decade's 'zombies' theme. I got the one good one, that's all I need (also 3ed for when I want to play it in a bigger group).
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Nov 2, 2021 11:46
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Played 3p Oceans last night. Started off with the group floundering a bit but by the end we were all generating synergistic fish stacks and gobbling up the seas. Had the great moment of "Next time we play let's try out the Deep deck?" "What's that?" "Oh, check it out, every card is unique." " "
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Nov 2, 2021 12:18
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I can't believe it took me this long to start playing Spirit Island. I picked it up about a week ago and I've already got 5 plays in. Three solo, one 2p and one 3p and it's loving great. I mean, it won't be a revelation to anyone, it has been sitting around the top 10 of bgg for years after all but despite knowing it'd be right up my alley I just never got around to picking it up. Today I also ended up getting all the expansions, unpacked them and can't wait to dig in because I love the direction they went with the design space. To be honest, in the core box I'm only really interested in 4 of the 8 spirits. The low complexity spirits are super solid and the core of the games is just excellent no matter what spirit you are piloting but they don't inspire me to dig in and try to figure them out like some of the expansion spirits do. I'll maybe come back around to them at some point but some of the super high complexity spirits look wild and I'm looking forward to tackling them. I also graduated to adversaries today, picked Sweden randomly out of the bunch and just went up against the first level. Played Oceans Hungry Grasp and River Surges in Sunlight, figured they should be a great team to push everyone into the ocean. It kinda worked, but I had a super rocky start because River started literally in the far corner of his board as far as possible from the middle of the map and of course without some lucky power draws Ocean struggles to influence the inland corner of his board so the invaders had a few turns to run rampant. Some unlucky early invader deck flips on the lands that started blighted meant that I flipped to the blighted island super early, maybe turn 3 or 4 and I was ready to pack it up and start again. This was the first time I'd ever had a blighted island and it felt like it was gonna be a death spiral, especially because I really hadn't had a chance to set up properly but I decided to push on and I'm glad I did. Having to forget a power or lose a presence every turn was rough, it made being able to get range to some over-run areas pretty rough especially on turns I had to reclaim cards and couldn't put presence out but I was able to manage it better than expected. Despite feeling like I was on the edge of defeat for pretty much the whole game I was able to hold on for a clutch terror level 3 victory just before the stage 3 invader cards looked like they were going to bury me. I love the arc this game has built into it, it feels like you are struggling to keep your head above water while you chip away little by little, looking at the invader deck tick along, certain that you aren't generating enough fear to get yourself over the line. Then suddenly, after a couple of key turns, you have just a little bit of breathing room and you can start to push back. I'm sure once I get more familiar with it the struggling feeling will fade a bit as I recognise that sort of game arc but its pretty cool and even if I'm playing on easy mode the game does a good job of making me feel like I'm working hard for these wins. It blows my mind that people play this game using two fully leveld adversaries simultaneously and I can't wait until I get there too because it feels like it will be very rewarding. I also played Pax Pamir 2nd ed. for the first time not solo and it also loving slaps. I'm super glad to be out of  lockdown now so I can go hangout and play board games with my friends because it's the best.And I picked up the cartographers collectors edition which looks pretty rad too. It's a good time to be a board gamer.
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Nov 2, 2021 13:02
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We enjoyed our first game of The Red Cathedral. Felt reminiscent of one of our favourites, Grand Austria Hotel, but a smidge lighter and with a rondel and a shared "construction" space. I did beat my wife by controlling the highest tower, with her controlling all the other three, and we had a brief chat afterwards about how it would be a flaw if that was all you needed to do to win each time, but I would imagine given different weightings of decorations and timed exploitation of the recognition vs prestige points scoring that that is not the case. The quick turns are definitely a plus, and the level of brain crunch feels really well-calibrated. Looking forward to giving it another whirl. Not sure it will replace GAH in our affections as yet, but it could be a great option for when we have a hankering for it but want something a touch quicker and lighter.
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Nov 2, 2021 13:06
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MikeCrotch posted:Hard same. Nice game but is too fiddly and long for a storytelling experience and the actual decisions you get to make. Kind of falls in and awkward space between heavy and casual. That's a good description. Like, what is this game trying to do and who is this game for? It's fiddly enough that one may as well play a fully blown RPG.
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Nov 2, 2021 15:14
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grate deceiver posted:Don't know if that's what Llyranor meant, but for me, kinda yeah. There's way too many Lovecraft games, feels like it's become this decade's 'zombies' theme. I got the one good one, that's all I need (also 3ed for when I want to play it in a bigger group). Don't care for the theme for the other games, but the balance of deck construction and narrative campaign in Arkham LCG is just top notch
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Nov 2, 2021 17:18
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Yeah there are some things that definitely annoy me in Arkham LCG (the use of tiered encounter decks would help things so much) but I appreciate how every scenario attempts to try something new. I could probably play other Cthulu-themed stuff but I doubt I'd want to own any of it, except some of the more different stuff, like Unfathomable.
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Nov 2, 2021 18:29
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My issue with Arkham LCG is that the revised edition style doesn't have the scant number of cards, including dividers, that the "Return to" series has. Like bump the cost by :tenbux: or something and give me that stuff without having to pay for another box and storage solution!
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Nov 2, 2021 18:38
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GrandpaPants posted:My issue with Arkham LCG is that the revised edition style doesn't have the scant number of cards, including dividers, that the "Return to" series has. Like bump the cost by :tenbux: or something and give me that stuff without having to pay for another box and storage solution! There are really nicely designed print-at-home divider cards linked off BGG.
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Nov 2, 2021 18:52
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OneSizeFitsAll posted:We enjoyed our first game of The Red Cathedral. Felt reminiscent of one of our favourites, Grand Austria Hotel, but a smidge lighter and with a rondel and a shared "construction" space. I did beat my wife by controlling the highest tower, with her controlling all the other three, and we had a brief chat afterwards about how it would be a flaw if that was all you needed to do to win each time, but I would imagine given different weightings of decorations and timed exploitation of the recognition vs prestige points scoring that that is not the case. What was the play time including teach?
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Nov 2, 2021 22:22
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nordichammer posted:What was the play time including teach? My wife watched a video a couple of days before, so she had a pretty good grasp of the game before we played. I'd say we went over the rules on the evening for between 5 and 10 minutes, including her asking questions to fill in gaps. To someone completely fresh but familiar with board games I think 10 minutes would be sufficient to explain the rules. It took us another 10 maybe to set up, referring to the manual as we did, then a touch over an hour to play I think. Definitely could be done quite a bit more quickly when familiar with it (and when not two frazzled parents late on Saturday night, one of them possibly under some herbal influence).
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Nov 3, 2021 00:36
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Oh by the way, you'd be proud of me Infinitum - I finally managed to play my first non-SA game of Fury of Dracula this past weekend! (It was actually pure coincidence that it happened to be on Halloween. I'd been pestering people for months, and finally the stars aligned  ) What's more, I, Dracula, won the game!So, I started off near Castle Dracula in the city of Constanta, before meandering about the region (avoiding the castle of course, since going there would set off a Batman-esque beacon for all to see) before the hunters eventually deduced that that's roughly where I must've started. So, the hunters quickly approached via rail and fast horses (they used FH rather well. Two got FH right near the start, then kept the 1w train tickets, so they would never draw them when using FH on their turn) and nearly jumped me. At this point though, a new vampire with a rumour token dropped off the board, giving me piles of influence! The hunters very nearly caught up to me, but I escaped via Athens (laying down whatever the fog trap card is called) into the sea. I then moved west and landed in Cagliari, on the island of Sardinia. At this point the hunters were struggling to figure out where I landed. One even suggested Cagliari, before one of the others said "pfft, what idiot would go there?" and they all had a good laugh while I tried to keep up a poker face. I then hid on the island, to further sow confusion - since clearly I had effectively confirmed I was on the mainland, if I had "moved" again! So they spent a while longer moving around checking everything.Now, at this stage one of the hunters decided to hit up Athens, to clear the rumour token I placed on it - just in case it's another vampire. It wasn't. So he was hit with double-fog and was delayed. Right after this, I hopped into the sea again and went to Spain. Just as the last of the fog cleared and the delayed hunter went into the sea to pursue me west, I got a card which allowed me to place multiple storms. Sorry! That basically put him out of action for almost the rest of the game, since he was so far away from me. I also got the Great Wolf ally, which I used to harass the van Helsing player every single turn, since I knew at least two of the others had counters to it.Then, the crucial final part of the game. I was right up there in influence, and it was starting to get close to the third week of the game. As I said before, I had the great wolf keeping Van Helsing busy - he was at around 3/4 health left, and resting every night to counted the wolf attacks. He then went into the city I was in the previous turn and fell victim to a bite! An aristocratic vampire was resting in the city, and I had the card that allowed me to return it to my hand and give the searching player a bite token. Then I lucked out and got the 'roadblock' card! I moved into Lisbon on my turn, blocked off access to Iberia for all the non-van Helsing players, then waited for him to rock up. He felt compelled to push my position due to the timer running out, while the others were delayed getting around my roadblocks. He attacked me at night - I used 'strength' to destroy his weapon (IIRC it was a rifle. Doesn't matter though) and then 'strength' again, to kill him. The influence from that was enough to push me over to a victory - huzzah! Also, Mina Harker gets an honourable mention - she spent the entire game without getting a train ticket, at any point. That hunter travelled everywhere by foot, for whatever reason. I don't think many players can claim that! 
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Nov 3, 2021 07:43
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Anyone have any experience with 1883? It looks kind of odd by 18xx standards. The one playthrough I could see on the Geek seemed to imply the gimmick of the random events was kind of lame.
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Nov 3, 2021 19:02
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FulsomFrank posted:Anyone have any experience with 1883? It looks kind of odd by 18xx standards. The one playthrough I could see on the Geek seemed to imply the gimmick of the random events was kind of lame. I have. That's more or less correct. I wanted more randomness and just wild events, to really lean into random historical events, but it's tame and can mostly be mitigated by the political cards. So you're mostly just down a few dollars, which is huge in xx of course, but nothing like I was hoping. The bus route isn't as interesting as I was hoping, since I wanted a real viable threat to the railroads. The randomness of G trains exploding is, just like event/political cards, just a minor setback. Reminds me to post about getting my dunes poker chips which will probably be my poker chip set for life. I have 1/5/20/100/500 for xx games, but I could always get 0.25, 10, 25 for home poker games if I ever started to do those. Got a bunch of the nice tile trays from rails on board as well. After trading/selling a bunch of xx and knowing I have friends who have other titles, I'm more or less satisfied and set at keeping only 17/USA, 24, 30, 41, 49, 60, and 89. Might want to try 22 and 70 one of these days, but I think that set is pretty much good for life. Chill la Chill fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Nov 3, 2021 |
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Nov 3, 2021 19:28
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Chill la Chill posted:I have. That's more or less correct. I wanted more randomness and just wild events, to really lean into random historical events, but it's tame and can mostly be mitigated by the political cards. So you're mostly just down a few dollars, which is huge in xx of course, but nothing like I was hoping. The bus route isn't as interesting as I was hoping, since I wanted a real viable threat to the railroads. The randomness of G trains exploding is, just like event/political cards, just a minor setback. Thanks for the feedback. What are the amounts of your denominations? I've been this close to ordering some nice chips for myself but it's tough to justify when the set I've got are heavy and fine as it is. I know Clearclaw has a suggested breakdown on his profile. Also, A) where did you find 1841 and 1870/what do you think about them and B) you're missing 18MEX on that list...
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Nov 3, 2021 20:15
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I really like the new The Crew deep sea edition. The task cards are the only real different part, but the new task cards are really clever. The new cards are things like "I will take at least 3 tricks" or "I will take a trick with a 2 of any color" and so on. I think it's clever because it basically boils down to bidding, but in a distinctly "doesn't feel like bidding" sort of way. The other part I like is that the backs of the task cards have player counts each paired with a difficulty number. So if you're three players and doing a mission of difficulty "5" you draw task cards until the sum of the numbers (attached to the player count 3) total 5 exactly. Skip tasks that don't add up right. Once the tasks are chosen, flip them face up and dole them out (starting with the commander, each player takes a task or passes -- but passing is only permitted if # of tasks < # of players.) This makes it really easy to just pick up and play without getting into the mission logbook or anything. I really like them so far.
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Nov 3, 2021 22:56
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Yup, it’s really great. The Crew Deep Sea and Nokosu Dice cover all of my trick taking needs forever.
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Nov 3, 2021 23:23
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I'm a little annoyed that I picked up The Crew Mary a month ago and have only had a chance to play it once, since I definitely want Deep Sea, but the oh difference is the objective cards, right? Wish I could just buy that deck.
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Nov 4, 2021 04:15
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I want to believe that the crew is following the same setups as the original xcom games because I'm hoping a 3rd crew game ends up being about interdimensional travel
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Nov 4, 2021 04:25
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Played Betrayal Legacy and I have to say, this is a truly wonderful game. First legacy game I've played that I liked. The simplicty helps and it was more entertaining that the couple we played it with had 7 games down already across like, four groups, so it was like a little journaling exercise.
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Nov 4, 2021 05:13
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:Played Betrayal Legacy and I have to say, this is a truly wonderful game. First legacy game I've played that I liked. The simplicty helps and it was more entertaining that the couple we played it with had 7 games down already across like, four groups, so it was like a little journaling exercise. Echoing this. My group finally finished it last week after starting it a few weeks before quarantine started last year, and overall we had a ton of fun. There were a couple haunts that didn't quite land but generally speaking it's so much better than base Betrayal and the vibe is really fun if you don't take it super seriously.
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Nov 4, 2021 05:39
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Morpheus posted:I'm a little annoyed that I picked up The Crew Mary a month ago and have only had a chance to play it once, since I definitely want Deep Sea, but the oh difference is the objective cards, right? Wish I could just buy that deck. I will say that I think The Crew original's tasks give a really good feel to the progression of the missions if you play through them sequentially. If playing with a regular group working through the missions in order, the original makes it a well-crafted ramp-up of an experience. But I do think Deep Sea will have better "pick up and play" legs when we're all done with the missions. (Also FWIW I think the space theme is the superior one   )
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Nov 4, 2021 06:18
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The best way I can describe the differences in the two is that the new cards make every mission better by making the goals matter to the whole group and overlap in ways the old ones couldn't. The first is a great onboarding to trick taking, but this is a big step up. Replaying the same missions is also way better because of these new cards. Not only do they provide better variety, each permutation is better (without being a lot harder) than the original.
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Nov 4, 2021 07:16
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I played through a lot of the original Crew with friends. I want to pick up Deep Sea for myself but also to try it out on family over Xmas. Does the new one have a decent lead-in or tutorial experience for newbies?
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Nov 4, 2021 08:49
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Seems like it's worth owning both Crews. They're pretty cheap anyway
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Nov 4, 2021 13:22
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DashingGentleman posted:I played through a lot of the original Crew with friends. I want to pick up Deep Sea for myself but also to try it out on family over Xmas. Does the new one have a decent lead-in or tutorial experience for newbies? Yeah, it has a pretty good build up. You're supposed to start with a single point mission, and each time you win you add another point. The first game you play will be absolute baby-level difficulty.
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Nov 4, 2021 15:39
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FulsomFrank posted:Thanks for the feedback. What are the amounts of your denominations? I've been this close to ordering some nice chips for myself but it's tough to justify when the set I've got are heavy and fine as it is. I know Clearclaw has a suggested breakdown on his profile. Someone a friend knew was selling 41 iirc and there's an acquaintance of a friend who has 70. I did enjoy my play of Mex and am trying to get my friend to get it instead. Course, 89 is on there and I just like it for how good of an intro game it is, but it's unlikely I'll get rid of it since it's a nice PNP copy I made with the good art. I ended up with 1x75, 5x73, 20x98, 100x46, and 500x50. I didn't realize it since I was making it myself, but it's actually close to what Clearclaw has for the 300 set just with more 20s. It means I get a nice 7000 base + whatever I need from the 500s, as well as enough 100s extra for weird totals like 41's 14.4k. I didn't think about it but I might need to get another 500x25 and maybe more 5s or 100s for games like 17, but if 17's my only game that has an unlimited bank, I might just use the 500s from my original cheap set for any shortcomings. I used to have C2C but I have since gotten rid of it after realizing I'll likely never play it fully, and it was just taking up too much space. Chill la Chill fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Nov 4, 2021 |
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Nov 4, 2021 16:49
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:Played Betrayal Legacy and I have to say, this is a truly wonderful game. First legacy game I've played that I liked. The simplicty helps and it was more entertaining that the couple we played it with had 7 games down already across like, four groups, so it was like a little journaling exercise. My group LOVED the first game of Betrayal Legacy, especially the little twist ending, but the next one? We all loving hated it, because it felt like it took forever, and I didn't feel like I really earned my win as the traitor. Part of their complaint was that, with so few tiles to draw from, it made for a really tiny game area and became the shittiest game of cat and mouse because only one person had gotten a weapon, which was the only way to harm me. After about 30 minutes of chasing everyone around and plinking away at them and them setting off each other's traps trying to stay away from me, we decided to just toss a coin to see which side won, and we haven't touched it since. Off topic, I've been looking at Black Orchestra for awhile, mostly because the theme seems fun, but haven't heard much about it. Any opinions on it?
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Nov 4, 2021 17:30
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John Dyne posted:Off topic, I've been looking at Black Orchestra for awhile, mostly because the theme seems fun, but haven't heard much about it. Any opinions on it? We've played it a few times and I think it's quite the underrated co-op game. It's very difficult, in my opinion and there is dice chucking so read into that as you will. But as far as tough co-op experiences go I think it deserves more attention than it normally gets. Maybe try it before buying if you can and see if it would make a good fit.
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Nov 4, 2021 17:56
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John Dyne posted:My group LOVED the first game of Betrayal Legacy, especially the little twist ending, but the next one? We all loving hated it, because it felt like it took forever, and I didn't feel like I really earned my win as the traitor. Part of their complaint was that, with so few tiles to draw from, it made for a really tiny game area and became the shittiest game of cat and mouse because only one person had gotten a weapon, which was the only way to harm me. After about 30 minutes of chasing everyone around and plinking away at them and them setting off each other's traps trying to stay away from me, we decided to just toss a coin to see which side won, and we haven't touched it since. We had a very similar experience, except nobody was super stoked about game 1 either. We muddled through a few sessions because the "Legacy" payoffs" seemed like they could be fun - but they didn't pay off enough to cover the tedium (and repetitive, random, meaningless choices to nowhere) of the core game. I would love to make/have a good "Cabin in the Woods" style legacy game where you have a per-game character in a variety of scenarios, but you're also managing a larger concern across games. But I/we couldn't find much to like in Betrayal Legacy.
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Nov 4, 2021 18:19
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 Major life hack:https://twitter.com/BoardGameGeek/status/1455989136532418572
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Nov 4, 2021 18:31
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This is violence
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Nov 4, 2021 18:34
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 Imagine if you tried to clean up AFfO like that
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Nov 4, 2021 18:36
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Me, who meticulously bags and labels things: Oh this should be interesting, I wonder what he does differently... ... I'm not going to like this am I. ... No. Don't you do-AH gently caress ... Noooooo! ... And the bags too what the christ.
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Nov 4, 2021 18:57
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That man is sick and needs to be locked away for everyone's safety.
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Nov 4, 2021 19:01
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I was worried the yellow meeple was gone forever.
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Nov 4, 2021 19:06
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I can't lie, I find it zen to organize a mess like that so giving me that box would be like giving a child an iPad and I would instantly be occupied.
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Nov 4, 2021 19:28
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