One of my favorite people to play games with is leaving soon. As a “Snowbird” he likes to hibernate in Florida for the cold Michigan winters. Have fun fishing in the tropical sun Tom and see you in the spring. I also ate way too many sweets this time but it is so hard to resist all the colorful Christmas cookies and cupcakes.
Legendary: a Marvel Deck Building Game BGG Link
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| Starting Cards |
Using a starting deck consisting of SHIELD Agents and Troops, players recruit Heroes to strengthen their decks to attack villains and ultimately defeat the Mastermind behind the whole scheme. Defeat the Mastermind 4 times successfully and the player with the most Victory Points wins. However if the Mastermind’s scheme is successful, then all the players lose.
What I think
I ended up playing it 3 times and with 3 and 4 players. So you can imagine if I played it that much, I enjoyed the game. I got excited drafting heroes into my deck and the “abilities” of the heroes made sense for the character. For instance, Iron Man helps draw cards which makes sense because it is information gathering or calling for reinforcements as the leader. The Superheroes were the draw to the game for me. I liked immersing myself into the theme and got frustrated when the Mastermind would win. So like most cooperative games, I wanted to play it again to try and win. The game really is cooperative only when the heroes lose otherwise the player with the most victory points wins.
The villains can be a bit annoying early in the game as you watch the Villains march across the board because your deck isn't strong enough to attack. This can put you behind with certain scenarios where the game wins if a certain number of Villains or Bystanders are in the escaped area. Since the deck is random, you may get Henchmen, which are easier, or Villains that are just too powerful.
The Heroes can also frustrate you because again of the randomness of the draw deck, certain Heroes are absent and you could purchasing a card just in the hopes of getting something better to the market. It kind of reminded me of Ascension and was one of the reasons I disliked Ascension but at least the Villains and Heroes are separate decks and you always seem to be able to do something each turn. The icons and artwork are great and easy to understand. The Icons are easy to distinguish and become very intuitive after a few turns.
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| Mid game vs the Red Skull |
I thought Legendary was fun and I got sucked into the Superhero theme. I cheered as we defeated the Mastermind and was the first one ready to retry when we failed. Although, Legendary doesn’t bring anything new to the deck building genre but the theme is lacking in board games and is welcome by me.
Scores
Game 1: Tom-20, Kearn-10, Joe-11, Chris-15 vs. Red Skull
Game 2: All Players lose vs. Dr. Doom
Game 3: Tom-30, Kearn-10, Scott-28 vs. Dr. Doom
Alien Frontiers BGG Link
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| New Factions |
For those unfamiliar with Alien Frontiers, the game uses dice as ships which you dock at different stations on the board to earn resources, expand your fleet (more dice) and colonize the planet. There are also Artifacts (cards) which give you abilities to manipulate your die or other players dice. The game ends when a player places their last colony on the planet. The player with the most victory points wins. A player scored 1 VP for each colony on a territory, 1 VP per territory you control (majority of the colonies on a territory), 1 VP for controlling the territory with the Positron Field and 1 VP each for possessing Alien City or Alien Monument card.
What I think
Alien Frontiers is still one of my favorite games and the Faction expansion adds some nice new powers and choices for the players to use each game. If you want to use a neighbor’s faction, you end up paying the resources to the owner of the faction. You really have to weigh if it will be more beneficial to you to use the faction. We choose randomly so in our game, one faction was more valuable and used more often so that might be a drawback. I also didn’t use the new Agenda cards so I can’t comment on them at this time. I think it is a must buy for fans of the game.
Scores
Game 1: Chris-4, Joe-10, Kearn-3
Loopin’ Louie BGG Link
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| Louie is coming for your chickens! |
A simple game, each player has a chicken coop with three chicken disks. Louie flies around the board and knocks the chickens down. You can prevent this by using your paddle to make Louie jump over your chickens. The last player left with chickens wins.
What I think
Loopin’ Louie is easily one of the most silly, addictive and entertaining games I have ever played. It is such a simple game that causes laughter and rowdy good times with children and adults (especially with some adult everages).
Scores
4 plays and everyone won once.
Tahiti BGG Link
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| Island tiles |
The goal of the game is to collect crops and fish from the neighboring islands in your canoe and return them to the home island. For each full set of crops or favorite foods (secret tiles handed out during the set-up) collected earn points at the game end. The game is divided into two phases, the first is the Exploration phase and the second is the Depletion phase.
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| Player Board |
The game is a simple and leisurely game of grabbing cubes from one location and returning them to the home island. The toughest decisions in the game were cube placement and what islands to place the depletion tiles on because both would directly affect your opponents. I liked the reef as it made you choose between the most direct paths but you could risk the loss of a good or to take the longer path. I enjoyed the quality game pieces and beautiful Polynesian art. The game was a bit basic for me and I think it could get stale after multiple plays, but I could easily see its charm for families or new gamers.
Scores
Game 1: Liam-15, Kearn-21, Eric-25, Chris-24
Schotten Rennen (Scots Race in German) BGG Link
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| On your Mark........ |
This loosely themed racing game with dice and luck in Scotland has you rolling dice each turn. If your roll is equal to or higher than the printed number on the tile, you progress forward. If the roll is lower, you can use a risk token to role the yellow die and add the result to your total. If it is higher, you continue on. If it still is lower, you go all the way back to the start. At any time you can stop and pass the dice locking you into the current tile. The first player to cross the finish line wins.
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| Neck and Neck to the end! |
What I think
The game is a total dice chucking, press your luck and mock your fellow player’s bad dice rolls kind of game. Also heading back to start didn’t put you out of the race. I went back several times and caught up quickly. It fit the bill for the type of game we wanted to play at the time and I enjoy these types of games. Sometimes you just want some light fun and laughs. Kilts are optional.
Scores
Game 1: Winner – Ken; Losers- Liam, Eric, Kearn
Trajan BGG Link
Game summary
This is a very simplistic summary to a deep and strategic game supposedly set in ancient Rome. Players move cubes around an action tray which allows them to take actions on matching areas on the main board. The player with the most points at the end wins the game.
What I think
Trajan is a complex game with many options to score points. Some options of where to go at certain points in the game are obvious but it can create some long thinking moments if you want to maximize your points each turn. I noticed the most contested areas in out game were the shipping area and the senate. Getting in earlier than the other players to use a boat and score on the more profitable side is a huge plus and the disappointed look on their face is a nice bonus. By influencing the senate you choose first and dictated who got what bonus tile for the end of game scoring.
My favorite part of the game was the use of the personal action tray. I enjoyed planning out my turns by moving cubes of certain colors to each area to help me move them later in an upcoming turn or to match Trajan tiles next to the cup. Each turn I contemplated this to avoid clumping to many cubes in one cup, because each cube you move moves the game clock and that brings the demands of the people. If you can’t meet the demands you end up losing points.
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| Action Tray |
I like a good theme and this game has none. As I said above, supposedly sent in ancient Rome, but at no point did I feel I was influencing the people of Rome. In my mind was moving this cube two spaces gives me the military option and the ability to grab the 10 victory point area. The game can also drag out if you or the other players contemplate your move too long but I find that to be a problem with many games that offer multiple choices each turn.
I am a theme junkie and criticize games often for being too dull and theme less. Games that feel like number crunching/ spreadsheet tasks and you try to eliminate all least productive options and maximize your points. There are those elements in Trajan but the personal action tray just squashed that voice in my head. I admit that sometimes I judge games too quickly and I would have missed out on a fantastic game. I want to play this again.
Score
Game 1: Tom-111, Kearn-115, Chris-112, Scott-95
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