Someone accidentally ruining your plans, especially when your strategy is a multi-turn affair, can be quite a blow. Generally, we and the people we play with, handle it well but I do remember one time during a game of Crisis it almost broke me. I had to stop myself from snapping at the player you destroyed my whole game plan by taking the last resort (There is a Pappa Roach joke in here somewhere). Another way of dealing with such a setback is of course holding a grudge and waiting until a future game to take revenge, although it seems healthy to let it go at some point if the opportunity doesn’t arise fast enough…

Last week was a busy week outside of gaming, although got sent a very fancy-looking second edition of 7 Wonders with the new Edifice expansion and stared at a friends copy of the beautiful-looking Fall of Magic, both games will gently hit the table soon so expect our first impression over the coming weeks. We did play some Starship Captains, which is enjoyable but it feels like it doesn’t really know if it wants to be a light game or a heavy game at times. I’m personally hoping there will be an expansion that will add some bells and whistles to put it firmly in the heavier camp and also includes some cool asymmetric options, like the Expedition Leaders expansion for Arnak. But even without that, it can still be a fun introduction to games that really require you to optimize your every move.

We also explored the new “False Baron set” for Illimat and we really enjoy the new Luminary cards it brings to the table. Illimat is an abstract card game that feels like a centuries-old lost classic card game that has been lost to time. While the core is simply to collect cards by harvesting them from the board, the shifting seasons and the Luminary card that change the rules of the game, give it some interesting additional layers of depth. The new Luminary cards are powerful but in a fun way so all players at the table will get to enjoy a nice few turns of extra power before someone takes the card away for some extra points at the end of the round.

I also played a game of 1889 on 18xx.games and came in second to last trying to be more assertive, so maybe I’ll just have to stick to my standard strategy of being more of an investor and not trying to go for the big plays… 😅

This week we’re trying the new Star Wars deckbuilding game, which at first glance looks to be inspired by Star Realms, so that should be a good time. We’ll also be continuing our Artisans of Splendentvale campaign which has been wonderful so far!