Hello all and welcome to the latest edition of Retrograde Online. In this post I detail how I am once again pushing back against the feelings of boredom and restlessness and trying to reverse some of the entropy of the universe. Cuba Libre I recently bought Cuba Libre and was immediately into the complexity of it. I have never played a COIN1 game before, and Cuba Libre was apparently the best one to get started with learning the rules. ...
Another night where I resisted the urge to play Halls of Hegra and focused on The Lord of the Rings LCG instead. Yesterday I had a go at the first quest A Shadow of the Past, and you may remember I was being a massive dumbass and not resolving Hide effects, so gave up. Well I am happy to say that tonight I did not forget to do any Hide tests. ...
Tonight I actually sat down at my kitchen table, turned off Ricky Royal’s playthrough of the Halls of Hegra and set up my scenario for The Lord of the Rings LCG. I have already built my decks according to the Fellowship of the Ring guide, so I have a Gandalf, Eowyn, and Thodred deck, and a hobbit deck of Sam, Merry, and Pippin. It took a long time to get through the first round as I was constantly checking the rulebook to make sure I was correctly doing the action windows. I’m not even sure I was so I will watch Colin’s playthrough of A Shadow of the Past again to make sure I’m doing it right. ...
In my opinion The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is very difficult for new players attempting to get into it for the first time to work out what is needed to get started. The game itself is already ridiculously complicated. In fact trying to work out which products to buy is a sneak preview of the amount of mental taxation that will be paid trying to learn the rules and build a deck. ...
As I just loving giving my money away to various companies I decided that sticking to only one card game from Fantasy Flight Games wasn’t enough. Instead, I needed to get involved in THREE. Well, actually four, but after an initial outlay into Star Wars Unlimited I found the god-awful artwork too much to overlook to continue1. I have Arkham Horror and Marvel Champions running alongside this Lord of the Rings one. I think I actually prefer Lord of the Rings for depth and theme, but naturally it comes with the biggest overhead. Lots of rules, lots of cards, and lots of confusion around expansions. Some are repackaged, some are not. ...
It must have been a few months since I last bought a board game. The last one was Lord of the Rings LCG: The Two Towers Saga Expansion back in August, so I am well over-due. It is good for me to slow down on these purchases anyway. I am really only interested in completing some of the Living Card Games from Fantasy Flight Games for now. That includes Arkham Horror, The Lord of the Rings, and Marvel Champions. ...
WORK IN PROGRESS - I have played the scenario and just need to write it up Another Arkham Horror playthrough! I’ve had to call this one Night of the Zealot 2 because I didn’t think I’d replay campaigns, but I am, and nobody is reading this anyway, so it doesn’t matter. Last time I played a “true solo” campaign of Night of the Zealot as Roland Banks. It was pretty challenging and also entertaining. I still remember the broader strokes of that game without re-reading the posts themselves. ...
Avid readers of this blog will know that I bought Star Trek Frontiers this year as an alternative to the rather expensive Mage Knight. I have managed to learn the rules and even play several games, winning many1. The biggest obstacle to overcome was actually staying up late enough to complete the game. Frequently, that is the main challenge in board gaming; putting your children to bed, tidying up the house, setting up the game, and spending those remaining eight minutes hunting down borg cubes before bed. ...
Some of the previous posts were ones I had started and then abandoned after a few words, planning to finish them off, but actually never coming back to them. However that doesn’t mean I gave up with the whole tabletop gaming thing. I have been spending far too much money on them recently and have acquired several new ones. I bought: Expeditions: Gears of Corruption Sleeping Gods Marvel Champions Obsession Dune: Imperium1 The Great Out of these games, excluding Gears of Corruption2, the absolute best game has got to be Marvel Champions by far. This game is so much fun to play, with a wide range of different cards, aspects, heroes, villains, schemes. It’s pretty great, and can be played solo, two (or three?) handed, or with an actual human3. ...
I’ve been looking into some good solo tabletop games that I can get into and spend an entire evening on. I gave up trying to find other people to play with, and coercing family members doesn’t work very well, so games that can be played by myself are what I am after. I actually have a decent amount that I already own1: Scythe Expeditions Arkham Horror: LCG Star Trek: Frontiers Gloomhaven Wingspan Spirit Island And an ever-growing list of ones I want to own, including expansions: ...