On the Table – October 2022
It’s time for another On The Table and a bit of a catch up! October was a pretty decent month for games and I got to check out a new group that had formed in one of the little villages to the south of Dalkeith. Always nice to meet new folk and I hope it will be a way for me to get even more games played next year. Let me know if you have played any of these and what you think of them!
Arkham Horror: The Card Game
Innsmouth is proving to be a lot of fun but I don’t trust that our first scenario result hasn’t made everything harder for us. Time will tell but all the scenarios so far have been really well designed. Been defeated once so far.
Cartographers
Played at a new meetup that started up near me recently with a bunch of folk I didn’t know. Boardgames are great at bringing people together! This is a roll and write set in the Roll Player universe. You are mapping an area of the world, trying to fulfil victory conditions that change every round. There is an added twist here where sometimes monsters invade your map allowing other players to mess with your plans. It’s a neat little brain burner.
Citadels (Online)
I owned this once and moved it on for being just that bit too mean. It’s still mean but an influential game nonetheless. Responsible for lots of imitators and introducing role selection as a mechanism. Played for an upcoming podcast project.
Godtear
Steamforged Games were nice enough to send this game to me for a review. Godtear is a 2 player skirmish game that really impressed me. Nice sculpts, interesting gameplay, and relatively affordable in a space that contains money sinks like Marvel Crisis Protocol and X-Wing. It’s a little generic in terms of its setting but this does allow them to make all sorts of weird sets so you are bound to find a team that you find interesting. It’s one of those games that needs a bit of community around it but I can see it being a really good fit for the right club.
Hardback
Make words, combine powers, get more cards to make more words. Hardback is a game that revels in the act of creation and is seeing a lot of play at my table just now. Even my friends who don’t like word games find enough to enjoy in the deckbuilding and combos.
Just One
This was the party game de jour a little while ago. It’s fine. I honestly don’t see the reason it was hyped. It falls into that ‘everyone do something, one person judge’ style of party games for me. That’s a category I don’t really like. I want games to bring something to the table and a lot of these style of games feel like they are relying on the players to do all the work of making the fun happen.
Point Salad (BGA)
This game made a bit of a stir when it first came out and I can see the appeal. You gather vegetable cards and as you do reveal new scoring criteria. A combination of trying to aim for long term goals and improvise to short term conditions is a compelling puzzle.
Ticket to Ride (BGA)
Recently released on Boardgame Arena this is a really good implementation of the classic game. It’s still an easy to explain, difficult to master game that has a real streak of mean play running through it if you seek it out.
Tiny Towns
Much like one of my other favourite games, Azul, Tiny Towns looks gentle from the outset but will soon have you cursing the name of those around the table. I love it, but it can be a bit stressful for some players.
Twilight Struggle (App)
What a game. Difficult, nuanced, with constant hard to make decisions and a whole period of history modelled pretty well. Recently played ‘Red Flag Over Paris’ which feels like a thinned down version of Twilight Struggle and is one I am keen to play more. I always feel a bit weird playing games that are steeped in recent history, but I enjoy the play of Twilight Struggle enough for it to have won me over.
