Tabletop Gaming

Played Joking Hazard with local group + many newcomers. It was very very fun and that's even (or maybe because) we played in 16 people. :D

Played my first game of Castles of Burgundy with some friends this past weekend. Really enjoyed the game though it went on a bit long with 4 players.

Also played a round of Anomia as a palate cleanser

• Cartographers: I find this game relaxing, I enjoy adding some colour too (although I should get better pencils).
• Cairn + Hex flower: I am doing some one-shots with the Cairn rules system. I like how easy the game flows with fewer attributes. About the Hex flower, I find them more interesting than the classic hex crawl mechanic.
• Turing machine: just a couple of quick games to test it. I love the mechanics, I love the infinite possibilities, I love the puzzle. However, the last thing I personally need after work, is more logical/deductive thinking. I may buy it anyway...
• Ironswon: Starforged: I just needed to fix a supercomputer, but now I am doing some research in a haunted starship because some people keep disappearing. I am still learning to be more forgiving on picking penalties with bad rolls, but the adventures are quite fun.

Tools used: Mythic GME 2ed, The adventure crafter, Adventursmith, Tabletop simulator.

A four-player Catan. I lost :)

And a 5-player game of Nemesis. We all lost after more than four hours of playing :)

Star Wars TTRPG (wotc). We're using expanded universe content, and it's the first time I've really gotten into that. There's an insane amount of stuff out there to catch up on.

• Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood (4x 2p): My partner and I made some progress in Oathsworn. It's a campaign game that unlocks new minis every chapter, and we try to paint all the miniatures before we play with them, so it's slow going at times. But we did some speed painting, one chapter was already painted, and one didn't include new miniatures, so we got 4 chapters in! (9, 10, 11, 11.5). Every chapter has new mechanics, so they vary a bit in how much fun they are. Out of these 4 there was 1 we enjoyed a bit less, but all the other ones were epic.

• Too Many Bones (1x 3p): We got the latest expansion a while back, and got a game in with a friend. Figment and Gale are really fun new Gearlocks (player characters), although they can be tricky to pull off well. I really enjoy the quirky humour of TMB. And while I often like to say that the components are ridiculously overproduced, I also really appreciate it. Pretty much all the components are a joy to hold in your hands and fiddle with, it really shouldn't be underestimated how important the tactile component of a tabletop game is.

QotW: I'd really like to play Oath more often. I've only played it once, and the friend who owns it left it with us because he'd probably never get it to the table himself. Problem is, neither do we. Games can take quite long (our first game took 3 or 4 hours) and rules explanations aren't fast either. The thing that makes Oath special is that every game changes the game state and affects the next game. For example, the starting setup of the board depends on which player's colour won last time, cards get added to/removed from decks based on choices that were made during the game, etc. And I'd really love to see to what extent you can change the game experience over time!

We picked up Gingerbread House earlier in the week and liked it a lot. It has some similarities to Llamaland so we got that on the table too. Both are cozy tile laying games by Phil Walker-Harding where you build the tiles up multiple levels and collect the covered-up resources. The big difference is that Gingerbread House is played in a 3x3 space with 2-square tiles (kinda like the Kingdomino tiles) while in Llamaland you have pentominoes (5 square tiles) and the build area is not restricted. Constrains are not necessarily a bad thing though, both games are great in their own way.

We played some Cartographers and Next Station: London as well, both are excellent flip & writes.

I've had Maquis sitting on the shelf since I Kickstarted the new version. Finally broke it open and played about six games. Good, easy to learn solo game. Quick setup and maybe 20-30 minutes to play.

I bought Tyranny and Darkest Dungeon 2 on sale and have been enjoying them both a lot. I like rpg's and Tyranny scratches that itch almost perfectly. Getting a lot of divinity / neverwinter nights / icewind dale / baldur's gate vibes. DD2 is a very atmospheric lovecraftian roguelite with fantastic narration that is fun and frustrating in equal measure (though YMMV).

Playing a lot of Battletech. Going to try my hand with a new group on Sunday! Looking forward to it!