I’d forgotten we’d discussed changing game night from Thursday to Wednesday and only remembered when my daughter showed up on the doorstep, ready to game. I didn’t have the next Jaws of the Lion scenario ready, and we’d just played Terraforming Mars. Me, I wanted to play Mahjong, but I wasn’t hearing a lot of enthusiasm about it. Tom suggested Heart of Crown, so that’s what we played. I hauled out the card table and we got to setting up the game. ...
This is the fourth scenario of Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. We’re still in the tutorial for the game – this scenario introduced scenario goals and city events. I’m not sure how fast people play through this game, but we’re going super slow. With COVID, we only meet every two weeks, and if something comes up on that day, we skip additional weeks. If we used Tabletop Simulator or something similar, I suppose we could meet – whenever, but we love seeing each other, eating pizza, and being together. ...
Quick recap: Terraforming Mars is one of the most popular board games in the world right now, and has been for years. It’s a game not just about about terraforming Mars, but eventually exploring and colonizing our Moon, Venus, Mercury, and the outer planets’ larger moons through several expansions. The game play remains mostly the same, though, through expansions – you research activities to help with the terraforming (or to hinder your opponents) by buying cards; you play those cards in the action phase; you then receive a payment from the faceless Terraforming Council based on your contribution to the terraforming, plus whatever income your research projects provide. ...
Since school has started up, we’ve been hesitant to continue with the family game night. But you just can’t keep us down. We’ve decided to alternate Jaws of the Lion, a campaign game, with other games. Last time we met it was for mahjong. Tonight, we’re back in Gloomhaven. My goal with Jaws of the Lion was to completely 3D print the terrain, the miniatures, the furniture – everything. Unfortunately, I’ve been having a lot of trouble with the 3D printer, but that’s really a story for another post. Because of the problems, I haven’t been able to finish printing the wooden floors for this scenario, or the stone floors for the next one. I have a barrel full of failed prints. Something about the floor tiles for wood and stone really seems to kill my printer. ...
We have been preparing for this night for a very long time. Tom has always had an intense interest in Mahjong, especially in the Japanese variant, Riichi Mahjong. He’s got books and books about it. Lots of apps. A vast collection of Vita and Super Famicom versions. Once while I was visiting him when he still lived in Ohio, he pulled out this beautiful, heavy, set, and we sat down and he taught me how to play. It’s just like the card game Rummy, he said, and it is… except that the Japanese, bless their hearts, decided that would be too easy, and so they added a bunch of win conditions you needed to also keep in mind if you wanted to build a winning hand. ...
Finally, finally, FINALLY! All the work Tom and I have been doing in printing and painting miniatures and dungeon parts paid off last night as we finally sat down to play the first two scenarios in Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. Now available at your local Target. Jaws of the Lion is an introductory campaign to the Gloomhaven universe, where you and up to three friends take on the roles of a renowned mercenary company, the “Jaws of the Lion”, who have taken a job to look for a missing blacksmith and stumble onto a body snatching plot leading to some evil end. ...
Trogdor! Trogdor! Trogdor was a man I mean, he was a dragon man Or maybe he was actually a board game But he was still TROGDOR! Burninating the countryside, Burninating the peasants, Burninating all the peoples And their thatched-roof cottages! THATCHED-ROOF COTTAGES! (Insert guitar solo) Trogdor the Board Game is based on the iconic . You, and up to five of your dragon-drawing friends play as Keepers of Trogdor, members of a group that help Trogdor… ...
Back in the Before Times, when we only had a small number of board games, Game Night would rotate between Magic the Gathering, Vast and Terraforming Mars. Now we have dozens of games to play, but Terraforming Mars is still on our rotation. When the local game store opened as part of Connecticut’s post-pandemic reopening, I went there (masked, of course) looking for the Colonies expansion for Terraforming Mars. (We’d heard there were spaceships. SPACE. SHIPS.) They didn’t have it, but they did have another expansion we’d missed, Turmoil. ...
First meeting of the full game group since the pandemic started! The governor of our state recently allowed family groups of up to ten people, but we only needed eight :-) In those lonely weeks and months stranded at home, Wizards of the Coast managed to release the new Ikoria set for Magic: the Gathering, a set focused on such diverse cards mutated beasts, itinerant elemental gods and movie monsters (including the infamous Space Godzilla: Death Corona). ...
I’m not really sure what kind of game someone would expect to play if they were told its name was “Kingdom Death”. Is… a kingdom dying? Is it Death’s kingdom? Kingdom Death is a the most fantastically successful survival cooperative board game that you’ve never heard of. You and up to three friends play a group of settlers returning from a lantern festival that are ambushed by a deadly lion. Armed only with a stone dagger and a lantern, you kill the vicious beast. Wounded, but alive, you return to your village, pile high your lanterns in the center square, and vow to become so powerful that you and your fellow villagers need never fear the monsters that prowl in the dark. ...