Second month of the year, and second blog post. So far we’re on track.
Today we’ll take a look at the continued progress of the 10×10, talk about what new games have been played, quickly brush over the unimportant 1v1 annual challange between my girlfriend and I, and then see what new board gamey things have arrived in the Always Play Blue household this month.
10×10 UPDATE
After an insanly powerful sprint from the blocks last month, we slowed ourselves down a little in February so that we didn’t finish our 10×10 months in advance and end up neglecting all our other games (any more than we already do).
We played each game at least once, with CALICO and QWIRKLE getting a second play too.
On the wins front, I’ve held on to my only 100% game, with another close fought battle in STAR REALMS. It looked like I was going to be defeated, but somehow, the right additions to my fleet, and the right combination of cards drawn, saw me heal up before doing some epic damage.
I was also quite chuffed to get my first ever 7 WONDERS DUEL victory, as well as my first QWIRKLE win of 2022. This still leaves my girlfriend dominating in LOST RUINS OF ARNAK, PALADINS OF THE WEST KINGDOM, and WINGSPAN.
NEW GAMES OF THE MONTH
A handful of new games were played at the start and the end of February, with not much in the middle.
I opened the month with finally getting UNDER FALLING SKIES to the table. With a quiet house, I fancied a board game instead of plonking myself down in front of the TV. I really enjoyed my first play of this. It’s a pretty simple set up and ruleset. Like many other folks, I went for a one off play, avoiding the campaign mode until I’m a little more ‘seasoned’. It was a close game, and I knew where I’d messed up and cost myself the victory (lining up multiple alien ships, and then forgetting to shoot them down can prove costly, wouldn’t you know). I’m looking forward to playing again, and even playing with a teammate, much like Monique and Naveen did on their ‘Before You Play’ video.
Back in December, I got the help of the Instagram gaming community to help pick a game off my Shelf Of Shame as my 1000th recorded play. When my girlfriend reached the same milestone a few weeks ago, she decided to pick the runner up from that contest, THE RED CATHEDRAL, to be her 1000th recorded play. What a fantastic game it is, and all crammed into a box that scientifically shouldn’t fit all that gaming greatness. It looks way more complicated than it is, turning into a simple race to be the first to end the game with the best scoring. I’d like to try higher counts, but we both enjoy it at two, so it’ll still get played a lot.
During a Roll ‘n’ Write discussion on Instagram, my good gaming buddy from the other side of the globe, @nat20au, suggested I try GANZ SCHON CLEVER. Despite the fact we don’t need more games (or have room for them, lol), I trusted her advice enough to be cheeky and order it. And I’m so glad I did. Where has this game been all my life? My girlfriend and I feel in love with it on our first play, and it’s hit the table another five times since. Such a simple game, rolling dice, and crossing off boxes. But once you start chaining those row or column rewards, it gets thinky and addictive.
Keeping with the Roll ‘n’ Write theme, the next game we plucked from our Shelf Of Shame was DINOSAUR ISLAND RAWR ‘N’ WRITE. We weren’t big fans of the Roll ‘n’ Write genre when I originally backed DINOSAUR WORLD on Kickstarter, but we were by the time it arrived, and I felt a little sad I’d missed out. So my girlfriend added it to my Christmas gift list, and it turned up late January. It’s a busy little pad, and looked a little daunting to start, but another game with some nice chaining that occurs in late game makes for a satisfying ending. And I can’t get enough of those awesome amber dice that Pandasaurus Games chuck in with their Dinosaur Island series.
Another quiet evening led to another new solo game, this time seeing my go dungeon delving in MINI ROGUE. A little simpler than ONE DECK DUNGEON, and about 3% less evil, MINI ROGUE is a game that sees you work deeper and deeper into a dungeon, avoiding traps, fighting creatures, discovering treasure, and taking on bosses. It has a really nice art style, and some nice components. And it can be played 2-player, so looking forward to trying that next.
A Saturday games evening with friends saw me get another Christmas present game to the table. BLOCKBUSTER RETURNS is a fun little party game, good for the four of us who are all movie buffs. It was nice and silly, as party games should. It is a little flawed (some of the Head-to-Head cards could go on forever, and some films are absolutely not meant for Charades), but it’s a good change of pace from a lot of our other games.
Our second Kickstarter arrival of the year got to the table within a week. DOOMLINGS is a cute little card game where players are building a nice tableau for scoring, with a little take that, and some very colourful art. The Ages and Castastrophe cards keep the game contained with a definate yet surprise ending.
And the final new game given the oppourtunity to fulfill it’s destiney and be born from the Shelf Of Shame is GREAT WESTERN TRAIL. I’d heard so much good about this game, and didn’t hesitate to grab it when they announced the 2nd Edition. We sat down, set it all up, read the manual and . . . well had a 40 minute session that then got restarted due to some things we missed. And then 2 hours and 12 minutes later we finished an amazing playthrough. I can see what all the fuss is about. GREAT WESTERN TRAIL is a great game.
1vs1 CHALLENGE 2022
The challenge is not going well, at least from my side of the battle. My girlfriend is playing hard and smart and counting up some really nice victories.
I did get a momentary shinning happy moment, when, on Valentine’s Day, I won all four of the 10×10 games we played. It felt like that moment in ‘Over The Top’ where I’d turned my cap backwards and begun the epic fight back . . . only it turned out to be a rare coffee fueled anomoly, one that I’m yet to replicate.
So as it stands, my girlfriend has a comfortable lead and all I can do to keep my head in the fight is look back at last year, and see that I was in a similar postion. All I need is a weekend of nothing but SPLENDOR and STAR REALMS.
Current score: (Me) 47 vs 64 (Girlfriend)
(Clarification: co-op wins count as a point to both)
NEW ARRIVALS
While we’re doing our best to minimise new games coming in (lack of space and an unhealthy Shelf Of Shame), somehow they still keep tutrning up. Weird.
GANZ SCHON CLEVER – Amazing game that we’ve alreay played six times and so have no regrets fitting this small box into our collection. If you like Roll ‘n’ Writes and don’t own this, you need to.
HORRIFIED: AMERICAN MONSTERS – I really like the first game, but as my friends own it, and we only play it with them, it seemed silly buying our own copy. Of course, when they announced this follow up, and I saw it was based on the mytholgy I like, I immediately called dibs. Due to the delay for a UK version, I grabbed this from Amazon US. Now we need to play it.
TINY EPIC DUNGEONS – Almost six weeks into 2022, and my first Kickstarter of the year turned up. This has a lot of game within it’s tiny little box, and it’s the first Tiny Epic game with minatures.
MINI ROGUE – This should have arrived last month, but a clerical error with the website I ordered it from meant that the expansion that they don’t sell or even stock arrived in it’s place. Two weeks of e- mails and phone calls later and they finally sent me the base game and let me keep the expansion as an apology. Which is pretty damned cool. Base game already played and it’s great.
DUNE IMPERIUM: RISE OF IX – Managed to grab this expansion with new stock becoming avaiable. I also went a bit crazy and got the Deluxe Upgrade box too, because it’s a single box storage for all contents, plus it has amazing looking miniatures, so I had to. I had to, right?
IMPERIUM CLASSIC – In with the Dune order, I also chucked this because I’d heard great things, Deck Building is a favourite genre, and because it had been hard to get before fresh stock came in.
DOOMLINGS – Second Kickstarter arrival of this year, and it’s a party card game with an EXPLODING KITTENS or UNSTABLE UNICORNS vibe to it. It’s good fun, and doesn’t outstay it’s welcome by a sort of countdown mechanism to the end game.
SLEEPING GODS: TIDES OF RUIN – And another ‘finally back in stock game’, and an expansion to a game we’ve not yet played. Sometimes us board game collecters do crazy things like that. But sometimes you can trust that a game is going to be a hit before you play it, and getting content when it becomes available is par for the course in the current shipping climate.
As well as new games, we also got some nice addons.
I’m grabbing every set of stickers that @levitygames make for games we have at the moment. Stickers for wooden components are a nice affordable way to make a game pop. I’m in no way sponsored by them, but I definetly say check them out if you fancy sprucing up your games.
We also got some new wooden meeples for our LORDS OF WATERDEEP. We already got the metal coins last year, and due to me being unhappy with my blue meeples for what is one of our favroite games (one is a different shade, and another is a different size). So I once again jumped on Estsy and obatained some nice looking wooden pieces from @meeplewood. Again, no affiliation, but I definitely admire their work.
HIGHLIGHTS
- 2 Kickstarter Arrivals
- My girlfriend and I played our 50th scenario of GLOOMHAVEN
- Got another play of DUNGEON BALL in just before the Superbowl
- Hit 2000 followers on Instagram
Always Play Blue 