Obligatory “What I Played In…” Post Part II: August 2015

And we’re back for the second month of my new blog series.  This is my series of posts where I list the games I played the previous month and my statistics for said month.  This one will take on August 2015, the first month of post-Gen Con gaming!  There are a few new games to me and my wife from Portal Games in this post.  Enough of the ramble, onto my games played in August of 2015!

Statistics:

Total plays in August 2015 – 58

Total Unique games played in August 2015 – 21

New games played in August 2015 – 4

Most plays of a single game – 12

Coup

Designer – Rikki Tahta

Publisher – Indie Boards & Cards

New to me

First play – 8/9/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 12

I picked up Coup on a whim on 8/9/15 for a game night we were having that evening.  It is a simple to learn bluffing/deduction game that has gone over great with our friends!  This will be a mainstay in our collection and has definitely become our deduction game of choice (at least until Mysterium is released!) for the time being.  It was so popular with one of our friends that he went out and bought it the very night that we played it with him for the first time!

Shadowrun: Crossfire

Designer(s) – Mike Elliott/Rob Heinsoo/Jim Lin/Gregory Marques/Sean McCarthy/Rob Watkins

Publisher – Catalyst Game Labs

Last play before August 2015 – 10/28/14

Total plays in August 2015 – 10

Shadowrun: Crossfire is a co-operative, deck-building game that we hadn’t played for almost a year.  My wife suggested we pull it out and I haven’t looked back since!  This has to be my “re-find” of the month.  I think that we just didn’t quite get the game when we first bought and played it last year and so it got shelved.  Now as we’ve been playing we’ve be incredibly successful and it’s been fun leveling up our characters as we play.  I’m now looking forward to the High Caliber Ops expansion that was seen at this year’s Pax Prime.

Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn

Designer – Isaac Vega

Publisher – Plaid Hat Games

Last play before August 2015 – 7/31/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 6 

This is basically still a “new play” as we only played our first two games on 7/31/15.  We are loving this game so far and I’m quite enjoying playing all the different decks while my wife really likes getting to know one or two decks really well.  Super fun game with the incredible Fernanda Suarez art!

Tides of Time

Designer – Kristian Curla

Publisher – Portal Games

New to me

First play – 8/4/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 5

Wow, this is quite the 2-player, card-drafting game.  Card-drafting is one of my favorite game mechanics but it’s difficult to find a good 2-player game with this mechanic.  This does it correctly!  It comes with only 18 cards and in those 18 cards is a beautifully balanced game with infinite replayability within its own meta.  If you’re a fan of 2-player games I highly recommend this one.  And bonus, at a $12 price point it’s hard to go wrong!

Viceroy

Designer – Yuri Zhuravlev

Publisher – Mayday Games/Hobby World

Last play before August 2015 – 7/30/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 5

Viceroy continues to be a popular game with me and my wife.  We haven’t yet brought it out with other players but I can’t wait to try it with more people!

Imperial Settlers: Atlanteans

Designer – Ignacy Trzewiczek

Publisher – Portal Games

New to me

First play – 8/7/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 3

First of all, this isn’t my first play of Imperial Settlers, but rather my first play of the expansion to Imperial Settlers, the Atlanteans faction.  This new faction is absolutely amazing!  It feels so completely different from the original four factions with the different mechanics that it adds to the game.  This is an amazing way to play the game and gives even more variability to an already great game!  I highly recommend this to anyone who loves Imperial Settlers.  As a side note, we also played with the Why Can’t We Be Friends expansion.

Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot

Designer – Ignacy Trzewiczek

Publisher – Portal Games

New to me

First play – 8/6/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 3

Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot is a new game by one of my favorite designers, Ignacy Trzewiczek.  This game is an interesting one in lieu of his previous releases.  This is really Ignacy’s first family-style game and I personally think that he’s got a great one here.  Understand this game is one that is HEAVILY based on luck as it relies on the rolling/dropping of dice into a box.  You then take actions as your dice lie in the box to destroy NPC ships and get VP and loot as a reward.  After our first game, Em and I weren’t quite sure if we really liked it or not.  We’ve now played three times and it is really growing on us.  It is light, fun, and I absolutely love games where I get to build things.  In this case you get to grow your galleon from a fledgling ship to a large, fearsome behemoth.  We’re enjoying this one and I expect it will stay on our shelf!

7 Wonders

Designer – Antoine Bauza

Publisher – Repos Production/Asmodee

Last play before August 2015 – 4/26/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 1

We got in one play of 7 Wonders this month and that is never enough!  I love this game and we haven’t gotten it to the table recently.  I think I may make a concerted effort to get this one to the table again at our game nights.  This does bring up an interesting point though.  The 2-player game, 7 Wonders: Duel, is coming out at Essen and I expect that one will get even more play than the original.

Dungeon Petz

Designer – Vlaada Chvatil

Publisher – Czech Games Edition

Last play before August 2015 – 6/18/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 1

I did a solo play with a variant (by purple paladin) on BoardGameGeek.  This was for a Euro-style play during the Gen Can’t solo festivities.  It was an interesting variant but to be honest I don’t think I’d ever play it that way again.  It just made me want to play with Em.  Maybe we’ll get a play in of this next month!

Ghost Stories

Designer – Antoine Bauza

Publisher – Repos Production/Asmodee

Last play before August 2015 – 7/31/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 1

Em decided she wanted to play this as we hadn’t done with one together in a while.  We were starting to get whittled down by the ghosts but with some good rolls by Em and a lucky turn by me we were able to fend off Wu-Feng by the skin of our teeth!  It was a fun round.

Hanabi

Designer – Antoine Bauza

Publisher – R&R Games

Last play before August 2015 – 6/21/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 1

Em asked for a game of Hanabi, since I love this game I jumped at the opportunity!  She isn’t a huge fan (although she seems to be warming somewhat) of this one so her asking to play it was awesome!  Plus, as a bonus, we got our best ever score at 22!

Munchkin Loot Letter (Love Letter)

Designer – Seiji Kanai

Publisher – Alderac Entertainment Group

Last play before August 2015 – 7/19/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 1

We got in a quick play of this game with one of our main gaming buddies, Sean.  This is always fun but I definitely prefer it with more players as opposed to less.

Paperback

Designer – Tim Fowers

Publisher – (Self-published)

Last play before August 2015 – 7/19/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 1

Em and I played a round of Paperback in August and she was able to dominate me at this game once again.  This continues to be one of our deck-builders of choice.  This is a great indie game!

Province

Designer – Samuel Strick

Publisher – Laboratory Games

Last play before August 2015 – 10/10/14

Total plays in August 2015 – 1

This was another game that I tried a solo variant from BoardGameGeek for the solo Gen Can’t festivities.  This variant was by Santiago Eximeno and was pretty interesting.  Again, I doubt I’ll try this variant again, but it was an interesting way to play and fairly well done.

Quarriors!

Designer – Eric M. Lang/Mike Elliott

Publisher – WizKids Games

Last play before August 2015 – 2/22/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 1

Em and I decided to play this game when we looked up at our shelf and saw it sitting there all lonely-like.  We realized that it had been a while since we’d played it.  I always forget how much fun this game really is.  I would like to try out some of the expansions (mostly Quarmageddon and Quartifacts) and see how it opens up the game.

Roll for the Galaxy

Designer – Thomas Lehmann/Wei-Hwa Huang

Publisher – Rio Grande Games

Last play before August 2015 – 7/12/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 1

This game continues to be one of our very favorite games to break out when we have a small amount of time and want a game with some great decisions and a ton of dice-rolling.  This game is amazing and when the Ambition expansion comes out it will be an insta-buy!

Samurai Spirit

Designer – Antoine Bauza

Publisher – Funforge

Last play before August 2015 – 7/31/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 1

Em and I got in another play this month of Samurai Spirit.  This appears to be our go-to co-operative game as it is a great experience and super quick to set up, tear down, and play.  Long live Antoine Bauza games!

Seasons

Designer – Regis Bonnessee

Publisher – Libellud/Asmodee

Last play before August 2015 – 6/18/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 1

Ah, a wonderful play of our favorite game.  This game is always a fun experience when we break it out.  We played this game with the Enchanted Kingdom expansion.

Sentinels of the Multiverse

Designer – Christopher Badell/Paul Bender/Adam Rebottaro

Publisher – Greater Than Games

Last play before August 2015 – 7/18/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 1

Em and I broke this out for the first time as a couple in a while.  I’ve done some solo games but she hadn’t played it in a while and wanted to have a go at it.  I used Fanatic and Guise while she used The Wraith (her favorite) and Tempest.  We played against Kisment in The Block environment.  We won and it was a great time!

Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Designer – Justin Kemppainen/Corey Konieczka/Jonathan Ying

Publisher – Fantasy Flight Games

Last play before August 2015 – 7/7/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 1

Sean came over and we got in the story mission “Drawn In” during this play.  Em and Sean had a good round but I was able to eke out the victory before they could destroy the computer terminals and escape.  We have about four missions left in our campaign.

Tokaido

Designer – Antoine Bauza

Publisher – Funforge

Last play before August 2015 – 6/21/15

Total plays in August 2015 – 1

This was another game that Em wanted to play and I’m glad she did.  This is just a beautiful game that feels relaxing as you play it.  And as an interesting note, I just realized that we played five games by designer Antoine Bauza in August.  He is definitely one of our favorite designers.  This is also a great game to bring out with new players.

Whew, there you have it, my games played in August 2015.  This has been a great month for new stuff for us, including Coup, Imperial Settlers: Atlanteans, Tides of Time, and Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot.  We enjoyed every one of these games and I would gladly recommend them to most people.  Also, we were pleasantly surprise when we pulled out Shadowrun: Crossfire for the first time in almost a year and enjoyed it so much!  This would have to be my surprise of the month as we definitely didn’t have this much fun with it the first time around.   

Anyway, stay tuned as I’m working on two upcoming blog series.  The first to come out will probably be my Kickstarter interests that are yet to come out to backers.  Some of these will be ones going on now and others are ones that just haven’t been shipped as of yet.  The second will be my Essen Spiel posts.  This one will be the doozy!  I have a huge list going for my interests of that convention so I may need to split it up in a different way.  We’ll see.  Thanks for reading and if you have any questions, comments or suggestions feel free to comment.  Until next time, game on!