Tabletop year in review - 2015

Well, we are at the end of the year and I thought it would be interesting to do a review of my tabletop gaming over the last year.

Full analysis below:

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game	32
Ticket to Ride	22
Yomi (second edition)	20
Zombicide Season 2: Prison Outbreak	16
Space Hulk: Death Angel – The Card Game	12
Aliens: This Time It's War	10
The Agents	9
Battle Line	8
Mistfall	8
Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game	5
6 nimmt!	4
Forbidden Island	2
Get Bit!	2
Monopoly Deal Card Game	2
Castle Panic	1
Tsuro	1

Wow.  154 plays spread out over 16 games in 2015.  Given my "gut feeling" that I didn't get anywhere close enough time to game, that number is a lot higher than I would have expected.

I won't talk about every game on the list but did want to talk about the games where I had over 10 plays (on the basis that these are the "best" games I played in 2015).

Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

No surprise that this is leading the pack.  I got this game in May and immediately fell in love with it.  It's a brilliantly thematic game which combines the deep deck construction that you see in games like Magic but without all the issues that Magic has.  The only reason it didn't get more plays is because its quite difficult for me to get hold of the expansion packs.

I fully expect this game to continue getting a lot of plays in 2016 particularly as the game works brilliantly as a solo game which makes it relatively easier to make it to the table.

Ticket to Ride

This is a really fun entry level Euro which I primarily play at work with some colleagues during lunchtime.  This really should have more plays but sometimes, its hard to find the time to play - particularly when everyone is busy.  Regardless, I expect this game to continue to get a lot more plays in 2016.

Yomi

Another great game which I rate extremely highly.  Part of the reason that this has so many plays is that you rarely play just once when you play - normally going for a best of 3 or best of 5 to determine a winner.  We even managed to get several multiplayer games which is an interesting twist on the normal 1v1 mode.  Although I prefer the 1v1 mode, it was fun to try out the multiplayer. 

Unfortunately, the rest of the group doesn't like this game as much as I do and its likely that the number of plays in 2016 will drop significantly.

Space Hulk: Death Angel

Got this game in February and managed 12 plays.  This is actually surprisingly low given how much I enjoy playing this game and how quickly the game is to setup and play (relative to other games on this list).  Part of the reason for this is the overall lack of time I have to play games.  Another part of this is my buying Lord of the Rings in May which coincided with when I started to play this game less often.

Despite this, I very much enjoy this game and it will like see more plays in 2016.

Aliens: This Time it's War

This is a fun two player game which is actually available for free as a print and play game.  Of the 10 plays this year, 4 of them were solo.  This was either using the variant solo rules or with me playing the game 2 handed.  While the solo rules are okay, my preference is to play 2 handed with me controlling both sides.  The other 6 plays were with my main gaming buddy on the odd occasion where our game group session only had 2 players showing up.

Both my friend and I enjoy this game as it manages to capture the theme extremely well and it is likely that this will see more plays in 2016 (although I don't know if it will make over 10 plays if I don't play it as much solo).

Lord of the Rings LCG - Hunt for Gollum

Gandalf has requested your assistance in the search for the elusive creature known as Gollum. Your search begins in the Anduin Valley between Mirkwood Forest and the Misty Mountains.  You make your way along the banks of the Anduin River, a likely place for Gollum to find food.

The quest starts off really thematically in terms of the mechanics.  As you start your search for Gollum, if you quest successfully, you draw 3 cards and keep 1 of them.  This card is in addition to the card per player you draw as part of the questing phase which means that you are burning your way through the encounter deck.

Mechanically though, this really works well as it really feels as if you are searching for something in the encounter deck.

While making the staging area more dangerous, it does have a minor advantage in that you can possibly dump really dangerous encounter cards.  Overall, not sure if its a net positive or negative from a difficulty point of view but I love it mechanically.

Rumors have led you to the eaves of Mirkwood Forest, where the Woodmen whisper of a new terror in the night...

Mission 2B on the other hand feels really odd.  The story has you going to Mirkwood Forest.  However, mechanically, the only difference with Mission 1B is that you draw an extra encounter card at the beginning of the mission.  This is counterbalanced by the removal of the extra card per questing phase that was present in Mission 1B.

This is further exacerbated with Mission 3B which has no additional story beats but simply introduces an additional mechanism where only Heroes who previously found a Clue to Gollums location can quest.  Thematically, this could have been really interesting if the story supported the mechanics.  However, the story fails hard.

In effect, you spend the entire quest searching for Gollum.  You never actually find him but you spend all 3 missions searching for him - and without any story beats, the quest ultimately falls flat and feels boring.

Extra Cards
Despite the failure of the quest itself, I am glad that I bought this adventure pack.  The pack comes with some extra cards - some of which are extremely fun and useful.

To start with, you get Bilbo Baggins whose power lets the first player draw an extra card.  I used this ability to create a new deck focused on deck draw which has been extremely successful even with the limited cards that I have.

In addition, this adventure pack introduces a new type of card called Songs.  The Song of Kings, which is available in this pack, gives the hero it is attached to the Leadership resource icon.  This is pretty cool in that you can give it to a non-Leadership hero and he ends up with the ability to pay for cards from 2 different pools.  When couple up with Steward of Gondor, which grants 2 extra resources per round, you can build a deck that is extremely flexible in paying for whichever card you happen to have in your hand.

Game Night! - 4 December 2015

Wow - it's been a while since I managed to get to a game night.  Due to some unfortunate issues outside my control, we only had 2 people at the last game night - and one of those was me.  Regardless, we made the best we could and managed to get in several games.

The Agents
We started off with 3 games of The Agents.  As I promised back in September, I managed to get revenge and won all 3 games.  Woot!

With that said, I'm not convinced that this game works as a 2 player game.  It seems like it really suffers from a runaway leader problem.  In all 3 games, I got to an early lead and managed to use that lead to boost myself to victory.  With more players, the runaway leader is handled organically as you have more players out to wreck the leaders formation.

Regardless, I did have fun as the core mechanics are interesting.

Aliens: This Time its War
My friend was keen to get this back on the table.  It's one of the rare games where he has a good record against me versus other games where I normally beat him and he probably needed a pick-me-up after I drubbed him in The Agents.  On the other hand, it could just be because this is a fun game.  :)

As before, I played the marines while he took on the xenomorphs.  I managed to get a really strong start in the first game which I was able to use to get the win.  Unfortunately, my friend managed to get revenge in the second game and beat me to even the score at 1:1.

Which was a good time to move onto -

Battle Line
Given that there were only 2 of us, we naturally got Battle Line back on the table.  Definitely one of my favourite games as its a game with simple rules but with amazing strategic depth.  We generally save this game for the end of the day as the mix of heavy thinking required to do well in this game can really wipe you out.

I had a really good draw in the first hand to the extent that I didn't even bother grabbing any tactics cards.  My opening hand in the second game wasn't as good which meant some tough choices as we played through the game.  I still managed to win though.  :)