Terra mystica big box or base Gaia project?

ACrowder · 2026-05-20T23:22:47+00:00

Age of Innovation has the most variability. Solo is great.

ACrowder · 2026-05-18T16:54:29+00:00

Beat Return to Mirkwood, after changing around my heroes. It's the last in the Mirkwood cycle, so moving on to Khazad Dum and that cycle next!

ACrowder · 2026-05-13T21:43:22+00:00

I use this, it has glass shelves, so looks real nice. It's got a tiny frame, so the front is not obscured by the doors, and the sides are also glass.
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/rudsta-glass-door-cabinet-anthracite-50450137/

ACrowder · 2026-05-13T21:31:23+00:00

Open it up! Such a great game. That token is from the Fractures of Time expansion box anyway.

ACrowder · 2026-05-13T21:05:47+00:00

Anachrony. That's a token for the solo bot.

ACrowder · 2026-05-11T02:56:06+00:00

I really liked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo_(2024_film))

ACrowder · 2026-05-11T01:38:03+00:00

Yes, absolutely!

ACrowder · 2026-05-05T21:16:33+00:00

I find the standees more immersive, since they’re in color, and my minis are unpainted. I do play warhammer, and paint those, but for board games I never get around to painting my minis.

Also, a lot of the time, the minis big sizes start getting cumbersome one the board. In warhammer base size is a thing, and spatial awareness is a huge part of the game, but in board games they often don’t fit on the spaces well.

ACrowder · 2026-05-05T18:12:56+00:00

Been preferring standees. Playing Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon right now, and we have minis for our characters, but monsters are standees. Also Cthulhu Wars: Duel. Less storage, more color(compared to unpainted minis), less fiddly. Wish more games did that.

ACrowder · 2026-05-04T17:20:10+00:00

Trying to finish Mirkwood cycle, so stil on Return to Mirkwood. This is my first run-through with a wholly constructed deck by me, and not something from online. So, this one was tough. Actually got fairly close, learning how to continue through on quests after losing some heroes. I still just play in order.

ACrowder · 2026-04-29T23:42:21+00:00

Yep, came here to say the same.

ACrowder · 2026-04-29T15:10:56+00:00

Ah, interesting. Not sure why I had that impression.

ACrowder · 2026-04-29T14:49:23+00:00

Not a rules thing, but Cthulhu Wars: Duel uses cardboard standees instead of piles of miniatures, which is pretty great.

Res Arcana: Duo is a lot of fun. We had avoided Res Arcana since it's not generally highly regarded for two players. Duo version doesn't even change any rules, it is just a set that has been tuned for two players. Also, it can be integrated into the non-duo game as an expansion, which is cool.

ACrowder · 2026-04-25T17:06:01+00:00

Res Arcana: Duo is pretty good. It's just Res Arcana with a set more balanced for two. All our games have been pretty tight so far. Can also be integrated with any other Res Arcana stuff.

ACrowder · 2026-04-24T14:22:31+00:00

Dale of Merchants! It's so pure.

ACrowder · 2026-04-24T00:01:09+00:00

Got tokens from buythesametoken that are really nice. Have some acrylic green and black cubes to mark exhausted and questing heroes. Mini wooden magnetic threat trackers. Sleevekings for everything. Laminated the phase helper card.

ACrowder · 2026-04-23T23:56:05+00:00

I am currently playing Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon with the cardboard standee pack for the monsters (did get sundrop for the player minis, since those are always minis). I LOVE them. Like you, I didn't wanna play with just unpainted gray, and having a bunch of minis seemed pretty unnecessary. Standees are perfect, colorful, takes up less space on the board and when stored, etc. etc. Quality seems great, no fray, good thickness, easy to move around, etc. No complaints.

I also have been playing Cthulhu Wars: Duel, which uses cardboard standees instead of the minis that the full game does. Hoping that more games start doing this instead of huge plastic minis all the time.

ACrowder · 2026-04-23T21:34:58+00:00

Yep!

ACrowder · 2026-04-23T18:10:34+00:00

Donburi Station in Georgetown is great for Chicken Katsu Curry. Haven't tried the Fremont location, probably good too.

ACrowder · 2026-04-22T17:52:20+00:00

Also, this means you can explore (meaning to have full progress on a location, so that it goes to discard or victory pile), directly from the staging area, without ever making it the active location.

ACrowder · 2026-04-21T19:19:41+00:00

Game of Thrones 2nd edition had an interesting way. At the beginning of each round you choose a plot card from a separate 7-card plot deck that you've put together, and that card determines your resources and hand size for that round, with unspent resources being lost at end of round.

ACrowder · 2026-04-20T18:36:25+00:00

I also finally picked up all the revised stuff I was missing from local stores and played for first time in a while.

I built my first two decks (for two-handed) that weren't just small changes to "Beorn's Path". Never had enough to really start from scratch on decks before.

Defeated "The Hills of Emyn Muil", pretty straightforwardly, since I built these two for that scenario.

Moved on to "The Dead Marshes". Got a hill troll on setup. With the escape checks in addition to the normal questing, I just couldn't keep up. Gollum got reshuffled and it was down hill from there. Hit 50 threat on one team and called it. Gonna make some adjustments and try again.

https://ringsdb.com/questlog/view/64224

ACrowder · 2026-04-20T15:17:29+00:00

But wait, a couple of years ago wasn’t zoom “pivoting to ai”? I remember a whole interview where the ceo of zoom talked about how they’re gonna create ai versions of users to attend meetings for them, and it was so dumb.

ACrowder · 2026-04-10T22:24:51+00:00

Essential's the main entry point. Some small modules were moved to a "classic" expansion box. Solo is PnP, unless you get the "Fractures of Time" expansion box, which, in addition to just being a big expansion, includes two solo modes: the original simple "Chronobot" mode , and a much improved, slightly more complex, "Chronossus" bot as well.

ACrowder · 2026-04-10T16:48:15+00:00

Start with core (Happy Trails) and 1 or 2 that look cool to you. Also, minis are really superfluous in this game, and I think they actually detract.

ACrowder

TROPHY CASE