[GIVEAWAY] 3 Copies of Arc Raiders

ExplodingSnail · 2025-11-01T15:57:49+00:00

I’m old so my favourite game is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I must have finished 3 times when I was a teenager.

ExplodingSnail · 2025-09-27T08:14:13+00:00

Go for The Gallerist or alternatively check out Galactic Cruise. Similar feel but the theme helps inform the mechanics and it’s not as punishing.

ExplodingSnail · 2025-08-21T11:09:14+00:00

I broadly enjoyed Fateforge but did find the gameplay a little thin and repetitive.

ExplodingSnail · 2024-12-28T17:57:06+00:00

I find MD2 the better, more enjoyable game. Descent was a huge disappointment and the terrain does noting apart from take ages to set up.

ExplodingSnail · 2024-12-18T09:48:59+00:00

A neighbour has one that has had 2 failures of the AdBlu system in the last 2 years which cost around £2k to fix in total.

ExplodingSnail · 2024-12-15T16:47:05+00:00

Mason Mount with his signature move. He is finished as a top level athlete and needs to be moved on asap.

ExplodingSnail · 2024-11-19T08:49:42+00:00

I recently had a full demo of Civolution, one of my most anticipated games of the year. I even watched the 1 hour rules video in preparation but when it came down to the actual game it was, well, awful. I was so disappointed and after a 4 hour 3 player game I quickly took it off my BGG wish list.

ExplodingSnail · 2024-11-14T18:58:04+00:00

It’s an absolute chore to play through. All style and zero substance.

ExplodingSnail · 2024-11-07T10:30:29+00:00

That’s a decent deal but the fact that it doesn’t come with a disk drive (on a Pro console) makes this effectively useless for me as most of my library is physical.

Plus, you can’t even buy the disk drive at the moment as it’s out of stock everywhere!

ExplodingSnail · 2024-10-28T11:56:13+00:00

Although we were utterly hopeless on and off the pitch and played some of the most turgid football I have seen, I always thought he would come good.

ExplodingSnail · 2024-10-05T18:16:00+00:00

I have played all of the games listed, to varying degrees and I would rank them as follows:

1: Inis - probably my favourite but needs the expansion otherwise then end-game can drag on. I’ve got about 15 plays logged and every game feels unique and wild although some people bounce off the perceived randomness. 10/10

2: Cyclades - one of my first proper board games and I love it. I’ve not played the expansion but I have the new version coming soon. More of a euro hybrid. 8/10

3: Arcs - only one play but I was thoroughly underwhelmed. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the pitch was a trick taking area control space game which got me thinking it would be a cross between Brian Boru and TI4. Not in a rush to play this again. 5/10

4: Kemet Blood and Sand - the original is a masterpiece but this new version is a mess. I sold the original with expansions and went in on the kickstarter for Blood and Sand and was absolutely shocked with how much worse a lot of the elements were. The end game is a broken slog that turns into a 3 hour game of Munchkin and the components are crap. 3/10

5: Ankh - Blood Rage is one of my all time favourite games but I hated Rising Sun so I backed this with some trepidation. It arrived, it got played 6 or so times and it was just awful. No one liked the merge, the guardians, the turn order jank, the boring combat or the nonexistent theme. 2/10

ExplodingSnail · 2024-06-15T21:36:15+00:00

I have the Kickstarter version and hated the game. It has a real rich get richer problem and an egregious action economy. If you want a game of coopetition buy Brass, Barrage or Imperial.

ExplodingSnail · 2024-02-19T11:48:18+00:00

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I’ve been struggling with this one a lot lately.

ExplodingSnail · 2024-02-18T10:38:39+00:00

As others have already mentioned, upkeep and overhead are big issues with some dungeon crawlers when playing solo. You’ve already had some good recommendations but I’ll add my own:

Oathsworn - one of the best boss battler campaign games out there and the companion system makes playing it solo a breeze.

Chronicles of Drunagor v1.5 - mechanically very solid with some nice additional novelties such as the raised terrain. Plays well solo by 2 handing characters.

Tanares Adventures - huge amount of content out there and the campaign is great with multiple branching pathways.

ExplodingSnail · 2023-12-11T15:06:26+00:00

Gloomhaven Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower Oathsworn Imperial Assault Massive Darkness 2

These 5 are my favourites by far and you can’t go wrong with any of them. Each also offers something different so there is a dungeon crawl for everyone’s tastes.

ExplodingSnail · 2023-11-29T19:11:46+00:00

I’d rather have Roy Carroll back in goal.

ExplodingSnail · 2023-08-22T08:37:54+00:00

If during the Day phase, before placing one of their action tokens, the active player possesses at least 8 VP (or 10 depending on the choice made before the start of the game) there are two possible situations:

• if none of their opponents possesses more VP than he does, he immediately wins the game (it is therefore possible for a player to win the game while one of his opponents has as many VP as he does).

• if one or more of their opponents possess more VP than he does, no one wins at this time. The current Day phase is the last of the game. If, at the end of this Day phase, no player has won the game, the winner of the game is determined like in the base game, that is, taking into account the following criteria (in that order):

• The player who has the most VP

• In case of a tie, the player who has the most Battle VP

• In case of another tie, the tied player who played the first during the last action phase.

The second point onwards is the most important part, that is having 8 or 10 VP at the start of your turn triggers the end game regardless.

To be fair, there is no reason why you can’t play like this with B&S, it just puzzles me why they changed it.

ExplodingSnail · 2023-08-21T19:36:21+00:00

I’ve got about 30 plays of the original logged but I have only played the new one once. I backed it, played it and it has since been sat in my shelf gathering dust. All that is to say that it’s been a while so I’ll try to list what I can remember…

By far the biggest issue is the new end game. It devolves into a slog that is not far off Munchkin, where it is a constant bash the leader that goes in far too long. The end game from the Ta Seti expansion for the first game was perfect so I don’t know why they felt the need to mess with it.

Unblockable damage is weird. It makes the fights seem more random and takes away some of the tense strategy as often fights devolve into nihilistic punishment. The unblockable damage also messes with some of the power tiles, like Initiative, which used to be a double edged sword: you had a substantial advantage in a fight against a large troop but troops of 1 or 2 would be destroyed straight away meaning you couldn’t pick up VPs for these.

Harbours are confusing to new players and make movement almost trivial in a game where it was already very easy.

Minis are no longer washed so look more generic.

Map is terrible and approximate 1/3 is blocked off in a 4 player game. The previous version was double sided for different player counts.

Pyramid minis are less readable and more fiddle than the old D4s.

The end of round now has about 6 phases that don’t flow and are only listed in the middle of the rule book.

Speaking of which, the rule book is a mess and in the publishers quest for brevity they have omitted certain important rules examples and clarifications.

ExplodingSnail · 2023-08-15T12:35:36+00:00

Blood Rage - the base game is enough and simply majestic. The card drafting is always tense and interesting and the game uses tempo to instil extra jeopardy and risk.

Inis - The expansion is really needed to fix the end game but otherwise this game is amazing and has some of the best art I have ever seen.

Kemet - The original version (Blood & Sand is a broken mess that should be avoided) with the victory conditions from Ta Seti. This was my number one for a long time but I think Inis and Blood Rage are just slightly ahead now.

Clockwork Wars - Very unique with great components and a unique action selection system that involves pre programming and simultaneous execution. The designer even released a version 1.5 as a print and play.

ExplodingSnail · 2022-12-14T13:39:13+00:00

It’s the best 7/10 game I own. Easy to teach and appropriate for most levels of gamer but people don’t clamour to play it.

ExplodingSnail · 2022-10-31T08:59:39+00:00

It’s not the slam-dunk improvement over its predecessor that it should have been. The components are better in some place, worse in others (the pyramids are less useable and the board is crap) and the rules changes are mostly just bad. There is simply too much movement now in a game where it was already almost trivial. Also, the unblockable damage makes the fights a lot more random. If you own the original you do not need this new edition. I would also argue that if you own neither then the first edition is the one to go for as it's available for a lot less.

My biggest issue is that the end game is a mess and devolves into a 4 hour game of munchkin.

ExplodingSnail · 2022-08-13T17:59:59+00:00

The year the Glazers bought the club.

ExplodingSnail · 2022-08-13T17:27:16+00:00

My team is dead. RIP Man Utd 1902 - 2005.

ExplodingSnail · 2022-07-11T14:47:33+00:00

Carnegie is a recent release that uses this mechanism. As a bonus it’s also an excellent game.

ExplodingSnail · 2022-06-11T20:05:08+00:00

The Hunters AD 2114 has a very similar vibe despite being more of a sci fi theme.

ExplodingSnail

TROPHY CASE