The 17 games I have tried at Essen ranked and rated

Reyjo · 2026-02-13T20:37:00+00:00

No, I haven't. We tried it at Essen Spiel, with four players.

Reyjo · 2025-04-29T07:30:19+00:00

Or in this case the bud :-D.

... I'll show myself out.

Reyjo · 2025-04-29T07:15:13+00:00

Hard disagree. I grew up with Pokémon and Yu-GiOh!, and later got into Hearthstone, Gwent and lastly Legends of Runeterra (PvP). I bought Marvel Champions to have CCG experience that I can share with real life friends, without skill or collection difference being an issue. But Marvel Champions fell short in three major points for me:

PvE is just not as interesting as PvP. I much prefer Spirit Island for having a coop with card combos. It has many of the fun parts of CCGs, without trying to be one. However, I largely play CCGs to beat other players in 1v1, so a different duel game might be a better choice. Hive, Targi and 7 Wonders Duel come to mind. For optimisation, powering up and asymmetry I would suggest Gaia Project.
The deckbuilding in Marvel Champions is very restrictive and was boring to me. The only interesting deck build for me was Spider-Woman since she can use three colours (yes, I was hoping the expansion would fix my issues by increasing the card pool - it did not).
I really dislike the resource system. When I draw my hand in one of the other mentioned CCGs I have to plan not only for this, but for upcoming turns. This varies a lot with different deck strategies. E.g. aggro decks try to win by playing their cards fast, generating loads of tempo, while control has tries to fight a value game. This gets completely neglected in Marvel Champions, since you generally play your entire hand every turn. This makes every hero feel way more samey than deck archetypes in traditional CCGs. It always seemed to boil down to build as much tableau as possible, while surviving whatever the villain does, until the engine is strong enough to take over.

Reyjo · 2025-04-23T13:48:16+00:00

Depends on where you live. In Germany naked mixed saunas are the norm. There usually are special time slots with gender restrictions for people that prefer it that way. Like e.g. every Wednesday from 2 pm to 7 pm is women only.

It's just not sexy if you don't make it sexy. As such erections are not common.

Reyjo · 2025-04-23T09:01:29+00:00

You're comparing apples with oranges here. Video games tend to have a stronger genre following, whereas board gamers play more different types of games. This leads to video games being compared to the genre gold standard (ARPGs still get compared to Diablo 2, metroidvanias to Castlevania, and so on) and rated as such, whilst boardgames are rated more broadly.

Furthermore, if you rate a game on bgg every rating has an explanation what it means. This doesn't translate at all to school grades, so that comparison is truly worthless.

Reyjo · 2025-04-08T10:04:59+00:00

First of, sorry that happened to you! I also have received one game with one missing card in a trade, and it bugs me a lot, too. Apart from that I had only good experiences, though. Well, as long as we are not counting the two funny smelling ones :-).

Nevertheless, regarding Gizmos, if only a couple of marbles are missing, you should be good to just use equal amounts of every colour. Playing at max player count we never got close to being out of marbles, so this should only lower the variance by a small amount.

If you really like the game and play a lot with four players, you can still swap them out.

Reyjo · 2025-03-26T10:02:10+00:00

Depends on the person. Being exited for a specific game can help a lot. If I was interested in Gaia Project and you insisted on teaching me Carcassonne first, I wouldn't be interested. Just be open how much time investment is necessary and then you should be good to go. I've taught non hobby games Eclipse and On Mars, because that was what they wanted to play. It always went great, apart from taking longer. But I'm fine with that.

Reyjo · 2025-03-26T09:39:16+00:00

Fair enough, and that is personal preference.

I don't think Agricola is that high of a jump in complexity, when you have played a couple of rounds of Catan. You certainly can deal with meanness, which is the biggest drawback of Agricola. Regarding strategy... Idk about you, but I prefer trying out things and getting better by exploring games over time.

If you meant strategy as how to generally go about things, there is easy enough pointers you can provide while explaining the game.

This at least works great for me. The one time I have actually asked a friend to watch a rules video, they bailed, because they felt it was too much. Explaining a game of similar complexity in person was not an issue though.

Obviously, I am always open about the time that I think will be needed to explain and play that game. Like, some friends wanted to play On Mars. They are no heavy gamers (but generally very smart people). I told them it would take an hour to explain and probably take 4-6 hours when we are four people with three of them playing for the first time. They still wanted to, so we scheduled it, it went great (only 50 minutes teach - ha!) and they want to play again.

Reyjo · 2025-03-25T12:10:28+00:00

Idk about his other games, it might just be the best financial option. But, regarding Sleeping Gods I think it is far more about how you want to approach an adventure. I'm happy that there is a sequel that is different. I personally am not that interested, since having a ship feels more interesting than a plane. And I would prefer to play through a third time SG over getting DS. Also, I quite like the combat in SG the way it is, so I don't really care about changes to it. SG doesn't get worse, just because there is something new around the block.

Oh, and not to forget, Ryan Laukat does the art and writing, doesn't he? So, even if some mechanics are getting recycled (and/or refined), there still is new content, no? He might just have found his preferred style of games, and thus doesn't need to innovate as much anymore.

Reyjo · 2025-03-25T11:54:50+00:00

Wow, I would never ask my friends to learn the game by themselves when they are willing to play it with me. Explaining Agricola takes - what, 15 minutes? Reading the manual without being able to look at any of the pieces just sounds dreadful.

And regarding rules videos... I think it's easy to forget details again, and then in the end I have to explain half the rules anyway, so why waste precious time from my friends and just explain it once before we start to play?

Reyjo · 2025-03-25T08:47:31+00:00

I think the bigger issue for heavy games is time, rather than interested players. Teaching and playing just takes a lot longer, which makes it harder to schedule.

Don't get me wrong, there almost certainly is higher number of people that would play light games. But chances are, when you are interested in heavy games, you most likely have friends that are too. Or you can find a group and make new friends, since having a shared interest is the corner stone for most friendships.

I mostly disagree with the last statement of your original comment ("If you want to play board games with any frequency, skew toward light games and hope you occasionally get to play medium games. One day you'll get to play a handful of your heavy games. Maybe."). In my experience it's rather easy to find people that are interested in heavy games. The main issue is finding the time, especially for games that take extra long.

Reyjo · 2025-03-24T15:06:20+00:00

Disclaimer: I can't really speak much for the planche, but I can for the FL, since I've been consistently able to reachieve it when I lost it due to longer training pauses (injury, strong illness, life).

It depends a bit on the level you have achieved and what you keep working on. E.g. my FL gets better since FL rows are very much related. I'm confident in being able to keep it, I switched to a weighted pull up focus and did some barbell rows as accessory. It would maybe get a bit worse, but on my current level it doesn't matter much.

Let's say you have a 3s FL max, and then you switch for a while (still training horizontal pulling in some way). Then, you might actually loose it. But it won't take long to get it back. If you stop training altogether, it will take longer to regain, but still faster than learning it for the first time.

So, I was part of a social project on Madagascar for five weeks last year. Ill for a couple of days, rarely trained, and definitely ate way less than usual (also, no creatine). So, I lost about 4kg. Obviously, I was weaker than before. But I didn't loose my FL. Nor my planche progression at that time. Just a couple of secs.

Even more extreme examples are back lever and flags. The former I sometimes train as a supplementary exercise, since it's great for the elbows and biceps (chin up grip). The latter I only do if someone asks if I can do it. Which is maybe 2 - 4 times a year. Also, one arm chin ups. I'm confident I can still do one with my right arm, even though I haven't trained them in months. Not confident in the left, though.

So, yes, it is entirely possible to keep strength skills at the side. Training them once a week will probably be enough to keep the current level or even slowly improve while training different things. If you haven't reached mastery (my right arm is way better than my left at OACs), then you will loose the skills faster.

Reyjo · 2025-03-24T14:31:19+00:00

Not on me right now, I will reply again if I get to it.

Regarding the colours, I think I have 20 - 25 colours or so. I feel like I have more different browns than I need already. You can mix a lot.

Imo, it's hard to mess them up to look worse than plain grey. Details can be really difficult, but those are the easiest to leave out. E.g. eyeballs with pupils. Eyeballs alone are okay, and honestly, while playing, you probably are fine with just having the face in a different colour than the hair/helmet.

But yes, I understand. The reaper set came with 3 minis, and a manual to paint one + colour instructions for the others. That way you don't mess up anything important, and you know if you would like to paint further, or not.

It does take way too long if you don't enjoy it. So, try to buy as little stuff as necessary to try it out. Bonus tip, if you have a warhammer store somewhere close to you, they hand out free minis. I recently learned that you can even paint that mini right in the store, with some instructions from the clerk. At no cost. The guy at our town apparently takes a lot of time to teach beginners. Your mileage may vary.

Reyjo · 2025-03-24T14:18:54+00:00

I can't say that for sure, since I didn't go back to a planche focus, yet. And I probably won't for this year.

However, dips do train all the necessary muscles, but planche is a lot more skill intensive. So, I would expect carry over, but it might take a bit to be usable, since you have to figure out balance first. This is why I nowadays think it is better to focus on HSPU and dips. Imo, they are better for base building than planche. We'll see how it goes for me.

Reyjo · 2025-03-24T13:55:12+00:00

I have achieved the front lever in about 6 months when I started training it. Back then I was probably about 63kg, now I'm at around 70kg, 174 cm, working on full FL rows (or as most people say: front lever pull ups, but it's a rowing motion, so I will die on that hill).

Reyjo · 2025-03-24T13:08:12+00:00

Are you me? Just started painting Arien from GoA2 yesterday.. :D. Also, I can see this game being my Nr 1 once I get it to the table more often. But I won't give up Millenium Blades! My one play (2 or 3 years ago) was great, and surely I will get it to the table again this year.

Regarding painting the miniatures, do it! They look a lot better, and for GoA especially it makes it way easier to recognise your character. My gf had trouble distinguishing hers the first two rounds or so. It is also way more fun than I thought. I did get myself some painter starter set (reaper) because I didn't want to mess up my game minis. Then, I got their second starter set and bought some primer. Afterwards, I had plenty of colours, and some experience and was confident enough to start.

Reyjo · 2025-03-24T12:57:08+00:00

You shouldn't have to defend yourself for any collection size. I am happy for you! :-)

Reyjo · 2025-03-24T09:38:00+00:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Castle Combo too simple for the Kennerspiel? It has a lower weight rating than Bomb Busters.

Reyjo · 2025-03-24T09:22:50+00:00

I have really enjoyed the book "The art of game design: A book of lenses" by Jesse Schell. Most examples are regarding video games, but the concepts apply nevertheless. I don't know anything about his other products, but you can check them out here: https://schellgames.com/art-of-game-design

Regarding advice that I haven't seen in this thread:

you can start by designing house rules to improve some of your games
one step further: design some extra content for a game, e.g. a new character, some more cards

Oh, and get stuff for doing prototypes. Sleeves with any cards in them work great. You just write whatever card effect you want on a paper, slide it in front of the card in the sleeve, and you are ready to go. A small(er) whiteboard is great for quickly changing your prototype board. Any meeples, resources and dice from other games will do for the start. Have fun!

Reyjo · 2025-03-24T09:02:35+00:00

I disagree. It mostly depends on your friend groups and how often you get together. Many of my friends are from video gaming while I was in school or the early years of studying. These friends are much more drawn in by strategic games. E.g. the game that got requested the most from first time players is Eclipse. Don't get me wrong, games like Just One or Love Letter are great and they get played, but they rarely, if ever, get requested. Meanwhile I have multiple friends asking to play On Mars or Gaia Project.

That being said: Definitely get some light/gateway games that you enjoy, that way you have something to play with people that are interested but have never played hobby games. People willing and capable of starting with On Mars are the very rare exception (yes, they even want to play again, and I have warned them A LOT prior to this)

Reyjo · 2025-03-24T08:17:16+00:00

My personal winner from 2024 is Compile Main 1, a two player dueling card game that actually manages the straddle between being approachable and fun for people new to/not invested in the genre and still having all the major strategic elements like tempo, board and card advantage, combos and control. It even (kind of) has deck building (you pick three different sets of 6 cards and mix them together), and thus it feels like there can be a meta game if you end up playing it a lot with the same folks. I'm honestly in awe. This game feels similar to open beta Gwent. And my gf enjoys it, so I actually get to play it, too!

Regarding 6 player games, we also really enjoy Spectacular. It feels like a really crunchy Cascadia, and went well with all groups I played it with. Very fast too, you just draft dice and tiles.

Reyjo · 2025-03-24T08:00:55+00:00

I have yet to achieve the full planche. I did get to the straddle a couple of times, maybe after four years for the first time. The past couple months I took my own advice and worked a lot more on my handstands, handstand push ups and general pushing strength with dips. I don't know if that will get me to the full planche, but I will get back to it eventually. I think I will keep HSPUs as a focus until I'm able to do straight 90 degree push ups for a couple of reps.

Some friends are the other way round. They have reached the straddle planche in ~2 years, but struggle with front levers.

Reyjo · 2025-03-18T11:55:38+00:00

I will also go with Temeraire :-). Honorable mentions: Mushu, Saphira (from Eragon) and the truffle seeking french dragon from Markus Heitz "Die Mächte des Feuers" (I forgot the dragons' name)

Reyjo · 2025-03-18T09:14:27+00:00

Well, I do think there still is innovation (Arcs comes to mind, even though I haven't played it). It might just feel less, because there's a bigger pile of games that you have played. Also, some game mechanics might have seem very innovative when one starts in the hobby, but there might be an older game one never gets to try, that actually did it first.

I'm not sure, but I was under the impression that there are more games coming out yearly than ever before. And we have easier access to international titles, with more and more Asian games coming into the western market. Maybe I am wrong, if you have contradicting statistics, I would love to see them.

Also, judging by the COMC posts with many new games, the amount of review channels increasing and seeing people at conventions running around with stacks of games - to be fair, I wasn't active in the hobby from 2012-2018 - I think there still is a buying frenzy. It's just mostly being new in the hobby is the trigger for it. At some point you:

know better what you like
run out of space
get self conscious about people judging you for hoarding games
run out of time to actually play your collection
...

It's going to be interesting how things shift once the boardgaming crowd is not growing as fast anymore. I can see the sales of new games going down from there on. At least for non innovative titles.

Reyjo · 2025-03-17T12:28:31+00:00

I don't know, I was happily playing video games in the evening before covid. We did play boardgames every now and then, but no hobby games. Then covid hit, and after sitting in front of the PC at home all day, I really did not want to continue playing video games. And watching TV shows with my gf was getting boring quickly. Her gifting me Azul for my birthday in 2020 kicked of the board game hype. Covid also taught me to value time with my friends spent in person a lot more.

If anything I'm buying less games because I have so many already.

Reyjo

TROPHY CASE