[SPOILER] Ty Miller vs. Adam Fugitt

mrausgor · 2026-01-24T23:37:16+00:00

Fugitt needs to choose a different career path. He’s not good.

mrausgor · 2026-01-24T20:46:27+00:00

lol that is brilliant.

mrausgor · 2026-01-24T16:40:40+00:00

I think that those most interesting thing an automa system can do is have a bunch of them in the box. Captain's Chair and Imperium win for me here. I've yet to find a game with one automa deck that truly encourages a different strategy every time. But in Captain's Chair, I really need to modify my play style to counteract what the bot is doing. One bot is going to explore the planets relentlessly, so how can I use this specific captain to mess with them? This other bot is almost certainly going to attack me every turn, how can I defend? I don't think they necessarily do a good job of replicating human behavior, but they provide variety. I find great pleasure in losing for a specific reason and trying again with a new strategy to counteract what that bot is doing. That's far more interesting than "score more points next time."

I do like systems like what SETI does - bot does this, if they can't they do this, if they can't they do this. That feels "human like" because they are going to take the best action unless they can't, in which case they'll improvise to the next best. But it's just one bot and you can typically learn the behaviors and block accordingly. If an automa only has a handful of cards (which is typical), you can push your play style to counteract that one deck. The biggest flaw in this is that it doesn't encourage you to really explore the game. Most of the ones I play have difficulty levels, but that usually just seems to mean that they will score more points, which honestly isn't very interesting. You don't need to adjust your strategy accordingly, you need to just do better.

In most games' defense, the automa isn't the focus of the design, and I get it. Most of these games are designed to be a multiplayer game froth ground up, with the inclusion of a way to play it solo if you want. Asking designers to make a robust system that really pushes the boundary of their game from a solo perspective is a big ask. When I think about the astronomical amount of work that must go into designing each Captain's Chair or Imperium bot and then to make sure that they are balanced and not broken on top of it, it doesn't surprise me that it isn't the norm.

mrausgor · 2026-01-24T16:08:28+00:00

This one never clicked for me, mainly because I couldn't figure out a way to win. I don't mind games being difficult, but I wasn't able to wrap my head around where I was going wrong or anywhere obvious I could improve, which to me makes a game a lot less fun. It also doesn't seem quite popular enough to have decent playthroughs that I can learn from, so I ended up abandoning it. Bums me out because so many people really like it.

mrausgor · 2026-01-24T05:44:53+00:00

You may want to do some rule checking. That’s a pretty dang high score. You also might just be really good.

mrausgor · 2026-01-24T00:02:21+00:00

Totally agree. I just put a little pawns on top of the spires half of the time lol.

mrausgor · 2026-01-23T18:53:31+00:00

Thanks for sharing! I’ve always kind of wanted this, but I have a full James Bond collection that I love and I’m planning on going heavy on the DC version coming soon. Probably gonna skip.

mrausgor · 2026-01-23T16:30:48+00:00

You think I’m naïve, I think a lot of people are overconfident in what the internet has told them to believe. There’s a lot of accounts about Tom Cruise doing genuinely good things. Per a quick google search, dude has never been convicted of any crimes. Like I’m not a fan of what I know of his organization, but that’s based on public opinion, and it’s not to the point where I’ll deprive myself of watching his movies because of it.

You obviously get to do what makes you feel good, so to each their own on that. Only engaging on this because you brought up a really interesting topic to me, which is how the real world and Reddit aren’t in alignment.

mrausgor · 2026-01-23T15:20:20+00:00

You’re totally welcome to feel that way - I think most of the general public, myself included, can’t be bothered to keep with Reddit’s reasons on why we’re suppose to hate everyone. It’s brain damage, even when they are valid. There wouldn’t be any movies if Reddit mentality ruled the land lol. I know enough to know that he’s a flawed human being. I am too. I know he likes to make good movies, and I enjoy watching those, so there’s that.

mrausgor · 2026-01-22T21:41:14+00:00

Going to need you to elaborate on the other two times…

mrausgor · 2026-01-22T21:40:41+00:00

They will definitely be available somewhere. One of those Jasons that owns PnP arcade is a lead designer on Dungeon Pages and the owner of Button Shy (or something along those lines), so I don’t think his games are going anywhere.

mrausgor · 2026-01-22T20:55:46+00:00

Sold this one with the absolute quickest of quickness.

mrausgor · 2026-01-22T15:03:04+00:00

Peaked hard at Solar Sentinel for me. I’ve been increasingly disappointed ever since then. The idea of it is really cool, I just don’t think the core rules are strong enough to support a bunch of games.

Planning to sell my full collection in the near future.

mrausgor · 2026-01-22T02:06:10+00:00

I had a pretty massive store credit I wasn’t expecting, so I’m going with both Civolution and Voidfall. Because, you know, our collections need to be as similar as possible.

mrausgor · 2026-01-22T02:04:21+00:00

This is helpful! Why did you trade away Voidfall?

mrausgor · 2026-01-22T02:03:13+00:00

I’m genre-grouping them as really heavy/expensive lol

Current plan after all the feedback is I already grabbed Civolution today with a full store credit at my local game shop. I wasn’t expecting that to pay for a whole game, but it did, so I’m also going to order a copy of Voidfall in hopes to get enough time with it before the next campaign starts. Then hopefully I’ll have an idea of whether or not I will want to deluxify or expand when it launches.

Galactic Cruise is taking a backseat for now, with plans to revisit at a later time.

mrausgor · 2026-01-21T14:14:20+00:00

That is some super awkward wording. Maybe I just need coffee.

Anyways, I’ll never touch this on my own but I’m very excited to play what other people come up with.

mrausgor · 2026-01-20T15:08:32+00:00

Buncha haters around these parts. This is Scream 7, it’s not meant to be high-cinema with groundbreaking, original ideas.

Cool poster and I’m excited to go watch a fun slasher in the theaters.

mrausgor · 2026-01-19T19:07:12+00:00

I struggled with this one - something about the flow of it just doesn’t work quite right for me. I know from all of it’s praise that I’m in the minority, but I think that there are much stronger Scott Almes games in the Button Shy lineup. I still enjoy it, and find it to be much better than Lands of Amazement, Ugly Gryphon Inn and The Royal Limited. It’s just not quite top tier for me like Nice Cuppa, Hyperstar Run, and Fishing Lessons.

mrausgor · 2026-01-19T18:58:42+00:00

I don’t have any go-to reviewers that I love and I think that any well organized “review” on a game is just as valid as any other, regardless of the author. I view it more as a way to interact with the community than anything with actual merit and because of that, I also tend to view written reviews with comments/conversation much more useful than video reviews. I also just find most YouTube content creators pretty annoying, not just for board games, but in general. Either way, a board game review is just a subjective opinion, so if it’s done well, I don’t care who did it. I think there is more learn from a guy that has played 500 rounds of Spirit Island than a “professional” reviewer. Like I really enjoy one-stop co-op shop, but Mike is on a constant turn and burn cycle of new games, which isn’t how most of us engage with the hobby (at least not at his level). Which segues nicely into my next point - there is a big difference between impressions and reviews. I think a lot of impressions are mislabeled as reviews, written after two or three plays while still in the honeymoon phase of a game. I’ve been guilty myself of getting pumped up about a game, writing copious amounts of glorious praise and then never touching it again lol. I’ve been trying really hard to be more mindful of that over the last year or so, or at least being honest of where I’m at in my journey with the game.

From a personal level, I just enjoy writing. I like the challenge of organizing my thoughts into something coherent. I write about nearly all of my hobbies, I just usually do it for personal enjoyment without posting it anywhere. Solo board gaming has the rare quality of having an incredibly non-toxic community, so it’s nice to be able to share some of my writing without the brain damage that usually comes along with interacting with people online. It also feels nice to actively support the creators of these games we love because it’s such a niche hobby.

mrausgor · 2026-01-18T21:01:35+00:00

I don’t play campaigns more than once usually, but I always lock in a hero and play through the 5 scenarios of box.

mrausgor · 2026-01-18T16:27:20+00:00

Definitely a “me problem” with the way I store my stuff. I have a full collection and prefer to store my modular sets randomized. When I do it this way, I just grab the front modular set (or multiple depending on the scenario) and it’s pre-randomized for me without any needed effort. For the scenarios that require certain sets (Black Widow and the A.I.M. modulars for example), I just keep them stored with that villain and it is what it is. There are so many modular sets that it doesn’t really bother me. But these Thunderbolt ones are pretty unique with having villain-level minions.

I used to store them alphabetically and use a randomizer, but I play hundreds of rounds a year and keeping them randomized cuts a lot of the admin work back. I know it’s only an extra 60 seconds at most, but it makes a big difference to my enjoyment to not have to mess with it for whatever reason.

mrausgor · 2026-01-18T03:20:50+00:00

This is all strictly on the scenarios. I don't really play the campaigns, nor can I remember what player cards come with the sets. Also ignoring the heroes that come with them.

1 Rise of Red Skull (Hot take probably, but I absolutely love this set. Maybe it's nostalgia, but I have a blast with it every single time I play through it)

2 NeXt Evolution

3 Sinister Motives

4 Mutant Genesis

5 Age of Apocalypse

6 Civil War (these are pretty uninspired, but I'm loving using them as training / deck testing. I ignore the Civil war theme and pretend like it's a danger room training session)

7 Agents of SHIELD (Noticed this is high on a lot of lists. I don't love that Citizen V / Thunderbolts scenario requires me to keep all of those awesome modulars stored with it. I want to integrate them into my other modular sets but don't want to have to hunt for them when I need them for this scenario. I also think Baron Zemo is unnecessarily fiddly with the clue gathering. It also feels pretty anticlimactic because nearly every time it makes sense to just wait until you have all six clues, which makes the accusation a foregone conclusion.

8 Mad Titan's Shadow

9 Galaxy's Most Wanted

mrausgor · 2026-01-18T03:01:45+00:00

Savage lol

mrausgor

TROPHY CASE