Board Games and Tabletop!

I don't know if anyone has read Red Rising, but Stonemaier just released this game based on the book. I greatly enjoyed the book, so I picked it up, also Stonemaier has a pretty good track record.
 

2021 Cryptex Hunt

cryptexhunt.com cryptexhunt.com

Not a board game or table-top game but there is this free online 8bit cryptex puzzle hunt going on this month with a series of 12ish puzzles to solve. Each one has a little 8-bit escape room-type game that you play through a website site using typed keyboard commands. I went through all of them with a group on zoom last week. Some of them are very difficult but it feels really good when you solve them or have a breakthrough. I think they have hints on the site now, too for the first few puzzles to help you if you get stuck. There are little cryptexes hidden in some of them that you use to unlock clues and each game after you beat it has another less obvious puzzle for you to solve in order to come up with the secret password that you enter into the site to unlock the next set of games. Might be really hard and frustrating working on your own, but if you have a group of 3-5 people who are really nerdy and into puzzles and ciphers and codes, it can be pretty fun. If your team finishes all of the puzzles by March 31, you're entered to win an actual cryptex made by hand. There's a youtube announcement video on the website where they show an example of one of those cryptex and answer some general questions about the series of puzzles.

Possibly Spoiler-ish Warning: the puzzles say that they're self-contained, but not all of them are
[for some we had to use google, did reverse image searches, use websites to decode messages from Base64 format, annoying crap like that, but I think most of them don't require that./SPOILER]
 
With vaccinations and friends in the same building quarantine as me, I've been able to play a few games recently.

Marvel United, it's alright.
Escape the Dark Castle, lost twice, I like it.
Unmatched, this was neat, I like the variance in characters.

I've also spent too much on MTG cards, but the new Strixhaven set is really fun and looks great.

Going to play Red Rising tonight, it's based off a book series I really enjoy.
 
After owning the game for over a year, I finally started Gloomhaven!!!! Both of my parties (a 4 and a 5 person) have had their first sessions, and each beat the first scenario with only minor hiccups. Its been at least 2-3 years since I played a legacy game and I can already feel this one taking over my life. Can't wait to play more.
 
Played a 4 and half hour game of Nemesis last night and died. It was fun, would play again.

Got Tyrants of the Underdark to the table again, one of my faves.

I actually went OUT to a friendly Keyforge tournament at a brewery a couple weeks ago, I lost, but it was a lot of fun playing with people again, and I saw a couple folks I hadn't seen in over a year. It was weird, though.

I'm excited next week I'll finally be able to bring Dwellings of Eldervale to the table. I've heard good things and it's been collecting dust for far too long.

We have Southern Fried Gaming Expo coming up in Atlanta. I went the year before the Pandemic for a day and had a blast playing board game demos, and various pinball machines. I'm considering getting a room at the convention hotel this year, at least for a night.
 
Woob_woob said:
After owning the game for over a year, I finally started Gloomhaven!!!! Both of my parties (a 4 and a 5 person) have had their first sessions, and each beat the first scenario with only minor hiccups. Its been at least 2-3 years since I played a legacy game and I can already feel this one taking over my life. Can't wait to play more.
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Love Gloomhaven. My campaign hit a hard stop with COVID, I'm hoping to be able to restart it before too long.

In other news, my Terraforming Mars Big Box finally shipped (or at least had a label printed). It's maybe my favorite board game of the last five plus years, so I'm very excited to have a fully-expanded version to throw down.
 
Max Sterling said:
Same sitch, though now that we're all vaxxed up and ready to play again, one of my four had to go have a baby. So we're up in the air until she figures out her scheduling needs. =(
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This is why we are doing two parties. Before Covid, we had one that was going to rotate between houses each session, but with us having a baby now thats not possible for my wife. So we found more people that wanted to play and split the party into two groups, one that only plays exclusively at our house and one that rotates. I get to play in both so while its going to be a bit more work for me, I'm really excitied to see how the different parties workout while getting to control two different classes (Brute and Tinkerer)
 
I host a regular Jaws Of The Lion at my house. Got some of our minis painted too and they look ace.

I think it's a good game, but the gloomhaven games have a lot of admin which I find a bit much.
 
Captainfog said:
I host a regular Jaws Of The Lion at my house. Got some of our minis painted too and they look ace.

I think it's a good game, but the gloomhaven games have a lot of admin which I find a bit much.
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We also have Jaws of The Lion. I hear great things about it, and that its a better way to learn the mechanics of the game. I mainly got it for the extra attack decks and to have more missions between my two parties. Between the base, JotL and Frosthaven arriving in the fall(?) I should have enough Haven to last me years
 
Woob_woob said:
We also have Jaws of The Lion. I hear great things about it, and that its a better way to learn the mechanics of the game. I mainly got it for the extra attack decks and to have more missions between my two parties. Between the base, JotL and Frosthaven arriving in the fall(?) I should have enough Haven to last me years
Click to expand...

Frosthaven should be released this summer
 
My group played Gloomhaven for 2 years or so and continued over zoom during the pandemic (it was A LOT of admin for my friends who set up cameras over the game board and had to move all the pieces and track everything haha).

We just started Jaws of the Lion and it was almost annoying how much of an easier introduction it was to the basic mechanics of the game after how long it took us to get through the first few scenarios of Gloomhaven (and all the rules that we forgot about and didn’t remember until weeks or months later because there was just too much to keep track of haha).
 
Man, I miss Gloomhaven. I need to get the band back together for that one.

Every 3 weeks two buddies and I play Tainted Grail, it's fine... the story is cool the game is too hard. You just want to progress but they make it too difficult.

The new Magic the Gathering set Adventures in the Forgotten Realms (D&D Universe) is a lot of fun and full of a lot of flavour. I'm really enjoying it.
 
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