Analysis Paralysis: What's Next for this Collector

     I consider myself to have become "something of a serious board game collector" thanks to the intense availability of interesting, engaging and fun games on the market right now that support cooperative play, but there are many areas of the hobby I have yet to really crest in any meaningful way.

     Wargaming has always been interesting to me, but was in the past visually unattractive.  I never liked the cardboard chits with clipart insignias, but now that I'm wiser and care less and less about miniatures and more about engaging mechanics and the puzzling part of gaming, I now know that if I gave a good one a worthwhile shot, I would probably enjoy it immensely.
      Possible adds: For war games, I have my eye on adding Comancheria and Advanced Squad 
      Leader to my collection.

     I have a very similar relationship with Eurogames, to the surprise of some.  For the longest time, a box cover with a German farmer looking longingly past a field of grain or the image of a 14th century lord would have me clicking away faster than you could say point salad.  If I wasn't going to escape into a masculine power fantasy with upgradable weapons and dramatic, final turn dice rolls that determine the win or the lose, then I simply was not interested.  That's changed in recent years.  I really enjoyed the heck out of Pandemic most recently, but prior to that I played a bit of Primordial Soup, but simply couldn't get into Agricola.  The gist is, I know the interest is there and I'm ready to explore this massive archive.
      Possible adds: Alhambra, Carcossone

    Finally, lets quickly hit on my bread and butter genres: accessible light games and thematic, combat fueled games with miniatures.   I've already picked up Sushi Go this year, as well as The Undercity respectivley.
      Possible adds: I've got my eye on Dream Home and Dungeon Alliance, which I did not back
                               but was just funded on KS.  Also Wrathborne Champions looks stellar.  I'm
                               going to keep my eye out for these titles, but sideline them in the interest of
                               increasing exposure to the other two categories in this post.  I also really want to
                               grab Legends of Andor (which exists in a cross section of these categories I
                               believe.)

New Adds, Mid March & Backlog

I've been in the mood for acquisitions lately.  I took a lot of time away from this hobby and I'm rediscovering a lot of the things I love (and don't love) about it.  Within the last 13 months I've doubled my collection, bringing it into the now while still hanging on to the parts of the old collection I have great memories of.  That being said, I have a lot of work to do to cull the herd. There are boxes I haven't opened in ten years (Doom 2004, Betrayal at House on the Hill first edition, Order of the Stick, Last Night on Earth) and there are games that will probably never, ever hit the table again (Cthulhu Dice, are you even a game? Diamonsters, why are you in such a monster of a box?).  With this task being part of the hobby, I am joyful when something like a successful trade goes through and pieces like these are passed to people who will play them.  I rarely get sentimental about letting things go because I only part with the parts of my collection that I do not want to see again.

I had a few trades lately that went very well over BGG, but I was unable to move much in the way of physical games.  I had a small amount of Star Wars Destiny cards, and having not been able to play the game because of lack of stock, and having not been able to participate in any organized events because of lack of stock, I put them up for trade and received both Escape: Curse of the Temple and Flash Point: Fire Rescue.  Excited to have both in the collection as I love daring adventure as a theme, and there is a pretty good chance my lady will give them a shot.  I also made a new release purchase thanks to rewards points.

So my new adds are:

Flash Point: Fire Rescue
Escape: Curse of the Temple
SaltLands, and the Lost in the Desert Expansion.

So I actually didn't cull the heard, I lost 1 sort-of game and gained 2, then bought a new release and its expansion.  As I said above, I've got a long way to go to get these games into my bookshelf in my new apartment.

Here's the backlog of yet to be played:

Shadowrun: Crossfire
Aeon's End
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Star Realms
Tiny Epic Galaxies
The Networks
Killer Bunnies: Heroes vs. Villains
Flash Point: Fire Rescue
Escape: Curse of the Temple
SaltLands

I recently crossed off Pandemic and Sentinels, time to get crackin'!

New Add: Pandemic (I'm Late To The Party)

     I was recently able to acquire a new copy of Pandemic.  I felt like my collection had a lot of dicey games full of random outcomes and laughs (which I love) and I wanted something that was a bit more refined, but still had high stakes.  Pandemic is a game anyone can get into, and since it's carried in big box stores (so I'm told but I've never seen it) its sales do very well.  I enjoy a lot of deterministic games, but I've never hooked on to them as well as I have to things that generate replayability though the game of excessive chance, and I admit I haven't played enough of them enough times to even be part of the jury.  That's just me.  I'm excited to try Pandemic, though my backlog is hurting at the moment.  I just knocked out my first few solo games of Sentinels of the Multiverse and had the great opportunity to play Mag Blast 3rd ed. with some perfect strangers, which was a hoot, but adding this just makes the "get through the backlog" goal that much farther out of reach.  It's okay though, because there's always something to play.
   

Memoir '44: Looking Back On a Classic

        Memoir '44 doesn't hold a special place in my heart, but I do have great memories.  It's a fun game about a particularly destructive part of history that serves to make accessible the common wargamer's affinity for relative historical accuracy.  It also acts as a tribute, presented in a respectful way as to preserve the integrity of both the game and those who play it.  I don't leave it out of my top considerations for any good reason; it is at all times well designed, excellently produced and easy to understand.  My problem is that I didn't play it enough.
       All gamers travel peaks and valleys during their time spent at the table.  There are chapters of your life where you may have a particularly common game night with a steady group, playing some games you like and some you love, and others you don't want to see again.  Some of these people you play games with may move or stop playing, or you might move or stop playing.  Work may get busy, you may travel, get hired somewhere else and have to commit to other facets of this modern life because you do or do not want to.  It is both normal and necessary, and it makes us who we are, defines our history and the stories we tell about games we played during that time when we played for hours. Memoir '44 is a part of that for a lot of people because it was popular a long time ago. Since then, times have changed for everybody, new games have been released, innovations in design have been made and game groups have formed and deformed.  Memoir '44 lands during one of those times when I was winding down on the hobby.
      It's a game where you should play every scenario to fully understand the story it is telling, and that's something I didn't do.  A couple of plays of Bridge Too Far (or the like named equivalent), the Omaha Beach scenario, one or two of the town raids (if I'm remembering correctly, this is almost a decade ago) and I think I probably executed about half of the book's scenarios, but there are a couple I think I shyed away from that I would like to get into now, and they include the more complex scenarios with many tank formations and encampments.  Of course, some of these are naturally unbalanced.  For historical accuracy the designers made sure to replicate, using their system, the balance of power at the start of the engagement.  I remember that being a particularly satisfying aspect of the game, and at times frustrating.
      Another aspect of that system was the board's segmentation, and the cards that commanded the units.  Hand management along with miniatures tactics is something we may see a lot of today, but at the time I had just gotten my hands on it, and everything about the game beamed of great things to come for the hobby.  So when I took a break for the sake of my education, wallet and future, I remember Memoir '44 being the thing that kind of pulled me back in years later.  Not because we got back in to playing it, but because it represented the way I felt about the hobby when I took a break in 2009 - that there was unfinished business.   There are so many unplayed scenarios still waiting in those books for me to come back and share with people, and the promising boom the hobby saw during my absence only sold me harder on the worth of those scenarios.  Memoir is a constant light on the horizon because it represents, for me, the unplayed chapters, formats and characters in our collections.  In that closet of yours is a box with a special power you've never activated or a card you've never played, and an "Oh look at this!" moment waiting to happen.  I'd like to pull it off the shelf soon.
   

Just Follow the Card: A "Sentinels" Dual Session Report

     I was recently able to log my first two Sentinels of the Multiverse plays, and it blew me away.  I had been on the fence for a long time, shying away due to the unfamiliar superhero characters in a world where "Superhero" is synonymous with Batman and Spidey,  I thought that if the game was that good, it surely would have been adapted by now, possibly utilizing a more recognizable property.  I got in my own way for the better part of a year, and since I recently dove back into the hobby, I thought I needed to really get off some fences with my purchases and not simply go with what's new and linen textured.

     In a strange turn of events, and contrary to some opinionated views I had read during my time on the dividing line, I found Sentinels to be a smooth, logical and deep game.  The ease of which you can track effects with the banner tokens and the roundabout turn sequence is so fundamental and intuitive in contrast to the majority of cooperatives that have hit my table.  It's a game where every mechanic makes sense, team composition and seat placement is as important as the cards you draw, and it's difficult to lose your place.  It's often in solo games that there's so much going on that I need to write down important actions just to keep everything straight.  In a multiplayer game you can often rely on a friend to correct you if you really mess up, but solitaire play requires you to be sharp at all times and it's not always easy.  I enjoy Sentinels' rules for being aggressively straightforward and telling me to "just follow the card." Play, Power, Draw.

     

     The Report:

     Match 1:

     Team Composition: 

              Left: Tempest         Center: Legacy        Right:   Wraith

      Villain:   Baron Blade (First play recommendation)

      Environment:   Megaopolis   (First play recommendation)

On Team Comp:

      I think I really lucked out with my first team composition.  While I picked them for looking cool, I definitely expected Legacy to be a damage dealer due to his front and center role.  Tempest was my pick for "my guy" but I was a little disappointed in his performance by the end of the game.  While Legacy was integral to success, The Wraith most definitely takes the MVP.   I picked 3 heroes because I did not want to manage 4 hands. 

On Villain and Environment:

      These picks were based on the rulebook's "level 1" recommendation and I was satisfied.  I'll be interested in trying this configuration on Advanced difficulty after I've defeated all the villians once though.  I'm happy to see that even after a full play I've only seen a few of the cards in the deck, and this goes for the heroes too.  

The Match:

      I owe this game's win to Wraith and Legacy's first hands. Wraith had a ton of essential equipment that boosted her attacks, so she was consistently dealing 8+ damage each round with the help from Legacy and his inspiring presence.  In order to keep that buff alive, cards were played by Legacy almost exclusively for that purpose.  I think Legacy only dealt 4 damage the whole game, but he was the target of many attacks due to his HP being higher than anyone else's (particularly by environment cards.) which would then be negated.  Tempest ended up being a "specials" character, discarding ongoing cards now and then but never really doing much damage or boosting Wraith's.  I was slightly dissapointed in this, but as I said above, I feel like I saw a fraction of his cards. Tempest was taken out in the last Villain turn, with Wraith killing Blade the turn after.  At the end of the match, The Wraith was able to nuke all her equipment and turn it into damage  to defeat the Vengeful Mad Scientist for the win.  It was a great first match.

      Career Status:   WINS: 1   LOSSES: 0
      Hero Status: 2/3

++++++++++++++++++++++++

     Match 2:

     Team Composition: 

              Left: Tachyon         Center: Maka        Right:   Legacy

      Villain:   Omnitcron

      Environment:   Primalis

On Team Comp:

      As before, I think I have a strange talent for team composition, as it seemed like these three gelled - maybe not as well as the first play, but they still had chemistry.  It felt like everyone had their shining moment, and the mix of two specialized characters and a consistent damage dealer really helped cut down ongoing villain cards, drone and chip away at Omnicron.

On Villain and Environment:

      These picks were based on the rulebook's "level 1" recommendation and I was satisfied.  I'll be interested in trying this configuration on Advanced difficulty after I've defeated all the villians once though.  I'm happy to see that even after a full play I've only seen a few of the cards in the deck, and this goes for the heroes too.

The Match:

      Haka dealt at least 5 damage every round with One Shots and his base power, (any time I tried to
invest in some ongoing effect that would increase damage later, it was always better to do it now.)  I quickly picked up Tachyon's deck strategy of playing and discarding as many cards as possible so as to do as much damage as possible (picking up speed!) and Legacy mostly helped Haka on damage up until the very end, where she was able to hold two particularly nasty Villain cards (the laser beam that does 15 damage and his skeleton drones) from dealing damage.  Closing it out was a matter of almost decking Tachyon to get the second burst powered attack card (I had foolishly used the first one way to early) to do 16 damage to Omnicron, bringing him to 98 wounds.  With one of her ongoing cards allowing two card plays during the play phase all that was left was to Sucker Punch Omnicron (destroy a villian card with 2 HP) and he is down.  From there it was a matter of cleaning up the drones for the win.

      Career Status:   WINS: 2   LOSSES: 0
      Hero Status: 3/3

If you spot any rule inconsistencies, I'd love to hear it! Thanks for reading my session report.

-MS