ARGHHH....Wingspan Part II

 What did I say in that last post?  This is the AI trying to humiliate me.  There's no call for this.

ARGHHH...Wingspan

 

I've been playing Wingspan against the AI because my family doesn't volunteer to play.  I lose a lot. I lose so much.  It's embarrassing.  Usually I can figure out the AI methodology [I think Ascension cheats and throws your card killing cards to the bottom, btw.  They'll have to prove me wrong]. I thought for sure this game was going to be different. I had a great balance of birds played, food cached on cards, eggs everywhere, good goal numbers, and solid placements including wins on all the objectives.  Fuck you Wingspan.  How do I know your AI doesn't just say "Nod got 57; let's just add one point to that for the smarter AI players and win.  He won't be able to verify the points without more effort than he's willing to put in and does he really know when we played that egg or cached that food?"

Con of the North: Day 3 of 3

Sunday, our last day of gaming at Con of the North.  I have seldom, if ever, signed up to play a war game at a con.  So I don't know what compelled me to sign up for a four hour, twelve person, stint of Memoir 44.  Perhaps it was the n00bs welcome language in the listing.  Perhaps it was a desire to figure out what the Memoir 44 thing was all about as it's always at cons I'm at and I've never played it despite having once been an obsessive war gamer.  You can imagine my trepidation when I walked into the room and was confront with this....  Where the guy in the hat is sitting, that's where I ended up sitting.  I contemplated whether I had completely misread the listing - double checked it - but it assured me I was in the correct place for a casual learning game.

I played the Axis on Utah beach during D-Day.  It was not too difficult to learn, although we did get dumped in the deep end so it was difficult to find our own reinforcements and in a few places we didn't quite understand what our options were.  For instance.  It took me a while to realize I should use my big guns against the guy to my right rather than the guy right in front of me.  When I spilled over fire and a few tank and troop units to my ally [not the allies] over there, his whole game slightly turned and so did mine.  The allies had to pull their destroyer in to deal with me pummeling my right flank which gave me the opportunity to take out their destroyer.  My opponent still did better than me - he had access to a lot of free points by capturing the beaches and some close landmarks.  But for raw casualties, I was cleaning up and starting to turn the tide on both sides, grinding him to a halt on the left and pulling up a wave of nasty reinforcements on the left despite him pushing ahead past the beach.
 

But it wasn't enough.  After about 2.5 hours we [the Axis, more specifically Germany] lost 73 to 74.  Yah, by a point, in what sort of amounted to real time.  You took turns, but not axis/allies/axis/allies for a whole side.  Each "pair" across from each other was barreling along at their own speed and as the guy across from me and I got more familiar with it we were really plowing along.  I suspect I actually helped the Allies win by giving him an efficient path to a lot of points that he could then spill over to friends who weren't doing as well on their beaches [I know that happened for both of us].

The game itself reminded me a lot of the Battlemasters game Kyle and I [and Dan'l] played back in the day.  Just slightly more complex and you had to take some things like terrain into account.  I had a blast.  And to top it off, at the end they gifted two boardgames randomly.  The guy across from me didn't win, but his son next to him did and dad told him which game to pick because he already had the other one.  So I got the other one.  But that means I got a game that he valued enough he had previously purchased it himself as a wargamer.  I picked up Warfighter: The Modern Special Forces Card Game.  It's 4tth edition so someone must really enjoy it beyond my opponent.  And it really does look like a lot of fun.  The box weighs a ton.  I'll queue it up for after a game of The Shores of Tripoli with my wife.

A few rounds of ad hoc Timeline: Events.  I stopped into Aeryn's room to say "hi" and got pulled in.  I'm glad I have this photo, because I totally forget to record my plays on Boardgamegeek. What I learned from Timeline is that I'm old enough I don't have to guess at the more modern events.  Sigh.  The guy in the yellow shirt was wonderful.  He uses board games to teach students history and when I mentioned I had Shores of Tripoli but was really after Votes for Women, he told me all about having Votes for Women and Marrying Mr. Darcy as games he used for teaching.  That's got to be a lot of fun.

Speaking of Marrying Mr. Darcy... I own this game but it's been a looooong time since I played it.  Aeryn and I both got in on the action.  With a table of eight, it's a little less fun imo.  The basic idea is there's a deck of events and you go through them randomly, all of them.  Each person gets an event and it keeps looping clockwise, so with eight people you can't really strategize because the randomness is going to mess you up.  I played Elizabeth and got the numbers I needed for my two best matches, but one of them disappeared in a surprise proposal and the other was someone else's second proposal when they failed to garner their proposal of choice.  I went old maid.  I still did really well as I had a lot of wit [yah, I did a good job of witting up the wittiest character in Pride and Prejudice] and other characteristics I'd managed to increase, but not a win.  And for both Aeryn and I there were a few extended loops where neither of us was doing much of anything.  Boardgamegeek says it's best with four [4] and I'd agree.  That would be much better.

I finished out the day with one of the oldest post Milton Bradley big box games in my own collection, Puerto Rico.  This one had been played so much the 'coins' had literally had their values rubbed off.  I had fun, but it took the full two hours, which is a LONG game of Puerto Rico.  A lot of decision paralysis going on.  I sped it up significantly by focusing on the collect and ship roles to literally run the victory point pool out early.  While I had a good time, it reminded me of why I don't play it anymore.  If you know the buildings well, there are some fairly straight forward tactics/choices based on what you have access to when.  You can "learn" the best strategy for PR, particularly if you know the buildings.  If you approach it more randomly....a bad building choice makes it very difficult to recover.  For me...I had a difficult time finding any cash throughout the game, although the harvest/trade strategy still garnered me a better end position than I probably should have had with no big point buildings.

Overall, a great con and I enjoyed hosting some games even if I wasn't playing them.  Definitely one I'd do again, particularly as it's still during the winter and doesn't interfere with cycling and the outdoors.

Con of the North: Day 2 of 3

Saturday I hosted a few games at Con of the North.  This is Roam by Ryan Laukat.  He does Above and Below, Sleeping Gods, Near and Far, and a bunch of others.  All of them good.  But this is one of my favorites because it's easy to teach, uses the same nice art, and is more of a bar game at heart.  You're playing Tetris with your roster of characters who each have a unique pattern.  By using those patterns you fill up the cards which "wakes up" another character who had succumbed to a sleeping sickness plaguing the land.  They bring a new pattern. Mix in some artifacts that do particular things, a bidding mechanism for ties trying to control a card, and a coin mechanism/s, and you're pretty much ready to go.  One of the best parts is the way your patterns work depends entirely on where you sit and, unless you have an artifact that's good for a 90 degree turn [and only 90] your pattern is not the same as another player's pattern.  I warned the guy sitting near me that he had to be spatially acute to play from that angle.  With four players, it takes roughly an hour.

The first game they all sort of figured out WHY you'd want the various artifacts and how to force a bid in their favor.  The second game...much more cuthroat with the artifacts.  The guy on the right side of the photo used his to early flip his characters giving him a bit of a coin generation edge because character flipping flips the artifacts as well.  He actually did well both games and, in the first one really shafted the person to the south who was ready to win when he basically slid her off her landscape and put her in limbo for a few turns that let someone else grab an edge.

I played Final Strike which some folks are trying to get Kickstarted.  With four of us we played teams.  It's based on the idea that the last person to hit an RPG critter before it dies is the one who gets the experience.  Reminded me of my D and D days with Bob and folks in Monti and Chicago.  So you're timing your hits to make sure you get the glory for being the last strike....or, um....final strike I guess.  The strategy is expanded because some baddies can only be hit by certain weapons or people unless it's peripheral [cleave] damage.  You can upgrade your weapons using other cards that allow you to pick an adjacent card from the tableau.  Might be left right/up down.  Might be diagonal.  Might be all directions.  Depends on the smithing you do.  Other cards trigger on play or reshuffle or let you discard and cycle faster.   It was a lot of fun with teams, but not a game I'm going to back.  It's similar to others I've played.  Although I could definitely see hauling it along to Arbeiter or something.

I bought a game.  Shores of Tripoli.  I would have preferred Votes for Women by the same company, but both were on my list as historical-based games and it was on sale at the Con.  My understanding is it's more of a learning event than a playing event in some respects.  Even reading the rules I learned all sorts of things I didn't know about that historical event/s.  Amusingly, I was reading the rules at the local bar between games and, when I left, the guy next to me who'd been giving me side eye for an hour asked if it was a book or a puzzle.  I said it was a board game about the events and he got truly excited and knew something about the time period and what happened.  I probably created a board gaming convert at the counter at Red Robin.

The other game I hosted was Obsession.  I set aside four hours because I wasn't sure how long four players would take including set up and teaching, including a bit of tactics I wanted to make sure they all had.  I'm glad I did, because it took the guys playing Space Hulk before us an extra 10-15 minutes to clear out.

That's Aeryn to the right helping me coordinate as there was time before their next game started.  They seemed to have a great time.  That guy to the north really got an engine going, cycling prestige for more prestige and gentry.  The guy to his right had an exceptional cycle going as well.  The guy to his left, not so much, but he did much better than he expected and made more goal points than the rest of them together.  The fourth player just couldn't quite catch a break/groove although she did just fine.  She just couldn't create an angle for herself.

Servants went quick.  I was expecting someone to steal someone else's at some point, but it never came to that.

I used my new coins for the first time.  They're from Viticulture.  Obsession comes with 100 pound and 500 pound coins [worth 7000 and 35000 USD given inflation].  These give me 1, 2, and 5 so they're a nice match, and even have the pound sign on them.

My last game of the day was Trans Europa.  It's a bit of a proto Ticket to Ride.  You get dealt a hand of cities and you try to attach them, trying to use other players' rails to do your heavy lifting  I won, although I will say my last hand of cities was pretty optimal and I knew I wouldn't have to play as much as the others and they'd hook up one end for me.

Aeryn and folks got a round of Blood on the Clocktower going ad hoc.  They had something like 16 people there to play, maybe more.  It was pretty raucous when I finally found them downstairs.

They're over there in the corner, although some of them are milling around. I have no idea how that near table managed to play/concentrate with a group of 16 engaged in a social deduction game.  Good on them for their ability to stay focused.

While Aeryn was finishing up, I hit the hotel bar for a drink and some fries.  A UPS Tech guy who traveled sat next to me and struck up a conversation with the waitress.  They were a fun pair.  I'd been explaining the convention to her [apparently no one else had] and him and talked local Minnesota beer.  He wanted to try one and I noted Furious was on tap but he wouldn't like it.  He had a pint and exclaimed, "This is what they drink in Minnesota?" I said I'd warned him - I find Furious isn't always for out of towners.  One of my favorite interactions was when he told the waitress she reminded him of his daughter, and she said she was older.  He nailed her age precisely and she sighed and said, "Yeah...old enough to start turning gray.  Like my mom says.  It's never your head first."  Good humor to close out a good day of gaming.

Con of the North: Day 1 of 3

I had a long weekend.  I had Friday off as vacation and Monday off for Presidents' Day.  In retrospect, even if I hadn't had Monday off, I should have taken it off.  Aeryn and I spent three days gaming at Con of the North and I was exhausted by Monday.  I think I'm still exhausted.  That's simply a lot of sitting and mental activity to engage in for three full days.

We usually do Gameholecon in Madison, but we've never done a Minneapolis board gaming convention.  So this was the first.  And it was the first I've hosted a game/s at, although Aeryn hosted Carthage at Gameholecon before [with a rather problematic table of old dudes].

We had a great time and I'd drop it all here, but it's a little much for a single post - and rough on my typing implements - to string it all together.

The white board welcoming people to the convention  A handy place to find some ad hoc games, although there were several rooms where people were kicking up non-scheduled games. A semi-official at the event told me this year they had 1300 people register.  Fewer were there on Friday and Sunday, but Saturday was definitely packed.

 

Aeryn and I both started on Lifeboats.  I joked that this game needs a lot more alcohol.  It's a voting/positioning game.  Basically you want to get as many of your survivors to the islands as possible.  Islands are worth varying points.  Your survivors come in two flavors, one vote and two.  Each turn you vote for a boat that leaks.  You vote someone off the boat if there's no space for everyone plus the leaks.  You vote for a boat to move.  You all hop out of one boat each and have to enter a different boat. There's a trumping mechanism with the cards if you think everyone is out to get you.  So not so exciting with a group of strangers.  Likely much better with a group of people where you have an inkling about their decisions.

 

I played 5 Tribes while Aeryn went off to run some games [probably Wingspan].  I love this game.  It's got a mancala style of play where you pick up all the meeples on one square and then drop them one by one and the last one you play has to match a meeple in the target square and you take all of the meeples of that color and the color then determines a specific action, as does the square itself.  Some genii with special powers and set collection round out the point grabs.  A great group which made it that much more fun.

 

Arkham Horror 3rd Ed.  We played from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. and pretty much used up the whole time.  Your characters are trying to power up with skills and implements and find clues and stomp "doom".  Too much doom, bad things happen.  Find the clues, good things happen in the story line.  We failed hard at getting the clues earlier, although they just dumped on us later.

This is me, roaming the hood cleaning up doom and not doing much clue finding or monster ass kicking.

 

I loved this guys' character.  I joked that he looked like Joshua Jackson from Fringe running around shirtless.  One of the cards I read out loud for his encounter noted that it had rained on him and water and light were glistening off him.  Much funnier when he's shirtless.

 

Eventually this giant toad demon starting eating all our neighborhoods.  Not adventurers IN the neighborhoods.  But the hoods themselves.  As well as anyone in them.  At the end, almost everyone was et and I was down on that far end in an orgy of monsters, but not toad food.  It took us a long time to lose.  I liked one of the players noting, "We are a feast for someone's horrid master."

 

Ark Nova.  I'm not playing this one.  Klund tells me it's great.  I'm of the opinion I will never, ever play something with this many pieces and this wide of a layout.  Ironic when you see the Memoir 44 game in tomorrow's post.  But I didn't set that up and didn't have to worry too much about the other 10/12 of the board.

 

There was a Con of the North room specifically for gamemasters.  There was a ring to lock a chain to and disinfectant.  I don't know how the other gamemasters prep, but it seems scary.

 

There was role playing and Space Hulk and various mini games going on all over and several of the groups sponsored rooms and events.  This guy was upstairs.

  

 A nice closeup of him.

  

The vendor area wasn't too exciting, although I did get a game and Aeryn bought Pollo our cat a catnip infused 20-sider.  This was for sale.  I can't imagine owning this game.  When I was in high school and went on a bicycle trip, Joe came out of an outhouse laughing and laughing and muttering "Here Kitty Kitty".  The outhouse was papered in risque images, including a well-endowed mouse looking for cat love.  I wouldn't get two minutes into this without thinking about that.

 

The Medical Games room sponsored by one of the groups.  I like the baby.

 

I don't know what they're playing here, but it's very reminiscent of Circus Maximus.  I probably should have asked, although the difference wasn't likely enough that it really mattered.  Cool setup and they were having a great time.

 

The Con was kid friendly and there were a lot of families and teenagers there, including a bunch dropped off for the day by parents.  The whiteboard was proof of that.

  

I don't know who Ishmall is, but the minds of teenager gamers [and teenagers in general] are weird places to see translated to a whiteboard.

 

Another case in point.

Overall we gamed from about noon to ten p.m. the first day with a short break for dinner and a pre-con brunch at the Original Pancake House.  5 Tribes and Arkham were a lot of fun, even with the Arkham loss [although that really seemed to throw the game organizer, at least the magnitude of our loss seemed to], and Aeryn met someone who had been involved in planning an aborted Blood on the Clocktower event at my Arkham table, so they talked and made plans to get it going the next day.

More subdued than Gameholecon which was nice.  I think it may have been that there were about a tenth as many [or less] role players at Con of the North.  Solid family crowd and a lot of women playing at most of my tables.

Obsession

My latest gaming obsession is accurately called Obsession. I read about it a post about good games to play solo.  I don't play solo as much as that implies, but I do have a selection of games I can go to if no one will play with me [Street Masters, The 7th Continent: Classic Edition, Paperback Adventures which is taking a backseat to Obsession, and several others]. However, I've played almost exclusively with others since my wife picked it up for my birthday.  This was one of the few birthdays where I said, "I want that.  You can get it here.  They confirmed they'll be getting a shipment so you can lock one down in advance as well as pick up the expansions I want at the same time."  Not ironically, probably one of my most used birthday presents so far, and not one I had to give away because it didn't fit.  I even signed up to host a session at a local board gaming convention, although I'm not approved yet.  I may have been too late to host and get a table.  That's ok...I'll just haul it along and play a pick up game or by myself if I can't find another event.

I taught Aeryn to play.  I taught Kyle to play last weekend.  And Aeryn and I taught our neighbor to play.  For as complex as it looks, you can get someone going in about 15 minutes and they'll even be able to formulate a bit of strategy at that point.

The basics: you're improving your manor in order to attract the local heirs by playing to their druthers.  You can do this by building various rooms and spaces for events, and then using those rooms to host events for gentry and distinguished guests.  Initially, you're limited by your reputation to which of your rooms/events you can use and which guests will attend, but as the game progresses you can increase your reputation to host more prestigious events and more prestigious guests. So there's a balance between the rooms/events you acquire, the guests you accumulate, the money you accumulate to buy new rooms/events, when you do these things [you get to influence the heirs quarterly by focusing on a room/event theme], and how you deploy your little fleet of servants to accommodate the needs of guests [do you need valets and footmen or maids to host the event and particular guests, do you have enough, and are the ones you used in the previous turn still too tired...even in the Austen era overclocking your workers wasn't cool...hear that Elon?].

There are some objective cards as well that you gain and lose, but those can be really tricky to target.  Once during the game there's a National Holiday where you can ignore reputation [so if you're really lagging at your manor you can try to score that one big fancy dinner party for the hoi polloi as long as you manage your staff in advance] and you can swap your reputation to try and tweak your position.  Each family has a slightly different ability such as an extra room, extra staff, or extra money to give them some character.

Aeryn and I have played the standard game a few times.  Then played the Jane Austen variation where you hide the theme for the quarter [which should make for a more balanced room set, but as you can see in the photo above, Aeryn doubled down on a theme].  And played the extended version where you play for 20 rounds instead of 16 and the National Holiday really seems to sneak up on you and isn't as critical because everyone is targeting larger rooms with the longer runway.

I also have the Upstairs/Downstairs expansion although we haven't played it yet.  It adds a family and a few new servant types.  The nice thing about it is that the servants allow you to modify or trigger existing effects.  So they don't completely rewrite the game, they just allow you more levers to target your strategy [e.g. a bit more money on an event, a bit less money on a buy, a way to wipe the board of the rooms for sale, etc].

Truly one of my favorites, particularly given how easy it is to bring someone new into the game.  There's a lot of local color to really give it some character and you can really feel the frustration when you invite a rich but uncultured American heiress to your event at the cost of your local standing [and victory points], despite how much you need her to motivate your manor economy.

I should add.  I have played the solo version exactly once [yesterday] and the automata crushed me. The general gist of solo play is the solo character has particular points for each room type each quarter.  You can't beat them all, so you have to focus on the themes it is weak at.  That might be at odds with how you're trying to build money, servants, etc.  The automata player steals a tile or wipes the board every turn, making long term planning pretty difficult, particularly as it has a penchant/preference for stealing the high value monuments before you can put together the cash/pounds. If it beats you in a quarter, it adds the victory points to its base total.  If you feel like a challenge, you add the monument points it scavenges to its total.  When I totaled up the challenging value, the "easy' automata beat me 167 to 104.  But I learned some strategy so we shall meet again.

Wonder Woman, Challenge of the Amazons - Round II

Three players against Ares this time.  E almost had us play difficult.  If we had, that three point life total difference would have had us losing by a point.  Instead...we won with a single point to spare.  If the game had ended without defeating him, he'd have taken us down with his next turn.  He already had the points on the board.  We did learn that leaving a couple orange cubes lying around can become a big issue quickly because of how blockades kick in off the enemy cards sometimes.  And we didn't optimize, but the intersection of relics and individual Amazonian powers can make a huge difference (anything that lets Diana use her single movement during planning to hop across the board, for instance).

It was a lot more fun with three people.  Gave it quite a bit of additional discussion and divvying up and determining how to use card interactions and teaming up.

Wonder woman, the Board Game

Whoa...post, right?  This last weekend, Poot and I played Wonder Woman: Challenge of the Amazons, a cooperative board game by Ravensburger.  If you peruse my July reading list you'll see Boardgamegeek videos related to how to play and a full playthrough.  Although that second one has a bit of an error in that every time Ares moves, they're not dropping two orange cubes with him (Servants of War) if there are no Amazonians in his location to corrupt.  That makes a huge difference in the game as it leaves a few points of escalating damage all over the board and more options to get 5+ cubes in a location (which is a 3 point hit against your 20 "life").  The result:  so far against Ares, we've lost, and handily.  I do get the impression we might have an easier time of it with three players instead of two as it would bump up the card interaction, although also the draws for baddies.

There's a great step each round where you all plan together but, and they said this at the end of the video as well, it avoids the Pandemic-style solo game leader/dictator situation by then throwing the planned cards into your hand with some previously hidden cards that might be better than what you were planning.  And when that happens, you're free to simply try to play a better hand based on what you knew your teammates were up to.

There's that, and it's fast.  We finished up our first game in under an hour, even with being new to the game.  Took me longer to watch the playthrough.  And it feels even faster with the discussion portion being pretty spirited and interactive.  

It might have limited replay with three different villains and a couple of ways to escalate the difficulty, but I suspect they'll expand it at some point in the future.  If not, it's still a super easy game to teach a visitor.  You get to coop instead of playing against each other.  And it's a pleasant alternative to a  parallel game like Pandemic.

Eight Minute Empire II

Well, at least when the easy AI is involved, my "goods" strategy holds up.  Go for the crystals and the "wild" resources and score yourself an easy six points.  That's usually more than enough to swing the win your way.  Doesn't mean I'll always win, but about 2/3 or 3/4.  Enough that I could make a living in Vegas playing board games.

....Vegas.  Board games.  Holy crap someone needs a board game casino.  In bed with the mob for wood, bricks, ore, and wool/sheep?  Crazy.  I'm almost of the opinion someone needs to sponsor me in the endeavor.   Wow....that doesn't exist except as betting on other games (I'm searching Google)?  That's wild...must be the time to income ratio.  But you'd think with high rollers that could be resolved.  Or at least made part and parcel of an existing casino.  

LOL...and then of course I'm proven very, very wrong moments later when I'm not approaching it from a balanced perspective...

Well....I did say 2/3 or 3/4....

Eight-Minute Empire

Eight-Minute Empire was on sale (slightly), so I got myself a copy and won my first game after a few tries.  I didn't realize I was sharing the cards that were drafted with the other players.  Or that the one to the left rolled off each time (at least I think it does; maybe someone always grabs it). Yes, yes.  I beat the easy opponents, but I needed to get my feet under me.

It's fun...way more relaxing than Risk.  I could play hundreds of games of this in the same amount of time.  My first win was goods based.  That seems like a sold strategy against the easy computer opponents.  Six points is a big advantage against any strategic moves.  Bastards do kill my troops almost exclusively though.  Damn AI.

And Scootard is not offensive.  It's like Edward.  Or...Dankward.  Seriously, people used to name their kid Dankward as an option?  That didn't age well.

Board Gaming Bonanza

We had a gaming weekend down in St. Peter.  Klund, Mean Mr Mustard, and my family all got together to board game for the evening and morning.

We finally talked Klund into Betrayal at House on the Hill (base version).  There were two rounds.  In the Friday night version, Mean Mr. Mustard became the nanny for a blob that ate the rest of us.  Even with a screw up where he stood in his own blob too early he managed to take us all down.  In the morning game, the game went Bill and Ted and there was some gaming with Death featuring me as Death's almost insane and physically feeble sidekick.  They just didn't have much of a problem taking me down, although Eryn fell to her death through a floor, so I didn't leave them completely unscathed even if they did it to themselves.

Legendary of Choice was Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I played a lot of Cordie cards.  We won, although Klund was the only one taking on the big  baddie (the Mayor).

Late night Cards Against Humanity.  Not everyone's cup of tea, but I like to try to play it fairly straight.  You need friends you know aren't actual dicks that believe the card combinations and then it's fun.  And if you ditch almost all the rules, you don't really have to play awful cards if you don't want to (although you'll still have to hear them).  It's Apples to Apples for adults.

Clank: In Space!  Klund claims it is the first game of Clank he's ever won.  I've played twice now.  I like the changes in this version to make you move around the board a bit more and keep you away from the treasures until you've spent time traversing the board.

We didn't see the crystals come out much.  In the game I played with my wife they won me the game.  I had card combos to give me crystals, sell crystals, and turn crystals into card draws.

Flatline by Kane Klenko.  Sort of the sequel to Fuse.  You're trying to get all the patients through the space hospital quickly after you fail at defusing the bomb in fuse.  We goofed a bit and played with two/too many dice the first two rounds.  But then we remembered all the rules and got back on track.  We won without even engaging one of the two extra turns you can go after.  I hadn't played with five before.  That seemed to make it much easier, even with the changes to the cards for the number of players.  Just having that many dice opens up a lot more combinations.

Raiders of the North Sea.  First game we played and my win.  I maximized my extra attack points and Valkyrie deaths which helped.  Fun game.  Very much like Champions of Midgard, which I own, but without the monsters.  They're different enough it's hard to say which one I like better.  The mechanism in Champions of Midgard where you take away prestige from the other player if you're defeating the troll and they're not is fun.  And I like the aspect of CoM where going to fight the larger monsters involves equipping your ship, facing a possible derailment (hunger), and then hoping you took enough soldiers in the right mix to defeat the monster.  There's also a bit of a gambling aspect to that game in trying to determine the minimum amount you can take to defeat something so you're not constraining yourself elsewhere.  But Raiders of the North Sea is MUCH more streamlined as a game.  Much cleaner and to the point.  Then again, maybe that's why there are so many expansions and additional games in teh series.

Spirit Island.  Klund had to walk us through this one because it was a bit more complicated.  But once we got going it was a lot of fun.  I was a shadow spirit and focused on causing fear in the invaders.  We won via playing all the fear cards (generating a lot of fear), but it really is extremely collaborative trying to help each other shut down areas others can't reach or can't affect in the same way.  It was interesting to see that the difference in player abilities meant I had pulled all my special power cards into my hand by the end of the game, but Mean Mr. Mustard had barely touched his.

More Spirit Island.  You have to hold the island down with your finger so it doesn't float away.

I don't think I missed anything.  Definitely a full weekend of gaming, followed up with Superbowl LII only a few hours after getting home, the Eagles and Patriots currently duking it out on television (32 Philly to 26 New England with 9:36 in the 4th).