Monday, February 26, 2018

21 out of 27

After my major board game buying spree last year, I now have a total of 27 main board games. I also have 7 expansions for 5 of my games (2 expansions for Istanbul, 2 expansions for King of Tokyo, and one each for Potion Explosion, Scythe, and Splendor). As soon as I got to 27, I promised myself not to purchase new games until I've played all of the games I currently have (or okay, play at least 90% of the games I have). I just did a count and I realized that I have now played 21 of my 27 base games, which puts me at 75%. That's quite good, considering that most of these were purchased only last year. The percentage is not too good when it comes to my expansions though; I have so far only played 2 of the 7.

My plan now is that each month, I should play at least one of my unplayed games or expansions. Last month, it was Valeria Card Kingdoms. This month, it is Tokaido. I have actually played Tokaido many times before but I hadn't played the game that I bought. That is, until the game night we had at Denise's house. We played it at the end of the evening so that we could wind down with an easy game that doesn't require a lot of thinking (I find Tokaido to be enjoyable and even relaxing to play). There were seven of us at Denise's place that night and we got to play quite a few games, including Istanbul with my Letters and Seals expansion (this allowed me to go up to 2 out of 7 in my expansions list). I also got to play Azul for the first time. Most of the evening was spent explaining the rules of, and playing, Terraforming Mars and Scythe. Scythe is really one of my favorite games right now, and the fact that I have never won in all the games I've played means that I really like it for its game play and not for my success in playing it. :)

Istanbul with the Letters and Seals expansion (photo courtesy of my friend Jovan)

Pretty much the same group played Scythe the week before, during the game night at Cla's place. The target that night was to play either games we had that we hadn't played yet or that games we wanted to play that we hadn't played yet. JM bought his Scythe months ago and hadn't played it yet so it was the priority game that night. Because the rules are a bit complex, it took a while for people to get the hang of it. By the time they did, the game was ending so we decided to play it again the following week at Denise's to maximize the learning and so people could enjoy it a bit more. Cla also suggested that we play Concordia, which I had played before with Jovan and Myna but we played it incorrectly so Jovan wanted to play it again. I also got to play a couple of quick two-player games. One of them was Onitama which is like chess and the other was Patchwork. As aesthetically pleasing as the Patchwork game is, I actually like Onitama a lot more.

The cool thing about this last month was that I also got to play Clue for the first time since may high school days. (Technically, it was my first time to play Clue because the game I played as a teenager was Cluedo although the only difference is that apparently the game is called Clue in North America while it is called Cluedo in the rest of the world). For some reason, I had actually been thinking about getting a copy of this game recently because I wanted to play it again. When my ex-teammates and I had our reunion, some of the folks suggested that we bring games. I brought Splendor and Monopoly Deal and my friend Case brought Sushi Go Party and Clue. Talk about a very interesting coincidence. We naturally ended up playing Clue first and I actually won both games that we played. I gotta say, I still really enjoy this game.

My first win: Mrs. Peacock in the Conservatory with a Candlestick

I also finally got to play Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game. I had been really interested to play this game for a while now since I keep hearing about it from friends. The cool thing about this game is that it has a cooperative game element to it in that all players need to defeat the Mastermind and the rest of the villains and this can only be done by working together. However, at the end of the game, there will still be a winner based on who amassed the most points. We played the X-Men expansion and we fought against the Dark Phoenix and we unfortunately lost. I now really want to play Legendary again, and hopefully beat the Mastermind.

Hopefully, when I write about my board gaming in March, I will already be at 22 out of 27. :)

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