OO Boardgamers, what did you play this weekend?

[paulbaxter]

I got my copy of Arcs about a week ago but finally was able to try it out with the boys today. We did a quick run through of the rules last night and played a single round just to test the waters, then a full game this afternoon. We all really enjoyed it. Lots of interesting elements to it, lots of decision spaces. I love the combat system where only the attacking player rolls the dice which result in either good, bad, or mixed results.

[Fardaza]

I really wish I had some regular gamers to meet up with. I like playing solo, but it's lonely in here sometimes!

[Isgrimnur]

I hear there's a convention or two around where people here might attend on occasion.

[LordMortis]

I really wish I had some regular gamers to meet up with. I like playing solo, but it's lonely in here sometimes!

Yeah, I need to get back in to some of the localish meetup groups. I've been away from people forever and specifically away from gaming groups outside of rare a very tight and tiny group since the before times. I did hit a very small Ann Arbor gaming group meetup once this year. It had been so long that even as I knew the host, I felt terrible anxiety.

[Fardaza]

Being in a large group of people and not knowing anyone is getting harder to do. In my past life I'd just get drunk and have a great time. (Although I was told that some of the people around me weren't having such a great time because of me.) Now the anxiety just takes over sometimes, and I can't do it.

[LordMortis]

+1 I'm trying to force myself there because the isolation I've put myself in especially in the environment around me is just not healthy. I need to reintegrate even in tiny doses. Like, exactly once this year, in a small group of people I didn't know, for the first time since the before times. I hope to do it twice. Maybe even push to three times if I can really force myself, but that's pushing it, as it's already halfway through November.

[Holman]

I just got back from Madmarcus' house, where we (him, me, his brother, and his adult daughter) played two games of ARCS.

It's a great game with lots of possible strategies and very little downtime. The game suggests that it will last 30 minutes per player when players know the rules, and that estimate was spot-on.

Then we had some *delicious* ribs smoked by Madmarcus while we were playing. A great time! This was the first time we've played together since they moved to Philadelphia (just a few blocks from my house), but it won't be the last.

[tylertoo]

This was the first time we've played together since they moved to Philadelphia (just a few blocks from my house), but it won't be the last.

I live in Philly, too (Mt. Airy). Where are you?

[Holman]

This was the first time we've played together since they moved to Philadelphia (just a few blocks from my house), but it won't be the last.

I live in Philly, too (Mt. Airy). Where are you?

Hello!

I'm in Roxborough, just over the Wissashickon from Mt. Airy.

[Blackhawk]

C'mon, you two are just making up words now.

[tylertoo]

I'm in Roxborough, just over the Wissashickon from Mt. Airy.

Hey neighbor!

By the way, Anthony, co-host of the long-running podcast Board Gamers Anonymous, also lives in Roxborough. Maybe you know him? I've met up with him a couple of times for some gaming though not recently.

[Skinypupy]

Things tend to slow down at work over the holidays, so I figured it’d be a good time to get a chonky campaign game back to the table. Spent a few days with Tanares Ultimate Adventures and decided…I just don’t like it very much.

It has all the things I should like - lots of characters to choose from, a beefy campaign with branching paths, cool minis, etc - but it just never really comes together to be a cohesive or interesting whole. Combat is either really dull (the “Comrades” that make up the bots in your party have a very limited set of skills) or completely overwhelming (managing multiple characters) when playing solo. The quests are fiddly as hell, often with a ton of small details to remember. The enemies look neat, but feel pretty overpowered (one early game brawler mob could take out my tank in just a couple hits). It reminds me a lot of Folklore the Affliction. A bunch of cool ideas that just never really gel into anything very fun.

Put it up for sale tonight, along with a bunch of other stuff that’s gathering dust. Maybe I can actually afford one or two of the Lego sets the kids want for Christmas.

[Smoove_B]

I think a lot of your complaints are the things they're trying to fix with the new pirate-themed Tanares Gamefound project. The base box (all standees) is cheap enough and it looks like they've converted it to be something more like Jaws of the Lion (spiral bound map books) instead of a giant board. I still don't see any reason to pre-order it via crowdfunding and I'll just wait to hear reviews once it's released and look for it retail, but I figured I'd mention it.

[Holman]

I'm in Roxborough, just over the Wissashickon from Mt. Airy.

Hey neighbor!

By the way, Anthony, co-host of the long-running podcast Board Gamers Anonymous, also lives in Roxborough. Maybe you know him? I've met up with him a couple of times for some gaming though not recently.

I don't think I've met him. Thanks!

Maybe we can get a Philly gaming session together.

[Skinypupy]

I think a lot of your complaints are the things they're trying to fix with the new pirate-themed Tanares Gamefound project. The base box (all standees) is cheap enough and it looks like they've converted it to be something more like Jaws of the Lion (spiral bound map books) instead of a giant board. I still don't see any reason to pre-order it via crowdfunding and I'll just wait to hear reviews once it's released and look for it retail, but I figured I'd mention it.

Not sure I like the game fundamentals enough to spend any more on it. Doubly so when it’s based around pirates, my second least favorite theme behind zombies.

Silver lining is that I now know I can safely skip the big campaign games moving forward without feeling FOMO. The last few have all just completely clunked for me, so I don’t really feel any need to drop a couple hundred bucks on a game that I’ll likely play 2-3 times.

I love the idea of a huge campaign that I can dig into for weeks and months, but the successful execution of it rarely happens for me.

I do have the new Elder Scrolls Chip Theory game on the way, but that will probably be my last big one for the foreseeable future.

[YellowKing]

I splurged and ordered Pericle as Amazon had it for $130 in their Black Friday sale. I know Smoove talked very highly of it, and I've continuously read great things. I've been really enjoying online D&D sessions and recently started a Call of Cthulhu online campaign, so I'm very much in "tabletop gaming" mode and this seems like it would be a fun solo fill-in.

Normally I wouldn't have grabbed it even at that price, but I got a couple of Amazon gift cards for my birthday that effectively reduced the cost down to $30, so it was hard to resist. Probably the only chance I'd have to get it on the cheap.

[Skinypupy]

Playing Star Wars Outlaws on PS5 gave me the itch to bust out Outer Rim for some more scoundrel-y SW goodness. It’s not my favorite solo game, so I taught the Wonder Twins 11.6 how to play. They did a really good job and picked up on both the mechanics and strategy right away. Wonder Twin A was working to make and break shady deals whenever possible, which was fun.

We had a good time, but man that game can get looooooong. Between the teach and the game, it took around 3 hours before I took home the win. That’s a bit long, especially when there isn’t much for others to do during each players’ turn.

[AWS260]

Thanksgiving with my cousins is always good for board gaming. This year's batch:

One cousin bought Arcs recently and was itching to get it played, so we did. Fun as usual.

I played Ticket to Ride for the first time. It's kind of boring.

The kids played a lot of No Thanks! and giant Jenga.

The most popular games with the whole family were 7 Wonders, Big Boggle, and Quiddler. Great for almost all ages.

I got to teach a few people Innovation. I don't think they liked it as much as I do. Might leave it at home next year.

For the first time in recent memory, we didn't play Inis.

[LordMortis]

Just tried Darwin's Journey. It will take a I don't know how many plays to figure out if I like it. (This is not usually the case for me. I usually have a sense for if I like the dynamics or not) It's about the most dense worker placement game I think I've ever played. They question is once I learn the game is the density actually enjoyable or not. It may end up a case of more is not always better but I can't tell after one play through.

[Zarathud]

For the first time in recent memory, we didn't play Inis.

If you ever make Octocon, I would play again. The combos are so insane if you can pull them off.

[YellowKing]

A buddy of mine and I had another marathon game day yesterday.

First up was Invincibles: The Hero-Building Game. We finished off the last two scenarios of the campaign and even did the digital bonus scenario in the Dire Wolf app. The digital scenario was actually better than some of the included scenarios, as it added dialogue and story in response to some of the actions we thwarted or objectives we achieved. Great game but now that we've run through all the content it will likely be shelved until a (hopeful) future expansion.

Next up was the Turbulence expansion for Sky Team. Turbulence adds 20 new airports and a few new modules. Low visibility forces you to roll only 2 of your 4 dice at a time, so you only have 2 to choose from each turn. Turbulence forces you to re-roll all of your remaining dice after each die placement. We found this one to actually be beneficial at times, since you were getting so many re-rolls. The remaining module was perhaps the most fun - Alarms! Random alarms would lock out certain actions (such as radio), leaving you unable to perform that action until you placed an exact die of the correct value and color on it. We wound up playing through maybe 7 or 8 scenarios in order of increasing difficulty and had a great time with them. Highly recommended expansion to an already fantastic game.

[hepcat]

I picked up Star Trek: Into the Unknown from Wizkids this week. It's a mix of Star Wars Armada scale fleet combat and Star Trek: Fleet Captains (which was a VERY cool-albeit unbalanced-narrative driven game with some combat). The 3x3 play area isn't just one system you fly through, it's broken down into multiple systems you have to warp between. Which means that combat can take a while to happen...if it even does.

The game is designed primarily for campaign mode, which plays out like a season of Star Trek on TV. Complications arise while you're on your mission that can drastically alter what you're doing. You'll come across anomalies and other events. And yes, you'll eventually fight if it comes to that.

The game is pretty deep. The dashboards for the ships have no less than 4 different dials on each of them that control power, alert status, etc.. You assign crew members to stations to do things. And the number of things you can do is well over a dozen and counting.

The primary selling point for some will be the HUGE ships. They're to scale, so a Galaxy class ship dwarfs a Constellation class ship in physical size. It's actually pretty cool to see on the table. Also, two words: detachable saucer! Another selling point is that they'll be releasing new ships as time goes by. The next ship pack is the Enterprise D, it seems. That's coming in Q1 2025.

My downsides with the game so far though are:

1) Price. This is a 150 dollar game and I'm not seeing 150 dollars worth of components. This should have been a hundred dollar game at most. You can get it online for cheaper, of course.

2) Tiny icons on a lot of things that are hard to make out if you're older or just have poor eyesight to begin with.

3) The rulebooks are shit. They include two books in the core set. A learn to play book and the campaign guide. You want SOME of the more advanced rules? You'll have to go online to find the Additional Rules. But there's more stupidity. The learn to play rules refer you to an online Living Rules document....which does not freakin' exist yet. So good luck trying to play with any rules found there. This is completely unacceptable to me.

Anyway, I can't really recommend this game to any but the most fervent of Star Trek fans right now. It may get better as they friggin' finish the damn rules and release more components for more variety in the game. But for now, it's just too expensive for what you get and the state the rules are in. It looks so far like it will be fun, so if you know someone who has it, go play THEIR copy.

[coopasonic]

We've played Space Base about 6 times since my older son has been home for winter break. I'm 4-2 with the wife and son each claiming one victory. I deem this acceptable.

On the other hand, I found out this morning that there is an expansion for Heat: Pedal to the Metal and nobody told me. I spent the fall telling people I didn't want anything for Christmas only to find out about something I must have on freaking Christmas day.

[Skinypupy]

Mrs. Skinypupy ended up getting me Maladum: Dungeons of Enveron, LOTR: Duel for Middle earth, Shadows of Kilforth, and Quacks of Quedlinberg for Christmas. She also ordered the HOMM 3 core game, but it's backordered until mid-January. She's pretty awesome.

A couple quick thoughts after spending most of yesterday and this morning at the table:

1. Although the games are very similar, I vastly prefer LOTR: Duel for Middle Earth to 7 Wonders Duel. Removing the victory points, simplifying the resource purchasing, and adding the territory map are all fantastic changes to an already excellent game. Highly recommended.
2. After spending about 4 hours yesterday assembling the Maladum stuff, I have come to the sad realization that I have neither the manual dexterity or the eyesight needed to assemble very tiny cardboard pieces together effectively. I eventually got everything together, but it's...not great. Haven't even looked at the rule book yet.
3. Not sure what I think about Shadows of Kilforth. I've read the manual and watched a playthrough, but some of the rules are still a little unclear to me. Jury is still out.
4. Quacks of Quedlinberg is one of the very few board games that Mrs. Skinypupy will play. Not sure I hadn't added it to the collection before now.

[coopasonic]

I spent two weeks trying to get my older kid to play Lords of Vegas while he was home for winter break. He finally relented after Christmas. We've played it almost every day since then. It can be a very random game so the best decisions aren't always winning decisions, but the wild swings and chaos make it entertaining which I appreciate. Last night we finally added the underworld expansion. I'm thinking of getting them to try the Tombstone version (that came with the Americana kickstarter) that swaps the dice out for a standard deck of cards to be used for gambling and casino boss determination with gambling still being random with a high card wins blind draw and the casino boss part using poker ranks using cards you collect over time so you can decide when to go hard and save it for when it really counts making many decisions more strategic in my mind.

[hepcat]

Over the holidays I've had three great gaming days.

The first was our annual Christmas gaming session at my father's house back in Ohio. RMC and another friend showed up. We played a great game of My Father's Work and then a couple of hours of Tales of the Arthurian Knights. The former is an app driven worker placement that evolves over time as 3 generations of a mad scientist's family continues his work. Choices you make can significantly change the town and add new rules. I love this game still and I'm sad it doesn't seem to be getting an expansion. Although the maker HAS hinted it might get something.

The latter is a new take on Tales of the Arabian Nights, which is a choose your own adventure style, narrative game. I loved that, and I love this update to it. The stories can get...weird. Which makes for a great time.

Other than the friend (not RMC) who was needling me every time I tried to read through some of the extensive narration in both games for everyone, I had a blast. But that friend's going through some difficult times right now and was definitely acting out of character. I got a little flustered with him at one point (causing RMC to get a little uncomfortable as I don't think he's seen me get annoyed that much ), but I eventually tried to put myself in the friend's shoes and realized I'd probably be out of sorts too, given his circumstances.

Last Sunday, Seppe and I got Star Trek: Into the Unkown to the table. It's NOT what I expected from reading the rules. I would say it's far more adventure/RPG game than it is tactical ship combat. Hell, I think you could go through an entire game without actually having combat. It's goal driven and you could even end up working WITH your opponent, depending on how the goals change during the game. Definitely interesting take that does quite a bit to emulate a season of a Star Trek show. Still can't recommend it at its retail price of 150 bucks though. That's a bit steep for what you get.

Monday, Archinerd came over and we played a couple of his games first.

The first was a game I'd heard about on NPR recently and thus was surprised he had it. It's a game Kurt Vonnegut designed ages ago and which was finally released recently by a small publisher. GHQ plays out like a larger version of Chess. What I mean by that is that the units have a larger scale to them in terms of the battlefield. Covering artillery, troops, paratroopers, etc.. It's a great experience to play something that a great writer like Vonnegut designed. And reading the liner notes was worth the price of admission alone.

The second game was Wir Sind das Volk! which played out like a game of Twilight Struggle. But with an open market to choose your cards from. Definitely enjoyed this one. I lost (as I did all games that day) but I had a blast doing so.

Finally, we ended the day with my top 5 game series: Undaunted. To be more precise, we played Undaunted: North Africa. It's Undaunted with vehicles. I lost both games, as I mentioned earlier. But I always enjoy the game. I think I'm finally starting to understand WHY you would take the hunker down action in a game too. As I played, I realized my needs changed as the battlefield changed. But I'd bolstered too much (which allows you to take cards from the supply - think buying cards from the market in deck builders). Hunkering down would have allowed me thin out my deck so I could get to the cards I needed to issue orders that were relevant to me at that time. I'm playing a solo game of Undaunted 2200 right now and it's driving that point home too.

[RMC]

Over the holidays I've had three great gaming days.

The first was our annual Christmas gaming session at my father's house back in Ohio. RMC and another friend showed up. We played a great game of My Father's Work and then a couple of hours of Tales of the Arthurian Knights. The former is an app driven worker placement that evolves over time as 3 generations of a mad scientist's family continues his work. Choices you make can significantly change the town and add new rules. I love this game still and I'm sad it doesn't seem to be getting an expansion. Although the maker HAS hinted it might get something.

The latter is a new take on Tales of the Arabian Nights, which is a choose your own adventure style, narrative game. I loved that, and I love this update to it. The stories can get...weird. Which makes for a great time.

Other than the friend (not RMC) who was needling me every time I tried to read through some of the extensive narration in both games for everyone, I had a blast. But that friend's going through some difficult times right now and was definitely acting out of character. I got a little flustered with him at one point (causing RMC to get a little uncomfortable as I don't think he's seen me get annoyed that much ), but I eventually tried to put myself in the friend's shoes and realized I'd probably be out of sorts too, given his circumstances.

Last Sunday, Seppe and I got Star Trek: Into the Unkown to the table. It's NOT what I expected from reading the rules. I would say it's far more adventure/RPG game than it is tactical ship combat. Hell, I think you could go through an entire game without actually having combat. It's goal driven and you could even end up working WITH your opponent, depending on how the goals change during the game. Definitely interesting take that does quite a bit to emulate a season of a Star Trek show. Still can't recommend it at its retail price of 150 bucks though. That's a bit steep for what you get.

Monday, Archinerd came over and we played a couple of his games first.

The first was a game I'd heard about on NPR recently and thus was surprised he had it. It's a game Kurt Vonnegut designed ages ago and which was finally released recently by a small publisher. GHQ plays out like a larger version of Chess. What I mean by that is that the units have a larger scale to them in terms of the battlefield. Covering artillery, troops, paratroopers, etc.. It's a great experience to play something that a great writer like Vonnegut designed. And reading the liner notes was worth the price of admission alone.

The second game was Wir Sind das Volk! which played out like a game of Twilight Struggle. But with an open market to choose your cards from. Definitely enjoyed this one. I lost (as I did all games that day) but I had a blast doing so.

Finally, we ended the day with my top 5 game series: Undaunted. To be more precise, we played Undaunted: North Africa. It's Undaunted with vehicles. I lost both games, as I mentioned earlier. But I always enjoy the game. I think I'm finally starting to understand WHY you would take the hunker down action in a game too. As I played, I realized my needs changed as the battlefield changed. But I'd bolstered too much (which allows you to take cards from the supply - think buying cards from the market in deck builders). Hunkering down would have allowed me thin out my deck so I could get to the cards I needed to issue orders that were relevant to me at that time. I'm playing a solo game of Undaunted 2200 right now and it's driving that point home too.

Can not say enough about how good My Father's work is. Great game, and had a great time like always with Hepcat. I have to make it back to Chicago to game with the group ut there more often. Just have to promise my Wife some fun as we go out there.

[AWS260]

Finally got in a game of Ascending Empires last night, after having owned the game for about a year now.

I played the new edition of Ascending Empires today. It hadn't been on my radar at all, but what a blast. I did not think that flicking games were my thing, but combine them with space exploration and tech trees and I'm in love.

[hentzau]

Finally got in a game of Ascending Empires last night, after having owned the game for about a year now.

I played the new edition of Ascending Empires today. It hadn't been on my radar at all, but what a blast. I did not think that flicking games were my thing, but combine them with space exploration and tech trees and I'm in love.

Wow. 13 years ago. And I think I've played the game twice. Still sitting on my shelf...

[baelthazar]

I played Maladum the other night and my impressions were mixed. Remember, I am a huge fan of Core Space and understand what you are getting when you sit down and subject yourself to the horrors within those games.

First, like always, setup took an hour. This isn't anything new, but something felt a little more fiddly (but I could not place exactly what). It has been a bit since I broke out my CS set, so it could just have been getting back into the swing of things.

Some things I noted while playing the game:

• There are a LOT of traps in the stock search bag/green-level token pile. And they suck. Even more so, nothing sucks quite so much as getting a sort of "meh" outcome from a crate/chest AND a trap that wallops you for like 2 dice of damage (or burning, or fatigue, or adds to dread). Now I tended to use my rogue and mitigated the traps with their skill, but at least half of the crates/chests I made it to were trapped. With the difficulty of the game already high, this just seems excessive.

• Magic attacks sort of... suck? Maybe I missed something, but it seemed like they have the same downsides as Core Space's ranged weapons (increase dread, use ammo) but start at a single blue die. AND they have the added tension of the magic die, which could mean anything from fizzling out to extra effects. I don't think I was using magic as effectively as I could have, but I found firing a bow or just bashing the monsters to be less risky.

• I don't think the Maladum design team has ever seen an arrow. I don't know what that icon is for bow ammo, but it looks more like a throwing dagger than an arrowhead.

• The monsters are brutal. But that is the same as core space.

• The event deck feels even worse than Core Space, although maybe that is just me.

• Darkness is complicated and punitive. I still need to sit down and really learn the rules for that.

At the end of the night, I had two permanently dead characters and only two survivors - in the intro scenario. I was only able to loot the easy areas of the dungeon.

[Skinypupy]

I only got the chance to play two games of Heroes of Might & Magic 3: The Boardgame before Elder Scrolls shows up today, but thought I'd give a couple quick impressions.

- It captures the feeling of the PC game really, really well. From the artwork to the gameplay to some of the specific unit skills, everything feels spot on from the video game.
- Discussed it a bit here, but the rule book is really terrible. It throws a bunch of things at you, but does an awful job of letting you know how it all fits together to actually play the game. Prime example: One of the very basic rules is that when you enter a space that has a roman numeral on it, you initiate combat with neutral units of that level. But nowhere in the rulebook is this even mentioned. I had to learn it from watching a "how to play" video. Side note: I did finally find an excellent how to play from Meeple University. For some reason they split it up into 10 chapters (each is only 5-10 minutes), and it starts here. This tutorial series is a FAR better way to learn the game than trying to piece things together from the manual.
- There's potentially lots to do on each turn (movement, combat encounters, town building, recruiting/upgrading, etc.) that feels kinda overwhelming at first but settles in pretty quickly. I do like how you can recruit, upgrade, or build at any time (even on other player's turns), which eliminates some of the downtime.
- The mission book definitely takes some getting used to. Lots of fiddly bits that'll have you going back to pages and sections over and over to make sure you did all the things.
- I read lots of criticism of the combat, but I actually quite enjoy it. It's all fairly simple, but does a good job of keeping the tactical spirit of the PC game in a way that doesn't take up a ton of extra time.
- I very much appreciate that they include different difficulty level options.
- I've only played it solo, and it feels like a game that would be more fun with 2-3 players. It's not bad solo, but the AI is really basic.

Overall, I enjoyed it much more than I expected to. I had read it was underwhelming, but I think it does a great job of translating the PC game to the tabletop. It will definitely get back to the table after Elder Scrolls.

And here's the soundtrack you can use while you're playing...which feels kinda like a requirement.

[AWS260]

I played a few games recently of Flatiron, a two-player game about constructing the iconic Flatiron Building in New York. It looks great on the table. (Pic is from BGG, not mine.)



Essentially it's a tableau-builder, as you're adding cards to your display and then activating them to take actions. There's a decent amount of friction, since the players are competing for worker spots (worker placement determines what cards you can buy or activate) and racing to construct the most lucrative parts of the building. The downside is that there's a lot of iconography, so you're frequently looking up symbols in the rulebook for the first couple of games.

Flatiron is from the same designers as The Red Cathedral and The White Castle. While it's a bit lighter than those two, it still gives you plenty to chew on with a shorter playing time. I'm really glad that I picked this up on a whim.

[Skinypupy]

Man, the quest structure for Elder Scrolls is super confusing. I don't understand how the flow works from session to session, as it has me jumping around to multiple different quests that all reference different "Sessions".

I sort of understand the general idea behind the structure, but the way the book is structured makes no sense.

[hepcat]

Just select a gazette and a guild. Find the first entry in the list of quests in the gazette for your guild (the A entry) and read. It will tell you where to start and what you need to do to advance to B (the next entry for your guild quest in the gazette). That will in turn tell you how to continue and so on. Eventually it will tell you the session is completed and will give you options for session 2 that will take you to a guild quest for another guild (they needed to mix it up so you don’t do session 2 for the guild you did session 1 for normally. This keeps it varied otherwise there would be just 9 or so total campaigns in the game.). You then open the gazette for the region you were told to use or you’ve chosen if given that option, read the A quest for the guild and follow along with that, just as you did in session 2. Session 3 is different as you read the endgame section of the gazette you’re pointed to and just go through a series of scripted quests, combat or whatever.

The first two sessions and the endgame may seem a bit disjointed because they’re meant to be mixed and matched across different campaigns to further replayability. As such it’s not really a linear story like you find in most campaign games like this.

It really isn’t that bad. It’s just a choose your own adventure style narrative. If you need help with it, just let me know. I’ve logged about 20 hours with the game since I got it last week. I’m really digging it.

[Skinypupy]

The first two sessions and the endgame may seem a bit disjointed because they’re meant to be mixed and matched across different campaigns to further replayability. As such it’s not really a linear story like you find in most campaign games like this.

That's where I was confused. I thought each Guild had a single questline that ran through all three "Sessions". In actuality, you'll be jumping around to different Guild quests for each session. Here's an example, let me know if I'm on the right track.

I chose to start with the Undaunted Guild quest in Black Marsh for my "Session 1" (A21). I follow that through and "Session 1" is complete when I finish the delve.

For Session 2, I would then choose to start either the Fighters Guild questline in Black Marsh or the Undaunted questline in Cyrodiil. I start either of those guild quests from the beginning. Once either of those questlines are completed, that signals the end of "Session 2".

For Session 3, I move back to the "Endgame" quest in Black Marsh. Does that sound right?

[hepcat]

Yup. And again, the reason they do that is to give the game more replayability. Otherwise you’d play the game 9 times and then you’d know what’s going to happen with every campaign. But mixing and matching, while not avoiding knowing the stories they tell, does change up every game no matter what guild you start with by letting you go down a different path than last time.

[Skinypupy]

Thanks, that makes much more sense. Tat structure definitely helps to add variety, although it also makes the campaign feel pretty disjointed. The narrative connection between between Session 1 and Session 2 is paper thin, at best. Guessing most people probably won't care much about that though (I'm not sure I do very much either, tbh).

I'm really liking it as well. It's keeps some of the same general mechanics as TMB (which I like) but isn't nearly as complex. At least in my pretty limited time so far. I do think it's still crazy difficult though, but that's my opinion on most games these days.

[hepcat]

I actually find this harder to grok than TMB. I’ve been pestering people left and right over on BGG with questions. I think it’s because the game has more moving parts than TMB, what with the overland game being more complex, and the various battle modes playing out differently. In TMB the complexity is almost solely in the characters and how to use them. That’s lessened here for characters, but not by much.

And yeah, it’s difficult. I’ve restarted three times. But once you start getting those level 4 dice, you’re rocking and rolling. Some of them are insanely powerful.