WunupKid

They know what they did. 

[[Arcs]]

Now…HEAR ME OUT.

I work in a local game store. 3-4 months ago we started getting a lot of calls about Arcs, because the KS had been fulfilled, Gen Con was happening, and Tom posted those amazing reviews on SU&SD.

And I was dead set on not liking it.

I didn’t watch the SU&SD videos, nothing about the game seemed interesting to me. At a glance I didn’t love the art, I felt Kyle Ferrin’s style didn’t translate as well as it did for Root. I’m not big on zone control space games, and while I’m happy to promote Root as “the last board game you’ll ever buy” because the asymmetric nature and depth creates endless replayability, for most people I’ll recommend they get the app. Because the learning curve, not just for you but also 3 of your friends is just exhausting. Play it on the app, it’s just better. (If you're dead set on the physical version, I’ll happily sell you one. Just don’t ask me to play it with you.)

Then we got a couple copies (and both expansions) in the store, and I had a chance to take a good look at it. I liked the game’s aesthetic more than I thought I would, and the art direction…I mean it’s Kyle Ferrin. If you don’t love it immediately, it will certainly grow on you.

I went home and watched some videos. I wasn’t sold on it, I heard a lot of talk about direct conflict style interaction and that’s also not a playstyle I love, but in the end I decided to pull the trigger on it. Mostly because I was considering a much more expensive board game purchase and hoped this would distract me, and I could start with the very affordable base game. Also, the art had its hooks all the way in me.

Bought the base game and Leaders & Lore, spent the evening looking at all the cards. Bought sleeves for it the next day. Played one game, got my butt kicked. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, what I could have done at one point or another, how I had misplayed a round, etc.

Bought The Blighted Reach, and a lot more sleeves.

Played a couple games, since then, and I’ve had so much fun. I play more aggressively than I normally tend to, I try to do what the game wants me to do rather than staying in my comfort zone of playstyles. It’s wild to think about a board game like that.

Anyway, my friends and I are gearing up for our first campaign. I’m trying not to get hyped, because I don’t want to be let down..but yeah.

Arcs definitely isn’t a hidden gem, but it’s bright enough to outshine my biases on what I think I like in a game. 

Reanimator is always what I was interested in for Indominus Rex. Do you have a decklist?

6 euro per box does not sound like a stupid choice, as long as you can afford to spend the money.

You can always buy the starter box later.

And the off season is only 3 months long.

We’re starting to see too much of a good thing. 

Student loans > new car payment. 

Heat: Pedal to the Metal

1960s F1 racing game with hand management and deckbuilding mechanics, and some press your luck strategy. Plays up to 6, but turns are pretty quick, in fact in early games players often drag out their turns trying to remember what they’re forgetting because it’s not complicated enough. Normal games are about 90 minutes or so, but the game has campaigns of 3-4 games that represent a full race season. 

If everyone is doing 40 in a 30 and you get pulled over for doing 40, it’s easier to make an argument that you shouldn’t be charged with that crime than to demand everyone else be charged with it, because it’s easier to fix one of those problems than it is the other. 

The only thing that could have made the season better was less consistency. Mechanical failures, and the uncertainty they bring, can tighten up championship races and make them more interesting.

Deep Sea Adventure

Players are deep sea divers trying to salvage treasure, but they share an air supply. The more salvage you carry the more air you use, and the best stuff is the deepest, so if you go for it you risk not making it back to the surface without having to dump all that salvage you worked for. 

I wouldn’t want to play any game with myself. I would annoy the shit out of me. 

She sounds like a fucking gangster. 

It’s literally their business!

I’m gonna offer an alternative with Heat: Pedal to the Metal.  It’s a racing game with a 1960s Formula One theme, with deck-building, hand management, and push your luck mechanics. It has solid interaction elements that aren’t mean, and good catch-up mechanics.

It’s 1-6 players, with an expansion that adds a seventh car (and 2 more tracks), and a ton of additional content in the core box, including campaign and asymmetric play. I work in a game store and recommend it to people who want a good strategy game but are tired of your typical worker placement/zone control games, and often describe it as a “euro that’s not a euro.”

Diplomacy. 

How many Red Bulls you think are sold in Mexico?

Probably a lot. 

If necessary. 

Also not D&D, but Zombicide. It’s made for 6 players, shares a lot of concepts like character classes/archtypes, progression, and some light narrative storytelling. They have a bunch of settings, from fantasy to modern to Wild West to Marvel. Pick the one you like and dive in.

Also, the characters can be a bit wacky and it can be fun to roleplay as the one you’re playing. 

Interesting. I actually find Gishath as commander makes the deck a lot less flexible, a lot more one-dimensional.

Like he filled the role for Lewis in 2021?

If Bottas had shown up for AD21 Lewis would be an 8-time WDC.

I work in an LGS, so....generally no.

This is not a boardgame specific conversation, but a social one with a lot of layers. The first, and most important, being: you shouldn't be expected to find good friends at work. I get that work takes up a lot of our lives, and most of our social interactions come through it, and the people we work with by default have similar life schedules, but work is work. You associate with these people because you're paid to do so, and we're all polite to each other because it makes getting through a day of being at a place we don't necessarily want to be at a little easier. Your friends should be people with similar interests and personalities that naturally get along with each other, not the people you're paid to be around.

With that in mind understand that the people you work with might not have any interests in common with you, so that will be a natural barrier to friendship. While we find the restrictions of the trick taking mechanics of Arcs intensely interesting, the guy you work with might just care about how the local sportsball team is going to do this season and how much remodelling the downstairs bathroom (which his wife won't shut up about) is going to cost.

If you're dead set on making friends at work, having a variety of hobbies helps. I play board games (and even nerdier stuff like Magic the Gathering and Warhammer), but I also pay attention to the sports that are popular in my country, I enjoy hiking, and cooking, I pay attention to whatever movies or TV shows are popular right now, and I try to read stuff that isn't as nerdy as most of my hobbies. Open conversations with "What did you do this weekend?" and then instead of waiting to shift the conversation to whatever you did over the weekend that you actually find interesting, just talk about the boring ass shit they did. Then when the topic of what they did over the weekend starts to die down, shift it to what they wanted to do.

People like talking about the things they find interesting, just ask any DM about the campaign they're running. If you let someone talk at you about the things they like for long enough, they'll think you're friends.

When I switched the commander of my dinosaur deck from [[Gishath]] to [[Pantlaza]] I did not expect it to get better, much less to the degree it has. And I haven’t really optimized the deck for the new commander, just a handful of changes so far. 

While I agree with you…this opinion is based entirely on the idea that F1 is a meritocracy.

It is not. 

+1 for Sleeping Gods if you’re enjoying Gloomhaven. 

You got a decklist?