Newsletter #8 (August 2018) (Patreon)

Hey Rules Lawyers, the big news this month is that Gloomhaven has been filmed! Well, it's like 95% filmed. I contacted Cephalofair (always takes me 5 tries to type that name correctly) and they said they'd send me a replacement map and sticker set so my video won't be full of spoilers. Thing is it hasn't come yet, so hopefully it'll arrive soon, otherwise I might have to censor the video a little bit. We'll see. Anyway, here are some behind the scenes shots.

Amir brought a fancy new light for the shoot. It looks like a giant florescent bulb but it's all LEDs and can change color and stuff. Very neat. And yes, we rep Valiant in this house.

I hate myself for including this shot where I unbagged every component and put them all on the table, but I think it'll look good in the end.

Now, instead of talking about all the games I played, I'll just tell you about my best game of the month. I got to play Middle Earth Quest last week, which is an older game that I've had for quite a while, but haven't gotten to the table in years. It's an asymmetrical game with one player (me) as Sauron and the others as heroes of Middle Earth. It has some great and interesting mechanics, but it's definitely not a perfect game. It's very long, and I don't think the scoring system is entirely balanced. That being said, as far as getting you into the theme of the game, this one does it better than most. In our game, the heroes had me on the back foot from the start due to some bad draws from me and good plays from them, but I played it smart (and got very lucky at times), and was able to sneak in a victory at the last minute.

Image courtesy of Nick from The Brothers Murph.

And last in the news is that Spirit Island looks to be the winner of the what will I teach next poll! I've loved this game since I was randomly lent a copy to write about for Geek and Sundry over a year ago, so I'm pumped to get to do a new video on it. Check out my article here if you want to know more about the game.

And closing as always is my 10x10 challenge progress. I finally completed one of them, but it's looking more and more like I won't get anywhere near 100%. I think my new goal will be to play all of them at least once, and maybe a 75% completion for the rest.

Dead of Winter - 0

Castles of Mad King Ludwig - 1

Eldritch Horror - 6

Spirit Island - 8

Race for the Galaxy - 9

Star Realms – complete!

Pandemic Legacy Season 2 - 2

Above and Below - 1

Cosmic Encounter - 0

Splendor - 5