Last Wednesday we played a 4-player game of Evacuation by Vladimir Suchy - we all were new to the game but all came prepared having watched a how-to play video.

The game is a race to evacuate your people and economy from earth, which has become uninhabitable, to a new planet. During the game you will have to dismantle you local economy on earth, transport people and infrastructure and build up on the new planet. You will have 4 years to do so and each year is divided into 7 different phases. The action phase is by far the most time consuming as you will use the resources generated to buy ships, build building, settle people and conduct research. To perform actions, you will need to invest your generated energy and as the game progresses and you dismantle your economy on earth you will need to carefully plan to have enough production already on the new home for the next year. Its a balancing act and rather challenging. Each action has a specific value and in the next phase you add all the values together to advance on the progress track which unlocks moving certain aspects of you economy and settling new biomes on the planet.

While the game only has 4 turns, the phases are long enough and filled with decisions that it does not feel like you need to min/max too much. This is something I never liked about Arnak which is also from CGE. While overall I thought it was an interesting game it feels a bit over-complicated. I would not mind to play again but would not buy it myself to add to the collection. Towards the end of the game everyone is basically performing the same actions (or at least the 4 of us were). Might be possible to play a different strategy but in such a complicated game it can be hard to come up with the alternative strats. The final advancing on the progress track in year 4 feels more or less pointless.

Furthermore, we also played 2-player Castles of Burgundy which we actually tied in score :D and a game of Ark Nova which was a bit of a slaughter. However, we finally found a good way which avoids shuffling the cards of Ark Nova and makes playing a bit more fun.

Oath - this was the weirdest Oath game ever. 90 min, four players, 2 citizens. The Empire couldn’t move because it was so inflated. Weird cards on the board , restricting movement. Chancellor got rid of all sites just to keep his power. And he did. Time to strike again next time.

Agent undercover nice hidden role game. Still like it. Some players struggle to ask questions. Maybe some ideas could be exchanged at the beginning to help them out.

Arborea and Bitoku - twice and I won. What a weekend. Will keep playing these games cause they are so lovely. First time playing the Bitoku expansion. The Art on the double cards are more lively than the older ones. I like the lake replacements, the festival cards are ok. The mean ones could possibly stop too strong players, but not me 😎

Tiger and Dragon - won. Little bit of tile counting and luck. It was ok. Need to play again to judge.

Outlook: would like to try the Witcher again. Hope I get around.

Darwin’s Journey - A nice combo-tastic euro with an interesting theme. Looks great on the table. Many familiar elements from other Italian-style euros and also a hint of Maracaibo. Left it on the table for a couple more plays and I might try the solo too later on. Minor regrets about not having the double-layered boards from the collector’s edition.

Sky Team - This is a really good 2p-only co-op. I first tried it on BGA and had to immediately order it and we played it on the table a few times since. Easy to learn rules and the box contains a lot of content to allow you to ramp up the difficulty. Highly recommended if you enjoy limited-communication co-ops (Hanabi etc) and dice placement.

Castellion - got in a few solo plays, it was nice coming back to it after a long break I enjoyed it a lot more this time and I finally gave the advanced mode a try.

We played another session in our Kings Dilemma campaign. With about 10 sessions in we’re reaching more of the story endings and the excitement for the finale is growing. We’re playing woth a lot of roleplay and the campaign has born a lot of running gags, so it was a blast once again.

I also got to play a game of Blood Bowl, for the first time in many years. While my dwarfs sadly lost to the Skaven and Orcs, a lot of fun was had, especially when the Steamroll came in in the last turn and massacred both enemy teams in the Bloof Bowl.

Played Scythe, and got absolutely demolished 2/3 times.

Voidfall, Terraforming Mars: Dice Game, Beer and Bread, Scout, Apiary, Black Rose Wars, Star Realms, Tigris and Euphrates, and Frosthaven!

Voidfall continues to blow my mind. May be the perfect game other than the arduous setup. It’s incredible.