Dominion Intrigue Review

Dominion Intrigue was the second boardgame I purchased for myself.  It and Carcassonne I purchased before a large blizzard in 2010.  We had a week with nothing else to do but get to know those two games.  We got good at them, then we got competitive, then things turned ugly.

But back to Dominion Intrigue.  It was designed by Donald X Vaccarino.  It was published in 2009 by Rio Grande Games and was the first expansion of many to Dominion.  It retailed for the same amount as the base game, and came with just as many cards.  If you were new to Dominion, it fully doubled the amount of Kingdom cards you had to work with.  Which was pretty incredible in an expansion.  But aside from variety, what else did it do to the game?

Dungeon Roll Review

Dungeon Roll is a push your luck dungeon crawling dice game.  It got it's start as a Kickstarter back in February, and was probably one of the best run Kickstarters I've seen.  The people running the campaign were incredibly open and honest.  The stretch goals were interesting and fun.  The entire campaign just nailed this feeling of helping make something big.  Plus at a $15 price point it was a great impulse buy.

Best of all, Dungeon Roll released with no delays, and no major quality issues.  Two things that Kickstarters tend to be known for.

Dungeon Roll was designed by Chris Darden and was published by Tasty Minstrel Games in 2013.  It supports 1 to 4 players, and plays in about 15 to 30 minutes depending on the number of players.  Players will roll up a party of Companions, then delve into a dungeon generated level by level using dice.  Whoever earned the most Experience Points after 3 delves is the winner.

Field Commander Alexander Review

It's been hard for me to have game nights this summer.  So I decided now might be a good time to get over my hang ups with solo board games.  Two of the games that really came to the top of my list after a little research are Field Command Alexander and Field Commander Napoleon.  Today I'll be reviewing Alexander.

Field Commander Alexander was published and designed by Dan Verssen, and was released in 2009.  In it you take control of Alexander the Great and his army as you conquer your way through the known world.  It's designed as a purely solitary game, where you compete against an loosely directed AI.

It includes 4 scenarios, Granicus, Issus, Tyre and Gaugamela.  You can play them individually or as a linked campaign, and they even have additional challenges you can include for some extra difficulty, and a chance at higher scores.

I'm Going on Vacation.

Bad news readers.  This week I'm going on vacation.  That means no reviews this Monday or next as I've been running around getting ready to go out of town instead of playing games.  I know, where are my priorities.  I'll be back with weekly reviews starting on the first Monday of August.  But hopefully between now and then I can post a few more session reports of some games.

I keep trying my hand at Field Commander Alexander, but after having effortlessly gone through all 4 scenarios, now that I'm trying to document my conquest for posterity, the dice are refusing to play nice.  Somehow I don't think anyone wants to read several pages of me rolling a 1 for every scouting roll, and missing every combat roll as well.  Why just last night, I spent 5 turns outside Halicarnassus, attempting to intimidate it into submission.  The first time I only needed a 4, 5 or 6 to succeed, and I failed.  The second time I only needed a 3, 4, 5 or 6 to succeed and I failed.  The third time I only needed a 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 to succeed...and I failed.  And so ended Alexander's conquest, and my patience with dice for the weekend.

But I digress.  I'll be enjoying my vacation, and I hope everyone else is enjoying there Summer as well.

The Many Ways to Store Dominion

So storing all the expansions for Dominion became quite a problem.  At one point I'd managed to fit all the expansions up through Prosperity into the base box.  However every time I picked it up, I felt like the bottom was going to fall out of it.  Also in the meantime, I'd acquired Hinterlands, Dark Ages and Cornucopia.  So clearly it was time to upgrade.

What I found was this case from Hobby Lobby.  I then used some 3 inch wide balsa wood planks I found at a craft store for the dividers.  Some Elmer's wood glue later, and the planks were in.  I then used some packing tape at the edges to protect the cards a little bit more from the edges.  Call me paranoid.

I made this for about $30

Field Commander Alexander at Granicus

Lately I've been feeling like Field Commander Alexander is too easy.  Playing it normally, I can usually conquer every scenario inside of 3 turns.  Especially if I go nuts, and raze my conquests every chance I get.  So today I decided I'd try Granicus with all the difficulty modifiers.  They are:

• Memnon's Scorched Earth - Subtract 2 from Scouting die rolls
• Memnon's Raiding Fleet - If Scouting roll < Forces, pay 2 Gold per point, instead of 1
• Memnon's Diversionary Attack into Greece - From the Fall of 335 BC and after, your Forces cost +2 Gold each
• Treasurer Harpalus - Gain 1 less Gold during Resupply

I may come to quickly regret this.

All set up and ready to play.

Forbidden Island Review

Forbidden Island is a cooperative game developed by Matt Leacock and published by Gamewright in 2010.  In Forbidden Island you are attempting to retrieve 4 treasures off a sinking island.  As with most cooperative games, there are many ways to lose, and only one way to win.

I had been aware of Forbidden Island since shortly after I got Pandemic.  But it seemed clear it was the lesser game.  It had few bits, no real board, and less mechanics.  Why would I bother with it?  Then I traded Pandemic for Defenders of the Realm, and was awoken to the fact that in board games, sometimes less is more.  Defenders of the Realm was a bloated, lumbering, boring game.

With my new "less is more" mentality, I gave Forbidden Island another try.  My FLGS had a copy in their demo library, and we immediately loved it.  We found it had all the tense decision making of Pandemic, in a more streamlined package.