Friday Night Shots – Update & Upcoming Games

Hey there!

It’s been a while, I know. It seems like you were just in here last week!

Take a seat at the bar and take a load off. I’ll get you anything you want.

Let me turn down the jukebox. Who put MC Hammer on here anyway?

But yes, it’s been a while since my last post too. Last week’s Friday Night Shots was it and nothing this week.

Let’s just say that it’s been a week.

First, I have to say that Bottoscon last weekend was amazing! I owe you a retrospective and that will be coming. Lots of games were played so lots to talk about.

And that post will be soon. Hopefully in the next few days.

As much as I loved the four days of Bottoscon, though, they were exhausting as well.

Which wouldn’t have been an issue if I hadn’t come back to work on Monday and found out that we had one week (and really three days since I work remotely on Monday and Friday) to pack up our offices so that a new floor can be put in.

For me, that was mentally and physically exhausting, and I hadn’t recovered from the weekend yet.

So needless to say, I haven’t been in any kind of headspace to write anything.

Hopefully that will improve going forward!

All of that being said, there were some good things about the week.

Like the arrival of four games! Well, three games and an expansion.

So let’s talk about those for a bit while we enjoy the early evening (I mean, it’s 4:00 and it’s pitch black, right?)

One of these actually arrived last Friday, but I didn’t have a chance to open it until this week, so we’ll count it.

Empire’s End was designed by John D. Clair (one of my faves!) with art by Kwanchai Moriya, published by Brotherwise Games.

Players have an empire consisting of 11 cards which have different types of buildings on them. Farms, Roads, etc.

Each player has their empire in the same order, determined randomly by the first player. However, these cards will shift during the game so your empire will end up looking different.

Especially because disasters will be coming thick and heavy, destroying some of these structures!

What attracted me to this game, and made me break my “no more Kickstarters except Garphill Games” pledge, was the innovative techniques in the game.

I love No Thanks, and this game uses the same type of mechanism to determine who will suffer each disaster as it comes.

In this case, you will be bidding resources based on the disaster’s requirement. The bid goes around in circles, and you either take the disaster and put it into your empire or you pay the required resource to avoid it (like the chips in No Thanks). If you take the disaster, you destroy the structure that’s in the place where the disaster will hit (Place 1-11).

However, the disaster also has an innovation at the bottom of it. You attach that to a healthy structure and that innovation will help you for the rest of the game (unless you destroy the structure it’s attached to).

That just really appealed to me. That and the John D. Clair pedigree made me really want this game.

I’m taking it to game day on Sunday so hopefully it will get played and show up in the November “New to Me” post next month.

On Monday, two Kickstarters arrived (these were backed prior to my “no more Kickstarters except Garphill Games” pledge).

I enjoyed my one play of Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria (designed by Stan Kordonskiy with art by the Mico and published by Daily Magic Games) but for some reason haven’t gotten it to the table again.

I want to, though.

Even more so now that I have the newest expansion.

Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria: Riftlands adds some asymmetric powers to the player races as well as a set-collection mechanic with the relics you can get (which also add even more asymmetric powers!)

It also includes some new Champion cards to use all of this cool stuff.

It’s a small expansion, but it looks pretty neat. I need to break the original game out again so we can try this.

The other Daily Magic game, this time a new one, is Guild Academies of Valeria (Valeria is a popular place, I guess!).

This one I actually had forgotten I’d backed! I originally backed the expansion but I think when the backerkit came out, I decided to go ahead with this one as well. And I didn’t remember!

This game was designed by Stan Kordonskiy with art by the Mico as well.

What’s excited me about this?

I’m actually not 100% sure.

Let’s blurb it from BGG (I did say I was exhausted, right?) and then I’ll talk about it a bit:

“You and your fellow Headmasters are trying to build out your academies, recruit the best students, hire talented guildmasters, and influence important council ministers. Only select graduates can be tasked to fulfill quests ordered by the King, while the so-so graduates are sent to the capital city to make their own way.

GAOV uses action selection, dice drafting and dice manipulation (Students), tile drafting, resource management and engine building (Academies), contract fulfillment (Quests), and a unique system where players choose which game aspects they want to score (Council Ministers) to bring a new aspect of the Valeria Universe to life.“

I think it was the action selection mechanisms and tile-drafting, because I really do love both of those things.

Daily Magic posted a picture of the board and some of the pieces and it looks pretty neat.

I didn’t spring for the Folded Space inserts, but I may have to. We’ll see once I get it all punched and sorted.

Yeah, I didn’t touch any of these games to punch and sort other than Empire’s End because I want to play that this weekend.

Just too mentally drained.

I don’t know how this game will necessarily work, but sometimes the unknown is exciting as well!

Tomorrow, we will be heading across the border to pick up my latest GMT Games P500 order, which has two games in it.

Both I’m really looking forward to seeing.

The first one is Prime Minister (designed by Paul Hellyer with art by Donal Hegarty), which I think I talked about in the last GMT Update.

I blurbed it there, let’s blurb it here (I love how that can be used as a verb).

“In Prime Minister, 1 to 4 players vie for political power and prestige by campaigning for public support, selecting and debating bills, pursuing official appointments, recruiting influential Victorians as supporters, garnering favor with the Queen, and, when the time is right, challenging other players for their leadership roles. Gameplay is partly cooperative with shifting alliances, but only one player can win by holding the Prime Minister’s seat at the game’s end.”

I think I love the “a cooperative game…until it’s not” aspect of the game (far more than I did one of the games I played at Bottoscon, which you will see when I actually post that).

It sounds like there are at least a couple of different paths to victory, or at least how to build a career. Do you remain in the shadows as a backbencher, influencing things until you make your move? Or do you become opposition leader, putting your foot in the door until you can finally take over?

Or maybe something else?

This sounds like there will definitely be some negotiation involved…and I’m ok with that!

The other new game is more of a new addition to something I already own (though not an expansion).

The Last Hundred Yards: Russian Front (designed by Mike Denson) is more in that series, this time introducing…the Russian Front (hey, that makes sense!). Rules for the Russians are added to all of the other nationalities with a bunch more scenarios as well.

I finally got one of these played at Bottoscon, and now I can say I’ve played it on the table!

And I want to do it again.

(I still don’t like that cover, though).

You know there will be Cube4Me storage solutions coming for both of these, right?

Anyway, it was a great week of getting new games, and there’s still Scholars of the South Tigris to come sometime in the next couple of weeks!

Hopefully this blog will be back to acceptable posting standards next week, and the Friday Night Shots will actually be normal. I realize this was a bit of an abnormal one.

Let me know what, if anything, you’ve picked up in the last little while! Anything you’re dying to play?

What do you think of these four?

Let me know in the comments.