New to Me – May 2024

May was a weird month for gaming.

Tomorrow (or Monday) I’ll be talking about the month in general, but as for new to me games, there was only one!

Which is annoying and that’s why I’m going to talk about a couple of new to me expansions as well.

I actually had to work for the one new to me game as it didn’t happen until the last Sunday of the month!

The Cult of the New to Me wasn’t very happy that the one new game was from 2023, but the fact that one of the expansions was from 2016 and that they know I’m going through a tough gaming time, both factors meant that they were a bit more lenient on me this month.

No revolts, at least.

That may change if I don’t do something different next month, though.

Sometimes a cult leader’s staying time can be counted in months!

Anyway, let’s see what’s what.

Without further ado (all of my ado was traded away to some viking colony anyway), let’s begin!

Knarr (2023 – Bombyx) – 1 play

Designer: Thomas Dupont

Artist: Carrion Antoine

Players: 2-4

Knarr is a viking-themed card game where players are building a tableau of vikings and then spending parts of that tableau to get lands with which they can trade.

On your turn, you can either play a viking from your hand, gaining the benefits of all cards of that colour that you’ve already played (and the new one), which is similar to Deus.

Playing the top blue viking, you get both a point (from the viking you played) as well as a bracelet from the previous blue viking.

Or, as an alternate action on your turn, you can spend your vikings (and also “scout” tokens) to buy lands that you can then trade with.

Trading with your acquired lands is a free action after you do your main action (or before, even).

Depending on the number of bracelets you trade with, you can either gain the benefits from the left-most column, that and the middle, or all three.

As soon as somebody hits 40 points, the round finishes and the game ends!

After only one play, I’m not sure if there is a definitive strategy, but I do know that one of my opponents started doing nothing but gaining lands and then trading with them, gaining a bunch of points each turn, while I did the same to a lesser extent but added the reputation track (as you gain reputation, you will gain 1-5 victory points each turn) and I won the game.

It’s a fun game and it only takes 30 minutes or so, making it perfect for lunches.

I need more plays to judge all of that, but for now it’s a fun one that I would really like to play again.

And since we only have one new to me game to talk about, how about we talk about some new to me expansions!

Expansions

Furnace: Interbellum (2022 – Arcane Wonders) – 1 play

Designer: Ivan Lashin

Artists: Lots!

Players: 1-5

I love Furnace, as it makes another great lunch time game but also it’s a pretty cool engine-builder.

The expansion, though, adds some interesting elements as well as new cards and some new capitalists and starting cards.

It also adds some new effects!

It also adds a 5th player, which could be pretty cool but I’ve only played this with 3 players anyway.

It also adds managers.

You can bid on them the same way you bid on factory cards. The “school” cards the managers are placed on are the same in each round, but the managers you’re bidding on change each round.

The managers let you break some rules or get some additional benefits, like letting you get 1 coin when converting a resource to another resource with the particular building that you place the manager on.

Yes, these are only in effect in the production phase when you assign them to a building, though the building can change each round.

The school cards the managers are placed on give those who lose the bid compensation just like any other building that’s bid on.

The expansion also adds a variable bidding disc, which starts at 0 (except for one capitalist where it basically starts on 2). You can spend one coal for each level to make it as high as you want (even up to 10 or above, if you really want to win the bid!).

You could win a card with a 0-bid, though if you get outbid, you’re not going to get any compensation. You get compensation the number of times equal to your bid level, so a 0 bid means you get it 0 times.

Some of the cards have instant delivery bonuses that then make the card useless until you upgrade it (or they have effects that, when you upgrade the card, gives you that instant benefit but then you only get the effect from the unimproved building).

Other cards have ongoing effects which are really cool.

Overall, I really like what this expansion brings, though I’ve only played it once.

Here’s to more plays to see if that opinion stays!

Oh My Goods: Longsdale in Revolt (2016 – Lookout Games) – 5 plays

Designer: Alexander Pfister

Artist: Klemens Franz

Players: 1-4

Oh My Goods is a game that it took me a few plays to really get, but now that I do get it, I really enjoy it.

The first expansion, Longsdale in Revolt, is a story expansion where you play through five levels which will add cards to the game and tell a little story.

The main things that this expansion adds (over time) is Watchtowers to give you strength (which you often have to compare to your neighbours) as well as production cards that automatically produce without any worker required.

In addition, instead of the game ending when somebody has built a certain number of buildings, each round begins with an event card that will change something in the round.

These are pretty much part of the story, but once you’ve played all of the story rounds, you can combine everything and you still do event cards each round.

This expansion just adds more goodness to an already good game, and it’s introduced in a modular fashion (though you can just dump all of the cards in if you want).

We’ve now completed the 5 chapters, so now on to the next expansion!

Which is also a story-based one.

These cards add some pretty cool stuff to the game, and I’d definitely keep playing with them even when just playing the game by itself.

There we go.

Only one new to me game, but two new expansions.

What new to you games did you play last month?

Let me know in the comments.