Ahoyhoy! You know what this. I know what this is. Let’s just do this. Cool!
I mentioned in my last couple of blogs that I was pretty spoiled for Christmas. It turns out the spoilage wasn’t over yet. I was aware that one present was still in transit, but I know it’s on its way so I consider that I already own it. I did NOT know however, that there was a second present still in transit. When I got to my mom’s on Friday after work, another present was waiting for me: the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion for Lords of Waterdeep! Now what’s REALLY funny about that is that on Friday MORNING, I figured the gift receiving season was over so it was safe to buy myself things I had put on my wish list. Lords of Waterdeep is my current favorite board game so I really wanted to see the new expansion. I ordered it from L’Imaginaire before going to work. Doh right? Well, fortunately for me, L’Imaginaire asks that customers wait for a confirmation email from an employee before sending payment so I hadn’t paid for the order yet. When I got home I sent them an email apologizing for the crazy situation and asking them to cancel the order (which they did). To make up for it, I ordered Tail Feathers from them so they’re still getting money from me. Everybody’s happy (unless somebody didn’t tell me that there’s ANOTHER present still in transit which would be INSANE!)
So Scoundrels of Skullport! It adds two new modules, Skullport and Undermountain. Undermountain is a straightforward module that ups the quest costs and rewards. The new twist is in Skullport which adds corruption tokens to the mix. The Skullport locations offer more resources at the cost of taking a corruption token, which subtract from your score at the end of the game. The more corruption tokens that are taken, the bigger the penalty each token gives. There are quests and intrigue cards that can reduce the amount of corruption you have but not a whole lot of them. Players have to strike the right balance so that the short term gain of resources doesn’t bite them in the rear at the end of the game when it’s time to count the corruption penalties those gains incurred. I enjoyed both modules a good deal. My mom really didn’t like the corruption tokens though so we may only play with the Undermountain module going forward. I’ll keep the Skullport module for other play groups. The expansion also ups the number of players from 5 to 6 and allows for a longer game by giving each player an extra agent. Now, I’ve only played the game with two players so I can’t speak for higher player counts, but the game still moves fairly quickly. The new card effects take some getting used to so the game was a bit longer than usual, but I expect that to even out with more plays. Even with the longer gameplay we were able to fit in three games of Takenoko (with the Chibis expansion) before calling it a night.
I didn’t play a lot of DDO over the weekend. In fact, I only did one quest. As I mentioned in my last blog, I played a LOT over the Christmas break and I have a little carpal tunnel going on in my wrists. One quest was about all I could handle before my wrists asked me to stop. Level 20 will have to wait for another time.
Other than that, the Dice Tower had a live play marathon on YouTube to go with their Kickstarter to fund their year. They cut up the feed into six parts and I watched the whole thing over the course of the weekend. The real fun is watching their group dynamic. I find Zee Garcia hilarious. I got to see a few new games, though none that I’m clamoring to add to my collection. I haven’t had a real chance to play any social deduction games myself, but from watching I don’t see why people are going nuts over Spyfall.
With all this gaming content over the weekend, I was again lax in getting the rest of my drawing in. The inspiration for Bandit Baby is waning. I have two bits I want to do and then I think it’ll be time to move on to a new feature. I completed strip number 52 over the weekend and figure the bits I have left might get me to about 60 or so. I’ll revisit the Bandits if and when I come up with new gags for them. It still amazes me how the Bandits have grown into their own thing in my world. Have any of you have figured out the gag behind their names?
Well, that’s all for this week. Have a good seven and we’ll do this all again next Monday. Carja V.