Lazarus 657

You need to build a deck (up face) of 7 warriors. Each one has special abilities, and you pass cards from your hand that meet certain conditions. The receiving player can turn up, or keep passing. You can use the abilities of characters you have face up to “interrupt” passes/moves, etc. in order to try to exert control over who gets which card, when, etc.
This is a good simple game that we played “in between” games during our MeetUp.
No major advice … I took a lot of chances flipping up passed cards, and lucked out. (actually it was my x-ray vision, but that’s a secret). So, it helps to calculate odds given what’s up, in your hand, etc. but not absolutely necessary I think.

I enjoy games where you need to figure out who is on your side, and your characters (eventually) need to cooperate.
You’re a Shadow, Hunter or Neutral, and everyone has their own victory conditions. (I was a Neutral.) Then you get weapons and special abilities, and figure out who is who, then attack them, etc.
I tried to be sneaky, and mislead everyone about what I was … they thought I was a Shadow for a while. Then my cover was blown, and things fell apart quickly. I also did not use my special character ability (self healing) until a bit too late. So, crunch, bang, bash, I was down.
Enjoy.

Played this for the first time yesterday.
Initially, somewhat confusing and hard to learn. I did not if I was going well, or making the right moves. So, don’t expect to win you’re first time around.
But I think, by the end, I had a much better idea what to do, and not totally mess up my plantation production, etc. I ended up taking 2nd place (by just one point over another beginner player). I know I would do better next time around (oh, yea .. aiming for 1st).
Recommendations: Don’t get too swept up in the bidding; but target your bids for resources, etc that you need down the line. I think the resource/spice production was the most important track, although I ended up not getting last colony (perhaps a mistake). In fact, yea, you need all the colonies to take 1st place. So, be sure to load up on your colonist dudes.
Okay game — resource allocation, strategic planning, bidding.

Once you get the hang of it, this game is pretty good. Try to “mix it up” in terms of what civilization you get. And then …
#1. Don’t forget about science. I swear this slow but steady approach to gathering points, if “enabled” by other players, wins 75%+ of the time.
#2. War is too easy to block. I’ve won going the war route, but it’s not easy unless your neighbors are weaklings.
#3. I have mixed feelings about the expansion sets … Leaders and Cities. Cities is better than Leaders (which gets overly complex I think).
#4. This is best played with 5 people in my opinion.

Overall, this is a “go to” game for our gaming Meetup group. It does not take to long for experienced players, and there are lots of ways to win.

I have played this game several times, and own it.

Background: Gather cargo, spend it on ships, special cards (“Syndicate”), etc. get money. Bid on ports (where there is a certain type of cargo.) You can only hold so much cargo (space), so you need to think ahead/horde/compete.

This is a good bidding game that does not require a lot of complex thinking. It is neither silly/easy to play, nor so complicated that you need to run through it several times to figure it out. So, it’s a good game to occupy an hour or more.

Furthermore, if you’re a decent player, playing against other competent players, it is very difficult for someone to run away with it. It’s very competitive, and can have several players in the hunt until the very end.

I played this several times over the last weekend.

The objective of the game is to connect your travels across countries using adjacent countries, oceans, ships and planes. You have 10 tiles (days), and the winner has to have all of them in a row. You can only substitute from a discard/random pile directly into your trip. No shuffling your trip around.

It does require thought and long term planning. You have to watch what is being discarded (and buried), what you need, when to change your trip around because it’s a lost cause, etc. It can be frustrating if you know a tile you need is buried, etc. So, you have to flexible (you don’t want to think “I need this one country to win!” … because you’ll end up sitting there for a long time, hoping, dreaming.

We actually played this game “connected” to America once. (I think you can also connect it to an Asia version.) So, that made it even more complicated and interesting. I won once, and lost twice (including a big screw up – loss).

A decent game, not terribly exciting; but steady and methodical thinking game.

I recently played this game with 3 other players, and got totally smoked.

Background: Sail your ship from island to island to get sails, cannons, hull, sailors, etc. and essentially build up your ship’s strength. If you encounter another player (moves are “hidden” then revealed), you have to fight them for the island/cove. You can gather treasure too, etc. There are also “established pirates” like Black Beard floating around to complicate things.

What happened: Every single move I had to fight someone. No free ride for me, ever. And during an early battle, I got kicked bad. Terrible dice rolls, smashed ship (which you get to “re-establish” but barebones), and then … yes, another battle to try to build up. Smashed again. I was everyone’s whipping boy, basically.

So, while it’s kind of fun to have battles, roll dice, target the sales or hull, etc. for damage, if you fall behind, there is virtually no chance of recovering. The odds are against you … they are rolling too many dice, you have too little “cushion” (hull, crew, cannons) to win the fight.

If you just want to have fun rolling dice, battling, etc. it’s fun. If you think you can overcome bad luck through clever strategy, think again.

One of my top games to play.

Buy and maintain power plants by acquiring resources … coal, oil, uranium, renewables, garbage — on a competitive market. Keep the power plants lit up to gain more money from keeping your cities powered.

You can try to corner the market, but then again you have to keep upgrading your power plants, which might require different resources. Hmmm. But then again forcing your opponents to pay out the nose for resources is very enjoyable,

I’ve seen this game won in a lot of different ways … with “I am going total green / renewables” to very fluid/change your resource mix constantly.

What keeps this game balanced too is that the leader always goes last, so no one can get way too far ahead and run away with the victory. So, there can be lots of lead changes. (One strategy actually is to accumulate very few points until the end, so you always go first in the market. Think about it.)

This game will get more play.

Just played for the first time:

This game involves a team of players collecting relics on an island that is sinking. Collect cards, move around, “repair” parts of the sinking island, use your sandbags, use a helicopter to fly around, exchange relic cards with other gamers … all before the island slips away. As the game goes along, the island sinks more quickly.

Card based game with movement around the island.

A good game if you don’t want to get too involved with rules and long time commitment. Good for younger players too. May be a bit too easy for experienced players; if you get a bad run of “sinking cards”, you’re toast. But otherwise, it seems like you can win if there are no major ******** by your team of gamers. Generally a good good rating, except for replay (over and over again).

If you’re doing a bunch of gaming, it might be a good “filler” game on the side, or to occupy a bit of time while another game finishes up.