Espionage

 A three player Talisman, 4th Edition. We had all the corner expansions and the Cataclysm board, and no special ending.

We had Leywalker, Spy and Amazon in this game.

Spy had an explosive start when he got the Astral Journey spell that gave +1 Strength and Craft. Then he got to visit Guru to pick a spell from spell discard pile that had only a single spell in it... yeah, +2 Strength and Craft right from the start.

Leywalker could have had a promising start, rummaging through the remnants in the middle region, but the first card drawn sent it to Highlands via magic portal. I suppose that was somewhat of a flashing start as well, as Leywalker got the Talisman on the first round of the game.

Amazon was shuffling around here and there, getting only some minor equipment here and there, so she decided to seek her destiny in the woodlands. She did complete two paths successfully throughout the game, but did not receive a destiny in any straightforward way. However, she did pick up the item that acted like a destiny.

Spy had quite the rollercoaster of a run. Quite early in the game he got the money to go and get a flail, but that was stolen from him by the Amazon via Path of Greed. However, just two or three turn later he got to pick a "place" card from discard pile, which was den of thieves or something, so he stole the flail right back. And not too long after, Green Mist destroyed it. But he wouldn't give up, and saved up for another one. 

That all took a while, during that while Leywalker had some luck. It managed to get back to Middle Region, and found Toxic Spring there. Not only that, it also got Craft spell from the spell deck. It also had Spell Call, and was able to set up a teleportation circle to Runes space. Leywalker had also received Healing spell at one point, so he was able to soak up the toxic waters of the magical spring.

Leywalker also had the Woodlands follower that essentially gave him +2 Craft, but also lost a life whenever Leywalker gained a stat. That follower was ultimately it's downfall, as it decided to take a point of unnecessary damage instead of just ditching the follower - Craft 13 was not necessary to get through Portal of Power and Mines. Leywalker was just at one life remaining when it would have got to fight the snowbeast, so instead of taking that risk, it teleported out of Inner Region. With two lives Leywalker would've tried to fight the snowbeast at least once, but now it just teleported back to Runes that had a portal, and was ambushed by the flailing Spy. Leywalker went down. Enter Arcane Scion.

However, Leywalker had delayed Spy long enough that Amazon was able to get to Inner Region before Spy, both only a turn or two. Bitterly cold part of the Craft path delayed Amazon for a turn, so Spy got to the crown first. But then a challenger - the Amazon - appeared. Without the flail the fight could have been a little more even, but that piece of equipment just made the combat completely one-sided, and Spy absolutely dominated that fight. Since it took a couple of rounds, Arcane Scion had plenty of time to ride around the City on his riding horse and Hopper, the bunny.

Victory for Spy.

New Moon

 

I tried a new game called Luna Nova. It was a mechanic driven set-building, tile placement sort of game, where phases of the moondictated which tiles were available for you, and the moon phases were changing based on player actions. 

Simple enough once you get the hang of it, but having quite the depth in how to place your tiles for maximum effect.

I had two two-player rounds. First round went as expected, as in the early game I didn't have much of an idea what I should be building either now or in the future. 

Second round I was able to scrape a the narrowest victory possible - opponent would have won with next whatever tile she picked.

Pale O

 Two games of Paleo with two players. We played the second scenario where there was a lot of wolves involved.

First game did not go great. I think the tribe went extinct on the fourth day without even a single section of the cave painting done. Uh oh.

Second game went better. We aimed to get all the secrets open, and were indeed able to get the chieftain's suit in record time. At the same daycount when the tribe had lost in last game, we had both the sling thing, chieftain suit and first section of cave painting.

Although first three skulls appeared at a worrying pace, the downward spiral stalled for a while. Quite often the tribe struggled by the skin of their teeth to finish the day without additional skulls from hunger or accomplishing mission goals. Whenever tribe was able to make a stone spear, it had to be flinged at a big enemy soon after. At least those were big kills, though.

Paleo seemed like a fun game, though. There was plenty of variables and shenanigans that came into play, and I usually enjoy those.

 A couple of rounds of Joking Hazard. Let's make that a one session. There was some sort of expansion involved, but I don't think I heard it's name.