During last week I managed to play only some card games (or games, based mainly on cards) but I'm still happy, all of those 2-player sessions have been great experiences.

Ascension is my all time most played game (when playing all the expansions as standalone games as I do) but I still find it fascinating. Storm of Souls this time. Best with 2p, I'd say. It's playable with 4 as well but in that case more experienced players may have too big downtime when beginners discover all the combos etc. Avoid playing it with more than 4, though.

Tried also Ghost Stories again, with 2 players, just the base game. If you're feeling that everything seems to go according to plan - well, things will change soon :) I don't remember if we have ever won the base game. Yes, there are guides available in BGG... but it's somehow like... playing some FPS 'godmode' with unlimited ammo/health. No challenge, youknow :)

And finally something quite forgotten... 7 Wonders. Damn, this shines with 2 players! If there are more players I have never enough time to watch who has what developments etc - but this way it has more suitable pace. And of course operating 50% of time in behalf of the "dummy player" - it's just extra fun. Leaders expansion just doubles it. Waiting eagerly for Cities.

Tried Innovation some time ago. It has received a great hype around here but at least my first game of it was quite bland. Things that were told beforehand to be 'very rare' happened almost all the time and the key to the victory (or at least achieving a good result) was to have your cards splayed ASAP. I hadn't so I was doomed. Luckily I got the Democracy card on my table so with help of it I was able to get the 3 dominance cards (out of 5 needed) - but that was the only highlight of the game. To be worse, at the end I was forced to king-making - it depended from my last actions if player A would win with influence or player B with dominance. No more choices. What a game, eh?

Played also Gears of War boardgame. When first two levels were just like walks in the park, third was a tough nut to crack. Of course when we'll crack it, finally. This time we only survived enough to see what was behind door number two... and then we were bleeding out. Oh, the dice rolls... throwing 4 black + 1 red dice which results in 0 hits and 2 defence... when all that was needed was only one hit. Epic. But fun. A bit longish, though.

Another play of Gears of War, this time with 4 players. Thrilled by the success we had last time, decided to choose the next mission - although for one of the players it was the first encounter with this game. Luckily GoW has quite simple rules, so there was some hesitation only during first couple of moves. This mission was pretty tough, with some almost-unkillable blind berserker rumbling in the house... but team spirit was high and co-op really worked, so we were able to survive the mission by slaying the berserker. It took ca 3 hours to finish it but it was time well spent. Excellent game I'd say... usually co-op games suffer from one player starting dictating the moves for others - but I'm not sure if it would be even possible with GoW.

Ghost Stories is another co-op I played recently... it was long time ago when we played it last time - and I forgot the rule sheet home, but we managed to remind the important bits of rules. Still, we were killed in pretty short time - but life in a temple is supposed to be hard :)

And finally... Doom: The Boardgame. Descent's predecessor with game balance a lot in overlord's favour. We played it with some mods to simplify the life for marines... but nevertheless it was pretty ugly experience for them. Also 2 of the 3 marines played this game first time and therefore most of the time instead of fulfilling the mission enjoyed themselves by killing all the monsters in range. Overlord was glad to see that as he knew that ammo tokens are quite hard to get later :) Anyway, long story short: marines found the blue key, instead of red one, but it was broken... and on a way back they were fragged in some nasty ways. Enjoyable game for overlord, hopefully also for marines :)

I had recently enough time & motive to try again the solo experience of Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft. I had played the first (solo) mission once, got killed - and decided to try now again. Got killed again. I was almost there, next tile would have been hidden staircase... but just then the kobold skirmisher did his worst. Well, it happens.

But despite of this quite tense situation on gameboard it wasn't really thrilling experience. The story was evolving, every move was crucial... but something was missing. Something important. I suspect that those D&D-style ameritrashy types of games are meant to be played in groups, to have some emotions and ideas and so on. Playing it solo was like solving a puzzle. Or watching a good movie alone, with nobody to speak about it later. So I wouldn't recommend Castle Ravenloft solo, although with more people it's pretty excellent game.

Agricola, on the other hand, is a game I wouldn't recommend to play, especially against experienced players... but solo experience makes it somehow better. Not good... just better :) With playtime similar to Ravenloft (ca 1 hour) and having same puzzle-solving feeling - it does not somehow get so boring. Perhaps it's in the nature of eurogames - you get same level of excitement both from playing it in larger group or also alone. And if you're not expecting anything, you can't be disappointed as well :)

Summer. An excellent opportunity for spending more time outdoors... which is the main cause of having less time to play board games. Nevertheless, there have been several games been played during the time since my last update.

Isla Dorada gave me quite a strange impression after my first play. On the one hand I'd like to try it definitely once more as the mechanics were pretty interesting... but on the other, some of the event cards were too powerful, creating randomness in favour of the card holder. Don't know what to think about it.

Dixit with several 7-y old kids was an interesting experience - there was much more creativity and joy than with any "hardcore" player I've played it :)

Only during last play of A Few Acres of Snow I noticed that I've mis-interpreted some of the rules, so the raids/ambushes should be a lot harder to be successful than we originally played. First game I won as French, second lost (to a different opponent) as British by narrow margin. It was my first play as British and so I wasn't aware that their strategy should be a bit different from playing as French.

Khronos and Thebes are games that don't hit the table very often, unfortunately. Played both as 2p games and they - especially Khronos - were really fast to play and enjoyable. I like the time-travelling theme of Khronos and Thebes has nice light indianajones-y feeling when searching for artifacts.

Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage was game I had wanted to play for a long time... but at the end it was the biggest disappointment of this year. You can't judge the game only by it's rating at BGG. I'm pretty sure I played something wrong with Hannibal, but during second turn he was killed in battle. From that point on, the game was just dragging towards inevitable with winner being clear and me having no chance. I'm not very keen about the battle mechanics as well, partly due to fact I lost all (yes, all of them) battles. Meh of the year.

Drako is small and simple wargamish game for two - three dwarves vs dragon. Nothing to say more :)

Gears of War: The Board Game - the co-op I've wanted to play also for a long time. Unlike Hannibal, this game I liked a lot. We played first mission with 2 players and it left pretty good impression - plenty of choices and decisions, firefights, monsters. Definitely would want to play it more. More. More! :)

In other news: No Thanks, Incan Gold, Kingdom Builder+Nomads