The Game – Sleeping Gods

Let’s talk a bit about the crew today, because my knowledge of my crew is what led me to making a choice that I might not have. The crew are a key part of the game because they are who you activate for several different things. Skill checks, which add fatigue, combat, and their abilities.

Now, there are nine crew members in the game counting the Captain. And each of them has at least two abilities that they are good at. A few have more than that. I like how you utilize them, putting fatigue on the character to activate the skills that they are good at.

Mechanically, it definitely works well. I like that you can only activate up to two people. So sometimes you can get to the goal just by putting fatigue on the characters, but is it worth it. Since there is also the element where you flip over a card as well. That card might be a six, so you only need two from characters. Or it might be a one. It’s a nice little decision of how much you want to push your luck in the game.

Plus, as you get more fate cards that you can equip, you can either diversify a characters skills or make them focused on something. I generally have specialized my characters to help get to those higher numbers. I think that’s the route that most people will go, but certain abilities, at times, make more sense with certain characters.

The Drink

So last nights drink was a Negroni again. So not much to talk about with it. So let’s touch on a complaint a little bit. Target in general is getting worse at carrying things that I want. And this does come back to booze, but also is with food. Target has moved away, might be because of supply chain, but even before they pandemic they were in process of moving away from major brands. Everything was being replaced with Target brands.

The downside of this is that some items in Target brand are fine. Pasta, that’s fine. But Target cheese is much worse than Crystal Farms, Kraft or Tillamook. Now, they still carry Tillamook with it’s limited variety. So to get a shredded cheese, I either get Target brand, or hope it’s in Tillamook, or go somewhere else. Back to alcohol and Target. They are now getting rid of the local brands of gin. That means that I bought a bottle at a great price. But now, going into the Target liquor is not going to be worth it. Everything is standard at this point. And I want to get local when I can because it’s often better in my opinion.

Anyways, off my soap box. I bought a bottle of gin at a great price, but now I won’t be able to get that gin again at Target, because they closed it out.

Upcoming Streams

As always, next stream will be on next Wednesday. Join me for part 8 of the adventures of the Manticore. And thanks to everyone who has joined live over the streams. If you want to know when I go live, subscribe to the channel and click that notification bell. You can do that here.

And to let you know, there will be additional video content coming out sometime soon. I’m still working on the formats for what that will be. But don’t be surprised to see more game play. And game play of different types on the channel, so not only just solo. Plus the additional content that I want to start filming.

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But you can join with me and catch-up on the game below. And for preview games find them here.

The Game – Sleeping Gods

Let’s tackle another aspect of the game. I can’t talk about the same things every time, so let’s talk about command tokens in this game. Because, I think that command tokens are one of the more interesting elements to the game. Mainly because command tokens allow you to break the rules.

So, normally on a turn you have three steps – ship phase, event phase, and action phase. Command tokens allow you to break the rules, kind of, with that. And using ability cards does the same thing in some ways. Using an command token to activate something, whether removing a low morale, or drawing cards, whatever it might be, is almost like having an extra action.

Now, it isn’t as big as something like sailing the ship, a lot of the time. Though, I now have one that does that. And cooking a meal is less effective but still almost as good as going to port. It tends to be that you get slightly weakened versions of actions that you could take. And sometimes, they are better than what you can take, because you need to sale to a port to take the port action, makes sense. But you can cook a meal anywhere.

So the command tokens become this element of the game that you need to manage but not horde. Mainly because they always have a good use. It’s not like a health potion in an RPG, it’s clear when you need to use those. Here, you could save them, but also, you get more every turn. And to use them in combat to get that last hit, it’s so good.

The Drink

So last nights drink was a Negroni. That is made from equal parts gin, sweet vermouth, and campari – or another grapefruit liquor. For me Negroni are some of the best drinks that you can have. Mainly because they are very bitter. But while being bitter they are also very refreshing. The flavor of the grapefruit and it’s influence on the whole drink is clear. Plus the nature of gin adds in a nice refreshing addition.

Upcoming Streams

So next Wednesday we’ll be back with Part 7 of my playthrough of Sleeping Gods. If you want to keep up with the games and content, subscribe to Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel. You can do that here. Every Wednesday at 8 PM central there is new content that comes out. Right now Sleeping Gods, coming up next Spire’s End.

And more content will start coming out in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for that.

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Quick Recap

The basic premise comes from how we interact with new people coming into the hobby. I might not own a game like Catan anymore, but that is a game that still brings hundreds if not thousands of people into board gaming. So when someone finds out about Board Game Geek, for example, or the Dice Tower, and they want a board game recommendation, they might ask on the Facebook groups. And I’ve talked about this idea before. If they say they own Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, and Catan, what is a good recommendation.

Too often I see games like Scythe, Gloomhaven, Brass: Birmingham, something that is way too big. But people are recommending their favorite games. Why is that? Because they want more people to love them like they do. And honestly, so do I, but those games aren’t accessible to new gamers.

All of us have a pathway that leads through a lot of different games to where we end up. And some people that might stop at the likes of Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, and Catan. For others that means that we end up playing through all of Gloomhaven. But what were the steps that got you there? I challenge all of you, myself included to write down or think about your board gaming journey to remember what were your steps.

Then, the next time someone asks for a board game recommendation, you can give them the name of the game that isn’t your favorite game, but was your next step. And I can do that as well.

Orchard: 9 Card Solitaire Game

This is a little solitaire game about stacking cards. The game play is simple enough, you are laying cards down so they overlap. Where they overlap colored trees, apple, pear, and plum, you put down a die. One overlap gives you 1 point per tree, two gives you three, and so on the more layers that you get. The goal is to get as high as score as you can. You got to see my high score last night as I got up to 56.

It’s a really good solo game. One it’s small so easy to take place. But when you pull it out, it’s still small in that it doesn’t take up too much space. Finally, it plays fast, but gives you good choices. There are some solo games that give you some choices and play fast. Orchard is a great puzzle that gives you great choices.

Next Weeks Board Game Stream

So next week’s stream will be a little bit different. It’s going to be the last stream for the year. And I’m going to ask for your help in figuring out what board game(s) I should stream at least to start the year. I have a number of campaign games that I’d love to have hit the table, and I’d love your help figuring out which one is the one that I should play next. So expect to see a poll going up with that, probably in the chat, to help me decide.

Then I’ll be taking off for the holidays. I think it’s just two weeks where I won’t be streaming. But it’s partially because I might not be around, and partially as a little bit of a break for me. So join me next week to see what games I’m considering.

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