LotR 182-184 - The Long Dark (2-4)

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This was an epic set of games. I don't recall too many of the details, but the following provides a very high level overview.

I do not recall this quest being overly difficult when I played it solo. Looking back on my notes, I can see I did get fairly lucky with the Encounter deck, which was good as I was not that lucky with my hand in that game.

182 The Long Dark 2

Our first game went a small number of rounds, 3-4 or so, long enough for me to build up a decent hand, then lose it all failing 5+ Locate tests in a row. Really bad. Despite that, we played on to the next locate test where losing required putting 2 damage on all characters. I made the call to scoop there. I would have lost most of my tableau.

183 The Long Dark 3

The second game went similar to the first but we got further along before more epic Locate test failure. We scooped when the fail eliminated all but one of my charactors, only Bifur was left.

We were not having a lot of good luck in these two games.

184 The Long Dark 4

Our third game of the day. I changed from Bifur to Ori to get the extra card draw. As it turned out, we got a clean win with this one and only had to do one Locate test each, which we passed after a fair bit of discarding.

We had some decent luck in this game, no asterisks we know of. All in all, good times.

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What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

  • Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
  • Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
  • Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
  • Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
  • Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
  • Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
  • Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
  • Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

  • Have a solo game ready to play.
  • Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
  • Referee a game in progress.