Charterstone Chronicle, Game 5

This was the first game that I truly enjoyed with basically no complaints, as it feels like we reached something of a plateau in terms of game mechanics. Nothing earth-shattering was uncovered this game, and I felt like I actually got to sit down and work to min-max for a change, instead of having to constantly respond to new factors. The charters are all really beginning to acquire their specific flavors and it's really cool to see in action.

First up, whereas my guests carried me to victory last game, this game I missed out. This notably came up when Megan triggered her chalice of immortality to land a double income, generating her enough resources through her guests to build a structure. I didn't manage to snag any this game, and missed out on the hype train this time around.

The Sky Islands are a fantastic addition, despite my reservations at the end of last game. For one, they ensure there is a sizable leftover pool of peril tokens and meant that there was a less even distribution of the ones on the board. It invited some interesting questions about which buildings in your charter to cover, especially for charters like mine where every building fits together to form a cohesive whole or really developed charters like Megan's where lots of expensive buildings have already been built. Going forward, I see it giving people some really meaningful decisions to make in set up: which buildings do I want on the board, do I want an open building slot this game, etc. I also like just having more real estate as having to cover buildings feels punishing, especially when you know in the back of your mind that you're robbing yourself of end-of-campaign points every time you do.

So, this game, starting with an extra peril and having built by cupcakery last game, I aimed to focus on turning perils into VP (not the least of which because I was using the "1 VP when you pick up famine" persona). I managed to grab two famine and two red/unrest?/whatever. However, the true breakthrough came when I realized the best use of the "scroll" treasures - converting them into 4 VP via the cupcakery. This is a phenomenal conversion rate, especially after I got the +1 VP Friend. Essentially, it was 1 money/1 resource  -> 5 VP. But, considering I had double robots and got 2 of the 3 scrolls I used for free, it ended up being significantly less than that.

In the end, I netted 23 points off peril buildings of my 67 point winning total.

I also filled out by first item order this game, I think Danielle and I were the only people at the table to do so. At any rate, they feel....on the stronger end of okay. Having the artificiary (or whatever building produces two resources of your choice), would make them a lot easier to fill out. I think they might suffer from being a comparatively boring game play element, with no unlocks or anything coming with them. People fucking love stickers man.

Objectives actually played a bigger role than normal this game, compared to their near non-existent presence for the last couple. My winning move in a horse race with Megan was to grandstand for the two assistants objective with the Maestro and Longshoreman in hand (a combo you may recognize from the first game), for 6 points and a rep placement in one turn. I'm curious if personal objectives will ever come into play in a real way, nobody has yet actually scored one. I may look into it next game, especially since Amanda has an income building built for it. On that note,Caralee built her income building this game, 2VP for 3 metal and an influence. That feels really strong. It will definitely be one I target early next game.

This game we notably got the other two minions out. Dani unlocked her Butlers and build the Manor. They provide a gold on placement, which her and I had speculated they probably did. The big surprise came when Caralee unlocked Amanda's cats, netting a slew of cat associated buildings and a persona meant for Amanda. The cats grant a VP on placement, which I must say feels really strong. On a side note, Caralee was rocking a persona this game that allowed her to pull back all her workers once they were all put out - which was really nice as it allowed her to more or less avoid those wasted turns of having to pull all your workers back. At any rate, I felt bad for Amanda, but you snooze you lose. Dani has also just informed me that the cat cafe has gone back into the general supply, so who knows who will pull it next game. This was the first real example of someone aggressively unlocking an opponent's boxes, and I think it put the fear of god in everyone. At any rate, I know I reclaimed by Brewery from the market by the end of the game, as all my high level buildings are waiting for me behind it. I am not going to rank minions yet, as I don't have a good feel for their relative power at present with the new ones included. All I will say is that I still think ghosts are generally the worst (sorry Megan).

This game featured an actual reputation battle, with every slot being filled. It ended in a three way tie for first between me, Danielle and Megan, with only Caralee not placing on the track. The sky port was also utilized to a greater degree this game, with 4 slots in it getting filled.

At the end, we discovered we had forgotten to incorporate the Temp rule on this week's guidepost (small worker can't replace big worker). This probably wouldn't have mattered much, as people could have played around it had they known, although I think me, Dani and Caralee all did double worker cycles which would have been impossible had we been playing with this. Dani and I realized afterwards that this rule was meant to reflect the guidepost story, with the big meeple representing our persona and the small one representing our companion. With that in mind, I feel less guilty, as it seems Stonemaier just added the rule for theming. We won't forget next game's temp rule (role the die when you use a building in someone else's charter to see if you both get a VP), although I anticipate being more annoyed by having to remember to do it than anything else. This game already suffers from feature bloat and having to remember yet another non-obvious board interaction just adds unnecessarily to the mental load.

I thought that due to Megan's level of unlocks, she would win this game's guidepost handily. However, it turned out that Caralee had 9 personas to her 8 (by comparison I had 5). She chose to make the Forever King angry. I think basically everyone chose the extra capacity. For me it was an obvious choice, since I knew I was going to win and therefore would not be getting an extra capacity after this game. For my next glory track, I started bubbling in a minion, although it occurred to me after perhaps having an additional persona on the board (if indeed that is how that extra works), might be better for me.

It's worth noting that we have a pretty solid play group, after an uneven first three games, we've now settled into a fairly tight VP grouping for each game. This time the range was 40-67 (which through the power of rounding meant that everyone got 4-6 glory and my 7 extra were a waste).  This should make for a pretty competitive campaign, and I imagine scoring will matter a lot by the end of the campaign. Each win is only worth 6-8 points at the end of it all, but reaching that next star threshold over the opponent is just a flat 10. This is one reason I think that flat glory on our companion cards was actually really good and probably undervalued by the table.

I have won 3 games now (though one was technically a tie), and feel like I'm in decent standing glorywise. What's weighing on me is my lack of personas and buildings. Megan has all three of her 20 point buildings built, and 8 personas, whereas I have none of mine built and only 5. I just haven't been nearly as aggressive in pursuing charterstone unlocks. I did build the portal this game, rounding out my trio of 'neutral' buildings, but nothing in my charter is worth near as many points as some of the buildings in other ones. Even Dani now has a selection of high value buildings built while I am lagging. Next game, my priority will be construction and netting as many personas as I can. My strong win rate and glory standing will be for naught if I don't keep up in the construction race.

Loadout Ideas: The Grenadier (PS2)

Sometimes you get a period marching tune stuck in your head and design a PS2 class based off of it.

You've all heard the song, even if you don't know the name. It's perhaps the most British tune ever outside "God Save The Queen" and "Colonel Bogey's March"

The British Grenadiers

So, how do we make a Grenadier in PS2?

Obviously the role should emphasize explosives, lots of them, with the idea of being kitted out to breach a secured point room by excessive application of explosives.

Heavy Assault seems to be a natural place to start. For someone who is going to be doing close quarter fighting, a SMG or shotgun seems like a natural choice. So my Grenadier is going to rock a Gladius, being the standout SMG the NC has access to.

Sidearm doesn't really matter too much in this case. As for launcher, I want one that can dumb fire and do damage to infantry.

For ability slot, the Nanite Mesh Generator seems far and away the best, since ideally you will only be exposing yourself for short period of times and you critically won't have the benefit of Flak or Nanoweave Armor.

For suit slot, this is where we dispense with the HA's usual stand-bys (NW and FA) and instead take Bandolier so we can carry an extra 3 grenades. I could see an argument for taking C4 in the Utility slot and becoming the ultimate explosive expert, but I'm more interested in explosives I can pitch, and for that reason, I'm going to just leave tried and true med-kits in the slot.

No Implants stand out to me here, so I'm just equipping Battle Hardened and Ocular Shield as two useful implants to have for a CQB situation around point rooms. And...voila.

Is it a super good build? Eh, I'm not sure about that. Does it feel fun to fling a bottomless sack of grenades at fools while you listen to a fife and drum blaring in your ear? I'll let you be the judge XD