Scythe

 Nothing like a lazy rainy Sunday morning to make the big board games come out.

And nothing is quite as nice of a big board game as Scythe, which can be set up, played, and put away in 3 hours. I played with my sons Terjoe and Aarjay and took off the kids gloves and gave them a right shellacking, winning 78 to 63 and 57.

We had fun and still one of my favourite games. 

Rise of Fenris Campaign

My board gaming group that has been using Tabletop Simulator to play weekly board games this pandemic decided to try Scythe this spring, a favourite board game of mine. The group, 5 of us, enjoyed a few games over a few weeks so decided to dive right in and do the Rise of Fenris campaign.

Its an 8 game campaign with lots of surprises and additions and definitely worth the money in my opinion if you own the base game. Some of the rounds were better than others, but overall the campaign was a hoot and the final game last week was down to the wire. But I managed to pull a victory out from the jaws of defeat, winning with a score of 240 to 236 of my closest opponent. Lady luck smiled on me that night.

The one complaint about the base game that a few of us had is that there is a significant portion of the game dependent on luck: which encounters you get (some are better than others), which combat cards you get (last game of the campaign I was pulling all 5s and 4s while the Saxony player was only 2s), which player mat you get, etc. And the balance between some of the factions is terribly out of whack, for example the Crimea and Rusviet factions are better than the other 3 base game factions and all 5 of those are strictly better than the expansion factions from the Invaders from Afar pack.

That being said, its still a great fun game, and the expansion is worth it.

Board Games: Scythe and Mothership

Last week was super crazy but I did get a night in to play some board games with friends. Here are some pictures from a game of Scythe and Mothership:

I came in second, evil Red found a way to come from behind and win.

Pro tip: don't send your Mothership into a scrum without support.

Board Game Night - Scythe

On Tuesday night I got together with four friends and played my second game of Scythe, a great resource management game (with some fighting) with awesome setting.

It was a good time but the two most experienced players were easily in the lead while me and two others who were having their first game did not do so well. I did better than my first game for sure, but underestimated how quickly the game would end and left some VPs unclaimed as a result. Oh well, next time!

Here are some pictures (I'm the Golden Horde by the way):

You May Be Correct, But Not Necessarily Right

So as part of a week of rants, Ripard Teg bemoaned the rise of the Retribution Scythe as a "replacement" for the Tech II Scimitar:

Problem is, the Scythe is not an attractive alternative. It's a replacement. It turns all that time training the actual Logistics skill into wasted time and is going to put 75 million SP characters into T1 cruisers.

This statement stems from the initial numbers of the new Tech I Scythe support cruiser bonuses:

Scythe:
Cruiser skill bonuses:
-> 15% bonus to Shield Transporter boost amount
-> 5% reduction in Shield Transporter cap useRole Bonus:
-> 1000% bonus to the range of Shield Transporters
-> 100% bonus to Logistic Drone (both armor and shield) rep amount

Meanwhile, the Tech II Scimitar Logistic Cruiser has the following bonuses:

Minmatar Cruiser Skill Bonus:
-> 150% bonus to Tracking Link and Shield Transport range
-> 20% bonus to Shield Maintenance Bot transport amount per levelLogistics Skill Bonus:
-> 10% bonus to Tracking Link efficiency
-> 15% reduction in Shield Transport capacitor use per levelRole Bonus:
-> -50% CPU need for Shield Transporters

So for the relevant skills all at level V, we see that the Scythe has 75% bonus to shield transporter amount compared to none for the Scimitar and a 1000% bonus to range compared to 750% bonus for the Tech II ship. In favour to the Scimitar, it has a 75% reductions in cap use compared to only 25% for the Scythe.

So Ripard is correct: the Scythe will out range and out repair the Scimitar by a huge margin. I'm not as inclined to dismiss the tanking and maneuverability of the Scimitar over the Scythe, but I recognize that being able to repair from 90km away larger amount will make the Scythe a strong choice for logistic support in battle.

But I disagree that Logistics skill training is a wasted effort in the long term.

CCP's tiericide started with frigates and has accelerate into destroyers and cruisers for the Retribution patch. Its not inconceivable that the battlecruisers and battleships will be rebalanced in Retribution 1.1, 1.2, and/or 1.3. If their acceleration on balancing continues, we may even see the Tech II frigates addressed before the summer patch. Regardless, I'm willing to bet that the Scimitar and other Logistics ships will come under the microscope in the summer expansion or soon thereafter in a 1.x release. And when these ships are looked at, there is a strong possibility that they will receive similar bonus changes to make them a valid alternative over the Scythe (and I'm not sure they won't be already due to tech II qualities like speed and tank).

In other words, the Scythe and brethren *may* dominate the logistics landscape for 6 months, 8 tops. Then we'll be back to saying its a valid alternative to the more expensive but better performing tech II version.