Gloomhaven: Unlocking the Sun

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

After that unfair mission failure, I voted to leave the city and let it rot to the poison while we returned to Vermling Bear island and this time wiped the floor with the opponents resulting in a cascade of gold for the party! Juris then suggested we try another crypt mission that was on our list for awhile which also turned out to be a walk in the park as it was a "reach the treasure room and kill all revealed enemies" one, so we were just cautious of opening extra doors. It helps both Jim and I have extra skeletons we can summon now.

Jim then was game to retry the Wishing Well, and while we did much better here I (the rat) still had to run the doll through to the well at the end as DL was a turn away from collapsing after a bad door open (that's really a thing in this game since all the revealed enemies get a turn after you open a door). That said, while I was dodging the spirits in the last room my compatriots actually cleared out ALL the other enemies, including those laser gun golems which was pretty cathartic! Lastly we visited a drake nest and slew 16 of the things for Hail (plus some flame demons that Jim disintegrated) putting all of us on level 7 now (though I think Juris might be level 8).

As an extra reward a Sunkeeper (paladin/cleric type) is now sitting on reserve for our crew since our good deeds haven't gone unnoticed!

Gloomhaven: Treasure and the Trials of the Terrible Turd Tunnels

[Part of the Party Time journal] 

With the path now clear to find the poison in the lower levels Juris makes the call to... sail away from Gloomhaven and search for treasure! Haha, well adventuring needs funds you know? As a bonus there are also no "road encounters" for ocean centered missions! Thus we take a ship to some nearby islands to the East, first landing on a small vermling infested one which immediately proves too scary as they have pet bears so we run and sail a little further south where a treasure map DL purchased leads us to a reefed vessel which is now home to ugly crab things and lumbering frost demons.

Said crabs and demons are actually easy foes to handle, to the point where I'm almost a room ahead of the others and opening doors to let more monsters get involved with the fray. Of course, I almost overextend TOO much and finish the adventure exactly just before I exhaust out but not before we enact Jim's plan of leaving the last enemy alive to loot as much as we could which lets us leave with a fair bit of coin. Yep, any gold or treasure you don't pick up mid-combat / before the mission is over is just abandoned! It's one of the odd systems in Gloomhaven I'm not too happy with since obviously you should be able to loot after clearing out a spot but whatever. We return to the city richer and wonder why everyone is getting even more sick. Oh right! The poison...

We paddle through the muck into the ancient cistern and find while Juris slays many night demons in the depths, DL has terrible luck with his attacks. The source of the poison, four contaminated water pipes, each spawn an extra imp per round and DL is the first to fall while I scurry and shut off the rear two valves before following suit. Juris shuts another down before he too drops leaving Jim to cleanse the final one - which he does! But then... all the imps get their turn and knock him back forcing us to retreat. Despite completing the objective, I guess the win condition is only checked at the end of a round. Mission fail!

Old TV Reviews: The Black Sails of Spartacus

A continuation of my old TV show reviews.

Spartacus (Finished)

A modern take on an old tale, this complete story of Spartacus' slave rebellion is one I truly enjoy as it features gratuitous gore and nudity combined with good action pieces and decent acting. Despite changing the lead actor midway through (due to death) it is still a very entertaining watch. John Hannah's Batiatus especially gets the two thumbs up for the seasons he is in. If you haven't seen this one then I highly recommend watching it, provided you can take the graphic content.

The show is this much better when he's in it.

Black Sails (Finished)

This prequel to Treasure Island was made by the same folks who produced Spartacus, so the same level of violence and filth is present here (though the filth is more dirty, rather than sweaty/oily). The story mainly follows how Captain Flint and Long John Silver came to be, and it is mesmerizing to watch. The props team also definitely outdoes themselves here. If you liked Spartacus, then you will probably enjoy this too.

Pirates ahoy! Hard to pick favorites when they're all good.