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Right on time! This is exactly the kind of video I was hoping to find - one that dives deep into decision-making. I understand the three main strategies (guards, temple, cards), but I haven't found any videos that explain how to effectively utilize all three strategies depending on the situation. This kind of knowledge can only be gained through personal practice (which isn't always available) or by watching let's plays with commentary from skilled players.

I would love to see your resources that you/the other players own. Can you screenrecord so that we can see it in future videos?

The side bar is a little cut off. You cannot see the resources.

With leaders are they pretty balanced or some harder or easier?? Wouldn't want to.play against you 😄 specially when you beat John gets games and Anastasia

Honestly, I’m really confused about your strategy. I’ve played a lot of Arnak and I would insta-snap that lantern and easily pick up 4-5 guardians on turn 3 against you and just snowball really hard. You don’t even go for the free guardian so maybe I could even get 6. Exploration tokens are the GOAT and you under-value them so hard! If you are the one exploring (especially if everyone else just go to your revealed locations) you easily reach the top of the research track as well!

Fist is one that out of this logic😂

Woah, there is a "Wave of Anguish: level 8 shackles card and a "Wave of Anguish" level X Deathwalker card!? I've never seen two X-haven cards have the same name! WEIRD. How did they let that happen?

I finally finished watching through this video, I love these vlogs! It was already very nostalgic to watch through the WBC venue even though this was my first year of it, really unique experience. I also loved all the detail and stories you captured from your games, looking forward to something similar from WSBG. p.s. I think your camera work was fine, I didn't have a problem with it at any point really.

Did Blue make a critical error at 4:37 by putting a Cowboy from Foresight 2 instead of Builder? Or was it the best decision? Because I think this kind of forced Nick to commit to Cowboys, next building cow market (2a) and then hiring double cowboy at 7:55 as his only viable choice as Yellow had just taken the only builder available. I believe this was a bad result for Blue, now two Cowboy players contesting each other VS Yellow's uncontested Builder + 4/4/4 (10b) + amazing 1st Station Master tile giving 2 points per building --> Yellow stomped this game. And at 4:37 I think Yellow had a good lead anyway with the Green hand tax building at desert (drought) with 2 hazards in desert plus one in Foresight 1. But if Blue placed a Builder at that moment, then Nick would be able to instead hire a Builder and an engineer from the job market and maybe play Builder/Engineer hybrid? This would be an excellent result for Blue. But I don't really understand this hybrid strategy (haven't tried it myself yet) so was it perhaps unviable for Nick this game? And Blue knew Nick wouldn't go for that so they want more Cowboys in the market for both of them? As it looks like a "good" Cowboys game with both building available - cow market (2a) and cow shuffler (4b). Another factor is could the cow market support two Cowboys players? To me it looks ok but not great for that (you can see it at 6:16). I've only watched this video once through but would be keen to hear others' thoughts on this specific play at 4:37. I'm fairly new to GWT and want to learn :D tl;dr - If you were Blue at Foresight 2 at 4:37, would you put the Cowboy like they did, or put the Builder instead?

Pls more Videos. I like the way you play and comment with strategy. Greatings from Germany.

Thanks for the video, it was very fun to see it overall. I hope in the future you could make a "So you want to go to WBC as a newbie" video for people that have never been there but would like to. Both how to select your games, but also practical things (it seems that you took food/sandwiches instead of getting food, and also driving/parking, etc).

Regarding the Stone Key ... the first expansion does bump the cost up to 4 compasses (from 3), possibly to nerf the card, but also because one of the new research tracks includes a spot for a shared-by-all artifact with a cost of exactly 3 compasses (which cannot involve SK).

22:05 Key point about Sunkeeper is that it has a good supply of big move cards 26:45 I think the way to play that correctly is to persuade your whole group to start new characters with you at level 1. Maybe there's a thing where you are partnered with tanky/controller characters and really like the wound -retaliate looks like a trap. Alternatively maybe "Move 2 + Attack 1" is a nice looking bottom (you could enhance) you can burn for 2xp and a hit in the final room. 32:40 Surely you don't play without Stamina Potions! 50:00 Code-Geminate + Rapid-Fire + Plague-Dispersal + Missile looks tempting but that's a lot of investment to lay down some poison 1:04:40 Prevent Wounds seems designed for spinning blades (which you'd want to switch in and out of -retreating and letting it advance- not just stay in) but I can well imagine you'd have enough healing not to be bothered about wounds just coming in from enemies.

I'm pretty good at this sort of game but I come to these videos to save myself some thinking at the start and make sure I don't make any really foolish mistakes and/or mistakes that you just don't see until you get into play. I like complex but found Geminate to be complex without (enough) payoff. Equipment discussion is something I particularly look for since the game is at my friend's house and there's a lot to choose from later on.

The 'plane crash' site (2 compasses OR free item) can be awesome in round 1 if you can pick up a 3- or 4-coin item (aeroplane, precision compass, binoculars, dog, automobile, steam boat), but it's rather poor in round 3 or later; you either settle for less value (2 compasses) or you get an item that you'll likely use just once. You're probably right that I should have upgraded my compass assistant over my arrowhead assistant, but flipping the 'plane crash' site (I was hoping for an arrowhead) set me back.

With the remorseless deep top effect you also should be careful. Because if you wounded and baned an enemy, the wound damage would be doubled, not the bane damage.

Hope to see you at WSBG!. Thanks for sharing your insights. Did you finish deciding the games you are playing?

Good luck at WSBG!

Awesome video, thanks for sharing your strategic thoughts! Currently prepping for WSBG, I just learned the rules and now I get the game and some of the strategy. I had one big issue though.. I really wanted to see what the other players were doing, but couldn’t! It’d be awesome if you showed the top part and/or the bottom right, as both sections display all player actions.

Honestly, I more often than not play shackles as retaliate character. I have the perk that gives me 5 to my max hp, so I have a beefy hp pool, run into a group of enemies, load up retaliate and then heal next turn. Even better if you have the card in play that when you take damage, you can deal damage to someone else. I had one scenario where I set up retaliate 5 at range and ALMOST got my "deal 40 damage in one round" mastery. I ended up doing 30 damage just through retaliate. It was nuts. "the benefit of guaranteed damage is finishing enemies off." I respectfully disagree. I think the benefit of guaranteed damage is getting around shield and retaliate.

I played this through level 9 and I was the ranged heavy hitter of our 3-player team.Always doing 4-7 damage attacks every round, attacking twice if you counted bottom shadow-based damage. Optimized myself for cursing and I dropped 4-6 curses per rest cycle. I always played to create and use shadows fast to attack big. Start with making dark to charge attacks, to kill and make shadows, then alternate making dark and making shadows. The only problems I had were scenarios with few enemies, then harder to make shadows.

Heh, I built a spread sheet around this as well, I included long vs short rest, stamina pots and potential cards left in hand if resting early. I didn't use it much but it was a fun little excel exercise :).

Do they start with standard rules? Like +1 in everything or corporate rules at 0?

why is buying one cow at the start bad when playing a cowboy strategy? Do you not want to buy as many cows as possible when playing that strategy?

Thank you for your great videos! Did you ever try 'Beyond the sun"? I think you might like it as well, strategic, but mostly tactical game with a large techtree and light area-control mechanics.

Thanks for the video run down, was fun. Congrats on all your success, your continued excellence and competitiveness in the consul race does make me a bit jealous or rather drives me to keep improving. It was fun playing and tying you in Five Tribes, glad that was at least the one friendly tie of the week for you :P I also appreciated our talk before the Egizia heat, your no hesitation response to go play Santa Fe Rails after having a 1st/2nd was largely what I figured, but I appreciated it nonetheless. (and indeed, I still made Egizia SF, but then also made Santa Fe rails advancement rounds, and got 2nd overall there) Also continued thanks for putting in the time to GM and be on the board. Finally, I think this may have been the first year I actually played your dad in something, and as expected he's sharp. Hopefully next time I run in to him at the Diplomacy table I can work with him, instead of fearing how he's ruining my alliance's position!

I used item 143 with this class and it was amazing. I almost always played encased punch bottom. I also did get preserved fury that I would bring back with a major stamina potion. I lasted for a long time!

I predict that this game finds its way to WBC in either 2025 or 2026.

Wonderful video, Nick! You seem like a such a pleasant dude.

This was even better than reading a BGG Geeklist of a WBC recap, thanks for doing this! Also, I got to play a game of Boxcars with your mom this year and had a great time. She let two of my kids pet and play with her dog and it made their day :)

Gamer popcorn sounds good! Gotta try this out

Fun to hear about all your games! More importantly @2:30 your mom's dog is the unexpected star of the video 😃

If you'd like any Arnak scores, I have all of them.

I'd say for the situation you brought up about the room deleting itself: At the end of the day, this is a game and if something silly like that with no rulings for or against your tokens, i would have simply just placed the shadows somewhere in the new room. In a group setting, i would have easily allowed something like that because it just isn't fun for the game to shaft you like that, especially without any sort of ruling.

Love that you're sharing more about WBC to the world!! Great playing and chatting with you :)

This was a great watch - the 'strategy vlog' format is a really good mix of fun & competition. Now onto get that arnak ring in vegas! 🤠

I’ve solved many puzzle books ,but haven’t heard about this one… Where I can buy it?

What a great video, thank you! I've watched quite a few of your Frosthaven videos (have I commented on one yet??) I'm watching lots of Frosthaven stuff getting ready for when me and our kids get it - probably December-ish. We are finishing up JOTL now and, per Cephalofair's recommendation, we are going to do FH next instead of waiting on GH 2.0. All that being said, I'm letting my kids pick their classes first when we get FH. RIght now they are leaning toward: Banner Spear, Drifter and Blink Blade. Our daughter who's thinking Blink Blade may want to do Deathwalker. Personally I'm thinking Geminate (because I love playing hard stuff everyone hates) or Deathwalker, or Boneshaper. The more I read and watch the more I'm leaning to Boneshaper in PART because I'd be able to help our Banner Spear set up attacks. Deathwalker just sounds cool though... the theme and all... and yes, I've seen your video on them not being that great. I think it should be called, "Shadow Walker" btw. Anyway, thanks again!! This is probably the most helpful video on Boneshaper I've seen simply because of the first part alone. The whole video was great but the first was really helpful!

As the person who got crushed even worse than you (I'm Lethargic Socket on BGA 👋🏻) I'm both mortified and delighted that someone I just played tonight recognized me from having watched this!

Nice to see some Ark play. Rarely watch 4 P games. I thought your ELO was like 500 at least ( I know it is just a number, but anyway).

I’ve played this class a few times and respectfully disagree with a lot of your card choices. This class is really meant to not finish scenarios. It has multiple abilities/cards that say “when you exhaust,” and getting negative conditions isn’t that difficult. I’m full condition build, and absolutely own with him. Allowing him to blast the first half of a scenario really can change the tone for the second half.

In the German version the puzzle is harder, because there is no 1 letter word to start with and there are more than one form of the. But I started with the first 4 letters you started with. And I used some German patterns like c is only in ch or sch. And so on.

One of my favourite games and loved seeing and hearing what high level play looks like. Found this channel thorough listening to the "Where are they now" episode of Friendly Ties and it's exactly the CZcams content I've been trying to find (commentary and advice on high level play). Really appreciate all the work you're putting in to make this content Nick!

you could've placed your camera right over the commentator's camera, so we could see your tableau. also would mean that you didn't need to shift your camera around. apart from that, great commentary!

I'm pretty sure Michael's play to abundance at 3:14:04 is illegal as his special pawn is down on the evolution action. That means that he can only place his orange pawns below it on domination, or he has to recall.

I ALSO chose Ark Nova as my team game because I expect the field to be so big. Fight!

w8 u couldn't use Death Spiral and Slipping into Darkness on the same turn could you? Permanents need a turn inbetween to be used.

We were talking to Chris about how WBC handles some of the "similar" games, like the different GWT games. It sounds like it varies by game/GM. Do you know (as an all-powerful board member) how the different GWT versions are handled (Base, New Zealand, and Argentina), and how they handle Wingspan/Wyrmspan?

🎵 🎵 🎵 It's the most wonderful time of the year 🎵 🎵 🎵

What about the great get-stupefied-and-play-jackbox-games tournament that occurs every night at the big house?