What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

I ordered Camp Grizzly last Thursday or Friday and received it on Monday despite selecting regular ground shipping, so Ameritrash Games must be based somewhere near the Twin Cities. I might try to solo it tonight in preparation for taking it to a boardgame thing on Saturday. The production values are very decent, though I wish the art was a little less cartoonish. The rule book seems organized at first glance, but it's too short and leaves out some basic information. I need to get the FAQ and maybe look at the questions addressed at BGG.

I agree on the rulebook, but I also like that it doesn't treat you like an idiot. It's easy to assume the stuff that's missing.

Egg Shen wrote: Awwww fuck...I was doing so damn good NOT buying Camp Grizzly!

Don't worry, dude. We'll play it.

My group is still exclusively playing Descent 2nd Ed. and we must be up to about 7-8 weeks in a row now. The heroes won the first campaign when Tomble the Gnome, as the last hero standing, managed to slay the dragon with the Dawn Sword. We're well into our second campaign and about to play the first interlude due to all of the Rumor missions we've been playing. The Overlord player and one of my Hero teammates keep track of the campaign mission branches and I have little interest in that so I just go where I'm told.

Our party is the scout that gets to roll 2 gray dice on each skill check (as well as shooting through other figures), the Apothecarian cleric (brews healing potions), the Rune mage, and I'm playing the Beastmaster warrior. The consensus on BGG is that the Beastmaster is the "worst" warrior class but I don't give a shit because I find him much more interesting to play than a no-frills beatstick. I still think the game skews towards being in favor of the heroes but some of the expansion and expansion pack enemies have made it closer, especially the fire-breathing ones. Typically the Overlord will have a good showing in the first part of a two-part mission before the Heroes win the second part.

The Rumor missions have been ridiculous, however. It seems like every one we play is structured to have a bad penalty if we lose, and a not-quite-as-bad penalty if we win. The first one we ever played the OL player ruled that we don't get to heal damage and fatigue afterwards resulting in, essentially, a one round penalty in the next mission as we rested and healed. We nixed that going forward whether it was official or not.

We just finished a mission where our ally, the healer Serena, had to "channel" 3 out of the 5 objective tokens on the board before the OL's lieutenant, the goblin chief Splig, did. We only half-completed the first part of the mission so the party was split at the beginning of the mission where the apothecarian, Serena, and the rune mage were on one corner of the map and the beastmaster and scout were in another. The OL's two elementals hammered on the ally and 2 heroes and me and the scout had to contend with several spiders and goblin archers. After a few turns they'd cleared the elementals and we'd put a pretty big dent in the spider and goblin horde.

The wolf my beastmaster summoned is not a valid target if another hero can be targeted instead (an upgrade I purchased with XP), so that meant I got hit by spiders and the goblins had to be far away and nearly around corners if they wanted to shoot my wolf. The wolf always pulls its weight and more often than not rolls at least one surge when it attacks where one surge gives it Pierce 1 (i.e., ignore one shield on the defense dice). The beastmaster carries a halberd which has Reach (can melee attack at range 2) so a lot of times I could fatigue move one space to clobber multiple goblins in a turn. Once most of the map was clear we hammered Splig and after he went down the mission was, for all intents and purposes, over. He could only stand up on his turn without performing any other actions and the fact that he could only heal 2 red dice worth of wounds each time he Recovered meant that we'd just down him again on our turn, essentially nullifying him.

Serena channeled 3 tokens, we searched the rest of the map, and we got 1 XP and Serena got a skill card for winning the mission. I purchased an upgrade that allows my wolf to gain or confer a green die on attacking heroes (the green die averages one surge and one heart per side) based on it being adjacent to enemies, but I don't think I got anything from the shop. That's OK, the Act I deck is mostly crap at this point so I can't wait to get to get a chance to buy some Act II gear.

I played a solo game of Firestorm last night while watching Heroes Reborn and Blacklist.

Soryllians vs Directorate, which is basically the lizardmen vs. the mega corporations, and it was epic if for one reason alone: My Sory battleship scored enough hits to crit a Directorate cruiser, killing some crewmen, and on the next activation, my bad ass lizardmen boarded it, took it over, and proceeded to lay waste to a few Directorate ships (uber-rolling helped) before being destroyed. The best part is the focus on that ship which was behind enemy lines (and the frigate that boarded it) caused the Directorate ships to open up their flank too much, allowing the Sory's to launch super broadside attacks, devastating their fleet.

Fun damned game.

D&D: Attack Wing - After a few weeks off due to schedules/illnesses, my buddy and I were able to continue our campaign and played the best game of it so far. Play games enough and you'll have those where looking back you can pinpoint a die roll or card flip that swings the momentum. At a key moment my Ancient White Dragon was hit by his Ancient Silver Dragon causing a bunch of damage and on the last critical flip, I lose my attack which in all likelihood would have dropped Vaaka. That was the final momentum swing though as we were in the closing rounds and the rest of my forces soon collapsed.

Space Cadets: Away Missions - This may take the place from Gears of War, at least for the time being, as my go to game for solo play. I have been really, really enjoying this so far.

Black Gold - For a FFG Clearance title that has been sitting on my shelf for far too long I had a really damn good time with the game and I can't wait to play it again. It hits that sweet spot of Euro/Family game weight that I really love.

Rum & Bones - This has impressed me. There's two layers to the game, the scrubs pouring out from below deck and rushing mindlessly forward and then a fighting game where you have supped up characters brawling it out launching special powers trying to get to your opposing side's ship to cause hell. The Kraken is powerful but at that point should be the game-winner to whoever smacks it back into the ocean first.

Interesting to hear the Gears comparison, that makes me more motivated to get space cadets on the table some weekday evening for solo play.

RESISTOR_ is kind of awesome.

Michael Barnes wrote: RESISTOR_ is kind of awesome.

I was at a small local con last weekend and there were some indie game companies there. Most of it wasn't up my alley but I demoed RESISTOR_ and yeah, it's a neat little game. I ended up buying a copy to support them and the con, even though 2p games like that don't get played much around here.

Rum and Bones really has me interested. I'm a huge fan of Broadsides and Boarding Parties and this seems like a good knockoff, without the sea battle portion on the front end, which I think is a missed opportunity.

My recommendation with R&B is to just get the base set and ignore all the hero packs. The minis are color coded - Red = Quartermaster; Green = Brute...etc. Print off characters and stick with the color scheme. And since every team needs one of each color you'll never notice the artwork not matching the mini. The big box expansions add new boat layouts which are nice though.

Be warned though that a large portion of the MSRP is because you're paying for components. It's more a $35-40 game development-wise.

Love BS&BP as well and it does remind me of the second phase of that game. Just more fantastical and a lot more dice to roll.

Recently had the peeps over for boardgames. I wanted to have a Pain-A-Lympics, the tub o' games was filled mostly with games that a) we haven't played and/or b) aren't well liked.

The offerings:
Murder City
The Target
James Clavell's Whirlwind
Exalted - War for the Throne
Bump in the Night
Politika
FaceEater
Aye, Dark Overlord!
BSG - a gimmie, as we always play this first.

Well, in a shocking first, Nathan (the BSG nut) was blase about playing BSG. Whereas his girlfriend, Amber, got hooked on playing The Target the last time she came to our game day, she snatched it up and requested we play it. Hey, a break from playing BSG is like a paid vacation sometimes.

We played two games of The Target. The first go round I was CIA and the game went rather quickly with me, Nathan, and Trish winning. I pulled a gambit and put a piece of dirty intel in our HQ and prayed to God that we didn't have a double. As it turned out, we didn't. The second game, I was KGB, as was Nathan, Amber, me, and Eddie. This time, it took a bit longer to play as Amber, despite being on our side, didn't know that Nathan was one of us and tried to keep offing him, while I kept him alive. The KGB prevailed over the capitalist pig dogs.

The next game we played with was Elder Sign, which I personally love but don't have a copy since Nathan has one. We played it twice and both times it was painful. The first Elder God we had was the Great Old Nuke himself - Azathoth. Try as we might, we couldn't keep him from waking up. The next game had Hastur and this is where the game became a bitch. We were 3 signs away from sealing him off and then the wheels came off the finely tuned truck we had. He woke up and after one round, we realized there was no way on God's green earth that we were able to put him down. So, we pulled the plug. Cyanide capsules and GSWs to the head for everybody!

The last game was played was Dragon's Gold. It wasn't in the tub but I pulled it out for a quick game. Everybody had a good time, even though I won (most experienced player there, as Eddie and Trish only played it once before).

I feel like a drug pusher sometimes. I introduced Nathan to Android, The Target, and Dragon's Gold. He then goes out and buys the first two and made a comment to the effect of "Where do you get these addicting games from?" in relation to DG. He'll probably go out and pick it up, too.

Had the younger daughter and her husband over for dinner last night and the asked to play something. Something other than Ticket to Ride. Woohoo! So Republic of Rome was it!

I kid. C'mon, stop being so gullible.

Star Trek Catan was busted out of its shrink wrap. Taught the game in ten minutes and we were off. Catan still rules. Always a fun time. And more importantly, with the resources in the Star Trek version having different names, I didn't have to hear the lame wood/sheep joke at all. "Who's got dilythium for tritanium?" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Had a great time, did not come even CLOSE to winning. Wifey and kids said they dug it.

repoman wrote: Had the younger daughter and her husband over for dinner last night and the asked to play something. Something other than Ticket to Ride. Woohoo! So Republic of Rome was it!

I kid. C'mon, stop being so gullible.

Star Trek Catan was busted out of its shrink wrap. Taught the game in ten minutes and we were off. Catan still rules. Always a fun time. And more importantly, with the resources in the Star Trek version having different names, I didn't have to hear the lame wood/sheep joke at all. "Who's got dilythium for tritanium?" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Had a great time, did not come even CLOSE to winning. Wifey and kids said they dug it.

Man, I love that game, especially the Star Trek version. If only I could convince a certain someone you and I both know how wrong he is about it. I can hear him now, "You win at Catans by not trading with anyone." It's also how you lose all your resources, shitnostril, so best of luck with that.

Josh Look wrote: "You win at Catans by not trading with anyone."

Is that like saying, "you win at Catan by not playing Catan"? Never played the ST version, but trading is generally sort of the point, no?