What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

(in regards to Blood Rage comment above)

The 2 strength warriors are rough, but can be VERY good if you're relying on a low Grey stat (one which limits your figures on the board). It also works great wit the Age 1 clan upgrade that lets you invade with a warrior for free whenever you lose a battle.

Dr Manhattan wrote:

san il defanso wrote: This afternoon I taught my son Heroscape. He's five and doesn't read all that well, but we still had a lot of fun. He selected Mimring right away, and that ended up being the difference. The other problem was that he picked a lot of ranged characters, and I picked almost none. He mowed down my Vikings right away, and my Feral Troll got tied up with Mimring and the orc on the tauntaun. I was able to wreck him a bit with my Deathwalker 9000 and the guy who looks like Morpheus before he got tired of playing and we called it. It was a lot of fun, even as I had to keep him focused and help him through a lot of stuff. We'll have a lot of fun with this one.

nice Nate, I have Heroscape primed, my boy turns 5 next week but I thought I would wait until next xmas before breaking it out, hes a bit hyper now so I dont think he is ready to focus on that, he likes domino style tile matching, and stuff like Monza, and a bit of dice rolling, so interested to hear more specifics of how it went. I also have the Dungeon Command packs thinking they would be cool to throw in instead of paying through the nose on ebay for Heroscape official stuff. In fact, theres a whole long rambling post in me somewhere, thinking about the idea that in a way you rob your kids of something by providing them with "rules as written", I always remember the thrill of plastic soldiers on a bit of board from the old mans work, drawing a grid, rolling dice and making rules up. Yes, the game was unmistakably shit compared to what we could have been playing but on the other hand, we were sat there making our own shit up and I think that has value, not just in a nostalgic way. So part of me thinks I will start just by letting him build shit with the terrain and move the figures round, and maybe just make rules up about rolling dice to move I mean, I guess HS itself is more or less that but I'll probably simplify it even more and let us just make some shit up together.

Any game I own that has minis is a common source of play in our house. The other day we used Imperial Assault minis in Epic Duels to do some fun stories. The five-year-old is getting interested in playing games by "the real rules," but he tends to decide how we'll play at the front end. It's one of the joys of being a dad.

Played 6 games of Hera and Zeus with my 13-year old daughter. Stomped her the first 4 games, lost because I was dragging out her death and accidentally attacked Pandora forcing me to discard the column with the hostage, when I could have just attacked her hostage directly. the last game she outright won. This makes me happy as she is figuring out some strategies.

We had a little time tonight so my wife and I played a game of WWE Superstar Showdown. I was Randy Orton, and she was Big E. She landed the first few hits after blocking my early punches, even throwing me out of the ring and clotheslining me with a pretty solid hit off the ropes. But I was able to level some solid reversals down the stretch and came away with the pin.

My familiarity with professional wrestling is very limited, though like all kids in school I knew the major guys of the late 80s and early 90s. Needless to say I'd rather be playing a version of this game with Ultimate Warrior instead of Daniel Bryan. But that said, this is a really fun game. It's really intuitive, and I think it'd pay off well after running a few matches, so those special moves can be added to the deck. I'm curious how well it plays in multiplayer, and I'll try to find out soon.

This will sound strange, but the game it actually reminded me of most was Star Wars: Epic Duels. The central mechanic isn't really the same at all, but it's got a lot of the same feel and personality. This is also more of a "gamer's game," though that makes it sound like it's more than just a board game about professional wrestling. But the positioning, the way the individual decks reflect the wrestlers, the short matches that can be picked up quickly. It's an obvious win for people who like wrestling, but I don't know most of these guys from Adam, and I still had a blast. Call me crazy, but I think my wife would play more too.

Just played a delve quest in WHQACG...this game is the real deal, y'all. I liked the campaign fine and it had some cool elements, but I think the delve is the way to go. The challenge level is higher. And it is definitely replayable.

I can definitely see this one on my shortlist...it takes all of the good stuff about LOTR LCG and Death Angel and throws out the bad...and it does actually feel like WHQ- when your Ironbreaker clobbers two guys at once with a death blow and your waywatcher is shooting at night goblin archers that have ducked back into the shadows, it had that feel.

You say the challenge level is higher. Does that mean it'd be better to try to introduce people to the game with the campaign, rather than a delve? The latter seems more appealing for something, as the website says, we could finish in one session, but less appealing if, as you say, it's tougher to complete than a segment of the campaign. I'm thinking of trying this on the girlfriend and her two kids (both of whom are big fantasy/game fans, thankfully.)

Michael Barnes wrote: Just played a delve quest in WHQACG...this game is the real deal, y'all. I liked the campaign fine and it had some cool elements, but I think the delve is the way to go. The challenge level is higher. And it is definitely replayable.

I can definitely see this one on my shortlist...it takes all of the good stuff about LOTR LCG and Death Angel and throws out the bad...and it does actually feel like WHQ- when your Ironbreaker clobbers two guys at once with a death blow and your waywatcher is shooting at night goblin archers that have ducked back into the shadows, it had that feel.

This is interesting because I've heard from several people that the delve quest was easier as there's less of a time pressure element.

Another play of Wings for the Baron in last night (at my friend Sippi Stephen's request) using the Advanced Rules and I think I warmed up to them a bit more. Three player game, which I think is going to make a difference more in this game because you are in direct competition with each other. I think I still prefer the Basic Rules where there's a single pathway to victory and you need to beat the other players on common ground, but the Advanced Rules certainly made a good show of themselves last night.

Then on to two plays of The Grizzled which is kind of like Love Letter with trench foot. It's a full cooperative with no traitor aspect whatsoever, and the rules are only six tiny pages long with big illustrations. Unfortunately they needed to be eight tiny pages long with big illustrations, so the first game was played with a kind of "I think this is how you do it" feel to it. We reracked and played again because by the end of the first game the rules kind of made themselves apparent to three seasoned gamers. Don't know if a group of noobs would be able to figure it out, certainly not in a reasonable time frame. At some point I need to submit an article on how to write rule books.

The Grizzled is fine for what it is. A very small cooperative game and once we twigged out the rules it played well. But you get to spend the game abusing your character, wounding him, destroying him mentally, crushing his personality. If that doesn't get you excited, you may want to consider one of the other small-card count games that are out there. I think I'm going to reach for the much bigger Legion of Honor if I'm going to go with this sort of theme.

Two games of Capes & Cowls last night. Definitely still the best super hero game -- although, I do wonder about the extreme lack of randomness in combat. It would be nice if they did an updated version with new components and a map with some 3D components. It was the first chance I have had to play it in awhile and my main gaming partner thought it was good, so I am likely going to get rid of some other super hero games (first to go is Sentinels).

The first game was me on the wrong side of a blow-out, with my opponent using the Green Gremlin and a series of other dudes to spend (e.g., tap) all of my dudes before I could get a chance to activate them on my turn. The second game saw my Baron Necro led team instant KO Nightstalker and then create a horde of zombies that just couldn't be overcome (although the real critical character was probably Lightning Lady and Baron Necro served as more of a distraction).

Last night played a 3 player game of Wiz-War with the big spellbook variant, or whatever it's called when you take a bunch of schools and the white cantrips and make one large deck, then the rest of the schools with the black cantrips.

It was fun but I was eliminated early, and there really wasn't much craziness.

My wife came home from a job one day (she works in film and television) and asked me if I knew some guy named Robin Sprigg. Out of nowhere. It sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. Looked up, it was the designer of Capes & Cowls. Turns out his wife works in the same business and was on set with my wife. Weird.

...and uninteresting!

Michael Barnes wrote: My wife came home from a job one day (she works in film and television) and asked me if I knew some guy named Robin Sprigg. Out of nowhere. It sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. Looked up, it was the designer of Capes & Cowls. Turns out his wife works in the same business and was on set with my wife. Weird.

Have you played it? It seems like the kind of game you would like. Very streamlined. Simple rule set, but each of the heroes are unique and adds a bit of strategy. Maybe even reminiscent of Dreamblade a bit.

Amidst more 504 we etched out a night for light fare.

Started off with Tumblin-Dice, which is always a hoot. I picked up the Eagle-Gryphon reprint, and while the board is far inferior to the previous edition, it still played well and the price was great.

Moved on to Colt Express with the Horses and Stagecoach expansion that just came out. I'm a very light fan of Colt Express, I think it's solid but nothing special and it's perhaps propped up by the 3D train. This expansion, however, really improved the game for me.

The theme was stronger as it was simply really cool seeing a Stagecoach with a shotgun wielding guard atop, and the ability to ride horses up and down the train cars added to strategy and feel.

I loved that you can now take hostages which give you a penalty, but offer money at end game. It's simply a more interesting and nuanced game and all the better.

Greed made it's way out which always succeeds for me.

We closed up with 10 or so games of Loopin' Chewie. I was shocked at how much I enjoyed this having never played Loopin' Louie before. I wish I was still playing it.

san il defanso wrote: We had a little time tonight so my wife and I played a game of WWE Superstar Showdown. I was Randy Orton, and she was Big E. She landed the first few hits after blocking my early punches, even throwing me out of the ring and clotheslining me with a pretty solid hit off the ropes. But I was able to level some solid reversals down the stretch and came away with the pin.

My familiarity with professional wrestling is very limited, though like all kids in school I knew the major guys of the late 80s and early 90s. Needless to say I'd rather be playing a version of this game with Ultimate Warrior instead of Daniel Bryan. But that said, this is a really fun game. It's really intuitive, and I think it'd pay off well after running a few matches, so those special moves can be added to the deck. I'm curious how well it plays in multiplayer, and I'll try to find out soon.

This will sound strange, but the game it actually reminded me of most was Star Wars: Epic Duels. The central mechanic isn't really the same at all, but it's got a lot of the same feel and personality. This is also more of a "gamer's game," though that makes it sound like it's more than just a board game about professional wrestling. But the positioning, the way the individual decks reflect the wrestlers, the short matches that can be picked up quickly. It's an obvious win for people who like wrestling, but I don't know most of these guys from Adam, and I still had a blast. Call me crazy, but I think my wife would play more too.

I really want to get this game, but, I have a mental block. I don't know any of the wrestlers included in the box. I want to see the older professional wrestlers. This game needs an expansion for 80's and 90's wrestlers. I want to see Andre the Giant, Macho Man, The Road Warriors, The Hart Foundation, Jake the Snake, Mr. Wrestling, Kabuki, Sgt. Slaughter, Junk Yard Dog, Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, Iron Sheik, Superfly, Ultimate Warrior, Rowdy Roddy Piper, King Kong Bundy. etc...I'm sure that I left more than a few out that I'd like to see in a deck.