What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

We had 4 players last night, and we started out with Fireball Island. I was the only one who had experience playing, but this game is so simple, that didn't really matter. As far as it goes, I came in dead last anyway. I've decided that unless marbles are being dropped into Vul-Kar, this game is pretty boring. Watching people tromp around and claim treasure tokens isn't fun. Stealing Vul-Kar from someone is really the highlight of the action when marbles aren't in play.

Luckily, we did have a lot of Cataclysm cards being played, so the volcano was busy. Honestly, I think the real reason that it fell flat for me last night was that I could see my box of Hellapagos sitting there, and I knew that it's the better game. But more on that later.

Next was the main event. My buddy got Village Attacks from Kickstarter. It's a cooperative tower defense game in which you play powerful monsters who all reside in a castle. The villagers have decided to grab their pitchforks and torches, and put an end to your tyranny.

The scenario guide introduces new mechanics as you go, so scenario 1 is pretty simple. Each monster (I was the Lich) can earn XP by killing villagers, and once every monster has leveled up one time, the scenario ends in victory. If villagers reach the heart of your castle, they win. We handled them pretty well, but an unfortunate roll of the dice actually resulted in a loss just prior to when we would have won.

So let's talk about those dice. They are the central mechanism of the game, and represent its biggest failing, in my opinion. At the start of your turn, you roll 6 custom D6s. Each side is different. You use the results to power abilities in a fairly standard dice allocation system. BUT! While normally you'd expect to be able to re-roll up to twice, that isn't how they do it here. First, any "villager" results are immediately locked. This results in a villager advancing for each such result. Second, you can only re-roll the other dice if you get TRIPLEs. This fucked my character over so many times, it wasn't even funny. The Lich needs a specific symbol in order to power any of his cool abilities. If I didn't get that symbol, it generally meant that my turn was trash. The only saving grace for this is that if you end up with results that you can't use (a common occurrence), you can lock them in as results for the next turn if you want, similar to locking dice in Elder Sign.

I would have liked to have seen some sort of dice conversion mechanism, like turn any 2 dice into 1 of a symbol of choice.

The second mission introduced villager morale and castle heart hit points. Now we reduce their morale every time we kill one of them, and our castle can take damage, so it's not an insta-loss if they reach the center. This was the best scenario we played, and we stomped those puny villagers pretty hard.

The third mission introduced village heroes. These characters have special abilities, hit points, etc. We had to kill 5 of them to win. We got very lucky in the villager spawn order (it happens via a small deck of cards), and all 5 heroes spawned pretty quickly. If they showed up late, your game could take a LONG time. We won, but certainly not because of me. I rolled so poorly over the course of this game, that I accomplished almost nothing. The results would have been the same if I had literally not played.

We ended the night with what I consider to be the high point... a single game of Hellapagos. I quickly taught the game, since it's extremely easy to teach, and we got going. My 3 "friends" were all playing it as a straight co-op. I was playing it as "how can I get them before they get me?"

We got one raft built in fairly short order. We were also good for food since one player had a fishing pole. After a round or two, another player revealed the flask, which greatly increased our water production. I think he had it from the start and just didn't play it immediately, but perhaps he didn't realize its importance. We kept getting bit by snakes when trying to gather wood. I think I was only able to get additional wood one time without getting bitten.

After about 4 rounds, we finally got to the point where we were going to have to vote for someone's death; we were out of food. Someone immediately revealed a gun and a bullet, and shot me dead. Bastard!

The next round, they happily constructed a raft around my bleeding corpse. I sat there, knowing their doom was imminent. Interestingly enough, the following round, one of them used a voodoo doll to bring me back to life. This was not a kind gesture; he only wanted me to aid in raft construction. I knew they would just kill me again, so when it came time for me to gather wood (what they wanted me to do), I instead searched for supplies. I'd love to say that this was the part where I drew a great card and got my revenge.... but this is the part where I drew a toilet brush.

A couple of rounds later, the hurricane showed up. We had 2 rafts, and eyes starting shifting around like we were having a stand-off in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. One player, in a very uncharacteristic fashion, said to the gun owner, "if I give you a bullet, will you shoot Tim?" Shane of course said, "hell yes, I'll shoot Tim." And he did.

They then proceeded to vote me off of the rafts, and they sailed away to victory. Fuckers.

Sekigahara: hadn't played in an age and a friend wanted to try a war game so we cleaned some beerskis and contested the fate of Japan. I lost as Ishida. Having not played in a while I forgot that you really need to counter attack out the game as Ishida and I was a bit to slow getting started. Good game, nice and tense.

Today we played Fungi aka Morels and it was decent though not as good as I hoped. The theme came through pretty well for a card game filler. Art isn't great, as in, it was a bit hard to tell the mushrooms apart. But it was a fun enough game that I'd play again. 6/10

Then we played Targi. What a lovely wee game. I wasn't sure how I'd handle it because I've only been playing light games or none at all while my brain is mush. I think this is about 2.4 weight and it was absolutely fine complexity-wise for me. It was really cool. Worker placement, resource management (kinda) and set collection. No board, just cards spread out in a grid. There isn't an awful lot of interaction in this (or in Fungi) but you could block each other though we tended not to. I enjoyed it and I hope this is a bridge for me to play heavier games again. 7.5/10

Traded for Modern Art on accident last week (Read the post as Junk Art). Best mistake ever. Played it three times this weekend. Doesn't know I needed another auction game but there ya go. Family loves it. I get worse every time I play it LOL Best score so far is 266.

I made the hour drive north to play games with Edulis of F:AT and his local gamers, on a very cold night. While waiting for a seventh player, we started out with Lovecraft Love Letter. It's Love Letter, except with a thin coating of Cthulhu Mythos. There were some extra cards, and some of them offered insane options available only to players who won a round with at least one insane card in their discard pile. I had recently played a couple of very good three-player game of regular Love Letter that I re-themed into Vampire Love Letter with different card art, but six-player is different. With three, it can be strategic to challenge another player by comparing cards in hand, but that gives away too much information in a six-player game.

Our seventh player showed up during Love Letter, and so we started to set up our next game. But then a couple of non-gamers dropped by to hang out for a while, and Mrs. Edulis required him to entertain them for a while with light conversation. She also suggested a game of Charades, and was greatly amused at the total lack of enthusiasm at our table. The non-gamers departed after maybe an hour, but it felt longer because we all kept staring at the game that we had set up.

Finally, we started a seven-player game of Spartacus, and it was epic. Six of us had played before, and the one new player was pretty quick to catch on. I have only played once since getting the first expansion, and not at all since getting the second expansion, so this was the first time that any of us had played with boasts or festivals. Early on, the table broke into haves and have-nots, and at one point, two players each had more gold than the bank. Everybody managed to acquire a competent gladiator by the third turn, and nearly every arena battle was a primus (two against two, aside from one featuring the Shadow of Death). There were many decapitations and few injuries. The boasts ended up being a fun aspect of the game. The end game was a bit anti-climactic as one player surged from 8 to 12 influence in the Intrigue phase, using his house ability to sacrifice guards for influence.

Then we played Bang! Halo, and it was just okay. I hadn't played Bang! before, but it didn't seem like the Halo setting amounted to much. I was Blue Team leader. Edulis ended up as the odd man out, but edged out a win since his kills counted for double.

WadeMonnig wrote: Traded for Modern Art on accident last week (Read the post as Junk Art). Best mistake ever. Played it three times this weekend. Doesn't know I needed another auction game but there ya go. Family loves it. I get worse every time I play it LOL Best score so far is 266.

I lurrrrve Modern Art. That and Blue Moon are what make Knizia one of my favorite designers. I was kinda meh on Ra, since the key to that was simply knowing when to force people into an auction.. But Modern Art has so many more nuances. It's great. I will always play it if someone offers. Now I just need to see if I can get my Modern Art people into something even more cutthroat dealy, like New Angeles.

I could wax poetic about Knizia all day. Also Ra is great, just lighter. Bullying people into taking lots they don't want is a special kind of fun.

We played 13 Days yesterday. I don't mention every game I play on here but this one's definitely worthy of note. Super tense take on the card mechanisms of Twilight Struggle without feeling like it's trying to just shorten the original. At the end of the day you're just plopping cubes around the board and whoever plops the best without blowing up the world wins, but thanks to the hidden agendas and constantly having to rein in your Defcon meters you can't just plop with reckless abandon. Tactical plopping.

We only got one session in so I'd need to play more to see how the replayability is but I'm optimistic. The core engine here is really, really good.

13 Days is very good and much better than GMT's Fort Sumter (similar concept of stripping down a CDG into a 30 minute game).

I've been playing a lot of Dawn of Peacemakers, mostly solo. It's a tactical miniatures game, kind of, set in an anthropomorphic animal kingdom (that's the in thing now). It came out last fall and was Kickstarted much earlier, but I didn't hear about it until recently.

This thing is pretty interesting. It's cooperative and you play adventurers trying to avert war and keep the peace. There's a decent amount of story but the Macaws are invading the Ocelot territory. It's scenario based and has a campaign - as well as a one-off skirmish mode. The campaign is where it's at.

Both sides are set up in a typical war game type of scenario with overlay terrain and solid quality miniatures. Meanwhile, you're usually stuck in the middle, trying desperately to run back and forth and manipulate each side. Both of the warring factions are controlled by AI decks which are pretty typical. They break their side down into multiple groups and then have a specific group move or attack or whatever.

So there's this unpredictable combat going on and you need to move back and forth doing your damndest to help. You can heal wounded people, damage those that are unwounded (with a poison card), fortify specific hexes to reduce damage, and expend cards to peek at those AI cards and re-order their top X number.

There's hand management with multi-use cards but you're really trying to get both sides morale down into this tight area where they will withdrawal. If you let it go just a tad lower they flee and lose the battle, which is bad for you. So it's like trying to balance to a scale where you want both sides to get discouraged and beat each other up a bit, but not too much.

I was finding it pretty easy, winning my first two scenarios handily. The third one took me by surprise with an unfortunate series of events and I lost abruptly. Something big happened in the third scenario as well which really got me hooked. Each scenario introduces new terrain, units, and concepts. Small spoiler but the third scenario was the first to have an event fire. Something happened on turn 5 that was pretty awesome.

There's a large envelope to open, a sealed box, and multiple decks of sealed cards. As you unlock stuff in the campaign you can then use it to skirmish. You could also play the campaign scenarios as one-offs. I also appreciate how you fail forward, as losing a scenario does not mean you have to replay it.

I'm not sure how much bones the skirmish mode has on it, but I'm really enjoying the campaign. My only criticism is that it's kind of odd hurting some units to keep the peace, also, your characters tend to have slightly selfish motivations and don't get fleshed out much as it goes on. For instance, I'm playing a Polecat treasure hunter and this major NPC is the one who pulled all the adventurers together, he promised me some special treasure if I help him diffuse the situation.

Another big game that I haven't played yet is Claustrophobia 1643. This arrived on Friday, all 14 pounds of it. As far as big minis games from Kickstarter goes, it is impressive. The organization in the box, components, and form factor are all top notch. I miss the prepainted minis but these miniatures are much more detailed. I don't mind the aesthetic of the player boards too much, the stark white and black gives it a minimalist feel that contrasts with the bombastic nature of the thing.

I do think it's kind of too much. Setup will be longer due to all the nooks and crannies in the box you need to go to. Lugging it around would be a pain (luckily we play almost always at my place). Love the cover art and how there's no title or anything though.

Saturday was a day of gaming. It started off with a 4-player game of Terraforming Mars, with me and three relative newbies (brother and two nephews). We did Corporate, but took Prelude and Colonies out. I had Helion, and the others were Tharsis, Phobolog, and the Beginner Corp (brother took it by choice). It took 4 hours - too long because of both my brother reading each card 10 times before making a play, and because they leaned more towards engines rather than TR. Final scores ran from 102 (me) backwards, about 5 apart.

Then my brothers and their wives all came over to my house, and demanded 6-player gaming. We ended up playing a couple of dumb dice games, Roll For It and Zombie Dice. In Roll For It, you roll up to six dice once and assign them to a card, with the goal of matching 2/3/4/6 die values on the card. Match the dice, and you get 2/5/10/15 points. First player to 40 wins. The game itself was kind of blah, but being with my family was fun.

Zombie Dice is a Steve Jackson game, and wasn't too horrible for a press-your-luck dice game. You have 6 green dice, 4 yellow dice, and 3 red dice. Green dice are good, red dice are bad. Roll brains for points, but three shotgun blasts ends your turn with no points. 13 points total triggers the last turn, and most points wins. Can't Stop is a better press-your-luck game, but doesn't play six. Again, being with the family makes the game worth playing.

Katchoo wrote:
Then we played Targi. What a lovely wee game. I wasn't sure how I'd handle it because I've only been playing light games or none at all while my brain is mush. I think this is about 2.4 weight and it was absolutely fine complexity-wise for me. It was really cool. Worker placement, resource management (kinda) and set collection. No board, just cards spread out in a grid. There isn't an awful lot of interaction in this (or in Fungi) but you could block each other though we tended not to. I enjoyed it and I hope this is a bridge for me to play heavier games again. 7.5/10

I've played Targi on yukata.de a fair bit and really like it. I have been looking for a used copy to show up somewhere. I think it would go over well here at work.

This evening I played another 2 new to me games. We're on a roll. First was Spirits of the Forest which is an extremely light set collection game. Really nice tiles and colourful artwork. Gameplay is decent, just choosing tiles really, but I think there's only so much fun I can get out of a game that's this light.

Then we played Claim which was a xmas present. Wasn't sure what to expect, didn't have high hopes to be honest but it turned out to be a pretty good trick-taking game, a bit like The Fox in the Forest except a tad better in my opinion. I lost abysmally the first game then my bf lost abysmally the second game. It only takes about 20 minutes and there is a decent amount of fun in such a small box. I'd definitely recommend this one if you like trick-taking games. Nice artwork too.

the_jake_1973 wrote:

Katchoo wrote:
Then we played Targi. What a lovely wee game. I wasn't sure how I'd handle it because I've only been playing light games or none at all while my brain is mush. I think this is about 2.4 weight and it was absolutely fine complexity-wise for me. It was really cool. Worker placement, resource management (kinda) and set collection. No board, just cards spread out in a grid. There isn't an awful lot of interaction in this (or in Fungi) but you could block each other though we tended not to. I enjoyed it and I hope this is a bridge for me to play heavier games again. 7.5/10

I've played Targi on yukata.de a fair bit and really like it. I have been looking for a used copy to show up somewhere. I think it would go over well here at work.

Aye it's a really cool little game. Didn't realise it was on yucata.de. I might try that out. Cheers.

Got back yesterday from three days of gaming at a con in Niagara Falls ONT.

JOHN COMPANY ( x2 ) First game was six players, second was five . Like other SMG games, reading the rules ( which actually aren't that bad, other than a lack of examples ) is better than an Eklund game and gets you kind of ready for it. After a few turns, mechanically its pretty simple for the most part. The hard part to grok is both "What the hell do I do now" as well as understanding that the game will RADICALLY change once players can go into business for themselves and that the first 2/3 of the game is really a prelude to doing so. This did not sit well with a couple vocal and whining players, since the payout for a players enterprise can be substantial and turn order ( which is virtually impossible to predict a turn in advance ) plays a role . But its not the only way to score VPs - in fact I scored more VP via Prizes and Manors than money in the first game that I won; I won the second one on pure VP since the player firms failed to pay out enough dividends after the rest of the table opened up too many trade areas and jacked the expected payout higher than Jeromey and my firm could pay out. My mid game decision to buy a second shareholder ( when there were only four to being with ) meant that not only did the firm not go under as early as people thought it would, it meant I automatically became Chairman and could control who went where when all the other shareholders got the axe - and what Execs might get fired when the firm did collapse.

The game is really more of an experience game than a game you'll play to optimize strategy IMO. The narrative it produces is at times utterly hilarious. Players at some point will probably start to decide ( individually ) that its time for the company to tank, and then things get real interesting as well as entertaining . Throw in the random events and you have a fair range of replayability . On the last turn in the second game, executives were deliberately trying to get fired via bad Actions ( roll only a single die ) to avoid getting the -3VP penalty.

The two knocks are that it can run long ( probably 4-5 hours for the main event ) and if negotiation games aren't your thing, a hard pass for sure. More than usual, you need the "right" group to play it.

ANGOLA . Pete and me got the Commies and the opening set up put us behind the eight ball - the entire southern portion of the map was under Blue/Green control, so they were at the gates of Nova Lisboa in short order and took Benguela as well. While both changed hands back and forth, the Commies faced death stars earlier than usual as a result of the unobstructed UNITA pipeline from the south. The other kicker was that the Commies had a lot less planes than usual and every single mission I flew, they got shot down other than one CAS mission I think. We called it at the end of turn 6 with the Commies down 5 VP.

SPACECORP ( x 2 ) : This game saw a LOT of play ; the War Room alone ( which had less than a quarter of the cons total attendees ) I'd say saw around ten plays and there were more in the main room I'd wager. Jeff Burdett's son took an approach I hadn't seen - he totally forsook any INFRA on his own, copying others . He was ahead most of the game, but I pipped him at the very end, tying on total VP but I won the Colony tie breaker. After the game, he realized he could have built another Colony and that would have won him the game by a point IIRC.

LAS VEGAS ( x2 ) the ultimate game of skill saw some late night action

PACIFIC TYPHOON ( x2 ) . I note that six months after bringing only 100 copies to WBC, Lock n Load has yet to print more of the new ATLANTIC STORM, directing customers instead to Wargame Vault. A while back they said they ordered some but it came back with printing errors. WTF ? I can't imagine this is what Ben Knight had in mind. He had said LnL was going to do a new version of PAC TYPHOON, but given their lack of interesting in printing this, why bother ?

FOG OF WAR: Stein and I played this . Its a VERY light game on ETO WWII where players commit to offensives on a sort of production spiral; after a certain number of turns, they can initiate the op. Kicker is that pretty much every card is hidden til the op happens. For what it is, its not bad. Very sandbox like - Pete never attacked Russia, partially due to his hidden VC being to hold Italy and the Balkans at game end. For what it is, not bad at all. Its also quick, only five turns. I am a bit underwhelmed about the Allied force pool seemingly being a bit light in later turns, but I'd try it again.

CC Ancients - Pete and I squared off at ZAMA, his Romans jumping off to an early lead after repulsing my elephants attacking his center. I reeled him back in after some back and forth on the flanks and as usual, it came down to his move knocking me out, or had he failed, I would have won . Since its not WBC, he won .

KEY FORGE, Winslow and I played a game .

Fucking a Msample, what a slate. So jealous of the John Company play in particular.

Super impressed you guys did the full company scenario and not just the monopoly period!

One thing that might be hypothetically useful for John Company to start with up front is that you are mimicking behavior that actually happened---people extract from the company till it collapsed, then formed their own rival companies. So these exit options are totally feasible and will happen in a long game. Also, fuck genuine metagame whiners in a negotiation game.

Do you guys feel tanking the company is the way to go in the game? Seems like you have a huge incentive to tank it (because whoever is caught gets -3VP per cube) and few to run it well (because it costs you money)

Erik Twice wrote: Do you guys feel tanking the company is the way to go in the game? Seems like you have a huge incentive to tank it (because whoever is caught gets -3VP per cube) and few to run it well (because it costs you money)

I don’t profess to be an expert, but from what I saw it’s not a matter of if, but when the company will tank. As play progresses, overhead in the form of military maintenance increases - you are not allowed to save money, it must be spent. Throw in Interlopers (private captains ) and random events and it seems pretty hard to keep the company afloat past the mid game. I need to read more about the campaign game.