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Mycelia Board Game Review

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Outback Crossing Review

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17 Oct 2016 11:08 #236317 by hotseatgames

charlest wrote: Hit a dude in the face and get on with it.


My girlfriend was trying to decide between a couple of different actions with her Ultramarines this weekend in Betrayal at Calth. I taught her the Golden Rule of AT:

When in doubt, take the action that results in the most carnage.
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17 Oct 2016 11:54 #236323 by Mr. White

barrowdown wrote: My division had another player added because there were not enough players to create a third division. The extra player was waiting around during our game and I offered to play against him after I was quickly slaughtered. He said he did not want to play as I only had 1,500 points and he only plays 1,850-point games and it wasn't worth it to trim his list down to play (1,500 points is all that is required to participate in the league).


That's lame...

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17 Oct 2016 12:38 #236327 by Colorcrayons
Oooh thanks for the reminder about black fleet.

I've been eyeballing that one hard for a long time now. I need to pick it up for family (not so) friendly game night.

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17 Oct 2016 13:59 #236336 by jpat
Played (most of) a three-player Churchill tournament scenario on Saturday. Two of us had played; one person was new. We weren't keeping score along the way (not sure why the tournament scenario doesn't have the score for the current game state; it just says [at least in my copy of the rules] that no side has any points, presumably referring to points achieved in earlier turns), and we had to pick up before we could calculate the semi-final score after conference 9. It looked like the UK (me) was doing OK but maybe a little too well (i.e., outside the acceptable margin of victory) so that maybe the second-place player would've won. Defeating both Axis powers during conference 10 was actually no sure thing, with the best chance being a German military defeat through the Western front and then triggering the Emperor surrender conditions (as the A-bomb was at Trinity). Great game, although one played *very* slowly, which is a common issue for my frequent Saturday partners.

On Sunday, I literally dusted off No Retreat! The Russian Front, which I've had since the first-printing release in 2011, and gave some solo play to the Barbarossa (five-turn, opening-of-the-front) scenario. I've tried reading the rules before, but either I was readier for them now or the third-printing rules are that much better that I didn't have much problem with it--at least until I started getting tired and making mistakes. My first impression was favorable, though, sadly, the rulebook is still somewhat weaker than it ought to be for a third printing (though the designer keeps tinkering with it, so there's both old errata to fix and new to create). Would like to play this one again competitively. I'm getting the errata'd cards whenever those come out, but otherwise it doesn't seem like there's a reason not to play the current version of the rules (although I did notice that some instructions on the back of one of the counters had changed at some point).
The following user(s) said Thank You: Frohike, scrumpyjack, JEM, Unicron

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17 Oct 2016 14:20 #236344 by Msample
Played War of the Ring w/ new Warriors of Middle Earth expansion. We didn't use Lords so as to keep the game more manageable. Some brief thoughts:

More cards to manage. Whereas Lords swapped out cards from the base game or added a couple to each deck, here each player has a third Faction Deck. So you have up to 10 cards in your hand at once. You're drawing 3 per turn normally, one from each deck. Can get some getting used to having to manage that many cards. Faction cards esp tend to build up, esp early. Moreso than the base game, you'll play the Factions based on the cards you get, not necessarily which ones you want to bring in.

As the Free People, I eventually got all three into play. First the Dead Men via an event that allowed them in play if Aragorn was in Rohan. Between that and Dark Door ( the Army of the Dead can move through the mountains to Rohan ) it allowed me to bypass the already conquered Minas Tirith and crown Aragorn in Dol Amroth. The downside is that once he's with the Dead, they dissolve if he leaves. So he basically camped outside Dol Amroth and harassed the Shadow player.

Eagles came in next, didn't do a ton, but did allow Strider and Gimi to separate and travel south quicker.

Ents came in last. Didn't actually activate, but I had an event that gave them a free recruit if Saruman used his special Muster ability. Wary about all the Ents, he only mustered normally - but this was enough, as the Dunlendings came in shortly after and were used as cannon fodder to take Helms Deep.

Meanwhile the Fellowship had both good and bad luck. Bad luck - the first three tiles drawn were 3, 3, 2. Gandalf died early, followed by Legolas and Boromir . Good news is an event card removed an Eye tile, but even better - I got to the 10 space on the Fellowship track and never got revealed. So he wasn't able to do much Corruption ( I had 3 ) before I got to Mordor.

As soon as I did, be brought the Spiders into play as well as the Shelob tile ( now part of the Faction Deck ) . His next two Hunt draws were 3 Stop, and Shelob - for which he rolled a fucking 6 ! 11 Corruption with two spaces still to go. I tried fishing for a healing card, but he got some hot dice and took Dol Amroth for his 10th VP ( along with Helms Deep, Minas Tirith, Lorien, Pelargir, Dale ) .

Great game, we're playing again next weekend.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Gary Sax, jpat, Columbob, Da Bid Dabid, Frohike, Colorcrayons, scrumpyjack, charlest, JEM

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17 Oct 2016 14:38 #236347 by engineer Al

Colorcrayons wrote: Oooh thanks for the reminder about black fleet.

I've been eyeballing that one hard for a long time now. I need to pick it up for family (not so) friendly game night.


Good choice! I continue to be incredibly impressed with this game. So simple in rules, yet enjoyed by gamers of all ages and levels of gaming experience.

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17 Oct 2016 14:46 - 17 Oct 2016 15:28 #236348 by Shellhead
Once every October, I host a full day of AmeriTrash boardgaming, with a focus on horror games. Despite low turnout the last two years, I had a big crowd on Saturday. Fortunately, not everybody was present at the same time.

Six showed up at noon, and we got in a couple games before half of them left before six. Two players were women, and one of the guys generally dislikes AmeriTrash, but he had a good time anyway.

Zombies!!!: We played with the base set, and the first 5.5 expansions (3.5 is a cards only expansion). Despite this being a classic shelf toad, I managed to get the game on the table and make it moderately fun for six players. First, the fifth expansion (Six Feet Under) speeds up the game with sewer tunnels and subway stations. Second, we played with two separate turn markers. Unlike normal attempts at multiple turn markers, we kept two groups completely separate for purposes of turns. For example, players A, B, and C take turns. Players D, E, and F also take turns. At any given time, one player from the first group and one player from the second group should be playing at the same time. Third, neither group is required to wait for the other group to catch up. Fourth, we made these two separate groups of players into teams, so each team has an incentive to encourage their players to play quickly. Zombies!!! is a simple game, so there is no excuse for slow turns. So the game moved along at good clip, and the shared city grew quickly and looked impressive in a short time.

Camp Grizzly Fun co-op game. CG scales a bit oddly, such that it is harder to win with six players than any lesser quantity. We had a lot of trouble pulling a coherent strategy together, but finally almost pulled it off. Then a nasty plot twist killed all of young campers, pushing the body count to 16! That forced us into a final battle at the campfire, which we won easily thanks to a chainsaw.

Three people left and one showed up, and during that transition there was a lively political discussion. Just as we started the next game, two more people showed up, bringing us back up to six players again.

Psycho Raiders We were one turn into the game, so even though Edulis of F:AT showed up with his tween daughter, we kept playing, though we moved one player to a different team so they could be on the same team. This was my third and definitely best game of Psycho Raiders. The Campers won, but it was a very swingy game for a while. I played Spud the Raider, and I was involved in three car crashes. First, I chased the campers into an off-road crash. Then I flipped our van the following turn. After I killed Randy, I jumped into the fixer-upper car that one of my teammates had hotwired and then left running for me. A turn later, I abandoned that vehicle after it got shot up by Drunky and the sheriff. One of our guys also burned down the farmer's house with the farmer in it, but he failed to get the Kill shot on Dawn. Then the mechanic killed him. Our two guys got killed by Drunky and the sheriff, while both female campers snuck off to the north. Spud was still alive at the end, so he will be in the sequel.

One guy left.

Betrayal at House on the Hill My character fell into a deep slumber and caused nightmares to escape the house for the win. It was an average game of Betrayal. Not disappointing but not memorable. Too bad the local game shop didn't have the expansion in yet.

Two more guys left.

Camp Grizzly We played two games back to back, because the hard scenario wasn't sufficiently hard for three players. Neither was the extra hard scenario, but we had fun both games.
Last edit: 17 Oct 2016 15:28 by Shellhead. Reason: wasn't was
The following user(s) said Thank You: Gary Sax, Dr. Mabuse, Columbob, hotseatgames, Frohike, Colorcrayons, Egg Shen, stoic, charlest, JEM

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17 Oct 2016 14:57 #236350 by hotseatgames
Did you have any traitor villagers in your game of Psycho Raiders?

I'm having a Halloween game night this Saturday, although getting enough players has been a real issue for me lately. It's my hope to get the new Betrayal at House on the Hill expansion to the table. I got it on Saturday.

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17 Oct 2016 15:34 #236351 by Shellhead

hotseatgames wrote: Did you have any traitor villagers in your game of Psycho Raiders?

I'm having a Halloween game night this Saturday, although getting enough players has been a real issue for me lately. It's my hope to get the new Betrayal at House on the Hill expansion to the table. I got it on Saturday.


No sinister villagers in any of the three games that I've played so far. One player did the math and said that there is slightly less than a 50% chance of at least one sinister villager.

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17 Oct 2016 16:26 #236355 by hotseatgames
I don't think I've ever NOT had a sinister villager. It makes it way more fun when the campers get betrayed.

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17 Oct 2016 17:20 #236359 by Shellhead
For some reason, I have always been on the Psycho Raider team. We never rolled more than a 3 for possible sinister villagers, and in that last game, our roll was a 1.

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18 Oct 2016 05:54 #236375 by Chaz
This reminded me that I really should have grabbed Psycho Raiders when I wanted to back when. Now it's all out of print and expensive, and I'm sad. :(

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18 Oct 2016 08:00 #236376 by Legomancer
Sunday was a good game day. Got in plays of Ingenious, Istanbul, Poison, and Glastonbury. But the real headliner was another game of Terraforming Mars. This one is really good and is looking like GOTY for me, even after only two plays.
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18 Oct 2016 09:54 - 18 Oct 2016 10:00 #236380 by Colorcrayons
Played Dungeonquest last night with the gf and spawn.

We played rock paper scissors for everything. Much faster and more enjoyable. Forgot to use determination. Markers, so it was especially unforgiving.

Poor spawn tried so hard to make it to the hoard room, but every passage kept going around the vault. He made it in, but had no time to exit. So he pressed on and decided he wanted to go out by dragon breath instead of being sealed into the dragonfire dungeon. He amassed much wealth before succumbing to dragon fumes.

The gf died quietly while wandering the labyrinth, only to expire after battling a demon then being quietly stung by a scorpion while looting a body.

I won the weenie of the night award.5 rooms in while playing the wretched hag with a bow, a ferrox ambushed me, with one hit point left, I crawled my way out of the dungeon like an arthritic harridan. But a live one.

The terrinoth stuff is stupid. The spawn kept asking me what the monsters were (ferrox, razorwings,etc.). My only response was "They're stupid, son".
Last edit: 18 Oct 2016 10:00 by Colorcrayons.
The following user(s) said Thank You: hotseatgames, Frohike, stoic, JEM

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18 Oct 2016 10:09 #236383 by san il defanso
I played Scythe this past weekend. Here's what I wrote on my blog.

I’m usually a little sluggish to check out new games, which is a strange quality for someone who reviews them. Mostly I like being able to assess them apart from the inevitable flurry of enthusiasm that accompanies popular new releases. When there are so many new games to play, waiting six months or so can be useful, just to see what is still being played at that point. But this weekend I had the opportunity to play Scythe, and in this case at least I see why people are so enthusiastic about it. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

There’s definitely a sense of unfulfilled expectations though, because in my head Scythe was somewhat similar to something like Chaos in the Old World or Cyclades, an elaborate thematic Euro where the players are fighting over control of various territories. I was right about the first part, but territory control isn’t actually as much of a factor, or at least it wasn’t in our game. There’s not a lot of reason to hold specific spots on the map, and even if you are shut out of someplace you can usually find what you need elsewhere.

No, rather than territory control, Scythe is basically a dolled-up production game, the kind of thing that in its starkest form is usually designed by someone like Stefan Feld. There are a ton of interlocking systems that all pull in different directions and all work toward overall victory. The cliche for games like these is “point salad,” an expression that has become overused to the point of becoming meaningless, but anyway it doesn’t really apply here. It’s true that almost everything in the game bumps you toward victory, but there are a couple of differences between Scythe and games that usually bear the dubious distinction of point salad.

The first is that everything in the game feels at least marginally connected to the setting. This is not exactly revolutionary, since there has been a rise in recent years of defiantly Euro designs that are rooted in extremely strong themes and settings. I’m thinking in particular of the afore-mentioned Chaos in the Old World and Argent: The Consortium, but there are others too. Scythe connects to its agrarian-mechs theme quite well. Mechanically the game isn’t really something fresh so much as it is something meaningful. It’s helped by the production, which is frankly astonishing.

But the second factor is that you aren’t exactly going for points at all, and this is what I like best about the game. The game revolves around achievements, of which there are around a dozen available and open to everyone. When you achieve one you put your marker on the board indicating so. These might be for moving some resources to the end of a track, or by getting specific pieces on the board, what have you. Interestingly, this reminded me most of all of Nexus Ops, the classic dudes-on-a-map game that utilized secret objectives to huge effect. In Scythe the objectives aren’t secret, but the game has a similar arc. Players spend the first two-thirds of the game setting up different possibilities, and then the last third is a flurry of activity as players suddenly start claiming achievements left and right, often realizing they are set up to do something without meaning to do it.

This gives Scythe a nice emphasis on the short game that works much better for guys like me. I suspect that you can just do whatever in the first half of the game, since everything you do pushes you toward some kind of goal. More experience will provide more focus and expertise, but you feel like you are doing something even if you aren’t playing very well. The other quality is that it grants flexibility, allowing players to shift gears when another achievement becomes more attainable than a previous one. Euros often have a problem with this, forcing players to stay on their path to destruction. Not so in Scythe, where plans can be improvised quickly.

I also want to touch on the combat, which I really enjoyed. That’s probably because it reminds me most of all of Dune. You commit a certain amount of resources, and the loser loses all of their stuff in the territory, while the winner keeps their units but still loses the resources they committed. There are power cards too, but the game is mostly centered around the double-guessing of a blind bid, rather than the actual troops on the board. It’s an effective method of combat, although it is a bit bloodless, which won’t help people who want more fightin’.

It’s not perfect, at least not after one game. The achievements are the focus of the game, but there’s a lot of scoring that takes place afterward to actually determine the winner. I’m fine with this really, but it does draw focus away from the achievements some, and I’m not as into that. The other thing is that it has that annoying habit where even the simplest task in the game requires several steps, which is something I tend to find exhausting. Still, the setting helps with that a lot. There’s also not a ton of interaction, especially not in the early game while players are still not bumping against each other. To make up for this a little, the game uses one of the more annoying mechanics out there, where you can basically get an upgrade that gives you things for someone else doing an action. This is not really interaction of course, but it still forces you to say what you’re doing all the time so other players won’t miss the appropriate bonuses.

But overall I was quite impressed by Scythe. It’s a very polished design, obviously well-developed and gorgeous to look at. It also manages to be a little more free-wheeling than heavy Euros often are, offering tactical rewards and strategic flexibility that usually isn’t present in this genre. I look forward to playing again, and I think it might end up being one of the better games of the year.

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