What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

This turtles game sounds fantastic. It sounds like something the 6 year old will love when he's an 8 year old, so I can wait.

I would love some ideas for games for a 6 year old girl for Xmas. I need to find some toys or games that are good for the car too

Played Feast for Odin for the first time with other people last night. As suspected, 4p seems a bit much for that, taking almost 3 hours. Still pretty solid Euro, though. I ended up winning with 104 points, surprisingly ahead of the next closest player by 16 points. I didn't think I was doing that well, but I think having played it solo a few times was an advantage. I avoided going for any islands (I really think those are an iffy proposition most games, though they always seem tempting) and focused mainly on hunting, which worked well with the starting occupation I had, and emigrating a few ships. The other occupations I drew were mostly useless, but I had a few 3 pointers in there, so I ended up playing them down, anyway, and getting 12 points just from that, which probably made the difference overall, as the other guys only had a few points from occupations.

Also played Clank!, which is essentially a deck-building game, but with some very unique aspects. This was really fun and I think would be a great gateway/casual type game. But us four seasoned tabletop gamers also really liked it, so I think it's a winner, regardless.

You are moving around a board that depicts a below-ground dungeon. There are different rooms to move into, and various artifacts and other assorted treasures spread throughout. You have to grab one artifact (you can normally only carry one, unless you acquire a backpack) and then get back out of the dungeon. The deeper you go, the more valuable the artifacts are (they range from 7-30 points), but the more difficult it will be to get back out in time. Various things you do cause you to add "clank" (i.e., noise) to a bag, which at various times is drawn from. If your color is drawn, you take damage. There's a certain level of the dungeon that you have to get back up to before dying, otherwise you get nothing. But if you get completely out of the dungeon, you get a bonus of 20 points. Your cards allow you to move, acquire better cards, fight off monsters, and so forth, with some cards automatically adding clank. In addition to the artifact points, you also get points from some of the cards, and from other trinkets you can find in the dungeon. So even if you get a low-point artifact, you can still do well from other things.

In our game, I went about 2/3 of the way in and grabbed a 15 point artifact before turning back. Kory and Other Eric went pretty deep in, and Ian grabbed a small point artifact and focused more on cards, turning around quickly because he was getting very damaged from clank draws. It ended up being pretty intense, though. Ian died on the space just before getting out, missing out on that 20 point bonus. Other Eric died one space after the threshold of the dungeon where he'd have gotten nothing if he didn't make it. I made it out of the dungeon but with only 1 health remaining, surely dying on the next clank draw if I had remained. That left Kory deep in the dungeon with only a few remaining turns to get out (there's a 4 turn endgame clock once someone makes it out). He managed to get to the final space before the exit when it ended, thus losing out on the 20 point bonus which would have put him over the top of me.

Clank! isn't anything groundbreaking, and in fact it's pretty derivative, but damn, it was fun, and that combination of elements works really well, and the push-your-luck type pressure of getting out and surviving while trying to get as much loot as you can is great. We had a blast.

to me the term really solid euro is just unconvincing obfuscation of "boring waste of time", which is pretty much how I see the development of Rosenbergs games, his boxes get bigger and the games get more fucking pointless.

Tigris and Euphrates is a great euro. Stuff like Feast of Odin is just a boring ass spreadsheet puzzle pastime, or as you called it a "solid Euro".
I actually think theres a reasonable chance that the a large group of euro game designers are collectively trolling nerds worldwide. Why anyone would play these games seems mystifying to me now, but why people continue to buy the same shite ideas over and over and over and over and over and over and over again is beyond anything I can quite put into words as a discussion starting point. Good luck to the trolls and to the people who keep buying that shit I suppose.

On Friday I played Heroes of Normandie, the Slaughterhouse scenario. The win conditions for the Germans are to have one unit in the farmhouse at the end of the turn, by themselves. As the Americans, we were getting stomped and there was nobody in the farmhouse, but there were three Germans. So we sent our glorious leader, Lieutenant Parks. The treacherous Germans tried to kill him but failed, but we knew it was only a matter of time, so Lieutenant Park pulled a grenade and dropped it in the middle of the kitchen. Not only did the Lieutenant manage to avoid injury, but two of the Germans were wounded.

Ultimately we lost. It didn't help that the Germans played two communications card in a row, which nullified the movement of the light Stuart tank we had planned on using to block the closest farmhouse entrance. Our opponent was a friend who has cancer, in (temporary) remission, and is a die hard bean counter euro player.

He kept commenting on how, for this game, you can't make long term plans. It was like watching the veil being lifted as he discovered the concept of tactical play. He also mentioned during the evening how he isn't making any long term plans because he doesn't know what the future holds, and I think his illness has changed his worldview and gaming strategies.

He told me, in so many words, that life is too short for Kickstarter, something I have seen expressed here.

Bojack wrote: to me the term really solid euro is just unconvincing obfuscation of "boring waste of time", which is pretty much how I see the development of Rosenbergs games, his boxes get bigger and the games get more fucking pointless.

Tigris and Euphrates is a great euro. Stuff like Feast of Odin is just a boring ass spreadsheet puzzle pastime, or as you called it a "solid Euro".
I actually think theres a reasonable chance that the a large group of euro game designers are collectively trolling nerds worldwide. Why anyone would play these games seems mystifying to me now, but why people continue to buy the same shite ideas over and over and over and over and over and over and over again is beyond anything I can quite put into words as a discussion starting point. Good luck to the trolls and to the people who keep buying that shit I suppose.

Eh, your rant would have been an echo here about 6-7 years ago. This is the first Rosenberg game I've even played since Agricola, and this is different enough from other Euros I've played recently to be an entertaining and unique experience. Simple as that. I sure ain't buying this kind of game over and over and over, but for an example of something in this vein, this was a good buy for me.

Not liking a particular style of game is fine, but your extended gripe is weak. It's as if to say that your favorite band shouldn't release a new album after their first. Why would people continue to buy the same essential thing over and over and over and over? Because there are some variations on theme and mechanics that might be worth following, even if they're incremental. I have zero interest in the next Stefan Feld point-salad game, but I can see why the people who like those want to see what the next one adds or changes to his body of work. And I could point a finger at them and mock them for buying the same essential thing again and again, except that many AT or more thematic designers don't necessarily vary that much, either. And yet many of us keep buying the next miniature-laden dungeon crawl 4x space epic co-op skirmish game, which is only incrementally different than the last. Show me your game collection, and I would probably find some redundancy.

Despite its brilliance and more timeless nature, T&E is pretty dry and boring, compared to most other games, Euro or otherwise.

I'm worried that what you heard was
'Fuck you and your stupid opinion grdunza, let me correct you and invalidate your opinion' when actually what I said was
'This is just how I (passionately) feel about it, which in no way invalidates your thoughts or opinions, but is assuredly 100% correct in its my-feelingsness of it' even if I feel that you are dead wrong about Tigris ( and Rosenberg). I've owned over 1000 games over the last decade or so, mostly euros, pretty much all of knizia and rosenbergs catalogues. I've played Agricola hundreds of times ( on a table, not including at least as many online). It was our favourite game for many years, now I will happily never play it again. I've played Tigris hundreds of times, again in a table plus many more online. That game will never be, or get 'boring' unlike the vast majority of 'solid euros' which all boil down to staring at your own spreadsheet and moving variables around to solve the puzzle of the game which drives most if them. But that's just my opinion, and I'm sorry if you found that offensive. I've been through the euro thing and I'm beyond done with it, so every new wave of releases just seems more and more pointless. There's no player driven action at all. You're solving resource optimizing problems while occasionally grabbing a filter ahead of someone else, there's a reason most of these games are listed with '1' as the possible player count because most of them are basically solo or glorified parallel solo games. People pretending they're getting 'new' experiences by solving a variant of the same stuff are just kidding themselves, just like people who follow bands who churn out the same record rather than musicians who push boundaries, innovate and experiment with new sounds and techniques,
I love combat commander, it's a series game. I feel like most solid euros should just be part of a series, like 'Solid Fucking Euro' and just label this stuff for what it is : expansions of a (really boring) system. They'd run out of names I suppose after 'optimise' and 'optimise away' and 'even more optimization'
They fail my basic tenet of gaming which is the 90 degree rule - philosophy of game is looking down at your 'player board' rather than lifting your head 90 degrees and thinking about getting in the other players faces

But as I sad that's just how I feel, it's ok if others think differently, I don't feel the need to face off in who can make the best analogy or even argument. I feel how I do based on a pretty fucking extensive experience with euros over the past 20 yeas. And this is how I now feel, even if I would have been firmly on your side not so many years ago.bthings change, people change, I changed. I'm not stopping you playing fest for Odin, nor enjoying it however you see fit

Bojack wrote: I'm worried that what you heard was
'Fuck you and your stupid opinion grdunza, let me correct you and invalidate your opinion' when actually what I said was

For a moment I thought maybe Mr. Skeletor had made a glorious return to the site, but then this happen and I knew it sadly wasn't true.

Bojack wrote: I actually think theres a reasonable chance that the a large group of euro game designers are collectively trolling nerds worldwide. Why anyone would play these games seems mystifying to me now, but why people continue to buy the same shite ideas over and over and over and over and over and over and over again is beyond anything I can quite put into words as a discussion starting point. Good luck to the trolls and to the people who keep buying that shit I suppose.

I dunno, that sounds an awful lot like, "Hey Grunz, you've been duped and you're a fucking idiot for falling for it for the umpteenth time." No, scratch that, that is what it says.

I don't play every new Euro game by any stretch, but I do like Euros and will buy about one a year. I find them to be more confrontational than they used to be, but that could just be the Euros I'm playing. Looking over some of the more recent Euro games on BGG, yeah, there's optimization and resource gathering, but I'm not really seeing any indication of the multiplayer solitaire being alive and well. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm right.

I used to hold a lack of player interaction against a game, but I widened up a couple years back and found that the truth is that it has a time and place. I think it was with the Pirates & Bounty Hunters expansion for Firefly. Yeah, it added something I thought the game was missing, but it also kind of ruined the game. I shouldn't be so much a question of whether or not a game has it, but does it benefit from it. Not all games do.

Da Bid Dabid wrote: I knew it sadly wasn't true.

Speak for yourself. Good fucking riddance.

Frank "Mr. Skeletor" LaTerra was just a plain old asshole. I came pretty close to quitting this site because of him some years ago but I decided I wasn't going to let him get the better of me.

As for Eurogames...they've recovered tremendously in the past several years, the arguments against them that worked 2004-2008 or so no longer apply.

No harm meant to anybody. I know he ruffled lots of feathers and prolly did some bad things I'm not aware of. Just that post gave me a flashback with its tone and content to those days.

Some new games from me for once.

First up is Forged in Steel. I saw someone else mention it a few weeks ago, took a look, and bought it. First play was this weekend at 3 players. FiS is a card driven (ops or event) city building point salad game. Normally I hate 2 out of those three types but I enjoyed my first play here. Each round you save a few cards for next turn and can try and set up some of the events nicely. There is alot of fucking with the other players through both events and ops, although through ops will be pretty rare. There is a cool riot track that goes off after a certain level and can be used to destroy other player's stuff. Calculating points seems complicated at first but by the end of the game the board was alot easier to read in terms of who was doing well. Each round scores at the end and the scoring for all the buildings will depend on different tracks that are mostly raised, although sometimes lowered, through events during the game. The other two players liked it but didn't love it. I definitely like it and want to play it more. You will do better if you're already familiar with some of the cards, like Twilight Struggle, but unlike TS you won't see the entire deck and some of the cards can roll over to the next round after use. Check it out, seems to have gotten little attention so far.

Fourth play of Clockwork Wars, this time at 5 players using the expansion and the pre built map setup. I don't like this game. It has some interesting ideas going on with the simultaneous deployment written down on sheets to grid locations, but otherwise it doesn't do much for me. Its a really weird cross of a a point salad, dudes on a map, and super swingy tech and espionage cards. Except the dudes on a map don't move after initial deployment and the map is never too fluid. Your choices each turn don't feel that substantial to me, and I really hate how strong the espionage cards are even after nerfing the drawing rule for them and removing some of the more offensive ones. Players that win the game have liked it, but really didn't make better choices than anyone - they just got lucky on tech/espionage at key times. The tech changes up every game for variety, but alot of it feels very underwhelming while others are catastrophic (one tech allows you to destroy one entire tile, including all enemies on it, per round). None of the players involved have been super positive, and some were fairly negative. For a 3-5 player game that has a map, tech, and some conflict its in a crowded game category and its at the bottom of my list. I prefer Cthulhu Wars/Chaos in the Old World/Blood Rage/Kemet over this every time. Now that I'm done bashing it, its on the sale pile for $50 plus shipping!

First play of Cry Havoc. I was the Machines in a 3 player game, all new players. The game is surprisingly short with a maximum of 15 actions per player. I liked it but need to play it more for now. Somewhat concerned that the majority of the conflict in our game was player vs. neutral (Trogs) instead of other players. The factions definitely played differently and our scores were within about 15 points by the end. We just used the default skills too. The battle board, which everyone seems enamored of, came across kinda flat for me. Each time it was used the player fighting had a card that allowed them to manipulate the board in some fashion and kinda rendered the battles one sided and pretty obvious on how to place your dudes. Maybe that was just the first game.

Two plays of Blood Bowl Team Manager. First game with 2, second game with 3. Older game so I won't rehash anything about it. Overall its ok but not something I'm excited about, and the other players felt the same way. Some strategy with the upgrade choices and where you place players, but thats offset by dice rolls and random cheating tokens. There are other games out there I'd rather spend an hour on to play.

Other games played and mentioned before include Forbidden Stars, Tyrants of the Underdark, and Hands in the Sea. FS is decent but very fiddly and long for what it is, and the battles are mostly anti-climactic with each fight ending after one round or obvious from the start. Yet it includes extra steps of rolling dice, playing cards, and resolving card events. Tyrants is decent for a lighter game or one with newer players. It is surprisingly generic given the D&D license and all of the houses play identically. I would never ask for it but I also won't leave early if its the only option. Hands in the Sea...each game I've played my enjoyment has gone down. Control of the sea has been critical every time and some of the event cards that add sea strength are very powerful. Land battles are pretty tough to win as the attacker with the setup as a -1 to start the battle. I'm sure I'm playing poorly but for a number of turns each game I did nothing but make money to make ships and move ships and lose ship dice battles and make money and make ships...not a fun hour. With the defender being stronger in every fight it makes the game pretty stagnant.

Just got back from EuroQuest 2016 (open gaming only). I wanted to try Hands in the Sea, but I couldn't squeeze in a rules reading in time.

Great gaming overall, including older and newer favorites: Fading Glory x2 (Smolensk & Borodino; morale gone wrong!), Claustrophobia, Codenames, Ghost Stories, Expedition, Elder Sign, Age of Steam (Western US map), Railways of the World (Europe map), Legendary: Firefly, Qwixx, Betrayal at House on the Hill: Widow's Walk, Space Cadets: Away Missions, Bucket King, Xenon Profiteer, Evolution. I'm sure that I'm forgetting a few.

For years I've been successful at avoiding stuff that I know I won't like, and that trend mostly continues. A firm but very polite refusal is the way to go.

Highlight of the con: Widow's Walk scenario that was ridiculously silly and fun. Seek out scenario #69 when you get the chance, pardner. I loved being the traitor in this one. Also my flying, pack hunting carnivore (formerly nesting and brooding) that ripped everyone to shreds in Evolution; my highest score ever in that game.

Stuff that was brand new to me...

Pretty fun: Spookies x3 (kid-friendly), Star Trek Panic x2 (ditto, though more strategy needed), Codenames Pictures, Legendary: Big Trouble in Little China
Just OK: Risk Europe
Somewhere in-between: Coin Quest
Not my thing: Quadropolis, Cover your A$$ets, Roll Player

Please note that I have a Legendary bias and my opinion is not to be trusted on these matters.

At home, doing lots of Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle (just finished scenario 5) and Escape: Zombie City. Will soon crack open Pathfinder Mummy's Mask and Legendary: Deadpool.

Michael Barnes wrote: As for Eurogames...they've recovered tremendously in the past several years, the arguments against them that worked 2004-2008 or so no longer apply.

this is hilarious. and wrong. there continue to be droves of as you call them "milquetoast" mediocre euros released year after year. 2009 was not some magical renaissance of euro games. Just because there are some decent games doesnt change that fact. There are many more examples of phoned in slap some generic theme on some generic euro game released post 2008 than Before it, thats for damned sure. And we are still a long way off the highs of Knizias 90s era.

but thats just my opinion man. I dont get butthurt if someone else has different opinions about games, its not that big a deal