What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

ecargo wrote:

Colorcrayons wrote: Tribune: Primus Inter Pares

[...]

I'd always fantasized about retheming this, but I think the game is quite good as is. The Roman setting suits the design well.

What themes do you think would work well for this aside from the Roman one?

I dunno. At least not at the moment. I might have had some ideas at some point in the past.

A new theme is usually the most painfully labor intensive part of the creative process for me, since one must not only investigate the game design through a very intimate microscope, but you also must welcome any wisp of inspiration that falls across your synapses as a potential for a theme.

When I sit and give earnest consideration to the effort I put forth, I often have to weigh the potential if wether the effort could be justified. I hate wasting my time. It is precious to me.

And the conclusion is often "This game design is tragically mismatched to the setting, yet not good enough to bother dedicating my mental and physical resources to enhance it", or "The theme is a good enough match".

Though I do admire the design enough to bother with a retheme, and might be able to think of a better match (imo), in the case of Tribune, my conclusion is the latter.

I thought Tribune was pretty good myself- It’s a Karl-Heinz Schmiel (Die Macher!) design...believe it or not, I think I’d find the Roman politics setting refreshing after so much repetitious “thematic” bullshit.

After several hours of organization, I started Gloomhaven. In solo mode, I brought along the Brute and the Mindthief. It took a half dozen attempts to learn the rules though scenario 1, but I cracked the nut. I'm now four scenarios down, and this game is pretty damn interesting. I don't know if if I'll have the fortitude to make it through NINETY FIVE scenarios, but I'll give it the ol' college try.

Meanwhile, I've been WATCHING my DreadBall league complete in the playoffs. Due to hubris, I lost my match to get seeded into the bracket. So I was left of the sidelines. I took photographs and wrote about both games on a DreadBall blog. NERD!

breaddoll.wordpress.com/2018/06/29/rush-...season-7-playoffs-1/

I'm extremely fond of Tribune. There's a lot more direct assault on another player's positions than is present in the typical Euro-style game and we always have a good time with plenty of trash talk at the table, which isn't common in that style of game. I will never part with my copy. I'm fine with the theme just because I'm a huge fan of Roman history already.

Got two games in tonight. The first was a second play of Fate of the Elder Gods. It was Hastur vs Nyarlathotep vs Yig vs Cthulhu. It started slowly with everyone going in different directions. I'm found that hitting The Summoning early on to have an edge in number of Cultists is usually a good way to begin. After that, I just keep an eye on the Museum to see if anything good turns up... like the Silver Key, which I immediately went and snagged. Now I could not only manipulate my guys and Investigators with Hastur's power, but I could move guys with the Key, too. That gave me massive influence on the buildup of figures in various zones and I used it to take control of a couple locations early on and get the benefit of the second action. I was building a mass at the Outer Worlds in the midgame, wanting to get a jump on my summoning track, but then Cthulhu built up a ridiculous number of Elder Signs, so I thought about pounding him with Streets of Arkham a couple times and pushing him over the edge, since I was the only one in the game without Elder Signs. When he played a couple spells to remove a few, I went back to my original "exploit the Outer Worlds" plan. After building up another crowd of Cultists there, I used two Cubes of Power (add 2 dice to this roll) spells and went from 5 summoning points to 9 and won.

Then we played Terraforming Mars for the first time. We had a full complement of 5 players and we were all newbs, so it took a while to get going, but once we figured it out (there's a great visual breakdown of the rules on BGG since, for example, nowhere in the rulebook does it mention exactly what the symbols mean for reaching certain temperatures), it got a lot more interesting. It still strikes me as Race for the Galaxy-like, which we dismissed (and I traded) as "multiplayer solitaire", but there's a lot more interaction in Terraforming (not setting the bar high here), since you can attack others' resources and you're in a race to hit certain goals (rather than just win the game while ignoring your opponents) and there's strategic tile placement and so forth. Plus, we all played with the starting corporations, to get moving quickly. Playing with the regular ones will obviously add much more to the gameplay, as will familiarity. So, I like it and will certainly play again, but I'm a little cagey about long-term interest.

A friend of mine who is really, really into Necromunda brought over the new rule set and a bunch of really neat laser-cut wood terrain and we played a 3-D battle.

I played a ton of Necromunda back when in the 90s, and was really impressed with the new changes and updates. Especially the activation model, the special dice for ammo rules and out of action, and tactic cards. Also pinning rules and two actions rather than move/ shoot worked better. It felt similar to FFG's SW : Legions with leaders being able to activate other units and the 2 actions per turn.

It was a fun night, although he was playing a super experienced gang and stuck me with a fresh Goliath gang.

Duhr has been a big hit with my group, certainly the most well received Jim Felli game (usually there's a person or two who's not a fan of his designs in my crew). Second and third plays went much smoother and there's a lot more wheeling and dealing in Duhr than in Bemused. I really dig how both of these games unravel with each play as you gain more appreciation for the intricacies.

X-Wing 2nd edition continues to be a hit (I posted more substantial thoughts in the X-Wing 2.0 thread last week). I don't think most casual players will find it worthwhile to convert honestly, unless you're worried about balance or you really want to utilize the quick build cards (which are awesome).

It's a much smoother experience and the force mechanism is fantastic.

We've played a couple games of Specter Ops: Broken Covenenant, including a five player game with a traitor last night. Specter Ops is my favorite hidden movement game and made it into my top 30 I believe when I recently made my top 50 list. This is even better.

It doesn't radically change anything, but I really enjoy how you can basically toss it all together with the first game and now you have a ton of variety. The new hunters are excellent, the new agents are stellar as well. The best two aspects are the new board - including a new supply cache mechanism where you can gain some equipment during the game - as well as the change to traitor mode. Now all hunters get a unique special ability if they're the traitor and they can actually accomplish objectives once they're revealed.

The balance still seems impeccable and the game is just wonderful.

Starship Samurai is getting some buzz and it's a quality game. It feels like a recent Eric Lang area control design, drawing parallels to Blood Rage and Rising Sun.

It's pretty Euro-leaning, but it does have conflict and some excellent screwage via an action card deck. Combat though is very soft with no one actually being killed and the winner returning his units to his supply (and capturing a planet).

Ultimately it never hits that top shelf status because it's an Eric Lang game without the ability to tease out broken combos or wild dramatic synergy. It has some entertaining moments of tension, but it's just not quite there and doesn't hit that level that Blood Rage, Cyclades, Inis, or Cthulhu Wars attain.

I think I'm going to keep it in the short term because it plays damn fast with an interesting setting and solid order system, but I could see it being out the door in the long run.

Got in a second play of Meeple Circus which is just about the best stacking game ever designed. It's full of humor and the final round tension is remarkable.

Buddy convinced me to give Infiltration another go, a game I wasn't impressed with several years ago. And again, I wasn't impressed. Too many turns where you're just moving backwards or forwards and don't do much. Push your luck games should never have moments of boredom.

We closed last night out with our what feels like 20th play of the Tales & Games Tortoise and Hare, and it's a hit every damn time. Such a fun little racing/betting game.

Would love to hear more about Duhr and how it compares with Bemused. Don't know anything about it but I've seen you talk quite a bit about it Charles and that intrigues me. It also seems something I may like.

--

Played two games.

First I played Steam with the California 2090 map. Uff, this one is difficult! I thought it would be an easy map but it's actually very terrain-heavy and you can do some pretty nasty stuff when it comes to blocking. The random disasters, I could do without, I didn't mind them but I didn't care for them, either. Unfortunately, it ends after 7 turns which means you aren't required to fully upgrade locomotive in order to win. Also I'm happy to play Steam more again.


Then everyone left and my gaming partner suggested Don't Stop. I jumped on it because I hadn't actually played it and I really wanted to try it. And wow,it's clever! My first thought playing it was "This is in a whole higher category than all other games in this genre or, at least, the ones I've played"

1) Most push your luck games have a bunch of stuff only to boil down to simple "how much do I want it" choices. Can't Stop is exactly the opposite. It's a "how much do I want it" game that opens up to "which one do I want"?.

2) The game has a lot of choices. How to combine your dice, what to push, how to push, how much to risk, how to manage your cones and the locked numbers of the board so you have safe rolls. Like I say in 1 it seems to open up from risk management instead of closing down to it.

3) It's interactive! That is, the choices made by other players affect your strategy and how you should play.

4) It is very mathematical. There's a lot of fun in seeing how you can combine dice and how they affect the game. Many "push your luck" games aren't mathematical just "hyperbalanced".

And it's a lot of fun. It might seem weird to focus so much on choices because this is not a strategy deep. But the choices matter because it's what you do in the game. If the choices are fun, like they are here, the game is fun. Want to try this one with 4 players.

My girlfriend wasn't feeling well, so our plans for the Fourth fell threw. I ended up setting up and soloing a six-player game of Divine Right. Still a classic. Divine Right is a fantasy war game for 2 to 6 players, on a continent with 13 kingdoms. Each player controls a king (or queen) of one of these countries. Each kingdom has a relatively small army, ranging from 6 to 13 units, but there is a diplomacy phase where players can try to recruit neutral countries as allies. Or your ambassador can be sent to one of the four edges of the map to recruit barbarians or ogres. You score victory points by sacking enemy castles (usually after a prolonged siege) or capturing or killing enemy monarchs. I played with the intermediate rules, which add in a lot of small special mercenary units with powers like flying or movement bonuses in certain terrain, as well as a bunch of magic items. Although the turn track goes up to 20, I have never seen a game played to completion. Experienced players could probably play a six-player game within 6 hours, but it's still usually called early due to attrition. More on that below.

My six "players":

Immer: a normal human kingdom that happens to be conveniently close to the Temple of Kings, where each king (or queen) has a strong chance of getting a magic item. Roll a 1, and you are deemed "pure" and immediately get an item. 2-5, you are less pure and your king must sleep for a number of turns in the Temple before getting an item. Roll a 6, and you are "black-hearted" and get no item.

The Black Hand: a necromancer who can raise undead units from battlefields, cast a few spells, and has a demon protecting his castle. There are four ancient battlefields marked on the board, plus he can place fresh battlefield tokens during the game after each battle.

Hothior: a normal human kingdom, one of four on the coast of the Sea of Drowning Men.

Pon: a small human kingdom with very rough terrain. Hillfolk.

Shucassam: an arabic-style human kingdom, also on the coast of the sea. One of their units is made up of lepers, and they can force enemies to retreat.

Rombune: another human kingdom on the coast of the sea, made up of former pirates, like the iron men of Pyke from Game of Thrones. I was playing on the 25th anniversary edition board, so Rombune also controlled the southern city of Jipols that used to be part of Shucassam.

Geography plays a strong role in Divine Right, so certain conflicts were inevitable. Hothior and Immer clashed. Shucassam and Rombune went to war overs Jipols. Pon picked up the Dwarves as an ally early on, which posed a threat to the Black Hand, leading to a big proxy war fought by hordes of barbarians recruited by both sides. The Elves joined Hothior, while the Goblins and Mivior (the leading sea power) allied with Immer. The most powerful kingdom (Muetar) stayed neutral the whole game, because their king was under a curse that could only be broken by white magic.

When a player king gets captured or killed, that player has the option to start over with a new kingdom. Sometimes a game ends early because the only available kingdoms are too weak, because casualties are tracked even if a kingdom leaves an alliance and becomes neutral again. Because I got in the habit of thinking that Muetar was out of play, I forgot to count them as an option when player kings got eliminated, leading to a shorter game.

As sometimes happens with complex ameritrash, odd thematic moments happened during the game. Shucassam was struck with epidemics twice, though their lepers were never affected. The Black Hand went to the Temple of Kings and was found to be unworthy. The Dwarves were recruited as allies due to an okay diplomacy roll augmented by a +2 Crass Bribe card.

By turn 10, I called it quits. The Black Hand won big, by killing the king of the Dwarves and the king of Pon. Hothior came in second, breaking a siege on its own capital with timely intervention by ogres killing the king of Immer. Shucassam came in third, for sacking its former city of Jipols. In theory, the Pon player should have come back as Muetar, and Immer should have come back as Mivior, and the game could have continued for probably the full 20 turns. Rombune was screwed, with all armies dead, and the navies unable to conduct sieges without troops.

I need to get this on the table with friends sometime, but it will need to be planned as an event game, not just something that shows up between other games.

Wiz-War with the spawnling this morning. A friend was nice enough to loan me their set so I could play while I'm crafting my own set.

Here is the situation as of turn 3:



I walk up three spaces, open the door in my sector, and can't Brain Burn upon him. He discards 3 cards and takes only 5 damage. I then cadt Thornbush on the other side of him, hoping to trap him and prevent from absconding with my precious treasure.

On his next turn, he casts a wall of fire to the side.
I become nervous.
He then casts Mental Force, boosting it by five.



He forces me one step forward through my door, and proceeds to make me go through the wall of fire 7 times, causing 28 points of damage.
He then casts his last spell card, Wallivore, for a light snack before departing the Labyrinth to avoid the charred odor that I have produced with my smoldering remains.

It was his first game of Wiz-War. He's been playing Magic with me for about a year, so he took to it like water for the most part.

I'm quite proud of his play.

Playing bananagrams right now.

Posting here to ease my ennui caused by this insipid shit.
The rules are contradictory, but the GF is insistent we just lay out tiles to make words.

Please put a gun in my mouth and kill me. The worst gaming experience ever.

My daughter loves it, so we play it. It’s not as bad as, say Fireteam Zero.

Just finished up a game of Talisman with my son, using the Reaper and the Highlands expansions. He started as the Black Knight, before dying and transitioning to the Dread Knight. I was the Alchemist. We both were able to get leveled up with lots of loot and better stats, but I was never able to get a Talisman. This is in spite of my stirring defeat of the Eagle King.

My son on the other hand was able to get one in an Eyrie in the highlands. He was casting the Command Spell while I was still farting around the Middle Region looking for a talisman.

I have good parents, but they would not have looked kindly on something as D&D like as Talisman, at least not in relation to our evangelical context. So many years spent not playing. At least I can give my son the childhood I never had.

Shellhead wrote: I need to get this on the table with friends sometime, but it will need to be planned as an event game, not just something that shows up between other games.

This sounds awesome- let me know if you need another player and I will try to get there!

To my amazement, my group consented to playing Empires of the Void II last night.

It's very rules-heavy, and yet the game itself is not that complex. Setup is long and fiddly, but that gives you a good chance to start teaching. The real problem is that it's "front loaded," in the sense that you kinda have to know about everything before you can start. In addition, there are certain specific details which aren't as precisely spelled out in the rules as they could have been. This generally isn't a problem for me, but my group loves to know the exact "letter of the law" in rules, as opposed to just using common sense to muddle through.

That's the bad news. The good news is, we all liked it. You have a huge variety of paths you can take, and they all feel attainable. You can also change directions/strategies mid-game without too much damage. Actions follow a Puerto Rico-like selection where one person chooses one and everyone else can do the same for free, or pay to do something different. You have some resource collection and engine building, but it's pretty straight-forward. It feels like it actually gets simpler as the game progresses, unlike Scythe which seems to get more complex. The rule book is well done (despite my friends' quibbles), and includes both a glossary and an index, which are super helpful.

Our game lasted four hours, but that included setup, teaching, and the full game with five players. Lots of rules look ups during the game. Everyone wants to play again, and we're sure the next go will be much closer to the advertised two hour mark. The scores were a good bell curve: 44 for the win (we were all tight for the first score, but he pulled away big at the end), 37, 36 (me), 32, and 22 (a young kid who was thrown into the deep end).

Weirdly, my son has really gotten into Medici...I thought he wouldn’t dig it, but he loves it. We’ve been playing the little two player variant.