What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Played my first mission in GMT's Skies Above the Reich. It's a solitaire game where you take command of a squadron of BF-109s tasked with protecting German cities from American daylight bombing raids in the years between 1942 and 1945.

The game is very pretty if you have an appreciation for such things. The boards are fully mounted and not of paper. Your planes and assets (other varieties of planes that you buy with "operation points" to aid you on specific missions) are all on wooden blocks as are altitude markers which are blue blocks you place under your plane to show it's relative altitude.

As for the game itself, I like it so far. It's got a lot of decisions to make as to what to bring on your mission, how to load out your planes, what pilots to bring, when and what angle to attack from and when to leave. You aren't going to destroy all the B17s on a given mission, I don't think, so you have to weigh the amount of damage you might do vs. retaining your fighting force.

Also, there is enough randomness in it to make it more than just a "rinse and repeat" affair. The board/formation you play, sun position, how many Operation points you get, and the level and type of enemy escorts you may encounter are all somewhat random.

Attack runs are pretty fast as the game avoids having the player look up 16 different charts and instead uses a pretty cool card based system to determine damage to the fighters and the bombers. There is still some charts but not nearly as many as in B17 Queen of the Skies or Target for Today.

In my mission, on the first attack run, one of the pilots collided with another fighter and both were killed instantly. One took damage to the cockpit which caused a fire. The pilot attempted to bail out but alas could not. Another took damage to his elevators and made an emergency landing and one was forced to flee by escorting Spitfires. My guys did manage to force one B17 out of formation and thus make it an easier target for any other squadrons that encounter it.

Over all though, it was a pretty poor performance having 3 out of 8 pilots get snuffed and one get wounded.

I think that Magic is very much a game of not making mistakes. This is a fairly constrained game and there are moves that are simply not sound and the reason they are not sound is not immediately obvious or probabilistic or reliant on metaknowledge, who is going to win if the game drags on or simply what cards are key in each matchup.

The thing is that mistakes are not obvious because there's a sizable amount of randomness in the game, cards are more scarce than they appear and the actual impact of decisions is not seen until much later. That is, you may spend a spell on something that won't actually prevent you from winning the game only to regret when you don't. And you might think you got unlucky or not be able to realize it was a mistake you made 3 turns ago, but it's there.

Something I don't like about modern Magic, though, are the dumb evasion-heavy creatures that are hard to interact with. There's a guy attacking me with a 3/3 Flyer that I can't use spells on. That's just bad design. I really dislike the fact that so many cards will win a player the game if they are not answered in one turn or two. It's particularly shameful because they deepen Magic's flaws.

Edit: Apparently they have released a land that removes the "can't target with spells" ability. That should have a good effect on the game.

I played the new Fireball Island today and the early Josh Look Hyperbole Report is that it’s now the single coolest game that I own.

First off, pictures do not do it justice. You’ve seen pictures, you’ve heard people talk about the huge toy appeal it has, but not until you have it set up in front you does that really set in.

I played with my brother, my father in-law and my brother in-law, so I was the only gamer at the table. Everyone got right into it and picked it up no problem. It’s a simple, chaotic game where strategy is entirely not the point, but you still come away admiring just how smart it is about pulling it off. The card movement is nothing you haven’t seen before, but it’s just wonderful. There’s very little iconography and the scoring is clearly detailed on your player card, which is where so many family/hobby games stumble, especially my beloved Survive. Most importantly, the game is just FUN. Lots of opportunities to hurl fireballs at people, which for a game that suggests it’s about hurling fireballs, you’re really stoked to see that it delivers on that front. I love the ways you can try to turn the palm trees to alter the paths the fireballs will take and the unpredictable nature of Vul-Kar. There was so much excitement and tension from everyone at the table whenever we got to use the fireballs.

When I play a new family game, I’m always left wondering if I would pick it over Survive. With the exception of Black Fleet, as charming as the game may be, the answer is always no. I don’t want to jump to conclusions just yet but Fireball Island may be that new yardstick for me. I had an absolute blast playing this game.

And I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, there needs to be way more of that Indiana Jones style adventure stuff going on.

Josh Look wrote:
And I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, there needs to be way more of that Indiana Jones style adventure stuff going on.

Can I get an "Amen"?

Played a six person Zimby Mojo tonight. One player had one game of experience and I had two. Everyone else was newbie. It went pretty well, especially since the King was killed by a 3-tribe stack and the first tribe to leave with the crown immediately started activating rituals, including doing the Blood Mist one twice, rolling 6s, which knocked out a ton of opponent strength that might have dealt with her. Then a couple zombies got activated in her path while she was still dealing with the weight of the crown and I managed to snag it for a few minutes before another player killed me off and picked it up within a few squares of her home. Three other players tried to stop her, but she made it away and became the new Queen.

Josh Look wrote: I played the new Fireball Island today and the early Josh Look Hyperbole Report is that it’s now the single coolest game that I own.

First off, pictures do not do it justice. You’ve seen pictures, you’ve heard people talk about the huge toy appeal it has, but not until you have it set up in front you does that really set in.

I played with my brother, my father in-law and my brother in-law, so I was the only gamer at the table. Everyone got right into it and picked it up no problem. It’s a simple, chaotic game where strategy is entirely not the point, but you still come away admiring just how smart it is about pulling it off. The card movement is nothing you haven’t seen before, but it’s just wonderful. There’s very little iconography and the scoring is clearly detailed on your player card, which is where so many family/hobby games stumble, especially my beloved Survive. Most importantly, the game is just FUN. Lots of opportunities to hurl fireballs at people, which for a game that suggests it’s about hurling fireballs, you’re really stoked to see that it delivers on that front. I love the ways you can try to turn the palm trees to alter the paths the fireballs will take and the unpredictable nature of Vul-Kar. There was so much excitement and tension from everyone at the table whenever we got to use the fireballs.

When I play a new family game, I’m always left wondering if I would pick it over Survive. With the exception of Black Fleet, as charming as the game may be, the answer is always no. I don’t want to jump to conclusions just yet but Fireball Island may be that new yardstick for me. I had an absolute blast playing this game.

And I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, there needs to be way more of that Indiana Jones style adventure stuff going on.

This is exactly what I wanted to hear. With two very young kids, I've been starting to keep my eye out for games that would be good to introduce them to when they get older. I've got fond memories of goofing around with Fireball Island with my brother when we were kids, and I was hoping this would let me give my kids the same feels. Sounds like it does, so hooray!

I spent 8 hours in a Catholic church yesterday, which is a record for this atheist gamer. They were hosting a boardgame event in the basement, with open gaming and a big charity auction. Several of my friends were going, so I went too. When I first arrived, I had a choice of playing eurogames or waiting around for more players, so I instead helped with the setup of the auction.

There were about 180 games there, ranging from a 1958 Acquire-type game called The Big Board to Arkham Horror 2nd edition base set in shrink wrap. Quite a few games were in shrink, as they were donated by local game shops. Prices ranged from a minimum bid of $1 for cheap little card games, up to $60 for Root plus the expansion in shrink. The auction format had two parts. Starting at 4 PM, people could write in a bid on a sheet with ten write-in slots that was next to the game. At 7 PM, the first part of the auction would end, and people could claim the games they won and check out. If any games got ten bids, they were put up for auction to the entire room in a more traditional live bidding format. In total, about 120 games were sold, and only one went up for live auction. The rest of the games were donated to Toys for Tots.

I brought a few games, but only got Mall of Horror on the table. A close friend played Blue. I played Black. A retirement age guy from my last D&D campaign played Brown. A rando gamer with moderate Analysis Paralysis played Green. Each players get 3 tokens, representing a Gunman (+1 vote), a Strong Guy (+1 barricade), and a woman (most VP, but can attract extra zombies with her screaming). Green nearly got eliminated early on, but managed to hang on with his Gunman. Brown had never played before (and often made very questionable decisions during my D&D campaign), but managed to lock down both winning strategies early in the game: control of the security cameras and dominance of the parking lot. That left Brown with advance intel about 2/3 of the zombies and nearly 50% of the cards in the game. As the most experienced player but no other advantages, I managed to keep my female alive the whole game, and all of the Brown characters survived to the end. Final score: Brown 15, Black 7, Green 0, and Blue 0.

After a while, another rando roped myself and a married couple from my last D&D campaign into a game of Klank!. I genuinely dislike most deck builders, but this one was moderately enjoyable thanks to the existence of a board and a relatively good implementation of theme for a deck builder. I grabbed the second most valuable artifact and was the second player to escape the dungeon, so I assumed that I was in second place. In reality, I had neglected some of the other scoring opportunities and actually came in as a respectable last place. I would never buy Klank!, but I might be open to playing it again some time.

Finally, the husband from the Klank! table and I played Pandemic Contagion with another rando and the AP guy from Mall of Horror. I generally like co-op games, but don't like Pandemic. I played the base game once and found it too easy, with obvious and boring decisions. A couple of months ago, I played Pandemic Cthulhu, and found that equally easy and boring. But a brief glance at the components of Pandemic Contagion made it obvious that this was a very different game. The decisions were still too obvious and easy, so my turns often took 15 seconds or less. The AP guy struggled in the early game, both with his AP and with some questionable decisions like failing to boost his infection rate beyond the default of one. But a serious of unfortunate events gave him a surprising boost in the late mid-game, with the rest of us temporarily shut out of placing infection cubes in cities.

The rando was a veteran eurogamer, so he had to analyze everything in his desperate struggle to prove his intelligence. This is a quality that I hate about certain gamers. To paraphrase Gandhi, "I like your Scrabble but I do not like your Scrabble players." He won in the end, but the one-two punch of the slow AP guy and the slow eurogamer drained the game of all fun. This is one of the things that I hate most about eurogames like Pandemic Contagion: there are random effects (like a card draw or a random event each turn) that are then followed by deliberate, controlled play with a great deal of open information on the table. This rewards the slow, analytical player, even as all fun is torturously murdered and players withdraw from each other while lost in thought. It is the very antithesis of my concept of fun.

To be fair, I think that Pandemic Contagion could be a pleasant filler with the right players. But this particular game of it sucked due to the dreadful slow pace of obvious decisions. Which reminds me of one more problem with Pandemic Contagion. Nearly 100% of the decisions seemed obvious to me. There were turns where an event card caused three of us (everybody but the AP newb) to play identically, because the current discount or penalty or whatever left only one logical response. When the decisions are obvious, it reduces the game to the luck of the draw. Sure, plenty of ameritrash games have a lot of luck, but they are still more exciting because you make a decision first (take a risk) and then randomly determine the success of that course of action. There is suspense in that moment before the dice hit the table, and none in Contagion where you are doing the same obvious thing as everybody else.

Rando AP Guy sounds like a name I would give someone I played games with at a con. I know I have game recaps with player names like "annoying dude"

To say Spirit Island has taken the house by storm would be an understatement. We're on 8 games in 4 days. Moving into the top 10, I think, if it has legs.

Europe in Turmoil: Prelude to the Great War by Compass Games.

Europe in Turmoil is an homage, a tribute, a derivation of Twilight Struggle reset into the lead up to World War 1. As with a good cover tune in the music world, a good sequel to a game keeps the basic form and structure of the original but tweaks it just enough to make it fresh and interesting.

The changes it makes are pretty cool. It ditches the "Headline" phase. Realignment rolls are gone. The need for Military Ops is also excised.

The Space Race has been replaced by the Naval Arms Race. It has more spaces and each has a pretty powerful effect. In Twilight Struggle you could safely ignore the Space Race for the most part if you wanted to and it certainly wasn't going to win you the game. The Naval Arms Race you ignore at your peril as the benefits are far stronger. Things like having all your opponent's cards have -1 Ops until the rival catches up or having the ability once per turn to play a card for it's event AND it's ops points.

The DefCon track has been removed and replaced with "Crisis" Rolls. A crisis roll happens per card effects and it's basically a roll modified one way or the other by the prior play of events and the "tension level" (also increased or decreased by prior card plays). If the target number of 6 is hit, the Great War breaks out and the game ends with some alterations in influence due to the outcome of the war and concludes with final scoring.

I'm really impressed with this game. Compass is pretty hit or miss due to a lack of development but this is a real hit.

Our game ended on turn five with the triggering of the great war and I as the "Authoritarian" powers was victorious.

That sounds really neat! Thanks for bringing it to my attention; you're spot on that I pay almost 0 attention to Compass offerings.

Pre-WWI is a good fit for that sort of system, though 2 sided is a tight fit w/Britain usually playing 3rd side spoiler IRL.

One addition/alteration that I failed to mention is that not all the spaces are geographic location. There are spaces like "French Writers" or "Catholic Church" and such. Each space also has an icon associated with it that shows it's type. Like the "French Writers" space has a pencil icon which means it's an "Intellectuals" space. Or Paris has a star showing it's a "government" space.

Most of the event cards are in some way connected to one type of space. So a card may say, "Relocate 4 SP from any Bourgeois Space in France to any space in Austria Hungary but no more than 2 per space" or something like that. It adds a fascinating level to placing ops and such because putting 4 ops in a Army space may not be as useful as putting it in the "Workers" space even if the Army space is a battle ground and the Workers space is not.

Britain in so far as spaces on the board is abstracted out and only counts for adjacency purposes in the placing of SP's. If and when the war happens, it is taken into account sort of and many cards reference British Politicians and diplomats and it is a British token on the Naval Race Track.

I think it would be a great game for you Steve. I know you dig TS and have played it a bajillion times. This will breathe new life into the system.

That (the different types of non-geographic spaces) sounds very 1989 by Ted Torgerson, which I never tried but heard was pretty decent.

Gary Sax wrote: That (the different types of non-geographic spaces) sounds very 1989 by Ted Torgerson, which I never tried but heard was pretty decent.

1989 is great, better than Twilight Struggle IMO.

Europe in Turmoil is like crack for people who love history and war games. It's on my radar now. Thanks.