What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

When my wife was scrapbooking, using her shears for anything was grounds for a prison beating.

My wife has entire toolboxes of tools and supplies for set that I am never allowed to touch. I tried to use a labeller the other day and I was almost in the market for a flatting arrangement.

I played Raiders of the North Sea. I was told it was a short game. With 5 players and at least one expansion, it was not a short game. As soon as the board was laid down, I knew what I was in for, and I knew I wasn't going to like it: get resources that you trade for other resources that you trade for VPs. And then at the end you tally up 8 (!) different tracks/conditions to get your final VP score.

Every time I play a new game I feel like I've made a mistake and I just want to play one of 6 or 7 games I've played a dozen times before instead. It makes me feel like kind of a game curmudgeon.

Well, it's certainly On Brand for TWBG, so there's that.

FWIW, I'm proud of that brand and think it's our strength.

I only begin enjoying new Euro games after being forced to play them many times. My recent example is Terra Mystica, which I would now put up among some of the best Euros. AT games I tend to like more at first, but few hold up as well as my classics after a dozen plays.

Doesn’t matter much depending on how great that dozen plays is, but I really enjoy a game I can sink my teeth into for the long haul.

Had a fun game night tonight. Got to introduce my friend and his brother to SEAL Team Flix. We ran two different missions on Veteran, and won both. It was a lot of fun, and sometimes I am surprised at how good the game is, honestly. Pete and I did some things right.

Next was Fireball Island. This was pretty hilarious, and at one point, one player tried to hit another with Vul-Kar, and ended up hitting him with an ember marble as well. I came in dead last, but honestly, this game is about the journey, not the destination.

I tried Raiders of the North Sea at a game day/demo event that one of our FLGSs runs every couple months. It was just the base game, but I actually liked it. I thought it was an interesting take on worker placement. My girlfriend, who is FAR more the Euro gamer than I am, didn't really care for it. [shrug]

Jackwraith wrote: I thought it was an interesting take on worker placement.

That was one thing that I did think was good. The put-down-pick-up aspect made it way more dynamic that a standard worker placement. Everyone was cursing the previous player for fucking up their intended moves. Although it wouldn't just completely lock you out of your plan, you could probably still take at least one of the actions you wanted to.

Heroes of Black Reach is cool. It is Heroes of Normandie 40k. Great option if you want to play this kind of chitty war game but not WWII. It’s actually more complex than 8th Edition.

Dungeon Mayhem is a hoot. My kids have been playing it non stop, even just two players. It’s the typical “comic shop counter” game, but with a better than expected design. It is, clandestinely, a Dominion descendant. You spend your hand to generate four resources- damage, shields, extra draws, and extra plays. The combos are very much like Dominion’s chaining. Kyle Ferrin illustrations are awesome.

Heroes of Black Reach looks really cool! I've always wanted a 40k take on tactical wargaming. Thanks for putting it on my radar.

I played Loot Island once on Thursday. That was probably enough. It's like what would happen if someone played Lost Cities and then decided it needed to have needlessly complex scoring.

Jexik wrote: I played Loot Island once on Thursday. That was probably enough. It's like what would happen if someone played Lost Cities and then decided it needed to have needlessly complex scoring.

This speaks to what has been going wrong with eurogame designs for years now. The modern euros have dumped elegance in favor of complexity, but the complexity does nothing to add to either the simulation or drama of the games, just complexity. In turn, that makes the traditional euro problems worse: boring subject matter and low player interaction due to constant mathing.

ubarose wrote: I got tricked into playing Ex Libris. What a shitty shit boring shit game. I was told it was a game about a magical library. I was lied to. OMG. The pain, the horror, the boredom!

Conversely, I played Western Legends again. This time I was Calamity Jane and I was a hard drinkin, bank robbin', sock 'em in the eye kind of gal from the get go. The Nemesis, as is his wont, played Wyatt Earp and set out to bring me to justice. He did arrest me and sent me to be reformed at the Dark Rock jail but when I got sprung I met him on the streets of Red Falls and shot him down at high noon.

We only had three and I stand by my early statements that the game suffers at lower player counts. It limits player interaction and allows people to just blithely pursue their goals without the fear of a target being painted on their back when they are walking around with a pocket full of money and a tin full of gold.

Still it was great fun. The expansions are, in theory coming out at the end of the month and I pre-ordered both. The base game seems to be going out of stock everywhere but from me to you on the down low, very hush hush and on the QT, there are two copies left on Amazon as of this morning. Act now, act through the shop button here on the Fort.

We then played the most underrated game in a long time, Civilization: A New Dawn. This game kicks ass and it's so cheap by today's standards. $23 and change? Ridiculous. To steal Josh Look's catch phrase: "Listen." If you dig 4x type civ building, you are really missing out if you don't have this one. 3 players was just as fun as 4.

I wonder if it will ever get expansions. A few more board tiles and a couple of new player pieces so that 6 could play would be awesome. I think the game could handle it both mechanically and time wise. Those turns just whip buy.

The long delayed Kickstarter for Songbirds showed up yesterday, so I tried some games of it Solo and 3p. If you like sharp puzzles in small packages with great art this one is definitely worth a look. There's a 5x5 grid, one card face up in the center, and randomized scoring tokens along the side and top of each row and column. There are 4 suits numbered 1-7, and you are dealt 9 cards on a 3p game. On your turn you play one card into the grid. Once a row or column is full you add up the sums of each color's cards and whichever color had the highest sum scores the associated point token (ties cancel each other and the next highest scores Las Vegas style, which is where the heart of the game is). Once in the game instead of playing a card into the grid, you can play a card from your hand face down in front of you. The color of that card determines which color suit you are going to claim the points for at the end of the game, and the first person to do this scores 3 points (second scores 2, third 2, 4th nothing). Also you score the face value of your face down card, this incentivising you to play a high card there instead of our on the board. The game goes until the board is full (ie everyone has played out their hands), then everyone scores whichever color they backed, their face down card, and their bonus points for when they made their bet.

So it's a really tricky puzzle of card counting, trying to bait out cards, and trying to counter play without entirely tipping your hand before absolutely necessary. Plus you have all your cards up front, so trying to figure how to play out a given hand is interesting puzzle also, and deciding when to make your bet. Really enjoyed this one. For a small card game it packs a lot of tricks up it's sleeve.