What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

A couple times a year I get a hankering to play Arkham Horror, and a couple days ago I made it happen. I played the shit out of this game in college, so I know all the rules and I'm used to playing with people who also know the rules. Unfortunately, this time a guy in our regular group just couldn't seem to pay attention to anyone else's turn—but also wanted to be the one to do all the important stuff. It killed it for everyone else at the table. We had been waffling about removing from the game group because his inattention is more of the rule than the exception, and I think that this two and a half hour slog to an easy loss pushed it over the edge. I still like Arkham a lot as long as it remains an occasional indulgence, but I really don't ever want to have to teach it again.

That same night I played Dead of Winter for the first time on a friend's copy. I liked the game well enough, and would play it again, but would never buy it myself. I don't think I like the semi-cooperative thing very much. I don't feel like I was given enough of a reason to want to hoard medicine just to dick over the other people in the colony. If the colony goes, we all die anyway, right? I haven't played Archipelago but it sounds like it has a better justification for the semi-cooperativeness. Finally, I know Plaid Hat was trying to cash in on the zombie thing, but I would have appreciated a different setting. So tired.

Also, since I don't know what other thread to put this in: I passed on an unpunched copy of Wooden Ships and Iron Men sitting on the shelf at the thrift store. I knew I wouldn't get it played and didn't want to buy it just to look at it.

Wooden Ships & Iron Men will still be there next week. It's a good game and very simple to learn, but they printed about 150,000 of them so they aren't that hard to come by. Plays 1 to 99 players effectively and the play time does not increase much with additional players.

S.

FINALLY! got to win as the US at Twilight Struggle (F2F), actually I say finally this was game 3 against my local opponent, and in each game I've weathered the early war very well, in Game 1 I was ahead in the mid war, but my position was obviously paper thin because a few scoring cards later and I was wargamed on my ass. Game 2 was a blowout, even though fairly even after EW, again, scoring went wrong in every way possible and just got worse, lost on VP before the late war I think. Tonight, I rode out final scoring to win by a single sweaty 1VP, I guess him having to flip me the China card was the point (if hed not used it, I would have won anyway), I still do not understand where the late war power comes from for the USA, once again I was ahead early and mid, I think I got up to 12 VP in the early late war, so I mean, at that point, it was coasting, and I had blue everywhere. This time I'd steamrollered through Asia early, and even though I'd fallen for the Blockade trap in West Germany, I held onto Italy ferociously, and later surrounded it to keep him away from Europe domination. I kept hanging in for the Middle East, I might even have got domination there early on, before later just barely getting back in. Still problems with central and south america, and africa but to be honest, I had quite a lot of spread of influence there. I actually don't know what I'm doing so fundamentally wrong, this time I used OPS a lot more, not scared of events, space raced less, had more idea where to be careful, fought better the key countries, spread influence out quickly so he couldnt just wipe me out tit for tat style. I think I even Red Scare/Purged him twice in the early to mid war. I mean, if this wasnt a US blowout, what hope do I have!

In the final turn he had Brezhnev Doctrine AND red scare, so he was on +1 ops and me -1, and I had a hand of all 2 or 1 cards plus Destalinization or Decol (the one where he can move 4 IP). Painful, he was throwing influence round like a giddy idiot, but I still had good board presence, so THANK FUCK I HAD VOICE OF AMERICA. Yes, saved to the end, take that you bastard! A couple of points ripped out of South America, and returning control of India, domination of Asia and South America was mine to offset his gains in Central America and Middle East, and I won by a single point. 3 and a half hours of constant tension. Several misplays for sure, but generally speaking, I am still struggling to see why the Late War is killing me, I am drawing red events all the time, and I'm not seeing where the US hammer is coming from. Maybe its just bad card draws, I mean its only 2 games we got into the late war properly.

Anyway, I'm off to masturbate to a picture of Margaret Thatcher now while drinking bourbon and wearing a moulded rubber Ronald Reagan mask.

Hit up the meetup group that I haven't been to in awhile last night.

Started off with Claustrophobia: Furor Sanguinis, which rocked of course. About ready to write my review now. I let the other guy control Kartikeya since I'd had the opportunity to play him multiple times already. Really dig the scenarios in the expansion as they're all pretty interesting and unique. I ended up winning a close game as I tore him up over a couple of rounds by triggering timely Deadly Destiny events.

Next I moved onto a 4 player game of Xia. This game will just downright piss people off but it will make others squee with joy on the inside. It's roll and move (Formula De-style with bigger engines giving bigger dice), it's random as all hell, and it's completely unforgiving. It has this horrific rule where if you die with a Tier 2 ship you sit out 1 turn and if you die with a Tier 3 ship you sit out 2 turns. The game has enough downtime that I had to watch for about 15 minutes when I sat out one turn near the end of the game. Completely brutal and un-fun and I will house-rule that.

The artwork is amazing, I'm a huge fan of the exploration and the ability to blind jump into the sector and risk blowing up, dieing is completely soft besides the skipping turns thing and I died five time throughout the game yet still nearly won. Everything is a D20 roll and it's quite random. If you're mining asteroids, you succeed on a 4+, on a 1-3 you just die. It's crazy and ridiculous yet the randomness and bizarre events totally make the game as the most memorable moments were when I hauled ass through a planetary shield to cut my travel distance down by half, the thing lit me up and my freighter exploded in a million pieces. Everyone was laughing and since it was only my Tier 1 ship I wasn't too pissed as I didn't lose much of anything. Those moments just kind of organically occur due to the wide range of results and it's entertaining in a grandiose, trashy sort of way. It feels very old school and the game doesn't coddle you.

The best thing about the game is that every single ship is different. Imagine in Merchants and Marauders you have like 10 different sloops, 10 different Frigates, etc. Each with a special ability and uniquely shaped hold. The hold's are awesome because if you buy shields, or an engine, or weapons, you have to fit the tetris-shaped pieces into your ship's hold. It's kind of like messing with a simpler version of your inventory in Diablo 2, although your hold is not typically perfectly square like the bag in Diablo. You have funky ships that are long and skinny, others with gaps or odd designs. This is hot shit and my favorite part of the game.

Funny enough I was checking my email when I was sitting out my turn and Cody had actually gotten back to me on a review copy request I sent him over a month ago. So now I have a copy en route and will be giving it a review. Think my group will enjoy it.

We finished up the night with Tiny Epic Kingdoms. I won this in the BGG contest so had no vested interest besides "I'll give this a shot", and I enjoyed it. It's nothing special and stripping a 4x game down to a micro game-size does tend to remove some of my favorite elements, but it's certainly fine and a solid design. I'd give it around a 6.

I hung out with WKover at Euroquest last night. Euroquest is the Game Club of Maryland's Ode to Essen and all things good and Euroey in the gaming world. So I made sure we played Catacombs and Coconuts to balance out playing Age of Industry and Imperial Settlers. Imperial Settlers ended up an aborted game because the guy teaching it game me the Egyptian board and the Barbarian deck of cards and the Barbarian had just the opposite. It was pretty funny to see the Egyptian play growing forests on the Nile while the Barbarian player was building the pyramids. Overall, I don't think I loved or hated Imperial Settlers. I 'd give it a 6 on TOS kind of reminded me of 7 wonders.

I gamed three nights this week after work which I'm paying for now. Gaming keeps me up too late. It was a mixed bag.

Tuesday night we played Steam at my meetup group. I hadn't played it in about 3 years ago and remembered really liking it. I still do, but not as much as Railways of the World. I remember being torn between the two and ended up buying Railways. Glad I made the choice I did.

Wednesday night was Coolstuff boardgame night and I got to try Evolution at 5 players which is probably 2 too many. I might like this at 3 but I don't think it was great, just good. I don't particularly care for keeping track of multiple traits between players that change quite often. If they get more than one species going it can even be more to remember. I went the carnivore route early and thought it was really hard to score points compared to the other species. It was ok, but I'm not excited to play again and I'm fine if I never do.

Last night was Acquire, which was my 2nd play, albeit a different version. I think it was the Avalon Hill version. It was fun and really tight. I won by a difference of about $1400.00 and we couldn't tell who was winning right until the end. I really like this one for something that's so abstracted, which I usually hate. I don't know if I'll ever own it, but I certainly wouldn't mind if I did.

The wife and I have played three games of Arkham Horror this week. I have three big and three small expansions mixed into that behemoth of cards and tokens. I've tried playing with it all at once but, meh, too convoluted. My new preferred method is pick one expansion, include every option it adds, and leave out the options/boards from the remaining expansions. When drawing cards, I now skip Mythos cards from the left out expansions but use all cards for every other card type for convenience sake. Works well, and is a pretty easy way to season the dish to taste rather than just stirring in equal parts of every fucking spice on the rack. We just finished a great Innsmouth Horror flavoured session; tasted fishy, as it should.

airmarkus wrote: Wednesday night was Coolstuff boardgame night and I got to try Evolution at 5 players which is probably 2 too many. I might like this at 3 but I don't think it was great, just good.

Funny you mention this. I'm halfway through EuroQuest, with ~7-8 new games under my belt, and this was my clear favorite. But we only had 3 players, so it was possible to track the powers of the different species without blowing a processor. I don't think I'd play more than four, and that would be pushing it unless you play completely from the hip.

Anyway, I started with a carnivore, which I completely maxed out by the end of the game - huge population, huge body size. It was unstoppable, and had a fantastic herbivorous support team.

I will probably buy this, as eating others goes over well in my group. I'm only hoping that broken trait combos aren't identified too quickly, which might spoil the game.

PS Not a fan of Evo. This works.

PPS My recent 'new to me' list from most to least favorite: Evolution, Qwixx, Blood Bound, Tiny Epic Kingdoms (better than 8-Minute Empire), Panamax, Mythotopia, Machi Koro, Imperial Settlers, AquaSphere (Feld nightmare), The Abyss (pure junk). In the future, I'll avoid anything below Panamax, which I only want to try again because I did so poorly.

Blood Bound is great wkover. It holds up long term.

Played Evolution a second time, but it wasn't as much fun. Dangit. The first time really is the best.

Peaceful players discover that fielding a herbivore-only team isn't terribly exciting. And if no one goes carnivore at all, the game falls into a dull groove of fighting over scraps of plant food. But the game doesn't make it easy to be a carnivore, either, since many improvements are anti-carnivore - which can lead to quick extinction for new meat-eaters.

I will continue to enjoy this game in small doses, but this is no longer a definite purchase. As ponies go, this is strictly a one- or two- tricker. If I can score a cheap copy used or in trade, though, I can see using this as introductory gaming material.

Regardless, I did get in some quality gaming on the final day of EuroQuest, including Middle Earth Quest, Of Mice and Mystics (1st play, was fun), and Red 7 (decent timekiller). Also Alhambra, which I still enjoy occasionally.