Re: What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

I really dig Quartermaster General. Still grateful Sag brought it up some time ago. Knowing the decks is important. Not for your first play, necessarily, but over time to play well. Like Gregarius said knowing your deck won't let you plan a master strategy, but it will help you make better tactical decisions. Each nation has its own deck that is different from the others both in content and size, and once your deck runs out you don't get to reshuffle and therefore don't get to draw any more cards. The decks are thematic for the nations -- playing your WWII role is generally good -- but they don't force you to play historically.

I think Axis and Allies lite is a fair comment to make about it. It's a different beast, sure, but it has a good thematic WWII feel that takes a lot of what's fun about A&A and distills it down to a 90-minute card-play VP-getting game. Normally I can be pretty lukewarm about games that boil down to getting victory points, but Quartermaster General is a good example of how VP can be done well.

Also, the battles are brutal and important, because whoever initiates the attack wins the battle. Just like that. I play the card, I kill your tank. Boom. BUT players will have those out-of-turn cancel/fightback cards sitting there on the table face-down, making you really think about where the best place to attack really is. It's the sort of thing that should be in Game Design School 101, and here it's executed very well.

FINALLY got to play Pax Porfiriana for the first time, 3 player. Did enjoy it a lot - although at the end it came down to who would get the last topple. I had tons of gold, way more than anyone else, and was using it to try to play balance of power. Sadly one player got a bit too far ahead on Loyalty, and then the last Topple card came out right before his turn.

Did enjoy it though, and would play it again. Seems like once you understand the rules it goes quickly. Thanks to all those who kept extolling its virtues.

I picked up Quartermaster General at Gencon last year, and still haven't had a chance to get it to the table. Grr!!!

Just finished an epic 3 player battle of Dungeon Command. My goblin horde was against the undead and the drow. I managed a victory thanks to the undead and drow clashing against each other early.

This was the first time we played this game 3 player, and it worked better than expected. I hope it's not another 6 months before I get it to the table again. Great game.

Legomancer wrote:

Sevej wrote: I found Imperial Settlers a little bit too dependent on the table meta. How's The New Era in this regard?

What do you mean by "dependent on the table meta"?

It means players have to watch other player's tableau all the time to keep the balance in check. Often, raids happen against the wrong player or, worse, not at all.

Hyperborea:

Had a good time playing this "Bag Builder"' as opposed to deck builder, where you use different colored cubes instead of cards. It has a spacial element with a map made of hex tiles on which you move your minions exploring, looting and fighting.

It played smooth and looked great and was good fun.

The success of Quartermaster General in your group will likely depend on what they "normally" play. My local group loves games like Struggle of Empires that are long, involved, alliance driven, and freeform. They tried QG and it fell completely flat. (I.e., it succumbed to "Uh, that's it?" syndrome. It lasted two plays, then disappeared.) To them, it felt like seven steps backwards in conflict game design - steps that they weren't interested in taking.

QG is the lightest, beer-and-pretzelest wargame ever designed. It's as stripped down as a wargame can get. If that's what you want, it might be worth your time. I think there's even an expansion coming out?

www.kickstarter.com/projects/1459282182/...er-general-expansion

Edit: Also, as stated somewhere above, Quartermaster General doesn't have dice. In my group, a diceless wargame is a sin against God. That alone is enough to earn QG a massive shrug, and is the primary reason why Napoleon's Triumph doesn't get played - ever - even though I'm a huge fan.

Sevej wrote:

Legomancer wrote:

Sevej wrote: I found Imperial Settlers a little bit too dependent on the table meta. How's The New Era in this regard?

What do you mean by "dependent on the table meta"?

It means players have to watch other player's tableau all the time to keep the balance in check. Often, raids happen against the wrong player or, worse, not at all.

What's interesting, and I could possibly be misinterpeting the gameplay is that in TNE attacking another player's location is not a great move. In TNE each location that scores VPs puts them on the location, and once it's been scored three times, it's "done". At that point you probably want to build over it. Building over locations is also not so easy, as there are icons on the cards that need to match. when you attack a player's location and succeed, you get some stuff, they get some other stuff (usually a lesser version of what you got) and they flip the location over as rubble. However, rubble is SUPER easy to build on -- all you need to do is pay a brick, and no icon-matching -- and doing so gives you a VP. So when you kill someone's location you get some stuff, and maybe get rid of something you hated, but they get stuff, an easy-rebuild, and a VP. And in some cases they may have waned to rebuild over it anyway. So you only do that if you REALLY need those goods or if you just can't stand that location.

In IS, razing an opponent's location is, in my opinion, more hurtful. They only get a wood, and they get a foundation, but very often that location was still quite necessary. Also, in IS you are usually going to get resources out of it which can be used to build more locations, whereas in TNE, you need different things from what you usually get by razing to build locations.

Sorry if this is opaque, but hopefully it illustrates that the two games have very different angles to them. Although IS seems lighter and fluffier it is, to me, more brutal and facepunching than TNE. You most definitely need to direct razes at the proper targets and know what those targets are, and razes come much more often. It can reward brute force a lot more than TNE. This is why for me, both games are welcome on my shelves (for now) as they do different things, but I still prefer TNE both for its theme and for its different play atmosphere.

Another play last night of Merchant of Venus. Goddamn I love that game, even though I suck big fat hairy melf pelts at it. I have the FFG version, which I like, and we played the "Classic" rules. Still haven't cracked open their modified ones.

Also another 2p round of Temporum, which I'm still surprised I like. I''d love to see it with four or five and everything going nuts each round.

Legomancer wrote: Another play last night of Merchant of Venus. Goddamn I love that game, even though I suck big fat hairy melf pelts at it. I have the FFG version, which I like, and we played the "Classic" rules. Still haven't cracked open their modified ones.

I've been leery of using the modified rules, frankly. I don't want to ruin what is a fun romp, and if the modified rules don't REALLY make that even MORE fun, it's time I'll never get back. The reprint for me is good enough. If I'm wrong about this, would someone care to correct me? I promise to take no offense.

Finally tried out Star Wars: Armada. My buddy picked it up and brought it over. It is certainly pretty, I played the imperials and enjoyed looking at the Star Destroyer.

We played two games- I won the first and then flew my Star destroyer off the board on turn 6 of the 2nd game.

Things I liked:

The way squadrons worked. I liked the engagement rules and the freedom of movement the had. Felt like swarms of fighters
The dice colors and ranges and how they worked
planning orders in advance. Although I need to work on that- proved by flying off board.

Things that might grow on me/ need work
the tokens as defense (I liked them it is just going to take some gettign used to)
The 6 turn cap. Felt like the game was just getting going and it was over.
The wonky maneuver thing.

We did a bit of squad building the second game, but it was obvious we needed more ships and cards to make that work. I think the game will be fun to play once in awhile, but it will not take the place of xwing.