What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

It's a fun, clever game. If it has no legs, it will probably be because once you've played half the cards, you know what clues to give and/or what clues will be given.

Yeah, but it's more about how those cards combine when they're in a group. The game has an enormous amount of pressure to get a lot of cards covered by a single clue, and failure has a really tough penalty. That's a terrific tension I think.

I sure liked it. I might even buy it at some point, or just make up my own set. As far as components go, there's not a lot going on there, and you have the IOS app which makes the layout cards. I literally could make a set on index cards for like 3$.

I really enjoyed Codenames and I was hoping to pick it up as a Christmas gift for my cousin. Nope. Not only is it sold out at online game sites, the gougers on Amazon are having a field day. Current price: $55.99. For Codenames.

Had to abort my first play of the new Fury of Dracula with my daughter, as I totally screwed up the play sequence. I had her moving Dracula in between each of my day/night phases. Realized it when we met for combat the first time. D'oh!

But we played again last night, and it was awesome. I had only played the 2nd edition twice... loved the first play but the second had some tedious combat and an occurrence of Drac vanishing via the Teleport card, which was a major downer. But this new version kicks ass. And though she's only 10, my daughter was able to play Dracula very well (it helps that we've played Scotland Yard several times). She totally faked me out at one point when I knew she was in the North Atlantic sea zone and moving to either the English Channel or Irish Sea. A minute later she said "I just realized I could have gone to the North Sea, too," showing me the connection around the corner. I said that if you just realized that, then that means you did go to either the English/Irish Sea. But she was deviously playing me, and did go to the North Sea and had not only moved well into the north mainland, but also trapped Van Helsing on England for several turns with not one, but two sea storms.

By that point, though, Drac was weak from sea travel, so I was pretty sure she was heading to Castle Dracula, and this is where she faltered, trying to fool me again by not going directly there. But by not going right there to heal up, it allowed my other three characters (with Van Helsing still waiting for The Beatles in Liverpool) to close in on him and surround Castle Dracula. All three were able to attack him at once, which was enough to kill him, and just in time, as she had matured two vamps for 8 points and was about to invoke her Fury points in just a few more turns.

I was thinking this would be my least likely to hit the mark with on my "play 10 times" list, but now with my daughter totally on board and eager to play more, we should be able to get that. (I'm counting that aborted play, though.)

san il defanso wrote: Last night we played a bunch of stuff, but the one I want to talk about is Mousquetaires du Roy.

One of my favorite games. I love the sword fighting/dice mechanic. I can almost hear the clang of metal on metal. Also, Shellie makes a damn fine "Milady".

I bet I make a better Bretwalda

I brought Gears of War on vacation with me, I'm really hoping to break it out and solo it. Best dudes in a corridor game I've ever played by some distance. I think a lot of the people who think they want to play Descent really want to play Gears and don't know it. All it's missing is some sort of campaign system like Descent's ilk.

Can you imagine how awesome Imperial Assault would have been if it was based on Gears of War's engine rather than the Descent 2.0 engine? Fuuuck.

Had a huge game day last Saturday to celebrate my birthday. It was exceptional.

Lots of Loopin' Chewie, which continues to be a blast.

Played a couple of games of the two player Bottom of the 9th, which is a quick playing game where the home team is up to bat in the bottom of the 9th inning and just needs 1 run to win the game. If the fielding team gets three outs they automatically win (assumed to win next inning because they're huge favorites).

It's pretty interesting with some bluffing and thematic mechanics that boast a good deal of drama. Liked it a lot.

Also got back to Mottainai, which is always sublime.

Got in a 3 player game of Blood Rage with the Mystics expansion. These aren't necessary but I'll be leaving them in every time, pretty cool. This game was all experienced players and it only took us 60 minutes. Still think it's best at 3.

A 3 player game of Clockwork Wars with the Sentience Expansion. This game's dying on the vine for no good reason. Tense as hell.

We then moved on to a 5 player game of Cthulhu Wars with new factions and on the Dreamlands map. I played Sleeper which was exceedingly fun but felt very difficult. I excelled at delaying and taking actions later than everyone else (lethargy) but my monsters were exceptionally weak until I got to my highest rank.

Windwalker was pretty cool and rampaged all over.

I think Opener was the most interesting though as their units explode and upgrade into larger ones after combat. Oh, and they can spawn monsters at ANYONE's gate. Damn that's annoying.

The Dreamlands map was interesting with neutral monsters threatening you, but I think I preferred the base game map overall. My main problem is that this map is in two sections and not directly connected. To move between the maps certain spaces are connected and letters on the space denote this. So one space has a C on the bottom map which counts as connected to the space with a C on the top map.
These spaces aren't necessarily on the edge of the map so it's another layer of thought and analysis and easy to overlook. It felt more annoying than interesting, especially when monsters started covering up the letters. Game was a blast though.

We closed it out with a 5 player game of Dark Moon.

Played two adventures of Legend of Drizzt with my son. First was the one with Shimmergloom. Is Drizzt really that powerful? Twin strike hit two times, then the second attack as written on the character card for two additional damage and it ammounted to 8 dmg. It was finished in no time.

At the end of of the next one we drew Artemis, a troll and two hypnotic spirits. I went down with no more healing surges then my little hero with 1 hp left managed to land two last blows with Drittz and the victory was ours.