What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

2 games of Gears of War, first short scenario. Lost both, down to the last couple die rolls. About as pure a game in capturing the AT spirit as I can think of.

8 player Turfmaster last night, I think this was the first time we had gathered 8 players in a home setting on a week night which was great. Maybe I had too many libations or the turf was too crowded, but I ended up in 6-7-7 place, only beating the one who crashed against a hurdle in that last race. Made me miss those heady days of ending in 6th oh là là!

Altogether pretty close, with some surprising shifts of fate due to the dice rolls.

OK, so I have never played a game solo before, but I just couldn't wait any longer to get my THUNDERBIRDS into the air. Had a super fun time! I'm not sure yet how much of it was nostalgia and how much was solid game but whatever, I had a great time! Looking forward to playing it with Dan over winter break.

Did I really never review Gears of War here? I see that I wrote up a solid first take on it... maybe I'll have to article-ize it.

It's so good! It's so much more of what I want from Dudes in a Corridor---intense firefights, every hit or miss significant, all monsters can potentially kill you. Equipment fucking matters! Almost no tracking tokens!

The Hot new game I played this week was STAR WARS carcassonne! A game absolutely dripping with star wars theme, and probably other fluids if in the right company.

Its like Carcassonne, or rather it is carcassone except you can attack other peoples stuff with your dudes and throw dice. So its a bit weird and definitely not for purists, any time where ko someones meeple in regular carc is now resolved with dice. Also the cathedrals are replaced by planets and if you place a tile next to a planet you can fight the occupying meeple. Its actually a sort of fun improvement.

Also played some Starwars Risk edition, which is still think is quite neat, but the lightsaber track is a bit useless. Not sure it gives enough reward to be really worthwhile for either side, but hey, perhaps Luke, Vader and the Emperor were not as important as they thought they were.

Played two games of Ares Project, still a favourite of mine. I tried a turtling and deep strike strategy with the Terrans with beat the space wizards two times in a row. Turns out building tonnes of cheap turrets and upgrading them with tech buffs is a good way to hose invading armies.

Splendor - Hadn't played this before. Its okay. I would play again, but wouldn't request it.

Guns & Steel - This I really liked. Its like a civ game where the tech tree is the game.

Fury of Dracula 3rd - This game bombed so hard I'm selling my copy because I know it'll never hit the table again. We ended up not even finishing it. Went from boring where nothing happens to frustrating where Drac would always escape. Dracula player was just hiding until the Fury ability would kick in later. I didn't hate the game as much as the other hunter did, but I won't ever bring it out for another group and risk the same thing happening.

Mad Dog wrote: Fury of Dracula 3rd - This game bombed so hard I'm selling my copy because I know it'll never hit the table again. We ended up not even finishing it. Went from boring where nothing happens to frustrating where Drac would always escape. Dracula player was just hiding until the Fury ability would kick in later. I didn't hate the game as much as the other hunter did, but I won't ever bring it out for another group and risk the same thing happening.

I hate it when this happens. It's understandable and I get it, but it sucks if the game just happened to have one horrendous showing, for whatever reason, but now will never be played again. I had a similar thing happen with Cosmic Encounter at my house. I still own it, but I doubt anyone will agree to play it with me again after the single, terrible session we played.

Gary Sax wrote:

Mad Dog wrote: Fury of Dracula 3rd - This game bombed so hard I'm selling my copy because I know it'll never hit the table again. We ended up not even finishing it. Went from boring where nothing happens to frustrating where Drac would always escape. Dracula player was just hiding until the Fury ability would kick in later. I didn't hate the game as much as the other hunter did, but I won't ever bring it out for another group and risk the same thing happening.

I hate it when this happens. It's understandable and I get it, but it sucks if the game just happened to have one horrendous showing, for whatever reason, but now will never be played again. I had a similar thing happen with Cosmic Encounter at my house. I still own it, but I doubt anyone will agree to play it with me again after the single, terrible session we played.

This is the reason I'm really torn up about upgrading my 2nd to a 3rd edition despite the changes sounding great.

We also had a similar first experience with Cosmic, and is why I traded it... included in that deal was Spartacus which prolly has a similar chance of bombing - but managed to escape that fate and is likely the local favorite game. *shrug*

DukeofChutney wrote: Played two games of Ares Project, still a favourite of mine. I tried a turtling and deep strike strategy with the Terrans with beat the space wizards two times in a row. Turns out building tonnes of cheap turrets and upgrading them with tech buffs is a good way to hose invading armies.

I bought Ares Project on Black Friday. I've been reading the instructions. I can't wait to play this with my son.

A few weeks ago, I had my friends over for boardgames. The first game we inevitable play is Battlestar Galactica with the Pegasus expansion. It was me (Helo), my wife JoAnn (Starbuck), Trish (Adama) and Nathan (Zarek). When the Loyalty cards were given out, I was a Cylon. This filled me with much glee, as they were already hamstrung off the bat. Let me preface the summary of this fiasco as saying that this game was the SHORTEST we'd ever played and it just so happens that the Crisis cards were in my favor.

The initial setup was going okay. The raiders were being taken care of, my turn of not being on the ship came and went. Then, it went south real quickly, as Scar appeared on the board and the basestars were churning out raiders as fast as they were being put down. So, Starbuck headed to CIC to try and take out the basestars that were on the board, and ended up damaging the Pegasus more than she damaged the basestars. There are civilian casualties because of Scar and then the fleet jumps 1 distance.

This is where the shit hit the fan, because the first Crisis card that came up was Cylon Ambush. Two turns later, another Cylon attack card came up with Heavy Raiders. At this point, I've been acting normal, only frakking up the skill checks so much. When I saw what was on the board, I just had to act. I excused myself from the table, for the apparent purpose of getting a drink, and turned on the cabinet CD player. In the tray, was the OST of the BSG First Season. When it got to be my turn, I hit the play button and the Cylon intro theme played.

“Oh, shit,” was the refrain from the table as I returned, drink in hand, smirk on face, and revealed my Cylon Loyalty card. I resurrect and inwardly smiled when I saw my Super Crisis Card: Cylon Intruders. You see, they already had several heavy raiders on the board, and no piloted Vipers to deal with them. In my subsequent turns, I activated the Cylon Fleet space and moved those Heavy Raiders into boarding position. By the time the fleet was nearing to jump, two Centurions were already on the Galactica and halfway to blowing the locks. Before they were able to jump, I played my Crisis card and at that time they didn't have enough to pass it. So, two more Centurions boarded a heavily damaged Galactica. Zarek was in the Armory, but he wasn't doing much good. Starbuck joined him later and did just as well at stopping them. The fleet jumped a whole 1 distance. I moved back to the Cylon Fleet space and kept activating the Heavy Raiders. Humans vented into space, Cylons win.

We finished the game in about an hour and a half.