What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

After far too long, I got to see The Nemesis, Kevin. I did a nor lap demo for him of Thunder Alley and then we got down to business.

We played Combat Commander. Need I say more? No, probably not but I will.

The game is one of the best ever made. So much fun. First scenario I was the Americans defending against a ruthless attack by the Germans. I did have a disabled tank which allowed to fend off the attackers with use of its cannon and 50mm machine gun.

Second scenario was a meeting engagement in the desert with me as the Italians and Kev as the Brits. Apparently the secret to defeating the Italians is to hand them a medium mortar. They will be so confused as to its proper operation that they will have no interet in stopping the advancing English. I was soundly defeated.

Played quite a few games, so i yarn at you about them;

Vikings; Its a euro about Vikings (not the controversal one but one from 07) about exploring, laying island tiles and putting coloured meeples on them to get points. Its pretty run of the mill stuff but fairly light and doesn't make you work that hard. I didn't mind it, but came last so maybe i should have put more thought in.


Chaos Marauders; A game that is actually about Goblins. This game has problems, its very random, sometimes to a punishing degree, and a bit long (40-50mins) for what it is. But it does have that trashy feel that's endearing about some AT games. You draw cards to make 3 lines of a goblin army for battle and can whack each other with them. Its got push your luck and some card placement strategy to it.

Horus Heresy; I wax about this game a fair bit and i like it better each time I play it. As i get to know it better problems such as moving my troops around phase out. The Imperial player heavily defended the two ports away from the palace so i ignored all that and went straight for the jugular and assaulted the emperor himself. He ran around the board and i had to chase him and he snuck out a win with 2 health left at the end. It was very close.

Beowulf The Legend. I picked this up over the ERP hype. It is actually good and for £8 (12 with postage) it was a steal. Its an auction game but it does generate the feel of a journey and it generates enough tension for people to punch the air when they win a round. I got nailed by the dragon for two wounds and ended up coming last, but i enjoyed it.

Quantum; The guy that is in charge of purchases picked this up after the SUSD review. Its a fairly hyped game in some circles. It ok. Its the kind of game that people apply the words 'short' elegant' and 'clever' too. And it deserves these words but it doesn't really generate any feeling of space empire building or epic battles. Its essentially a puzzley game about positioning and dice movement. It is clever and quick and i enjoyed it, but it doesn't compete with the other space epics at all. It feels more like an abstract really.

Among the Stars; this is like 7 wonders in space but with tableau building where the positioning of your cards affects the points they generate. Its ok. I don't really like drafting as a core mechanic as i find it antisocial. I prefer it 7 wonders (which i dislike quite a bit), but it is a bit dull. Most of the cards are just positional combos with cards of other colours which didn't really inspire me into the idea i was building a station. I ended up pulling a huge lead though.

Also on friday night we played 1856 which i snuck out a win on. I dumped one company mid game which did it for one player. The train curve kicks in very early in this game almost guarunteeing some companies will get in fiscal trouble.

Legomancer wrote: Last night was Marrying Mr. Darcy, bitches!

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That sounds like a really fun and unusual game!

Dr. Mabuse wrote:

Legomancer wrote: Last night was Marrying Mr. Darcy, bitches!

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That sounds like a really fun and unusual game!

I actually had a copy of it in my hands on Saturday - should have picked it up.

Today was an adventure in gaming with new people who I don't normally game with...I went up to the game store after tossing out an invite to play some XWing on a local Facebook group. For the most part it looks like the group is dead and the only taker was Ron, whose nickname is Popeye because outside of the freakish forearms he bears a striking resemblance to the fictional character.

Mainly I wanted to try out the new ships so I took a B-Wing, E-Wing and a pair of Headhunters. Doing the same thing he took a kitted out Phantom and a kitted out Defender. As I was figuring out initiative I asked him how many points he was playing...Somewhere around 80 or 90 was his reply. Hmm...

So after some back and forth I finally convinced him to bring a full 100 points so he grabbed a Tie Bomber. I setup my Headhunters at an angle in my right corner pointed towards the center. My B and E Wing in the center. Things got off to a rocky start when he bumped his own ships out of the gate...Second turn I got an extremely lucky shot on his Phantom and one-shot it with my B-Wing. Meanwhile his Defender went down a few shields and he got a Headhunter down to one hull left.

There was a lot of K-Turns/Come Abouts/Immelmans...As well as an attempt at "Passing", which doesn't exist in XWing. The game ended up with my B-Wing and one Headhunter killed. His fleet destroyed. It wasn't a great game, but at least I got to get some sort of impression on how the new ships fly.

Defender is looking to be a stout ship. Hits hard and is hard to hit. Very maneuverable ship.

The Phantom paired with a few Defenders and running along the flank is going to be my next build when I next fly Imperials. Have to keep those out of fire arcs.

Headhunter looks like it'll be a fun ship to swarm with. Not as maneuverable as a Tie, but the ability to take some extra damage is great.

The E-Wing didn't wow me, but is going to be an all around good ship.

Popeye and myself then joined with a few other people in The Resistance. I think Popeye was pulling his voting cards at random, he'd pick a card and then shuffle them around, so I was never sure if he even knew what card he was throwing down, which basically made the two games we played very, very confusing.

At this point Popeye had to go but two others showed up at the shop, one is a regular that I've played with a few times and the other is his buddy that I never met. We set up a game of Bang The Dice Game which is one I love. We had Outlaws shooting other Outlaws most of the time over three games, so the games went very pear-shaped. Meanwhile this new dude, who has a voice that pierces even in a loud room, yelling "Bang!" and "Boom!" into my ear giving the game sound effects. I think in the three games I got a turn a total of four or five times...So I died early and died often, but since I was an Outlaw I managed to be on the winning team every time.

Now, even though my voice was saying "Bail, and head home" my mouth said "Let's play Citadels". It's years since I have played and seeing it in someone's game bag made me blurt that out. After the words escaped my mouth I realized my mistake. I was going to be the one explaining the rules but as it had been a while I needed the rules to walk me through a few things...The only problem is that new guy took the rules and started reading them to himself...

After someone else jumped in to help me out with the rules we got going. And I forgot just how much fun the game is...I got screwed over quite a few times which was to be expected. What wasn't was when I took the Warlord and proceeded to raze New Guy's highest VP card, who then proceeded to turn, push out his lower lip and give me that kicked puppydog look.

Thankfully the game ended shortly thereafter. I was screwed over so many times in the game I was out of the running but my one goal was to make sure New Guy didn't win. I don't think he did, but since I was running late, causing a pissed off wife at home, I didn't stay long enough to hear the final rankings.

And thus ended my bitter-sweet day of good games with not so good company.

Nothing ruins a good game like other people. Citadels is one I'll never get rid of. I've played a lot of similar role selection games, but Citadels is still king.

Have you Citadels fans tried Mascarade? I'm a huge fan. A bit more chaotic and silly with a somewhat misunderstood serious head-game hiding under the surface. You have to get into the head-game and take the game seriously to make it really thrive and most groups don't seem to get it. Love it though when you find the right people. Many more fun/laughable/dickish moments than Citadels.

I've played Masquerade a handful of times. For role selection I still prefer Citadels. For the bluffing part I really like Coup. Masquerade I felt took parts of each but just didn't quite do it for me.

I've played it once and it didn't really leave an impression on me one way or the other. My only gripe was that the art, which is amazing, is left hidden most of the game. The definitive '7' I guess in that I wouldn't run from a game but I also would run towards.

trif wrote:

Dr. Mabuse wrote:

Legomancer wrote: Last night was Marrying Mr. Darcy, bitches!

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That sounds like a really fun and unusual game!

I actually had a copy of it in my hands on Saturday - should have picked it up.

I played it once and wasn't a fan. Way too long a game for as few choices you get to make. Way too few choices for them to be as uninteresting as they are. If you've ever played Gloom, it's more or less a more narrow Gloom.