What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Black Barney wrote: in the end we're all just killing time

amen!

though I don't particularly wish I'd spent the last few years being better with guitar or reading more books, but a) I wish I'd had access to the free time and friends group to get the most out of actually playing and experiencing games instead of this vicarious bullshit of reading, talking, researching, buying, selling games. So its got fuck all to do with thinking that having a mastery of the works of Dostoevsky being "better" than playing games, but "pretending to play games while really doing little more than reading about other people playing games" is more likely to make you feel a little bit morose about what the fucking hell was the point of that. I mean even the great stuff you read or discuss is still a poor substitute for actually having made your own experiences. For me, thats been the tough thing, I didnt discover this huge swathe of games culture at the time when I could have properly dived in myself, so I've spent an obsessive and ridiculous amount of hours in the hobby the last few years, with *relatively little* actually playing the fucking things. I mean, thankfully I have a wife who's into it, so I have had a decent crack 2P at a fair few games, and a bit online, but I think thats the sad thing for me, and it feels like this is not an unusual feeling, middle aged guys pinining a bit for the time and freedom they had, and finding an interest that would have been better served in those earlier years and then kind of trying to fill in the blanks later.

But I mean, like Jeff, life is good, it's nothing to take too seriously - only that this forum is relevant to the specific examples about the board gaming hobby, so thats where it gets aired. In the grand scheme of things, yeah, its a shame I just missed out on seeing the boom in the hobby when I had the time and energy to ride along with it, but thats OK. I was plenty busy enough chasing tail like the rest of you and wasting my time in other more entertaining ways, so its not an appeal for sympathy or something, which is often the impression I get reading responses to Jeffs kinds of post.

played Ogre, the the cheap baggie edition. Never played Ogre before. I am a big hex and counter war gamer, but im not sure what people see in this game. Its alright i suppose, but it really just boils down to picking an optimal path through the defenders, or setting up your dudes to get max fire power on the ogre. Didn't think it was that interesting in the basic scenario.

I don't understand why so many people seem to feel guilty about owning a bunch of games. Everyone ELSE's hobby sounds dumb to other people. My dad spends tons of money in pursuit of shooting elk. Not my scene but if he wants to do that, whatever.

Just have fun doing what you want to do while you can do it.

Last night we played Elder Sign. This was the first time with the Unseen Forces expansion. It adds and changes in subtle ways and I'm comfortable saying that if you enjoy the base game you'll want the expansion. We won against Shub-Niggurath in just about the last possible roll before everyone was devoured. Down to the wire is the absolute best way to win.

hotseatgames wrote: I don't understand why so many people seem to feel guilty about owning a bunch of games. Everyone ELSE's hobby sounds dumb to other people. My dad spends tons of money in pursuit of shooting elk. Not my scene but if he wants to do that, whatever.

Just have fun doing what you want to do while you can do it.

Last night we played Elder Sign. This was the first time with the Unseen Forces expansion. It adds and changes in subtle ways and I'm comfortable saying that if you enjoy the base game you'll want the expansion. We won against Shub-Niggurath in just about the last possible roll before everyone was devoured. Down to the wire is the absolute best way to win.

I dont think anyone is feeling particularly guilty, but most people at some point think about what they do or dont do, have done or didnt do with their time.

I personally think owning a bunch of stuff you dont ever use is immoral, but not many people have the cojones to live a life thats truly worthy and spend all their time selflessly making the lives of others better at the expense of material gain. But I couldnt give a flying fuck about discussing that with anyone or trying to argue the point. its as irrelevant to me as this post should be to anyone else.

Been doin' wargames recently.

Right Fierce and Terrible, and some Flashpoint: Golan scenarios.

The first was interesting, the latter always feels like too much
for me.

Vids are up for both over at tgb

Isn't Flashpoint Golan considered a touchstone for modern combat type games? I feel like a lot of people on CSW used to say that kind of stuff.

Though, IIRC, it has like 1,000 segments of air combat or something. There was something specific about it that was unusual in its sim of modern combat...

Today I met up with one of my Attack Wing Buds to play some casual games...You know, make use of the dozens of scenarios we've accumulated from the ship packs. We both picked a scenario to play a few days ago and came with prepared fleets for both sides.

These games had such a different vibe. We both came with thematic builds semi-appropriate to the scenario. And the asymmetric goals that weren't "Kill your opponent" was such a nice change. We've decided to make it a point to try to meet up every few weeks for some more of these. The more I play the more I'm realizing that these scenarios in a casual environment is how the game should be played.

VonTush wrote: Today I met up with one of my Attack Wing Buds to play some casual games...You know, make use of the dozens of scenarios we've accumulated from the ship packs. We both picked a scenario to play a few days ago and came with prepared fleets for both sides.

These games had such a different vibe. We both came with thematic builds semi-appropriate to the scenario. And the asymmetric goals that weren't "Kill your opponent" was such a nice change. We've decided to make it a point to try to meet up every few weeks for some more of these. The more I play the more I'm realizing that these scenarios in a casual environment is how the game should be played.

Fly casual, you don't always have to fly so tight.

Setup and started playing Somme 1918 from Nuts publishing. Gave up after slightly under 1 turn. On the sale/trade pile. Good ww1 sim, tedious game. Overly complex for what amounts to lots of attrition and randomness. [url=http://http://lestradesgame.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/somme-1918-review-of-sorts.html]http://lestradesgame.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/somme-1918-review-of-sorts.html[/url] for a list of complaints.

The new Kremlin has been hitting the table lots with my regular group. That's roleplayers for you. Any excuse to shout a lot.

I got to play Valley of the Kings twice this weekend, once as two-player, once as four. We had a good, close game in the 2P, but with the group of four, one guy won by a lot. The rest of us had pretty miserable scores, and there was much grumbling about the game not being balanced. To me, it was just that three of us sucked at the game and one of us figured it out quicker. Even if I'm right, that makes it a difficult game to get played, because new players don't understand what they're doing wrong (leaving powerful cards for others to buy is the biggest mistake I think, when you have 4/10 of your starting cards designed to deny/destroy cards). It's a shame because I love clever, small games. The whole thing fits in a deck box, and has more interesting things going on than in any of Dominion, Ascension or Star Realms (the other deck building games I'm passing familiar with).

Then we played Alien Frontiers, and I was the one left feeling it wasn't well balanced. You start with three dice (which are your workers that you place) and if you roll a double, and have the resources, you can get another die to place. You can get up to six dice*, and most places on the board benefit from sets or runs of die values, so more is always better as well as more.

I got my only resources stolen on the first turn, and the only double I rolled for the next two hours was on the second turn, when I had no resources. That left me with three dice for the whole game when everyone else was rolling six. It felt like Sorry, when you never draw a 1 or 2 or whatever it is you need to get started. I thought I did OK given that, but I was set back from the start. Then the "end game" in this game actually takes over an hour, and even the guy who owned the game was frustrated at not being able to close it out. I probably need to give it another shot, but I think I prefer Euphoria, because that game can't go on too long as it has a firmer end-game timer (and I think you can do more with less in that game also, due to the risk of having too many worker dice). There are ways to get stuff that can help you to manipulate your dice so you can get the numbers you need, but you may as well be saying "I'll just take a three turn penalty and start after you guys."

*You can roll seven dice if you control one of the areas.

So I was left pondering games in general and that hump of understanding the game enough to see the paths to victory, not just learning the rules. When I'm taught a new game, it sometimes feels like I'm just there to be a fleshy AI bot for the guy who wants to play the game.

metalface13 wrote:

Black Barney wrote: in the end we're all just killing time

... or is time killing us?

– Deep Thoughts by metalface

Or is a killer timing us?

Drunken Thoughts by ThirstyMan

VonTush wrote: These games had such a different vibe.

That's the vibe I'm generally looking for when I play.

This is part of the turn-off I have with a lot of these kinds of games. I don't like the equal-points kinds of play because invariably someone at the table has read something on the Internet that tells them the exact set of pieces to get the most oomph out of the total, and I just don't care. With the Star Trek theme it would seem to me you'd pick your home faction and go with it, whether it was the best or not. You might have a favorite ship or two. I much prefer the idea of working up a scenario on the spot (or replicating one from history via Wooden Ships & Iron Men or Sails of Glory) and seeing how you can do given the circumstances.

Now my oldest boy, he lives for that honing shit. It's all about finding the seam in the rules and never deviating from it. Drives me nuts to play him in Summoner Wars when he walls himself into a corner.

S.

This weekend I got to play Battle At Kemble's Cascade. I've been tracking with some of the conversation that's been floating around this thread about that game, so when Z-Man sent me a copy I was a little concerned that it might be a game that doesn't fit me very well. I do sort of see what Barnes is saying, in that it's more process-heavy than its setting would indicate. It's not a run-and-gun game at all. It's a lot more focused on making a good move and getting you to consider board position. The rules are less complex than I actually expected, though it's hardly something that'll get sold at Target. Given how esoteric shmups are as a video game genre these days, I'm not sure that's a big loss.

As for the game itself, I did like it quite a bit. Since we were all learning there were some slow moments. It probably took us two hours to get through the whole thing, but I imagine a good 30 minutes of that would get lopped off with some experience. If someone wants to get a 1:1 approximation of a shmup they will likely be disappointed. It's not at all twitchy, but neither is it brain-burning. It does have a touch of optimization, but that doesn't bother me.

Two elements bother me. First of all, the endgame in our session felt pretty anticlimactic. We had a boss who was only one row, and we dealt with him pretty handily. It almost felt like the game just needed some way to end, and that was as good a way as any. That might get better with more experience though, and anyway I'm not sure what would have worked better. The other bugaboo was the achievements, which I believe others have harped on as well. It's not that I don't like the idea of them in a video-game-based board game, but it's very easy to forget about them and not realize you've already achieved something.

I think it was Legomancer who pointed out that the setting might be creating some false expectations of what kind of game it is. I'm still trying to think if that's a liability or not. On one hand I feel like a game should deliver on its premise, but I think what's happening here is that it actually is doing just that, but not in the way I necessarily expected.

But the next step is to figure out how to take the game on its own terms. What we have so far is actually pretty promising, and has the benefit of being like nothing else I own.

JEM wrote: So I was left pondering games in general and that hump of understanding the game enough to see the paths to victory, not just learning the rules. When I'm taught a new game, it sometimes feels like I'm just there to be a fleshy AI bot for the guy who wants to play the game.

Yes, exactly.