What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Green Lantern wrote:

Msample wrote: Setting matters for sure, and the Western setting for me is not really appealing.

<checks out Msample's avatar> Come again?

He just enjoys Deadwood for the sophisticated dialogue.

My Trashfest write-up, which I'm cross-posting to that thread. Mike=Egg Shen.

Trashfest Northeast 2014

Has it been a whole year since the inaugural Trashfest? It has, and I was there on Saturday to partake.

I headed down to Connecticut and met up with some folks I already knew, plus met some other folks.



I started out with what I consider to be a tradition: Ascending Empires on Jeff's super de-luxe board. It's a beautiful thing, this plexiglass wonder that his wife got made, and I have been tempted to just hand him a credit card and say, "I don't want to know the details, just make this happen for me." I tried a mining strategy that might have gotten me a win if I'd committed to it more.



Next I played Theseus: The Dark Orbit with Mike. I hadn't played as the aliens in a while, and Mike throwing up a firewall and then enhancing it made my life a living hell. Towards the end of the game I finally started to get something going, but it was far too late and I got crushed. It was a nice reminder of how much I enjoy this game, though, and I need to get it played more.



Next I played one that was new to me, Moongha Invaders, a game about giant monsters and the mad scientists who love them. It was a lot of fun, though we only had three and it's best with four, where the mayhem really ramps up. It's unfortunately out of print and the subject of a long-delayed and lamentable Kickstarter, but I'd love to get my hands on this.



The next game I played was perfect for Trashfest. I met Mindy, who really likes Agricola, a game about farming. The thing about Agricola is, there are all these decks you can play it with that change the game some, one of which is The X-Deck , a deck full of aliens and goofiness. Mindy's problem is that fans of Agricola don't like the wacky shenanigans and fans of wacky shenanigans don't like Agricola. I'm not a fan of Agricola, but I was definitely down for the aliens decks. During our game we found alien poop that helped grow crops, someone's animals got shrunk, alien Tripods demanded tribute, Mindy's farmer got drafted into the rebellion against the evil galactic empire, and I got Woozles, which were Tribbles, which I had to feed, or else they'd run off and lose me points. But I fed the damn Woozles and they got me beaucoup points at the end, tying me for first place! In addition to enjoying the extraterrestrial happenings, I also enjoyed this game of Agricola more, as I finally felt like I had a handle on building my farm, despite having to give tribute to the Tripods every turn.

Next came dinner, for which the wife of the event's organizer had prepared a fantastic taco bar that was like heaven.



After stuffing my face, I taught Mike and Mindy Imperial Settlers. I had a good game as the Japanese, but they picked it up fast and the game was close. I think they both enjoyed it.



Mike finally extricated himself from me and for the last game I taught Paul(? I think?) and his son Ethan how to play The New Era. This is a tough game to both teach and learn, and I had all the expansions mixed in, so I imagined we'd play a few rounds and they'd get a feel for it. Instead they both picked it up FAST. Ethan especially had a sweet engine running in no time, totally twigging to how the cards worked together. We ended up finishing the whole game with a very tight score as a result. I think they dug the game.

After that I headed out, not having locked my keys in my car this time.

I only played one new-to-me game, but I had a great time with all the folks there. I saw a bunch of things that I'd like to try out, such as Run, Fight, or Die, The Great Heartland Hauling Company, and Warfighter. I was sorry I didn't get to play games with all the folks I knew there, and I was really hoping to get in a game of Marrying Mr. Darcy with that crowd. There's always Trashfest 2015, though!

Lego, Nice Trashfest write up and nice game photos. I wish i took or somebody else took some more people photos. Because the games at Trashfest are great but the gamers are even better.

KingPut wrote: Lego, Nice Trashfest write up and nice game photos. I wish i took or somebody else took some more people photos. Because the games at Trashfest are great but the gamers are even better.

This.

I shoulda taken more pics but I tend to be wary of taking other peoples' photos. Not only does it steal their souls, I've encountered folks who really would rather not have their pics on Twitter or whatever. So I tend to just take pics of the game I'm playing.

Another SeaFall game last night. Rob's made a change which really opens the game up for me. Unfortunately it's required other things to break, but it's a direction I like, and he'll get it fixed.

The important thing is, we unlocked something that is one of the coolest ideas I've ever seen in a game. I don't want to say anything because it's one of the first spoilers I've ever encountered that truly will spoil the game if you know it in advance. I can't wait to keep an eye on the SeaFall page on BGG and see posts pop up as people encounter it. I think you guys are going to love it.

Got to introduce the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game to Jeff White and one of our other Blood Bowl players last night. Jeff was the cleric, our buddy Mike was the fighter and I was the bard. We played through the first two scenarios from the base and won both with ease, crushing everything in sight. I hope we'll be able to play again, I've never even gotten to play the Adventure Pack 1 that comes with the game yet.

Way, WAY late to the party. I bought a copy of Star Trek: Attack Wing a couple of months ago, and my coworker neighbor had bought a copy of X-Wing a while back. Finally, the two of us got to break them out and give them a try.

Without going into the gory noob details, the upshot was that I liked mine, and he liked his, but we would both play either again. The introductory X-Wing and TIE Fighters looked a lot better than the ST:AW pieces, which I know has been brought up in here before. The ST:AW fights felt a lot more violent, since they hit harder and defend more weakly than X-Wing pieces. But again, we both liked it, and I think I could talk him into playing again.

I guess the plan now is to try to talk the other guy into buying his, and me buying a couple for 2v2. My boss's boss has a second X-Wing set in his office, but I wouldn't mind seeing some different stuff on the board.

metalface13 wrote: Got to introduce the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game to Jeff White and one of our other Blood Bowl players last night. Jeff was the cleric, our buddy Mike was the fighter and I was the bard. We played through the first two scenarios from the base and won both with ease, crushing everything in sight. I hope we'll be able to play again, I've never even gotten to play the Adventure Pack 1 that comes with the game yet.

Yeah, don't worry about the low difficulty, they get harder but (IMHO) they ramp up too slowly. People thought every scenario was a pushover, which I did not find.

Gary Sax wrote:

metalface13 wrote: Got to introduce the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game to Jeff White and one of our other Blood Bowl players last night. Jeff was the cleric, our buddy Mike was the fighter and I was the bard. We played through the first two scenarios from the base and won both with ease, crushing everything in sight. I hope we'll be able to play again, I've never even gotten to play the Adventure Pack 1 that comes with the game yet.

Yeah, don't worry about the low difficulty, they get harder but (IMHO) they ramp up too slowly. People thought every scenario was a pushover, which I did not find.

Jeff and Mike picked their characters, I dealt myself at random. I wish I had picked on of the expansion characters though, haven't played with them yet either.

A couple times a year I get a hankering to play Arkham Horror, and a couple days ago I made it happen. I played the shit out of this game in college, so I know all the rules and I'm used to playing with people who also know the rules. Unfortunately, this time a guy in our regular group just couldn't seem to pay attention to anyone else's turn—but also wanted to be the one to do all the important stuff. It killed it for everyone else at the table. We had been waffling about removing from the game group because his inattention is more of the rule than the exception, and I think that this two and a half hour slog to an easy loss pushed it over the edge. I still like Arkham a lot as long as it remains an occasional indulgence, but I really don't ever want to have to teach it again.

That same night I played Dead of Winter for the first time on a friend's copy. I liked the game well enough, and would play it again, but would never buy it myself. I don't think I like the semi-cooperative thing very much. I don't feel like I was given enough of a reason to want to hoard medicine just to dick over the other people in the colony. If the colony goes, we all die anyway, right? I haven't played Archipelago but it sounds like it has a better justification for the semi-cooperativeness. Finally, I know Plaid Hat was trying to cash in on the zombie thing, but I would have appreciated a different setting. So tired.

Also, since I don't know what other thread to put this in: I passed on an unpunched copy of Wooden Ships and Iron Men sitting on the shelf at the thrift store. I knew I wouldn't get it played and didn't want to buy it just to look at it.

Wooden Ships & Iron Men will still be there next week. It's a good game and very simple to learn, but they printed about 150,000 of them so they aren't that hard to come by. Plays 1 to 99 players effectively and the play time does not increase much with additional players.

S.

FINALLY! got to win as the US at Twilight Struggle (F2F), actually I say finally this was game 3 against my local opponent, and in each game I've weathered the early war very well, in Game 1 I was ahead in the mid war, but my position was obviously paper thin because a few scoring cards later and I was wargamed on my ass. Game 2 was a blowout, even though fairly even after EW, again, scoring went wrong in every way possible and just got worse, lost on VP before the late war I think. Tonight, I rode out final scoring to win by a single sweaty 1VP, I guess him having to flip me the China card was the point (if hed not used it, I would have won anyway), I still do not understand where the late war power comes from for the USA, once again I was ahead early and mid, I think I got up to 12 VP in the early late war, so I mean, at that point, it was coasting, and I had blue everywhere. This time I'd steamrollered through Asia early, and even though I'd fallen for the Blockade trap in West Germany, I held onto Italy ferociously, and later surrounded it to keep him away from Europe domination. I kept hanging in for the Middle East, I might even have got domination there early on, before later just barely getting back in. Still problems with central and south america, and africa but to be honest, I had quite a lot of spread of influence there. I actually don't know what I'm doing so fundamentally wrong, this time I used OPS a lot more, not scared of events, space raced less, had more idea where to be careful, fought better the key countries, spread influence out quickly so he couldnt just wipe me out tit for tat style. I think I even Red Scare/Purged him twice in the early to mid war. I mean, if this wasnt a US blowout, what hope do I have!

In the final turn he had Brezhnev Doctrine AND red scare, so he was on +1 ops and me -1, and I had a hand of all 2 or 1 cards plus Destalinization or Decol (the one where he can move 4 IP). Painful, he was throwing influence round like a giddy idiot, but I still had good board presence, so THANK FUCK I HAD VOICE OF AMERICA. Yes, saved to the end, take that you bastard! A couple of points ripped out of South America, and returning control of India, domination of Asia and South America was mine to offset his gains in Central America and Middle East, and I won by a single point. 3 and a half hours of constant tension. Several misplays for sure, but generally speaking, I am still struggling to see why the Late War is killing me, I am drawing red events all the time, and I'm not seeing where the US hammer is coming from. Maybe its just bad card draws, I mean its only 2 games we got into the late war properly.

Anyway, I'm off to masturbate to a picture of Margaret Thatcher now while drinking bourbon and wearing a moulded rubber Ronald Reagan mask.

Hit up the meetup group that I haven't been to in awhile last night.

Started off with Claustrophobia: Furor Sanguinis, which rocked of course. About ready to write my review now. I let the other guy control Kartikeya since I'd had the opportunity to play him multiple times already. Really dig the scenarios in the expansion as they're all pretty interesting and unique. I ended up winning a close game as I tore him up over a couple of rounds by triggering timely Deadly Destiny events.

Next I moved onto a 4 player game of Xia. This game will just downright piss people off but it will make others squee with joy on the inside. It's roll and move (Formula De-style with bigger engines giving bigger dice), it's random as all hell, and it's completely unforgiving. It has this horrific rule where if you die with a Tier 2 ship you sit out 1 turn and if you die with a Tier 3 ship you sit out 2 turns. The game has enough downtime that I had to watch for about 15 minutes when I sat out one turn near the end of the game. Completely brutal and un-fun and I will house-rule that.

The artwork is amazing, I'm a huge fan of the exploration and the ability to blind jump into the sector and risk blowing up, dieing is completely soft besides the skipping turns thing and I died five time throughout the game yet still nearly won. Everything is a D20 roll and it's quite random. If you're mining asteroids, you succeed on a 4+, on a 1-3 you just die. It's crazy and ridiculous yet the randomness and bizarre events totally make the game as the most memorable moments were when I hauled ass through a planetary shield to cut my travel distance down by half, the thing lit me up and my freighter exploded in a million pieces. Everyone was laughing and since it was only my Tier 1 ship I wasn't too pissed as I didn't lose much of anything. Those moments just kind of organically occur due to the wide range of results and it's entertaining in a grandiose, trashy sort of way. It feels very old school and the game doesn't coddle you.

The best thing about the game is that every single ship is different. Imagine in Merchants and Marauders you have like 10 different sloops, 10 different Frigates, etc. Each with a special ability and uniquely shaped hold. The hold's are awesome because if you buy shields, or an engine, or weapons, you have to fit the tetris-shaped pieces into your ship's hold. It's kind of like messing with a simpler version of your inventory in Diablo 2, although your hold is not typically perfectly square like the bag in Diablo. You have funky ships that are long and skinny, others with gaps or odd designs. This is hot shit and my favorite part of the game.

Funny enough I was checking my email when I was sitting out my turn and Cody had actually gotten back to me on a review copy request I sent him over a month ago. So now I have a copy en route and will be giving it a review. Think my group will enjoy it.

We finished up the night with Tiny Epic Kingdoms. I won this in the BGG contest so had no vested interest besides "I'll give this a shot", and I enjoyed it. It's nothing special and stripping a 4x game down to a micro game-size does tend to remove some of my favorite elements, but it's certainly fine and a solid design. I'd give it around a 6.

I hung out with WKover at Euroquest last night. Euroquest is the Game Club of Maryland's Ode to Essen and all things good and Euroey in the gaming world. So I made sure we played Catacombs and Coconuts to balance out playing Age of Industry and Imperial Settlers. Imperial Settlers ended up an aborted game because the guy teaching it game me the Egyptian board and the Barbarian deck of cards and the Barbarian had just the opposite. It was pretty funny to see the Egyptian play growing forests on the Nile while the Barbarian player was building the pyramids. Overall, I don't think I loved or hated Imperial Settlers. I 'd give it a 6 on TOS kind of reminded me of 7 wonders.