What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Grudunza wrote: Another day at the Dallas Games Marathon. Got the chance to play a couple of games with Zev that he was considering for Z-Man. Don't want to be too specific about that, but the first one was a simple card game that was kind of fun, and the second seemed promising at first but really didn't go anywhere and seemed undeveloped.

Then I played a fun game called Onward to Venus, the latest from Martin Wallace. I never really had much interest in Wallace's games for many years... just seemed very dry and soulless to me from what I gathered, but regardless, I'm definitely appreciating his more recent offerings. In this one, you are vying for control of several planets, using a small army of rockets and infantry and tanks to influence and build factories and mines on planets. Ultimately, it's an area control game, but there's some decent interaction, a need for using your limited actions and timing effectively, and some basic combat with dice and card play. I really liked it, though apparently we got a couple of rules wrong, so I'm hoping to play it again tomorrow.

Also played OddVille, a small box Euro, vaguely reminiscent of Carcassonne. It was pretty good for what it is, I suppose.

I had hoped to touch base with you there, but I think we passed each other by. I did get to meet Zev though.

I was wondering if you were there. I'll be there again today from about noon to 4 pm or so.

stoic wrote:

Hex Sinister wrote: Played like six games of Defenders of the Realm. My opinion on this game has gone back and forth over the years but I'll say it's pretty good. I wouldn't mind adding some new characters but they are OOP and are expensive for what you get.

They have many of these expansions at www.Eaglegames.net .

Huh, I was just over there the other day and didn't find anything. Thanks.

@Gary - I'd heard Pandemic was supposed to be good but then DotR came out and opted for that. So I've never got to compare the two. Besides, I don't like pathogens.

Bad enough that KingPut is squeezing me into a corner in our turn by turn game, but then ventured out into a live Vassal game of Twilight Struggle, holy shit I got absolutely fucking battered by a guy who took the USA, winning on VP on the 9th turn, the scary thing is he took something like 8 minutes TOTAL, I Think I was up to 50 minutes or so, and I felt very very stressed for time. It didnt help that he Red Scared me twice, that once again I pulled all the scoring cards early when they didnt do anything and drew a swathe of US events just when they were worst for me. I also lost almost every coup and war (except one hilarious Brush War win in Thailand that ended up with me having 11 IP to 0 haha.) Not that this was the reason for the loss, but it probably added to the hopelessness of it all. A humbling experience though he did say I play "good for a beginner". Probably just being nice.
It must be nice to be that good at the game, on the other hand, he was literally playing cards near instantaneously so I wonder what he was getting out of it.

I've been getting a chance to play Room 25 lately, and it packs quite a bit of game into a true filler, that is meaty and satisfying. It's the movie "Cube" in board game form.

An excellent example of how good a traitor mechanism can be implemented, as the "suspicion" mode is the only way to play it. I've never had a game go longer than 40 mins, and when everyone is in the spirit, the entire game is full of lies and accusations. Odd that a search here brings up no chat about this at all.

In a five player game tonight, I was the only traitor (guard). Since all actions in the game are deliberately preprogrammed and simultaneous, its harder to blame bad luck for results that hurt another player, yet I was still accused by one person early on. I got the other three to kill him eventually since he flubbed a program and pushed a person into an unrevealed room. They all swore he was the ratfink.
Since all traitors win if two prisoners die, regardless if one of traitors die too during the course of the game, I didn't feel bad if they turned out to be a guard (he wasn't). 2 turns later I killed a second prisoner by convincing them one room was safe, when in fact it was instant incineration. With the second prisoner dead, game was over before the the exit room was revealed.
They were all convinced I killed the guard, until we all turned our allegiance tiles over to reveal I was the villainous scum. Much shouting and moaning ensued at this point. A successful game, and we were only 35 minutes into the evening.

Its even more fun to play something dry right afterwards. People are still recovering from the adrenaline jolt, so euros take an interesting confrontational spin as old betrayals are remembered.

I think I'll stick with my streamlined portable version of Room 25. There is plenty enough room to store the components from the season 2 expansion for suspicion mode without having to use the big box. Somehow, the slim box really works for this game.

I tried Brass last night. A really great, mind-melter of a game but I'll dwell on a few things about it that bugged me.

First, there's a completely unnecessary layer of rules complexity. It makes the game harder to learn/teach and really doesn't add anything to the game. I'd prefer it if it was more abstracted rather than trying to simulate the historical differences between shipping iron and coal, for example. And that fucking channel...

Second, adding up scoring is REALLY finicky. I think it'd be easy to mess that up.

Third, the last few turns feel more like cleanup as players scrounge for points with severely limited options. The game feels like it's already wrapped up but we're still there playing. Maybe the game would have a better crescendo if it ended a turn or two sooner when players are still deciding between actual options?

Fourth, those slippery plastic coin tokens suck. I think all four of us dropped at least one on the floor.

But now I'm nitpicking. I really did like it and hope to play again. (But I won't buy it because I don't want to be the one teaching it.)

Does Age of Industry solve any of your problems with Brass? I don't remember what it does that's simpler.

You know, honestly, I wish someone on F:AT would write a review of Brass and/or Age of Industry. For some reason they're exactly the type of games I'd like to try right now.

You've got me, Gary. I've had very limited experience with Martin Wallace games.

I'm pretty sure there are copies of Age of Industry and London sitting on my FLGS' clearance table. I should look into those.

Gary Sax wrote: Does Age of Industry solve any of your problems with Brass? I don't remember what it does that's simpler.

You know, honestly, I wish someone on F:AT would write a review of Brass and/or Age of Industry. For some reason they're exactly the type of games I'd like to try right now.

Ill throw together a blog post on brass sometime this week if you like. I sold my copy so I'll be writing from memory though.

That would be awesome!

Played a couple of games with F:AT's Erdulis recently. I finally got to play Twilight Struggle. The game itself is appealing, with a great theme and a nice structure, but I wasn't able to fully enjoy it because of the punishing difference in our respective skill levels. Game was over by mid-war with a VP win for the Americans. I would definitely like to play again sometime.

Game two was Kung Fu 2100, from the pre-Munchkin era at Steve Jackson Games. I played the hell out of this game back in the early '80s, so I replaced my combat tokens with sleeved cards. I won too easily with the good guys, forgetting that there was a learning curve to the strategy. It would have been a closer game if I had played two heroes instead of three for the standard scenario. Still fun, because of thematic feel of the rapid back-and-forth combat exchanges.

TS definitely rewards repeated plays. Hopefully against equal skilled players.

review post in the blog section Sax

hey so Friday evening I'm going to try a new gaming group. Will let you know how it goes. I secretly hope we only play poker but I'm sure some board games will see the light as well. Man, I hope we don't play King of Tokyo, everyone is obsessed with that game these days and it doesn't speak to me at all

If they don't know that you are into boardgames turn up with a visor and a 20 pack and complain about how lame and boring boredgames are until they just play poker.