What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

I actually played Bohnanza with a family the other night. We played open-handed to help teach the kids. It worked surprisingly well. I do love that game.

Last night featured our household's version of a table flip. We played Splendor again a couple times, and I won pretty comfortably in them all. My spouse then decided that we needed to continue to keep playing until she "solved" the game and beat me once. We played about 10 times, and I won every single one, though if she had played a bit more cutthroat by picking up a card I clearly needed in one game she would have won. After game 10 and 10:30PM I said I was done, she had decided that she was an idiot because she couldn't win at Splendor, and no one was happy.

Gaming. Special thanks go out to my inlaws, for being such fucking assholes throughout her entire childhood so as to make her think losing at any game means she is stupid.

So you didn't use the classic "it's not that you're stupid, Honey. It's just that I'm a god damn genius!"?

Seriously though, if losing games makes a person stupid, then I'm pretty dumb. I never win anything.

That's my reaction, repoman, but you get hit early and often enough with a message I guess it sticks.

We played a few games of Forlorn Hope. I played the Aliens and my son played the Space Marines. I lost one game and won the other. One game was truly epic because my son forgot about the grenade explosion rules whilst tossing a grenade at close distance and ended up blowing up his LT whom I devoured on my turn and evolved into a Blaster.

Spent a much-needed game day with some amazing friends. Played two MAGIC THE GATHERING drafts using Magic 2015 and then um... I forget the name of the set but it did all sorts of cool things with drafting and having cards in your play area at the beginning of the game.

I also got into my first Magic fight in more than two decades and I remember why I gave up playing casual magic back then. It's fine and we're good friends so there's no hard feelings but Magic tends to do this. I had a creature that could force creatures to attack and I announced that i had played him. Once I realized my opponents were either attacking or ending their turn, i would tell them, I'm forcing a creature to attack. One of them flipped out saying he was in his 2nd main phase (giving no indication he had ever left his first main phase) saying he wouldn't have played like this. I told him he's not supposed to know I have the intention to use it, the onus is on the targeted played to offer me the classic, "i'm about to enter my attack phase" to see if I want to do it. Otherwise he knows I will do it and will change how he plays his main phase. The rules seem clear on this. Anyway, it was ugly and uncomfortable and I remember getting into tons of these situations playing Magic in my late teens, getting my decks thrown clear across the room from frustrated opponents. I like playing it digitally, and that's it.

The good news is this is the first time competitive Black Barney has shown up in MONTHS and my friends say that they have missed him terribly. Like I got totally mana-flooded in one game, getting ALL ten of my islands and all by two of my swamps by MID GAME. It was hilarious. i think at one point there was 14 in a row. I never complained, I never looked bothered. My partner (we were playing 2v2) was going nuts but he was holding onto us surviving way longer than we normally do. After that he gave me props for not even showing any signs of frustration from something that would have made his brother scoop after 4-6 turns of land draws. I told him i can't wait for the day when I'm happy enough with life that I can get mad about getting mana flooded again. I have so much crap going on right now that's constantly on my mind that I can't even begin to get affected emotionally from drawing too much land. When I do get mad at that one day, it'll be because I'm happy with life again and don't have anything else bothering me so mana flooding will have to do.

Played a single game of SEVEN WONDERS. Yeah, I'm getting to be less of a fan. What I love so much about Puerto Rico is that it is purely a tactical game. You make the best decision you can each turn and whoever makes the best decisions wins. You don't need to have a real strategy and, in fact, that can hurt you since it will reduce your flexibility. 7 WONDERS, on the other hand, presents itself like a tactical game but you absolutely need a strategy and you need to stick to it or you immediately diminish the value of all choices you made early. I don't like how married you are to the wonder you're stuck with and such. Maybe I'm not much of a drafting fan but I dunno, it just isn't overly interesting to me and I've played the game plenty by now to have dug as deep as I think i can. I'll still play it cuz it's nice and light but I'm continuously blown out my military and science strategies. I just lack discipline I think to be good at this game.

Repo and I played another game of Battle of Five Armies today. Neither of us are willing to give a definitive verdict on it yet, though we did enjoy it more this time around and I think it's quite good at the very least.

It seems that the basic gist of the game is that the FPs need to hold out until they can get the Eagles and Beorn. Which is accurate to the story, so great job there. All of the thematic bits are really great, they make sense and, more importantly, are fun.

Still two concerns...First is whether or not it plays out the same way everytime you play it. It is a little more scripted than WotR. It's like a fantasy version of the Bulge, the guaranteed variations in the game being what units you get (since reinforcements are random in this) and your cards. Is that enough to change things game to game? Only one way to find out.

Other concern is the FPs player not having much to do other than take it on the chin while waiting for the Eagles and Beorn. This one could be inexperience. I suppose you could take your chances on trying to repel certain groups of invaders, but you could lose the game if you totally blow it. Can't say too much as I have yet to play the FPs. One thing I will say though is that both players are quite affected by the arrival of the goblins. The way they work is really great, totally unreliable but they can be quite powerful if they do what you want them to.

One thing is now certain and that's that this is not the same game as WotR. There are some substantial differences both mechanically and in the overall flow of play. The action dice mechanics still run the show, but what they took out or changed have been replaced with some really cool new systems. I don't think anything really works better or worse in either game, they're just different.

Played some Pathfinder solo today with two characters. I get there is not a lot of variety in the gameplay at times and the endgame is too samey, but MAN does it capture the differences between characters with a simple system. The Paladin was tanking damage like crazy while the wizard was exhausting himself casting nasty spells, until finally he died by casting a spell he couldn't roll to recharge near the end, which left him reaching for another card he didn't have.

Last night, we have a lock-in for the scouts at church. During the event, we played a series of games:

Loupin' Louie--the scouts loved playing this game. They got so excited and they'd hit the levers too hard so their chickens often flew the coop. Has anyone experimented with putting lubricant on the parts of the biplane, lever, etc. in an attempt to make Loupin' Louie more reactive? My copy of this game may be getting worn because Louie hasn't been looping as much as he usually does.

Werewolf--Over the past year, I've gone through several copies of Ultimate Werewolf: Revised Edition (2014)--I have given away two copies to boys who've asked to take the game home after playing it. I sleeve the cards and put them in plastic top loaders so the scouts don't bend up the cards which helps. The scouts enjoy playing this game and they usually assemble in a group of 15. I've tutored several boy scouts in our troop to act as moderators so I don't have to always moderate their games. They played for two hours and it was funny to listen to their gameplay. I, again, gave away my copy of the game so I'll have to buy it yet again.

Coup--We played several 4 player games of Coup. The boys like this one more than I do and they were able to capture the bluffing aspect immediately and absorb the simple rules within 5 minutes. I don't think that I want to play poker with some of these kids because their good at bluffing and calling.

Maximum Throwdown--we played three sessions of 6 player Maximum Throwdown. I expected more from this dexterity game. It was a let down. This was the first time that I was able to get the scouts to play it. Gameplay was tedious and boring. Frankly, keeping track of all of the symbols on the cards was cumbersome. No one was very good at throwing the cards. I don't think I'll play this one again because it wasn't much fun or exciting. The scouts liked the images on the back of the cards more than the overall gameplay. A better dexterity game is needed. I'm tossing this one.

Great game day again today. Three games of Netrunner. The decks were not my favorite, but they are also not my cards so I can't complain too much.

Played one quick 50-point game of X-Wing. My store is going to be doing demos soon so that should be fun to get people interested.

Came home and played our new copy of Relic Runners. This was a great little game of route-building and pickup/deliver disguised in a very clever package. Worked very well with 2 so it will get more plays for sure.

Finished off with Oregon. Barnes needs a copy of this. Awesome game for the ERP.

Yesterday we played Abyss. BEAUTIFUL artwork. I really liked the card management. Not an A+, but a solid B that I'm happy to keep and play. Horrendously overpriced for what you get in the box however.

Today after sitting on the shelf for far too long I managed to get Der Pate onto the table. Damn, why haven't I played this game sooner? Permashelved!

It hits so many boxes for what I want. Some light strategy, but those plans can be altered by the dice, ways (both very direct and more subtle) to mess with your opponents, hidden cash totals so you can't just sit back crunching numbers and drives a bit of light negotiation. All place in a great setting. And plays in 60-90 mins.

I need to create some paste-ups for the boards though. I think the German made the game more opaque than it should have been at first and it kind of takes you out of the setting a bit.

Got in an epic day of AT gaming on Saturday, hosted by Delobius of F:AT.

Age of War: This is basically Samurai Yahtzee, except that there is a bit of a set collection element and you can try to steal castles from opposing players. It was a light game, but moved at a brisk pace even with six players. I won the first game, and everybody had enough fun that we immediately played a second game. Nice mixture of luck and strategy with some interaction between the players. Would make a fine drinking game, too.

Paranoia Mandatory Bonus Fun Card Game: This brutal take-that card game almost perfectly distills the experience of an entire Paranoia rpg campaign down to a few hours of card player. Because we had six players, I cut down the clone tokens to 4 per player, and that turned out to be just right. The final mission was especially wild and chaotic and ended with a king-making choice by one of the weakest characters. Awesome fun.

Death Angel: At least half were new to the game, so we struggled some with tactics, but still managed to pull out a victory with just three space marines left alive. It was a bit of an adjustment for some players to get out of the backstabbing Paranoia mindset and into the co-op spirit of Death Angel.

Runewars: Epic game with four players. Our map set-up was oddly sprawling, with only three hexes at the middle that weren't on the edge of the map. This could have led to some serious turtling, but instead we saw lots of fighting in the center of the board. This was my first time playing, and Runewars struck me as a very derivative game, borrowing ideas from all over the place, especially Twilight Imperium. And yet the game deftly mixes those disparate mechanics and ideas together into a very workable game. Nobody gathered six runes until the end of the sixth year, so we played out a full-length game over the course of about six hours. Delobius won with the human faction. I like Runewars, but I didn't love it, so it seemed like the game outstayed its welcome by an hour or so. Lowering the victory condition to five or even four runes would make a better game without sacrificing anything.

Now that is a game day.

I've been playing Adventure Time: Card Wars. We house ruled the shit out of it to be like the iOS version, which is more fun.

Over the Ney Years' weekend it was:

Legend of Drizzt - I have two brothers that will play that sort of game, and one that will not. The one that would play it had come to visit, and insisted on it. I was kind of hoping to get Sons of Anarchy in, but Legend of Drizzt was good as well. We did two scenarios from the scenario guide, and won both of them.

King of Tokyo - I got to game with the coworkers the next day, and we started off with a couple of games of this. We had never played 5-player before, and screwed up the 5-6 player rules a couple of times, but it was King of Tokyo, so nobody got too bent out of shape over rules mixups.

Firefly + Pirates & Bounty Hunters - All of us were late to the Firefly party, so we were wanting to give it a try. On the strength of one whole play, I would definitely play again, but would not play the game with more than four players. With five players there was a lot of downtime.

Puerto Rico - I ended up doing heavy shipping, which gave me just enough points to lose. The winner got three large buildings, and the other three didn't get close.

Splendor - two folks left, and we played a couple of games of this to wrap things up. Like Settlers of Catan, I evidently suck at this game. The fact that it's my copy makes it that much sadder.