What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Played a nice game of Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy last night. I ended up winning by 10-12 honor points. My family was much less sprawling than my opponent's and I was almost hamstrung at the beginning of the game by having no female friends. I overcompensated and was nearly out of it at the beginning of the 2nd generation when I was only having daughters; however, I had some strong synergies and created a French juggernaut that was raking in the honor at the end of the game. Coupled with resources provided by the Mexican taxman, it was a strong final engine that allowed me to build a nice Park in Paris and purchase a second mansion.

I was almost hamstrung at the beginning of the game by having no female friends.

That's what you get for raising a family of gamers.

I'd like to get a hold of that game again...there's some really neat stuff going on there.

I'd like to try Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy too, but, I'm afraid that I don't have a large enough playing surface. How bad is that problem with this game?

You don't need too much room. We played two-player games last night and it was probably on a table that was only 2 ft wide (maybe 2 1/2) -- we had the leaf folded up underneath.

There is definitely a lot of cool stuff -- really nice worker placement with never enough actions to do everything you want. Tons of decision points about what friends to cut loose while still trying to maintain combo potential within the family. The only negative for me would be that I think it ends a little arbitrarily.

Josh Look wrote: Time for me to weigh in on Imperial Assault.

I like it. I like it a whole lot. I like the campaign game. I like the skirmish game.

That's all I've got for you for now.

I would love to hear more about this -- so far, Barnes' take has really taken the excitement level down. I had considered it as a birthday present for my brother, but I don't know now.

Space Ghost wrote:

Josh Look wrote: Time for me to weigh in on Imperial Assault.

I like it. I like it a whole lot. I like the campaign game. I like the skirmish game.

That's all I've got for you for now.

I would love to hear more about this -- so far, Barnes' take has really taken the excitement level down. I had considered it as a birthday present for my brother, but I don't know now.

I just googled "Imperial Assault meh" and got 4,450,000 hits. A quick glance at the first page of links, and it was all unenthusiastic reviews.

I just created a Let's Talk Imperial Assault thread to try to collect all the scattered discussion about the game...And let's fact it, this is THE game to talk about right now I thinks.

It's interesting that at this site...

reactions to Dead of Winter among readers = largely lukewarm
reactions to Brimstone among reviewers = not so great
reactions to Imperial Assault = mostly bland

sometimes it ticks me off that all it takes is a couple Barnes comments to take the wind out of the excitement for (some) games they are going nuts about elsewhere.

I heard counter arguments about the three listed are all pretty good...

Brimstone i bailed on, DoW haven't played yet... IA, I will make work for me. It's fuckin' Star Wars.

I can only get excited about something if there's a photo of Summer Glau mixed in.

Including, and especially, forum posts.

For me, it has less to do with Barnes' comments and everything to do with a feeling of 'been there, done that'.

There's just a glut of '____'crawler boardgames lately...and they don't seem to do anything better than what AHQ and the like did 20 years ago.

*yawn*

Mr. White wrote: For me, it has less to do with Barnes' comments and everything to do with a feeling of 'been there, done that'.

There's just a glut of '____'crawler boardgames lately...and they don't seem to do anything better than what AHQ and the like did 20 years ago.

*yawn*

We're going to have to play AHQ some day. Never even played HeroQuest ...

Actually Barnes not liking Imperial Assault was the first time I became interested in it. We tend to have different tastes AT-wise, but similar Euro-wise. Unfortunately it does have the Star Wars theme instead of something more dungeon-crawl appropriate. Where's frakking DOOM: 2nd Edition you Asmodee bastards!

Black Barney wrote: I can only get excited about something if there's a photo of Summer Glau mixed in.

Including, and especially, forum posts.

I actually thought Summer Glau was a fucking drink

I love SoB, but it's hugely derivative of warhammer quest. IA is the 4th game in the doom/descent system. DoW is just one of those games like panic station. It works if you make it work, but if anyone isn't trying to hold the game together it falls apart. I'd say it has less to do with Barnes and more to do with these games being rehashes or underdeveloped. I can't think of a game from the past year that's got a lot of positive attention here other than thunder road.

double post