What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Andy, I would be your best friend and probably even buy you a drink next time I see you. I'll PM you my deets.

charlest wrote:

stormseeker75 wrote: I'm so unsure on Roll for the Galaxy. I liked Race, but it felt very Military dependent. This appears to take a confusing game and make it even tougher. I can't fathom teaching either. But I do love dice so I may just suck it up. I think I'd like to try before I buy.

I regret getting rid of Court of the Medici. They need to reprint that SOB.

You felt base Race was too military dependent? General consensus (including designers) is that military was too weak in the base game so the expansions fleshed it out and made it more viable.

Yup. I felt like you could dig for military in a 2-player and just roll with it. In a multi-player, probably not. However, most of my gaming is 2-player.

So my younger brother visits me for a week. And we played W40k: Conquest. Really enjoying this game. At first I was convinced that this was nothing like Netrunner, just a fun, basic unit-based card game. But it does mix in a good dose of bluffing and strategizing. A warlord can jump in the contested area, perform a taxi service or even deployed lonely in a remote planet just to get the command struggle and battle bonus (usually also misdirecting the enemy's warlord at the same time!).

But of course, the highlight was when what seemed to me like a Chaos god crawled around. She got three tokens and two cards. I let her play with them for a while, and nothing was damaged. And we finished the game to boot!

More Fields of Arle with the spouse. I stand by my comments---favorite Rosenberg game because it's so uncompetitive and there are a lot of engine options. I can see that the max point scoring routes are really channeling your toward a few big epic buildings and finished products, but it's still a fun sandbox. Shit, my wife doesn't even play to win. Very relaxing, but via a great puzzle in an ungame way. I tried going a strange route using forests and it worked really well, I almost matched my max score accomplished by going all out weaving and textiles shipping.

4 player game of Imperial Settlers. I was Romans and we all got pounded by Egyptians. I enjoyed it, there's some clever stuff going on and it's well designed. I certainly didn't love it though and I don't know how long I see this staying in my collection. Thought it went a little too long (close to 2 hours) and I remember thinking I'd ultimately rather be playing Glory to Rome. Will give it more plays before it leaves my shelf though.

4 player Legendary Encounters. My first time playing non-solo. We got fucked up but I loved it. I was impregnated from a goddamn Facehugger on my third turn of the game and died a glorious and embittered death. Table went on to lose near the final objective. Good times.

I ran across a small microgame on BGG randomly called SafeBreaker from North And South Games - a small publisher in the U.K. I requested a review copy and it showed up last night right before I left for the meetup. We pulled this out and played 4 total games and it was exceptional. Probably the best microgame I've played, no need to play Lost Legacy or Love Letter ever again. I'll be reviewing this one so I don't want to talk too much about it but everyone loved it.

I also got in a game of Diamonds. I'm not a big fan of trick-takers so this didn't do a whole lot for me. Thought the novel twist on the suits having special powers was cool though.

It was a cooperative night in our house last night. First, we spent a night at the museum in Elder Sign. I don't know if we do things wrong, but with the Unseen Forces expansion, I've read people keep saying this makes the game harder. Our only real concerns were investigators dying, as we handily drubbed Azathoth with only I think six doom tokens on the track. There were moments of tension, throughout the game, so it was good fun. I am bracing myself to give Eldritch Horror another chance, but so far, I much prefer Elder Sign, even with its level of abstraction.

After that, we played Pandemic. We always play with the In the Lab expansion, which greatly improves on the base game for me. On the Brink barely gets touched now, except for the roles, as ItL is such a tough challenge for us with just four epidemics (we could handle six in the base game). We squeaked out a win on the last turn, completing the final cure before having to draw cards.

Flash Point Fire Rescue continues to be a shelf toad in our house.

Played Game 1 of the newest iteration of SeaFall. While I didn't dislike the game before at all, it was not something I could very easily get into, and I floundered every game trying to figure out what to do. Rob has since cut a lot of the chaff out of the game and holy cow it moves like a dream now. So much tighter and sleeker. I won the game, partly due to already having some experience with the previous versions of the game (the other players were completely new to it), even though a lot had changed, but also because while the same decision tree was still there, the branches were more focused and I could really zero in on a path to follow. I think he's definitely on the right track here.

Also got to see the cover art!

Also I got this several times: Could not retrieve bearer token (consumer)

Once the game is out I'll tell you what it is and if it made it into the final version.

The Unseen Forces adventures will often result in characters getting cursed, which can result in you losing a die easier. There are also a lot more adventures and monsters that lock dice.

JEM wrote: First, we spent a night at the museum in Elder Sign. I don't know if we do things wrong, but with the Unseen Forces expansion, I've read people keep saying this makes the game harder. Our only real concerns were investigators dying, as we handily drubbed Azathoth with only I think six doom tokens on the track.

After I mixed in Unseen Forces I felt the game got a bit easier. The item decks got fluffed up with cards that do more than just add a dice and when used at the right time have really kept our asses out of the sling. It feels easier to get Blessed than Cursed. And without doing an analysis of the rewards on the task cards I felt that after Unseen Forces regular task cards had more Elder Signs added as rewards. Where it got "harder" is you can't buy Elder Signs any more with trophies. And like hotseat mentions, the additional dice locking.

Legomancer wrote: Played Game 1 of the newest iteration of SeaFall. While I didn't dislike the game before at all, it was not something I could very easily get into, and I floundered every game trying to figure out what to do. Rob has since cut a lot of the chaff out of the game and holy cow it moves like a dream now. So much tighter and sleeker. I won the game, partly due to already having some experience with the previous versions of the game (the other players were completely new to it), even though a lot had changed, but also because while the same decision tree was still there, the branches were more focused and I could really zero in on a path to follow. I think he's definitely on the right track here.

Also got to see the cover art!

Also I got this several times: Could not retrieve bearer token (consumer)

Once the game is out I'll tell you what it is and if it made it into the final version.

It would be interesting to hear, way down the road once the game has been out for a long time, what the changes were.

Some of the adventures from the original set that gave you doom tokens on success changed that token to an elder sign. We didn't get cursed in the whole game (may have been lucky) and we were both blessed at one point or another (not simultaneously, though.) The biggest challenges were the dice locks, but we collected clues and gear to tackle those. I'm concerned about the new expansion, as almost all of the choices in Elder Sign are which adventures to tackle, in what order. Making them unknown may just be a crap-fest. As in shooting craps.

The four of us gathered to play Jubileu, a trick-taking game originally from Germany that I learned how to play in university, however, my friend had never played any trick-tacking game so we started with 7 Wonders while explaining King to him. I enjoyed playing 7W with 4 instead of 3 but still, so soulless. I won with a lot of blue cards while everyone battled for military and science, haha suckers, boredom rules once again!

Next we played King, another trick-taking game where the first six hands you can’t in order: take tricks, take heart cards, take men (J’s and K’s), take women (Q’s), take the King of hearts and take the last two tricks. The next four hands are auction based, everyone having the chance to auction tricks for the privilege of choosing to play for more or less tricks made.

My wife won on a landslide, I really like this game but it can drag if people are not used to play cards fast, also recommended to have more decks shuffled ready to go.

Next we played Dominoes in partnership, my wife and I are used to play and the other two said they were used too. It turns out they were not. We beat the crap out of them.

I hope to play Jubileu next time, I don’t know if it is still played anywhere else, but it is a great game.

Night ended well with a smoke, some beers and Essa é pra acabar – Grupo Rumo.

Hey, Rafael, what does the game scene look like in Brazil (I think you're Brazilian, apologies if you aren't). Are there any Brazilian designers of note? Is boardgaming a thing where you are?

I would say less than 1% of the games available in the US are available here. In the last year however things started to improve Galápagos jogos www.galapagosjogos.com.br/ , Devir www.devir.com.br/estrategia/ , Conclave conclaveweb.com.br/editora2/ and others have brought around 20-30 translated games and they are available online or in major cities specialized stores, it is mostly extremely low print runs but with equivalent quality.

If you know English you could import game pretty much hassle free until about two years ago, with the dollar and US shipping raises it is not worth anymore, unfortunately most translated games are expensive too, I won’t buy games anymore until the dollar goes down or the local market discount their prices.

I live in São Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city, there are at least a dozen places I can go to meet gamers, there are multiple game nights, game shops, game renting stores (yes, like blockbuster but smaller, FunBox is an example www.funbox.com.br/ ).

The mainstream games (monopoly, clue, game of life, risk, etc.) all have their brazillian versions and everyone has played them. Modern board games are well accepted when you introduce someone, I would say people are eager for novelty and it is pretty easy to get a group going, at least in Sâo Paulo.

TLDR: If you have money you can mimic the US experience almost exactly, without the cons.
The most famous Brazilian designers I think is Sergio Halaban co-designer of Hart an der Grenze.

Here is the link for a series of articles I was going to write about growing up gaming in Brazil, I don't know if it'll have a Part II, I hope you will enjoy it: fortressat.com/blogs-by-members/4981

Played some games over the past few days including;

SPQR: some battle with Scipio Africanus vs Hasdrubal. I lost a fairly close contest with the Cathaginians after might medium infantry on the right flank folded. Lots of annoying informational chit changes in GBOH but i always find it fun.

Marvel Dice Master: the first few times i played this i found it very lukewarm and a bit dull. However i swung round on it. Possibly because my friend has a largish collection. He asked me for a number between 10 and 20 and i called 19 so we drafted that many dice and had 30 minutes of fun slugging it out. I like the fact that it feels really light and breezy. It felt really non confrontational for a two player duel so we could laugh and trade comic book insults with each other. I ended up on 8 health him on 2 but he swung and finished me with Magneto, damn you Ant man you have failed me for the last time.

Relic with its Nemesis expansion: both good guy characters died fairly early and had to start out a second time but i ended up winning despite one player taking the eldar nemesis character. The first time we played with one nemesis player they got crushed this time they were one move from winning largely because their win condition worked very well with the end of game boss card at the centre of the board. In future i think we will select the end of game card and then let the nemesis choose their character. Like talisman the game still snow balls heavily for any character that can get into the mid levels as it becomes progressively easier to level up so my Imperial Commissar tore away from the pack after a while but the Eldar still came close to his goal.