What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

I'm about there with you on Star Realms. I've been playing online, and vs the AI on my phone. It gets to the point where if I see on the first turn "whelp, you got the trade pod and the freighter on turn one, I guess I lose."

Charlest, you have a point about the discard but really, if your option is to throw away an action in a game where every action is crucial, then I don't know. I'll be fine, I just wanted to piss and moan a bit.

JEM wrote: Charlest, you have a point about the discard but really, if your option is to throw away an action in a game where every action is crucial, then I don't know. I'll be fine, I just wanted to piss and moan a bit.

No problem, there's a lot of Eclipse dissatisfaction around here and I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, but I'm a fan. We never discarded for the same reason, but after many plays started to realize getting boxed in or only possessing hexes with no Economy/Orange can really just put you at a huge disadvantage. Think of the multiple actions you lost having to build up to take those hexes.

And to be clear, I prefer having ancient hexes near me at the start as those hexes are excellent, you get VP for killing the ancients, and you get a discovery token which will really help out. One of those hexes can be worth around 6VP (2 for the hex, 2 for the battle, and 2 for the discovery token), which is 15-20% of some winning totals. However, getting completely surrounded by them is also a huge pain and I heavily recommend considering discarding the second ancient hex you draw.

A "fix" occurred to me (but good luck convincing anyone to use a houserule at a public gaming thing): draw 2, select 1.

That's a racial special ability and I don't think that's a fix that's needed. Of course, if it improves your (anyone's) experience then go ahead.

There's a solid degree of depth in the game about what resources you prioritize and how you setup your surrounding hexes.

Decision points occur around:
Where do you explore?
Do you keep the hex?
How do you position the wormholes?
Do you take the hex (if you can)?
Should you abandon the hex in the future?


Setting up your empire to allow flexibility in actions/strategy is a huge skill element of the game. Influencing discs off undesirable hexes once you've claimed a discovery token or just to grab an extra action is crucial to involved play. My group has been fine with occasionally discarding a hex and I know I've discarded in games I've won before. It is worth noting that I'm not advocating discarding often.

I've only been surrounded completely by ancients twice I think and the second time I discarded a hex to great success.

You can kill ancients on your second turn with your starting technologies if you build a dreadnaught and add hull (add hull to your fighter to). Then attack with your dreadnaught and fighter. This won't work against two ancients though.

What's worse than the above is exploring and finding no Economy. I will absolutely discard a hex if at least half of my hexes don't possess orange. I almost always take orange if I get any white options either (wildcard spaces). I can't remember the last time I played Eclipse without hitting the max Economy production by end game and I also can't remember the last game of Eclipse I didn't come in second or first (I come in second more often than first though).

I didn't know where else to put this, but it made me laugh my ass off. From BGG, on the Fields of Arle forum (Rosenberg worker placement).

"P.10 says "You can load your Vehicles with...Building Materials, i.e. Wood and Clay, to upgrade them (to Timber/Bricks)...etc".

I assumed that the loaded items had to come from your personal supply. (Otherwise, that it would be too easy to get all that "free stuff".)

Another player tried to load from the general supply and after looking through the rules, said that it didn't specify anywhere about the source.

(except the Loading station, which specifies that the peat going onto the vehicle comes from the general supply)

Does anyone know where in the rules it definitively clarifies this issue?
If not in the English version, maybe it specifies in the German version?"

So some motherfucker wanted to play a worker placement game where you can just take resources from the bank to convert them instead of their supply, appealing to the fact he could not find the rule that prohibited it. THIS IS THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL MECHANIC IN AN ENGINE TYPE GAME, AND EVERY RULE IS BUILT AROUND IT. I seriously might have slapped this person full in the face at the table. Or board flipped that shit.

One of the allied players had the "draw two, choose one" explore ability. He made himself a nice corner of space for monoliths while his partner tooled up with ships to kill ancients and me. I had the race that could build more ships/upgrades. It turns out that when you don't have any resources, building extra ships is a moot point. You can only move two per move action anyway, and I was on my own. I think the free movement alliance thing was the most egregious part of the whole game.

Been playing lots of small card style games with the wife lately.

Onirim (Second Edition) - We've been playing this co-op game quite a bit. So far we've only done the base game. I quite like it. It's very simple and abstract...but I think the dream/nightmare theme is cleverly integrated with cards going into limbo and you constantly shuffling the deck. Interested in trying some of the expansions soon. Side note - I love the packaging artwork of the Second Edition. It's very cool. Sadly the cards feel like they're covered in wax or something. They feel very strange in your hands...like they're sucking all the moisture out of them.

Greed - This is quickly becoming one of my wife's favorites. Probably because she always kicks the shit out of me. There are lots of little clever cards to play and with just two players you're always hoping the other person doesn't take a card you want/need. I think if you're a fan of drafting cards...then this little card game is worth tracking down. As an added bonus this game has more prostitutes than any other game in my collection. Sluts!

Temporum - Yes the theme is pasted on and it's basically a card game with a tiny board element...but I think it's a good, clean design. The game is essentially a race to get all your crowns to the modern age. You do this through card driven game play and exploring locations (ages) on the gameboard. Each card can be used to get you money/give a one time or permanent ability or you can score them. On top of that you can only play cards/draw cards do certain things based on the board. You're racing to get money...because you need money to score and move your crowns, but you also need to keep on eye on your opponent. There are plenty of cards that will screw the other player. Also, you can change history which can really mess with the other player's plan. Overall I like it very much. I can see it working well with 3 or 4...but it's fine with 2. I like how each game is different depending on which card locations are placed on the board. I hope the game does well because I'd love to see a few card only expansions. If you're a fan of card games this should be high on your radar.

My wife and I played Wrath of Ashardalon, ok, it’s only one play but it doesn’t make any sense.

The monsters, traps, encounters, are all so bland. I think it resembles more games like Pandemic and Lord of the Rings than D&D. I’ll try it solo to make sure I didn’t mess up any rules or something but I didn’t like it very much.

My wife loved it and said that it is way better than Descent, I don’t feel like playing neither.

I was supposed to go to a gaming event near Boston on Saturday but we bailed due to snow, which was the right call. Instead, the three of us that were going to go had a game day yesterday. The quotes are from here .

Splendor - We were waiting on a fourth, so we killed time with this. It was Splendor. I did much worse than usual.

Poison - Guy #4 was still running late, so we broke out this old card game, idiotic cauldrons and all. This is a fun one an we had a good time with it. Again, I did terrible.

Roll for the Galaxy - We gave up on Guy #4 and cracked into this. Here's what I said about it:

Race FTG and I have a tumultuous history. After panning it when it first came out, I later tried it again and warmed much more to it. I generally like dice games and had taken a shot at designing a dice-based space game myself, so I jumped on Roll FTG right away.

Despite some minor changes, the two games feel pretty much the same. There are even some interesting ways the transition was made -- for example, military worlds don't help conquer planets, they provide red military dice, which are weighted towards settling and development. The game plays quickly and, despite the attempt to make it look as complicated as possible, is pretty easy to pick up.

It does do one of the things which continually confound me with regards to dice games. As is so often the case, although you roll dice to select possible actions, there are so many ways to manipulate them that they quickly get derandomized. All three of us had major ways to do whatever we felt like with several dice, so what's the purpose of dice in the first place? If you have a problem with random elements, then don't play a damn dice game. But why bother designing a game around dice and then not use that element? It wasn't too long before I felt I was just playing a worker placement game instead of a dice game, and that bugs me greatly.

For this reason I would probably prefer the original card game, though I want more tries of this before I commit.

Eggs and Empires - While the host cooked some food, I played this two-player with a guy who had received a demo copy.

Right away I need to point out that while there are in fact eggs here, the game does not, in any way, deliver empires. There are plenty of other games which provide empires, so if that's the draw, you may wish to look elsewhere. For egg fans, you're in luck.

This is a sort of Love-Letterish game in which you have a hand of role cards numbered 1-10, each with some kind of power. Some eggs are revealed, good and bad (positive or negative points) and you want to take the good and not the bad. You choose eggs in numerical order, high-to-low, so you want to get first crack (har!) at them.

I played this two player, which is a slightly different setup, but the gist is the same. It's pleasant enough, and it's quick to learn and play, but there's a single element I think would make it better. As it is, you pretty much always want to be the high card, which is kind of boring. I think if you put the eggs out and had to take them in that order, where sometimes you want to be second or such, it would be much more tense and interesting. But as a light game, it's fine.

Istanbul - My THIRD new to me game of the night.

I'm always a little wary when I take on the new Euro hotness because those have been going in a direction far away from what I'm interested in. Winning an SdJ is usually an anti-draw for me.

There's a lot of the usual faff on display here, but there's also some neat bits. I like that instead of just gathering points willy-nilly, you have a clear goal: get five gems first. How you do that is up to you, but some ways are easier than others and some ways are just plain better for others. For example, after one play, it seems clear that if you're the last person to get the blue mosque tile you are in dire straits, Sidi. There are some interesting elements at play here, but you're also dealing with some of the usuals, such as being a master trader with a small wheelbarrow you have to upgrade. I do love the element where a member of your family is in jail and you can spring him to do tasks for you but that risks him getting caught by the other players.

The short version is that this is a lot of the old familiar with a little bit of polish on it. It's quick and has some neatness about it, but honestly, in 9 months you'll look at it on your shelf and saying, "What was that one? I kind of remember it."

Stone Age - This one gets a bad rep and I'm not sure why. I hadn't played it in ages and really enjoyed it.

Stone Age is awesome. Especially when you're busting on the stank cup.

My memory of Stone Age is foggy because I've only tried it once and that was a long time ago, but I do remember it took FOREVER. My AP-prone friends are surely part of the reason why, though.

And good call on Roll for the Galaxy, Lego. I had that same niggling feeling that maybe it shied away from randomness too much for a game involving shaking dice in plastic cups.

I've been playing a lot of Stone Age, Beasty Bar, and Rampage (as opposed to the new, retarded name).

Love them all.

Want to play some Zombie 15' but it never seems to make it to the table.

SuperflyTNT wrote: Rampage (as opposed to the new, retarded name).

Hah, I hadn't realized they renamed it. That is a truly awful name.

Rafael Silva wrote: My wife and I played Wrath of Ashardalon, ok, it’s only one play but it doesn’t make any sense.

The monsters, traps, encounters, are all so bland. I think it resembles more games like Pandemic and Lord of the Rings than D&D. I’ll try it solo to make sure I didn’t mess up any rules or something but I didn’t like it very much.

My wife loved it and said that it is way better than Descent, I don’t feel like playing neither.

I 100% agree on the D&DAS games being bland. I'm one of the few around here that doesn't like them.

charlest wrote: I 100% agree on the D&DAS games being bland. I'm one of the few around here that doesn't like them.

Add me to the ranks of "doesn't like them".
Gears of War all the way!


Played Pocket Battles the other day. I can't help but feel that the rulebook is way more wordy than it needs to be. What a great little dice-chucking fun game though.