What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

The license thing is really funny. I love the video game franchise so the way the handle everything with the mechanics is bang on with the game. On the other hand, it makes me laugh because I can TOTALLY see if you didn't like the franchise like I do the whole thing would be like "who the fuck is this guy? He doesn't look any different from the guy with the bow." Whereas I look at the little mini from a distance and my thought is "shit, watch out for that Theron guard! He's got a torque bow and different armor! "

Robinson last night, the cannibal villages scenario. We got our asses easily handed to us twice in a row (so many wounds! so unlucky! - we couldn't roll successes to build anything, even with the carpenter's rerolls), but third time was the charm and we ended up with 12 weapon strength or so. The soldier's defensive plan was essential to our strategy: he'd clean up the camp every turn and use those tokens to increase our weapons by 1 and shore up morale as well, worked pretty well. We were still pretty near death all three of us.

Gary Sax wrote: The license thing is really funny. I love the video game franchise so the way the handle everything with the mechanics is bang on with the game. On the other hand, it makes me laugh because I can TOTALLY see if you didn't like the franchise like I do the whole thing would be like "who the fuck is this guy? He doesn't look any different from the guy with the bow." Whereas I look at the little mini from a distance and my thought is "shit, watch out for that Theron guard! He's got a torque bow and different armor! "

Yeah, familiarity with the franchise is a bonus. Even with it I had a time trying to make out which mini represent what. On that note I give you...

[url=

]Gears Minis[/url]

Sorry if the image is wonky and for the quality. This is my first attempt at posting an image here.

Looks really good! The only minis even I have trouble with are Dom and Baird.

Scoville
Roll for the Galaxy
Valley of the Kings

I can tell you a funny story about Valley of the Kings.

S.

Last night I got to play my first game of Rex, and hopefully it won't be my last. We had 6 players and it was a lot of fun. I've never played Dune, so perhaps that would change my opinion, but I really liked the interactions of the different races.

charlest wrote:
So, I was hoping I wouldn't really like this game so that I could push it out of my thoughts and move on but jesus...the game is actually damn good beyond the gorgeous $200 MSRP bling. I think I'm going to do a full on article about it when I get another play or two in so I'm not going to say much, but I definitely enjoyed it.

I am very happy with how Cthulhu Wars is turning out -- it is one of those things where it is hard not to be biased, since I sunk resources into kickstarting it. But, it is a good game. And, I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't get reprinted at that cost. Also, they are going to break down their retail copies to replace broken pieces (I was lucky and didn't have any issues)...so it might not be available for long. I would say get it when you can, if you like it (if you can stomach the $200).

Gary Sax wrote: The license thing is really funny. I love the video game franchise so the way the handle everything with the mechanics is bang on with the game. On the other hand, it makes me laugh because I can TOTALLY see if you didn't like the franchise like I do the whole thing would be like "who the fuck is this guy? He doesn't look any different from the guy with the bow." Whereas I look at the little mini from a distance and my thought is "shit, watch out for that Theron guard! He's got a torque bow and different armor! "

I knew nothing about the Gears of War franchise or video game, but, I still found the game fun. To figure out which characters were which, I put colored dots on the bases and like colored dots on the sleeved cards.

Played Hyperborea the other night with 4. I'd only played once before, with two, so we were eager to get a bigger game going.

It's a lot of fun and there's more to it than it appears. I had read somewhere people complaining about your faction hemming you in to a strategy but I went against my faction's strength and won (admittedly probably because of the two rookie players.) I was blue, which specializes in tech, but I started with the Alchemy tech and never got another. I pretty much ignored the right side of the player mat, focusing on churning out dudes and killing. (And I'm usually the pacifist!) I didn't add a lot of cubes so I was resetting often and taking advantage of the cities to get me benefits. When I didn't have the cube I needed, Alchemy let me change, and again the constant resetting meant it was often available.

I'm liking this one a lot and can't wait to get more plays in.

Tonight I got to play Cthulhu Wars, and I am VERY pleasantly surprised. It looks amazing, and is such a ridiculously over the top production... really a spectacle. It plays very similarly to Chaos in the Old World, but I think it's actually a bit easier to digest and moves quicker. I'm not willing to say it is better yet, of course. But damn is it a fine looking board game.

Played Red November, and I need to remember to bring this out more often. Soloed with three gnomes and got crushed...Literally as in sank to the bottom of the drink and imploded crushed. Didn't even make it to the half way point...Needed more grog. That was my failure, I didn't provide them the means to get drunk so they could do their work well.

hotseatgames wrote: Tonight I got to play Cthulhu Wars, and I am VERY pleasantly surprised. It looks amazing, and is such a ridiculously over the top production... really a spectacle. It plays very similarly to Chaos in the Old World, but I think it's actually a bit easier to digest and moves quicker. I'm not willing to say it is better yet, of course. But damn is it a fine looking board game.

I actually don't think it moves quicker. It seems that way early game because you start with all of your cultists out but in Chaos you have to spend power to get them out and really think about where you want them. Later game though players have a ton of power (10-14) which makes turns take much longer than Chaos - especially for the Black Goat which can summon stuff cheap and delay. I'm not saying CW is slow or anything though but Chaos is very snappy and power is always tight. You do have the advantage of not having to analyze your cards in CW but I really like the cards in Chaos.

hotseatgames wrote: Last night I got to play my first game of Rex, and hopefully it won't be my last. We had 6 players and it was a lot of fun. I've never played Dune, so perhaps that would change my opinion, but I really liked the interactions of the different races.

Snap. I played my first game of Rex last night, but with five players. I too have never played Dune so didn't spend any time trying to compare the two, but after my first game I'm a little ambivalent about it. From the get-go alliances were formed and remained the same throughout the game, so it pretty much played out as a three vs two team game and that didn't win me over. And the battles seemed like a bit of a crapshoot at times but I accept that inexperience is a probable cause for this. I need to play it a couple more times I think to figure out if it's for me or not. I've read often that it plays best with six, but unfortunately I don't think I will get the chance to play with more than five.

Then we played a game of Citadels for the first time in about three years. The general consensus after the game was over was why don't we play Citadels more often? This game still holds up.

Rex is still the second best multiplayer war game. The main downside is the art style / presentation but if that doesn't bother you its fine. The humans could perhaps do with a much better alliance power on the balance side though.

Last night we played a four player game of Cosmic Encounter. The Macron alien crushed everyone with his one ship equals four jazz. No one could dislodge him from his home planets. It was a fun game, nonetheless.