What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

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.

Twilight Struggle - This was my second try at this, the first being almost two years ago. I squeaked out a US 1-point win in final scoring. I thought I was done for in mid-war. At one point, the USSR was up by 15 and played the card that allowed him to pre-order my cards for the round, and I had a mitt full of Soviet events and the Asia scoring card. I thought I was done for but somehow managed to come out of the round swinging the score back in my direction by a few points. I absolutely love the ebb and flow of this game -- it's like taking part in a dozen simultaneous tug of wars. I've played it infrequently, but it's my favourite game. I joined a TS league this year (this was my opening round) so I'll definitely get more regular plays of it in 2015.

More Gears of War, mission 3. I decided to skip mission 2 after winning mission 1 so I could play a more "normal" clobberin' time mission.

Got to the last part but Marcus Fenix was out of ammo on all 4 of his weapons so he was just running around like an idiot trying to chainsaw people while 2 AI cards popped off per turn. Which is not a great way to stay alive in GoW. If you've discarded that F-ing pistol for a power weapon and you run out of ammo, you are in some deep shit.

After some anxious moments -- would I get home from my work trip on time? (yes) would the blizzard hold off? (pretty much yes) -- I got in a first, five-player game of Twilight Imperium III. We had a pretty good group, and all but one had either played or read the rules as requested beforehand. For time's sake and given the experience level, we ended up playing pretty much strictly vanilla, including the Imperial SC, but with artifacts and a preset map and only 9 VP, and I think in retrospect that was a decent decision, as we finished in about six hours, before the worst of the weather and considering that one player was more or less being taught as we went. I was competitive (which is all I really hope for) with the Hacan but didn't win. There were some growing pains for sure, and most everyone wanted to switch up the SCs in the future, but I think everyone or most everyone would be up to play again, which was, as much as anything, the real goal.

Punched and played a partial game of I, Spy from Lost Boys Productions' Kickstarter. It ended up being partial because my younger daughter (13) hit some definite analysis paralysis and took very lengthy turns. The game is set in pre-Great War Europe, and the players must use various area-influence tactics to boost the influence and (eventually) power of the nation -- one of six -- that they're spying for. Your "alignment" is to stay secret the whole game, which makes thematic sense, but I'm not sure how it will play out or how much knowing another player's alignment will affect one's own moves directly (although there are a lot of ways to directly harm another spy). I definitely need a full game on this. This was around $40, and it's a really solid production for that -- with two fairly significant "howevers" from me. First, the box. It's lovely, with "scratched-in" code words and phrases on it, but it's frankly too small; that the publishers have posted a packing diagram is indicative of the problem. It'll all work, barely, but at best it's "snug." Second, there are many cardboard elements that have to remain secret, and the forty or so politician tiles are both edged in black and have control markers that have to be punched out of them, so it's pretty easy to have some marked tiles, which I do (and the tight packing required doesn't help matters any). Not sure whether it's a real problem or an OCD problem at this point, but I don't know why publishers can't learn the black-edging lesson.

Luchador: Mexican Wrestling Dice - expect a review. Holy shit is this game FUN. This has superflytnt written all over it, figuratively.

Recent plays include:

Cyclades Hades. Played with 4. Seems to be fairly long though, with four I'd say it was 2.5 hours total and the game ended with only 2 metropolises built. I suspect we need to do less fighting and more building/philosophizing.

Dogs of War. I like this game alot. Easy to teach, each faction has a tweak to the strategy, and plays in about 90 minutes with 5 players. Current favorite. I suspect some of the factions win more than others but so far of four games don't know yet; brown dude won 2 of them though.

Cosmic Encounter. Not much to add to the discussion of this one. Good game with a fair amount of randomness for sure.

Viticulture: Tuscany. 2 player game vs wife. Both of us like it alot even though she still hasn't won a game yet. Tuscany adds so many things to the base game and really sprawls the game out.