What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Green Lantern wrote:

Stonecutter wrote: This is what I use to store X-wing. It holds the entire game, save the pilot cards. I have 3 starters, and probably 30 small ships, 3 large ships, all the bases/templates/tokens in it with room for a few more small ships. Pilot cards I just put in a small 3 ring binder. There's larger compartments underneath that you can put pluck foam in and that's how I store my Falcon/Firespray/Lambda. I can post pics later if you like.

www.amazon.com/Plano-Double-Cover-Tackle...=8-12&keywords=plano

What the pluck is "pluck foam"? Is that an add-on for the plano box or something else I can pick up from Amazon?

You can get pick & pluck foam from Amazon. It's just a thick foam sheet with pre-cut squares you can tear out to fit various shapes.

This afternoon my son and I played Castle Ravenloft. He played the Ranger and I played the Dragonborn Fighter. The D&D Board game system creates some epic narratives. It didn't fail us for this session either. We wanted to play a game of Castle Ravenloft to refresh the rules a bit before we break open the seal on our new copy of the Temple of Elemental Evil.

I played my copy of Tragedy Looper for the first time as the mastermind. It was so refreshing to play a game as tense as this after playing yet another set collection and point accruing game in Elysium. I lost in Tragedy Looper and won Elysium, but Tragedy Looper is the one I want to play again. It's going to be a little bit of a juggling act to get people to learn it and have a group that hasn't played certain scenarios and stuff. I'd also like to train someone else to mastermind so I can jump in as a protagonist at some point, maybe on one of the tougher missions later on. I also let people talk quite a bit since it was their first time- I think it would get a lot rougher on the protagonists if you go by the "only talk at the beginning of a loop" rule. Has anyone tried it two-player? That avoids that issue entirely but it might make it hard if the one person isn't quite getting it; it can help to have an extra set of eyes.

I've really come to appreciate games with concrete, binary win conditions over the "I played 13% more efficiently than you this round." I like "race" games better too, like Settlers of Catan or Euphoria where you're trying to get to 10 points before everyone else. You could also think of something like Magic as a race to do 20 damage.

Star Wars Armada is better than X-Wing. I still got really wound up by it in my second game, but i often get wound up by minis games. I tend not to get invested enough to read every special ability card but annoyed when I pay the consequences of not double checking over every decision my opponent makes. It actually ended in a draw as neither of us made a single kill in 6 turns. We may have set the combat area a bit large but i wonder if 6 turns is a bit too short. The first game was a lot more fun, i lost a star destroyer but killed the space potato.

I probably prefer Dreadfleet though, which we played next. Its less clever and a lot more random, but i just find it more colourful and more fun in general. There was some duel going on on a volcano and both sides were trying to pull the balance one way or tother. The kraken did pretty well for me, most of the other ships got sunk, largely by one special event card.

I bought Innovation, so we played that. I like this a lot more than when i played it three years ago. What i want from games has changed however. I no longer need a really strong thematic story from every game, i prefer space to think about something these days. We played 4 games, two were won by charging to the 10th age and getting the good end game cards, two were won by normal scoring. I like the diversity of strategic approaches on offer.

Also played some Blood Bowl TM and Tales of Arabian Nights.

Played another game of Merchants and Marauders with the expansion. Three players this time. We all got sunk at some point, one by the Spanish ship and the other two by the pirate frigate.

After another play with the expansion modules here's how we feel about them:

wind and the storm - like this

locations - apart from the Mission, we hardly used them. They seem theoretically useful but in play they hardly ever come up, and clutter up an already busy board.

NPC ship mods - has anyone had a problem with NPC ships being too easy to destroy that these were necessary? I don't see the point in them.

treasure ship - no one's gone after it yet

favors - we like them

loyalty - annoying money sink with little payoff. We didn't bother in the second game

contraband - I still go back and forth on this one

new captains - some of the new captains are pretty neat. I like the guy who's still not a pirate until he gets 3 bounties. I played with the one who can move an extra space if all he does is move and it's lucky he otherwise has ok stats because that ability isn't great.

brigs - no one's bought one yet. No one wants to be the person who tests out if they're worth it or not.

Legomancer wrote: After another play with the expansion modules here's how we feel about them:
wind and the storm - like this
locations - apart from the Mission, we hardly used them. They seem theoretically useful but in play they hardly ever come up, and clutter up an already busy board.
NPC ship mods - has anyone had a problem with NPC ships being too easy to destroy that these were necessary? I don't see the point in them.
treasure ship - no one's gone after it yet
favors - we like them
loyalty - annoying money sink with little payoff. We didn't bother in the second game
contraband - I still go back and forth on this one
brigs - no one's bought one yet. No one wants to be the person who tests out if they're worth it or not.

After reading the rules and playing once I think I agree with you overall. I'll have to try out wind and storms next game. I still want keep most of the other stuff in even if we don't use them ever game like the locations and treasure ship because they could be the deciding factor in game and that would be very cool. Can you play favors and not play loyalty? I didn't play with either last game.

On the other hand, I play Fief tonight. I'm not sure what I think of it. There were some very awesome things about it like having the Queen assassinate the Pope and having the player who won the game start an uprising to kill off his wife so he was able to pull off the solo victory. But the game is also very flawed. Our game went about 6 hours for 6 players. And there was some crazy randomness for a 6 hour game. Like one player was completely wiped from the map by the plague. For right now I'd rate it a 7 on the TOS scale.

After three and a half years of playing Netrunner, I've finally met my first rude opponent a typical "You are lucky and your deck sucks" guy.

I had played against him once before this tournament, but the game was short and while my impression of him was negative, I thought it was a fluke. But after yesterday's tournament, yeah, it's hard to deny he's full of himself. He's pretty much the kind of person that thinks you owe him your time and that scoffs when you don't meet his supposed standards. So he kept complaining not just everytime I got a good access and stole an agenda, he even complained when I hit random cards through net damage as if him having four cards left at the end of the game left anything to chance.

So yeah, it killed my mood, I go there to play not to defend my deck choices. I also know he talked shit afterwards behind my back, which is beyond rude, though I appreciate that other guys called him out on it. In fact, most people seem to actively dislike playing with him so yeah.

Game douches suck.

KingPut wrote: On the other hand, I play Fief tonight. I'm not sure what I think of it.

At the "glad I'm not playing Fief" table, we laughingly watched Put get backstabbed and lose his game. I'm pretty sure we had more fun than he did, since we banged out Prophecy (2-artifact win condition) and World of Warcraft Adventure Game in the same amount of time, with a few minutes to spare. WoW was a 3-player game. Prophecy was a 2-player.

We were under strict guidelines to only play 4+ hour epic games, but one fantasy slog is as good as another. So it felt like one long game anyway.

For the record I didn't get back stabbed. I just watched JGriff backstab Pat his bride and Army Pete who was promissed to be JGriff future bride.

I finally played Imperial Assault. I was the good guys and the other 3 players were rebel scum. They won the first mission in the last round. Fucking wookie kept decimating my guys. Then we played the Luke as an ally mission. This went to the last round too, but the Empire prevailed. They left Luke outside the garage while they worked on clearing it out. Lord Vader casually walked out and stood in the one spot that would force Luke to not have enough movement, effectively delaying him. Everyone really enjoyed the game.
I felt that the setting came through well and is a good fit for this style of game. True that rebels infiltrating imperial bases isn't the most complete representation of SW, but there's also more to the movies than just the space battles. Each mission took us about 2 1/2 hours. Looking forward to playing as the other side after we finish this campaign. DOOM is coming off the forever shelf and going on the sell pile. Due to IA's much shorter playing time, similar gameplay with some improvements, character growth, and more fleshed out setting.

Legomancer wrote: Played another game of Merchants and Marauders with the expansion. Three players this time. We all got sunk at some point, one by the Spanish ship and the other two by the pirate frigate.

After another play with the expansion modules here's how we feel about them:

wind and the storm - like this

locations - apart from the Mission, we hardly used them. They seem theoretically useful but in play they hardly ever come up, and clutter up an already busy board.

NPC ship mods - has anyone had a problem with NPC ships being too easy to destroy that these were necessary? I don't see the point in them.

treasure ship - no one's gone after it yet

favors - we like them

loyalty - annoying money sink with little payoff. We didn't bother in the second game

contraband - I still go back and forth on this one

new captains - some of the new captains are pretty neat. I like the guy who's still not a pirate until he gets 3 bounties. I played with the one who can move an extra space if all he does is move and it's lucky he otherwise has ok stats because that ability isn't great.

brigs - no one's bought one yet. No one wants to be the person who tests out if they're worth it or not.

I've bought a Brig twice and find it pretty useful. It's situational to some degree and it depends on your Captain's ability, but I really like to do some spot Merchanting as a Pirate and it lets you do that. You can also carry extra goods from Merchant Raids which can help tremendously. Have to be careful with Escape's though.

We agree on weather and loyalty, favors add a bit too much overhead. We really enjoy the Treasure Galleon and have seen it sunk twice. Even in games where it's ignored it's always a tempting target and it can be a huge comeback with high risk/high reward for someone losing.

Contraband and the locations are excellent in my opinion. The locations offer variety in terms allowing you to visit them without a port action and allowing you to raid them which is fun as hell.

New captains are fine, we just shuffled them in initially. The art is kind of weak though.

I like Wind/Storm but we don't use them every game. We don't need the NPC ship mods (tried two games with 'em and don't think they're worth the extra effort or needed) and I even forgot to mention them in my review I submitted this weekend, doh.

Overall I think it's a great expansion and different groups will get different mileage out of it. Most of it is taste so there's not a right or wrong choice really.

Played some Lovecraft themed games over the weekend:

Cthulhu!!! - I'm actually a fan of Zombies!!! and a few other Twilight Creations Inc games so I wasn't predisposed to hate this. Actually, this is one of the better games in their line. It resolves lots of niggling issues that most people have with Zombies!!! and it's a really fun beer and pretzels game. This game ditches the typical Helipad ending. Now they have ritual sites that can pop up anywhere in the deck. You have to collect a set of relics (5 cards), kill all the enemies on the ritual site to sanctify it. If you happen to DIE on the ritual site then the sacrifice was successful for the cultists. Investigators need to sanctify 3 sites to end the game. If you let the cultists successfully activate 3 ritual sites you all die and lose. The game is super simple, which I greatly enjoy. Lots of shit talking and plenty of event cards to play. There are now "Automatic" event cards which you must play on your turn. There is tension when you add new cards to your hand because these automatic cards force you to play them instead of a card that you needed in a certain situation. The game also benefits from having two distinct enemies. Cultists are your typical zombie-esque fodder that you can mow down easily. Byakee's fly around and can carry cultists...which adds some fun when moving enemies. This is easily the most polished effort I've seen from Twilight Creations in a while. For around $20 or so you're getting a box full of nice components and a fun silly game that lasts around 75 mins. It's certainly not for everyone, but I figured some people on this site might appreciate the info.

Eldritch Horror - It was Jackie Fine the Physic and Mark the Solider running around the world trying to solve the mysterious of Azathoth before everything descended into Madness n cinder. Jackie spent most of the game running around gathering clues and having fucked up shit happening to her. Despite being strong willed, she constantly failed sanity checks and found her self with all sorts of debilitating cards. My favorite was when she got poisoned and tried to pay for a fancy medical examiner in a city space. She failed her influence check and decided to go into debt to cure the poison. About a turn later her debt collectors came for her...BY POISONING HER FUCKING FOOD. Jackie was constantly gleaming the cube that is death on a turn by turn basis. At one point she found a shotgun...she never used it. I imagine she just clutched it like a baby in her hotel rooms while the shadows played tricks on her damaged psyche. Mark spent the whole game running around, gunning down monsters, closing gates. Basically being a heroic badass. Jackie was going nuts solving the actual mysteries...but Mark just kept assessing threats and taking names. As the doom token rushed towards completion Jackie wrapped up the last mystery. The duo thankfully had a spare clue token to survive the mythos card that would have forced a mystery to come back into play. Crisis averted, world saved.

I really enjoy Eldritch Horror but I don't think it replaces Arkham. I don't even think they're in the same category of game. Eldritch Horror is more like, Tales of the Arabian Nights: Tentacled CO-OP Edition. It's about this grand adventure where shit just sort happens and you roll with it. The best parts are when you flip a spell or condition card to find out what stupid fucked up thing happened. I love that shit. While I guess you can go to spots to try and boost certain stats or whatever...you never know if you're plans are going to blow up in your face. For me it's more fun to just experience it as a big pulp adventure game mixed with two heaping spoonfuls of Lovecraftian Mythos. I still think Mansions of Madness is the best FFG Lovecraft game.

Egg Shen wrote: I really enjoy Eldritch Horror but I don't think it replaces Arkham. I don't even think they're in the same category of game. Eldritch Horror is more like, Tales of the Arabian Nights: Tentacled CO-OP Edition. It's about this grand adventure where shit just sort happens and you roll with it. The best parts are when you flip a spell or condition card to find out what stupid fucked up thing happened. I love that shit. While I guess you can go to spots to try and boost certain stats or whatever...you never know if you're plans are going to blow up in your face. For me it's more fun to just experience it as a big pulp adventure game mixed with two heaping spoonfuls of Lovecraftian Mythos.

This is exactly how I felt playing Eldritch but couldn't quite express. Thanks.

Ran through most of the tutorial for XCOM:TBG and then jumped into a solo game on easy. I hate that the game doesn't have a rule book, but the game itself promises to be a lot of fun. The real time aspect was so so on easy since you can always pause, and it also seems like that part of the game will be more fun with more players. But the core of the game - the resolution system - works great and is simple yet very effective. I'm very curious to see if different missions will make for very different games.

Mad Dog wrote: I finally played Imperial Assault. I was the good guys and the other 3 players were rebel scum. They won the first mission in the last round. Fucking wookie kept decimating my guys. Then we played the Luke as an ally mission. This went to the last round too, but the Empire prevailed. They left Luke outside the garage while they worked on clearing it out. Lord Vader casually walked out and stood in the one spot that would force Luke to not have enough movement, effectively delaying him. Everyone really enjoyed the game.
I felt that the setting came through well and is a good fit for this style of game. True that rebels infiltrating imperial bases isn't the most complete representation of SW, but there's also more to the movies than just the space battles. Each mission took us about 2 1/2 hours. Looking forward to playing as the other side after we finish this campaign. DOOM is coming off the forever shelf and going on the sell pile. Due to IA's much shorter playing time, similar gameplay with some improvements, character growth, and more fleshed out setting.

Am I crazy for wishing that this game engine could be ported into a Middle Earth somehow?