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What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

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07 Jun 2015 21:18 - 08 Jun 2015 16:05 #203472 by hotseatgames
Played lots of games at Origins, mostly with superflytnt and daveroswell-
Wiz-War with 5 players. Went well but wasn't anywhere near as stabby as it usually is.
Spartacus with 5. Was great as usual.
Spartacus with 7! This worked better than expected and was very cool. I'd do it again. With charlest and superflytnt and daveroswell !
Clash of Cultures - I can see where this is cool, but I got totally steamrolled and was out of the game after a few turns.
Cards Against Humanity - this was fun. Definitely dependent on the crowd and alcohol helps as well.
Last edit: 08 Jun 2015 16:05 by hotseatgames.
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07 Jun 2015 22:48 #203476 by Frohike
I'll go ahead and disgust everyone here and admit that I actually enjoy Viticulture, especially with some Tuscany modules thrown in. The parity of theme, worker placement mechanics, and the seasonal phases is pretty strong and I have a personal bias toward the subject matter since I grew up in vineyard country. So there.

This weekend I mostly played with my kids. Some Takenoko with my 8 year old and Specter Ops with my 11 year old, 2-player and with his group of friends. It's pretty good but it feels like the design is a little too safe & somewhat polished to a nub. How about that crazy lighting on the board actually meaning something, like it would in a game such as Splinter Cell? Item drop locations? What if one of those items let you "turn" one of the hunters? I'm guessing expansions are in the works but the base design needed a little something...more.
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07 Jun 2015 23:37 #203478 by aaxiom

Frohike wrote: I'll go ahead and disgust everyone here and admit that I actually enjoy Viticulture, especially with some Tuscany modules thrown in. The parity of theme, worker placement mechanics, and the seasonal phases is pretty strong and I have a personal bias toward the subject matter...


You certainly won't disgust me. I'm enjoying the hell out of that title as well. I haven't added much from the Tuscany expansion though, and still find it fantastic. It has had a lot of legs at our table.

Frohike wrote: This weekend I mostly played with my kids. Some Takenoko with my 8 year old and Specter Ops with my 11 year old


For me, this is what all of this is about. Good on you for gaming with the kids!
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08 Jun 2015 08:44 #203482 by charlest

hotseatgames wrote: Played lots of games at Origins-
Wiz-War with 5 players. Went well but wasn't anywhere near as stabby as it usually is.
Spartacus with 5. Was great as usual.
Spartacus with 7! This worked better than expected and was very cool. I'd do it again. With charlest and superflytnt !
Clash of Cultures - I can see where this is cool, but I got totally steamrolled and was out of the game after a few turns.
Cards Against Humanity - this was fun. Definitely dependent on the crowd and alcohol helps as well.


That 7 player Spartacus game was fun as hell. I will never look at house Batiatus or Tullius the same again.
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08 Jun 2015 08:58 #203487 by lj1983
Friday night - impromptu pizza and game night with another couple. Thurns and Taxis was ok. There's no visual to see what routes people are trying to complete, which makes the whole thing feel really abstract. Eminent domain was interesting, but really felt like two other games smashed together.

Xwing day at the FLGS (yay! its local rather than 2 hours away). Tried some scum 'warthog' y-wings.

2 x Thugs w/ Ion cannon turret, BTL-A4, R4 Agromech
1 x binayre pirate w/feedback array
1 x dace bonearm (Hwk that allows you to deal extra damage when enemy gets an ion token) w/ Ion Cannon Turret, K4 Security Droid, Vet Instinct, Engine Upgrade

Vs Decimator(oicunn - ramming pilot) and a couple interceptors. I should have won this. I made a mistake and flew to fast (!!!) with my y-wings. I should have blocked his oicunn with the pirate and slow rolled the ys. instead the y-wings and the pirate ended up bumping oicunn, who had Mara Jade, which kept my guys stressed. Oicunn got the crit that made his PS 0 for the game, which meant he'd do a 1 forward, bump my guys and do damage. I kept trying to shed stress to do a k-turn, but would not clear the large base. stupid. by the time I figured it out, Dace was dead, and I'd received several damage from bumping on my other ships. and they were stressed, so having a heck of a time turning around from the interceptors. Still got oicunn down to 4 health....1 more round of shooting from the y-wings should have killed him.

2nd game was against 3 elite Tie interceptors. Soontir Fel is awesome...but sit him in front of three ships (5 attacks) and eventually those green dice/tokens will fail. and feedback array for auto-damage never hurts. Dace w/Ion Cannon isn't shut down by Carnor Jax like hwks with the Blaster Cannon are. he deals nearly the same damage as well. .....final kill was a y-wing, 2 dice attack vs range 3 carnor jax through an asteroid. 1 hit. 5 blanks.

y-wings with r4 agromech and the title are freaking awesome. slow and not maneuverable at all...but stay out of their sights. z95s i've not been impressed with, but that feedback array is awesome. I think next list I'll try will be Kath Scarlet (Firespray) w/ recon specialist, predator and then 4 z95s with feedback array.
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08 Jun 2015 10:02 #203491 by Disgustipater

lj1983 wrote: y-wings with r4 agromech and the title are freaking awesome. slow and not maneuverable at all...but stay out of their sights.


My group's preferred build is with an Unhinged Astromech (all 3-speed maneuvers are green) with an Engine Upgrade. They are no longer slow and can maneuver pretty well. That makes them 25 points each, and one of my friends runs 4 of them. It can be rough to deal with. We've learned that those Y-Wings are the priority target when they show up in anyone's list.

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08 Jun 2015 10:42 #203494 by lj1983
that's 28 pts, unless they aren't using a turret. in which case...I wouldn't use a Y. and at PS2, engine upgrade just doesn't do much for me. I've played them with the unhinged on vassal and that's pretty great for 24 pts. Just depends on what the rest of the list does. Kavil with unhinged, VI, autoblaster turret and engine upgrade is awesome.

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08 Jun 2015 11:05 #203495 by Dr. Mabuse
JEALOUS!
Do tell about Batiatus and Tullius.

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08 Jun 2015 11:07 #203496 by Disgustipater
Ahh, I misread you original list and missed that you used ion cannon turrets (which makes sense in your list with Dace). We use Autoblaster turrets for an unavoidable second attack.

Two completely different builds. Carry on.

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08 Jun 2015 11:12 - 08 Jun 2015 11:13 #203497 by Gary Sax
Played Fields of Arle last night with my wife, two nights ago played some Agricola three players.

I really like Fields of Arle a lot more. It's a worse competitive game but it does the game activity thing better than Agricola. Fields of Arle is an uncompetitive sandbox that you score at the end. Which, when I want to play a worker placement game, is generally what I'm looking for.
Last edit: 08 Jun 2015 11:13 by Gary Sax.
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08 Jun 2015 12:17 #203499 by charlest

Dr. Mabuse wrote: JEALOUS!
Do tell about Batiatus and Tullius.


Lets just say Mr. Ruth was in his element. Whiskey fueled Spartacus voice acting as he played each card with a monologue about Dominus "Booty Anus" and "Tuggius".

There were a couple times where Pete would spend a couple minutes pontificating about Jupiter's member and what he was going to do to another player and then a successful guard would happen and in about 5 seconds that huge and colorful narrative would be erased.

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08 Jun 2015 13:19 #203504 by lj1983

Disgustipater wrote: Ahh, I misread you original list and missed that you used ion cannon turrets (which makes sense in your list with Dace). We use Autoblaster turrets for an unavoidable second attack.

Two completely different builds. Carry on.


wow, autoblasters with the title? that feels like it would hard to make work. still....sounds awesome, I'll have to try it.

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08 Jun 2015 13:44 #203508 by Legomancer
Yesterday was a pretty hopping game day. 8 people. The host is in a new place now with a game room with a large table, allowing two 4p games at the same time, which is nice.

Nations: the Dice Game

Nations, the actual game, continues to baffle me. Some sessions go pretty well, some sessions are just a nightmare. My belief that I'd finally found a civ game where one player couldn't dictate how the other players were going to play the game seems to be erroneous. Without some house rules, it seems like it's just another "armies-with-grain" game most of the time.

Nevertheless, I was curious about the dice version. I theoretically like dice games, except I often don't, so it was worth trying out.

The dice game is feather light and relatively innocuous. Two criteria that I look at for a dice game are: 1) does it matter that there are other people playing? and 2) to what extent do the dice get de-randomized, defeating the point of a dice game? Thankfully, Nations TDG passes both of those tests. You will get angry at the other players for messing you up, and you will get frustrated with your dice. That's good. Both of those things should happen in a dice game.

The board game has been simplified for this outing, but almost too much so. There's very little differentiating tiles from one another. For a four-player game, each era you'll use all but three of the tiles, so there isn't much variety there. The event tiles are unremarkably different in each era as well. I played three games of this and though they unfolded slightly differently each time, there wasn't that much to tell them apart.

We'll see about Nations TDG. There's nothing wrong with it, and I certainly prefer it to Roll Through the Ages, but as dice games go it's not really standing out. I'd really rather play Ra: the Dice Game.

Tammany Hall

El Grande is pretty much the king of area control games, and I like it a bunch. I'm planning on grabbing the reprint in November. But as good as a game as it is, it doesn't really make much sense. What is happening in it? Who are these things? What's this supposed to be simulating? It's fine, because it's a fun, good game, so you don't really worry about any of that.

But Tammany Hall shows you how it could be. What is more area control than elections? What is more interesting than heated, demilegal elections? Tammany Hall has little betophatted figures and cubes and disks, but is a hell of a lot more thematically sound than most of the other nonsense that's declared "dripping with theme" around here. The actions make narrative sense and are all tied together through the theme. There's no question about how what you're doing fits in. As a result, you end up with a fun, well-tooled game that also provides a compelling narrative other than "and then Tim put his cubes there and got like 8 points for it!!"

What's more, it does all this with minimal fuss. The rules are actually pretty easy to learn. The artwork is handsome and evocative and doesn't provide noisome clutter. The game encourages a lot of sass-talk, negotiation, and banter. There's a lot of game in this package. I don't know if it's better than El Grande, but it's certainly up there.

Finished out with Parade, which I hadn't played in a while and forgot how neat it is.
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09 Jun 2015 10:33 #203539 by Columbob

lj1983 wrote: y-wings with r4 agromech


You would think agromechs should be better suited to play Agricola on Tattooine than used in space fighters.

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09 Jun 2015 10:40 #203540 by Gary Sax

Legomancer wrote: Yesterday was a pretty hopping game day. 8 people. The host is in a new place now with a game room with a large table, allowing two 4p games at the same time, which is nice.

Nations: the Dice Game

Nations, the actual game, continues to baffle me. Some sessions go pretty well, some sessions are just a nightmare. My belief that I'd finally found a civ game where one player couldn't dictate how the other players were going to play the game seems to be erroneous. Without some house rules, it seems like it's just another "armies-with-grain" game most of the time.

Nevertheless, I was curious about the dice version. I theoretically like dice games, except I often don't, so it was worth trying out.

The dice game is feather light and relatively innocuous. Two criteria that I look at for a dice game are: 1) does it matter that there are other people playing? and 2) to what extent do the dice get de-randomized, defeating the point of a dice game? Thankfully, Nations TDG passes both of those tests. You will get angry at the other players for messing you up, and you will get frustrated with your dice. That's good. Both of those things should happen in a dice game.

The board game has been simplified for this outing, but almost too much so. There's very little differentiating tiles from one another. For a four-player game, each era you'll use all but three of the tiles, so there isn't much variety there. The event tiles are unremarkably different in each era as well. I played three games of this and though they unfolded slightly differently each time, there wasn't that much to tell them apart.

We'll see about Nations TDG. There's nothing wrong with it, and I certainly prefer it to Roll Through the Ages, but as dice games go it's not really standing out. I'd really rather play Ra: the Dice Game.

Tammany Hall

El Grande is pretty much the king of area control games, and I like it a bunch. I'm planning on grabbing the reprint in November. But as good as a game as it is, it doesn't really make much sense. What is happening in it? Who are these things? What's this supposed to be simulating? It's fine, because it's a fun, good game, so you don't really worry about any of that.

But Tammany Hall shows you how it could be. What is more area control than elections? What is more interesting than heated, demilegal elections? Tammany Hall has little betophatted figures and cubes and disks, but is a hell of a lot more thematically sound than most of the other nonsense that's declared "dripping with theme" around here. The actions make narrative sense and are all tied together through the theme. There's no question about how what you're doing fits in. As a result, you end up with a fun, well-tooled game that also provides a compelling narrative other than "and then Tim put his cubes there and got like 8 points for it!!"

What's more, it does all this with minimal fuss. The rules are actually pretty easy to learn. The artwork is handsome and evocative and doesn't provide noisome clutter. The game encourages a lot of sass-talk, negotiation, and banter. There's a lot of game in this package. I don't know if it's better than El Grande, but it's certainly up there.

Finished out with Parade, which I hadn't played in a while and forgot how neat it is.


Thanks for the post---I'll pass on Nation TDG but was curious about it.

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