What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

JonJacob wrote: *unfavourite*.

Dr. Mabuse wrote:

JonJacob wrote: *unfavourite*.

I don't know how many times I have to tell you... roll higher! I know you think you're being all clever and out of left field with your roll low strategy but it just doesn't work. Roll higher... also check out all the critical hits I rolled... you can do that too. So that's my big tip for today. Perhaps I should write a strategy article about this topic to help others who seem to think that rolling low will help them.

EARTH REBORN TALK FOR FRONT PAGE DUDES!

Anyway, I played Firefly. I'm rated just about right at 7 on BGG's scale. It's too long and the pick up and deliver is not sharp enough, not like Merchants of Venus, the benchmark for this genre. Nevertheless it has something, a little narrative it... but it's still kind of agonizing at times. I don't think I'll be selling it. My biggest beef is its discard piles. I know why they made the "pick up three, buy two" where you look through the discard pile. But it grinds the game to a complete, miserable halt. It is not worth the cost in randomness reduction to lengthen the game like this... moreover, I think it makes thematic sense for it to be random---like, just because one player found a sniper rifle and didn't buy it doesn't mean the next person there will find the same rifle if they want to. I sound negative on the game but I guess overall I'd say it was good, I just don't think it's a tight or terribly well put together experience.

Also, I won by drawing 2 Niska missions, putting together a skeleton crew with good equipment and making a shitload of money. There is absolutely something to be said in Firefly to keeping a small, cheap crew around. Equipment is expensive but pays off in the long run if they aren't paying out these exorbitant salaries.

JonJacob wrote: Well I hadn't played ER pretty much since the year it came out when in a rush of enthusiasm I played through all the scenario's... some multiple times, tried SAGS once or twice and closed up shop. So I pretty much haven't played it in however many years that was.

I'm in the same boat but now you guys got me itching to play again. It's such a shame there wasn't even a single character expansion pack. I get super bored playing the same dudes over and over. That's the only reason we lost interest. I considered selling it off recently but couldn't... I'll eventually pimp customs some day to flesh it out. There's a lot of potential to get creative here.

This is kinda random but I was just thinking how odd it was that they sold this with primed minis. That was just... strange. Were they originally going to be fully pre-painted but the plug got pulled during production?

Hex Sinister wrote: It's such a shame there wasn't even a single character expansion pack. I get super bored playing the same dudes over and over. That's the only reason we lost interest. I considered selling it off recently but couldn't... I'll eventually pimp customs some day to flesh it out. There's a lot of potential to get creative here.

I really want to find the time and energy into making something for the game but I'm pretty sure it'll never happen. So everyone once in awhile I'll check to see if anything is posted on BGG and some industrious young fellow did try to make a faction. I've been tempted to try it out. But even that seems like a bit of work.

www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1379743/som...-home-made-expansion

Heh, I like this guy's flavor. DARK CHUCK and DR. DAD gave me a me chuckle. I wouldn't want to fuck with those guys.

Yeah, it's a lot of effort to do custom shit if you're not big into crafting or modelling and etc. ONE day I keep telling myself I am going to get back into mini painting. But I always think that for the price I spend on all the fucking paints I could buy a new game instead. I'm sick like that.

Last night we had a 4 player game of Sons of Anarchy which included the Calaveras club expansion. The game was fun, and there were many bad mexican accents being thrown around. Overall the game isn't terribly exciting though. It's still early in my experience of the game but I'd have to say combat isn't terribly thrilling since you only throw a single die and the rest is math. At least the guessing mechanic with guns is nice.

Next was some [/b]Epic Spell Wars[/b] with the new set. The new mechanics were largely a hit, and I'll probably be shuffling it all up into a giant pile at this point.

We were going to get to check out Legendary Alien whatever, but the guy who brought it had never opened it before and discovered that it doesn't come even close to ready to go, so we canceled that.

Next was a horrible game of Coup. I messed up a key rule since I hadn't played in forever, but honestly I don't think it would have mattered much. It wasn't a hit.

Finally was a game of King of Tokyo which I wasn't thrilled about playing but it turned out pretty fun since death came quickly for everyone. No one played for VPs which is how I prefer it. A VP victory is basically nonsense in that game and I won't acknowledge it.

JonJacob wrote:

Dr. Mabuse wrote:

JonJacob wrote: *unfavourite*.

I don't know how many times I have to tell you... roll higher! I know you think you're being all clever and out of left field with your roll low strategy but it just doesn't work. Roll higher... also check out all the critical hits I rolled... you can do that too. So that's my big tip for today. Perhaps I should write a strategy article about this topic to help others who seem to think that rolling low will help them.

Well it does if you're playing any type of Axis&Allies game.

Played Twilight Imperium 3 all day yesterday. It was a 6 player game using the optional prebuilt map rules. Myself and a friend were veterans of our first game and the rest were new to the game. I played as the Yssaril Tribes, with my left neighbour playing the Brotherhood of Yin and my righthand neighbour playing the Mentak. The other players played as the Jol-Nar, L1Z1X and the Humans. We played with the basic Strategy cards to keep things simple and hopefully quicker, and after a quick rundown of the rules we were off.

From the start of the game I was resource poor and I had a Supernova hex right above my homeworlds, so that limited my expansion significantly. However, I had a good amount of Influence. I received the Secret Objective which told me to claim 6 planets with Tech specialties. The game began normally, with everyone claiming their adjacent hexes and grabbing their hex closest to Mecatol Rex. I had a grand total of 5 resources from my initial 5 planets, so I retreated my forces to my Home hex and slowly built up a sizable fleet. In general I tried to ally with and appease my neighbours, because I knew I couldn't win in a game of attrition. I also used my skip ability almost every opportunity I had to maintain a counterstrike advantage, and I checked my neighbours action cards every round so I would have an advantage in combat against them. In the first few turns most people built up large fleets but there weren't any large conflicts. When the Public Objective came up that asked players to conquer an enemy-held planet, I agreed with my Mentak neighbour and ally to attack and take one of his planets, then he could take one of mine with little resistance. I left a token defense force in my home hex and took the planet. However, right after my fleet left the Brotherhood of Yin attacked me!

Just as my armada left my home system the Brotherhood of Yin sent in a quick strike force that blasted through my meager defenses and went straight for my main, and only, spacedock. They destroyed it and left, which allowed the Yin to claim their Secret Objective of destroying an opponent's last spacedock, which gave him an early lead. I returned to my home sector to rebuild, which set me back considerably as I had to rebuild my space dock, and on my 1 resource planet to boot. I laid low while claiming some of the easier Technology and Resource based Public objectives and built up a second massive fleet. However this may have been a blessing in disguise, because the Yin then ignored me and built up for a push to Mecatol. I noticed that by using the skip action I was able to maintain most of my Command counters on my player sheet. As we approached the late game most players had built up some truly gigantic fleets, and many of them were poised around Mecatol. As we entered Turn 6 the Jol-Nar picked the Warfare card, conquered Mecatol Rex by wiping out the guardians there, and then moved against the Humans!

With his attack the Jol-Nar player set off a spark that ignited wars throughout the galaxy. His fleet of dreadnoughts and carriers attacked the Human hex right beside Mecatol, but he failed mainly because of some truly horrendous die rolls. The Brotherhood of Yin player sensed weakness and launched an attack on Mecatol, driving the Jol-Nar player back to consolidate his forces. The Brotherhood held Mecatol for two turns, but then the Humans sent in a titanic fleet and drove him out, and then significantly fortified the planet. At this point my Mentak neighbour had reached 6 points with the Imperial card, and we realized that he was able to jump to 9 points if he received a Public objective plus his Secret Objective which was to conquer his neighbour's hexes that bordered their home systems. He had taken my hex just before we realized this, and the Jol-Nar's hex was wide open for the taking, so I was the only one who could stop him from getting to 9 points. My fleet of 6 fully upgraded destroyers and carrier with fighters moved against his fleet of a dreadnought, carriers, destroyers and 6 fighters.

His dreadnought and two carriers were able to fire first using his racial and tech abilities, which wiped out 2 of my fighters. We then both fired our anti-fighter barrages, and my 18 (!) 6+ destroyer dice easily annihilated his fighter escort, while I had two fighters left at the start of combat. My giant hand of 12 action cards finally paid off, as I laid down a steady stream of attack cards that gave me +1 to all dice rolls, re-rolls, and a Direct Hit! which finished off his damaged dreadnought. He was only left with two ships after the first round of combat while I had only lost my fighters, so he retreated from the hex and I stopped him from claiming his objective. However, when he played the Imperial card the first Stage II Objective stated that if you had 4+ capital ships in two enemy home systems, you could claim it and win the game.

Seeing this the Jol-Nar player decided to attack and take the nearly undefended home systems of the Mentak and Human players. The L1Z1X player decided he had to stop the Jol-Nar from winning, so he sent in a rapid strike force that expelled the Jol-Nar from the Human home system. As all this was transpiring I used the Imperial card to move to 8 points, which was tied with a few other players. At this point achieving my Secret Objective seemed almost impossible with the time left, but the Stage II Objective card that was flipped was exactly what I needed: pay 6 command counters and receive two victory points! I spent all my influence when the Logistics card was played to use its Secondary ability and buy all my remaining Command counters. At this point no one could stop me, because my Mentak neighbour had just rebuilt his decimated fleet and my Brotherhood neighbour had played Diplomacy on me, because I had a large fleet threatening his home system. I moved my fleet back to defend my home systems and paid the 6 Command counters to receive 2 points and win the game!

After our 9 hour game everyone said they really enjoyed the experience and they would like to play again, potentially with different Imperial and other strategy cards. Does anyone have any preferred Strategy setups? Now that we have a pool of 9 non-beginner players we don't mind adding more complexity. We also used some of the rules from the 1st expansion and we were thinking of incorporating some from the 2nd next time. Are there any rules we should play with that make the game better?



This is us approaching the endgame about 6 or 7 hours in. Orange (my Mentak neighbour) is about to attack my hex to try and get his Secret Objective, while grey (the Brotherhood) is about to kick purple (Jol-Nar) off of Mecatol. Blue (L1Z1X) and black (Humans) were engaged in a cold war for almost the entire game.

JonJacob wrote:

Dr. Mabuse wrote:

JonJacob wrote: *unfavourite*.

I don't know how many times I have to tell you... roll higher! I know you think you're being all clever and out of left field with your roll low strategy but it just doesn't work. Roll higher... also check out all the critical hits I rolled... you can do that too. So that's my big tip for today. Perhaps I should write a strategy article about this topic to help others who seem to think that rolling low will help them.

Ask the DungeonQuest Strategy Master!

Sounds like a great game of Ti3. We play With the Shattered Empire Strategies. I'll post a link to the rules we use for the WBC tournament later. Last year we finished a 8 player final in 5 1/2 hours so it won't add time to the game,

Thanks for the advice, I'll read through them. If we can get a 6 player game down to 5-6 hours that would be perfect. We were already thinking of ways to speed things up, like bringing more d10s for large combats. I've read somewhere that people sometimes mix and match Strategy cards, have you ever tried that?

scrumpyjack wrote: Does anyone have any preferred Strategy setups? Now that we have a pool of 9 non-beginner players we don't mind adding more complexity. We also used some of the rules from the 1st expansion and we were thinking of incorporating some from the 2nd next time. Are there any rules we should play with that make the game better?

Here's my setup:
- I always use all the Shattered Empire variant Strategy cards, occasionally using Trade III (mercs) when we have more experience players.
- I use a 50/50 mix of base game/variant public objectives. So some are conflict based, while some can be achieved on your own.
- Artifacts help speed the game up by putting more VPs out there, as well as encouraging more player interaction.
- Mechanized units and flagships are easy to include.
- The Wormhole Nexus is always good to give orphan wormholes a use.
- Preliminary Objectives gives some easier goals which can speed up the games.
- I also really like the Final Frontier tokens (empty space events) to introduce a little uncertainty.

scrumpyjack wrote: He was only left with two ships after the first round of combat while I had only lost my fighters, so he retreated from the hex and I stopped him from claiming his objective.

Maybe you already know this and just omitted it for the sake of the story, but you have to declare retreats prior to the combat round, so he wouldn't have been able to wait and see how badly he got beaten before declaring a retreat. He would have to wait annother whole round and probably would have lost his last two ships in the process.

Disgustipater wrote: Here's my setup:
- I always use all the Shattered Empire variant Strategy cards, occasionally using Trade III (mercs) when we have more experience players.
- I use a 50/50 mix of base game/variant public objectives. So some are conflict based, while some can be achieved on your own.
- Artifacts help speed the game up by putting more VPs out there, as well as encouraging more player interaction.
- Mechanized units and flagships are easy to include.
- The Wormhole Nexus is always good to give orphan wormholes a use.
- Preliminary Objectives gives some easier goals which can speed up the games.
- I also really like the Final Frontier tokens (empty space events) to introduce a little uncertainty.

Those all sound great, I'll include them next time. And you're right about the retreat in that battle, we had been following the correct retreat rules up to that point but I think we may have forgotten in that instance.

Totally agree with what Disgustipater wrote.