What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Strategic Gaming club tackled What Price Glory today, I coached the middle schoolers that took to it very well. Great game for $24.

S.

Don't judge Nations based on the dice game... the card game is considerably more interesting IMHO (though hardly perfect).

Gary Sax wrote: Don't judge Nations based on the dice game... the card game is considerably more interesting IMHO (though hardly perfect).

Nations TDG is kind of a waste of time. There's just nothing to it. I've come to like Roll For the Galaxy, because you can actually pursue some kind of strategy there, but Nations TDG is just lifeless. It's better than Roll Through the Ages, but so is hypothermia.

Six years after my first play, I got in a three-player game of Through the Ages. The civ field is pretty crowded at this point--myself, I already have TtA, Sid Meier's Civilization (FFG), and Mare Nostrum if we just want to talk about ancient-civ games--and I'd had a bad experience trying to learn TtA previously, which are two reasons why it took so long. (Plus, I just have way too much stuff in general). I enjoyed it this time around, although I know my fellow players and I failed to really figure it out till late in the game, if then--a common sentiment, and one not all that surprising given the complexity of the game. With a new edition on the horizon and some rules streamlining likely, I'm not sure whether I should've just waited (and probably gotten rid of my current copy), but I think everyone had a good time even if they were somewhat intimidated by the game.

We had a hell of a game of Arena of the Planeswalkers last night @ Gaming by Michael. I had three buddies over, two of whom used to play Magic and one who never touched the stuff. One had played Heroscape before, the guy with no Magic experience. So there was I to bridge the gap.

We left out the black character (please refrain), I had the white one, I think his name is Gilderoy Lockhart. Magic guy #1 had Hottie McHotpants, Magic Guy #2 had Wet Willie and Heroscape guy took the Tree Lady. Pretty much just the free-for-all setup in the book, you get points at the end of the game for having a figure next to a glyph at the end of 48 turns. I thought that was a pointless victory condition, I thought it would just be an elimination win. But it went the full 48 and Tree Lady won it 2-1 over Wet Willie. Because those were the only figures left.

It started out as you'd expect, everyone converging toward the middle and summoning at least one squad on the first round. Wet Willie smartly put his illusionary whatevers out, which have a cool ability where your Planeswalker can teleport next to them. I thought I'd be slick and put the Rhinoceros Brigade out to go hold down the Toughness glyph- since they also get a Toughness bonus for being next each other I thought that would be a good idea. Tree Lady put some Sons of Legolas out to get some ranged coverage over the river and up through the middle. McHotpants tossed some Phoenixes out there. A couple of turns later, we had a couple of early scraps going on across all fronts. McHotpants cast her Hot Dogs, which basically have Haste and can attack the turn you summon them. With some red enchantments and sorceries, they just wiped out the Sons of Legolas, it was brutal. One figure was left with one HP. Wet Willie sent his Genestealers (listen, I do not remember the names of any of this stuff) down to McHotpants and it got nasty quick- they beat the shit out of the Phoenixes. Wet Willie was really making the most of his spells, all of which Magic fans will recognize as being very "blue" in nature. I scrapped with the Tree People that the Tree Lady summoned over on my side of the board, big Rhino dudes and tree dudes just beating the snot out of each other. I sprung a hidden enchantment on them that gave them a huge Toughness bonus and that carried the day. I sent Gilderoy up around the wall to the Knowledge glyph and summoned the Sickle Sisters, who have a cool ability to lock down an enemy squad from activating. So I put a stop to those illusionary dudes, who were in control of the middle. Then I threw sickles at them from the little hill in the middle that has a movement glyph on it. I held that hill for the entire game.

Wet Willie killed McHotpants, It was terrible. He did the mind control ability on her and she killed two of her own phoenixes. Then he just pretty much shot her to death with a couple long ranged attacks from The Tree Lady too. The Hot Dogs wound up getting offed by that one Elf That Wouldn't Die and a couple of big rolls from the Tree Lady herself. Red folded completely about 2/3rds of the way through but had ONE phoenix on the board until the very end. Ridiculous!

In the last few turns, I thought I was on the way to winning- the Rhinos held fast, I used a lot of toughness-enhancing spells and healing to keep everything alive. But then Wet Willie used his mind control thing on Gilderoy and forced me to attack my own Sickle Sister- the one up on the hill that was just holding down the middle like a MF. Of course, he rolled straight hits and the Sickle Sister completely crapped out- no shields. And this was, of course, AFTER Tree Lady had played a sorcery to discard all enchantments. He fucking did it again on his next turn, and I killed the other one that was still alive. RIDICULOUS.

So the Tree People turned the tide against my Rhino guys, just pummeling them with some lucky-ass rolls. So the Tree Lady brought them to bear on that middle area, and they killed Gilderoy. I had one sickle sister left, so it killed that pesky Phoenix (that actually might have won the game if he had flown it away and parked it somewhere, letting us beat each other to death. Everybody's spell deck was out, hits everywhere on everything. So it came down to Tree Lady versus Wet Willie on that main hill, turn 48 and Tree Lady had a Tree Person and herself in scoring position and Wet Willie just had himself. He made a last-ditch effort to make Tree Lady kill the Tree Person...one of those rolls where the roller takes like three minutes to roll the die. And he made it with a 17, but he rolled straight shields on his defense. Tree Lady responded by playing a card that gave her +3 attack and totally subdued Wet Willie. He didn't die, but he was gravely shamed and left destitute.

TL;DR- game is awesome.

Michael Barnes wrote: (listen, I do not remember the names of any of this stuff) .

Your names are probably more entertaining - Sons of Legolas! Now I'm wondering who their mother(s) would be or if it's like a gang name or something.

I think I've finally found a regular to play some D&D Attack Wing with. Over the past week, we've managed to schedule two nights and get three games each night. So we're now six games into our campaign and split 3-3.

Game 1 - A named Copper and Blue dragon catch each other in the named Red Dragon's lair looking to pillage some loot. Basic goal was for me (blue) to destroy him and his was to cause some damage to me and escape the Red Dragon's cave. I came in, my lightning breath didn't do anything, his acid breath knocked me down and I never could get back around to catch up before he exited.

Game 2 - I had the named Green Dragon who was guarding her treasure in the forest, meanwhile a named paladin and a squad of elves were attempting to raid and pillage. I engaged the elves and rained down poison breath on them causing some serious damage. I then broke off trying to chase down the paladin that was getting deep into the forest. I managed to cause a few hits but as I caught my breath back I reengaged the elves. Only managed to kill one this time. Meanwhile my back was exposed leaving the paladin to launch his magical lance causing me massive damage. A few turns later I was down.

Game 3 - The wraith Lord Max (the only name I really know) and one of his wraith buddies (me) were defending the ruins of their once glorious castle from invaders who were attempting to break the haunting of Lord Max by beating him down to one wound left and showing him the magical Chisel. The keeper of the Chisel was the same paladin as prior, but he came with the assistance of a lesser angel and the named Copper dragon from earlier. Max just needed to kill the Chisel bearer. Lucky for me he put the Chisel on his weakest character and despite losing my wraith ally, it managed to keep the Copper Dragon distracted enough for Max to drop the angel and paladin.

Game 4 - Lord Max was pissed from the attack so he brought along his sphinx buddy to go destroy someone else's castle. Guarding were the named Copper Dragon and the named Elf Mage. The Elf stayed behind the protection of the walls while the copper dragon went after the sphinx. Who in turn phased out of existence and teleported to the other corner of the board. As the copper took the time to turn around the sphinx and Max focused on a castle tower and eventually beat it down, while the elf failed to have range with her spells.

Game 5 - Elsewhere my named Frost Giant was walking around hunting stuff and came across a squad of elves led by a greater angel. I duel to the death ensued. The angle never able to pull the bowstring back on his magical bow could penetrate the armor of the giant. Meanwhile the giant kept blowing his horn until it cracked but not before causing significant damage to the elf unit dwindling them down to be a non-factor and a few hits on the angel. Head large and cocky though the giant just could not land the finishing blow, meanwhile a bow shot struck home putting the giant close to death. After some chess like movement and lot of attacks and blocks the giant finally managed to crush in the head of the angel, causing the elves to flee.

Game 6 - Me as the named Red Dragon as well as the named Earth Cult Warrior dude decided it would be a good idea to attack a ballista training event. Though lesser ballista they were backed by Calamity war machine of renown. My earth warrior charged down a flank on his giant toad trying to start sweeping in from a flank to take out the training ballista. He, with amazing proficiency, successfully took out 2 out of 3 hits on three. Meaning the Red Dragon had to come in and breath some fire...Unfortunately he (I) forgot that it attacks everything in the breath's cone of attack...Including his buddy Earth Cult Warrior. My plan crumbling around me, arrows rained down. Balagos fell causing his Earth Warrior buddy to flee.

So far...Really loving the game. I've played dozens of games of X-Wing, well over a hundred of Star Trek...And this one, now that I'm getting past all the nuances, I'm loving. I think it is every bit as tactical as XWing on the table and every bit as strategic as Star Trek in the army construction.

Forbidden Stars - Liked it a lot, but I'm not sure if I loved it or not. If I wasn't smitten with StarCraft I'd absolutely be balls out on this one as I love the order system, but I'm not 100% sold. With one play, I'd say if you have StarCraft you don't need to upgrade to this as they're similar enough.

Overall, the game is streamlined for sure with much less options and a bit less strategy as a result, my issue though is that combat is actually more clunky and awkward. It's a pretty neat system once you get the hang of it but it's not as smooth as StarCraft. StarCraft took longer to setup the fight and choose cards and then resolved very quickly. This has a more elongated pace.

Love the Objective tokens and the warp storms. Love the order upgrades and how they are unique. This games feels a bit MORE asymmetrical than StarCraft if you ignore the tons of additional units in the latter.

Also, what is up with the scaling? We had a 4 player game that we had to call after 3ish hours. I was the only player with 2 objectives (Chaos Space Marines) everyone else had 1. Most games take longer with more players because you have more downtime and people activating stuff. FS not only does that, but it requires you obtain more objectives as well. It's like if a game said you needed 2VP to win 2 player, 3VP for 3, and 4 for 4, but it doesn't give you any tools to speed up acquisition with more players. So it's straight up longer.

I'm guessing this is to force you to interact with more player's at the table rather than just focus on one, but it's a slog and overly long. We may eventually decide 3 objectives is enough for 4 players but that will come wit a lot more plays.

Keep in mind that obtaining all tokens is only necessary for a sudden death victory. Otherwise you only need the most.

The increased number is definitely there to give more options and to prevent ganging up on one person.

True. I imagine, perhaps falsely, that the sudden death victory is the intended way to decide the game with the majority of plays, going to length only if someone doesn't manage it. Maybe that's a false perception built up by years of playing StarCraft where we almost never hit the end draws near condition.

I'm playing War of the Ring gradually with my 12 year old. We're both busy during the day but we come back to the table for awhile before bedtime and play a couple of rounds, then park it overnight (out of reach of the cats). Yep, I'm still smitten by this game. I guess I'll be out $400 come Monday.

The past year has been heavily Japanese-influenced. The highlights:

Guns and Steel. This game is *SO* good. Imagine if Through The Ages were a 45 minutes long deckbuilder with zero luck. Somehow, this tiny box of 50 cards is really good, with just enough resource stuff and meanness. The components are just 50 cards and a page of rules. No tokens, even. The best bit is how attacks work in that even the strongest players are cycling how much defense they have available at any time. And this tiny game has a tech tree about as complex as Eclipse.

Shadows of Brimstone. I think it is the best dungeon crawler CAMPAIGN ever made. The actual dungeon bits make up about 50-60% of the playtime with practice. In between the real game is going to town and working out your character build. This is basically Diablo as a boardgame, and it is the one they got right. The sad thing is that the actual dungeon crawling is less interesting, but moves at a brisk pace.

King of Frontier. It is precisely a cross between Carcassonne and Puerto Rico. Someone stripping play time to 45 minutes and amping the luck factor. This is a sign that the Japanese are reinventing the parts about Eurogames which made them interesting in the first place. They are fast, simple, and addictive.

Villeinein. This really isn't THAT great of a game, but it is worth noting because it is basically Agricola meets stud poker. Each game takes 5-10 minutes, and you are basically looking at a list of scoring cards, then choosing two. It is kind of like the typical resource Eurogame boiled down to ONE choice.

Cthulhu Wars. It is basically a simpler Chaos in the Old World variant, and the rare Kickstarter that is actually a rather good game. Hastur is definitely the Nurgle of the game and wins the early rounds. Seriously, just kick his ass---his monsters are all wimps.

The Ravens of Thri Sahashri: Probably my new favorite co-op game, but only for two players. It isn't like ANYTHING you've ever played, and is a complex beast of set assembly, tile laying, using captured cards for actions, and subtle communication. The game itself is a crazy story with a concubine which has dream ravens eating her memories after being injured, and her lover who is trying to reassemble her mind while she sends him clues in the form of Japanese poetry. The ravens rip cards out of the game while the lover assembles a giant grid of overlapping the cards as the concubine removes cards to assemble the poem as well as to get the grid to match her secret heart cards.

Man, I have got to get back on the schedule to make it over there Wednesdays...MAYBE next week.

The Japanese stuff is really interesting, I haven't played any of these but Guns and Steel looks awesome. There is definitely something of a national style coming out from over there, this REALLY minimal, sleek design sensibility that just strips everything to the core- a bare frame of a setting, just a single mechanic or two...but it works. And they are working off of mostly Eurogame models, so what you're getting are these games that should be "barely there" but that are really just stripped of all fat.

I really want all of those titles BGG is selling, but they're expensive for what they are.

Michael Barnes wrote: I really want all of those titles BGG is selling, but they're expensive for what they are.

Ditto. I figure I can just wait 6-12 months and when the shine has worn off, everyone will be dumping them cheap. At least, that's what I hope.

Guns and Steel and Kings of Frontier both look interesting. Are they English friendly?

I'd love to try Shadows of Brimstone sometime, but don't want to be the person who buys it. Which means I'll probably never play it.