What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Having spent years of real time in Azeroth, finding the locations with me at the table was a non-issue. Oh...the Sunken Temple...god damn I died in that place a lot and I hated that green dragon....oh the Dead Lands...god damn I died in that place a lot...etc etc..

A pair of D&D: Attack Wing games and a teaching game of Dice Masters.
The two D&D games were both the Adventures that came with the Wave 0 troop packs.

Adventure one I had a band of Hobgoblins with a Frost Giant and a Drow Ranger attempting to push a cart carrying dragon riches across the battlefield. My opponent had a Copper Dragon and Elf Mage trying to stop me. He went with the strategy of trying to take the Hobgoblins out, when in reality he should have gone after the cart first then the Hobgoblins. I also bought him a lot of time stumbling out of the gate and never getting the cart really moving until the third turn. Eventually the cart was moving and the Hobgoblins hit the breaks to let the enemy fly right by while the Frost Giant with a final mighty shove pushed the cart off.

The second game had my group consisting of the Frost Giant, Chimera and Human Mage hunting down a pack of band of Elves while a Brass Dragon provided cover. I couldn't attack the Elves until they crossed the mid point of the battlefield. So I had to try to balance keeping position on the Elves so they couldn't make a break for it and trying to take out the Brass dragon. The Brass Dragon put my Mage to sleep (barely) and then proceeded to breathe on it killing him. I kept swinging back and forth between paying attention to the Dragon and the Elves so with my attention split downing the dragon took longer than it should have, meaning that the turn the Dragon dropped I was out of position, especially with the Giant and Mage dead allowing the Elves to make a break for it, but they did lose 33% of their group before making an escape.

I never played world of Warcraft, but I've actually been looking at that board game lately. Is it good? I think I remember uba saying she loved it, but I can't remember. Is it good? Get a game in at WBC perhaps?

It's a fairly decent game. If I had to pick between Runebound (which I dislike because it's terrible), Talisman (which I dislike because I "hate fun or something"), and the Wow Adventure Game, not only would I pick WoW but I'd probably enjoy myself while playing it. No part of it particularly stands out as being great, but it really doesn't do a whole lot to rub you the wrong way, either.

And let's be clear here, Jay, we're talking about the World of Warcraft Adventure game, NOT the coffin box one. That game is balls in the face, and I know, depends on orientation and all that, but this is the kind of balls _no body_ enjoys.

5 two player games of Theseus. Taught the game to a newbie, each game was space marines (him) vs. aliens (me). I went 1-4. I have to think more about why I lost, we only got to playing with the 1 blip level of complication cards, by game 5 I should have just tossed them all in.

Very good game, but the Space Marines just make intuitive sense to play with so I think I lost because I wasn't wrapping my mind around what the aliens really needed to do.

I played the modest, restrained and tasteful Kickstarter project Artifacts, Inc. by the same dude that brought us Eight Minutes Empires that arrived today.

You're an archeologist in the late 20's looking to develop the best reputation. You earn reputation by establishing expeditions that gather artifacts which can be sold to private parties for some quick cash or to museums which give a little bit less cash but builds some long term favor that can give you the extra reputation at the end to win you the game.

On your turn you roll a few dice which determines what actions you can take during your turn. The general flow is find artifacts, sell for cash, setup new expeditions and buy some better assets. There are some gamey elements like the position of your assets in relations to others can give you a reputation boost. And I never really felt restricted by the dice and felt like the actions I wanted were largely available or if I couldn't do something there was an equal quality choice.

I enjoyed it quite a bit, my wife on the other hand felt a little overwhelmed and never could achieve a focus, but she also ended up winning by 1 point. My gut is saying that it is one of those games that will always end up with people within a few points of each other. Pretty inoffensive, light and nothing fundamentally wrong and does what it does well and enjoyable. Very much like Eight Minute Empires in that respect.

I've been curious about that one! It sounds like the kind of game my girlfriend would like a lot, so I'll probably pick up a copy. With all the kvetching about Kickstarter and art lately (a lot of it justified, to be sure), I gotta say I love the cover art of that game. It has the stylized, modern, deco-ish look of a 1930s travel poster or WPA propaganda pamphlet or something.

family is out in Indiana for a couple weeks, so its house projects, work, and some gaming.

Thursday I got smoked in my Reddit Vassal Tournament for Xwing. I made a mistake when submitting my list to the tournament, so I'm playing a list I'm not real happy with, but its ok. Gunner Whisper, Soontir, 2x Academy Ties. vs Scum Boba Fett & IG-88B. Protip - don't K-turn Whisper right in front of IG-88B. A stressed Whisper is a sad (and dead) Whisper.

Friday night some friends asked if they could come over. We made Grilled Pizzas. Awesomesauce. Also Roborally (with armed and dangerous...I want more boards) Lords of Waterdeep (they loved this one, despite not knowing anything about D&D....I want the expansion) and 1 game of Warhammer: Invasion. Chaos vs Empire. Chaos Steamrolled my Imperials. 1 damage to his capital before my city was sacrificed to Khorne.

Saturday different group of people showed up. We grilled the rest of the Pizza dough I had made up. Still awesome.
More Roborally...the first turn I made a mistake, and backed up into a pit. The rules say you are supposed to have X many lives to spend....we never play with that rule, as someone always ends up dieing 5-6 times over a race. This time it was me.

Kemet....I won, but mostly because the other players didn't grasp that you had to attack to get points. They were both building up the pyramids and getting stuff.

More W:I. the set I traded for in a recent Big BGG math trade had everything but the last two cycles of cards. And I found some decks online, so I've got 10 different races/decks setup to go without any deckbuilding. plus a ton of other cards when i want to tweak decks. We played with the Cataclysm expansion, which allows for multiplayer games. Rather than Victory conditions being 'burning your opponents capital' there are (# of players - 1) 'fulcrums' -neutral locations- that generate 'dominance points' which are the new end-game condition. Start with 3, first to 8 wins, lose dominance if your capital burns.

we played several games, just trying out the different races. the new neutral races are pretty awesome, and have some neat things they do differently from the original 6.

- Chaos - Skaven - Wood Elves - this was a fun game, Chaos jumped out quick and took a fulcrum that allowed him to deal 2 indirect damage to the other players every round, that had to be applied to units. so the other two struggled to get anything small out, until the wood elves got a creature out that allowed them to use developments as creatures(basically treants). and so started applying that damage to the developments. This broke the stalemate, and fighting started. the two fulcrums moved around all three players, we had 6 burned zones by the end. ended up a 8-7-6 score, with the wood elves taking the win.

W:I has had quite a few problems towards the end of its life, but as a casual game it is great. one complaint was that fighting wasn't focused on units, instead attacks were let through to the capital, while your counterattack did the same thing. Fulcrums means that you don't care as much about your capital, and instead there is tons of fighting between your battlefield units as they defend those fulcrums from enemy attacks.

Was that how Invasion endgame went? I never felt like your capital had enough health to do that sort of thing, but I see how a race to the bottom healthwise makes sense since it doesn't kill your creatures.

I don't really think so. Its something I saw many people complain about though, i believe it was inexperience with the game that drove much of it.

since your resources are generated by creatures mostly, rather than lands, defending is a difficult choice, even more so than in magic. The attacker chooses where to attack, so he will attack me in my weakspot. creatures I have to defend in that spot are also generating resources. Attacks have built in trample. So I block, absorb 2-3 damage, 3-4 damage still gets through, but i've lost resource generating stuff. I can see the frustration. Buuuuut usually by that time, things are already on the downhill slope.

Cataclysm ups the violence by taking focus away from those areas......it can go fast(you only need 5 more dominance to win) but if people are paying attention, there's room for quite a bit more back and forth with the fulcrums.

Interesting, I only had the base set and played very casually.

A few recent games after a week hiatus on "vacation" staying with...in-laws.

Maria with one new player. New players should probably be given France automatically. Unfortunately in this game we gave him Prussia/Prags and he lost his Prussian supply train twice. Austria had a field day with some poor movement from Prussia and was able to focus beating down France, me. And the Prags also beat down France. It was a tough game to enjoy as France given how little pressure Prussia placed on Austria. We ran out of time by hour three and almost done with the third year of four, but Austria only needed another couple of points for the win. I couldn't do shit all game as France with both opponents hammering me. Still a great game but for each side to have fun the players have to understand the basic strategy and how the Prussian/Prag player really is in charge of balancing the other sides.

Fourth game of Cave Evil, another four player attempt with everyone new except me. I think next time I do a 4 player game with noobs I'll ask if they want to try 2v2 teams. I felt compelled to use the Darkest Evil Bitch as the game end condition so I could guarantee it would end after 3 hours. Seemed like the other guys enjoyed the game, the art, and the awesome creatures but I'm not sure if they would all play it again. It is too defensive with 4 players, everyone sits back, digs tunnels to find stuff, and eventually sends a few monsters out to the middle for some minor skirmishing. Not as much interaction as I would've hoped for - maybe playing with teams would fix that. I was the teleport 5 spaces necro and destroyed my neighbors crystal, knocking him out of the game after about 2 hours. I had a stacked squad with my necro, 2 other small creatures and 2 trinket creatures so my stats were pretty tough. I didn't kill anything else in the game and once the Bitch went active she teleported to me and I won. Great game but way better with 2.

Second game of 7 Wonders, had 7 players and played with I think all the expansions. Decent game after playing Cave Evil for 3 hours. Not something I'd ever be excited about though but at least it is fast. I didn't think the iconography was that bad either as a new player, and strangely enough I won with 57 points going big on military/culture and a sweet guild that gave me points for grey buildings my neighbors built. I think I like this better than Among the Stars after playing that game only twice.

I just hosted my annual game weekend (RepliCon). It was a lower key event this year because many of my friends who would normally come were unable to attend. Still loads of fun (and this year I made it into a mini-fundraiser for the local food bank / women's shelter and raised $200 for that cause).

Here's what I partook in:

Sushi Go! I enjoy this one. It's 7 Wonders (which I don't particularly like) except shorter, simpler, smaller, cheaper and cuter. My wife won; she typically does well in 7 Wonders, too.

Hyperborea I tried this for the first time a few weeks ago and now have 4 plays of it with player counts ranging from 2 to 5. It scales pretty well and it doesn't overstay its welcome (at least not when using the "2 of 3" endgame condition). I finished middle-of-the-pack with the red squad, despite a pretty kick-ass combo of technologies that allowed me to teleport (Long Journey from the promo cards) and double attack.

Battlestar Galactica This hit the table after a few years hiatus. It became a shelf toad after I bought the Pegasus and Exodus expansions because a fairly simple game became convoluted and intimidating. I utilized the Pegasus ship, Cylon Leaders, all of the characters, and the Treachery cards. As I suspected, the additions added complication without adding the fun, mainly because it's such a pain in the ass trying to reference rule changes. I need to print off a good consolidation of the rules. Plus, there were 7 of us so the game was at times like herding cats. Cylons won a close one. I was a Cylon Leader sympathetic to the Cylons but wasn't able to share in the celebrations since I was wanting us to be a wee more genocidal.

That's Life! A very fun push-your-luck game that I think is overlooked (or at least I never see mention of it), probably because it's a) out of print, b) has zero theme, and c) has weird comic art for no reason.

Terror in Meeple City / Rampage Not a fan of this one. The basic idea of it is better than the execution.

Summoner Wars: Alliances I played two games of this in which me and my opponent swapped races (Deep Benders vs Jungle Shadows). Jungle Shadows won both games, but my win was largely due to my opponent coming down with a bad case of shit rolls.

Jambo I hadn't played this since my first game, about a year and a half ago. I played the same opponent as then, though he'd played a few times since then. I was up 33 to 5 at one point, but I didn't have much of an economic engine going. He caught up and blew past me for the win.

Red7 I tried this filler, winning a best 2-out-of-3 against my Jambo opponent. Cool game. I like that it's small, cheap and simple, but decisions on how to play your cards are never easy.

The Hobbit Card Game Not a fantastic trick-taking game (that would be Kaiser), but not bad. The theme is actually a nice addition; it's not just pasting some Tolkien characters on the cards.

Deep Sea Adventure A push-your-luck game from Japan available through the BGG store. Super fun. I loved it. This game brought the most laughs all weekend. I need to get myself a copy.

Letters from Whitechapel Fury of Dracula is the game that got me into the hobby of fancy-pants games. I absolutely love it and it remains one of my favourites. Letters from Whitechapel, though, is the superior cat-and-mouse game. It's distilled down to nothing more than what is the best part of this genre: the hunt. So much tension, especially when playing as Jack the Ripper. This game actually took over 4 hours (which is waaaaaay too long for this one; most sessions should take about 2 hours) but none of us were bored for a second. Jack lost after his final murder of a wretched after we investigators were able to set up an impassable net, cutting him off from his home.

Sons of Anarchy My first try of this GF9 game. I don't think it's as successful as their other games I've tried (Spartacus and Firefly) but it's still quite good. I was the Lin Syndicate and absolutely crushed the other 4 players. Not sure how I did that, though, so I won't be able to repeat that success.

Gumshoe A few of us played through the first three days. LOVED it. It's at least as good as Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, but I think I prefer this one. The writing is great, the San Francisco detective theme is wonderful, and I like the rules changes, such as having to manage your time and being able to split up from the other detectives to chase leads. And autopsy reports, crime scene analysis, fingerprint identification... simply fucking awesome.

All in all, it was a great mix of quick games and lengthier, meaty fare; I got to blow the dust off a few shelf toads as well as try out a few I've been itching to play; some money was raised for people in need; and I shared lots of laughs while drinking beer and chucking dice with friends I haven't hung out with in a long while.

Super write-up but, c'mon man, you gotta make this a blog post filled with pictures.

I GOTTA HAVE M'PICTURES!!!

Got in the first game of Kingdom Builder last night with the wife.

Having just seen it on Tabletop, I thought it'd be a hit given my wife's enjoyment with Dominion and TTR (and familiarity with Settlers) and was proven right! I like it for what it is - quick and simple with a little bit for us to think about. Perfect end of day game for us.