What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

It's one of those games that grows with you in terms of skill. It's fun when you're bad (if you're playing another bad player) and it's fun when you're both halfway decent too.

Still my favorite game, probably. If anyone wants to play on ACTS, let me know.

I picked up Flick 'em up Wednesday just in time for Uba and Al's arrival on Thursday. We played the 1st basic scenario. Me and the 2 spawns were the outlaws against Al, Uba and QueenPut the Lawman. In the end, Al's and Uba's excellent shooting skill prevailed. I'm looking forward to trying out the other scenarios this week.

Al Rose wins again? And at a flicking game you say? The world gasps in shock.

Weekly game night last Wednesday. Started with Skull & Roses using a regular deck of cards while waiting for everyone to arrive. "Ok, this game is called Red Cards Black Card..."

We had 7 people, so broke into different games. I set up and taught a 3-player game of Nexus Ops(AH edition). Other two guys hadn't played before. I dropped a rock strider on the monolith early and they just let it sit there all game for some reason. I was really just hoping to get a turn or maybe two of Energize cards. So that wasn't very tough to kick butt with a handful of Energize cards. The other thing that doomed them was committing a bunch of humans and crystallines into a battle that never concluded because it was fought in a liquifungus forest. I hadn't played for a few years so it was a nice reminder about what a solid game it is.

Both games finished at the same time and 2 people bowed out, so we broke out a 5 player Thunder Alley on the short, 4-lap track. Since it's so short, it's really easy to get some cars lapped and we did a pretty good job collectively of making this happen only to have yellow flags save the lapped cars every time. One of the yellow flags was a collision which gave 4 different cars a couple permanent damage tokens. That seemed to lead to a lot more pitting than I've seen before, so leads changed constantly. Final scores of top 3 were 115-113-113, and I think I learned a lesson that if you can grab the 1st place finish you should. I was concentrating on trying to get all 3 of my cars into a high finish, but the winner just broke one of his cars out of the draft line and crossed the finish on solo movement to nab the 1st place marker.

repoman wrote: Al Rose wins again? And at a flicking game you say? The world gasps in shock.

He beat me twice at Crokinole last night. Luckily. Uba broke out a non-flicking game so Al was finally defeated.

I finally got my 16 year old lad to play a board game, probably the first time (bar card games) since he was 9 or 10 - told him for my birthday he had to play one instead of buying a present. I made it easy on him and chose a fun one that had a very good theme, lots of bits, and dice to roll - Star Wars: The Queens Gambit. He enjoyed it enough to beat me as the Trade Federation - Darth Maul and his droids hardly missed as they wiped out every one in the Theed Palace as Anakin got lost in space.
But great to play this game, and twice in a month as one of our infrequent Sunday group meets had people pull out so with just two of us I pulled this out.

Played Dungeonquest with my six year old daughter. She was the dwarf, I was the knight, and in spite of poisonous gas, a couple of monsters, and a few trap rooms we both made it to the dragon's hoard. At her very first try she woke the dragon, but she had a cool book which I really wanted her to use (it could - if she rolled a 12 - allow her to draw two treasures and then exit the dungeion) so I ruled she would be allowed to keep one treasure. She then returned, got nothing from the book, found a ruby worth 3,000 and then started making her way out. I arriwed much later and only drew lousy treasures. But time waits for no man so I had to skeedaddle if I wanted to make it out. On my way to the exit I managed to survive the swinging blade that has been the bane of many an adventurer (thank the gods for Hugo's armour), but only to be killed by some stupid spear trap a short while later.

Meanwhile my daughter got shafted by the tiles and went in the wrong direction thanks to some corridors. She then drew a bridge which she - with an agility of 5 and 6 loot cards - had no chance of making it across. So wanting to keep her treasures she spent a valuable turn retreating only to draw a new bridge. I advised her to discard all loot but the ruby, but she insisted on keeping a bracelet too meaning she would need no more than a 3 to make it (she doesn't really understand the odds thing yet) - which she of course rolled. But alas, soon the sun set and once again the dragon was victorious.

Great game. Simple choices, lots of small stories, and a good exercise in losing. I've used the old combat version with her before, but this time we went with the version using a single die. I think the card makes combat more exciting and we'll probably go back to it, but on the other hand just rolling a die is very fast.

mads b. wrote: Played Dungeonquest with my six year old daughter. She was the dwarf, I was the knight, and in spite of poisonous gas, a couple of monsters, and a few trap rooms we both made it to the dragon's hoard. At her very first try she woke the dragon, but she had a cool book which I really wanted her to use (it could - if she rolled a 12 - allow her to draw two treasures and then exit the dungeion) so I ruled she would be allowed to keep one treasure. She then returned, got nothing from the book, found a ruby worth 3,000 and then started making her way out. I arriwed much later and only drew lousy treasures. But time waits for no man so I had to skeedaddle if I wanted to make it out. On my way to the exit I managed to survive the swinging blade that has been the bane of many an adventurer (thank the gods for Hugo's armour), but only to be killed by some stupid spear trap a short while later.

Meanwhile my daughter got shafted by the tiles and went in the wrong direction thanks to some corridors. She then drew a bridge which she - with an agility of 5 and 6 loot cards - had no chance of making it across. So wanting to keep her treasures she spent a valuable turn retreating only to draw a new bridge. I advised her to discard all loot but the ruby, but she insisted on keeping a bracelet too meaning she would need no more than a 3 to make it (she doesn't really understand the odds thing yet) - which she of course rolled. But alas, soon the sun set and once again the dragon was victorious.

Great game. Simple choices, lots of small stories, and a good exercise in losing. I've used the old combat version with her before, but this time we went with the version using a single die. I think the card makes combat more exciting and we'll probably go back to it, but on the other hand just rolling a die is very fast.

I had Darkworld to play with my lad at that age - excellent quality board and components and minis, simple but fun rules, and a couple of expansions with the same quality again. Have a look around for them as well worth it.

My eighteen-year-old had his internet buddies over from San Diego and Indiana. Before they left to go camping at Zion's, they had some downtime and played Thunder Road. I had them watch the Robert Florence intro to Dixit but they said they pulled the game out, looked at it and put it away. So he's 1/2. I just picked up my copies of Twilight Struggle Deluxe, Ars Victor and Prince of Chaos, so hopefully they will see some table time.

Epic game day here in town and I ran Cave Evil and played Chaos in the Old World, two favorites. Cave Evil was three players and took about 2.5 hours with one noob. And it was the best game of CE yet. I was the Sorceress, noob was the teleport guy, other guy was the pyromancer. New guy walked his necro into the middle of the map and had a killer stack with multiple items. I was a few spaces away and needed one turn to get resources for a bomb and a fast creature and I forgot he had the spear that I discarded to start the game. Instead the new guy used his spear against me and killed me. Dead. Next couple of turns the pyromancer marched a couple of negative trinket monsters to the teleport guy and brought his stats down to maybe 25 all around. Then he tossed out the insanity demon that made the squad fight itself, and the demon killed the necro after all the other creatures in the stack died. Very very cool.

Sadly worst game of Chaos then. I was Khorne with two new players and we tried to help them. The first event removed all corruption from Brettonia and another adjacent region, and that event stayed active for three turns. I easily won the game on dial ticks by turn 5 with the next highest score in the 20s and at most 2 regions with 8 corruption, nothing ruined. I felt bad but that event card crippled corruption in two populous, noble areas from the start so both Nurgle and Slaanesh were SOL until the event expired. And I rolled great as Khorne. I like playing Khorne but still prefer Tzeentch or possibly Nurgle, and I hated my one game as Slaanesh. Purple seemed too straightforward and defensive with his moves. And as we get closer to September that damn Cthulhu Wars kickstarter round 2 is looming out there for a stupid amount of money and I'm still thinking of doing it despite knowing this game is better...dammit.

There's only one game that my kids want to play - ever - and that's Pathfinder. Last summer we (me, wife, kids) tore through the base set + all expansions, and this summer we're tackling Skull & Shackles. As of this afternoon, we're halfway through the 3rd expansion.

That's a total of 60 sessions so far, including failed missions, which is by far the most value that I've ever gotten from a cardboard investment. It's the only game that my kids (now teenagers) request, and I don't expect that to change in the near future.

They love everything about it: the dividing of loot at scenario's end, leveling up decisions, the constant chucking of dice, the tension when their characters are close to permanent death, the wacky scenarios and villains, and the quick playtime. To keep things interesting, we never look at the villain and henchmen cards before we mix them into the location decks, so their powers and effects are genuinely surprising when they appear.

By the way, I've tried a drop-in/drop-out version with adult gaming buddies and it isn't nearly as fun. People don't care if their characters die, they miss out on critical long-term decisions (e.g., do I use a blessing to possibly obtain a sword that will help me for the next 10 games, even though it'll cause me to lose the scenario?), and usually they're too busy drinking to squint at the ongoing/closing/permanently closed effects on the location cards - which is like 50% of the game. Also, it takes much longer to set up the game (with rules reminders) with a constant rotation of players. So it just doesn't work.

Anyway, now my kids are complaining that I'll be away for a week at WBC - not because they'll miss me, of course, but because they can't play Pathfinder while I'm gone. Pure craziness.

Sounds like awesome gaming, wkover.

Yeah, it's been amazing. I have no doubt that my kids will look back on these summers fondly.

By the way, for the seven of you who are interested, these were/are our party builds...

Pathfinder base: Lem (bard), Ezren (wizard), Valeros (fighter), Merisiel (rogue)

Skull & Shackles: Lirianne (gunslinger), Damiel (alchemist), Oloch (warpriest), Seltyiel (magus), Man's Promise (ship)

Finally, I continue to be impressed at the mathematical discussions that occur during most sessions:

Which is better, 2d4 or 1d8? 1d6+3 or 1d10+1? What is the average combined roll on 1d12, 2d10, 1d6, and 1d4?

And my favorite: How in the hell did dad roll a grand total of 6 on 1d12, 2d10, 1d6, and 1d4? Doesn't he know that he cost us the win and is about to die?

(We've actually not lost a character yet, but we've come extremely close. The "all players at this location take damage" cards are deadly, in which case you'd better have some armor in your hand.)

Delobius of F:AT and I met up today to play some bughunt games at the FFG Event Center.

Game 1: Space Hulk 4th edition, scenario #1: Beachhead. D did a great job of painting his space marines, so people kept coming over to check out the game. One reasonably attractive young woman actually recognized that we were playing 4th edition, which made her the biggest expert on Space Hulk at the Event Center today, except for possibly Delobius. Nobody won, and this scenario seems almost guaranteed to end in stalemate unless somebody plays recklessly.

Game 2: Same as game 1, including the statemate, except that I was playing the Space Marines. I rolled a crazy number of sixes, especially when several genestealers swarmed Sergeant Gideon.

Game 3: The Vesuvius Incident, a kickstarted new edition of an obscure co-op bughunt game from the '90s. We stopped a bit early as the Event Center shut down at 6. Scoring the game right then as though we had finished, we came up with a marginal loss. If we had finished the game normally, it would have been a total loss. Half our space marines were dead, and two were incapacitated. We rescued 1 of the 15 scientists, and accounted for 10 dead ones.