What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

San Il Defanso wrote: The most extreme example has to be Uwe Rosenberg, who now has been riffing on different kinds of worker placement games for eight years. It's weird to think he was once known best for Bohnanza.

Interestingly, his most recent game Patchwork is fantastic and a lighter game. So he still has it in him, when he can drag himself away from Agricoland.

I managed to snag a $15 copy of Sons of Anarchy on clearance at Target so my game group played it for the first time last night. I was SAMCRO in the first game and even though I managed to do well at gun running, I still came up just short and lost by $2 to the Cavaleras (played by A), $46 to $44. J sat on my left and was the Lin Syndicate. He spent most of the game getting into Turf wars with S, who was playing as the Mayans. Fighting is not the Syndicate's strong suit, and even though he came out on top several times he lost out on several money-making and blocking opportunities and ended up with $10.

In the second game J was SAMCRO, S was the Grim Bastards, A was the One Niners, and I was the Lin Syndicate. An Opportunity card came up in the first round where you could buy up to six contraband for $1 apiece, so I immediately went there and spent $6 out of the $7 I started with. J and S immediately got into it, again, and S took control of and exploited the Sheriff's Office. He neglected to read his clubhouse card closely and realize that he actually wants heat, so he wasted orders by going to and exploiting at the Sheriff's. I spent my last two Orders to get my heat down to zero before the end of the round. I had 11 contraband and during the Black Market step I sold all of it to flood the market and tank the price at $1 apiece to collect $11 and shaft everyone else. My guys were set up well at uncontested locations so after the next round I was back up to 5 contraband. Everyone else kept getting into scuffles and throwing down with guns and I ran around selling and collecting contraband as well as a I could. After I spent my initial guns I never came into any again, and promoting a single Prospect and bribing another player with my last remaining gun meant I was limited to running around with Prospects to tie up sites and hope no one would call my bluffs. I also lost a Member when I had to Take the Fall after I miscalculated a Last Call card but I managed to make due with 7 Orders for most of the game.

S did well with his gang's ability where he could sell contraband after he Takes a Fall, but I ran away with it with my rampant contraband sales. J ended up at $5(!), A and S were in the $20's, and I had $45. It feels like we've barely scratched the surface with this game and I look forward to digging into it deeper. We seemed to not do very many deals - it's hard to know how much to bribe other players at first - and turf wars and blocking were more common. I don't think I ever initiated a fight but that may have been a result of my factions' special abilities meshing with my preferred strategy of trying not to waste resources in fights. Great game.

Nice session report, Bludd. I can't wait to try this out for the first time myself. I found a nice rules reference from Universal Head that should help with learning the rules. How did your group do with learning it? Any gotchas or weird rules you kept forgetting?

Green Lantern wrote: Nice session report, Bludd. I can't wait to try this out for the first time myself. I found a nice rules reference from Universal Head that should help with learning the rules. How did your group do with learning it? Any gotchas or weird rules you kept forgetting?

Here are a few easy rules to forget:


1. You gain 1 heat if you sell any Contraband during the Sell Contraband phase.
2. Don't forget to check your limit for selling Contraband based on your Heat
3. You can only use as many guns in a fight as you have dudes.
4. Only the aggressor in a fight has the option to immediately exploit a site if he/she wins. The defender does not get to do this.


That's kinda it, I think. It's a fairly easy ruleset to digest.

Green Lantern wrote:

Nice session report, Bludd. I can't wait to try this out for the first time myself. I found a nice rules reference from Universal Head that should help with learning the rules. How did your group do with learning it? Any gotchas or weird rules you kept forgetting?

I'll jump in- I've played it 3 or 4 times, and I don't remember any gotchas in the rules. It's pretty straightforward. Where you might run into a problem is that some folks get kind of skeeved out by playing the head of a dope-dealing biker gang.

I already have a copy, but I'd spend $16 at Target for another.

I played Flick 'em Up! this past Tuesday as well by the way. It's a good flicking game with a killer theme (yet another French Ameritrash game . . . they continue to kick our butts at our own genre.) I came out of the Undertaker's building in Rock Ridge and established a good position behind a barrel on the first turn. So I hung back for a bit while my buddy Jeff moved forward to draw them out.

Flicking games are like golf. You remember one good shot.

A couple of turns in I have an easy shot, and a very hard shot. I take the easy shot and make it, but I have a tough choice for my second action. Do I move my piece, stepping out from behind the barrel and putting myself in harm's way until my next turn, or do I take the hard shot? I decided to play it safe and take the shot. I'm going to have to hit the guy from clean across the table, and it's a side-on shot, which will make it much harder for me to knock him down. So I tee it up as best I can and I just let it loose, shooting as hard as I can and not worrying too much about the aim. Kapow! I'll be damned if I didn't just NAIL the guy from four feet away, damn near taking out the building behind him with the ricochet. I'll probably never shoot that well again. To be a dick I pretend that it was just a routine occurrence, asking "who's next?" in as nonchalant a voice as I could muster after Lucas McCaining the guy from half a mile out.

This is a great flicking game. Beautiful packaging, plush pieces with buildings and cactuses and rail ties and the like, all properly colored and shaped to look the part. They made a simple change that freed up their artistic design -- you flick a disk, but you move your piece to where it ends up. So your guy can wear a sombrero and walk around without it affecting the execution of the play. Very smart design move.

Even the box is impressive. Runs about $50 at the discount stores.

I just read your review Charles ( Link to 2D6 Review of Flick 'em Up! ) and you nailed it. The game is gorgeous, and it plays beautifully. We didn't even dig into the scenario book and still had a great time.

Yeah apparently this new Z-Man/Filosofia division, Pretzel Games, is going to focus on this style of game. Not necessarily flicking/dexterity, but just simple games that are easy to learn/play. Sounds like they're going for what I consider to be "Classic Ameritrash" style games. Games with simple rulesets, awesome themes, usually aimed at younger players, but can be adored by adults. Think Nexus Ops, Monsters Menace America, Thunder Road. Stuff that is typically more mass market than BGG appeal.

I can't wait to get my hands on Flick em Up. It's a great start for Pretzel Games and I'll be watching them closely.

Sagrilarus wrote: I just read your review Charles ( Link to 2D6 Review of Flick 'em Up! ) and you nailed it. The game is gorgeous, and it plays beautifully. We didn't even dig into the scenario book and still had a great time.

Thanks Sag. It's definitely a great game. Would be surprised if it finished outside my top 5 for the year.

Green Lantern wrote: Nice session report, Bludd. I can't wait to try this out for the first time myself. I found a nice rules reference from Universal Head that should help with learning the rules. How did your group do with learning it? Any gotchas or weird rules you kept forgetting?

Ken listed the major ones it's easy to overlook. We also house-ruled that, in the event there are more than one, Last Call cards are resolved in the order they were revealed. We had a situation with two Last Call cards where the order of resolution made a definite difference. Some Last Call cards also reference the number of Dudes in play for each player, so it's also important to remember that you roll for Dudes in the Emergency Room (where some of them might die) after Last Calls are resolved. We also sometimes forgot to move the First Player patch after Throwdowns.

Bang on about the French having this style of game down.

I had never played a proper version of DungeonQuest until tonight.

Relentless. Brutal. Unforgiving. Ridiculous. Mostly luck. Hilarious. We both died. And we both had an absolute blast.

Josh Look wrote: I had never played a proper version of DungeonQuest until tonight.

Relentless. Brutal. Unforgiving. Ridiculous. Mostly luck. Hilarious. We both died. And we both had an absolute blast.

Which version do you qualify as the "proper" one?

Dr. Mabuse wrote:

Josh Look wrote: I had never played a proper version of DungeonQuest until tonight.

Relentless. Brutal. Unforgiving. Ridiculous. Mostly luck. Hilarious. We both died. And we both had an absolute blast.

Which version do you qualify as the "proper" one?

Pretty much anything but third edition. That was my only previous experience with DQ, and it was an unfinished game. Both the dude I was playing it with and I hated the combat, plus he said it was way too tame. I picked up the Revised edition, which I know has the old combat. I can't speak for the difficulty compared to the GW version, but this seemed really tough.

Sagrilarus wrote: I played Flick 'em Up!

Flicking games are like golf. You remember one good shot.

A couple of turns in I have an easy shot, and a very hard shot. I take the easy shot and make it, but I have a tough choice for my second action. Do I move my piece, stepping out from behind the barrel and putting myself in harm's way until my next turn, or do I take the hard shot? I decided to play it safe and take the shot. I'm going to have to hit the guy from clean across the table, and it's a side-on shot, which will make it much harder for me to knock him down. So I tee it up as best I can and I just let it loose, shooting as hard as I can and not worrying too much about the aim. Kapow! I'll be damned if I didn't just NAIL the guy from four feet away, damn near taking out the building behind him with the ricochet. I'll probably never shoot that well again. To be a dick I pretend that it was just a routine occurrence, asking "who's next?" in as nonchalant a voice as I could muster after Lucas McCaining the guy from half a mile out.

[Lucas McCain is a fictional character in the Western television series, The Rifleman, which ran on ABC from 1958 to 1963.]