What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Played Arkham Horror today, for the first time this year. Eight player game, including a friend's two kids and his new girlfriend of less than two months. Shub-Niggurath made the combats really tough, but the King in Yellow herald wasn't much trouble because I forgot that we were supposed to get two monsters out of every gate due to the number of players. All expansion boards were in play.

The game lasted for five hours, with us sealing just enough gates to keep the end at bay. With two open spaces left on the Doom Track, we ran into considerable difficulty sealing our sixth gate, but finally pulled it off.

The most memorable part of the game was entirely the younger of the two kids. He was maybe 11 or 12 years old, and he spent 90% of the game in shops, either shopping or scrounging for money with event cards. And yet he somehow ended up closing the final gate for the win. Even funnier: he was playing Monterrey Jack, so he started with a bullwhip. Twenty minutes later, he acquired another bullwhip. Then he got handcuffs. I started to joke about it and then realized that it was probably inappropriate and also potentially trouble due to the presence of my friend's new girlfriend. Then his son declared, "now I just need to get a ball gag."

Whoa, buddy. Argent. Yes.

It's REALLY fucking good.

Boarding Uba's bandwagon, Barnes?

Yeah, I'm probably going to pick it up soon w/expansion.

Played Storm Over Dien Bien Phu and enjoyed it quite a bit. It was quick, fast, and very dynamic. Came down to last play of last card. In a moment of weakness I failed to win.

I only played that one time but I think this game is clearly superior to What Price Glory.

Michael Barnes wrote: Whoa, buddy. Argent. Yes.

It's REALLY fucking good.

Yes. Yes, it is.

After lucking into a very cheap copy in good condition, I have been playing a ton of Star Wars Epic Duels with my five-year-old. He can't really read yet, but he gets by well enough on dumb luck, since he mostly understands the flow of the game and how combat works. We're enjoying it a lot. I hadn't realized what a simple game it was. It seems like madness that it can go for over $100 sometimes. Still, I'm really digging it.

Now who wants to sell me a cheap copy of Queen's Gambit?

Josh Look wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: Whoa, buddy. Argent. Yes.

It's REALLY fucking good.

Yes. Yes, it is.

Would you buy the expansion with it?

Gary Sax wrote:

Josh Look wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: Whoa, buddy. Argent. Yes.

It's REALLY fucking good.

Yes. Yes, it is.

Would you buy the expansion with it?

Base game has more than enough going on already. Pass for now.

Josh Look wrote:

Gary Sax wrote:

Josh Look wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: Whoa, buddy. Argent. Yes.

It's REALLY fucking good.

Yes. Yes, it is.

Would you buy the expansion with it?

Base game has more than enough going on already. Pass for now.

Thanks! If my birthday gift certificate doesn't cover it, I won't bother yet w/hard cash.

Lots of gaming at Casa de Superfly on Saturday...

Triassic Terror - a fun worker placement game with dinosaurs. You get to eat other dinos... good times.
Beastie Bar - what a cool little card game! Fantastic art, fun premise... I'll probably seek out my own copy
Exploding Kittens - meh... not much to see here. Funny artwork and mature humor. Pretty thin in the actual game department.
Love Letter - my first time playing this one... I honestly don't know why this was such a huge hit.
Epic Spell Wars - both sets combined, no blood mechanic due to new players. Went alright.
WWE Superstar Showdown - played with Pete once (he beat me) and then played a tag team bout with another friend later. The tag team stuff was great! Finally made throwing a viable tactic.
Theseus - My xenos took Pete's marines to school. Game Over.

Gary Sax wrote:

Josh Look wrote:

Gary Sax wrote:

Josh Look wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: Whoa, buddy. Argent. Yes.

It's REALLY fucking good.

Yes. Yes, it is.

Would you buy the expansion with it?

Base game has more than enough going on already. Pass for now.

Thanks! If my birthday gift certificate doesn't cover it, I won't bother yet w/hard cash.

I am usually of the "buy every available expansion" mindset...but Argent has so much freaking content and variety that I honestly think that having the expansion day 1 is kind of pointless. I do have it (courtesy D. Brad Talton) but after two games, nobody has said anything about it other than "maybe next time". It does add some substantial material and a sixth player so I think it is something you'll eventually want, but you won't be feeling like you are missing something for quite some time.

The game is literally bursting with content and you'll only see a fraction of it in a given session.

After that long game of Arkham Horror, everybody left except Delobius of F:AT. We played Omen, an interesting 2-player card game about mythological conflict in the Hellenic period. Players deploy Soldiers, Beasts, Oracles and Heroes to three cities, in a struggle to win favor with the gods. There are some card combos and a subtle ebb and flow to the game. This was my second time playing, and I only lost 9-12 this time. Excellent artwork on the cards, and the metallic coins are neat.

Then we played Quantum, which is a boardgame for 2-4 players. Each player has six-sided dice which represent ships that are capable of morphing into other types of ships. The top number on the die represents which type of ship, and you can roll the die to shift into another type. Low numbers are better in combat, while high numbers are faster. There are two types of tech advancement cards, giving either permanent or temporary bonuses. You travel about space tiles, attempting to generate quantum cubes faster than your opponents. With two players, I found Quantum too abstract and lifeless, but I bet it comes to life with four players. The map tiles are mostly generic and boring depictions of space, but I liked the font used on those tiles because it looked like the kind of font you always see on computer screens in science-fiction movies. I could practically hear the generic font sound effect that would usually accompany that in a movie or tv show.

Michael Barnes wrote:

Gary Sax wrote:

Josh Look wrote:

Gary Sax wrote:

Josh Look wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: Whoa, buddy. Argent. Yes.

It's REALLY fucking good.

Yes. Yes, it is.

Would you buy the expansion with it?

Base game has more than enough going on already. Pass for now.

Thanks! If my birthday gift certificate doesn't cover it, I won't bother yet w/hard cash.

I am usually of the "buy every available expansion" mindset...but Argent has so much freaking content and variety that I honestly think that having the expansion day 1 is kind of pointless. I do have it (courtesy D. Brad Talton) but after two games, nobody has said anything about it other than "maybe next time". It does add some substantial material and a sixth player so I think it is something you'll eventually want, but you won't be feeling like you are missing something for quite some time.

The game is literally bursting with content and you'll only see a fraction of it in a given session.

I had enough on the GC so I went for it, but I hear you guys. Won't even consider using it until I get a few plays in.

Tried out Spurs last week and enjoyed it a great deal. I don't think it's excellent but I'm a fan of mini games as resolution systems (one of my favorite qualities of Space Cadets), and I think this one nails them in terms of feel and time involvement. At 3 players this game moves quickly and feels very solid.

One complaint I have is that it feels much more like a framework or system and needs a bit more spice. Would love to see a more dynamic board and maybe something like Indians or Cavalry moving around.

Tried Yashima: Legend of the Kami Masters as a new-to-everyone four-player experience, which is probably not the best way to start off. My hope for this game was "faster, easier Mage Wars," and that seems ultimately mostly possible, although it didn't go all that quickly with four newbies and we made the apparently common "mistake" of treating the game as a middle-of-the-board scrum instead of taking more care to move. The thing I thought would be so cool--the variable attack patterns, printed as hex diagrams with red areas of effect--are cool but (especially when there's a gap between master and area of effect) require some spatial ability that I may well lack. I ended up flipping the card around, etc., trying to make it make sense to my daft brain.

After that, tried Cacao with four. Nothing major to report there; feels like a perfectly average Euro.

After that, the same four of us that played Cacao played a 4p Lord of the Rings and had the easiest time ever. Most of my games have been 2p, and we've really struggled, but vanilla 4p was a breeze this time.

Ran through the illustrated example of play for Mark Herman's Churchill. Man, this one looks/feels pretty good despite the board looking like the bastard child of Chinese checkers and Chutes and Ladders. I know GMT's complexity ratings are often a bit wonky, but a "2" (out of 9) in complexity for a game with 17 pages of rules, roughly 30 scoring conditions, and 3 victory conditions? Please.