What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

2014- Michael Barnes tells the world "Theseus- yes yes y'all". Makes his GOTY list. Crickets.

2015- "who knew this game was so good?"

Michael Barnes wrote: 2014- Michael Barnes tells the world "Theseus- yes yes y'all". Makes his GOTY list. Crickets.

2015- "who knew this game was so good?"

I think most of us about 2 months after joining the site just ignore all your posts and articles.

I also recently acquired Theseus (despite all the area stores trying to stop me). It is damn good, but I feel like it will be a massive struggle to reach a higher tier of play beyond being able to see maybe 1 turn in advance. Sure I get the combos and some of the tactics to set them up, but long term, multiple turn strategy seems like it would take a very long time to develop. Bots and Hunters seem cool but there is a ton of play in the factions that come with the base game. Somebody should do some in depth articles that give me some racial strategy concepts.

Michael Barnes wrote: 2014- Michael Barnes tells the world "Theseus- yes yes y'all". Makes his GOTY list. Crickets.

2015- "who knew this game was so good?"

January 2015: X game is already on my short list for GOTY!

February 2015: Hey, I've got too many of this kind of game/my "people" won't play it/tired of this kind of game so I'm selling X game. No mention of precious GOTY 2015 contender
status.

LMAO

Oh, and as an aside, I want to murder Mr. Buonocore for not making some preprinted sets of the models available for sale.

There's nothing else I want right now.

If someone wants to trade me their painted models for my unpainted models +cash/+games I am rock hard ready to make that exchange.

I tried sending my rocketeers on the moon boarding again and fared badly. The first officer and the professor only managed three turns or so before they got beaten by a horde of saucermen and sentinel. This time I mostly blame the dice. And the pesky brain in a jar - obviously. Not because it mind controlled my dudes, but because it threatened me and ended up drawing all my fire.

SuperflyTNT wrote: Oh, and as an aside, I want to murder Mr. Buonocore for not making some preprinted sets of the models available for sale.

There's nothing else I want right now.

If someone wants to trade me their painted models for my unpainted models +cash/+games I am rock hard ready to make that exchange.

There will be a LIMITED NUMBER of painted sets available on the stronghold website. At some point. I would GUESS somewhere around when the game hits retail which MIGHT be September 30th.

Da Bid Dabid wrote: I also recently acquired Theseus (despite all the area stores trying to stop me). It is damn good, but I feel like it will be a massive struggle to reach a higher tier of play beyond being able to see maybe 1 turn in advance. Sure I get the combos and some of the tactics to set them up, but long term, multiple turn strategy seems like it would take a very long time to develop. Bots and Hunters seem cool but there is a ton of play in the factions that come with the base game. Somebody should do some in depth articles that give me some racial strategy concepts.

Yes to all of this...

ratpfink wrote: I think it purports to not be multiplayer solitaire based on the description trying to relate it to Puerto Rico, but other than racing to be the first to sell an "advanced" brew it doesn't matter what other players are doing. I mean other than taking the resource spaces of course.

This is why worker placement is so stale with me these days. First, just as auctions were a way for lazy designers not to "price" resources, WP is a way for a lazy designer to create "interaction". Too many designers seem to think that simply competing for spaces is sufficient to create meaningful tough choices and conflict. It's not.

Second, in nearly every WP game I play, having more workers is better, period. There is zero decision making involving when or whether to get more workers; the guy with five dudes will always do better than the guy with only three. And therefore the first part of the round or even the entire game is scripted while everyone rushes to get more workers. "Oh, but in my game you have to feed them!" So what? In those games you can almost inevitably get sufficient food or whatever to pay the upkeep and still do better than the guy with fewer.

There are some WP games I like which avoid these pitfalls, but far too many of them that just start from these given points. When I was playing with a group that was heavy into KS games, I played dozens of worthless games that followed this same basic script.

Legomancer wrote: Second, in nearly every WP game I play, having more workers is better, period. There is zero decision making involving when or whether to get more workers; the guy with five dudes will always do better than the guy with only three. And therefore the first part of the round or even the entire game is scripted while everyone rushes to get more workers. "Oh, but in my game you have to feed them!" So what? In those games you can almost inevitably get sufficient food or whatever to pay the upkeep and still do better than the guy with fewer.

YES. This is something that I really like about Fields of Arle over Agricola, Caverna, etc. Fixed at 4 workers. Argent starts you with a bunch of workers and only gives you a very rare opportunity to get more, as well... it also has a timer so you may not be able to use all your workers, which is clever.

Argent is the answer to all of those grievances.

KingPut wrote:

Ska_baron wrote:

KingPut wrote: Next up a 6 player Axis and Allies. We played through 3 turns. The Axis came close to victory by taking India, some of Russia cities but the tide is turning. I'm thinking the Allies will pull it off. Allies have researched Jets and cheap ships and Allied economy is rolling. We'll finish it up next week.

Which version? I played the hell out of the old one from the 90s and always wanted to update with one that plays a little smoother/quicker than taking over everything.

Would love to hear any comparisons or mini-review on it from someone.

Anniversary Edition . I'm no expert on A and A but I've heard from some people this was best version. This version adds in Italy as a 6th player.

England starts with India. Japan can march through to India unless the USA player gets aggressive with Japan.

Dammit - that's what I figured/was worried about. Where the hell am I going to get a copy of that now? Oh, on Amazon for $600...

Played a bunch o games this weekend.

Friday - This was a game night with my wife's friends. So I kept it to lighter stuff.

One Night Ultimate Werewolf - Finally got a chance to play this one. For the first couple of games it was hard to grasp the strategy. Once it 'clicked' it was pretty damn fun. It's a very subtle game. Knowing when to say a lie or when to divulge information can be crucial to winning or losing. The one time I was a lone werewolf...I peaked at one middle card and saw the robber. Sweet, I figured I'd wait till someone was vouched for...and then claim I robbed them of their character. Easy peasy. My wife was the Seer. She had looked at two cards in the middle. Obviously she saw the robber and knew I was full of shit. I was so blindsided by her incredibly confident accusation that I was at a complete lose of words. Game over man. Lots of fun. I think the app is neccessary but is sort of distracting.

The Resistance - We followed up with this and after playing it back to back with ONUW...I feel The Resistance is no where near as fun. I still enjoy it, but I think I'm ready to play with the extra cards and whatnot. Playing it with the vanilla rules has gotten kinda stale for me. Still we had lots of fun screaming at one another.

Pick-omino - We finished the night with this Knizia dice roller. It's a simple game of push your luck. I like how you can steal worms from other players and how it's important to cover up your stack with other worms. Easy to explain and fun to play. Glad to finally have a copy of this.

Saturday - Had a couple friends over for a more traditional game day.

Space Cadets: Away Missions - We played the intro scenerio so I could get the other two guys up to speed. It was Annie Fletcher, Capt Riggs and The Doctor. The first mission on Mercury was a cake walk. It does an excellent job of getting you familiar with the ruleset though. We kicked the Sentinal's ass and moved on to the mission where we were captured in a Flying Saucer. This is where shit got real. First I want to comment how great the setup for the game is. Yes, it takes a few mins...but it allows for so much variety. It crushes something like the D&D Adventure System Games when it comes to scenarios. Anyways...we split up after escaping the slave cell. Big mistake. Finding our gear proved difficult which made the Capt and First Officer's overkill abilities worthless. We quickly scanned and found the elevator, but we needed to rescue or subdue the capture thralls. We couldn't just leave them there, god only knows what these green skinned freaks were doing to them! The doctor eventually found a heat ray which proved to be very beneficial. Just after we rescued the last human we melted a few hatches and escaped. Barely. Great game. Can't wait to play it more.

Firefly - Played the intro scenario of the game. I forgot how awesome this game can be. You don't have too much time to fuck around in the intro scenario and hiring crew, buying stuff is secondary to just finishing jobs. Me and another guy both got to $6000 around the same time. I hauled ass and made it to Ezra one turn before he did. You can't take the sky from me bitches!

Magic the Gathering: Arena of Planeswalkers - Much like the new Risk: Star Wars...playing this mass market style game is like stepping back in time. In case you were unsure...that's a good thing. It's a very simple system and it's basically Heroscape 2.0. I looked at the setup for the 3 player game and it had some bullshit about capturing spots on the map or some nonsense. We all said that sounded lame and played a death match. I over extended and died first. Barely got a chance to cause any mayhem. Then the White Magic Plansewalker succumbed to a barrage of arrows from some archers. Interesting game and I need to play it a bunch more. I love how quick and brutal it is though. Very cool.

Ultimate Warriorz - As my two friends were getting semi inebriated it was time to switch to something simple. Upon setting up 3D box arena they were both psyched. I made a quick decision to play with the three largest monsters. So it was the Big Red Dragon, The Minotaur and the Ent battling it out to the death. The dragon is super powerful and I was dealing out lots of damage. I was easily in the lead. But I had left myself open to lots of attacks. On the last turn I succumbed to my injures and fell in the arena. This left the Ent standing with the most damage dealt and he was crowned champion. Game was over in like 25 mins. Both of my friends loved it.

Loopin Chewie - It was late...everyone was tired. I broke this out as a super secret surprise. They both went apeshit and fell in love with it. One of my friends ordered it as soon as we finished. Great three player game and perfect way to end the night.

Then we sat down and watched Mad Max: Fury Road....

Oh what a day...What a lovely day!

Nice, your away missions report sounds great. I need to get my copy out...

Legomancer wrote:

ratpfink wrote: I think it purports to not be multiplayer solitaire based on the description trying to relate it to Puerto Rico, but other than racing to be the first to sell an "advanced" brew it doesn't matter what other players are doing. I mean other than taking the resource spaces of course.

This is why worker placement is so stale with me these days. First, just as auctions were a way for lazy designers not to "price" resources, WP is a way for a lazy designer to create "interaction". Too many designers seem to think that simply competing for spaces is sufficient to create meaningful tough choices and conflict. It's not.

Second, in nearly every WP game I play, having more workers is better, period. There is zero decision making involving when or whether to get more workers; the guy with five dudes will always do better than the guy with only three. And therefore the first part of the round or even the entire game is scripted while everyone rushes to get more workers. "Oh, but in my game you have to feed them!" So what? In those games you can almost inevitably get sufficient food or whatever to pay the upkeep and still do better than the guy with fewer.

There are some WP games I like which avoid these pitfalls, but far too many of them that just start from these given points. When I was playing with a group that was heavy into KS games, I played dozens of worthless games that followed this same basic script.

Michael Barnes wrote: Argent is the answer to all of those grievances.

I was going to say the same thing. Especially when it comes to getting more workers. There are ways to get more workers (mages) in Argent, but many times you will end up getting stuck and unable to place all of them anyway if one or more of the other players decide to accelerate the end of the round. It also has plenty of interaction. I want that spot so I'm blasting your mage to the infirmary so I can take it. There is more player interaction in this game than any other WP game I've played.

Michael Barnes wrote: Argent is the answer to all of those grievances.

I'm waiting for the 2016 Argent bandwagon...

(Actually, I bought it along with Theseus and Evolution, just haven't had a chance to play yet.)