What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Egg Shen wrote: 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.

This mirrors my experience almost perfectly, except for the surviving thing. It was myself (Cappy) and my 7 year old (Cookie Hannah) versus the world. We explored each tile in the inner core, not getting a ray gun until the last 2 tiles, essentially. She was on the other side; we were across from one another. I was hitting Sentinels, Leader+Saucermen, and Bugs up the wazoo, then it culminated with a Brain Jar. Fuck those guys, FWIW. I went in like Jackie Chan with that knife but couldn't roll a 1/2/3 to save my life. Low IQ didn't help vs. the Thralls. Ended up killing the Brain Jar just before getting absolutely swarmed and murdered by the Sentinel, Leader, and a crowd of other dudes.

I'm pining to play again.

Yeah the brains in the jar are incredibly dangerous. Losing an Action Point is crippling. We were avoiding scanning the outer tiles since the first one we scanned was the elevator. We wanted to focus on the inner portion of the saucer because that is where all the enslaved thralls were.

[Side Note - I originally fucked up the rules for the scenario. It explicitly states to replace the first listed enemy on the alien token with a thrall in the inner rooms. We had to restart after a few turns because I totally botched this up. The setup for the game allows for TONS of flexibility, but if you're too excited to play it's easy to miss an important rule!]

Luckily we didn't draw any sentinels and we drew alot of bugs but no tiles with vents (another small rule that makes a big difference in the scenario). Once we found a couple of room with vents those little bug bastards popped up and started forming a swarm. We just got off the saucer before they were about to close in on us.

Honestly, I don't think we would have survived the mission without the First Officer and Doctor. Their high IQ was clutch in rescuing the thralls. Plus the doctor found a reference book which helped him deciphered how to quickly subdue or rescue the thralls. We each found a ray gun fairly quickly. Getting rid of those crudely constructed shivs allowed us to hold back the encroaching saucermen. Still like most horror or sci-fi horror...splitting up is almost universally a bad idea. We even joked about it when we did it. Fuck. I think character selection and weapon item load out is going to be key in the missions moving forward. If we had brought that lug-head Desoto with us we probably would have ended up as a Sentinel chew toy.

Yeah, I can't wait to dive deeper into the game.

Picked up Tiny Epic Defenders at a store the other day. I was looking for a light game with a small footprint that I could play solo a handful of times on a three-week trip, and this fits that really great. It's kind of in the weight of Forbidden Island/Desert. You're moving around a small region of cards trying to keep the growing threat on them in check, gradually confronting more monsters and a big bad. I like the system where there's a "turn deck" comprised of cards that represent your characters, and ones that represent the enemies, and each round you'll go through them and have a chance to take a couple of turns, but you don't know when they'll come up. It's an interesting way to vary from the usual "you take a turn, a bad thing happens, now you take a turn and a bad thing happens, etc." It ain't gonna win the Spiel des Jahre or whatever, but it's pretty solid for what it is. Some decent decisions to make, a fair amount of variety in the available characters and big bads, and it was $25.

Egg Shen wrote: Yeah the brains in the jar are incredibly dangerous. Losing an Action Point is crippling. We were avoiding scanning the outer tiles since the first one we scanned was the elevator. We wanted to focus on the inner portion of the saucer because that is where all the enslaved thralls were.

You know, what's funny is that I've never actually been crippled like that. When a BIIJ has come out, it always seems like it's far enough away that it doesn't affect me. I just Atomic Rifle that beyotch from a distance and I'm good.

[Side Note - I originally fucked up the rules for the scenario. It explicitly states to replace the first listed enemy on the alien token with a thrall in the inner rooms. We had to restart after a few turns because I totally botched this up. The setup for the game allows for TONS of flexibility, but if you're too excited to play it's easy to miss an important rule!]

What's funny is that I fucked up a HUGE rule: I was having the aliens hit me for multiple damage per turn versus 1 hit + Overkills. No wonder I got slaughtered so much early, eh?

Luckily we didn't draw any sentinels and we drew alot of bugs but no tiles with vents (another small rule that makes a big difference in the scenario). Once we found a couple of room with vents those little bug bastards popped up and started forming a swarm. We just got off the saucer before they were about to close in on us.

I just had my first real "misfire" yesterday afternoon. My 14 year old and the neighbor's 10 year old that I babysit until they get home played that same "Mission 2", and we breezed it. It was a total let down because the setup took longer than the game, almost. First turn, I move to the lower left room. Subdued a thrall, gun and tele-radio was right there (woot!), gave an extra action (I'm Cappy). Next player went southeast, killed some baddies, Swayed (Hannah). Last player mopped up the thralls (the Prof.). Turn ended. Next turn I found the elevator by a total fluke. Thrall appeared, and I subdued him, gave an action on OK. Next player followed me, found thrall, subdued him, Shot a baddie in the next room after I handed her the gun. Next player subdued a thrall, then another, then walked toward the elevator. Final turn had a thrall and Sentinel appear. Subdued, Sentinel air-shivved in the junk. We all ran for the elevator after subduing the last thrall.

Just way too much luck on our part. I set up mission 3 but then the neighbor came to collect the kid, so we opted to wait until (today) to play again, homework allowing.

Honestly, I don't think we would have survived the mission without the First Officer and Doctor. Their high IQ was clutch in rescuing the thralls. Plus the doctor found a reference book which helped him deciphered how to quickly subdue or rescue the thralls. We each found a ray gun fairly quickly. Getting rid of those crudely constructed shivs allowed us to hold back the encroaching saucermen. Still like most horror or sci-fi horror...splitting up is almost universally a bad idea. We even joked about it when we did it. Fuck. I think character selection and weapon item load out is going to be key in the missions moving forward. If we had brought that lug-head Desoto with us we probably would have ended up as a Sentinel chew toy.

I'm with you. We had been playing with just Cappy and Hannah, or Cappy and the strafer guy, but that shit's not going to fly in most cases. I think having the Prof with you is pretty much mandatory for all missions if, for no other reason, because it's too hard to do IQ stuff without tools or a reference book.

My nephews(15 and 18) are getting big time into gaming. My oldest nephew even has a business where he runs a friday night boardgaming night for parents to drop off their kids. They started off with a lot of Steve Jackson games, Lord of the Rings, and some other trashy fare that I haven't even played before.

I have been getting them into Euro's lately. I played Agricola with them all weekend. They loved it.

I'm a dirty girl.

I don't get why Agricola is so hated. It's a fun game, and it can be really nasty if you play it the right way.

SuperflyTNT wrote: I don't get why Agricola is so hated. It's a fun game, and it can be really nasty if you play it the right way.

I think the biggest problem with Agricola is that there is NO way to balance the game out for people of different experience levels, and there's almost no way to prevent you from getting your skull kicked in by the system the first 2 or 3 times you play. No matter how much you tell someone YOU HAVE TO FEED EVERYONE EVERY WINTER and YOU HAVE TO DIVERSIFY they're still going to end up begging and only having 3 or 4 categories of stuff scored. The amount of things you need to get done relative to the number of turns you have in which to do them AND the number of choices the game allows you is staggering and I think overwhelming to many.

Agricola is a blast after you've played it three or four times. Before that the game is just beating your head into a wall. Compare that to a game like Terra Mysitca, which I'd say is equally if not more complex, but where in you feel like you're getting stuff and doing stuff and progressing at all times. Sure you might be getting crushed on the score track but you can still do something and... holy shit I just scored a buttload of points and now I unlock this new bonus and it's all permanent.

Agricola is "congrats you got a pumpkin but you have no way to cook it, now give Steve the pumpkin it counts as one of the two food he needs this winter."

Three games of Star Wars Risk Sunday as the Empire and I lost all three. I got better by game three after deciding to practically ignore the Endor assault as the +1 stormtroopers seemed to have little effect on the Rebels. Game two and three I focused more on the space battle and TIE fighter position and should have won the third game. What killed me in game three was failing to kill Luke before he could redeem Vader and the Rebel surge after that was just enough for them to make a run on the Death Star with a squadron of B-Wings. Awesome game even in three defeats. The other player was new to it but had a good time and was amazed at how we were able to play three games in under 90 minutes.

SuperflyTNT wrote: I don't get why Agricola is so hated. It's a fun game, and it can be really nasty if you play it the right way.

Because it came out in 2007 when "Ameritrashers" or whatever were into this silly, dogmatic "all Eurogames are terrible" thing. Even though it was far more thematic and _specific_ than many of the so-called AT games of the time. And there are still people who think that a game about farming can't be compelling, interesting and competitive.

I'm going to take a different tack here re: Agricola. I don't think it's unreasonable ATers reaction against it or whatever. I think the reason that people who don't enjoy it dislike it is because it looks like/promises to be something of an open world but in reality it is not. Worker buys are virtually always your best option, rounds are short and force you to get food, cards you receive strongly structure your best choices, and ultimately scoring demands that you diversify rather than play on your terms. The play space looks open and improvisational but, in reality, is not. Other worker placement do not make this (conscious!) choice.

it was the first game in a long time to dethrone Puerto Rico on BGG so I think that brought out the hipsters in great numbers.

OK, I'll bite.

Agricola is a fine game, I don't love it but it's fine. I still have my copy and I feel like I should sell it. I always pick Stone Age, Alien Frontiers or Lords of Waterdeep before Agricola and if I wanted something heavier I'd probably pick up Argent or even play Dungeon Lords. Agricola is just a little bit too heavy for what it is and exists in that in between realm where other games do the lighter side of it better and yet other ones still do the heavier side of it better. I've been meaning to sell my copy for awhile since I haven't played it in a few years. I also find the family game dull and the game with cards too scripted. But those aren't huge issues really, the bigger one is it isn't really the best at anything.

So I won't say I hate it because I don't and I'll gladly play it if that's what's happening. But I would never pick it myself and I feel like lots of other games do everything it does better.

Michael Barnes wrote:
Because it came out in 2007 when "Ameritrashers" or whatever were into this silly, dogmatic "all Eurogames are terrible" thing. Even though it was far more thematic and _specific_ than many of the so-called AT games of the time. .

Yeah man, THOSE people, geez.......................................................................................................................................

*cough*

It felt like a game where there was a correct move each turn. You and the other players find it, and then you play it. A lot of worker placement falls into this category. Agricola felt a little better than most to me.

Discrete decision sets, even big ones, don't call out to me very often.

The thing I hate about Agricola is that I can only get people in my group to play it once a year. I really want to try it using the drafting for the occupations and improvements. I guess that's the downside of playing with people who always want to play the latest and greatest all the time.