What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Middle school girls know politics plenty well my friend. You were an easy crowd for her.

S.

Played Empire of the Sun last night for the first time with a friend from work. Due to my unfamiliarity with the game we barely made it through a turn and a half but I quite enjoyed it. Lots of fiddly exceptions but they all contribute to a great feel to the game. I enjoyed it more than Paths of Glory so far just because it's so much more wide open.

It also crystallized that I think I prefer small get togethers with a few others to play a specific game, preferably a long one, over large gatherings where we play lots of small games. I often feel fulfilled after the former and dissatisfied after the latter. Good to know.

Got our 4-player game of Alchemists in. As expected, it was a very different feel than 2-player, with fewer actions per player and far more competition over the Sell Potion and Publication spots. In our last 2-player, we published on all 8 ingredients. In this game, only 5 were still standing by the end after a couple Debunks and I had 3 of the 5. The level 1 Artifacts remain incredibly powerful. I won our two 2-player games on the strength of the Periscope (lets you see 1 random ingredient that an opponent used, once per round) and won this one with the Magic Mortar (keep 1 random ingredient each time you test.) I had the entire matrix figured out by the end of round 5, so I published two golds in the last round and that easily gave me the margin of victory. If you can generate the gold early on, you really need to grab a level 1, although they're not all guarantees. The level 2 and 3 artifacts can be nice VP boosts, but they don't contribute nearly as much to the basic function of the game. The Mortar allowed me to basically ignore the Scavenge Ingredients task for much of the game, until I wanted to solidify one theory with an ingredient that was on the board. No one else had that luxury. One of the new players had the Boots of Speed (if you have at least one cube already present, you can perform a task again after everyone else has gone) but didn't know how to really exploit them. Everyone enjoyed it, though, so I'm sure we'll get more plays in.

I love Junta. I think that Viva eL Presidente is a better game on balance because it captures the feel of the game very well but in a much more lightweight easy package

edulis wrote: Played a 5 player game of Junta in all its horrible colored goodness. I brought my 12 year old daughter along to a FLGS where boardgames are played in between X-wing leagues. Wasn't sure how the kid would like playing, but she managed to get herself elected president from the beginning and was able to keep the presidency through 3 coup attempts. She ruled with surprising skill, giving money and power to keep important players loyal and was only brought down by a lucky assassination (from her dear old dad) two turns from the end of the game. We played with about 2/3rd of the money to make the game a bit quicker.

I managed to get elected and hoarded most of the budget for the last two turns slipping into the bank for the win. The kid thought it was fun, but did not like the 'fighting' part.... which of course, all us old geeks like best.

I returned home from company training this weekend and was able to get in some gaming with The True Believers® at the Secret Lair©.

Josh was kind enough to bring his copy of Catacombs.

I had played the original version years ago and liked it. I like this new version better.

I like the new art. It is very distinctive. Cool and different and still light hearted. Lots of people seem to want to bitch about it, at least it seems so, but I've seen tons of games with terrible art and graphic design in my day and this isn't one of them.

Without doing any official research, I think the game provides more options and thus more depth than the original. Maybe that's just me misremembering but I don't think the original had near as many monsters and the wizard, the character I played, did not have the fistful of spells he has now.

The retaining wall is a great addition. The biggest drag in flicking games is chasing down a disk shot from an overzealous spazmo which flies off the table. It does appear a bit flimsy but it lessens the ricochet effect which means an errant shot is less likely to bounce back on the board and mess things up and it lets you move it a bit so your hand can get in their for shots close to the edge of the board.

On the negative side the game is one where you are going to be standing most of the game. I have certain issues that make that a bit painful for me but you kids will probably have no worries. I also think it may run a bit long just by a room or two. I thought the same if the original as well. Still a very fun flicking game.

Our game down to the final room where we had to fight against The Necromancer™. The evil Josh killed off Uba's thief and Al's barbarian and archer which left me, the wizard, alone in a struggle of magic users. Luckily I had deployed my magic shield which was used to great effect and I struck down the villain just in time. ( I only had 1hp left).

Good times.

Yup. If I had the audacity of Matt Loter, I would do a review of it and call it "If You Don't Like the New Catacombs Art You're an Idiot."

Also, Catacombs > Flick 'Em Up. Stone cold fact. I don't think I need both.

That's EXACTLY what I said. Don't need both, just need Catacombs.

Played a game of SCAM again last night. First, I want to retract my former statement about setup. I played the one where you have to kill the UberBrain tile and the Astrogator. Setup took unusually long, and kind of sucked. First time I kind of hated setup.

Maybe I missed the page in the rules, but it isn't immediately clear why I should set the board up entirely with dummy rooms then place the hidden room tiles, so that when the tiles are found, I replace the dummy rooms with the proper room tiles. Seems like it would be infinitely easier to just place the tiles in the first place.

I've decided that I love the O2 mechanic. Almost died because I was betting against the Sentinels.

Found some wonky shit too - why do the Leader and Saucermen cards have "Stun" on them? It almost looks like you can't Sway Sentinels but obviously you can. Just seems weird to mention that but I get that the BIAJ and other "greens" get that psychic stun Overkill.

Also, I'm cooling on Overkills. Last night there were 4 unique instances where I literally had nothing to do when I rolled several Overkills.

I also noticed that there are no tokens for "Stagger" which would've been nice. I just used charge cubes, obviously, but it would've been nice to have them.

Now, not to be a negative Nellie, but I've played 6 scenarios now and beyond the one where you start in the slave cages alone and naked, there's very little difference between the scenarios from a gameplay perspective. I think it's a format thing....it is what it is with dungeon crawls....but it seems like the scenarios are:
1. Kill everything
2. Blow up/turn off/do something in a room
3. Get samples (and/or do schematics)

I like that there's some differences in how the setups slightly change things though, such as the low-grav areas, the thrall control which makes thralls more dangerous, etc.

On balance, I'm still enjoying it.

I hear what you're saying, Pete, and I'm not saying this to correct you or anything because I know you understand, but I do think that sameyness feeling is inherent of the genre and, unless you're throwing way more into the game than the average Joe is willing to deal with, it's inescapable. The D&DAS games, Space Hulk, Descent, the list goes on and on. They're all guilty. You can change the end objective, but without packing the box with a bunch of unwieldy shit you're likely to use infrequently, you can't really change the journey to get to that end result.

SuperflyTNT wrote: Maybe I missed the page in the rules, but it isn't immediately clear why I should set the board up entirely with dummy rooms then place the hidden room tiles, so that when the tiles are found, I replace the dummy rooms with the proper room tiles. Seems like it would be infinitely easier to just place the tiles in the first place.

We felt setting up the Scenario tile tokens was quicker than placing the tiles -- you can flop all the tiles out into the map shape without worrying about what goes where. Personal preference if you'd rather save a step and include the Scenario tiles at start.

SuperflyTNT wrote: Also, I'm cooling on Overkills. Last night there were 4 unique instances where I literally had nothing to do when I rolled several Overkills.

Might be obvious, but try to run your turn so that you can optimize unpredictable Overkill opportunities. For example, if you're firing a Ray Gun at an alien in your tile, it's sometimes best to first open a hatch (with your non-combat action) in anticipation of lucky dice with the Ray Gun's Hit-and-Run Overkill Option. Similarly, if you're holding a Command AP from the Captain, spend it before the Captain takes his actions so that if he gets an Overkill, he can give you a fresh Command instead of wasting it.

SuperflyTNT wrote: I think it's a format thing....it is what it is with dungeon crawls....but it seems like the scenarios are:
1. Kill everything
2. Blow up/turn off/do something in a room
3. Get samples (and/or do schematics)

Right, as you and Josh point out, most dungeon-crawlers tend to follow certain basic dynamics. That said, "killing everything" is not always the best move in this game... you have to determine what to attack and what to leave alone. And, there are often optional mini-objectives that you can bypass or attempt at your discretion (such as the Thrall Control in that Space Station scenario).

Josh Look wrote: I hear what you're saying, Pete, and I'm not saying this to correct you or anything because I know you understand, but I do think that sameyness feeling is inherent of the genre and, unless you're throwing way more into the game than the average Joe is willing to deal with, it's inescapable. The D&DAS games, Space Hulk, Descent, the list goes on and on. They're all guilty. You can change the end objective, but without packing the box with a bunch of unwieldy shit you're likely to use infrequently, you can't really change the journey to get to that end result.

That's exactly my sentiment. You're faced with either going Earth Reborn and packing so much shit in there that it takes an hour to set up or you've got to decide to cull and stick with the core mechanics.

Where SCAM wins is in "how" things happen. I like DDAS a ton but they aren't really very creative and the storytelling aspect is muted where in SCAM there's always shit going on and there's always lots of aliens and choices.

@Dutch: I get the optimization factor but I've had it happen enough that it's not an outlier...sometimes you get Overkills and you end up with nothing to do, especially in 2p games. We've decided that if you have Overkills you can apply them in the following ways:
2OK= Charge on any item or 1 additional hit on any alien.

Josh Look wrote: Also, Catacombs > Flick 'Em Up. Stone cold fact. I don't think I need both.

Perhaps we can work out a deal?

.
@Superfly- sometimes certain characters may not be able to use overkills, but usually that is only when you are "on top of it", like at the beginning of the game. When things get hairy it is unlikely. For that reason I would think giving an extra kill to a Rocketeer might make things a bit too easy. That said, I've played by enough "house rules" in my day to know that if it makes it more fun you should GO FOR IT. As long as you are having fun then I am happy!

SuperflyTNT wrote: We've decided that if you have Overkills you can apply them in the following ways:
2OK= Charge on any item or 1 additional hit on any alien.

You're right -- from time to time your Overkills are wasted. The solution above is interesting, though I think recharging any item would be too helpful... renewing the Hypo, the Flag or the Stun Pellets could be game breakers.