What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

I'd rather bend the system then get sick of rolling 4 3's and having dick to do with them!

I had a couple friends over for games on Friday night and was able to finally get Spartacus to the table. Great fun even if there was only the three of us. I look forward to playing with more. The combat is entertaining and I enjoy how brutal it is. I hate fighting gladiators that have a trident. Wicked weapon. I did find myself wanting a different process for the Intrigue phase where the host would play a scheme and then play would go around the table until all players passed and completed their schemes. I was able to capitalize on the influence gained by hosting and winning a Primus and won during the next Intrigue phase. It was a close finish though as my friend was in last place, but had a selection of cards that would have let him tie my influence and make us fight a tourney to determine the winner. I would have lost the tourney as my gladiators were exhausted and I would have had to ship one of my slaves to the slaughter. Great game.

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SuperflyTNT wrote: I'd rather bend the system then get sick of having dick to do!

The SuperflyTNT philosophy of life.

Listen Pete: As long as you are playing with that adorable little girl of yours, play by whatever rules put a smile on her face! But when the adults are at the table, I think much of the fun comes from being able to use the overkill system to puzzle your way out of seemingly impossible situations. I wouldn't want your rule set to rob you of that.

LOL Al!

So: let me get specific for ya.

Mission Moon Landing 1. 2P: cookie and Cappy.

6 turns in. There's some aliens around but far off because we scanned in such a way that they spawned out of range. Sentinel, 6 leeches, and a Saucerman, all 2 spaces or more out. There's a Saucerman in my space, though.

For my last action, I blast that beyotch in the face, whipping my Ray Gun from its custom WRB leather holster.

*BLAM* three 3's, two 2's and a 7. Saucerman melts like the red shirt in Star Trek: Wrath. Now I have a gang of Overkills. First one stuns the distant Saucerman. Now I have 3 OKs. I spend one giving Cookie her free AP. She spends it immediately to Sway the Sentinel that's in her LOS.

If I open a hatch it doesn't matter because it will close.

Lots of aliens left, but too far to affect me or Cookie. Only thing left to do is Run And Gun, but I'm surrounded by unscanned areas, and my position is perfect.

Now I have several Overkills that I don't really have any non-deleterious action.

This kind of thing happens once or twice a game.

What do you guys think the solution should be? When my baby girl rolls huge hits she shouldn't be stuck with nothing to do. That's a fun killer. If you roll 5 hits at a 30% chance, that's the same as Samurai rolling 6 shields on 6 dice in Heroscape. It's like hitting a 10% Headshot from 36 range in Fallout. It's a devastating hit. That can't ever happen IMO. If you roll 2.5x the HP range of the target, it is eviscerated. I mean, "gaping hole where the thorax used to be" kind of hit.

So, we figured, "how do we make this useful without breaking the game?" We figured that the lesser of the evils is to say that each 2 extra hits does an additional damage (a Sentinel can still never be killed in one shot) or can be used to recharge an item.

So far it hasn't broken the game, or made it too easy (We always play that all enemies spawn on the tile as listed, not sure what the 'mode' is called).

I think that small kids and their indescribably epic luck at dice has to be somehow taken into account LOL

Well it does sound like you could have set yourself up better to use those overkills, and I'm going to stand by what I said about playing with adults. It also seems, however, like you have come up with a way of dialing down the difficulty that could be more fun for kids than the adjustment we suggested in the rules. Well done, Rocketeer!

Played again with 4. Such an awesome time. I've decided that DeSoto is my new favorite. I miss the Captain's power, but I love the idea that you can gun down a crowd with DeSoto. Got the Proton Blade, cut fools to bits but wasn't rolling well, so I gave it to Cookie (played by my 7 year old Master of the Overkill) who proceeded to singlehandedly clear about 5 rooms with that thing. I just kept feeding her Mysterium as we found it and she kept slaughtering enemies.

We ended up losing because we bunched up and had Sentinels "Clinton" us (sucked up all the oxygen in the room) but we were close because we almost collected all the aliens. Trying to get everyone to the Shuttle was impossible because we hadn't found the Astrogator yet..it was like herding cats.

Here's the setup, it's fucked up but it's actually epic:

Mission: Alien Abduction

Required Room Tiles: Astrogator (face down), Master Brain (face down), Airlock (face up), Shuttle (face up).
Tiles Required: None.
Red Alert Pool: All 12. (Muster from Airlock)
Alien Pool: All.
Discovery Pool: All - but remove all Schematics.

Objective: Collect one of each Alien type, then escape to Shuttle.

TILE SETUP: Players start in the airlock, center of the map (they beamed in, obviously). Go out 3 tiles in each direction and fill in the gaps, making sure the Astrogator and Master Brain are somewhere in there.. Place the Shuttlecraft above the top-center tile. Each tile has an Alien tile and discovery tile; all Schematics are taken out.

SPECIAL RULES:
1. SHUTTLE CLEANUP: After all Rocketeers' turns have ended, during cleanup move the Shuttle 1 space clockwise until the Astogator is destroyed.
1a. If shuttle is occupied, do not automatically move the Shuttle.
1b. If a Rocketeer is in the shuttle, for 1AP that Rocketeer can move the shuttle 1 space clockwise or anti-clockwise.
2. ALIENS: Once any alien is down to 1 HP (or if they only have 1...) make an IQ test against them to capture them. Once one is captured, place model on the player's card.
3. MASTER BRAIN: Until the Master Brain is destroyed, all IQ tests for capturing aliens are made at -1 Die.
4. NO THRALLS: If "Thrall" comes up on an alien tile, muster a Saucerman instead. If no Saucermen are available, muster a Leader, or if neither are available, then a Sentinel instead.

Had a full day 6 player session of TI3. Pretty wiped from the experience but we all had fun. Played with all sorts of new rules that were recommended by some kind folks here, like the new SE Strategy II cards and Trade 3, which were excellent. Preliminary objectives were interesting, and I can't imagine playing without (Territorial) Distant Suns and Final Frontier tokens in the future, along with flagships, racial techs and mercenaries. We haven't tried out Leaders yet, we were pretty overwhelmed by all the new stuff we added in. Played to 9 victory points since we were using Bureaucracy. I was able to win because the L1Z1X player stirred shit up on the other side of the board, which occupied my one neighbor, and I had a solid alliance on my other side. I built up a sizable fleet near Mecatol and made a last-minute push to grab my Secret Victory card (control Mecatol along with owning 5 dreadnoughts and 3 space docks) along with a Public Objective. 3rd win out of the 3 games we've played, people are getting pissed at me.

More SC:AM and continuing to enjoy it. Not as deep into it yet as Pete but the not being able to spend an overkill hasn't been particularly annoying. Compared to rolling over target numbers in most games, you still have a plethora of options much of the time.

Random suggestion for Dan/Al (this may already be in a scenario I haven't seen yet): Overkill options that are scenario specific would be cool in the expansion. So for this scenario, any good guy can spend an Overkill to do X. This isn't fueled by Pete's complaint, more so as another vector to differentiate scenarios.

Could even do mini campaigns of linked scenarios with Campaign Overkill effects that last for a group of linked missions.

I also tried El Grande for the first time in a five player game with 3 newbs (including myself) and 2 vets. I cleaned up. Must be all that Chaos in the Old World.

SuperflyTNT wrote: 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.

I thought you could only use Sway on 1HP aliens? So not Sentinels or BIAJs.

We replayed the first 2 scenarios Saturday afternoon with 3 players. Intro's still as easy as ever, however we got out space-suited asses handed back to us in the Escape scenario, despite finding the Elevator on that very first possible tile. Only got 3 thralls saved, aliens were ganging up and we couldn't clear them out or roll much OKs (or hits for that matter...when it takes you 3 actions to beat a few bugs, you know you're in trouble!). The way the hatches appeared had an effect on alien movement such that the thralls would move away from us, deeper behind enemy lines. That Sentinel becomes scary when you don't have the firepower to deal with it.

Question: If on the same tile, we can throw our teammates the ray gun for them to use on their turn, right? Didn't see anything to the contrary. We wouldn't share a gear item that was already used on the same turn however.

The rules state that you can give people shit as a free action, but if you used it, they can't use it on that turn. So, if you didn't shoot anyone, you can hand it over and let them shoot, but if you shot, the gun was simply too hot to handle safely, and both Al and Dan are huge proponents of gun safety, so no shooting.

I hope that Sway works for bigger baddies because that's how we've been playing it >

www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1438067/captains-overkill-option

As an aside, and referring back to my previous commentary about Overkills....it wasn't immediately clear that you could stack a shitload of Command APs on someone and they could bank them, using only one per turn. That makes a world of difference.

M

Columbob wrote: I thought you could only use Sway on 1HP aliens? So not Sentinels or BIAJs.

Yes, you can only Sway an alien that has 1HP. Sentinels and Brains can only be Swayed when they have been knocked down to 1HP.

BAH!

"Her Sway Is Invalid" ~Meebok Googlop, Saucerman Leader

charlest wrote: I also tried El Grande for the first time in a five player game with 3 newbs (including myself) and 2 vets. I cleaned up. Must be all that Chaos in the Old World.

You going to do a review? It's due to republish any day now.

sagrilarus wrote:

charlest wrote: I also tried El Grande for the first time in a five player game with 3 newbs (including myself) and 2 vets. I cleaned up. Must be all that Chaos in the Old World.

You going to do a review? It's due to republish any day now.

I don't know. Something like that I would have a hard time reviewing due to my context being so far off (playing it for the first time in 2015). Doesn't feel like I'm the right person to talk about it.