What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Still all about Cthulhu Wars and Blood Rage for me.

Played Blood Rage with 5 for the first time. It didn't nearly work as well. Too much chaos on the board left most people's plans in ruins. I did ok and took second with about 120 points where the winner was around 140. Second age had a fantastic turn where I drafted the Wolfman (ignore strength except for monsters) and gave my hand with the Fire Giant to the guy next to me (destroy all figures except monsters when he invades). Midway through the round I was about to pillage a province with my leader and a couple warriors when the Fire Giant shows up. I repeatedly told that guy my revenge would destroy him if he placed in the province with all my normal troops/leader - he did it anyways and sent my leader and warriors to Vallhalla. Following turn I place Wolfman there, he tries to pillage, and I play the battle card that discards all cards and rewards me with glory. He played a +6 battle card. I won the next round and he was out his best monster and combat card. Fire Giant's owner took last with 20 points at the end of the game. Pretty brutal game if other players don't take what you view as rational actions, like jumping into a battle and playing high strength cards when they aren't pillaging and have no rage left, etc.

Mystics in Blood Rage are pretty great too. First level upgrade of retreating for free is amazing and lets you keep strength on the board almost permanently. Second level is also awesome and lets you destroy a warrior or mystic and take their place, busting in to an otherwise full province. Third level isn't that great and just awards a few points for each mystic involved in a winning fight.

Ran Cthulhu Wars a couple more times. Love the game but as someone familiar with all of the factions I end up crushing people newer to the game. Really need to have everyone playing familiar with the game or the more experienced player will win every time.

And my token non-fighty game of the week was Railways of the World: Europe. Two hours same group as Blood Rage. Kinda fun but I would never request it. I don't think scoring points by delivering goods is that fun; I'm kinda stuck on the theme being inherently less exciting than something like Study in Emerald or Thunder Alley which also play in two hours and are more my type of games. More and more I'm disliking Euro games both for the terrible themes (farming, selling goods on a market, being the most efficient XYZ) and for the solitaire playstyle they encourage. If I have to play a euro I'm happier just leaving the gaming event than playing the euro and spending the two hours.

Yes, I think Blood Rage is best with 3 and fine with 4. Fifth player expansion is a hard pass.

Besides the chaos on the map with 5, it also hurts the drafting in my opinion. You have less of a chance to see a card you're counting on get back around and there's less of an onus to hate draft.

3 is perfect, 4 is about the same quality but adds about 20-30 minutes to the game and the draft is slightly less interesting.

Tuesday nite pub meat, drank Belgian blue beer - was ok, bit like black-current squash but beer, might have it again.

Also we played Guns of Gettysburg and then Pax Pamir.

I like Guns of Gettysburg, probably more than Napoleons Triumph (the other Simmons game i have played). NT is a bit deterministic and feels a bit reductive for my tastes. I seems more like an abstract to me than a battle. Guns is has more rules bloat but overall i felt it was more forgiving and gave you a wider set of decision points. It also felt more like its subject matter to me with fewer strange results and the right pacing. My opponent made a major error early allowing me to race into Gettysburg town. We then had a rather attritional battle over the hills to the south. We only played the first day, which took about 2 hours, so its longer than NT.

Pax Pamir continues to be interesting. This is less forgiving than its predecessor. You really need to pay attention to what is in the market. If you fall behind on political cards you are going to have to find a way to even the field either via assassination or buying cards yourself. I got ahead fairly early in this game and was able to use that advantage to strengthen my position. It perhaps snowballs a bit more than Porfiriana, however the game is almost completely reset when a coup attempt fails so there's that. This game will rarely go the full distance imo.

My brother came over tonight to start up an Imperial Assault campaign. Just the two of us, which works way better than you would expect. We'd been trying to get this going for almost a year now, but we waited for me to paint the figures, which took about 6 months.

Now it's a well known fact around here that I love Star Wars, I'd even go as far as to say that I'm one of the biggest Star Wars fans on the Fort, if not the biggest. The original trilogy holds a place in my heart no other piece of fiction possibly could, even that that features a certain Caped Crusader. It might just be a silly space movie, but it's damned important to me, and it's not just the original trilogy that is so. See, growing up my brother and I spent a lot of time playing with action figures. When EU launched and the Star Wars revival of the 90s took off is when we got into the franchise and had a _MASSIVE_ collection of Power of the Force figures between us. We'd spend 2-3 hours a day with our Star Wars toys spread out all across a bedroom carpet, creating that perfect mix of familiar dialogue and situations while coming up with our own stories about what happened in-between the scenes or movies. Just as easily as it came to us, we could hit the reset button and tell a different version of what happened the next night. We had Batman, Marvel, Ghostubsters toys, you name it up to that point while growing up. Star Wars was the last thing we did that with though and I think that that being the note we left off with during our childhood has carried through ever since. We endured the prequels together. We did Force Friday together. There is no person on this planet who I would rather go see The Force Awakens with on opening night (which we're doing).

So we played the first two missions. He picked the smuggler and Wookie (good choice) and managed to win the first mission. Barely. Second mission he picked the Chewbacca side mission, no surprise there as Chewie is his favorite. Man, Chewbacca is a badass in this game! He totally wrecked house on my Nexu and both of my Trandoshans. I was able to get the elite Stormtroopers out, but they deployed way farther out than they should have. After seeing the mighty Chewbacca in action, I was trying to stay way the hell away from him. I was able to defeat Chewie but by the time the Stormtroopers got to the other two heroes, it was too late. He now has Chewie as an ally for the rest of the campaign. Terrific.

My brother is not a board gamer, but he had a blast. We agreed to play again ASAP. The same kind of talk we had at the table was like how it was when we were kids. I could just be the timing, seeing as though there's some mystery restored to the universe and we have that sense of wonder again, but the old movie quotes were thrown around constantly as well. You can say what you want about Imperial Assault, but tonight I got to go back to better times. I spent my night playing out Star Wars stories with my little brother. You really can't beat that.

Got another play of Wings for the Baron in last night with two guys that really enjoyed it. We played with the "Campaign Rules" which would be more aptly named "Advanced Rules" because all they do is add more options to a single play of the game. In spite of being a single page of additional rules I struggled a bit with the new markers and concepts and apologized for that, and both of my buddies made it a point to indicate that they were really enjoying the play.

I'll be honest, the Advanced Rules decouple the players more than a little bit. With a couple of plays of the Basic Rules under my belt I had a little more on the ball than the other two guys, and I was able to score some political influence early and build a competitive fighter craft. With factories coming on line after that I was a force to be reckoned with, and in the Basic Rules the two of them would have had to taken me on directly -- out-designing me to get first picks at contracts and finding ways to either generate their own political influence or knock mine back a peg. Both are options in the game. But with the Advanced Rules they had completely separate options to choose from, and one of the players more or less withdrew from Fighter production. He could fill his factories with Bomber contracts and more or less own that part of the game all to himself. That left the other player to be second banana each time for Fighter contracts, which was a solid option, and then augment with Reconnaissance contracts to fill out his billet.

I believe "multiple paths to victory" is the technical term for that and I think that is going to appeal to some groups. But it decouples the players in all but perhaps five player games (where there wouldn't be enough options to go around) and loosens up the play more than a bit. In my prior two games with three players, you needed to compete directly in a few categories to remain relevant, and that meant going hunting now and again. It put a lot more pressure on you to identify your weaknesses and address them, or find ways to sting the other players.

In short, I think the Basic Rules are the better game. Nothing wrong with that, and it's a testament to this games heritage in Euroville -- a small, tight set of concepts that are in conflict with each other. This game has four which is more than most, and all of them need to be tended to in the Basic Rules. That's a solid trick to pull off, and the game's beautiful thematic integration adds to the mix. This competes with games like Acquire, or Ra, or Alhambra where you reassess and readjust each turn.

Granted, with five players you could end up in a world of hurt if your Fighter isn't in the top three. Contracts run out quickly even with three players. But it isn't a death spiral in this game. Not landing contracts does not hinder your ability to get them next turn, you just need to focus on specific priorities to get back into a competitive position. With five players I could imagine the top Fighter switching places every turn, which would make for a very interesting run to the finish.

I think my review for this one is now half written.

S.

I agree with you completely. I think the campaign rules/advanced rules aren't as good as the basic game. Which is kind of unusual but I think once you add in the extra detail- which feels sort of tacked on because it's at a different scale of abstraction- the game sort of dilutes itself (or "decouples" as you say). It just doesn't need the extra stuff to work. It's such a neat, tight little economic game with a cool setting (and some actual themes) and it hits every beat it needs to in the basic game. I think you are right that with five (which I didn't play) then some of the campaign game stuff might take on a different degree of relevance, but I think this is best overall as a three player game anyway.

Should be playing WHQ card game tonight...which no one here seems interested in.

Michael Barnes wrote: Should be playing WHQ card game tonight...which no one here seems interested in.

I bought a copy, but haven't looked through the rules yet. Post some impressions because I'm very curious. I'm hoping it provides a better experience than Pathfinder: TACG.

Because dumbing down Warhammer Quest into a card game like Death Angel is the antithesis of what Ameritrash is all about.

LONG LIVE THE PLASTICS

I'm actually very interested in in WHQ card game, so please tell us about it. I think that a lot of what people (and me) love of WHQ was not the dudes in a corridor part, so I think a card game has a chance to capture a lot of the other WHQ stuff.

My copy of WHQ card game should arrive Friday. I like the idea of it as being somewhere between Space Hulk: Death Angel and the LOTR: LCG. Initial impressions I've heard have been very good.

I'm actually very interested in WHQ Card Game. And I actually just soloed Space Hulk Death Angel yesterday. Seriously, that little game is probably be the best co-op FFG has ever put out. It always pains me to even consider, but it might be better than SH.

Definitely, I don't play my Barnes bought copy w/all the expansions enough.

It has a small footprint and doesn't overstay its welcome, which is great.

OK, I couldn't wait so I took a long lunch and played the tutorial and the first quest.

First impression- it's good. You guys looking for something between Death Angel and LotR LCG are going to be pleased with it, I think. You can definitely see some clear lineage there between the games, and some of WHQ is pretty familiar between those two designs. I would say that it does feel somewhat like a more advanced Death Angel, but with some of the things like facing taken away.

Each hero has four actions- attack, rest, explore and aid. But what those mean is different for each of them, which is a cool way of expressing the classes. I played with the Dwarven Ironbreaker and the Elf Waywatcher and each had a distinct approach. For example, the dwarf resets his actions on his aid, the elf on her attack. This makes the tactical utility different for both of them. Typically, when you take an action while you are engaged with an enemy, it is contested so you roll some black dice along with your hero dice. So you can take non-combat actions at your peril. Dice explode, so one of the great mechanics of the modern age is present in the game. After you take actions, the monsters get to go and they have a linear triage of things they do which includes moving from "the shadows" to engage a hero. All quite different. Ork Boyz kind of just harass/intimidate you, not really coming at you unless you take actions in front of them. Ghouls give you sickness. Bats fly away into the "the shadows" and nip at you from there. Then there's a location phase, so whatever location you are at does something. Peril phase bumps up a tracker and may trigger a quest effect.

Usually you want to get successes on explore actions to put travel markers on the location, which is of course easier when you aren't fighting stuff. Hit the limit, you flip the location and go to the next place and it spawns monsters. Exploring is also how you draw dungeon cards, which may be good or bad.

The rulebook does the tutorial/reference thing, and it's kind of a mess. The tutorial is functional, but it omits a lot of key mechanics so it's really just to show you the flow and not the process so much. There was a lot that was very unclear, like how monsters in the shadows that are face down activate. It's buried in the reference under the enemy phase section. It was not clear at all, at first, that your die roll successes do not double, triple or quadruple the text effects of your actions- just the base effect of it. When I ran out of dungeon cards on like the second turn, I realized that I had it wrong and reset the game. But once you get it down, it's really quite easy and I would say it's on par with Pathfinder in terms of weight/density. Maybe actually a little simpler. It's pretty compact too...the whole thing could EASILY have fit into a Silver Line box, but you know how that goes. It's really just one poker-sized deck, one in-between sized deck, and a stack of large quest cards that could have been made smaller. You also, of course, get a punchboard of wonderful heart tokens and so forth. Don't you need more of those?

I didn't finish the quest scenario, but I got to the last card. It seemed a little easy but I could have been doing something wrong. The heroes kept above 15 health the entire time, and there was just one turn of events that made me feel like there was some danger. But that's a tier I quest, it may escalate dramatically.

Overall, at a first look, it was really fun and it feels very approachable. Replayability may be an issue, and I think if you play solo or with two you could easily knock out all five campaign quests in an evening. There are settlement phases in between each quest so you can visit the trainer, the smith and so forth so that's a cool touch. I just don't know how motivated I would be to go back through the scenarios with different heroes or whatever. But keep in mind that this is actually a very low cost title- I think it's like $25 or so, and I'm sure expansions are on the way. I think I'm onboard for them.

Does it "feel" like WHQ? Yeah, pretty much, as much as Death Angel feels like Space Hulk at least. But I think this is definitely better than Death Angel.

Michael Barnes wrote: OK, I couldn't wait so I took a long lunch and played the tutorial and the first quest.

First impression- it's good. You guys looking for something between Death Angel and LotR LCG are going to be pleased with it, I think. You can definitely see some clear lineage there between the games, and some of WHQ is pretty familiar between those two designs. I would say that it does feel somewhat like a more advanced Death Angel, but with some of the things like facing taken away.

Each hero has four actions- attack, rest, explore and aid. But what those mean is different for each of them, which is a cool way of expressing the classes. I played with the Dwarven Ironbreaker and the Elf Waywatcher and each had a distinct approach. For example, the dwarf resets his actions on his aid, the elf on her attack. This makes the tactical utility different for both of them. Typically, when you take an action while you are engaged with an enemy, it is contested so you roll some black dice along with your hero dice. So you can take non-combat actions at your peril. Dice explode, so one of the great mechanics of the modern age is present in the game. After you take actions, the monsters get to go and they have a linear triage of things they do which includes moving from "the shadows" to engage a hero. All quite different. Ork Boyz kind of just harass/intimidate you, not really coming at you unless you take actions in front of them. Ghouls give you sickness. Bats fly away into the "the shadows" and nip at you from there. Then there's a location phase, so whatever location you are at does something. Peril phase bumps up a tracker and may trigger a quest effect.

Usually you want to get successes on explore actions to put travel markers on the location, which is of course easier when you aren't fighting stuff. Hit the limit, you flip the location and go to the next place and it spawns monsters. Exploring is also how you draw dungeon cards, which may be good or bad.

The rulebook does the tutorial/reference thing, and it's kind of a mess. The tutorial is functional, but it omits a lot of key mechanics so it's really just to show you the flow and not the process so much. There was a lot that was very unclear, like how monsters in the shadows that are face down activate. It's buried in the reference under the enemy phase section. It was not clear at all, at first, that your die roll successes do not double, triple or quadruple the text effects of your actions- just the base effect of it. When I ran out of dungeon cards on like the second turn, I realized that I had it wrong and reset the game. But once you get it down, it's really quite easy and I would say it's on par with Pathfinder in terms of weight/density. Maybe actually a little simpler. It's pretty compact too...the whole thing could EASILY have fit into a Silver Line box, but you know how that goes. It's really just one poker-sized deck, one in-between sized deck, and a stack of large quest cards that could have been made smaller. You also, of course, get a punchboard of wonderful heart tokens and so forth. Don't you need more of those?

I didn't finish the quest scenario, but I got to the last card. It seemed a little easy but I could have been doing something wrong. The heroes kept above 15 health the entire time, and there was just one turn of events that made me feel like there was some danger. But that's a tier I quest, it may escalate dramatically.

Overall, at a first look, it was really fun and it feels very approachable. Replayability may be an issue, and I think if you play solo or with two you could easily knock out all five campaign quests in an evening. There are settlement phases in between each quest so you can visit the trainer, the smith and so forth so that's a cool touch. I just don't know how motivated I would be to go back through the scenarios with different heroes or whatever. But keep in mind that this is actually a very low cost title- I think it's like $25 or so, and I'm sure expansions are on the way. I think I'm onboard for them.

Does it "feel" like WHQ? Yeah, pretty much, as much as Death Angel feels like Space Hulk at least. But I think this is definitely better than Death Angel.

Glad you had fun, man! When Death Angel came out, I played a crap ton of that. And I'm an admitted Lord of the Rings LCG addict, so I'm sure that comes through in the design/spirit of the game.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, dude!

We really should point out that a F:ATtie co-designed this game!

I'm doing a full review for Miniature Market...stay tuned for that.