What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Earlier this week I got a change to play Plaid Hat Game's Ashes: Rise of the Phoenix Born. HOLY SHIT...I was blown away by this game. There have been more Magic clones than the average gamer can shake a stick at, but the boys at PHG have taken the best elements of the genre and crafted a potential masterpiece. I love how the game comes with pre-built decks, but they're not stuffed with 23 different cards that you're never going to play. There are only a handful of unique cards, but what is there all feels INCREDIBLY useful and important. What each Phoenix born (summoner...wizard) can do feels unique and seems to play wildly different from each other. Perhaps the best thing are the big chunky dice that you roll for your mana each turn. Unlike many other popular games in this genre you no longer waste turns playing land cards or other resource cards....you simply roll some dice and you're powered up and ready to kick ass. Yes, the game boils down to playing creatures and spells to kill your opponent, but there is a surprising amount of nuanced play that I totally wasn't expecting from this design. As you play the game your spells don't typically go away. So after a few turns you have quite a few options to chew on and crunching out an effective turn is oh so satisfying. Finally, the game is absolutely fucking gorgeous. Whoever PHG has designing their layouts and doing their artwork is killing it. This game looks like a million bucks. If you're a fan of Netrunner, Magic, Mage Wars Academy or any game in this genre, you really should be checking out Ashes. I was so impressed with it that I'm making sure it's one of my next purchases.

Update on TMNT Dice Masters...my son has played it with me twice today, and if he had his way we would have played more. He REALLY likes it.

So whatever else, it's a hit with six-year-old boys.

I got in Gale Force 9's new Tanks game- it is basically a repackaging of some plastic Flames of War tanks with a SUPER simple rules set that you can learn in about five minutes- maybe less.

It's FUN. I really like this product! I love how kid-friendly it is, it says "COMPLETE TANK GAME INSIDE!" on the box and you get three models that you have to build (yep, sprues) and can paint if you so desire but they are molded in appropriate colors. My son was super excited about it but he fell asleep before we got to try it together. But I think other than some of the upgrade/crew cards, he should be able to grasp it completely. It is simpler than X-Wing. The movement is all on a 5" straight measuring stick. You put it next to your tank and push it up to square with the arrowhead on it. No turn radiuses or anything like that, 360 degree firing arc unless you are using a vehicle with a fixed gun like a Jagdpanzer. LOS is from turret to tank, if you can't see three corners it has cover. If you hit behind the front, it does more damage. Easy stuff.

Where it gets interesting is how it handles movement speed and how it relates to shooting. You can choose to move 0, 1 or 2 times. If you do not move, you can reroll your full shooting roll. If you move one, then you get an extra defense die. 2, you get 2. So it manages to capture a sense of moving and shooting in pseudo-real time. That's really the only fancy rule in the whole thing. It has the crew cards/upgrades, damage cards, initiative order all just like X-wing. Rolls are just straight D6s looking for 4-6 with 6s being criticals.

With the starter (two Shermans and a Panther), it takes about 15 minutes. It's enough to push some tanks around and shoot but yeah, of course it is not really enough. It has some 2D punchboard terrain that lamely has overhead photographs of miniatures terrain on them. It looks really dumb!

One SUPER nice touch that doesn't affect me is that it comes with ALL of the tank cards for the entire product line. This means that if you already have some Flames of War tanks (or any other similar scale tanks), you can use them out of the box. Or, you can proxy whatever you want.

I'll probably pick up some more when they come out, I always prefer the Soviets in any WW2 thing but they don't come out until later. Tanks are like $7.50, and there's an extra value there since they're model kits and you get to assemble/paint them.

Don't think it will be a big success though...it is pretty close to X-Wing, but it is simultaneously more accessible and more hobby oriented. I hope it does well, there is a lot of potential for it to grow into a simple, fun WW2 skirmish game.

Egg Shen wrote: Earlier this week I got a change to play Plaid Hat Game's Ashes: Rise of the Phoenix Born. HOLY SHIT...I was blown away by this game. There have been more Magic clones than the average gamer can shake a stick at, but the boys at PHG have taken the best elements of the genre and crafted a potential masterpiece. I love how the game comes with pre-built decks, but they're not stuffed with 23 different cards that you're never going to play. There are only a handful of unique cards, but what is there all feels INCREDIBLY useful and important. What each Phoenix born (summoner...wizard) can do feels unique and seems to play wildly different from each other. Perhaps the best thing are the big chunky dice that you roll for your mana each turn. Unlike many other popular games in this genre you no longer waste turns playing land cards or other resource cards....you simply roll some dice and you're powered up and ready to kick ass. Yes, the game boils down to playing creatures and spells to kill your opponent, but there is a surprising amount of nuanced play that I totally wasn't expecting from this design. As you play the game your spells don't typically go away. So after a few turns you have quite a few options to chew on and crunching out an effective turn is oh so satisfying. Finally, the game is absolutely fucking gorgeous. Whoever PHG has designing their layouts and doing their artwork is killing it. This game looks like a million bucks. If you're a fan of Netrunner, Magic, Mage Wars Academy or any game in this genre, you really should be checking out Ashes. I was so impressed with it that I'm making sure it's one of my next purchases.

Ok, so I was the other player in Egg's game of Ashes, and I'm speechless. How the fuck has this game never been mentioned here. I was _FLOORED_ by how good it was when we played, and I played it again the other night and that's still the case. Everything Egg said about it is spot-on. Hearing/reading the rules you'd think that it takes the CCG genre (particularly MtG) and strips it down to the bare essentials, which is somewhat true, but in execution it's more that it's opening up space for more gameplay. Six precon decks in the box, and if you start that, "Waaah, I don't want to build decks" crap, forget it, that doesn't apply here. You can make your own decks, but the six precon decks don't leave you feeling like you're missing something or could be playing more effectively. The release model seems good, too, no monthly lopsided-balance BS like Netrunner, new precons (only 2 so far).

I'm still going to play MtG because my wife gets booster boxes for free, but Ashes is going to get played more often. If I still had any LCGs in the house, they'd be out the door. Ashes is clearly the best in class as far as I'm concerned.

Plaid Hat knows what they're doing. I take a good look at everything they put out because they haven't disappointed yet. Dead of Winter is the only game of theirs I've played that I didn't keep around, but that's more because I'm a bit of a BSG nut and kind of wanted the game to be something it isn't.

Got SeaFall on preorder. It looks ambitious, but with PHG behind it I'm pretty confident it's going to be excellent.

san il defanso wrote: Yesterday I got the TMNT Dice Building Game from Miniature Market, and I trotted it out for a solo game. I'm not sure how this happened, but this was actually my first exposure to the Dice Masters system. I played Quarriors way back in 2011 when it came out and it didn't do much for me then, but I really enjoyed this a lot. That's probably because mechanically it's basically Magic with dice, which is more interesting that I remember Quarriors being.

I like that the new set is all self-contained, though they take great pains to point out that it's fully compatible with every other Dice Masters set. I do think I'd like to get into some other Dice Masters sets after this, since I can see them being a big hit with my kids when they get a little older. Guess I'll throw that in the pile of games I'd like to buy someday.

Stick to one Dice Masters series. It's super-fun to have a pool of dice & cards that work together theme-wise, and branching out will suck your wallet dry. We're into the DnD series because we like that particular theme and between Battle for Faerun and Faerun Under Siege we have more Dice Masters than we know what to do with anyways. We've got a nearly complete set of the first -- Battle for Faerun -- and started to get into the second series, but realized we've got so much Dice Masters right now that we don't really need to get all the Faerun Under Siege stuff. But I still eye the boosters when we're at the store...

Game of Argent: the Consortium 2 player. Still the best worker placement, BRILLIANT opportunities for creative play. I keep going on and on about it.

I went to a Heroscape tournament yesterday, and got my ass kicked. A bit embarrassing for a 'scape veteran like myself, coming in 14th out of 18 players. Goofy/fun format: "Bring the cheese, eat the cheese." 600 point army, 18 hexes. You played three rounds with your army, rounds four and five were played with your opponent's army. I pre-drafted a Deathwalker army, hoping for the dice gods to bless me after a painful DreadBall match earlier in the week. Didn't happen. The Deathwalkers can mess stuff up, but only if you get to your opponent first. A few lost initiative rolls & some crappy defense rolls, and the Deathwalkers were out! My favorite plays of day were actually from Deathwalker 7000. No one in their right mind would take the self destructing robot into a normal tournament, but yesterday's format seemed an exception. I got to set him off twice to great, and hysterical effect.

I saw so many unique army builds yesterday. It was a lot of fun. Love live Heroscape!

GRIPE: Those D&D expansions blow. The rules for them were fine (and sometimes quite clever), but the: scale, paint jobs, base size, and miniature quality either sucked or were fair at best. What a shitty way to end a fantastic game system. Shame on you Hasbro/WotC.

Had a very interesting thing happen last night during Dune.

Regulars may remember the first few sessions of my Sparatcus/Dune players as they fumbled around learning the rules and what not. Well I ran into a pretty busy time of life so couldn't post or report as much detailed information but we kept playing and last night was game number 8. Safe to say they have a pretty good grasp of the game at this point and it has been pretty great as the only one who actively played "hobby style" games (although fair to say these guys have crossed into that border as one of them is starting to purchase games) see the enjoyment of playing take hold. Anyway to the goods - I showed up an hour late and walked into the apartment to 5 dudes arguing about needing to stop watching the Lynch movie because one of them was currently reading the book and didn't want any spoilers. I think I've done a good thing here...

I was BG and started with a cheap hero and my troop token in Tuek's. Round one saw a massive spice blow in the Cielago South, which had the Fremen very excited. However after the Emperor managed to pay Atredies and fill his hand and with the other factions only doing minor shipping and re-positioning on the board, he sent a lone troop sent to fight the stack of 6 Fremen. The famed Sardaukar was more formidable than what the desert folk had anticipated, Jamis (I was a friend) ended up in the tanks and everyone found out early that the Emporer had both projectile weapon and shield. Round 2 began and the storm settled on Tuek's wiping out the windfall at Cielago and all potential miners. The blow erupted at the Old Gap and after bidding the Harkonnen and Atredies both were left with limited resources and would seemingly need to chase. After Harkonnen decided to hold back and Atredies sent just a mere 2 troops to collect, the Fremen seized the opportunity to make up some of the ground lost in round one and deployed and moved a strong raiding party to wrestle control of the spice from the off worlders. A truth trance to ensure no weapon would be played resulted in Stilgar winning the day with no losses. On round 3 the storm barely passed into the Pasty Mesa as a great Shai Hulud rose from the desert. The large group of Fremen mounted the worm and negotiations began, resulting in Fremen / Emperor and Atredies / Guild alliances with the Bene Gesserit and Harkonnens staying solo. As the Fremen filled his hand with the backing of the Padishah Emperor, the Harkonnen took their chance shipping into Tuek's and moving into Arrakeen. Master Bewt betrayed the guild for a suprise win, but through through his prescience the Atredies held of the Harkonnen. The Emperor had again sent a single token to the surface, this time into the Imperial Basin bringing a smile to his Fremen ally. The storm seemingly stuck in place again barely crawled across the Mesa as round 4 opened with the thunderous explosion of family atomics. As most of the great houses filled their hands with treachery cards, the Bene Gesserit continued to bide their time, knowing that very soon the sands of Arrakis would be filled with blood and they could easily clean up. The Harkonnen looked to follow up his bid for victory and pushed hard into Arrakeen while maintaining his hold over Tuek's and Carthag. The Emperor descended for the first time en force to Tuek's and the Guild sent a small detachment to weaken the Harkonnen stronghold of Carthag. Many Harkonnen, Atredies, and Fremen lives were lost as battles filled the planet. The guild managed to return the favor of Treachery to the masters of it, as Beast Rabban was found to be in the pay of the Guild and the tiny probing force took down mighty Carthag. A devastated Harkonnen would see his master plan fall just short... the tanks were full as round 5 began.

Here's where things get really interesting. I finally buy a second treachery card... being the only one to not really have been participating in auctions at all. I am also going first. My two cheap heroes are stacked against everyone's hands full of weapons. I don't think I can pull off a victory for a turn or two more so stay co-exisiting, Guild defers, Harkonnen sends 1 troop into carthag so he now has 1 troop in 3 strongholds, Emperor passes and Atredies passes not wanting to risk more dwindling troops and lose a leader to Harkonnen's lasgun. Guild chooses to take his turn in order and moves OUT of Carthag leaving Harkonnen holding 3 strongholds unopposed. This group routinely forces a passive Guild to save the game in these situations going last and forcing a battle or a player will win, our Guild player knew this would likely fall to him and went before Fremen forcing his hand instead. The Fremen player, REFUSED to be the sacrificial lamb and chose instead to let the Harks win without fighting a battle on the final round. The Fremen player claimed meta game reasons stating he will now never be relied on again in the future (which is not true) and you can imagine the frustration and arguments that followed, which with these players making people upset is as much of fun for them as winning the game.

At first I felt is was a pretty hallow game, and had I won that way I wouldn't really feel great about it. But it is for sure a move that will affect future plays, and really a finish like that is part of why I think the negotiation and mechanics above the table of Dune make it so great. I sure would've played differently then saving all my spice and only shipping with advisers had I known that was the ending coming up however.

Sadly this is prolly the final play with this group for a really long time as I move to a different town on Sunday. I am going to a place where I will get to play a lot more games, but the group and their stubborness, bitterness, and hatred toward each other on the table, which always goes away right as the game ends, has created some great times that I don't think I'll be able reproduce no matter what we are playing. On a happier note, the last 2 weeks I spent helping and walking them through creating two additional copies of Ilya's Dune version and they look really great, so they can at least continue without me.

Ya Hya Chouhada!

drewcula wrote: I saw so many unique army builds yesterday. It was a lot of fun. Love live Heroscape!

GRIPE: Those D&D expansions blow. The rules for them were fine (and sometimes quite clever), but the: scale, paint jobs, base size, and miniature quality either sucked or were fair at best. What a shitty way to end a fantastic game system. Shame on you Hasbro/WotC.

Heroscape rules. I plan to sneak off to a tournament at GenCon when I can get away from the PHG booth.

As far as those D&D expansions go, they were a big letdown for me too, but for different reasons. The main guys behind it were Jerry Hawthorne, Colby Dauch, and Chris Dupuis. Jerry (who later designed Mice and Mystics and Tailfeathers) and Colby (Summoner Wars, and owner of PHG before F2Z bought them) did a great job on the design, some of the best and most creative stuff up to that point in the game. Chris Dupuis was mainly the rules guy, (he also helped out a lot on Risk Legacy and went on to work on other WotC board games full time). I playtested it all with proxies and was really excited for it. Then the fan base saw the sculpts and rejected it. It was like a body blow.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll do it again- Plaid Hat Games would not exist without the Heroscape community.

Josh Look wrote:

Egg Shen wrote: Earlier this week I got a change to play Plaid Hat Game's Ashes: Rise of the Phoenix Born. HOLY SHIT...I was blown away by this game. There have been more Magic clones than the average gamer can shake a stick at, but the boys at PHG have taken the best elements of the genre and crafted a potential masterpiece.

Ok, so I was the other player in Egg's game of Ashes, and I'm speechless. How the fuck has this game never been mentioned here. I was _FLOORED_ by how good it was when we played, and I played it again the other night and that's still the case.

I’ve avoided talking about it because of my involvement with the company on Summoner Wars (and now the expansion for DoW) and demoing games for them at cons. My girlfriend was my main opponent in Ashes (I think the art goes a LONG way towards attracting women to a game like this if the activity at our booth was any indication); but we got distracted trying to play through Tragedy Looper, and finding X-Wing this winter. It’s definitely solid and has a different flow to it than most other games of its type. I like how you essentially start with all of your “mana,” but you develop your board and spellbook in different ways that increase your options as the game goes on. I still haven’t constructed decks at all- it seems like you could go pretty wild there since the rules are very open.

I might play it tonight now…

Jexik wrote:

drewcula wrote: I saw so many unique army builds yesterday. It was a lot of fun. Love live Heroscape!

GRIPE: Those D&D expansions blow. The rules for them were fine (and sometimes quite clever), but the: scale, paint jobs, base size, and miniature quality either sucked or were fair at best. What a shitty way to end a fantastic game system. Shame on you Hasbro/WotC.

Heroscape rules. I plan to sneak off to a tournament at GenCon when I can get away from the PHG booth.

As far as those D&D expansions go, they were a big letdown for me too, but for different reasons. The main guys behind it were Jerry Hawthorne, Colby Dauch, and Chris Dupuis. Jerry (who later designed Mice and Mystics and Tailfeathers) and Colby (Summoner Wars, and owner of PHG before F2Z bought them) did a great job on the design, some of the best and most creative stuff up to that point in the game. Chris Dupuis was mainly the rules guy, (he also helped out a lot on Risk Legacy and went on to work on other WotC board games full time). I playtested it all with proxies and was really excited for it. Then the fan base saw the sculpts and rejected it. It was like a body blow.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll do it again- Plaid Hat Games would not exist without the Heroscape community.

I've been a 'scape fan since release. I'm talking before HOT LAVA DEATH 'scape. [Aside, It was fun to watch Colby's rise from fan boy to front man.] The design for D&D 'scape gets the pass. Again - there was some neat stuff developed. But the production just reeked of cost saving half-assery. I appreciate a company wanting to cross promote. Hell, Heroscape is ALL ABOUT genre bashing. Gonna make some D&D stuff?! Cool! Throw it in there. But what WOTC threw was not complementary to the existing line. Different sized bases, different scaled miniatures, different paint jobs/QC. Had the same sculptors who created the first nine waves been brought back to re-invision the D&D characters - it could have worked. As is, I'd say only 1/2 of those expansion (and Master set) characters look appropriate. I think that's generous. Contrarians may argue I'm being a belligerent ass, but it was about aesthetics for me. Plain and simple. Heroscape had a wonderfully unique vision and the majority of the D&D pieces looked like rubbish.

Kemet. One of the group had brought this a few times before but we'd never managed to get a game in. I said I'd be happy to play it and we convinced three others to join in. Mechanically, the game is pretty solid but for me the experience fell kind of flat. It became clear somewhat too late in the game how dominant the attacking strategy appeared to be, with most other options seemingly distractions from the main goal of scoring points.

A couple of the players greatly disliked the game. I felt it was fine, but I cannot see any reason I would want to play this over Blood Rage or especially Chaos in the Old World. I don't buy the arguments at all that these games are wildly different. The trees may be different, the woods are broadly the same. If there's a group that want to play it, I would play it, but I don't think I would ever suggest it.

Hammer of the Scots, which was a learning game. The owner (same guy with Kemet) bought it because his wife's family trace their history to one of the clans there. Naturally I assumed the role of the villainous English king, Edward Longshanks, the eponymous Hammer against Wallace and his savage Scottish hordes. We didn't get to play out a full scenario before my opponent had to leave, but I enjoyed what we played. The game is mechanically very straightforward, light on rules and with some randomness in card draw and battle dice results.

Very much a tug of war, with incremental changes in board state- as the English it's hard to even get your troops into Scotland before they must disband for winter. I felt a lot of pressure to make headway against what I felt were often much stronger Scottish block groups, but when we called the game after a few rounds it transpired that I was actually winning, because the English control most of the lords and it's a tough job for the Scots to claim them, even winning all those battles. I'm looking forward to playing it again, for sure.

Star Realms three players, which gives the solo player a hand of seven cards. I was the solo ("Boss") but without enough big hitter cards on the trade row, I wasn't able to take out both opponents. Still a fun way to play the game.

Spartacus came out after a long time away. Four of us sat down for a session of scum and villainy. With the agreement of the group we played from 4-12 influence so it was not the shortest game, but an enjoyable one nontheless. I was able to procure Spartacus in the auctions, but probably paid too much (I am the worst at auctions) and also threw nine coins on a trident which did help me to win one match but left me cash poor.

Badly chosen wagers (two decapitations in the arena, and I'd bet on injuries) and I was essentially broke, which is not a good place to be for Good Solonius, who's power comes from his ability to spend coin in lieu of influence. Varinius kept demanding assistance, and what is a good Roman to do but defer to his betters? In the final round, Varinius had enough money to secure the Host, and thus the 12th influence so we called it at the market phase- nobody else was above 10.

We tried a variant based on the newer X-Men version of the game that meant we were playing one card at a time during the intrigue phase. On reflection, I'll stick to the existing rules in future as it really slowed the game down (though perhaps it made the turns longer, but reduced the number of turns). More turns = more market and more arena = more fun, though. Still, it was a really fun game with a fun group.

Back at home we got out Shadows of Brimstone, We rolled for a mission and got the "kill 12 corpse piles" adventure. We were doing pretty well cleaning house (some Targa tech "Arc" gun really helping my Lawlady) until we pulled a darkness card that made the undead faster. Playing at level 3 introduced "Elite Abilities" to the mobs, which makes each battle work at least a little differently even with the same base enemies, so that was fun. After around two hours the pair of us had cleaned up seven of the twelve piles needed and we called it a night. I'm not sure if we'll finish the adventure, even though we had fun with it. The hard-mode mission currently is trying to fit everything in some kind of suitable storage solution.

JEM wrote: Kemet. One of the group had brought this a few times before but we'd never managed to get a game in. I said I'd be happy to play it and we convinced three others to join in. Mechanically, the game is pretty solid but for me the experience fell kind of flat. It became clear somewhat too late in the game how dominant the attacking strategy appeared to be, with most other options seemingly distractions from the main goal of scoring points.

A couple of the players greatly disliked the game. I felt it was fine, but I cannot see any reason I would want to play this over Blood Rage or especially Chaos in the Old World. I don't buy the arguments at all that these games are wildly different. The trees may be different, the woods are broadly the same. If there's a group that want to play it, I would play it, but I don't think I would ever suggest it.

I can't think of another game I got so jazzed about and just as quickly came to dislike. I like that it's attempting to be this pure DOAM experience, but then it has this tech tree going on, which not only detracts from the core experience but is the game's downfall. There's a few selections that are by far better than others and those will always win. As soon as you learn the tech tree, which takes all of 3 games if you're playing on a regular basis, the lasting appeal is totally gone. The combat, which is what the game is all about, is Game of Thrones. Done not as well.

Oh, and the box art sucks, too. Whoever designed that logo? Fire them.

wife is still out of town, so it's been gaming galore for me. A couple notable things:

51st State Master Set

Still liking this, but there's a card that seems hugely overpowered. I expressed my concerns here and have been told that my lone self saying this card may be overpowered is "groupthink". We'll see. It's still poised to fire Imperial Settlers.

Royals

Sort of abstract game of multiple area/majority control. What theme there is is very difficult to get excited about. It's not a bad game, though it plays pretty long for what's there. Can be surprisingly vicious. The thing that struck me the most was that I came in a very close second and didn't feel like that was earned at all, having made only two really good plays in the entire game.

Ships

I love Steam, but few other Martin Wallace games have really grabbed me. I often find them to be pretty cold, bland, stats-driven stuff. As Ships hit the table and was explained, I didn't expect I'd get much out of it. Yet something about it did work for me. Don't get me wrong, it's still very much a Martin Wallace design (though without some of the historical minutiae baggage his games often feature), but it's actually approachable,
engaging, and -- dare I say it -- fun. The graphic design of the board could use some work, however, and it's not without some troubling flaws, but this is something I'd rather play than much of the other Wallace stuff that's come out recently.

Titania

I hadn't heard of this but was told it wasn't highly regarded on BGG. Not exactly sure why that is, as there was nothing too bad about it. Perfectly affable game that doesn't go on crazy long. Better than Abyss, which it reminded me of and gets tons of love there.

Wir Sind Das Volk!

I am a sucker for games that address a specific historical event that isn't a war. My main complaint about civ games is that playing them, you would get the impression that the only notable thing anyone has done in 4000 years is put soldiers on horses and discover gunpowder. Wir Sind Das Volk, a game simulating the tension between East and West Germany from the postwar years to the taking down of the Wall, was a game I was super interested in trying.

The rules were intimidating, but when we dove into playing they were fine. What's tough is figuring out at first how to proceed. An interesting choice in the game is that East can win simply by making it to the end. They don't have to defeat the West, just survive. This is how our game was won, as I was West and didn't get a good idea until late in the game how to directly harm East (for a brief moment at the end I was "winning" but it was before East had a chance to remove unrest.)

This is a really cool game, actually fun and interesting to play, with a great implementation of its theme. I think it sits well next to games such as Twilight Struggle and 1989: Dawn of Freedom.

The Hellfire Club has been sort of in hibernation with members in and out for a while but we had a full meet-up on Saturday...and it was glorious.

While we were waiting for Hobbytown/Corky McCorkle to show up (the guy that accidentally wind up at the men's tantric seminar rather than game night once- not kidding), I led four folks through Execution Force. It's a four player game, but I kind of jimmied up some rules to make the AI Chaos forces me-controlled. We had a ball. These guys are all old time 40k players but they had not seen any of the new stuff and they liked it. Game was full of jokes and comedy, we named each room so we had things like the Blood Sauna and the Chaos Executive Lounge. They fumbled around for the first few turns and wound up in hot water, with two assassins wounded and forced to shake off patrols. I had just painted the Chaos Marines in the box (Crimson Slaughter) and I was ashamed of them, especially after Kristoff had shown me this army of amazing 15mm Alexandrian spearmen he had painted. So it was a big joke about hiding them in the box and proxying them with pennies.

Hobbytown showed up halfway through so we made him read the event cards. It was hilarious.

They pulled it off, but not before getting into a situation on the Chaos Lord's board. I wasn't really playing to beat them though. Great game, but everyone shirked at the price tag...but there again, I paid $65 for it and it was worth every penny.

Pizza, homemade croissants courtesy Erekh, political/economic conversations, movie talk, etc...lots of general catching up. Then they wanted to play Eldritch Horror, which I balked at with 6. I like it with four TOPS.

But it turned out really good and it wasn't abhorrently long. I think it was actually just about 3 hours with lots of cutting up and mischief. We were up against Yog Sothoth, didn't use the stupid Mountains of Madness board. Three players picked Irishmen, so there were plenty of 'Me old mother" accents and comedy. I played the African lady, and had pretty much no possessions for the entire game. The gambler guy, played by Kristoff had the best story arc. The game kept throwing arrangements, debts, and dark pacts at him. He met Errol Flynn in Sydney and wound up in jail. Then he hallucinated and turned up on top of Mount Everest.

We almost had the third mystery down but had the awakening...we called it a loss, we wanted time to play one more.

So Medici was picked, I was the only person who had played it before but it is super easy to teach and grasp. Unfortunately, I have the FUCKING GOD AWFUL 1995 Rio Grande Games edition. It is so fucking ugly I can't believe it. So of course there was much commentary about the graphic design, with the blame largely lain at the feet of the Dutchman credited with it in the rulebook. There's a long-running joke about the Dutch amongst us.

Anyway, the game was great and we all had a good time with it. The running joke to come out of that game is that shitty lots are "a great purchase for some buyers". I said it once while trying to explain that a 0-value good card could, actually, be worthwhile in some situations. But I rolled with it and the trash lots were branded as such for the rest of the game. I came in somewhere in the middle, Pierre and Kristoff just blew everyone away with some shrewd purchases and getting that damn gold card FOR FREE in one case.

My wife and son were spending the night at the zoo and my daughter was at grandparents, so it was the first night I've been sans family since...2010? But we pledged to reconvene regular HFC meetings, should be getting back together with them in two weeks.

And we are probably going to play Mordheim.