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Mycelia Board Game Review

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Outback Crossing Review

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What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

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14 Jun 2016 21:24 #228959 by Cranberries

Da Bid Dabid wrote:
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!


Such a great session report. I love that you basically converted them into Dunesters, and they're all scrapbooking away, making their own copies, and creating this dark, cancerous version of Dune Legacy.
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15 Jun 2016 07:44 #228963 by drewcula
Three of us got drunk and played Cthulhu Wars. The most sober (Crawling Chaos) beat the pants off Cthulhu and Black Goat. I'm looking forward to a sober rematch.

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15 Jun 2016 08:39 - 15 Jun 2016 08:56 #228966 by Mr. White

Michael Barnes wrote: And we are probably going to play Mordheim.


Love Mordheim! So many fantastic, vivid memories from crawling through that twisted wreck of a city. The youngblood, who in desperation, took out one of my vampire's eyes with an arrow crippling the blood sucker for the rest of the campaign (that youngblood was ripped to shreds by dire wolves afterward...). The dwarf treasure hunter pinned in an ally by ghouls, unable to meet back with his warband... Or the time two middenehiemers held off almost an entire pack of skaven from within the confines of a small building (that was some awesome interior hand-to-hand fighting!).

It's funny, because one of my BB coaches is looking to play some Mordheim one-offs this summer. He's the resident 'terrain builder' so has a ton of cool buildings which makes the offer very enticing. I do like Mordheim in campaign play though.

Not wanting to turn this site into a minis-game place, but for my hobby time board games fail to bring the narrative and excitement that a minis game offers. I've embraced the darkness...won't be giving up the brush anytime soon...
Last edit: 15 Jun 2016 08:56 by Mr. White.
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15 Jun 2016 09:33 #228970 by charlest
My family was out of town last week so I hit the table hard (it was also the first time I've been away from my daughter for that long which sucked).

Had a couple of BBQ's and meetups and got the following played:

Codenames - A ton of games of this. Still really enjoy it.

Cold War: CIA vs. KGB - Interesting filler that I liked. I dig the blackjack mechanic and think it handles it much better than Samurai Spirit. Overall fun game but not something I think I need to buy.

Cthulhu Wars - Yellow Sign got all up in Cthulhu's business, Black Goat kind of waffled around worrying too much about his spellbooks and not keeping me in check. I tore the world open as Crawling Chaos and dominated.

Equinox - Blah.

Pax Porfiriana - It had been awhile and I'm very glad we played this. It was an excellent 3 player game where we sat in Anarchy for an extended period of time before collapsing into depression. I had an insane economy though and stacked up enough money to keep afloat through the depression. I ended up pulling out a win as I was able to shift it back to Pax and won with Loyalty. I need to crack open my own copy of the deluxe edition.

The Ravens of Thri Sahashri is sublime. This two player asymmetrical game is ridiculously cheap and very good. One player takes on the role of a girl collapsed into a dream state, while the other is feeding her memories of the past in order to pull her out of it. Interesting and unique mechanics, a neat story, and very different play styles depending on which side of the table you're on.

There's also this mini legacy element with envelopes that you get to open when you win and that change the game/story. Very neat.

Seasons - bored me to tears. I also didn't like that I had to draft my cards for the entire game having little grasp on strategy.

TIME Stories - Under The Mask - The weakest story so far. Not much exciting happened. The end, however, was great and tied into the meta-story going on.

Queen's Gambit - Darth Maul had his face caved in and I only drew two Darth Maul cards before he was slain. I've never seen someone make it out of the Jedi/Sith fight with both Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon in great health.

Tanks: Panther vs Sherman - Agree completely with Barnes on this one. Very cool product and neat game. It's only downside (besides having to assemble the tanks) is that it's a little too simple and lacks the depth for repeated lifestyle play.

Winner's Circle - Never tried this one before and I really enjoyed it. Loved how mean it could be and the blind bidding thing with the shares. Might pick this one up.
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15 Jun 2016 10:34 #228973 by Msample

charlest wrote: Queen's Gambit - Darth Maul had his face caved in and I only drew two Darth Maul cards before he was slain. I've never seen someone make it out of the Jedi/Sith fight with both Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon in great health.


Thats some crazy bad luck getting only two Maul cards. If both Jedi survive with good health, probably best to just start all over again.

I do think Rebellion is the better game and over time this title will start to drop off in desireability/value a bit.

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15 Jun 2016 10:57 #228975 by Michael Barnes
Good luck finding a Winner's Circle...it is only through the kindness of F:ATties that I have one.

It's awesome. Great game for families/casual groups. Watching the "best" horse completely flop a race with a ton of money on it is never not entertaining.

Over the years, it has become my favorite horse racing game in a field typical dominated by Really Nasty Horse Racing (which can get a little loosey goosey with the rules) and Win Place or Show (which is old and too crusty for some folks).

The Star Wars version of CIA vs. KGB is even better.

I liked building the tanks...it felt like getting a little Testors/Revell/Monogram model kit but with a "complete tank game!" I'm getting all of the expansion packs...River LOVED it.

Scarlett and River both loved Animals on Board, we played it three times last night. The first game they didn't really understand the scoring and after three I think they still don't quite get it. But that doesn't keep them from having fun. River did think he was going to be slick and hoard food crates...he bought like an 8 animal group late in the game, but it was full of pairs and low value singletons.

Really good family game...hate the illustrations though.

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15 Jun 2016 11:02 #228976 by charlest
Doh, didn't realize Winner's Circle was out of print.

I didn't mind putting the tanks together, but it did kind of suck when the hull MG on one of my Shermans slipped out of my hand and was lost somewhere.

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15 Jun 2016 11:09 #228977 by Michael Barnes
Heh, yeah, I did that too. Some of those pieces are TINY.

Winner's Circle was last in print ten years ago, Face 2 Face had it with a couple of other decent Knizia titles. But they dried up and there aren't many copies out there now.

Alea's Royal Turf is mostly the same game, it may not be quite as scarce in German language editions.

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15 Jun 2016 11:32 #228978 by Unicron

Legomancer wrote: Wir Sind Das Volk!

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.)


I wanted to like the game, given the designers who made it, but it didn't quite work for me or my opponents. The iconography is easy to read and understand, but it lacked a bit of the character that text events would have had. Also the end of decade process felt clumsy, but understanding it is key to each player knowing how to act and what to anticipate. Maybe, I just had trouble teaching the game in a manner that players had a comfortable understanding of it.

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15 Jun 2016 14:02 #228980 by larryrice
According to BGG, a Korean company picked it up and will be exporting to the US when they finish their second printing - first printing apparently sold out.

dicetreegames.com/home/product_wc.html
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16 Jun 2016 08:35 #228988 by charlest
Interesting night of gaming.

First up was Jim Felli's Zimby Mojo which is unusual. It's a competitive game with semi-cooperative elements where you're travelling throughout this complex to take out the Cannibal King, grab his crown, and return it to your tribal board. You summon little conniving zimbies, can turn them into stronger zombies, and form up groups with other players to temporarily align.

It most closely resembles Wiz-War due to the scroll deck which offers spells reminiscent of Tom Jolly's design, but even that comparison is rough.

I liked it quite a bit, along with a couple other players but another was iffy on it. The manual offers options to speed up the early game (start with more Zimbies basically so you don't have to spend time summoning them), and I think that would fit our taste a little better.

The second half was certainly more interesting as we had two players kill the Cannibal King and steal the crown, then start infighting while me and another player attempted to cut them off. Every single player touched the crown and had a moment where they were running off with it before being cut down and hacked apart. Eventually a guy who had a lot of mojo (power which lets you activate) saved up nabbed it near his portion of the board and booked it like hell for the win.

Very interesting and different. Just like Shadows of Malice, lots of die rolling for random stuff (which portal you come out of, which way a neutral enemy Thug might go coming out of a portal, how powerful spells are, etc.). It's very different than SoM but you can definitely feel Jim's personality in the design.

Next up was a four player game of Tyrants of the Underdark. This arrived yesterday but I had read the rules ahead of time so we tore into this. Playtime was about what it estimated (think 75 minutes our first game).

I can definitely see this game being a big hit, just like Lords of Waterdeep (same design team). It's kind of standard Dominion deckbuildling with a row of cards on offer like Ascension/Legendary. You play cards for web or power resources, webs used to recruit new cards to your deck and power used to influence the light dudes on a map portion of the game.

I will say this, the game is not extremely exciting or full of flavor. All of its elements are derivative and we've seen them before. Even the cool promote a card to the inner circle which lets you remove a card from your deck for end game scoring purposes was already seen in Don't Turn Your Back - an underrated game from last year no one's heard about.

Yet, the game is still very fun and enjoyable. It's smooth and kind of gets out of the way letting those familiar deckbuilding mechanisms combine with board play for a very easy and simple game with interaction. It has enough dickery and conflict to provide for a dynamic situation and overcomes its sort of bland mechanical base.

It's the type of game Barnes may make game of the year, and I think it's pretty damn good, but it's also the type of game for me that could be forgettable. It's something you can grab off the shelf and go with nearly any group, but it's also not the type of game you spend the week looking forward to. I suppose Lords of Waterdeep very much fit into that category as well.
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16 Jun 2016 08:40 #228989 by Gary Sax

charlest wrote: It's the type of game Barnes may make game of the year, and I think it's pretty damn good, but it's also the type of game for me that could be forgettable. It's something you can grab off the shelf and go with nearly any group, but it's also not the type of game you spend the week looking forward to. I suppose Lords of Waterdeep very much fit into that category as well.


FIRE.

I completely know what you're saying.
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16 Jun 2016 09:28 #228990 by Michael Barnes
I just got it yesterday and haven't really looked at it yet...but it looks pretty good. Definitely appears to be in a Waterdeep vein. Doesn't look GOTY worthy, really, at least from looking over the rules.

Besides, Silver Tower is he one to beat so far.

I played Zimby Mojo in "beta" and shared some feedback with Jim, the big thing was that it felt too long for the kind of game it is. It is very Wiz-War, but with mutually controlled stacks of cannibals. Nothing else quite like it. The component illustrations are like SoM, but those on the box and in the rules are awesome.

I'm in the credits too.

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16 Jun 2016 09:42 - 16 Jun 2016 09:43 #228991 by charlest
I agree that it's possibly too long (based on one play) with the standard setup. Cutting that early game down would help considerably as the only moments of interest are on who you decide to form temporary alliances with. I wouldn't be surprised if the optional accelerated start was a byproduct of that feedback. The best moments of the game are forming fragile columns to attack the King and then jockeying for position on the way out.

I noticed your name on there.
Last edit: 16 Jun 2016 09:43 by charlest.

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17 Jun 2016 00:55 #229050 by xthexlo
The game really speeds up if you do two things: 1) start with 8 zimbies and 6 cards each (accelerated play), 2) cooperate and kill the King quickly. It is tempting and fun to bash on each other early, but it's all "wasted mojo" until the Crown drops... of course, it's also natural Zimby behavior.
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