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What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

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28 Jul 2016 13:59 #231019 by Black Barney
i love being the zombie player in LNOE. Everyone against me is fun :)

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28 Jul 2016 14:26 #231025 by R.P.Kraul

Black Barney wrote: i love being the zombie player in LNOE. Everyone against me is fun :)


It is a neat game option. I just wish it had some kind of solo/co-op module. There's been talk of this, but as the 2.0 Brimstone stuff wraps up, FFP is supposed to start on a new project.

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28 Jul 2016 16:21 - 28 Jul 2016 16:22 #231036 by Cranberries
Played Pax Pamir for the second time with teen son. This was just a two player short game to help solidify the rules while we try and convert two more players. I forgot this was my fresh copy of the game and didn't shuffle the cards, so no economic cards came up during the hour we spent exploring the rules. I'm looking forward to a four player game.

Last edit: 28 Jul 2016 16:22 by Cranberries.
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29 Jul 2016 16:58 #231108 by Egg Shen

R.P.Kraul wrote:

Egg Shen wrote: I'm glad I didn't bite on this one. It looks like it has plenty of cool ideas, but being buried in a bunch of rulebooks is not something I want out of a zombie game.

Curious...what other zombie games have you played at this point?


Last Night On Earth. I have some expansions, too. Great theme, but there are two bummers: 1) it needs a zombie player, 2) the search mechanic is very tedious.

Dark Darker Darkest. A mess of a rulebook, but there is update from the designer. Some really neat mechanics, including the camera. Sort of like Resident Evil. A pretty heavy game that is challenging to set up and kind of fiddly.

Plague of the Zombies. Print and play. Does some things better than LNOE, but it's a pretty basic game.

Zombicide. Played the first edition once. Didn't love it--so many gamey rules and a search mechanic not too different from LNOE. I could see the fun in it, but it was easy to game the game by staying in certain areas and not killing to much. A buddy of mine who prefers Eurogames liked it more than I did, so go figure. I understand Black Plague offers some big improvements, but I haven't played it. A big drawback is missing that plethora of CMON KS exclusives, but I don't know how much difference they make.

Zpocalypse. Never played but watched a ton of videos. I get the impression it, like Zombicide, has a lot of gamey rules.

I wish there were a Fulci-like spatter gore zombie game. Sort of like Psycho Raiders but with Zombies.


You might want to give the following a try:

Run Fight or Die - If you like dice chuckers and King of Tokyo style games this one is actually pretty decent.

Mall of Horror / City of Horror - A very oddball game that is really more of a negotiating/voting game. I like that it really nails the whole "humanity will tear itself apart worse than the zombies ever could" aspect. Only bummer is you want a full table to really get the most out of it.

Humans!!! - Probably the best in the entire Twilight Creations line. This one has you playing as the zombies, but it's just as ruthless and evil as their Zombies!!! games. People are scared off most things that TWI produces, but this game is a winner. It has fun capturing rules for eating humans, a good wound system, and plenty of "fuck you" in the card play.

Zombie Survival - The other crown jewel in the Twilight Creations Inc lineup. This game has each player holed up in their house with supplies and seeing how can last the longest. It's got that typical Twilight Creations rules jankiness, but once you suss out the details it's a fairly simple and solid affair. Plus, you get to roll dice at a picture of a zombie on the inside of the box lid which is kinda awesome.

Zombiaki II - A small 2P only card game from Portal Games. It's got some translation issues (but you can easily figure it out via BGG), but it has some unique stuff going on. It's asymmetrical with one side as humans and another as the zombies. The humans need to use clever card play to survive and the zombies need to rush and use cheap tricks to gain any advantage. Silly and fun.

I'm not sure Black Plague will change your mind on Zombicide, but it's certainly won me over. I HATED vanilla Zombicide and they've pretty much removed most of the stuff that I didn't like (dropping weapons when attacked, auto hitting heroes with ranged weapons etc). The gameplay is crazy simple and it's really more of an Army of Darkness style hack n slash game. I've been sort of shocked with how much I enjoy the game.
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29 Jul 2016 19:00 #231119 by Josh Look
Alright, so I, arguably the biggest Ghostbusters fan on the site, has finally played the much maligned Cryptozoic GB game, the retail version none the less and it is....




....Exactly the kind of game I want to play right now. It's very light, reminds me a bit of Buffy, a family game with only slightly more miniatures jargon than Heroscape, and most importantly, it's GHOSTBUSTERS. I know the second game put more meat on the bone, but I'm not convinced it needs it.

It is the retail version that I got, which last week was $45 on Amazon. I'm okay with the price I paid, but by no means is it worth the $80 at MSRP. "But there's so much plastic!" some might say. Retail Blood Rage has more and it looks better.

Still, I wish I had backed it on KS, I would have been okay with the $100 or whatever it was it was going for, especially being the GB fantatic I am. I didn't back the second either, so double bummer.

Regrets aside, between this and Protect the Barrier? What a time to be alive.

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29 Jul 2016 19:22 - 29 Jul 2016 19:23 #231120 by Michael Barnes
We played Protect the Barrier NINE TIMES this week before we left for LA. Every time with The Real Ghostbusters on in the background. I believe it is probably the most successful game I've played with the kids so far. We still haven't won- gotten close a couple of times. But I am also forcing them to play the full game with all of the advanced rules (Rowan, all reshuffles/locked door cards,PEDs have to go out in order, green ghosts stop you from leaving a room with a PED).

Definitely THE family Game right now for us.

As for Black Plague...it is he best zombie game to date. And it's one of my favorite games this year. I just ordered Crowz and it has convinced me to go all in on Maddive Darkness.
Last edit: 29 Jul 2016 19:23 by Michael Barnes.

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29 Jul 2016 19:32 #231121 by Cranberries
Played a full game of Pax Pamir with my son. I got lucky and won with the third topple card. I printed out an image of the deluxe board for fifty cents and glued it to a dollar piece of foam core.

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29 Jul 2016 21:09 #231124 by SuperflyPete

Egg Shen wrote:
Last Night On Earth. I have some expansions, too. Great theme, but there are two bummers: 1) it needs a zombie player, 2) the search mechanic is very tedious.

I still like it but haven't played in a long time. Still say it's the pinnacle of the zombie sandbox game.

Zombicide. Played the first edition once. Didn't love it--so many gamey rules and a search mechanic not too different from LNOE. I could see the fun in it, but it was easy to game the game by staying in certain areas and not killing to much. A buddy of mine who prefers Eurogames liked it more than I did, so go figure. I understand Black Plague offers some big improvements, but I haven't played it. A big drawback is missing that plethora of CMON KS exclusives, but I don't know how much difference they make.

I love it now after hating it from one play, with house rules that I didn't know were being played. No sound tokens, zombies attack, and those that didn't attack can move and attack. But played it again (right) and now I'm hooked.

Zpocalypse. Never played but watched a ton of videos. I get the impression it, like Zombicide, has a lot of gamey rules.

Hell no. It's the perfect zombie survival game IMO. I've played the fuck out of it. Only thing that ruins it is the Zmaster expansion.

Mall of Horror / City of Horror - A very oddball game that is really more of a negotiating/voting game. I like that it really nails the whole "humanity will tear itself apart worse than the zombies ever could" aspect. Only bummer is you want a full table to really get the most out of it.

It's Diplomacy: Zombie edition. LOVE this game. It's full of fuckery and you're right: the more players the better it is.

Zombie Survival - The other crown jewel in the Twilight Creations Inc lineup. This game has each player holed up in their house with supplies and seeing how can last the longest. It's got that typical Twilight Creations rules jankiness, but once you suss out the details it's a fairly simple and solid affair. Plus, you get to roll dice at a picture of a zombie on the inside of the box lid which is kinda awesome.

Hills Rise Wild is another crown jewel that, if it had miniatures galore, would be a million dollar KS. I love this one too - rulebook sucks but before I nuked my account at BGG I had rewritten the rules with explanations of shooting from windrows and shit. Fun game and the box lid thing adds so much.

There's a card game called Zombi something and it's fun. I want to say Chaos something too but I know Zombi is in the name.

The Mantic Walking Dead game is a straight re-skin of Mars Attacks: TMG and that game is awesome.
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30 Jul 2016 10:07 #231132 by hotseatgames
Last night I went to a game club in Toledo to test my prototype. That went well but the game is still too long so I have to figure that one out.

Ended the night with a filler game called Piece 'o Cake, which turned out to be surprisingly fun. Played with 5 which seems to be the way to go. It's a simple set collection game, and the attractive components (heavy cardboard cake pieces that seem a lot more like pie) really help. I looked on Amazon and it's too expensive since it's OOP.
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30 Jul 2016 11:35 #231136 by san il defanso
I had some friends over last night. We played Power Grid and Samurai, and I won both games. Not much else to tell there.

After two of our players left, me and the other guy did a delve quest from the Warhammer Quest Adventure Card Game. I was the Warrior Priest and he picked the Witch Hunter. Early on he got one of his legendary gear from the deck, giving him the ability to reduce the resistance of the enemies he was fighting. After we levelled up he also got the item that caused him to deal an extra wound to monsters when he dealt one to them with an attack. Combined with my rest action, which empowered him, and the occasional aid action to give him some extra successes, he became a one-man wrecking crew. He was frequently able to kill three monsters at once, since he could target extra creatures when he had other exhausted actions. We cleared the final room just before the final boss came out, since he was able to blast through every monster we faced, and I was able to explore effectively. It was the first time I've played where I've found a really potent combo, and it was fun to exploit it. Both of the new characters have proven to be solid purchases, just to see how they interact with the other characters. That's really where the game has a lot of depth, in finding ways to combo the characters together.

I absolutely love the WHQ card game. I know that a lot of people here like Death Angel better, and for solo gaming I would definitely agree. But I feel like WHQ has a greater sense of individuality to its characters and enemies, and it produces a far more detailed narrative, even in the fairly generic delve quest. And of course it totally blows Pathfinder ACG and LotR LCG out of the water. It still remains to be seen if WHQ stays one of my favorites a few months from now. But for right now I'm super impressed.
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30 Jul 2016 11:52 #231137 by R.P.Kraul
Egg & Superfly, thank you guys for your comments and recommendations on zombie games. I've had Zombie Survival on my watch list for a while. Glad to see others recommending it. Mall/City of Horror sound fascinating, but I rarely have a full table. Had never heard of Humans!!! but that sounds pretty awesome. I will keep Zpocalypse in mind. Interested to see what they do for version 2. You know, I've also had The Hills Rise Wild on my list for a while. Shame that it's no longer available. And on Zombicide, it appears that several Barnes & Noble locations around me have Prison Break for $24.99. I will call to confirm that this is for real. At that price, even if I don't care for it, very easy to flip.

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30 Jul 2016 13:36 #231140 by SuperflyPete
At SuperflyCircus.com (and here probably) I have reviews of Zombie Survival, City of Horror, Zpocalypse, and Last Night on Earth.

Hills Rise Wild is awesome but it's a tabletop miniatures game sans miniatures

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31 Jul 2016 10:59 #231162 by RobertB
The coworkers and I played another game of Scythe. There were four this time, and we played Yellow->Black->White->Blue (me), with that being the turn order. Yellow was new, and the other players were veterans of last week's game. I screwed myself up at the start, and went towards White, rather than moving into that huge empty space to my immediate left where Red would be. When White came over to that side as well, it screwed up what plan I had to play into the Player Mat's strengths.

I did manage to get first pull from the Factory stack, and in keeping with my The-Hell-With-My-Strategy strategy I took "Spend 2 gold to get a mech and 1 Power." I managed to win two fights, got an Objective, and got 4 mechs for four stars. Black wanted to rush the end, and got 3 victories, 4 mechs, 6 Upgrades, and an Objective for 6 stars. However, fulfilling my Objective required me to go into the second Popularity tier, and that let me sneak into the win due to the Tier 2 multipliers. I think the other players still didn't get what that Popularity track means, but they know it now. Final scores were 37-32-30-30, which to me were insanely low final scores. Time was pretty close to two hours, including rules explanations.

The new player said, "Liked it okay, but we need to play Eclipse." The Scythe hater said, "I can't believe I played this f**King game again." I guess we'll have to let him win next time, if there is a next time for him.

At this point I like Scythe okay. It's not the be-all and end-all of strategy gaming, but I like it fine. I like Clash of Cultures and Eclipse better, but with my crowd those are 4-hour games.
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31 Jul 2016 11:41 #231164 by hotseatgames
I had a two player playtest of City of Lycans last night, which went well but again was too long.

After that we played our second attempt of Mercs Recon. The mission we chose is almost impossible and we actually fudged the loss condition and STILL lost. After two plays, I like this game "okay", but it's nothing special. I can tell you that if and when Seal Team Flix comes out, it will be a much better way to get your Rainbow Six on.

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31 Jul 2016 13:29 - 31 Jul 2016 19:53 #231168 by JEM
Bonus Shadows of Brimstone evening on Friday. The nun's chest portal was causing some problems with enemies spawning from it occasionally. The finale in the frozen city became an interesting tactical game. We were positioning to avoid to laser beams of the Targa Pylons, kiting the snow terrors back to the mines while the bandida tanked pretty effectively with her stone skin. After a brief visit post-adventure, the town was overrun and destroyed. On to the next one! After that we played Lord of the Rings Deck Building Game: Return of the King which says 30-45 minutes on the box, which is a lie. I think it took almost two hours. I won that, but think we should have thinned the archenemy deck.

Saturday had a big crowd again, and four of us started out with Pax Porfiriana. It still ran longer than it should, but the strategy is starting to become apparent. Needing to hold onto regime change cards, possibly committing sooner to a manifesto (which allows you to retreat your troops rather than discard them due to other troops, nationalization, etc). One player almost won on US Intervention/Outrage topple, but we ran the game to the end and he won on money 83 to 82. I wasn't able to compete since my mines were running low after I forced a change to Anarchy to stop that topple.

Next, three of us played Above and Below. I may have to read more, but my initial impression was lack of balance. The first two players grabbed the buildings that let you bring in workers ready to use the same turn, and I felt like I was half a turn behind for the rest of the game. I rolled plenty of 1s and 2s in exploration also.

Shadowrun Crossfire was next. Three of us have leveled up characters and the fourth was a new player to the game. We are using the High Caliber Ops cards and the new player took the Social Adept role (Face proxy). We were doing pretty well until the third scene. Forced to discard our hands twice by obstacles and crossfire cards, we struggled to get what we needed. I knew we should have bought that Covering Fire from the market before all weapons got cycled by an obstacle. I went in and out of staggered, and each new crossfire seemed tailor-made to punish us very specifically. We failed to abort, but everyone wanted to play again, so we went right back into it. The second time around we were moving obstacles, blocking their powers, our street samurai went staggered, got healed back to one hit point in the final scene and somehow we chained all our card plays and assists together to defeat all obstacles and win! Hooray for us!

After that I sat and chatted with some others while they finished up their play of my copy of Blood Bowl Team Manager. It was a good night all around.
Last edit: 31 Jul 2016 19:53 by JEM.

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