What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

wkover wrote: Last night I played Victory or Death (the new Quartermaster General with Sparta/Athens) and didn't care for it. No surprise, though, since I didn't care for the original. Both QG and VoD are incremental tugs-of-war where the winning team is determined not by strength, not by holding ground, and not by clever play - but simply by staying awake longer than your opponents. Yawn.

100% agree. I don't see how anyone can like those games.

Wow, I'm shocked. I generally agree with charlest's opinions, but I really like QG.

I can see how it would fail in comparison to any traditional wargame, but that isn't the realm QG is playing in. Its strengths are its fast, dynamic play, easy accessibility, large player count, and short play time. I think it's a lot of fun.

I only played once, but Quartermaster General was a truly miserable experience for me, being shut out of the game from turn two.

Gregarius wrote: Wow, I'm shocked. I generally agree with charlest's opinions, but I really like QG.

I can see how it would fail in comparison to any traditional wargame, but that isn't the realm QG is playing in. Its strengths are its fast, dynamic play, easy accessibility, large player count, and short play time. I think it's a lot of fun.

I really dislike the incremental tit for tat changing of areas. It feels very static and like you're putting in a lot of work and coordination to gain so little.

Also not a big fan of using a static deck that you don't get to reshuffle. Every move is so important and crucial because you won't get that card back. I generally like games that present some tough decisions but it feels very unfun for me in this one for some reason.

With that being said, I've only played QG original and the new one once each.

JEM wrote: I only played once, but Quartermaster General was a truly miserable experience for me, being shut out of the game from turn two.

That's a bummer. I really dig Quartermaster General. The thing is that's its a game where if you just dig in and play you'll probably get screwed at some point. Every nation/faction is different, with different strengths and different deck sizes. I always make sure that each player has some idea of what their nation's strengths are, because it isn't a forgiving game to learn that type of thing on the fly.

Black Barney wrote: What's P500?

About P200 - P800, give or take.

I move that Wade be removed from this site.

wadenels wrote:

Black Barney wrote: What's P500?

About P200 - P800, give or take.

Funny, I thought it was PM's, as in 500 nights you have to wait until it funds.

Boarded some games across this weekend :

Mansions of Madness 2nd ed - we played the 1st mission again and this time beat it, it was ok, though i was expecting a bit more variety in the mission set up on the replay. The monsters do vary as do the puzzles but everything else is exactly the same.

Pandemic Legacy - the epic slog continues. We had a couple of months hiatus and there is some drive to get this finished so we can see the whole narrative. This was actually quite a good session, a new ability or two were introduced which seem rather like Rob ideas. I took the Colonel and went around 'curing' the infected. We actually won to boot. I felt for a while, when we lost 5 in the trot that you could screw yourself in this game if you messed up early, I now realise this isn't quite the case. The game has a weird balance that can pivot wildly around, its really a trade off between the weight of upgrades and damage to the board state and you can get upgrades in a bit of a glut. We now have the situation where most of the traditional pandemic diseases are heavily upgraded so that we no longer need research stations at all and we need fewer cards. Since this remains probably the hardest objective the game has become comparatively easier. We only have another 4 months to go so i think we are going to make it. imo legacy games should allow for players he cannot be bothered to commit to a full 24 games.

A Distant Plain - I bickered like a worn out parent with the coalition to a losing position as the Government, Warlords won. I really like the angsty relationship between the Gov and Coalition in this game but other than that i think its the weakest in the COIN system. Its still a sound game but usually 2 and often 3 of the players are completely broke. You spend more time passing for resources in this game than any of the others and passing a turn is boring. Also it means you are often doing less interesting operations that what you hoped for. Still the politics are solid and it might be the best in that respect.

Star Wars Rebellion - 2nd game, this time as Rebels. I'm pretty sure I prefer War of the Ring at this stage despite being fairly even on the two settings. I think War of the Ring is a bit more of an open playing field and has fewer annoying card plays in it, though this might change as I play Star Wars more. I hate it in games when some one flips out a card and you realise your last few decisions were pointless. If only you had memorised the event deck. This nearly happened at the end of the game. I was about to win a clear victory for the imperials to play a special General Viers assault card and hop a large force into my poorly defended base. They took it and they had won, until my friend remembered that he had to kill all the units in the territory and I had one x wing in orbit. Thus i won. It was still very frustrating. These sorts of things disappear as you get to know the game but they always feel a bit sloppy to me, there is a good thematic reason for the De Gaul card in Twiglet struggle but in effect it just results in US players not going for france. It doesn't really add much to the game at my level beyond being a trap for newbies, some of the cards in Rebellion feel abit like that, easy to counter if you know they are there.

Having decided that Rebellion is Fury of Dracula but with armies instead of characters and no movement for the Drac/Rebels I decided to use the ole Drac strategy and put my base as far from the main Imperial fleet as possible and then build the biggest fleet i could and ko the nearest fleet. Thus the Imperials couldn't actually reach my base before the clock ran out, even if they worked out where it was (assuming i achieved a regular tick of objective successes). This works best if the Imperials put most of their fleet on the opposite side to Mon Calamari, which is your fleet building base, and you getting a few cards that allow you to get some of them cruisers out. I got out all three and cleaned house on that side of the board even taking Croissant in the end. Next time I play the Imps i'm going to roll with this idea and make a b'line straight for Calamari with my main fleet and actually search backwards from the far corners of the board, since for the imps the game is really about your search pattern.

I also played Starwars carcassone, which is definitely the best carcassonne and might be the best starwars.

Have had an FFG week - Arkham Horror with The King in Yellow (absolutely screwed), a 3-player refresher/learner gane of TI 3 (6 hours of epic and still no one got to 8VP) and a 4-player (finally) game of Forbidden Stars (where I was screwed from the start by the random tile draw with minimal materials and no cache or forge assets, just reinforcements on my tiles, I did well to just survive until the end and even got an objective).
And throw in a Big City (OK) and a Smallworld (bleh) with my euro group.

even taking Croissant in the end.

What happened to the worlds of Biscuit, Scone, and Crumpet?

Played three games of four player Marvel Legendary last night. It was the first time my sister and I had played and her kids (both teenagers) were both exasperated with her playing, and even more exasperated when she won the first game against Red Skull. So we had to play two more. I think we played Doom to a draw and then lost the Skrull/Kree war when none of the Kree warriors bothered to show up.

DukeofChutney wrote: Pandemic Legacy - We now have the situation where most of the traditional pandemic diseases are heavily upgraded so that we no longer need research stations at all and we need fewer cards. Since this remains probably the hardest objective the game has become comparatively easier.

We always chose these upgrades if we qualified, and got all of them by the mid-point in the year. It makes things much easier. I think we've only lost 2 or 3 games (and one of those was the very first one). We've been riding zero funding for like 6 months now. This Saturday is our last session and while I've enjoyed it, I'm happy it is coming to an end. Especially since a different group of mine has pre-ordered Seafall.

DukeofChutney wrote: Boarded some games across this weekend :

Mansions of Madness 2nd ed - we played the 1st mission again and this time beat it, it was ok, though i was expecting a bit more variety in the mission set up on the replay. The monsters do vary as do the puzzles but everything else is exactly the same.

There are multiple, but finite, variations on the scenarios. I'm aware of at least two for the first mission. Many things are the same, but there were significant differences, including tile/mansion layout, and some minor plot points, and how the game ends. If the first room is the same setup, just quit out and restart until you get a different opening tile.

Got in a few games this weekend...
1. Forbidden Island - Two players, neither played before. We beat it without much trouble. It was okay, but pretty standard stuff.
2. Cosmic Encounter - 4 players, two of which were first timers. It went well and was fun, but would be better now that they have a game under their belts.
3. Codenames - 4 players. Despite owning this for months, this was my first opportunity to actually play it. It was fun, and we played 4 games in a row. I think it actually has more rules than necessary, but whatever.