What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

After far too long, I got to see The Nemesis, Kevin. I did a nor lap demo for him of Thunder Alley and then we got down to business.

We played Combat Commander. Need I say more? No, probably not but I will.

The game is one of the best ever made. So much fun. First scenario I was the Americans defending against a ruthless attack by the Germans. I did have a disabled tank which allowed to fend off the attackers with use of its cannon and 50mm machine gun.

Second scenario was a meeting engagement in the desert with me as the Italians and Kev as the Brits. Apparently the secret to defeating the Italians is to hand them a medium mortar. They will be so confused as to its proper operation that they will have no interet in stopping the advancing English. I was soundly defeated.

Played quite a few games, so i yarn at you about them;

Vikings; Its a euro about Vikings (not the controversal one but one from 07) about exploring, laying island tiles and putting coloured meeples on them to get points. Its pretty run of the mill stuff but fairly light and doesn't make you work that hard. I didn't mind it, but came last so maybe i should have put more thought in.


Chaos Marauders; A game that is actually about Goblins. This game has problems, its very random, sometimes to a punishing degree, and a bit long (40-50mins) for what it is. But it does have that trashy feel that's endearing about some AT games. You draw cards to make 3 lines of a goblin army for battle and can whack each other with them. Its got push your luck and some card placement strategy to it.

Horus Heresy; I wax about this game a fair bit and i like it better each time I play it. As i get to know it better problems such as moving my troops around phase out. The Imperial player heavily defended the two ports away from the palace so i ignored all that and went straight for the jugular and assaulted the emperor himself. He ran around the board and i had to chase him and he snuck out a win with 2 health left at the end. It was very close.

Beowulf The Legend. I picked this up over the ERP hype. It is actually good and for £8 (12 with postage) it was a steal. Its an auction game but it does generate the feel of a journey and it generates enough tension for people to punch the air when they win a round. I got nailed by the dragon for two wounds and ended up coming last, but i enjoyed it.

Quantum; The guy that is in charge of purchases picked this up after the SUSD review. Its a fairly hyped game in some circles. It ok. Its the kind of game that people apply the words 'short' elegant' and 'clever' too. And it deserves these words but it doesn't really generate any feeling of space empire building or epic battles. Its essentially a puzzley game about positioning and dice movement. It is clever and quick and i enjoyed it, but it doesn't compete with the other space epics at all. It feels more like an abstract really.

Among the Stars; this is like 7 wonders in space but with tableau building where the positioning of your cards affects the points they generate. Its ok. I don't really like drafting as a core mechanic as i find it antisocial. I prefer it 7 wonders (which i dislike quite a bit), but it is a bit dull. Most of the cards are just positional combos with cards of other colours which didn't really inspire me into the idea i was building a station. I ended up pulling a huge lead though.

Also on friday night we played 1856 which i snuck out a win on. I dumped one company mid game which did it for one player. The train curve kicks in very early in this game almost guarunteeing some companies will get in fiscal trouble.

Legomancer wrote: Last night was Marrying Mr. Darcy, bitches!

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That sounds like a really fun and unusual game!

Dr. Mabuse wrote:

Legomancer wrote: Last night was Marrying Mr. Darcy, bitches!

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That sounds like a really fun and unusual game!

I actually had a copy of it in my hands on Saturday - should have picked it up.

Today was an adventure in gaming with new people who I don't normally game with...I went up to the game store after tossing out an invite to play some XWing on a local Facebook group. For the most part it looks like the group is dead and the only taker was Ron, whose nickname is Popeye because outside of the freakish forearms he bears a striking resemblance to the fictional character.

Mainly I wanted to try out the new ships so I took a B-Wing, E-Wing and a pair of Headhunters. Doing the same thing he took a kitted out Phantom and a kitted out Defender. As I was figuring out initiative I asked him how many points he was playing...Somewhere around 80 or 90 was his reply. Hmm...

So after some back and forth I finally convinced him to bring a full 100 points so he grabbed a Tie Bomber. I setup my Headhunters at an angle in my right corner pointed towards the center. My B and E Wing in the center. Things got off to a rocky start when he bumped his own ships out of the gate...Second turn I got an extremely lucky shot on his Phantom and one-shot it with my B-Wing. Meanwhile his Defender went down a few shields and he got a Headhunter down to one hull left.

There was a lot of K-Turns/Come Abouts/Immelmans...As well as an attempt at "Passing", which doesn't exist in XWing. The game ended up with my B-Wing and one Headhunter killed. His fleet destroyed. It wasn't a great game, but at least I got to get some sort of impression on how the new ships fly.

Defender is looking to be a stout ship. Hits hard and is hard to hit. Very maneuverable ship.

The Phantom paired with a few Defenders and running along the flank is going to be my next build when I next fly Imperials. Have to keep those out of fire arcs.

Headhunter looks like it'll be a fun ship to swarm with. Not as maneuverable as a Tie, but the ability to take some extra damage is great.

The E-Wing didn't wow me, but is going to be an all around good ship.

Popeye and myself then joined with a few other people in The Resistance. I think Popeye was pulling his voting cards at random, he'd pick a card and then shuffle them around, so I was never sure if he even knew what card he was throwing down, which basically made the two games we played very, very confusing.

At this point Popeye had to go but two others showed up at the shop, one is a regular that I've played with a few times and the other is his buddy that I never met. We set up a game of Bang The Dice Game which is one I love. We had Outlaws shooting other Outlaws most of the time over three games, so the games went very pear-shaped. Meanwhile this new dude, who has a voice that pierces even in a loud room, yelling "Bang!" and "Boom!" into my ear giving the game sound effects. I think in the three games I got a turn a total of four or five times...So I died early and died often, but since I was an Outlaw I managed to be on the winning team every time.

Now, even though my voice was saying "Bail, and head home" my mouth said "Let's play Citadels". It's years since I have played and seeing it in someone's game bag made me blurt that out. After the words escaped my mouth I realized my mistake. I was going to be the one explaining the rules but as it had been a while I needed the rules to walk me through a few things...The only problem is that new guy took the rules and started reading them to himself...

After someone else jumped in to help me out with the rules we got going. And I forgot just how much fun the game is...I got screwed over quite a few times which was to be expected. What wasn't was when I took the Warlord and proceeded to raze New Guy's highest VP card, who then proceeded to turn, push out his lower lip and give me that kicked puppydog look.

Thankfully the game ended shortly thereafter. I was screwed over so many times in the game I was out of the running but my one goal was to make sure New Guy didn't win. I don't think he did, but since I was running late, causing a pissed off wife at home, I didn't stay long enough to hear the final rankings.

And thus ended my bitter-sweet day of good games with not so good company.

Nothing ruins a good game like other people. Citadels is one I'll never get rid of. I've played a lot of similar role selection games, but Citadels is still king.

Have you Citadels fans tried Mascarade? I'm a huge fan. A bit more chaotic and silly with a somewhat misunderstood serious head-game hiding under the surface. You have to get into the head-game and take the game seriously to make it really thrive and most groups don't seem to get it. Love it though when you find the right people. Many more fun/laughable/dickish moments than Citadels.

I've played Masquerade a handful of times. For role selection I still prefer Citadels. For the bluffing part I really like Coup. Masquerade I felt took parts of each but just didn't quite do it for me.

I've played it once and it didn't really leave an impression on me one way or the other. My only gripe was that the art, which is amazing, is left hidden most of the game. The definitive '7' I guess in that I wouldn't run from a game but I also would run towards.

trif wrote:

Dr. Mabuse wrote:

Legomancer wrote: Last night was Marrying Mr. Darcy, bitches!

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That sounds like a really fun and unusual game!

I actually had a copy of it in my hands on Saturday - should have picked it up.

I played it once and wasn't a fan. Way too long a game for as few choices you get to make. Way too few choices for them to be as uninteresting as they are. If you've ever played Gloom, it's more or less a more narrow Gloom.

Three games of BSG + all expansions on Saturday.

Game 1 I was a Cylon from the start but I didn't have a great reveal ability, just a -1 Morale. I was President Gaius and used my once per game to look at the Admiral's Loyalty Card, and tried to imply that I was happy about what I saw (but he was human). It was a tough game for the Humans and I managed to tank a couple Skill Checks and got the morale down pretty low. Then one of the players used the Skill Card action that gives every player an action or a move. The player to my left was our best pilot and CAG (Starbuck) and we had a mess of Cylon ships on the board, so she was planning a big combat/sweep turn. I used a Quorum Card to put her straight in the Brig. That pissed people off and outed me as a Cylon, but there was so much going on that nobody managed to do anything about me until my turn came around again. I revealed, dropping morale, and passed my remaining loyalty cards to the Admiral with a smile & a wink. Morale wasn't looking good, and we hit the Sleeper Phase shortly thereafter. The Admiral drew a Cylon Loyalty Card at the Sleeper Phase and then it was all downhill for the Humans. Vicious Cylon win; Humans lost on Morale.

Game 2 I was a Cylon Leader and during the game all 4 of my Hidden Agenda Cards (the new ones from Daybreak) were Cylon Allegiance, so I didn't spend much time pretending to help the Humans. It was a quick game and the Humans went down pretty quick.

Game 3 I was Tory and Human, but we were playing a storyline type of game series where players who didn't draw new characters between games kept their titles. Tory is awesome as President, but the President wasn't about to throw his title away. He even gave a Vice President Quorum Card to a different player. Tory doesn't like that. I managed to give both the President and the VP a Mutiny Card each early in the game, thinking that if either of them started acting suspicious it would be easier to pass the President title to Tory, who totally deserved it. Then I got promptly thrown into the brig. From there I still managed to help, using Skill Card actions and such, but the damage was done and I was a suspected Cylon. After the Sleeper Phase I was still a Human and helping where I could from the Brig, but it was tough to convince the other players when we kept losing Skill Checks due to the real unrevealed Cylon. I managed to complete a Personal Goal Loyalty Card at distance 6 (we were going to Earth -- 10 distance) and when I drew a new Loyalty Card it was of course the other Cylon one. But I managed to get out of the Brig before revealing, and I managed to hang out and get several Super Crisis cards while the Humans were unable to spool for jump very quickly. The other Cylon revealed, and all hell broke loose. Three Super Crisis cards in 9 player turns came out and it was a swift death for the Humans again.

So I won all three games as a Cylon, and so did two other players. Out of the six that were playing the same three were either Cylon or Cylon Leaders for every game. A lot of fun.

Yesterday was Archipelago with 4 players, two of them new, and one of them the Seperatist. I think I might pull the Seperatist and Pacifist cards when teaching the game, because Archipelago has a lot going on and it's hard to play the Seperatist subtly when you haven't figured out all the ins & outs of how the game develops over time. Even so, the Seperatist went into full screw-you-guys-mode pretty early. He managed to get a couple Progress Cards we couldn't prevent him from getting that he could activate every turn to bring up the Rebellion. He also Taxed as much as he could and generated as many Surplus Workers as he could, always bringing the Rebellion closer to fruition. We did our best to quell the Rebellion and boost our population, but eventually he did win by Rebellion. It was fun, but it's definitely a better game with more experience. I need to figure out a way to keep any potential Seperatists in check. I was doing my damnedest to build Temples and activate what cards I could to keep the Rebellion under control, but the other two non-Seperatist players were more focused on their own Goal VP than the fact that we were slowly losing the game and those Goal VP weren't going to matter.

Then it was Spartacus with the expansion. I did pretty poorly, once getting up to 9 Influence but finishing the game with 8. Two other players were hovering at 11 for a while with the other player at 10. My wife tried to get up to 12 Influence through Schemes, but we were able to foil them all. The other player managed to get into the Arena Phase with 10 Influence as the Host, bringing her to 11. Then she put herself into the battle and won for her 12th Influence. Spartacus is a lot of fun; we had quite a lot of threats and deals being thrown around, and one Primus battle. I already want to play it again.

A friend taught me how to play Mage Wars and even managed to win my first game, mainly because I was way too good at rolling unavoidable damage. It's a very Ameritrashy game, it feels like something that would have come out in the 1980s despite not having any actual resemblance to games of that era.

The mechanics themselves are not important though, it certainly won't win any prizes based on its initiative system, what is fun about it is having this huge book of spells and knowing which one to play at any given moment. It feels a bit like a structure-less CCG or RTS title, which is weird but fun.

I would love to play it again, so far I like it.

Three games of Battlestar Galactica in one day? You're a better sport than I am.

S.

Had a pretty good game day yesterday. Tons of people showed up.

Started out with Sushi Go, which I'll probably end up buying at some point. We were waiting for some other folks to show up.

Then five of us started on Rails of New England, but another turned up, so I jumped out before we started and he and I played a 2p game of Pax Porfiriana in which one card just annihilated him (it Nationalized his bank, caused him to lose stuff with Strife, and gutted his money.) Next turn I took the win with Teddy Roosevelt and an Outrage victory. Really love that game.

More showed up and we played Rise of the First Dynasty, one of the games in that "The Nile Ran Red" series. It was okay. Heavy "take that" which just meant properties moving all around the table and slap-fighting. Nothing to really get jazzed about. So far I'm kind of glad I missed out on that Kickstarter.

Then three of us broke off for Sail to India, which is dubbed a "microgame" but isn't particularly micro. It's an engine game that is kind of overwhelming at first, due to some interesting mechanisms. Basically, you are constrained to 13 tokens with play all roles: ships, trade goods, buildings, technology, and also VP/Gold markers. If you gain VP or money and don't have a token available with which to mark it, you don't get it. It's a neat idea and tough to work with. Looking forward to more of this one.

I'm on a game-buying hiatus, but what happens in Paris stays in Paris, so when I was in the Descartes store there I picked up a game called Card City. I knew nothing about it, but it was small, cheap, and looked cute. We cracked it out last night and hoo boy was that a stinker. We didn't even finish it. Anyone want it? $878.99, and I take PayPal.

Finally, a game of Marrying Mr. Darcy. I don't want to talk this up too much because yeah, it's highly random and choice-poor, but still a fun ride. And hey, this is the crowd that thinks Tales of the Arabian Nights is a great game, so no beefing on Mr. Darcy.

I wrote a review of Marrying Mr. Darcy on my site .