What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

played Storm over Dien Bien Phu - Ameritrash game of the year! GOTY! but is also a wargame. Its ara impulse like the stalingrad game, and several titles from Avalon hill.

This is dice chucking, fist pumping, card slamming awesome. 6 pages of rules, lots of mid game swings, exactly what i want from a lightweight war game.

My opponent (who I had traded it off with OCS reluctant enemies for Napoleon's triumph). thought it was significantly better than Storm over Stalingrad.


Then we played Napoleon's Triumph. Good game, I traded it off really as i was just starting to understand it, but no loss since my opponents still don't really get it. I still messed up a few rules though.

So, Myrmes

It's, well, wank. Hated it. Another overly optimised, balanced and calculated puzzle solving exercise masquerading as game, despite the cool theme, and use of a bit more direct interaction than your usual Euro. Shades of Antiquity/Roads&Boats, replete with an equivalent "sawmill trap" where instead of being fucked if you don't adequately set up early wood production to be able to build the other shit you need, here it's organzing your workers to bump up the number of nurses in your colony, to be able to do anything. Even still, the game is so constrained, so tight, its just a darned shame. A nice concept but one that wanted to be a bit more open and free, not this nonsensical cube by cube (and I mean literally cube by cube accounting required) planning to go through your tech trees, and do the other stuff required. Would have been a lot better if they'd kept the basic ideas but let the colonies swell, grow, go forth and rampage in the garden. Let the players try different strategies, collect resources and roll with their strategies, instead the strategies there are channeled into razor thin chains of required cubes and actions in that oh so fucking annoying Euro way that seems to thrill some crowds, or at least, during the gotta have em all essen acquiring phase. Noone will be talking about this game in a years time. Would have been way cooler to get rid of the puzzle processed chain of micro actions and just let players be colonies that breed huge fucking army ants, or those who grab all the leaves and food, or those that spread and colonize at distance, or specialise in other stuff and let them have at it.
Instead it's an excruciating plod in optimising every single action - the only good thing is theres (like Antiquity etc) still some phases you do in parallel so it moves at a good clip, it's just that at the end of it you're thoroughly underwhelmed by what just happened. Avoid at all costs. Immediate sale pile, at discount.



boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/156496/march-ants
looks like it goes for a more interesting open ended approach to the ant game, but it was kickstarted, already has video reviews and a well thumbed good review, without any sign of the rules online, so I'm also a bit suspish

Went to the boardgame club in Toledo tonight. First played a game called Vikings, which is a bullshit title because let me tell you, there is 0 viking stuff in here. I almost won. Wooh.

Next we played 2 games of Zombie 15'. This was fun and (obviously) fast-paced. The best part was when we were 2 tiles from the end goal and the horde came, dumping about 12 zombies on the space. We still managed to pull out a win. I've now played this game 6 times, and it's solid. I'm glad I backed it.

Played a bunch of stuff yesterday.

Tortuga (Queen Games 2014) was pretty decent. It's a cute dice-rolling game where the point is to load treasure in three steps until someone has loaded 6 treasure and the game ends and you count up your points. Each turn you roll dice and assign them to 5 different locations on your player board. One location in increases the holding capacity of your ship, one increases the loading capacity of your crew, one digs for new treasure chests, one lets you attack other players' ships, and the other lets you attack other players' crew. It's pretty straightforward. Once everyone has assigned their dice you resolve each player board location. The player with the most points in a location gets the primary action and the 2nd place player gets a less powerful secondary action. Then you move your treasures: from ship to destination, from crew to ship, then from the island to crew. That's about it. Pretty good dice-rolling/assigning family game and quick to play since everyone rolls simultaneously.

Thunder Alley again, this time with four players on the short oval track. I got off to a bad start while Green started on a tear. Black and Yellow were somewhere in the middle, with me, Black, and Yellow all having one straggler each in the back of the pack who never worked together to catch back up. Those three stragglers got lapped and removed on lap 2. Maybe those drivers couldn't work a stick shift. It was looking really bad for everybody except Green by mid lap 2 when a Yellow came out. We had a few pits and got rolling again, but this time I had a decent hand and pushed hard at the lead. Lap 3 was tight and Lap 4 was tighter by the end, with most the cars on the final turn and into the final straightaway. I pushed across for 1st and 2nd place, having never led a lap during the entire race. But that one lapped/removed car was my downfall, I still lost to Green by 4 points, 152-156. Black and Yellow were a bit more behind, but not terribly. Lots of fun.

Discworld again, twice. I love Discworld. The first game we let one player get his minions out and control too many locations too fast and he won inside of 30 minutes. Fastest game of Discworld I've ever played. The second game was wild. We had a ton of events and several players in winning position who were knocked back just in time (you declare victory at the start of your turn). I had to have minions in 9 areas and only managed to get 8. We ran out the draw deck but the role with that win condition wasn't in play so it came down to points. I came in second by just a few points. I am noticing a trend.

Star of the day for me was 4P Clash of Cultures. I've played a bunch and taught the game, one player had played once, and the other two were new but are regular gamers. Not much in the way of military conflict this game as I was caught up in teaching and the other players were more or less feeling things out. One player (who won Thunder Alley) seemed to have a clear lead, but we bought him down a notch with Barbarians and Mercenary cards. My neighbors to the left and right seemed to be doing pretty well and building just enough Armies to make attacking difficult, so I established Trade Routes and then went full Theology and started throwing around Cultural Influence. One Wonder was built, everyone was laying down Objectives pretty heavy, and the game got pretty tense at the end. I came in second by half a point, which I could have had if I hadn't been caught up in teaching and used my Free Advance Action Cards. We played Variable Ending and the game ended abruptly with no final Objective Card scoring, which was probably good for my position because two players were suddenly cranking out Armies like mad in the last two turns, and I had neglected to do much militarily.

ldsdbomber wrote: So, Myrmes

That's a game I kept looking at, considering and then putting back for fear of the very reason you described. Kind of a letdown that it sounds like it went for the cookie-cutter Euro design rather than something that could stand out.


Today I got Hotel Tycoon to the table twice. The first game I read the rules on building entrances to your hotels wrong so it went a lot quicker than it should have, but we were having a great time. The second game we had more of a "Serious Gamer" involved who got some bad dice rolls, was disinterested 1/3rd of the way around the loop the first time, about 2/3rd of the way through said he hated the game and it was broken. I was cracking up that his panties were bunching up so tight. Myself and the other two were having a blast though...It's a game that you chuckle and your fortune and you chuckle at your misfortune. One guy didn't and as we were packing up the game he was telling me that the best strategy would be...I just nodded, agreed and made a note that he's not one I'd like to play with again.

In between those two games though we played Ladies and Gentlemen. I was the 7th and put in the role of the Courtesan. The game is a pretty novel concept with half being the ladies trying to put together an outfit for the ball and the gentlemen working the stock market and earning money to buy their wives (or their mistress...me) their clothing and accessories. The idea and concept I really liked, the mechanics I thought were lackluster and playing that odd role of courtesan didn't help my feelings of "Meh" though. I'd like to give it at least one more go around in one of the regular role though.

Hotel Tycoon was the highlight though. I loved it, was laughing the entire time and I want to play it again right now...Not a game for everyone though. Looking back, what it felt like is DungeonQuest...In a way you're just along for the ride trying to impact the game in what little way you can.

VonTush wrote:

ldsdbomber wrote: So, Myrmes

That's a game I kept looking at, considering and then putting back for fear of the very reason you described. Kind of a letdown that it sounds like it went for the cookie-cutter Euro design rather than something that could stand out.

.

Its got a fair following on BGG and amongst the french boardgamers (and you can play online for free at that site, boitejeux). I played again just to make sure I wasn't being rash, and while I did a lot better in the second game (something like 70 points compared to 30 because I didn't make the stupid mistake with the nurses), I still think it's pretty dire, but I can see it appealing to certain crowds.

You've only got 3 years, and 3 seasons in each (winter is just feeding), and regardless of any interaction from going out in the garden and blocking your competitors off, and later on nicking their pheremone tiles, and the battling for objectives etc, its just way too constrained, you're talking about planning for individual cubes, but each season you can only store 4 (later on 6 if you upgrade), so you are moving round a very small number of "workers" (the nurses) to grab small (often 1) numbers of resource cubes, and going out with small (often none) numbers of ants to claim territory that just pumps 1 cube into your supply at harvest, you definitely need to create at least 1 extra nurse, and thats a lot of resources, its just too much calculating very precise usage of a few cubes step by step and theres no way thats not feeling samey, it felt samey even on Game 2.

Definitely give this one a miss, I am keeping my eyes open on "March of the Ants" that got kickstarted (ruh roh, alarm bells). Have never played Fragors "Antics" either but I think a good ant game seems like it should be pretty cool. Myrmes isn't it though.

Going to take a week vacation during Labour Day week. My wife and I made a pledge to try and boardgame a ton. Stuff like War of the Ring, Twilight Struggle...all of our pre-baby favourites

Got Batman: Gotham City Strategy Game for $15 at Barnes & Noble clearance. Seems pretty decent after one 2P game. The rules are strangely worded and make the game sound more difficult than it is, which is pretty typical for Wizkids. I like how most things in the game are multi-purpose; money for leveling & hiring, info for moving & leveling, henchman for control & fighting & leveling, etc. It manages to give you a good amount to think about but still be a pretty rules-light game.

I like the artwork.

I think I'll keep this one around, at least for now. My only concern is the game length, so I was thinking that with 4P we'd only play to level 8 instead of 10 or something like that. I read through all the suggested variants on BGG (designer's and others') and none of them seem to keep the things I like about the game intact.

Pretty good day yesterday. Three of us started with Nightfall, which is a great game that deserves more attention. Unfortunately one player was new so we couldn't dive into the expansion stuff I have, but we still had a good time.

Then King of Tokyo, which is always a blast. I was doing well on VPs but I couldn't roll hearts to save my life and my neighbor had Fire Breathing. He ended up winning by elimination, which is always the best possible outcome. I need to do the variants that get the cards out faster.

Followed with Traders of Genoa. This is a really good Euro that doesn't do a whole lot for me personally because I'm not a huge fan of negotiation. I always do terrible at it and this time was no exception.

Ended with Sticheln, which might be my favorite trick-taking game. It's just so mean and tension filled, and unlike other trick games you really have to be invested and agonize over every single trick.

Solo'd out a turn in the small scenario in Burma. I now more or less understand OCS. Involved but not as complex as i thought it was.

wadenels wrote: Got Batman: Gotham City Strategy Game for $15 at Barnes & Noble clearance. Seems pretty decent after one 2P game. The rules are strangely worded and make the game sound more difficult than it is, which is pretty typical for Wizkids. I like how most things in the game are multi-purpose; money for leveling & hiring, info for moving & leveling, henchman for control & fighting & leveling, etc. It manages to give you a good amount to think about but still be a pretty rules-light game.

I like the artwork.

I think I'll keep this one around, at least for now. My only concern is the game length, so I was thinking that with 4P we'd only play to level 8 instead of 10 or something like that. I read through all the suggested variants on BGG (designer's and others') and none of them seem to keep the things I like about the game intact.

Check this variant out.

Players starting with an ability really is optional (I don't use it), but setting the deck up like this is the only way I'll play it. I haven't found the length to be an issue with 4 players. Anyone who is having a problem is probably playing something wrong (don't forget that more than one player can control a block is a 3-4 player game).

Another couple of games of Sons of Anarchy, one solo and one with the same friends I played with before.

I don't think y'all are prepared for how bad ass this game is. I played Samcro this time and I had a much better handle on the negotiation/extortion aspect of the game (it includes the Spartacus "don't be an ass" rule). At one point I had a giant pile of guns and four fully patched members and I was basically just policing the board. They'd put dudes on a location, I'd move on over and block them from using it, threatening a bloody throwdown if they either didn't pay up in money, contraband or guns or promise a cut of the take. If they submitted, I moved on. Bastards were scared of my big black fleet. They got smart and teamed up on me and put some of my guys in the hospital where two died fairly late in the game so there really wasn't enough time to build my strength back- especially since I had sold a bunch of guns and made a shitload of money. I still lost to the Lin player, he made the most of that gang's special ability to earn money for controlling the patch (1st player marker) and made a couple of big contraband sales while I was busy fighting the Mayans.

Yes, I think it does have that three player thing where two players tend to cancel each other out and the third sneaks by for the win...not sure if that's actually an issue or not, because it is easily balanced and there is PLENTY of incentive for aggressively going after who you think is in the lead.

There is no way in the world that the design team could have not played Deadwood before sitting down to write these rules. It is incredibly close to Deadwood across a couple of different vectors. It's actually only slightly more complex and slightly longer, but I think there is a lot more game and a lot more violence in it. It smooths over some of the rougher parts of Deadwood and broadens the incentive structure. It's far more interesting economically too.

It's GOTY material, I think, and definitely on par with Spartacus and Firefly. I also think that folks that didn't go for those games ought to look at it because it is nothing like either of those designs in any way.

Played Pret-a-Porter and thought it was promising. I am not sure though how much of that is due to the fabulously left field theme (which I think ties in very well with how the game works), it remains to be seen if the actual game is interesting enough to stay. Obviously the rules are a bit of a mess, but the game itself is actually very easy and straightforward on the whole, and once you've seen the cards a few times I imagine it's actually very quick and I guess the game can then focus on putting cards together to supplement your strategy. Will it be a bit samey after a while, and does the turn order become too important then when the obviously stronger cards pop up on the row (perhaps a simple auction would work here), I dunno. If I was being honest, it's probably one I could let go, and it surely does better as a 4P game than the 2P game I tried, but sometimes the theme and feel of a game gives you a reason to hang onto it, at least to try it a few more times. I like when games have unusual themes, but only when the game is obviously designed to explore that theme - here the theme is actually running a business, so maybe I should have said that the 'setting' is also quite unique and cool being fashion houses and clothes. So maybe it's the uniqueness of the setting that helps make the rather generic business startup theme more appealing, but both theme and setting tie together quite nicely I think (not surprising, i read that the game was designed as a tutorial to students on how business in the real world works) Whereas Myrmes was a game with a cool setting and (for me) a badly developed theme (the game itself doesn't capture any essence of what I would hope for), this one does a better job (Reef Encounter being another example of a game where I feel like the theme and setting work cohesively)

I like Pret-a-Porter a lot. I think I'm going to do a rules rewrite and card manifest for it. It deserves more love. Unfortunately the fact that it's about the fashion industry means many gamers won't play it because it will make them gay.

Barnes, am I crazy for thinking that Sons of Anarchy sounds a little like the Merchants & Marauders of biker gang games?