What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

My wife was on a commercial shoot a couple of months ago and one of the people she was working with in the art department was the wife of the guy that designed Capes and Cowls. Very weird. I should have seen if she could get a copy from her.

Problem with superhero games is that they are all, effectively, the same game. City map or other geographical representation. Crime markers/villains/events happen. Heroes go to those places and do something to make said markers/villains go away. This goes back to the old GW Judge Dredd game, which is kind of like the template for most superhero games.

That Wizkids Batman game tried something different, making the players villains and Batman as a mutually controlled figure. Had it been better design-wise, it could have been the first great superhero game.

Another big issue with superhero games is that they always feel like they're made by someone who has kind of a casual, more mainstream interest in the subject matter...so if they have licensed characters, it comes across like comics never left the Silver Age. If they have made-up characters, they have about as much authenticity as superheroes made up by kids whose parents won't get them Marvel/DC halloween costumes.

I don't care about licensed characters. If the game has them...cool. If not, no bigie. I just want a game that's fun to play. Also the game, should make you feel different from the other players.

I'd play a super hero duel game that was like Wiz War. Just a bunch of crazy super powers and the only thing stopping you is your ability to think of cool ways to use them.

Anyone play the awesome PC game from Irrational games called Freedom Force? That game had great fake 'silver age' superheroes. So take fake characters like that and toss them in a Wiz War or Mage Wars style game.

Egg Shen wrote: I don't care about licensed characters. If the game has them...cool. If not, no bigie. I just want a game that's fun to play. Also the game, should make you feel different from the other players.

I'd play a super hero duel game that was like Wiz War. Just a bunch of crazy super powers and the only thing stopping you is your ability to think of cool ways to use them.

Anyone play the awesome PC game from Irrational games called Freedom Force? That game had great fake 'silver age' superheroes. So take fake characters like that and toss them in a Wiz War or Mage Wars style game.

I tried Freedom Force, but never got past the tutorial. I was hoping for a turn-based game, not something where I need to constantly and actively manage multiple characters in real-time.

Egg Shen wrote: I'd play a super hero duel game that was like Wiz War. Just a bunch of crazy super powers and the only thing stopping you is your ability to think of cool ways to use them.

Strange Synergies?

I'd heard some good hype about the new Legendary Alien game, so I picked it up last week and played a solo game today (controlling two hands). I always liked the Marvel version as a game, but it had some problems that eventually led me to trading it away, most notably that the graphic style was hard to keep up with and that it was too darn easy to win (I think I lost once in about 20 plays).

Well, I'm happy to say that I *love* this game so far. The graphics are a little simpler and cleaner and easier to follow, though not too much so... I still would have liked bigger icons. And it's still a pain in the ass to setup, especially sorting the cards out of the box (allow an hour for that). But the game is fantastic. Very intense. Differences include... you now have to first scan the enemy cards that come through the line (spending strength to do so), and some of them are aliens, some are events and some are hazards. This makes it harder right off the bat, and also more interesting to decide how to approach what you see in front of you. Instead of taking wounds into your deck, you are now hit with "strikes" that do a certain amount of damage, and your character has a hit point limit. There are objectives to complete, and specific decks for each, and though it's still a deck building game with a marginal amount of narrative/theme, it's definitely there stronger than with the Marvel system (which was decent enough in that regard, I think). The differences aren't drastic, really, but overall it is a better game experience, no doubt. As it was, I did win the game, but was hanging on the edge of losing several times, with the boss alien needing to move just one more space, but I held it off. Can't wait to play again!

First, I played another game of Robinson Crusoe. Love the game, it is growing on me as I play. This time my wife and I used the Friday AND the dog and we cruised to a victory. It's really nice that there are basically "levels" in the game depending on whether you use the assists (Friday and/or the dog). Good design there, especially if you've designed a pretty hard game. Easily one of the top couple games of the last few years.

I dusted off Nations and played a solo game of it. I think it's an excellent design. Not sure it would set anybody's world on fire here, but the game has a great balance of making aggression and war something to think about but still pretty modern eurogame mild. This is another "flavor of the week" game that BGG has passed and left in the dust that is, in fact, an excellent design.

Legendary: Alien Blah Blah

Ok a brief digression. The True Believers have played this four or five times now. It seemed to us that there may be a scaling problem with the game. That is, with more than 3 players it becomes decidedly harder.

What we concluded was this: The enemies are moving relentlessly towards the combat zone. One space on each players turn. With 3 players or less you still have 2 full rounds before an enemy card enters the combat zone and MUST be dealt with. This gives you a chance to acquire a few cards from the offer and to reshuffle your deck before you must fight.

With more than three, at least one and possibly more players, have only had one turn before the aliens are in the combat zone. You are forced to fight a round early and thus not only are you deprived of a chance to boost your deck but others might not have had a chance to reshuffle so there will be no coordinate cards to help you.

The upshot is with more than three, the players seem to be a step behind all game. By the time your able to effectively deal with stage two monsters, the stage 3's are already appearing.

It seems a decent amount of people here have played it. Has anybody else played with 4+? Have you found the same issue?

The scaling thing was also an issue in the original Legendary. It's just much easier with 1-2 players compared to 4-5. Another reason for that is that with fewer players, you're churning through your decks faster and getting to your stronger cards faster... but still facing essentially the same obstacles and enemies (though there are more with more players). 4-5 players are dealing with everything using weaker decks that take longer (as a percentage of what's coming at you) to develop.

I played again last night through the second movie scenario, and won fairly easily, though it still felt pretty tense most of the time. The queen was about to hit the combat zone for the last few turns of the game, but I was able to kill it before it did any real damage. Unfortunately, I can't see managing more than 2 decks to play solo, so I'll probably have to implement some of the suggested difficulty tweaks.

Btw, I should mention that you can play solo with one deck, but I like using two because there are some things in the game that encourage cooperation. I think there's something called "coordinate" on some cards, where you can play it to the table on your turn (though it has no effect for you), redraw to replace that card, and then another player can make use of it on their turn.

Grudunza wrote: Btw, I should mention that you can play solo with one deck, but I like using two because there are some things in the game that encourage cooperation. I think there's something called "coordinate" on some cards, where you can play it to the table on your turn (though it has no effect for you), redraw to replace that card, and then another player can make use of it on their turn.

There is co-ordinate where you can play a card out of turn to help the active player but there is no redraw. You sacrifice it and weaken yourself to assist another.

repoman wrote: Legendary: Alien Blah Blah

Ok a brief digression. The True Believers have played this four or five times now. It seemed to us that there may be a scaling problem with the game. That is, with more than 3 players it becomes decidedly harder.

What we concluded was this: The enemies are moving relentlessly towards the combat zone. One space on each players turn. With 3 players or less you still have 2 full rounds before an enemy card enters the combat zone and MUST be dealt with. This gives you a chance to acquire a few cards from the offer and to reshuffle your deck before you must fight.

With more than three, at least one and possibly more players, have only had one turn before the aliens are in the combat zone. You are forced to fight a round early and thus not only are you deprived of a chance to boost your deck but others might not have had a chance to reshuffle so there will be no coordinate cards to help you.

The upshot is with more than three, the players seem to be a step behind all game. By the time your able to effectively deal with stage two monsters, the stage 3's are already appearing.

It seems a decent amount of people here have played it. Has anybody else played with 4+? Have you found the same issue?

Played with 5 and we beat it, played again with 4 and went 1-1. It never seemed like a problem, but I love tense, brutal games. You HAVE TO buy attack cards early because you CAN'T not have 3 dmg to shoot a facehugger.