What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Heroes Wanted has already gotten a couple of meh-ntions here but I acutally really liked it, at least after a couple of games over the weekend. I think they did a couple of things REALLY well- I love the approach (more Mystery Men than Watchmen), the mix-and-match hero/villain thing is nearly brilliant, and I love that the scenario boards are big front-page newspapers with a lot of the scenario specific detail printed right there on it. It looks overwrought and complicated, but it plays quite smoothly. It's not really a typical superhero game, it's really more of a streetfight.

The first scenario, the Rubber Caveman (don't ask) was running around littering so it was up to the American Phantom and Ultimate-Bot to put a stop to the lawlessness. Basically, you have a very small hand of cards that recycles (no draw deck or anything like that) and you use the cards to move around and beat stuff up. There's tons of minions and henchmen on the board, they don't do anything except hit you if you're next them. Anytime you take damage, you total up everything inculding the villain's unique damage effect and you have to throw away cards to meet the number based on their stamina value.

Thing is, it's not co-op. All players can lose if the threat track runs out, but there's usually a couple of awards for KOing a rival hero. It's a battle royale more than a team-up.

I think it's fun, unique...and a Kickstarter game. So there's that. It definitely feels like development would have smoothed over some of its quirks.

Speaking of which, I hate them. There's a Quirk mechanic, and it basically makes the player do/say something obnoxious triggered by game events. If you don't do it, you get penalized. I do not like "let's get wacky!" mechanics like that. They're totally optional, thank Crom.

Will probably solo scenario 2 tonight, wherein the heroes attempt to bust up a bootleg DVD ring.

The most appealing thing about Heroes Wanted are the scenarios. They're just cute, busting up bootleg dvd rings and stopping jaywalkers. It sounds fun.

Heh, yeah, heroes only cross at the crosswalk!

I actually like that they didn't bother trying to come up with characters on par with/analogous to the big, licensed icons. These are really crappy, sub-Booster Gold wannabes that are jockeying with other loser heroes to get noticed by the "majors", so to speak, so they go after the litterbugs. I think that works better than trying to create a credible comic universe for a game.

I think it's way better than Sentinels.

++BEGIN TRANSMISSION++
++HULK DUBBED SIN OF DAMNATION SPOTTED WITHIN PROXIMITY OF BAAL++
++DISPATCH SQUADS LORENZO AND GIDEON TO ESTABLISH BEACHHEAD AND SECURE LZ++
++BOARDING TORPEDOES TO LAUNCH WITHIN ONE TERRA DAY++
++END TRANSMISSION++

Sergeant Gideon clutched tightly to his Thunder Hammer. His hands tightening and relaxing on the grip being the only indication of the emotion stirring within. He sat with a tense calm as moment by moment his boarding torpedo, cramped with four Brothers under his command, as silent as the void outside the torpedo's walls, sped towards his and his Brother's chance of redemption for his Chapter's embarrassment all those centuries ago.

"Brothers, prepare yourselves, our time is near."

A few moments later the reverse thrusters fired up and terminator armor creaked as their momentum slowed. With a dull thud, they were latched onto the hulk. Heads turned towards the door, waiting for it to finish its work and open allowing access to the beast. Brother Noctis was the first into the hulk, his eyepiece quickly adjusting to the lack of light. Initial scans indicated that the Tyranids on board were in a state of slumber, of extended hibernation as their transport silently traversed space.

Brother Leon spoke from behind, "Time to wake 'em up" words slightly muffled as his assault cannon started spinning up to speed. The barrels from both guns flashed as ballistics flew towards bulkheads, lessons learned from centuries ago is to not leave doors to create short corridors for the Xenos to get close. Brother Scipo exited, scanning and detecting lifeforms of unknown quantities beginning to stir, he raised his stormbolter in preparation.

With their sight lines cleared, Gideon cracked a faint smile upon hearing another dull thud indicating that Brother Lorenzo had arrived. Time was short though and brief was their moment of surprise, the Xenos' collective consciousness will be awake soon and a secure beachhead had to be established.

"Time to work. Time for Redemption." His eyes flickering, reflecting the light blue energy from his Thunderhammer.

++BEGIN TRANSMISSION++
++ADVANCEMENT HAS BEEN SUCCESSFUL++
++60% OF OBJECTIVE AREA SECURED++
++CASUALTIES, ZERO++
++XENOS NUMBERS MASSING++
++COUNTER ATTACK BY ENEMY FORTHCOMING++
++DEFENSIVE TACTICS IMPLEMENTED++
++END TRANSMISSION++

Sergeant Gideon was receiving reports from across the squad, their forward push has been successful with Brother Zael sending cleaning fire holding down the east corridor. Brother Leon raining shots down the west corridor. He checked his scanner relieved to see that the anticipated swarm has been fairly limited. As initial scans were inconclusive and largely inaccurate he said a quiet thanks to the Tech Priests who were able to read the scans correctly and identify an area of low enemy density to make initial contact.

The few numbers there were began massing in the location identified as the last spot that they needed to control to secure a landing zone and a beachhead to conduct operations from. His hands clenched as he watched the blips on his scanner all move at once, the enemy has launched their counterattack. The radio silence was broken as Brother Omnio yelled out unloading his magazine at the approaching mass of silent, swift killers climbed and crawled their way down the hall. Gideon's breath caught as he heard an unmistakable sound, one that often followed by the dying sounds of a brother, the click and silence of a gun overheating and failing. There was no need to call out, for the enemy takes no prisoners, they leave none alive.

There was only a brief moment to mourn as the radio came back to life into disjointed chaos as battle cries were yelled and bolters did their duty across both squads. The sounds of battle raised into crescendos and ebbed into moments of silence only to raise again, but every time the crescendo was quieter...Brothers no longer made sounds from voice or gun.

Gideon's blood began to boil, as visions of his fallen brothers filled his vision. Memories of The Chapter's past embarrassment fueled his movement as hammer found alien skull. Ichor from his enemy stained his armor. Carapace and bone crushed under foot as he spun, besting the alien on his flank. He gasped as pain seared through his body, unaware of the second alien. He fell to one knee, supported by his hammer and another claw ripped through armor and flesh from bone. As his vision darkened he watched as the alien bent down to feed, hissing is hunger. And at that moment, as teeth sunk in, his grip failed and a dull thud echoed down the hallways as his Thunderhammer fell from his grip.

++BEGIN TRANSMISSION++
++INITIAL ASSAULT DEEMED NEUTRAL++
++ELEMENT OF SURPRISE LOST++
++ALIEN PRESENCE MINIMIZED AND WEAKENED++
++LOSSES JUST OUTSIDE ACCEPTABLE LEVELS++
++SERGEANT LORENZO AND GIDEON PERISHED++
++MARINES ORDERED TO FALL BACK TO REORGANIZE++
++REINFORCEMENT SQUAD TO BE SENT++
++END TRANSMISSION++


Well, if you can't tell, I played Space Hulk - Mission 1 4th Ed. Mission was a Draw...I hate fucking draws in games like this.

I fucking hated Heroes Wanted when I played it.

The hand management thing was just so boring. You have about 7 cards to play around with. When I played, I never took a single wound or came close to having a problem mowing down the henchmen and minions.

I dunno, the whole thing was just so static and dry. Maybe because the guy explaining the game didn't even mention that the place where we could cross were crosswalks...but it wasn't fun or humorous. I didn't get any silly vibe from it besides the initial pairings for our heroes and the villain. We also didn't use the quirks because...well they're a fucking stupid idea.

Also, I hated the mechanic of unlocking one time powers and abilities by completing random tasks in the newspaper headline. It wasn't clever it just felt like an arbitrary way to score points and then get another uninteresting move. Hooray, if I stand next to a minion I can do 5 damage....just like every other card in the game.

The game is a mess. I don't think there is a single big publisher out there that would have given this game a second look as is. It never felt superhero-y....not even in Mystery Men way. It really blows my mind you'd find anything to like in this half baked design.

I actually liked the seven card thing...the actions are REALLY limited, and the decision to play a card or save it for damage reduction can be pretty tricky. But then you wind up ditching that one move card that lets you go 4 and you're stuck punching underlings on the next turn.

I liked the unlocks too. For the uninformed, each scenario has several "headlines", which are very close to video game achievements- like "Do X Damage to the Villain" or "Defeat X Henchmen". First person to do a task gets the most points and then on down the line. WHen you do an achievement, you also move a marker off of your card and unlock an abilty or new card.

I think there is a strange dissonance within the concept...you've got scenarios so you think the game is "punch the bad guy so he doesn't do his thang". But in reality, HW is a _scoring_ game and it's all about scoring the most points while also punching said bad guy and also punching everybody else trying to punch the bad guy. It can get pretty competitive, at least it did with my gang. But it isn't so much about narrative scenarios.

I don't know, I just totally bought the picture this game was drawing- these goof-ass, ne'er-do-well heroes wading into a mass of bad guys and just having an all-out brawl.

I'll definitely agree that it is messy and I think you're right that no publisher would have touched it without putting it through some serious development time. The main problem I have with it as it stands is that seems WAY too easy and I'm not sure there are enough incentives to NOT just pound on the villain.

But I also think that the "put two cards togther to make a hero" concept is brilliant...it's very Cosmic in a sense, and it gives the player an evocation to build the narrative on top of.

Played some solo Devil's Cauldron tonight. The Red Devil's are looking pretty screwed on the 2nd day. Command and control is all FUBAR and their attacks have been piece meal and disjointed. This has allowed the German Hohenstaufen Division to take up positions on the edge of town and provide cover for the motorized, mechanized and artillery units of the Frundsberg Division to dash across the bridge and with the aim of taking up positions on the South bank of the Rhine.

Meanwhile, to the South. The German's are pushing on the Grosbeck Heights but just can't get their shit together. Portions of the 82nd Airborne have headed North to take the bridge at Nijmegen while others have dug in at the LZ. All are very eager to see the arrival of XXX Corps.

The more I play the GTS system the more I like it. Solo play has it's limitations as evidenced by Gary Sax doing something in our live Vassal game that seems like a no brainer in retrospect but had never occurred to me but a game like this with activation of units by chit draw is very easy to solo without too much split personality disorder. The rule book makes it seem very intimidating but once you get it down its smooth as silk and the Vassal feature that calculates the attack mods is super sweet.

Played Horus Heresy (FFG) again recently. I was initially pretty warm on it when I first got into it with a few plays a couple years ago, but coming back to it I'm less enthusiastic.

We played the initial scenario, and I was the Traitor. During the setup I succeeded on 10/12 Corruption picks and 3/4 Bombardments. I controlled all the spaceports within the first 20 minutes of the game with rules discussions going on. It didn't take many turns. Since I could recycle my port landing cards I just did that and kept saturating the space ports, which I was able to hold pretty easily due to such an awesome Corruption takeover during setup. I had drop pods giving me extra support and did most my dirty work using the Strategic Map.

I got my Heroes on the board, drew pretty good combat cards, and was never seriously threatened. I just sat there and hung on until the spaceport victory condition was available. The Imperial player never managed to put Horus in any real danger and unluckily only drew their best combat cards in little non-critical skirmishes where I happily let my weaker Corrupted Traitor units die. I had all my best Traitor units manning the spaceports, and there was literally very little the Imperial player could do about it. Had they charged Horus I could have dropped him to a spaceport without much worry.

In previous games of HH I liked the card combat, but in this game it just really screwed the Imperial player. The Palace didn't even really come into play. The Imperial player tried a last-ditch "evacuate the Palace and take back the spaceports" approach as I closed in on spaceport victory. It should have been a dramatic moment in the game, but then I simply had much better combat cards again, and being the defender in that case let me chose who had to play first.

So many battles I was defending (which is weird, being the Traitor player and all) and had good combat cards. So many times I let the Imperial player play 1 card first, blocked the damage, and came back with a heavy 2-card play that gave the Imperial player the option of nearly dying or using their cards to block and having little-to-nothing left for the rest of the battle.

I imagine that the game would have played out differently with more experience, but it wasn't like either of us was completely new to the game either. I got lucky during setup, and my opponent didn't. I got good combat cards when it mattered, and my opponent didn't. Traitor units get removed from the game when killed, so I was lining then up in a little pile off-board. Not counting the Corrupted units I got during setup, I lost exactly 3 of my normal units during the entire game.

It wasn't a fun game, really. It lacked tension and excitement. I'm hoping to play GW's original Horus Heresy wargame this week, which has easier rules and dice. Interested to see the difference.

never had a blow out quite like that, but i can see the potential for it. Whenever i've played the emperor i've completely stacked the spaceports near the palace and ignored the other two (unless the traitor leaves them undefended).

Played X-Wing and convinced my group to play the scenario with the three Rebel transports. I've been wanting to try this out ever since the transports were released. The scenario is 200 points of rebels, using three transports each with a free Combat Retrofit, against 250 points of Imperials. Rebels need to get two transports across the table to flee, and Imperials need to destroy two of them. On the rebel side we decided to outfit our transports for different roles, and ended up having each cost about 45 points. That left us with an A-Wing and two Y-Wings.

It was a bloodbath. By the end of turn 2, my transport was destroyed and another one only had 1 hull left. And we had barely advanced our transports much all. None of the transports really got to make use of their upgrades. We just called the game at that point. Assuming this scenario isn't just broken and the transports aren't all around garbage (not likely), we probably should have taken all 3 transports bare and dumped the other 110 points into regular ships. And running them as a side-by-side-by-side block would have given them some extra defense from obstruction, since zero agility is painful*. But I seriously doubt it would have helped. How disappointing. Makes me much less optimistic that the campaign would be any good, which is something I was interested in as well. I think I'll stick with the standard ships from here on out.

*We've noticed the same thing on the Decimator; it is not a tank. Once its shield have been depleted, it goes down really fast. Going to take some testing to figure out the best way to use it.

After this disappointment, we decided to play Blood Bowl: Team Manager. We played with two of the new teams, the goblins and Nurgle's Rotters. The Rotters seemed fine, and the goblins were pretty interesting. All 1s and 2s with a couple of trolls at 4, but a lot of ways to get extra players on the field and move between matchups. I still took last place because I focused too much on the fan payouts so I didn't really get any upgrades until the end, which really hurt me.