What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

I attended a pre-release "party" a few weeks ago and had a blast. $35 got you a prerelease box with 6 boosters and some alt foil versions of the Luke and Darth Vader leaders from the starter decks. I built a janky yellow/red Boba Fett deck and took 2nd place. The organizer, wisely, did flat prizes, so everybody got 3 boosters no matter what place you finished in.

Playing with random strangers has never been my thing, especially in the TCG world, but everybody was super chill and just having fun (didn't hurt that event was at a local brewery). Anyway, I really like the game. Enough that I bought 2 boxes of boosters. Most of the games my friends and I will be playing will be in the Twin Suns format which their version of Commander. Pick 2 leaders and each card in your deck needs to be unique. Once a player is eliminated, you finish the round and see who has the least damage on their base. 2 boxes of boosters was more than enough to build good decks in this format as well as normal constructed.

Last night, we played Wings for the Baron (Second Edition) again, using the Standard rules (Fighter Plane only). This game continues to be a group favorite, and I don't see that changing any time soon. It is the group's most played face-to-face game since I started tracking our play stats in 2015. That is 16 games that I am involved in, and I know it's been played a lot more than that (Sagrilarus has 26 logged plays, and I know there were games played with neither of us at the table, too).

I'm slowly coming around to Sag's position that the Standard game is just as good as the Campaign game. They almost play like different games, rather than a "Basic" and "Advanced" game. The Standard game is much more cutthroat; you're fighting for a position more because the available contracts are more limited - there aren't "alternative" contacts from recon and bombers. The Event portion of cards becomes more essential/prevalent. In the Standard Game, the Events are a secondary function of the research cards, whereas in the Campaign game, they are more tertiary. Unless you have a stranglehold on the Fighter, you'll most likely be using those research cards for bomber and recon technology - which significantly lessens the game's friction.

It boils down to your group's preference. Do you want to be left alone to do your own thing? Or do you want a tight system where you're constantly throwing elbows to get into the lead of the pack? This can change game night to game night, so I'm happy they both exist.

We then played two games of Shadow Hunters, as we had a sixth player join us as we wrapped up Wings for the Baron. I brought Shadow Hunters because we played this fair amount back in the day (Sag had six logged plays; I wasn't logging at that time), and I was doing a shelf inventory and noticed it was commanding ~$200 on BoardGameGeek. I wanted to give it a shake before I considered throwing it up on the GeekMarket.

It was fun. The Hunters won both games (not the same players), and a couple of civilians whose only goal was to stay alive went along for the ride. As far as hidden role games go, I'd put it closer to the top of my list. It played in about 30 minutes, which is perfect. The character powers were interesting. None of the cards seemed particularly broken. The only issue we ran into (before we started playing) was that at least one character had a different ability on their card than listed in the appendix of the rulebook; I'll have to do some investigating to see which is correct. We all agreed that it was a fun "closer" game, and we looked forward to playing it during our upcoming gaming retreat weekend.

So, for now, it stays. I might eventually list it on GeekMarket, but not right now.

Wings for the Baron is a perennial strong contender for “best game you aren’t playing”

mezike wrote: Wings for the Baron is a perennial strong contender for “best game you aren’t playing”

Currently at 390 on GMTs P500

Cappster_ wrote:

mezike wrote: Wings for the Baron is a perennial strong contender for “best game you aren’t playing”

Currently at 390 on GMTs P500

So should get scheduled to print in around ten years at their current rate.

n815e wrote:

Cappster_ wrote:

mezike wrote: Wings for the Baron is a perennial strong contender for “best game you aren’t playing”

Currently at 390 on GMTs P500

So should get scheduled to print in around ten years at their current rate.

I think it'll hit 500 by the end of the year. Easy.

I have no doubt.

I’m still waiting on C&C Napoleonics Grand Battles, which has been there and beyond since 2019. BGG has it listed as a 2020 release…

n815e wrote:

Cappster_ wrote:

mezike wrote: Wings for the Baron is a perennial strong contender for “best game you aren’t playing”

Currently at 390 on GMTs P500

So should get scheduled to print in around ten years at their current rate.

Only one I'm currently in on is Bear Trap: The Soviet-Afghan War, 1979-1989. It's been in "made the cut" for over a year now, IIRC, with no progress beyond that. So, yeah, I think n815e's comment is more accurate than it might seem. Something has slowed down drastically in their shop.

TINY TOWNS, utterly forgettable multiplayer solitaire about making patterns of cubes.

I guess I forgot to mention a couple of heavy hitters that have been on the table the last few weeks.

After our string of Cooperative Campaign games, we decided to get medieval and get all up in each other's faces.

We started with Imperial 2030, Mac Gerdts rondel & area control, a game that I generally win. In our conversation before the game, I went deep into some strategic points I used to affect my many victories significantly. Divorce yourself from the idea of "owning" a country. Diversify, Diversify, Diversify. Being Swiss is a place of power, especially if you have money and the Investor phase is imminent. Second place in many countries is better than first in one or two. If you have two countries, use them against each other to maximize taxation. Etc. Etc.
I came in third in this game, but it was a super close game, and I recognized a pretty big mistake immediately after I made it. I'm very much looking forward to playing it again. The game ran long so that we couldn't record a podcast episode.

The following week, we played Rising Sun. It's an Eric Lang area control game that many people call the Diplomacy sequel. I don't know if I would go that far, but I get where they might draw that comparison. We hadn't played it since it came out in 2018, so we were doing our best to navigate. We should have taken better advantage of the available negotiation, and in retrospect, I can see how most of us played our clans suboptimally. I ended up winning with the Fox clan, but only because the stars all aligned perfectly for me to win the last battle of the game for a pretty massive swing of points. I REALLY want to play this one again soon.

Like you, I can't really justify the comparison between Diplomacy and Rising Sun. Yes, the latter depends on talking to other players if you want the game to function correctly, but it's more constrained in the application of what that negotiation can bring you. And, of course, it's nowhere near as long. Congrats on winning with the Fox clan. They're generally considered one of the tougher factions to win with because their special ability taps out once you have all of your bushi in play. It also only allows you to place them where you have nothing else to back them up. Of course, that also means you should be fighting more often because you get free dudes and can replace them more easily than anyone else AND you get to do poets and seppuku in places where people are really trying to win the province and so won't compete with you on those bids. But, still, it's generally a more indirect application of what many of the other clans are trying to do in terms of area control.

It's a brilliant game. If Chaos in the Old World is my all-time favorite Lang production, Rising Sun and Ankh are probably tied for second.

The last couple of months have seen plays at the club of: Cthulhu: Death May Die, Betrayal at Baldur's Gate to warm us up for then starting our Betrayal Legacy campaign. Already I'm seeing the benefits of a cleaned up rulebook (very few, if any, 'can I do this' questions in our first three chapters) and how the game is just better as a legacy game with an evolving story - best thing about the game is once we are finished I will have a bespoke Betrayal game (probably unique to any one else's copy in the world) that can be played normally.

Filled in at home with a game of Star Wars: Rebellion, where I pulled off a just-in-time win with the Imperials down to the last few systems to find me with time running out and I sent my Rebel base small fleet out on a do-or-die effort to stop his fleet that was probably going to move to the base that turn, it worked and time ran out for the Imperials. Also had a game of Fortress America at home this week, just to get a new group I'll be hosting familiar with each other (and being in my house) and only worry about working together to beat the USA (me), unfortunately they succeeded at this and ground out a win - didn't help me that they weren't too worried about who won, just that they beat the USA .
So now to arrange the new group to work through all my campaign games that have been gathering dust for the last couple of years ...

STAR WARS REBELLION - base game or expansion.?

FORTRESS AMERICA - original or FFG version ? I think FFG fucked up the balance with their changes, tilting it towards the invaders too much .

Msample wrote: STAR WARS REBELLION - base game or expansion.?

FORTRESS AMERICA - original or FFG version ? I think FFG fucked up the balance with their changes, tilting it towards the invaders too much .

Base game, I never got it played enough to worry about getting the expansion.
Original MB - still with all the spare components they put in their games back then

Gotta love Saddam Hussein on the side of the box. I don’t think that’s who they meant. But we always called it as being him.