What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Perfect record in competitive, limited Star Wars Unlimited is maintained. Another 6-0 at a draft today. Built a Yellow Iden that kept the board under control with Death Troopers, Scout Bikes and assorted removal until the six-drops could finish the work. Only one rare in the deck beside Iden herself.

Only the last game saw me end with more than ten damage on my base. His out-of-aspect Han was doing work, but I played a chunky sentinel at the very right time to stall him at 26.

Absolutely crazy box. I kept a hyperspace Command even though there was no way I could play it, the player to my right kept a unit Boba Fett and two other legendaries (one foil), and I saw at least one more down the table.

The more I play, the more I admire every aspect of the game. Gameplay is solid, fast and engaging. Drafting is clean. Opening packs is fun. Hyperspace borders and foils make even dopey commons exciting.

I picked up Ready, Set, Bet!, the AEG horse racing game. The game concept is really great; one person calls the race while up to 8 others place bets in real time. There is also an app that calls the race for you.

While I primarily got this for those rare opportunities when I have a lot of players, my girlfriend and I tried it out in 2 player mode this weekend, using the app. The app does a great job, and the only real annoyance was my phone continually wanting to go dark. I am sure there is a setting on my phone to get it to not do that, but I didn't look into it.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and I am certain that more players = more fun with this one.

DarthJoJo wrote: Perfect record in competitive, limited Star Wars Unlimited is maintained. Another 6-0 at a draft today. Built a Yellow Iden that kept the board under control with Death Troopers, Scout Bikes and assorted removal until the six-drops could finish the work. Only one rare in the deck beside Iden herself.

Only the last game saw me end with more than ten damage on my base. His out-of-aspect Han was doing work, but I played a chunky sentinel at the very right time to stall him at 26.

Absolutely crazy box. I kept a hyperspace Command even though there was no way I could play it, the player to my right kept a unit Boba Fett and two other legendaries (one foil), and I saw at least one more down the table.

The more I play, the more I admire every aspect of the game. Gameplay is solid, fast and engaging. Drafting is clean. Opening packs is fun. Hyperspace borders and foils make even dopey commons exciting.

I haven't played any organized play, but I have picked about a booster box and a half and the starter decks.

My intent is to build 4 Twin Suns decks that are relatively close in power, and use the rest of the cards to fill out a cube.

I've opened two Boba units and a hyperspace foil Force Lightning. They are currently on eBay to further fund either another SoR booster box, or whatever the second upcoming set is.

I've also been clearing out shit from my folks house, and found my old Star Wars CCG cards. That is a nostalgia punch that hits hard. I'm currently building out two sets of decks for it, one an Attack Run Light Side vs. Commence Primary Ignition Dark Side, and the other matched pair will be Echo Base Operations Light Side vs. Target the Main Generators Dark Side.

Add this to my already fairly extensive list of "Ready to Play" CCGs.

Virabhadra wrote: There is a fan-made complete rewrite of Android's rules that some have argued completely missed the designers' intentions. I haven't tried it.

I saw that way back in the day, and decided to disregard it as arrogant dumbassing by an ignorant BGGer. He was obsessed with the idea that the game should have been a real whodunit, and he completely failed to understand the cyberpunk setting.

We played a four-player game of Android on Saturday, but four things went wrong that undermined our enjoyment of the game. First, we only had five hours to play, including teaching the game. The whole point of setting aside a dedicated day for this game was to have enough time to play it, but one guy announced at the start that he need to leave early because his girlfriend had changed their plans for the evening. Second, one of our four players unexpectedly succumbed to analysis paralysis, despite a pre-game discussion about how we had to play efficiently if we were going to finish within five hours. Third, I totally messed up a rule about the conspiracy puzzle pieces with clue symbols. So we treated them as extra clues to resolve, when we should have treated them as opportunities to move a clue. Fourth, one player wasn't paying attention during the rules explanation and thought that the lowest scoring suspect would be the murderer. So he was putting negative clue tokens on his preferred suspect, and positive clues tokens on his innocent hunch.

We drew the case that involved a mass murder at the observatory, which meant that guilty hunches were worth +5 VP. So we all ignored the conspiracy puzzle and only engaged in moderate twilight cardplay, and worked the case really hard. By midgame, we had placed every possible clue token on a suspect, just in time to get an event card that took away that +5 VP for guilty. Then we all worked the conspiracy puzzle obsessively, and that went too fast due to my error about the clue symbols on the puzzle pieces.

Then we ran out of time, at the end of the 9th turn (out of 12), and just scored everything early. One player won big, because he was getting unexpected help from the guy who was confused about negative evidence. And the AP guy screwed himself out of the story points, because he was playing the character with one long personal story instead of two shorter ones.

Despite all that, we did enjoy the game. My music mixes were well-received. On the very first action of first turn of the game, my corrupt cop beat a mob enforcer to death with a steel pipe, which really set the tone for the game. The snitch later died just after I met with him, so the other players joked about how there should be a suspect sheet for my character. I also really enjoyed the moment where I played the dark card "Sir, We Have a Dress Code" on the scruffy private investigator as he tried to enter a ritzy location. Another player was amused to notice that the sexbot was hanging out at all the religious establishments.

Is Android a good game? I think so. It is definitely an innovative board game that mixes in a great deal of theme and setting into a point salad with three major ingredients. Make sure that players read their cards out loud as they play them, so that theme isn't lost. Our group suspects that the game might be more enjoyable the next time we play, as the AP will be reduced and we won't repeat the rules errors involving the clues.

DarthJoJo wrote: The more I play, the more I admire every aspect of the game. Gameplay is solid, fast and engaging. Drafting is clean. Opening packs is fun. Hyperspace borders and foils make even dopey commons exciting.

100%. I begrudgingly agreed to play it with my friends and now I'm completely sold. Also appreciate that most of those dopey commons are actually really good cards.

We played Twin Suns last week with 4 players and it was a total blast. That might actually be my preferred format right now, even with the limited card pool.

Considering Android, I love the game and 100% agree that fanmade version of the rules is arrogant BS. Some dude didn't get what he expected and would rather write a complete new rulebook than leave his comfort zone.
Also yes to reading all cards out all the time. As Shellhead points out, the theme and stories are in these texts, and when people want to speed things up and stop reading them, they are left with a bunch of numbers.

Nodens wrote: Some dude didn't get what he expected and would rather write a complete new rulebook...

That being said, this the the exact attitude that seems like it could whip some middling Kickstarter games into shape.

I enjoyed Android the couple times I played it. My only suggestion for the design was it could have been better to have players play the dark-side cards on themselves in order to get their light-side cards played. Because from what I recall, you otherwise draw take-that cards that you can only play when it's the other persons turn and if other conditions are met too. They amounted to an unnecessary distraction in an already complex game and most sat in peoples' hands.

Good points, but playing dark cards on the other players is the only direct player interaction in the game, and also the only thing you can actively do when it isn't your turn. However, with the amount of open information on the table, it might be better if people were planning their next turns. Except that the AP types never do that anyway, and must wait until the start of their turns to start thinking.

I enjoy Android very much. Although one particular thing stood out to me, that needs to be fixed. That is, things that trigger increase/decrease in twilight cost. The game is mainly about card plays, and playing those cards should be as smooth as possible.

BTW, this is the original "Crossroad" game. The entire game is about that. I just rolled my eyes back then when some zombie game tried to make it its brand...

Got my third game of Primal: The Awakening in solo. Have not been able to play much of late. But was really happy to get this back to the table.

For those of you unfamiliar with it. It’s a giant overproduced card based boss battler from Kickstarter. I’ll be upfront on this one, I love this game. It is at its core a card game and could easily be done with cardboard stands for much cheaper. That said I like the miniatures.

Game play is pretty close to that of Marvel Champions if you ditched all the remains in play upgrades and allies from your deck. These are replaced by permanent gear and potions that you buy and upgrade between fights.

Deck construction is based off your character, there are 6, and then what weapon you have equipped narrows down your card count of 4 different types of cards. Two for defense and two offensive. As you progress the games you get to unlock a few more cards to add to your available pool. It’s lots of options with out being too overwhelming.

It hits my sweet spot for solo play in that it is manageable solo and it gives me that progression Arkham Horror the LCG has with a bit of the feel of Marvel Champions. I’m here for it.

The way movement in the game works can look a little silly till you experience it. It’s a board with a circle divided into quarters. The monster sits in the middle and spins around on that spot. You move around relative to the monsters facing. It works. But I can see where people react negatively to it. Harken back to my comment above that the game is overproduced.

My main gripe at this point is as it is with many games. Player aids. I really just need one with the terrain tokens and what they do and what the boss behavior icons are. I am starting to internalize some of these. But as there are 18 or so monsters and they they don’t all use all the icons it will take me a bit and I have to look things up. But it’s not bad. And it’s on a free pages next to each other. But it’s still a fail. I’ll print something out today maybe to fix it.

Overall though I am loving the game. It’s exactly what I hoped for and wanted.

I posted the same gripe a few weeks ago. For all the money they poured into minis, cards etc for about another 20 cents cost, a double sided player aid would have gone a long way towards making this game much more user friendly.

Yeah.
I point it out as a nod to your post in the Kickstarter thread. It is 100% valid. It atleast has a really solid rule book that explains how to play well. Even if it lacks some player aids that would go a long way.

I got to play my recent KS acquisition for the first time tonight, Dead Reckoning. This is a piracy / merchant ship game, focused on upgrading your crew and taking control of islands, among other things. There are a lot of ways to score points, and one of the many challenges is figuring out where to direct your efforts.

We had three players, one of whom had already played once. That person completely demolished us. I came in second by something like 36 points, and only beat the last place player by 4 points.

It seems, after this experience, that upgrading your Bosun to at least level 3 so you can purchase upgrades is paramount. The winner had a fully upgraded ship, and I never purchased a single upgrade on account of never upgrading my bosun until very late in the game. I never won a single battle either.

The game was well liked and will probably be hitting the table again in the future. I'll also add that the production values are top notch, and everything has been well thought out.

3p game day yesterday:

THUNDER ROAD: VENDETTA. A ridiculous game of dice chucking, hardly a hardcore strategy affair. A great story generator nonetheless. I won when I shot someone's last car from behind with my chopper, his damage token propelled him forward into a hazard, which turned out to be a mine, which blew him two spaces backwards into my chopper and eliminated him.

PAX PAMIR 2e. Tight design that plays smoothly (eventually) but the explanation takes almost as long as the game sometimes. We missed a major rule until halfway through (spent money goes on the market cards, not back into the supply) but decided to continue as it seemed like it affected us all about equally. The game has a lot of agonizing moments; tons of back and forth. No one sided with Russia the entire game, but kept playing the Afghans and Brits off against each other. On the home stretch, I was nominally sided with the Afghans, along with the another guy, with the third pushing hard to get the Brits dominance. I declined to put much effort into helping the Afghans, letting the other two keep things neck-and-neck. Meanwhile I pushed my tribes and spies out onto the board, and ended up winning by one point when the final dominance card was inconclusive, and the points went to the player with the most tribes and spies.

KNAVES. I don't know why I don't play this all the time; it's one of the best 3p games out there; the fact that it can be played with a standard deck of cards is icing on the cake. Trick taking, you want to take tricks but not if they have jacks in them. The tension between these two is delicious; so much swearing.