What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

VonTush wrote: Did you go in for the expansions as well?

No, and I sort of regret that. Truth be told I didn't really think this would be my kind of game, and I mostly backed because I was talking to the Modiphius about publishing my Lovecraft game and I wanted to see what they could do. But I'm glad I backed, and I think you're spot on about how the logistics of the game fit rather nicely with the overall story.

Also, cocky as I am, I refused to go with the beginner setup. That is another thing I sort of regret, but now that I've started on normal setting, I can't allow my self to scale back.

I live on the cutting edge of gaming. That is why I played a game for the first time last night that you've probably never heard of. It's called

Star Wars: Armada by a little known company called Fantasy Flight.

I thought it was great. Just the intro scenario of course, as I was just learning the game. I was on the Imperial side controlling a Star Destroyer. That alone is pretty fantastic. The rebels though with their faster ships were able to dance around our side and inflict more fighter casualties and thus win the game. None of us came real close to blowing up a capital ship. Still great fun.

I think it's a big improvement on X-wing. Though I can't comment on the custom build aspect as we didn't use that.

A game I'm glad a friend owns a lot of because it is wicked expensive and I just wouldn't want to fork out that kind of dough for stuff that would sit on the shelf next to my Wings of War Bi-plane collection.

I can only guess that the gentlemen in the photo is ordering Bird Squadron to lock X-foils into attack position...

That would be The Nemisis giving me the finger. Rebel scum are so uncouth.

finally won a game of Thunderbirds. It's my fourth and I'm looking forward to playing it some more already. It's not groundbreaking in any way, but it's a good time that can make me cheer over a roll of the dice.

I keep telling my board game design class what a great design the original (70's) Civilization is, and they finally got tired of hearing me talk about and said we should just play it.

So after a 15 year hiatus we got it to the table last Saturday for an 8 player game, and it was still awesome. Even the jaded 20-somethings, who seem to dislike most of the classics I bring in really enjoyed and appreciated it. Due to time constraints we had to call it after 7 hours, and Assyria (that would be me) was in the lead, with Crete a close second.

I'm wondering if this will be the last time I get to play that game. Maybe I should have a tri-annual Civ day or something. The game certainly deserves it.

I also played four recent Europe/Asia releases at Stronghold HQ to help make recommendations on what is worth bringing in to the USA. One hit, three misses, which is actually pretty good - usually they are all mediocre at best. At least I didn't have to play the game that was at a table next to us which almost resulted in a table flip due to horrendous design.

And finally started Pandemic Legacy with the wife. We just played the first January game, which we lost in an incredibly tight game. We had the final cure in hand, and the only thing that could nail us was if an epidemic card came up - and of course it did, resulting in an outbreak cascade that sunk us. But we're ready for game 2!

engelstein wrote: And finally started Pandemic Legacy with the wife. We just played the first January game, which we lost in an incredibly tight game. We had the final cure in hand, and the only thing that could nail us was if an epidemic card came up - and of course it did, resulting in an outbreak cascade that sunk us. But we're ready for game 2!

Exact same thing happened on our first game. Collectively, we got me the cards we needed for the last cure, and all we needed to do was not have one of two different black cities come up in the next two draws. Of course, it did on the very next draw. Disaster of a chain reaction happened, finishing us off, and also putting the middle east in a pretty terrible state. I'm really hoping they introduce a way to reduce panic, or we're going to have some serious problems in there.

I finally got a chance to play Samurai today with our good friend Doc Mabuse... holy shit! I can't believe I haven't played this before. What an incredible game.. now it's only one play so perhaps I will tire of it quickly but I was very impressed. I got the new FFG version, it looks fine, great even... but I have to say as much as I love the game it doesn't feel like a 65$ game. It should be a 45$ game but whatever. It's not such a big deal and it does feel like something that might have some real legs. It's super tight and very heady. I had to think an awful lot but since it was only 30 minutes to zip through a two player game (which scaled to two beautifully) I didn' t mind at all. It did kind of feel like T&E light but not too much. In Samurai you all get the same 20 tiles so you don't get the tile screwage you could potentially get in T&E or, at the very least, you don't get that excuse because almost all your tiles will be used eventually and of course it plays way faster. I'm definitely happy I picked it up and can't wait to get it to the table again. Very impressed.

hotseatgames wrote: Next up was Cthulhu's Vault. The story telling portion was pretty fun, and we ended up telling a rather ridiculous tale of an expedition that involved many people shooting each other. Eventually some weird elder god awoke and murdered everyone. The battle portion was okay but not as fun as the story part.

I've had a real problem getting this to the table. I figured it would be no problem, and then I had the sudden and sad realization that my peeps would A) Not like it, probably because they lack imagination in a lot of ways C) and know nothing at all about Cthulhu.

Going to sell it.

Once again, the coworkers let me pick, and yet again I picked Clash of Cultures. At one point, my boss's boss decided he wanted to bust up my boat trade network, not really sure why. Then he was kind of shocked when we ended up in a war. This might have been a dumb move on both our parts, because by the end the two us whose cultures clashed the hardest ended up in 3rd and last place. Heck, might be a good future metagaming move for this crowd, though. "Don't fuck with Mr. B, unless you want to get your war on." Still fun, though.

I played Kingdom Death: Monster with someone else's copy on Thursday. He had been playing it a lot solo, and had one of his guys kitted up in the whole White Lion thing, and one guy in rawhide, and then two jokers with bows and melee weapons. We took on a level 1 Screaming Antelope and won. The game has so much going on and so much detail, and so much overhead in putting together (and potentially painting) the mini's, coupled with it's solo-ability that I'm nearly convinced it should just be a video game. I could call it a bloated monstrosity, but that would be unfair. It's just a big whale, doing it's own thing in the ocean. I appreciate it, but I'm fresh out of harpoons.

Jexik wrote: I played Kingdom Death: Monster with someone else's copy on Thursday. He had been playing it a lot solo, and had one of his guys kitted up in the whole White Lion thing, and one guy in rawhide, and then two jokers with bows and melee weapons. We took on a level 1 Screaming Antelope and won. The game has so much going on and so much detail, and so much overhead in putting together (and potentially painting) the mini's, coupled with it's solo-ability that I'm nearly convinced it should just be a video game. I could call it a bloated monstrosity, but that would be unfair. It's just a big whale, doing it's own thing in the ocean. I appreciate it, but I'm fresh out of harpoons.

They already made a video game. It's called Monster Hunter. It's pretty cool. More killing dragons and dinosaurs, less grimdark though. This thing is absolutely an attempt to mix Monster Hunter and Dark Souls, and turn it into a board game.

I played a game about psychics and ghosts called Mysterium to go with the topic du jour at FAT. It's basically... cooperative Dixit. Basically, one player is the "ghost" and has to provide "visions" to the psychics to get them to select the correct card out of a set, I mean show that they are interpreting the visions of the dead correctly. If all of the psychics can pass this test proving their abilities to be in tune with the deceased then you go to a bonus round where all the psychics get one last vision and have to vote on who was the culprit. If they vote correctly then the ghost gets to go to his everlasting reward.

So if you like Dixit you'd probably dig this. The theme/setting is pretty much just as bullshit as actual ghosts and psychics, so you wouldn't have to worry about upsetting any spectral beings or anything like you would with a Ouiji board.

I'm a notorious Dixit-hater, but I liked Mysterium quite a bit. The coop element is a big plus, as is the new/improved game system.

Lots of Space Cadets: Away Missions in these parts. But we keep screwing up rules that make the game impossible to win. E.g., we thought that war thralls appeared with a brain-in-a-jar already in their possession, which - it turns out - makes scenario #3 insanely difficult.

It's too bad that so many members of my gaming group are down on coop games. They won't play any of them (more than once, anyway), no matter how good they are. And this one is good.

My fourth game of Thunderbirds last night (third game with the correct rules) and first with the Normal play difficulty - Solo again.

Things got sketchy a few times, but with Scott bringing in some early F.A.B. cards were vital to getting me out of some Disasters pickles. Twice I was about to lose because of them but the Thunderbird's worldwide network pulled through in the clutch. Meanwhile Virgil just couldn't catch a break stumbling in his rescue missions allowing The Hood to advance his schemes. Twice The Hood was one space away from causing defeat but in the 11th hour both times the boys were able to rally and thwart his plans and in the end win the game.

The two elements that I think work in perfect unison is the timing and spatial elements - The number of actions per character, the spaces on the Earth and in space, the speed of the Thunderbirds...They all feel just right so nothing feels easy or impossible. I have this confidence that I can do everything if I can just chart it out correctly with enough buffer that I can absorb a failed attempt or two.

What I also like is that you are always able to see as the game nears the end - Only when The Hood is nearing the end of his track, or when a Disaster Card is nearing the end of the track is the game at risk so you see when things are about to collapse around you. There isn't that moment where a card flip or dice roll will suddenly start a cascading chain of events that leaves you a bit dumbfounded realizing "Whelp, I just lost".

Really, really loving this game so far.