What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Grudunza wrote: I know the game scales in terms of the activations, but that third quest seems like a case where more characters in play would make it easier. Even with double activations while playing with two characters, you're still only able to attack or explore a total of two times each... maybe three when you can refresh one of the actions. With four characters in play, sure, they only get one action each, but you could potentially hit with four attacks or explores on a given round, which could be crucial in that quest.

Were it not for the Waywatcher's Legendary Equipment that she drew (her traps) I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have done as well. They allowed me to ignore the enemies for the most part and focus on traveling leaving behind the ones in the shadows. I also took the damage or penalty every time outside of adding enemies. One thing I did that I wanted to look up is if you can place more Exploration Tokens on a card because there was a time where I over-explored so when the Nemesis Effect on the orc happened I took away the two extras I built up.

What I'm realizing, specifically in that quest, is the power of equipment and abilities that deal direct damage. That's what saved me and towards the end I was thinking "What the hell would I do without those traps?" Can't want for the dude to go down for his nap so I can try out quest four, that one seems like a blast.

Thanks, Columbob, didn't see that. I've not been checking this thread so often due to Blood Rage and Cthulhu Wars getting by far more attention than they deserve.

I've played a couple new ones and a couple of my favorites:

Pandemic Legacy: a friend picked this up and we started a campaign of 4 of us. After playing a rule completely wrong in our first game (we didn't realize that there was more of a setup than a normal Pandemic game in the first), we ended up playing 3 more times. I love the story aspect in it and can see why it's highly rated. It really does kick Pandemic up to another level.

Evolution: the other new game I played. This one was at a Meetup I decided to try out. You get a few cards and evolve your animals into herbivores/carnivores and try to make sure yours eats. It was okay. I can see playing it another time or two, but that's about it. Nothing really special.

Battlestar Galacta: at that same Meetup, we played a 5 player base game only of BSG. It reminded me why it's one of my favorites and why I still prefer it over all the ones that came later (Dead of Winter, Avalon). We thought we (humans) had it in the bag, and in the final leg the active Cylon players were able to stack the deck (revealed Cylon cycling the deck for armadas as well as the hidden one did a scouting mission for another) to cause a population loss.

Imperial Assault: over a long Thanksgiving weekend, I played a full Twin Suns campaign with my dad, brother and a friend. Since I was teaching all three, I pulled a few punches at times, but overall a great campaign experience. I played the Leadership deck and thought it was so-so. Good for a learning experience but not long campaign. I was against Gaarkham (wookie), Fenn (assault trooper) and Mak (sniper). We played a few rules wrong at times like applying damage statuses without getting a damage on the character. I didn't mind afterwards as it helped them while learning. The only regret we had was that I didn't live closer to them so that we could play the full base version of the campaign.

Set up a 2 player game of Psycho Raiders last night but only got to turn 2 before the rest of the group showed up, so we tore it down. It was already going poorly for the campers, despite Dawn seriously cracking Spud in the head with a tire iron.

Next was the main event, Blood Rage. This was our first time with 4 players, and I think it went better than with 5. I need more tests. I really like this game. Came in second; might have been first had a really pivotal turn not been totally foiled by another player.

Ended the night with a disaster... one of the guys had a ton of the old Aliens vs. Predator collectible card game and wanted to try it. After a lengthy explanation, we got started. I was the predator and I'm not exaggerating when I say that I spent 75% of the game stuck in my ship because I never drew a location card. By the time I got off the ship I was completely decked out and I one-shotted Hudson. We called it for time. I felt like I was playing an old RTS where everyone spends an hour building up before anything happens. No thanks.

Last night some friends came over and we played the new Fury of Dracula. I was playing Dracula this time, and started out in Strasbourg, then moved in the Balkans while the hunters when the other way. Eventually John Seward found my trail, and the other hunters made it back east quickly. I made a move that could have been bold if it had worked, but ended up being stupid because it didn't. I went into Bucharest with a hunter on either side, hoping that only one of them would hit me and I'd be able to fight them off. It might have worked if Mina had been the one to find me, since she goes last and no one would have had the chance to meet with her before combat. But it ended up that I was double-teamed, and they hit me HARD before I was able to escape. I took nine damage in that combat, then got away. Since I was on the ropes, they spent almost no time clearing my trail. That would have played to my advantage if I had some new vampires in there, but I drew maybe one in the entire game. I was able to escape and make it to France, but I eventually made my last stand in Spain, as the second week was drawing to a close.

I love this game. Love it, love it, love it. They nailed just about every update, without sacrificing anything. I love that Dracula has more tools at his disposal. I love that the hunters have more motivation to team up. I love how the game has felt down to the wire every time. The only possible gripe, besides the derpy cover, is that the turns move so quickly and smoothly, that it's actually possible for the game to hang up because someone didn't realize it was their turn. That's literally my only gameplay complaint.

We ended our night with The Bloody Inn, which wasn't what I expected. I knew nothing about it besides the title, but I assumed it was a little more social than it was. It's a hand-management game before all else, though it finds a lot of really fun ways to reflect its theme. My favorite touch is that, as you kill guests, you need to find room to bury the bodies. If law enforcement is staying at the inn, they will force you to bury people in the cemetary without collecting any money. So if you have a body that needs buried, you are suddenly motivated to kill the law enforcement, to be able to keep the body you already murdered. It was sick and I liked it pretty well, even if I lost really badly.

This afternoon I taught my son Heroscape. He's five and doesn't read all that well, but we still had a lot of fun. He selected Mimring right away, and that ended up being the difference. The other problem was that he picked a lot of ranged characters, and I picked almost none. He mowed down my Vikings right away, and my Feral Troll got tied up with Mimring and the orc on the tauntaun. I was able to wreck him a bit with my Deathwalker 9000 and the guy who looks like Morpheus before he got tired of playing and we called it. It was a lot of fun, even as I had to keep him focused and help him through a lot of stuff. We'll have a lot of fun with this one.

I HAVE PLAYED BLOOD RAGE.

IT IS, IN FACT, A BOARD GAME.

We actually played it twice last night, both three player games. Totally screwed up some rules in the first outing, but I think we got almost everything right in the second. My friend Jamie completely obliterated us under the Clan Raven banner both games, but the second was closer.

Some observations:
- It is a very, very disciplined design. In some ways, it is WAY more Eurogame than folks might be expecting. It has that sense of being carefully guided to fairly limited (but impactful) decision points. So it leverages card drafting, single-action turns, minimal available board spaces, contiguous geography and upgradeable limitations to reign things in. Speaking of it purely as a hybrid design, it seems like it's pretty highly evolved. Definitely traces of CitOW as well as Midgard.

- One thing I like a lot is that it does away with the standard asymmetrical sides/special faction ability thing. Instead, you draft your way into advantages, which can mutate into combos. At one point I was getting Glory for dudes dying and then also for then coming out of Valhalla. Cashing them in going and coming.

- It plays REALLY smooth, but we ran into a number of fussy rules bits/timing issues. Most of it we worked out, but I still felt like we were only at 95% with the rules. It also plays at a really fast clip- it's under 90 minutes _easily_ and probably around an hour with experience. Yet there is plenty of scope.

- The three age structure/three draft structure is cool because you basically have three chances to develop a tactical approach for the current round and work out how it fits into an overall strategy to win.

- The monsters are really fun, very reminiscent of Mare Nostrum, Cylcades, Kemet, etc. with having them be sort of the "unconventional forces".

- Component wise, the sculpts are good but I kind of feel like the materials are shoddy- lots of mine were bent up badly. Flexing them produced the white lines of death.

So far, so good. I still like Cthulhu Wars better, I think. But this is definitely a contender _IF_ you fall more on the Euro end of the spectrum. This is not some kind of die-hard, pulp action Ameritrash game at all. Know that going into it.

Looks like a whole lot of yappenin'

Played Pandemic Legacy twice on Saturday. (January, and then January again.) Here's what I wrote elsewhere:

I'm a big fan of the original Pandemic, even though I haven't really played in a while, and was looking forward to this. I missed out on Risk Legacy, so this was going to be my first such game.

Our first session did not go well. Red started out in crisis mode, and though we beat it back, blue exploded out of nowhere and destroyed us. In our second game, we had eradicated one disease and were close to winning when suddenly again blue snowballed into our doom. We've lost the first two games and, since it's a legacy game, are very concerned about what the future holds. We already know he have an uphill climb ahead.

On the one hand, this sensation of anxiety going into the third game is interesting. On the other, because of who I am, I can't help but feel, "Have we screwed this whole thing up beyond repair already?" I was kind of expecting the first game would go fine, no biggie, and the hammer would drop in the second or third. Instead I feel like a certain amount of Pandemic Mastery was assumed that our group may not have.

We're having a good time so far, though, and it's definitely one we're talking about!

I agree, Blood Rage is a very disciplined design but not only that, what I love, is that it manages to be disciplined without feeling mechanical or heavily abstracted. That's what sets it apart from the other hybrid games I've played.

Legomancer wrote: Played Pandemic Legacy twice on Saturday. (January, and then January again.) Here's what I wrote elsewhere:

I'm a big fan of the original Pandemic, even though I haven't really played in a while, and was looking forward to this. I missed out on Risk Legacy, so this was going to be my first such game.

Our first session did not go well. Red started out in crisis mode, and though we beat it back, blue exploded out of nowhere and destroyed us. In our second game, we had eradicated one disease and were close to winning when suddenly again blue snowballed into our doom. We've lost the first two games and, since it's a legacy game, are very concerned about what the future holds. We already know he have an uphill climb ahead.

On the one hand, this sensation of anxiety going into the third game is interesting. On the other, because of who I am, I can't help but feel, "Have we screwed this whole thing up beyond repair already?" I was kind of expecting the first game would go fine, no biggie, and the hammer would drop in the second or third. Instead I feel like a certain amount of Pandemic Mastery was assumed that our group may not have.

We're having a good time so far, though, and it's definitely one we're talking about!

I'm a bit concerned about this. We won the first two but then lost 4 on the trot. Essentially out breaks reduce your ability to move around the board. This is off set to some degree but the special cards you get but i do wonder if it starts to snow ball. We have lost two to terrible last turn card draws (one in i dunno 15-20 chance of getting an outbreak) but its got a lot harder and the compensation for losing seems a little slight. When you break the four losses in a row box (we just have) you get something that will probably guarantee you at least one if not two wins, but it won't repair the board.

Im not a massive pandemic fan, the main problem with losing is, I will have to play another game of Pandemic to finish the month

Yeah, I didn't think about it Von Tush but you're right...Blood Rage doesn't feel very mechanical.

I also played a game of Pixel Tactics last night. Josh Look may have been right about it, it's a really, really neat little game. Level 99 offered to send me their new "DX edition, I said "bring it" and they sent me EVERYTHING. So I have the complete collection. Before playing it, I had no idea how it would go down and even the reviews weren't clear about it. But you have a 3x3 grid with a Leader character in the center. There's a three card vanguard in front, two flankers, and a rear line. Each round goes in "waves", the vanguards, flank and then rear. You get two actions per turn. The million dollar idea is that the cards are "multiuse" to an extreme. Each can be a leader or a hero played into your army. And then they have different abilities based on which rank you play them in. Cool stuff, really looking forward to digging into it more.

Michael Barnes wrote: Josh Look may have been right about it is always right

Fixed that for you.

I played XCOM: The Boardgame and it was fun. I actually enjoyed it a lot, far more than I expected to. The game has a really nice narrative arc to it, like the video game and different aspects of it are very well integrated. The app was actually nice too and I liked the ambient music and the pressure it provided.

I do worry, though, that decisions may become much easier and simpler with each play because there's a clear hierarchy of actions. For example, it's better to research using Salvage than to do it normally and using the workshop for a one-time benefit should be used as much as possible. The game has many difficulty levels and it can get very hard, though, so I hope this is just the worry of an inexperienced player.

san il defanso wrote: This afternoon I taught my son Heroscape. He's five and doesn't read all that well, but we still had a lot of fun. He selected Mimring right away, and that ended up being the difference. The other problem was that he picked a lot of ranged characters, and I picked almost none. He mowed down my Vikings right away, and my Feral Troll got tied up with Mimring and the orc on the tauntaun. I was able to wreck him a bit with my Deathwalker 9000 and the guy who looks like Morpheus before he got tired of playing and we called it. It was a lot of fun, even as I had to keep him focused and help him through a lot of stuff. We'll have a lot of fun with this one.

nice Nate, I have Heroscape primed, my boy turns 5 next week but I thought I would wait until next xmas before breaking it out, hes a bit hyper now so I dont think he is ready to focus on that, he likes domino style tile matching, and stuff like Monza, and a bit of dice rolling, so interested to hear more specifics of how it went. I also have the Dungeon Command packs thinking they would be cool to throw in instead of paying through the nose on ebay for Heroscape official stuff. In fact, theres a whole long rambling post in me somewhere, thinking about the idea that in a way you rob your kids of something by providing them with "rules as written", I always remember the thrill of plastic soldiers on a bit of board from the old mans work, drawing a grid, rolling dice and making rules up. Yes, the game was unmistakably shit compared to what we could have been playing but on the other hand, we were sat there making our own shit up and I think that has value, not just in a nostalgic way. So part of me thinks I will start just by letting him build shit with the terrain and move the figures round, and maybe just make rules up about rolling dice to move I mean, I guess HS itself is more or less that but I'll probably simplify it even more and let us just make some shit up together.

Maybe later on as he gets older we can play the "real" games, dont know if anyone knows if its possible to convert Dungeon Command to Heroscape (I see a lot of stuff in the other direction) or if maybe its just easier to print out stat cards from units and proxy in the minis we have and just make believe.

Ive also got Thunder Road, Battleball, King of Tokyo and Snow Tails waiting for him (and Memoir 44 though that is another game we will definitely be making up on our own and it will be better than the actual game I can tell you that), also Claustrophobia but I have an old DOOM in the garage and there I think I might just make up some shit with dice and the minis on the tiles there too. I got rid of Assault on Hoth but I figured we could make a star wars game together with some star wars minis /damn Imperial Assault for ruining the cheap market for those minis!

We had a go at That Viking Game, with four players, two of which were new. It went well as an introduction, Loki wasn't as powerful when split between two players (due to adding in the 4+ duplicate cards), the game was won by the clan pursuing pillage/battle victories ultimately. Though he did also start the game with the Frigga upgrade that gives -1 to all future upgrade costs which is a very nice card to start the game with. One of the new players was getting a bit frustrated with the cost/benefit of other cards (like the 2str warriors that make your warriors cost 2 to invade, which limited his options more than he'd realized). I had a cunning plan to bounce ships in and out of Valhalla for Great Points, but I couldn't pull off the timing.

Shadowrun: Crossfire- two runs, with slightly different groups. Both times we got soundly crushed in the early third scene. Both times by the same Crossfire Event, which made obstacles additionally attack the player to the left of the current runner. Still an enjoyable group puzzle, I'm hoping we can migrate to the Extraction mission some time soon, for some variety.

Wizards of the Wild- King of Tokyo ran up to Seasons and rubbed its little nose on it, twitching its fluffy little tail. I quite liked it as a relaxing game, though the down time is a bit much with four people.

Codenames- because people like to play it. I do too- for two rounds- then I am done with it for a week at least. It is a nice feeling when you can lay down a "3" clue and your team gets it.