What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Cool, happy birthday, Doc.

Just finished our fourth play of Dead of Winter - Trying some of the "harder" scenarios - finally lost a game - In spectacular fashion - I rolled a bite on the exposure die in the colony first turn first move and pretty much hamstrung us right off the bat being down two characters - We couldn't keep up with keeping the zombies down and gathering enough food for the helpless schmucks at the colony.

So far we have not had anyone pull a betrayal objective....I can only imagine how brutal it would be with someone working against the group - We usually just make crisis goals.

I jumped down the rabbit hole of Kingdom Death this week, starting my solo campaign.

To fill that social loss when going it alone, I started a narrative session report of my campaign. The first chapter is up.

Awesome, thanks for the link.

boothwah wrote: Just finished our fourth play of Dead of Winter - Trying some of the "harder" scenarios - finally lost a game - In spectacular fashion - I rolled a bite on the exposure die in the colony first turn first move and pretty much hamstrung us right off the bat being down two characters - We couldn't keep up with keeping the zombies down and gathering enough food for the helpless schmucks at the colony.

So far we have not had anyone pull a betrayal objective....I can only imagine how brutal it would be with someone working against the group - We usually just make crisis goals.

The one time I played as the betrayer I didn't have to do anything. The game itself did most of the heavy lifting. On the last turn I achieved my goals (largely because only one other player hadn't mentally checked out of this boring-ass game) and "won". I destroyed the colony and got to fend for myself in a snow covered hellscape filled with violent monsters. I was a big fucking winner, me.

Last night I played Boomtown, which is nice, then Codenames, which reminded me of doing a crossword puzzle for some reason. I think it uses the same part of my brain.

Then a couple of people left and we got out Acquire, which once again made me remember why I don't particularly care for games like Boomtown or Codenames. Both are good, but they aren't at Acquire's level. It's just such a tight game. It's the same age as I am and it's aging far more gracefully.

I won at Acquire which is uncommon for me. I placed Sackson Hotel three times in a row and just milked the hell out of it in the middle/late part of the game. Nobody was in a position to stop me and I think I've gotten the hang of that part of the game. I may have finally figured out how to win at Acquire, just wishing it hadn't taken me half a dozen losses to figure that out!

Acquire is such a great game. One of the few I think I could honestly never grow tired of. How many players did you have? Do you have a preferred number?

This time was 3. Apparently there's special rules for 2 but I've always played with 3, 4 or 5 and I can't speak to a particular favorite number. 3, 4 and 5 all seemed to work very well.

Last year at our Board Game mini-Con in Delaware one of the attendees, a published game designer, indicated that he had never played and didn't have an interest. I told him he really needed to play it at least once so he got in on it. Afterwards he made it a point to say "you were right. Anyone who designs games should play Acquire at least once."

Junta is one of those games that is hard to judge objectively. I think the coup phase is a jumbled mess, but with the right group of people, it's as fun as anything I've ever played. Classic!

I usually call Cosmic Encounter the best game ever made, but Acquire is right up there with it. I think the game is perfect, and fortunately the folks I game with like it a lot so we've played it many times over the years. I'm unusually good at it. I tend to lose all games, but I do well with it for some reason.

It's such a perfect mix of elements. Money, speculation, gambling, investment, profit, geography, strategy/tactics, bluffing...some of that stuff is subtle, but it's there and never overdone. And it can be a pretty vicious game if the tiles line up right and you play to shark/short sell the smaller companies. And it's like one page of rules, so there's not a bunch of stupid shit to get in the way of the interaction with the game and with the other players.

And it has great THEMES.

I think it plays just fine three to six, and it's one of the only games I can show up to game night with and pretty much guarantee that it'll get played at some number in that range.

It's also a source of inspiration for a couple of other great games- T&E notwithstanding. Kramer's Big Boss has a lot of the same concepts, but the building is on a lateral track and you can build UP. Knizia's Rheinlander also does it on a track, but with very different results.

Michael Barnes wrote: I think the game is perfect...

And it has great THEMES.

Agreed.

It was a great week of gaming. Monday, I had an opportunity to try Amateurs to Arms, a slick card driven 1812 wargame. Crawling through the rules made for a bit of a slog, but the game gives you a ton of choices. I saw a lot of possibility in it, but the game seems like it would run a bit long until players figure out what they're doing.

After a few weeks, I was finally able to get Dune to the table. Having played Rex a bit, I was pretty surprised the first time I played Dune months ago. It shares so many mechanics, but is a better game in every conceivable way. I don't have much attachment to the Dune universe, having not read it since 8th grade, but the game operated so well and allowed tense combat, negotiation and factional variety. Our six player game was quite long (we ended on turn 4) with a full rule explanation and combat galore. Overall, it was great, and I'm looking forward to playing again. I'm antsy to try all of the factions.

Last night was first edition Study in Emerald. I love the game, but when playing with new players (or very inexperienced ones) I think the game reveals why it's not a perfect 10. There are a lot of nuances to wrap your head around. Knowing when to start scoring and when to stop deck building is a tempo dictated by other players. The victory conditions require being on the team opposite the player with the lowest individual score. When someone isn't really grasping what they need to be doing, there is very little to be done about it. Winning under those circumstances isn't much fun, and I don't imagine losing is either.

The first couple times I played Clash of Cultures I didn't care for it, as I've gone on about at length. But the amount of love it gets here made me want to try it again. Played last night with 3 and the Civ expansion. This time I wasn't forced into playing Risk by another player, so that was nice. Still just not a fan of this game. I did better than I thought, getting second place in a very tight spread, but it's still a game that I feel doesn't do anything I want to do in a civ game. I don't like the objective cards as written, I think the tech tree isn't particularly interesting, and my initial complaints about combat still stand. I feel like if I want to play a civ game I'd rather play something less DOAM and if I want to play DOAM I want to play something less granular. For me, the place Clash of Cultures sits is in with Chaos in the Old World and there's just no contest there.

I also think I have a strong personal bias against plastic. I think part of me mentally checks out when plastic is involved.

I don't like the objective cards either. My biggest complaint about the game.

Gamestorm near Portland last weekend. My daughter and I played...

BSG (x2)
Fury of Dracula (x3)
Burgle Bros. (x3)
Orleans: Invasion
A Study in Emerald (x2)
Kemet: Ta-Seti
Tiny Epic Galaxies
Colt Express (x2)

Not sure I'm crazy about the Kemet expansion. The extra pyramid is fine, and the new battle card is nice, but then there's this other track where you send priests to get little upgrades and be customized creatures, in essence. With 5 players there's already enough going on to keep track of, and that seems to add something else more for the sake of adding more. Kemet is brilliant in its pure game state, so I don't think I'll be likely to add that priest track thing again. Eh, maybe once more with fewer players to see how that goes.