What Board Game have you been playing? ARCHIVE

Played a game of Cadwallon: City of Thieves this weekend. Even with just two people I really enjoy this game. It's very interactive and you're always plotting/scheming what to do on your next turn. The finite number of game turns and variable things that happen in each different quest helps keep things fresh. It's just a mean game and you're constantly stepping on necks until the end. I love it. I've got the expansion and need to break it out soon.

repoman wrote: For a game this good that will likely never be reprinted, $30 ain't so bad.

And despite the bitching it gets, I've never had a problem with the art. Sures it cartoonish, but its also very functional and well laid out - card color is very important to the games mechanics, and the more subdued color of the infamous Black Box edition took some time to get used to. I wish I had kept the original version.

Protip if you're playing Legendary solo. Don't pay attention to the idiotic solitaire rules in the core rulebook. Talk about half assed, thrown together shit. The advanced rules from Dark City don't really help much.

The good news is that it's easy to fix because the game really kind of takes to modifying extremely well. And doing so makes the game actually challenging.

Simple fixes:

- Forget this "only play one villain and three henchmen" crap. Play with THREE villain sets or TWO and a set of henchmen IF it's thematically appropriately (I.E. give Doom the Doombots, Kingpin the Maggia Goons).

- Play all five Master Strikes as in the advanced solo rules

- Two bystanders _minimum_ in the villain deck, especially if you have cards that do stuff with them.

- Whatever number of schemes on the setup is usually fine

- Three heroes per the standard solo rule works fine- with five the combos get more diluted and there's less tension on running out of the hero deck. Ignore the stupid rule where you put heroes on the bottom of the deck after a twist. KO the bastards, just like in multiplayer.

- Do the final blow- four Mastermind defeats isn't enough. You need that fifth one to stop the game from having a premature ending. Increases drama in the horse-race to the end.

- Most importantly, give the Mastermind +1 for every escapee. This is CRITICAL, IMO. This puts pressure on you to keep the city clear for a reason other than points (worthless in solitaire), it scales the Mastermind's strength to the development of your deck, and it gives you an impetus to push harder for more damage in the last third of the game.

I was just steamrollering all comers and wondering why the hell I was wasting my time fighting anything other than the Mastermind...now, I'm making decisions as to whether or not to spend attack points to take out one big guy that's about to escape or knock out two to slow down the line- but those two might be those Hydra guys that make you play more Villain cards. The end game is WAY more challenging. No more of those "well shit, I just made 20 attack points, I beat him twice and that's game". By the end with this setup, You're more like "shit, I need and have 18 attack points now, but if these guys escape I'll need 20 next hand..."

I did a couple of awesome games last night...I like to keep it themey, so round 1 was Thor, Silver Surfer and Jean Grey versus Loki along with his Asgardian contingent and the Underworld. So yes, Loki and Dracula were on the same team. They were trying to open portals to dark dimensions or whatever it is. Brutal game, I took something like 10 wounds. They had all but one portal open...but I was doing NASTY damage using a couple of combos with the heroes (Silver Surfer's rare lets you double recruitment points and I had a Thor card that lets you use recruitment as attack, tehn another Surfer card that lets you spend six recruitment for nine attack. All or nothing turn. I draw a hand of straight wounds. But we got a respite, Loki decided to get arrogant and pull a final master strike before opening the last portal. Turned around the next turn- with two cards left in the villain deck, one of which was the game ender- and clobbered him.

Next game, Kingpin, Streets of NY and the Sinister Six launched a crime wave. Their goons were everywhere, and it was Punisher, Domino and Ghost Rider up against them. I tried to run a really thin deck because Punisher has cards that KO your low-cost cards (collateral damage, I suppose). Most of Kingpin's men were susceptible to bribing (you can combine recruit points with attack to beat them) so Domino's Versatility was extremely effective. But the Maggia goons were coming fast and strong, and Kingpin had like +4 due to my escapee rule. Just getting stronger and stronger. We beat him twice, but the goons overwhelmed the city and then a scheme popped up and they ended the game by escaping five of their kind. Problem was that my deck was just too slow and wasn't outputting enough damage. It was only like 15 cards, and I just didn't have the heavy numbers I needed to recruit like I needed to to get more of any kind of points per hand.

I was kind of thinking the game was going to be a fling, but after messing with it (which I _NEVER_ do, BTW), I'm really enjoying it and may even keep it.

I think the big thing that Legendary does better than DC Comics is the combos. that's what you get out of a deckbuilder, are these craazy combos where 1 card builds into another, which draws another, which powers another. DC does this alittle bit, but since its 1 giant draw pile with very little removal the combos are almost accidental. With the limited heroes, legendary has more opportunities to combo, and many of the bad guys allow for card removal.

I finally had a good game of legendary this weekend, where I had a great combo with Thor, Professor X, Nightcrawler and Blade working together to just beat the crap out of Loki. I ended up with 50+ points vs the 10-20 both my wife and Brother in law had.

Played Zombicide, which I got in trade. um, bland and veeery light. better 2 player game than 6 I think. Though we did have fun sending in the kid (Josh) to his death to 'win' the scenario...he grabbed the last OBJ surrounded by 6 zombies. sucks to be you!

I think this is going to be quick back to the trade pile.

X-wing - Tie Fighters, Interceptors and a Lambda Shuttle vs Falcon and 2 X-wings. Lambda shuttle managed to survive the first round (last time he died in a hail of heavy laser cannon fire)...but still didn't do much. Was my first time flying interceptors against a Falcon....really annoying trying to stay at long range vs the falcon as he just slowly chases you around. still, ended with 1 HP left on the falcon before he shot down my last interceptor.

Myth -
there's a good game here....but man did they screw up the cards and rules. rules at least can be re-done and reprinted. the cards are screwed up. 5 different characters (figher, mage, cleric, rogue, archer) each with their own card deck. each with their own rule quirks, that don't really carry across the other decks. its really like someone different designed each deck and put their own keywords into it without comparing with the person who designed the other decks.

Ugg-tect. Unusual game for FFG. Its a dumb party game that does exactly what it says on the tin. A team of players tries to assemble a design out of kiddle blocks under the direction of the ugg tect who is only allowed to communicate through inflatable club bashes and various grunts as described on a crib sheet. Its actually quite fun with people who buy into it. The only major downside is there's maybe 30 design cards, and after a while you will have seen them all and be able to guess the design after deciphering the first few instructions. It could use a bigger deck of design cards really.

Also played Castle Ravenloft for the first time. Never played one of the DnD Wizards games before either. It was ok. Im not really into pseudo rpg games. I prefer either tactical Spacehulk minis games or real rpgs with no minis. Its light and easy and has great bits, but it didn't really grab me. Not sure if i prefer it over descent 2e.

Played Gear & Piston, a Kickstarted worker placement game. It's a Kickstarted worker placement game. I'll say this for it; it goes quickly. But the usual undercooked pointlessness.

Then we played Love Letter, and that was great.

I added initial ratings for my New to Me Games of 2014 list. Big winners so far are Kolejka, Pax Porfiriana, Eldritch Horror, and possibly Theseus.

New (to Me) Board Games in 2014

I played Heroscape with my 4-year-old for the first time. I hadn't played the game in a long time, since my 13-year-old is too cool for that sort of thing now. We played without the individual unit powers, so just basic movement/range/attack, and with hit points.

I let my son pick whatever characters he wanted. Of course, he gravitated to the Marvel superheroes, because c'mon. I'd forgotten how overpowered the Marvel figures are when you mix them in with the other Heroscape figures. I was soon to be brutally reminded of this fact.

My son quickly grasped the concept of "higher ground." He parked Iron Man on the highest point on map, and proceeded to repulsor-blast the shit out of my guys with nary a scratch to Tony Stark's armor.

In short, I got my ass handed to me. Such a great game.

Been playing Pax Porfiriana via VASSAL with the doc and Notsure. I'm finally starting to grasp it. Despite consistently terrible rules, you can almost see Eklund become a better *game* designer with every release.

Incredibly glad I bought a copy of the game via Germany! Really liking it.

Played the first scenario of Hold the Line with my 11-year-old tonight.

It was close, but I ran down a few units before he could finish retreating across the river.

Then we both got in trouble because it ended way past his bedtime on a school night. Oops.

Aside from that, it's all PBEM juggling. I don't think I'm up in anything...

Not Sure wrote: Played the first scenario of Hold the Line with my 11-year-old tonight.

It was close, but I ran down a few units before he could finish retreating across the river.

Then we both got in trouble because it ended way past his bedtime on a school night. Oops.

Aside from that, it's all PBEM juggling. I don't think I'm up in anything...

Keep your 11 year old on the Americans side when playing White Plains and Trenton. Both battles favor the Americans. Harem Height is a little strange as battle go and can be skipped. I would pull out a map of the New York / New Jersey and show him his retreat to White plains and later across NJ.

OK. Just played my 5th game of Rampage last night. 3 player, for the first time.

I have to say, it's look belies its quality. It ~looks~ like a cutesy, cheesy little dexterity game about breaking shit, but underneath all that is a very solid strategy game. It was a stroke of genius making players match sets of all 6 meeples to score. The cards and one-time powers are the icing on the cake.

Really swingy, possibly due to the powers, but man alive, it's a fantastic game.

Rampage to me has a bit of a identity crisis and that's why I think it has floundered a bit.

To me it appears like a simple and quick playing filler game was bastardized by shoehorning in rules to try to appeal to a BGG gamer mindset.

I took the axe to the rules and haven't looked back. My cards are still in cellophane and my player screens don't have a crease.

THat's kind of what I was thinking about doing since I want this to play with my kids

You guys might be on to something ditching the rules. At least that might possibly salvage this mess of a game. I feel like I'm in the minority but I think the "game" is terrible. It should be considered a playset really and my 9 year old hasn't asked to play it again since the first and only time playing it. For as much as this thing sells for I probably could have just gotten some sort of giant monster figures at the toy store or dollar store and invented a game of our own using his Lincoln Logs and Legos. I seriously don't understand the hype over this one other than it taps into our childhood memories of the videogame and toys.