What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

I'd love to know how! According to BGG there's a bit of controversy about the first version. The designer shopped it around and got rejected, then PB published a suspiciously similar game. He eventually had them agree to make changes in the future to be closer to his original work, which means the first edition might be significantly different.

Played a lot of Masterpiece as a kid, so probably played it wrong. I recall my strategy at the time was basically, "Stick my brother with a Forgery."

One of the versions I had contained paintings from The Art Institute of Chicago. I didn't know that until I spent a week in Chicago wandering through all their museums (wife was in classes at the IBM building all day). I was in the museum, and I kept thinking, "That was in Masterpiece." I looked it up years later (this happened pre-Internet), and sure enough, they were.

We also played a lot of Masterpiece's sibling, Dealer's Choice. You're a used car dealer, and the trick is that your valuation of a car is different than everyone else's, expressed by individual players' Blue Books. Buy low, sell high, screw your neighbor.

Played a solo game of Death Ride: Halfaya Pass, which resulted in a Decisive German Victory. I called it quits at the end of Turn 18 as the only British units that were unsupressed were artillery, support units, and one lone company stuck in some wire. The British had almost claimed the south end of the pass, but the attempted assault ended up in both sides retreating. The British only gained points by controlling ground (or exiting units, which sure as hell not going to happen) so it did them no benefit. A similar event happened at the north end as the 88s on the ridge managed to barely hold off a company until nightfall.

This was my first experience with the Death Ride system, but I found it fairly enjoyable. This is one of the two "intro" sized games and the rulebook suffers a little from being trimmed down to cut the extra rules associated with the larger games.

End of day 1 (Turn 10):


Ending positions as night fell (Turn 18):

Vysetron wrote: I'd love to know how! According to BGG there's a bit of controversy about the first version. The designer shopped it around and got rejected, then PB published a suspiciously similar game. He eventually had them agree to make changes in the future to be closer to his original work, which means the first edition might be significantly different.

Well, for starters the amounts are different (generational differences and all that). Plus, you only add one value card to the painting, and that's it. Other than that, it sounds similar to the original version of Masterpiece. Next game day, this will be played.

Man, I love Nighthawks.

Rliyen wrote: Man, I love Nighthawks.

My favorite painting. I never miss a chance to see it when I'm at the Chicago Art Museum.

My family owned Masterpiece when I was a kid, and I got to play it again last month with my monthly boardgame group when a couple brought their copy of the game. Both sets that I have played featured that same artwork from the Chicago Art Museum, and I also love that Nighthawks picture. Even as a kid, the quality of the image stood out in the Masterpiece set. And both sets only used one valuation card per piece of art.

The multi-card rule (which is specifically noted in this edition, I double checked) is a huge change if it's not in all the versions. It's really great.

Also I seem to be in good company because Nighthawks is my favorite work of the lot. We first pulled it towards the bottom of the stack in our first game, and I was so happy to see it that I had to win that auction. Did I overpay? Yes, horribly. Was it worth it? 100%.

I was wondering about the multicard rule. because I don't recall ever sticking two amounts on the same work of art. That does seem to make the game more interesting. Stick a few low-priced ones on with a Forgery to sucker people into stealing it.

Game night tonight was Merchant of Venus and Biblios, which we played 3 times. My wife and I played Biblios approximately infinity times years ago when we first got it, but it had been a long time. It's still just great. I love the one at a time card draft (which was spun off into it's own game later called Herbaceous, which is also quite good), and then auctioning the stuff using the cards you drafted in the first half is always an amusing exercise in everyone being sad about their earlier choices.

Ah_Pook wrote: Game night tonight was Merchant of Venus and Biblios, which we played 3 times. My wife and I played Biblios approximately infinity times years ago when we first got it, but it had been a long time. It's still just great. I love the one at a time card draft (which was spun off into it's own game later called Herbaceous, which is also quite good), and then auctioning the stuff using the cards you drafted in the first half is always an amusing exercise in everyone being sad about their earlier choices.

Damn near perfect game night.

Long night at the local game club.

While waiting for my brother to show up, my nephew and I played a couple of games of 7 Wonders: Duel. The first time he squished me with military, and got a military win. The second time was a lot closer, but I still lost, 61-58. It was a good, close game.

While we were playing, another member joined us, and was really wanting to play his new game, Legends Untold. It's Yet Another DM-less RPG, using cards and tokens instead of tiles and miniatures. It's sort of cross between Pathfinder ACG (all cards), and D&DAS (rooms and corridors are big map cards). Everything is based on 3D6, with modifiers. One of the several adventures is brought out, and you wander through the dungeon for an hour or so and win or die. On purpose, your party is a little underpowered (I could be spoiled on Legend of Drizzt - you just wreck shit in that game), and just navigating the dungeon damages you as much as fighting what pops up. TBH it left me underwhelmed. My daughter (special guest appearance), our most recent RPG player, was unimpressed as well. It's perfectly cromulent, which is not a good thing on game night. Cue up the TWBG Peanut Gallery to chime in with, "You should just play D&D!"

After that we played a couple of games of Root. The first game was Cats/Vagabond/Alliance, which from what I've read is a kind of sucky combo. My take as the cats was, "I get to pick who wins." I picked Vagabond, and he won in a walk. The next game was Cats/Vagabond/Eyrie, and Vagabond got his legs chopped out from under it this time. Eyrie won that one in a walk, with me being a distant second. I'm definitely still trying to get the hang of Cats.

I’m reviewing Legends Untold. It’s great. I’d say it is the new “best dungeon crawl card game” but man...is it a white people game. 10 characters and everyone is white as white can be. There is a pseudo-historical Northern European setting that kind of justifies it but if you are going wave in goblins, Giant spiders, and lizard people...why not People of color? It’s egriegous and awkward. Nothing I’ve seen suggests that the exclusion is malicious or willful, but rather just kind of a result of white privilege ignorance.

The game is really great though- I do like that there aren’t heroes- it’s like farmhands and smiths. It’s all very low fantasy. Lots of unusual mechanisms, like light and stealth, make it quite a bit more detailed than usual.

One really cool mechanism is how monsters are in the same deck with booby traps and treasures...so if you draw three treasures before a monster, that’s what you loot. But the traps play off your pace, marching order, light, and stealth. If you are reckless, they hit you.

Also a very compact game- it’s two small boxes.

Kind of reminds me of the old Dungeoneer card game, but it’s WAAAAAY better.

BTW- Zombie Kidz is one of the best games of the year.

I'm a horrible quarter backer/ alpha gamer when playing Zombie Kidz evolution. I can't help myself. Funny note: We "Boop" the zombies instead of killing them (Boop them with your skateboard!) which is actually thematic since they rejoin the zombie pool.

Ha ha, we’ve got a host of terms...lately it’s been “squish”.

They actually did name all the characters to get that trophy.

Michael Barnes wrote: I’m reviewing Legends Untold. It’s great. I’d say it is the new “best dungeon crawl card game” but man...is it a white people game. 10 characters and everyone is white as white can be. There is a pseudo-historical Northern European setting that kind of justifies it but if you are going wave in goblins, Giant spiders, and lizard people...why not People of color? It’s egriegous and awkward. Nothing I’ve seen suggests that the exclusion is malicious or willful, but rather just kind of a result of white privilege ignorance.

The game is really great though- I do like that there aren’t heroes- it’s like farmhands and smiths. It’s all very low fantasy. Lots of unusual mechanisms, like light and stealth, make it quite a bit more detailed than usual.

One really cool mechanism is how monsters are in the same deck with booby traps and treasures...so if you draw three treasures before a monster, that’s what you loot. But the traps play off your pace, marching order, light, and stealth. If you are reckless, they hit you.

Also a very compact game- it’s two small boxes.

Kind of reminds me of the old Dungeoneer card game, but it’s WAAAAAY better.

BTW- Zombie Kidz is one of the best games of the year.

It just didn't click for me, but I don't normally play dungeon crawls. I feel a little bad about that, because the owner was really stoked about this game. Had stories to tell about previous games and everything. My story is, "Got beat into paste, mostly by the dungeon itself. We got a Broken Shield towards the end, which we can tap and sac to get +2 on our next roll."