What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

I've got a small Terror Below story.

I looked the KS over when it went up because Tremors. Then I read the rules and it looked like a pick up and deliver snorefest with barely any Tremors in it. Looking at gameplay confirmed this, so I didn't touch it.

Fast forward to a local pop-up Gen Con event I attended. Renegade sent a bunch of stuff out for it including two early copies of TB, which the store staff set up. 6 of us were playing my pnp of Mystery Wizard when a friend asked if TB was as good as it looked. I told him no, it probably wasn't, but my warnings went unheeded as the siren call of worms sucked him and (I think?) two other people. That table neighbored ours so I was able to see the faces of the players pretty clearly. Watching them turn from grins all around to slack-jawed malaise was saddening, especially in contrast with MysWiz going off the damn rails.

Piling on: Renegade actually did some retailer promotion in our area, in that the one store that got a couple copies of the game had a couple announcement signs and was selling the game with the expansion deck included for free. I am not a Tremors devotee, so I am not the audience for this game. I looked at the implied mechanics and was unimpressed and wasn't particularly starry-eyed about the art design, either. Then I asked one of the store employees what the minis were used for and was told that they're basically just for decoration. [Cue recent site rants about minis being included where cardboard standees would be just as, if not more, useful.]

Hm. Yeah. Not for me.

Yeah, there are just standees in the retail version, no minis. It suggests you place them around the outside of the board for ambiance. Right.

In addition to Terror Below, Bargain Quest was a bit dull (although not nearly as bad), and Proving Grounds was repetitive and devoid of narrative despite coming with a 30 page novella.

Power Rangers was good although not great. I'm looking at their Eternal card game next and this one doesn't look too exciting either.

I like the idea of Bargain Quest, because it's extremely "nerd meta", but I think the idea is more interesting/humorous than the game actually is. I've only had one abbreviated play (the store was closing) and I normally LOVE drafting (it's one of my favorite aspects of Blood Rage and the only format of MTG that I'll still occasionally engage in), but it seemed really limited. Not only are you drafting for what you want to sell, but also for what you put in the window to attract people in the first place and... there just aren't that many cards available. So, often what you end up with is pretty pedestrian. Obviously, you can't have super-powerful cards, since whomever ends up with those will win every monster encounter, but more variety might be nice...? Dunno.

Jackwraith wrote: I like the idea of Bargain Quest, because it's extremely "nerd meta", but I think the idea is more interesting/humorous than the game actually is.

Yeah, not to pile on Bargain Quest too hard, but I got to play a full game once (I also tried the solo variant) and it was alright. I think if it could be played fast (which my group is incapable of), it's a prefectly good filler. But I had two terrible rounds in a row, and I was effectively out of the running for the rest of the game, as there wasn't enough way to affect others or get more points. I really wanted to like it and I'll play it again, but it's not on my short list of games I want to see on the table again.

Like many, I was swayed by a very popular channel's/site's review, but have since realized that my gaming tastes have almost nothing in common with them anymore and I've stopped letting their opinions sway my gaming decisions. Addendum: I was listening to said reviewers talk about Lords of Hellas on their podcast and was literally yelling at their foolishness (in my car, mind you). So yeah, the evidence keeps piling up.

One person was not able to make it to our initial prep session for a Blades in the Dark RPG campaign (and will miss the next two weeks), so the other three of us decided to play Machi Koro Legacy. We were able to get five games of it in, which is half of the campaign.

I am unimpressed with its "legacy" components so far. The campaign has the barest bones of a narrative. This makes sense with how much the core game lacks any kind of story. It feels like each new step in the campaign has been a slight change to the game by adding a new card. It does not feel much different than having an expansion that has modular components that you can add in or not as the players desire. It was not until the fifth game that there was any addition or change that felt like it was adding narrative to the game and shifting the core feel away from just Machi Koro with a slightly different setup. That box is also enormous compared to the components. The legacy boxes take up over half of the interior, but could have been probably condensed to a single legacy box worth of space.

The game feels less legacy-like than Zombie Kidz Evolution, which did a better job of driving itself forward. I know the general consensus here is that a simple core engine is probably better for legacy than a complex one, but I think Machi Koro Legacy proves it is possible to be too simple.

barrowdown wrote: One person was not able to make it to our initial prep session for a Blades in the Dark RPG campaign (and will miss the next two weeks), so the other three of us decided to play Machi Koro Legacy. We were able to get five games of it in, which is half of the campaign.

My brain refuses to accept that Machi Koro Legacy is a real actual product, and not just a satirical Onion article.

It's like ... have you ever seen those cosplayers who created the "Fast Food Cinematic Universe" characters? They made superhero costumes themed after fast food franchises. It's the same idea -- take something very popular (cinematic universe / legacy boardgames) and mash it up with the stupidest thing you can think of (fast food / Machi Koro).

And I actually LIKE Machi Koro!

That Count Chocula game seems less stupid now, right?

(The game is actually quite fun)

((No, really, it’s Prospero Hall))

(((It’s only going to seem less stupid the more time goes on)))

Taught Zimby Mojo to two people yesterday at the FLGS. Three-player games of ZM aren't nearly as fun as with more, but it's still entertaining. We had the Ritual of Exhaustion and the King kept going back to it, which routinely drained us of 3 or even 4 Mojo, which meant that we sat there, the Thugs moved, and nothing really happened. It also made it difficult to use spells or to get new Zimbies in play (or even move the ones we had.) Next time I teach it, I'm taking that ritual out, because I think it cast a minor pall over the new experience, although they both said they still enjoyed the game. We were getting close to the store's closing time, so I convinced one of the others to pile in on the King at the one(!) seal that we'd opened, we killed him, and I came out of the Bag 'O Fate with the crown.

Thankfully, I had both the Incantation that lets you move as a stack of 2 fewer Zimbies and the witchery that lets you target a stack and move it 1d4+1, so I made it some distance, even with the +8 on. My erstwhile ally made one last attempt and did manage to swipe the crown and pick it up with his last guy, but then I Blow Darted him, grabbed it, and skittered away for the win. Still a great game. Looking forward to Jim's new one.

Man, I need to get my copy of that thing played.

We played Ancient Empires of the Inner Sea last night. It was probably the most disappointing games of the year for me. It seemed very shallow, abstract and repetitive. I can take shallow and abstract but repetitive is deal breaker for me. Having a volcano erupt or barbarians come out is all fun but over and over again isn’t fun. If I wanted to play a dry, repetitive, abstract civilization game, I think I’d rather play Martin Wallace’s flop of a game Tempest.

Luckily we quit after one epoch and played Cosmic Encounter to end the night.

Boardgame club night. had a guy request Argent. He's a big fan of L99 stuff (got me into BattleCon a while back).

4 players, beginner setup. I lucked into a legendary spell and leaped onto Iron Golem, which lets you place a mage after the last bell has rung.

Ultimately I lost to the player who ended up with Marks on every voter. the guy who requested the game was frustrated...saying that he felt like he was limited in his resources and choices. The beginner setup is alittle bland at times, but I've never felt Argent to be as limiting as something like Agricola.

he did mention trying to build a sort of engine and couldn't. Argent doesn't have engines...it has combos.

Board game night last night was some fun stuff.

First up was Wildlife Safari , which has been getting a lot of play lately. It's an old Knizia card game, published previously as Quandary and Loco. This version has nice plastic animals, which makes people want to play it. The game is a simple speculation game. There are 5 types of animals, each of which has cards numbered 0-5. Each animal has a stack of cards. You deal out the entire deck (minus some cards according to player count). On your turn you play a card to it's stack, and you take one of any animal. The round immediately ends once all 6 cards of any one animal have been played. When the round ends whatever number is on top of each animals stack is how many points each animal you have of that type is worth. This is really a great little filler. Super breezy to play, but some fun tactical decisions here and therr, a bit if bluffing, a bit of burning someones zebras to the ground with a last second 0 on top of the stack... Just really solid fun stuff.

Ponzi Scheme was next, in which I came almost dead last. The last couple times I played I went super bankrupt really early, so this time I overcorrected and played way to cautiously and ended up with 2 points. I didn't go bankrupt, but I lost to everyone except the guy who went bankrupt. I love this game, but man I'm infinitely terrible at it. The unsustainable economy never fails to produce entertaining awful scenarios.

Then we played Quest For El Dorado with the expansion. First time trying out the expansion, and I think it's a must have. The base game deckbuilding/racing is great but it gets a little samey after some number of plays. The heroes and unique animal cards add a little spice, and the hexes add a big helping of spice. Is it worth 3 curses to take a shortcut? Etc. Plus it adds a light frisson of take that, which is good fun. Some curses let the player on your left move you 2 spaces which is just brutal, and one of the hero cards let's you move everyone else one space every time you play it which is brutal . Really fun stuff all around, plus it's real cheap.

Then we played a live game of the TTA expansion with a couple people who are really good at TTA, which man this expansion is world class awesome. Just so good. It makes every game not the same (which was a concern after playing hundreds of games over the last x years) and gives you new stuff to think about every time, while keeping the core gameplay. This is the only way to play TTA now I think.

Game night was me showing Gloomhaven to a friend that had asked me to bring it, who I had planned on asking to fill the 4th spot, and then realizing that I had a much wider audience than I intended.......


Anyhoo, I'll figure out a way to communicate the pattern is currently full, and I'll maybe have a couple of alternates, but it sucks. I want to share my new toy with everyone.

Then, I got to play a perfectly cromulent game of Terraforming Mars. We used the preludes expac. Added something. I am perfectly satisfied with out of the box TM. The preludes were welcome, but didn't add enough to make me think they are necessary when I get around to grabbing a copy for the house. I will put them in the same category I will put every non-reaper expac for Talisman. "What a cool and thoughtful gift."

Anyhoo, my initial pile of ten cards gave me nothing to play off my Corps strength, so I used my early prelude bumps to play a bunch of expensive events and hobble everyone to start the game. I finished third out of five, had fun, and was reminded that I want to play this regularly, not every 3 months.

/the hosts are really cool, and TM is their fav
//and as a casual but improving terraformer I love that you can't wreck the game for a a bunch of skilled players, and hand someone a win...
///unlike that idiot that never gets seated to MY right in Puerto Rico.

Played Champions of Midgard with all the fixings last night. Takes me 20 minutes to set it up but it's so fun and the wife requested it. I hit a groove early with a card that rewarded 50% more glory for killing a mob and then cloned that card and used it again for 14 extra glory on two kills. Got lucky with a card that let me shed some blame because I became the target for that soon enough. My name still resides on the scoreboard as the winner but fun was had by all and I taught my youngest daughter (16) how to play, so it was family filled chaos.
Edit: we were going to play Nations but the wife offered TTR USA (which I just got in a trade), Divinity derby or COM. I wanted to hear thoughts on divinity Derby, I know a few people picked it up since my review and wanted to know their thoughts.