What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Played Cataclysm: A Second World War for the first time yesterday, after having it set up and poking at the rules for the past week. This is the first war game I've learned by myself from the rules and man I am Real Bad at learning and teaching this kind of game. I've played a decent amount of war games over the years (Combat Commander: Europe probably being the high point complexity wise), but my one friend who is into war games always taught them to me. Anyways, we muddled through the rules and eventually got through the first turn of the intro scenario. The good news is once we got playing it really zips and offers you lots of interesting decisions with generally low rules overhead (ie all the individual things are very straightforward... theres just a lot of individual things). I'm really REALLY looking forward to digging more into this one and getting into the bigger scenarios and stuff, and the guy I taught it to is right there with me. The chit pull system is fun, the combat is punchy, the bits are pretty, and you can do the full ww2 all theaters scenario in a day (8-10 hours), so I think this one is a winner for me first blush. The way it works makes it really solid for solo play too, which I foresee doing a decent amount of.

I have just completed my first solo test run of Nemesis from Awaken Realms. This was the Kickstarter they ran after Lords of Hellas, and the game looked cool enough that I backed it. This project went MUCH smoother than the one for Hellas, and the game wasn't terribly late in delivery.

Before I get into how the game went, I'll comment on components. On the whole, components meet the high standards of an Awaken Realms title. Everything is well done and looks nice. I will say I actually don't think the models are as nice as the ones in Lords of Hellas. I am not sure why... they just seem to have less detail. The ONLY real gripe I have is the rule book: it's square, and white text printed on black in a very small font. Reading these square books is a pain in the ass, and the white on black causes more eye strain than is necessary. Please publishers, no more square rule books.

There is a fully cooperative mode, but I chose to play two characters in a normal game as though it was semi-cooperative. Normally each player would have a secret objective that is unknown to the other players, so for this test I chose objectives that wouldn't step on each character's toes. I had the Pilot, who wanted the Nest to be destroyed and the ship to end up back on Earth, and the Mechanic, who wanted to discover two Intruder weaknesses.

You all start in the center of the ship, in the "Hibernatorium." Basically cryo-sleep. You have fuzzy memories and thus can't remember the layout of the ship. This is a good conceit for having to explore and figure out where everything is. The Pilot headed towards the front of the ship to check the current destination, and the Mechanic headed to the engine rooms to check on them. You can't hyperspace jump successfully without two functional engines, and the ship starts out heading to one of four possible destinations. Some secret objectives have players deliberately sabotaging these ship elements.

In fairly short order, the Pilot discovered the Nest and was promptly attacked by a Creeper, which is a second stage alien. A fire broke out and spread to several rooms, including the one that the Pilot was in. As long as you escape the room before the end of your current "2 actions" you will not take damage from the fire.

The Mechanic got to the back of the ship and checked two engines. One was just fine, and they repaired the other one. You take a "repair / break" action and you have to tell other players if you are switching the engine's status, but you don't have to say if you just broke it or fixed it.

The Pilot managed to kill the Creeper and got to the flight deck and determined that the ship was in fact headed to Earth. With the Nest on fire, the Pilot's secret goal would be achieved.... as long as the Pilot lived long enough for the hibernation chamber to re-open (this happens half-way down the timer track of 15 turns).

The Mechanic wound up with a Larva inside of him. This sounds bad, and it is... but it's not necessarily a death sentence. Somewhere on the ship is the Surgery Room, and you can cut the larva out of yourself. But where was it? The Mechanic started wandering and stumbled upon the Laboratory. This is where you research samples and can discover Intruder weaknesses, aka the Mechanic's secret objective of uncovering two of them.

This game handles the Intruders in a really clever manner; at the beginning of the game you shuffle a deck of Intruder weaknesses and deal three out to the "Intruder board." If you analyze the following items, you uncover each weakness: a character corpse (the game starts with one so no one has to die to do this), an Intruder carcass, and an Intruder Egg (currently all of these were burning in the Nest... could one get saved in time?)

Further, each time you fight an Intruder, you never know how much health it has. After you cause one or more injuries, which are tracked on the model, you draw a card from an Intruder deck. If the card indicates a number of injuries that is higher than the current injuries, it lives.

Things weren't going great for the Mechanic; some scuffles caused them to get two Contamination cards in their action deck. These have secret text on them that indicates if you are Infected or not... you can survive the whole game and even achieve your objective, and STILL lose if you wind up infected. There is a special scanner that you slide the card into (it has translucent red plastic that makes the text show up). The Mechanic nervously tested one of their cards in order to dispose of it... if it said Infected, it would mean instant death due to the Larva inside them. CLEAN! Whew.....

The Pilot circled back around and met up with the Mechanic. The Pilot helped the Mechanic out by researching an Intruder carcass. It was just a waiting game at that point for the Pilot, but there was an adult Intruder literally hanging out in the Hibernatorium which would make it impossible to use.

The Mechanic decided to venture in there to pick up the Character corpse that had been sitting there the entire game, but when they tried to escape, the Intruder took a serious bite out of their arm. They dropped the corpse, but at least they got away from the Intruder for now.

That Intruder actually left the Hibernatorium, and at this point there was only two rounds to go before the cryo chambers would open up. It was looking good for at least the Pilot. The Mechanic wound up in the Laboratory when, out of nowhere, the larva burst out of their chest, instantly killing them. Oops.

It was at this point that I could have proceeded on as normal, but there is an alternative mode in which the first player to die can control the Intruders. This dramatically changes the Intruder action steps, and I figured I should test it since it's likely to be needed in my group. The Pilot had to survive ONE more round....

The Intruder formally known as the Mechanic got to draw 3 event cards and choose one to enact; while they can't win, they really just have a goal of making sure no one else wins either. One of the events literally caused so many fires that the ship blew up immediately.

GAME OVER, EVERYBODY DIES.

I thought this was hilarious, and the gameplay is great. There is a lot of room for fuckery, BUT you have to be willing to accept that your character may die in extremely arbitrary ways, i.e. the wrong card came up and boom you die.

More later when I get a proper game in.

Played Cryptid last night, which is a really fun little Zendoish deduction game. As it turns out it's not fun when someone places clues incorrectly, no one can figure out the solution, and the game lasts three times as long as it should before everyone quits in frustration. That being said, it's a good game if you don't play with people who do that.

An old friend is moving across the country next week, and stopped by to play a game and watch a movie. I brought out Coma Ward for a first play, after studying the rules and errata recently. Coma Ward is Betrayal at House on the Hill, except that it takes place in a mental institution instead of a haunted house. We still struggled some with the rules, so our 90-minute game ran closer to 3 hours. The game is not that complex, it's just that the rulebook doesn't do a good job of addressing a key mechanic, and the errata is longer than the original rules. Kind of like Camp Grizzly, in that respect. Once you get the hang of the rules, they are relatively easy and intuitive.

I will hold off on a review for now, because I feel like I need a couple of more plays to get a feel for the strengths and weaknesses of Coma Ward. Based on one scenario, it does seem like there is a fundamental flaw in the dice-rolling mechanism. You roll Xd6, where Xis your relevant attribute ( usually Strength or Dexterity), net of bonuses and penalties from equipment or other factors. 1, 2, or 3 is a failure, while 5 or 6 is a success. 4 is "suspense", which means each 4 gets re-rolled with one extra die. So while you can potentially succeed beyond your normal capabilities, you are more likely to fail at, well, everything.

Everytime you enter a new room or explore an existing room, you roll your Focus to avoid getting a hallucination. Since you need at least 3 successes and your maximum Focus is 5, this means that there are a lot of hallucinations in the game. Pretty quickly, players will be hallucinating almost all the time, rapidly spiraling into madness. But the hallucinations are the major source of fun in the game, leading to all sorts of interesting encounters and sometimes even causing normal rooms to be replaced with room-sized hallucinations.

I won't spoil the particulars of our encounter, but it gave each of us a secret victory condition, and mine at least made the game competitive instead of cooperative. The game rapidly spun out of control after the scenario kicked in, and we both lost. The game has some great ideas, but probably didn't get enough playtesting. One definite improvement over Betrayal is the fixed map layout. The Coma Ward room tiles cause plenty of variability, but the overall layout is defined. Betrayal often goes off the rails after the haunt starts, just because the house is either too big or too small when the omen roll triggers the haunt.

Played The Bloody Inn at a short gathering today with three new people and an observer. As usual, everyone new to the game was mildly appalled at the theme and were certain that it had to be based on an actual event (it was) because who would write that background to a set collection game? The things that I like about it is that it's pretty quick and the rapid pace means that there are a bunch of different strategies available. The thing I dislike about it is that the theme tends to fill the room, while the game play for the first few turns doesn't. You feel like you should be able to be killing and burying more often than you are, but you can't because you don't have the cards to do so. It improves after that, but I wish there were a faster way to start.

Went to Arkham Nights, Fantasy Flight's annual celebration of all the games in its Arkham Files series. Of course I got in just minutes after they began the epic multiplayer Friday night session of The Blob That Ate Everything where 20-odd tables of players tried to knock over 1200 health off their shared enemy, the titular Blob. With everyone either playing that or a standalone session of Depths of Yoth where they were trying to get to the lowest possible level, I took off to hang out with the friend who was hosting me for the night. We played Guardians, Plaid Hat's failed overture to Blizzard for the Overwatch license. It's fine. I'd play it again, but I feel it needs to be a bit quicker, punchier considering what it's emulating. Turns were too slow and plodding.

Finally got in some Arkham the next day. Played two sessions of Blob, both a bit smaller than that first night and both with my support Carolyn Fern whose only job was healing horror and sealing the worst tokens out from the bag. We didn't win either attempt, but it is a really good scenario. As you might guess, the inspiration is drive-in horror movies of the '50's, which feels a little weird in the Arkham setting, but I loved the dedication to the premise. Every single treachery card is some aspect of the Blob, and every single enemy is a sentient separation of the Blob, except for a handful of latecoming Mi-Go who are studying it. It lacked the cross-table cooperation of Labyrinths of Lunacy, the first epic scenario, but allowed the tables to play at their own speed. No one had to wait to advance to the second and third acts together, so the play was smoother.

And that was it for gaming. Only two sessions, but that was five hours of play. Got to see and chat and play with a lot of friends I hadn't seen since Arkham Nights last year, won the massive printed Cycles of Eternity map for Eldritch Horror and immediately trade it since I don't play Eldritch, and saw a husband and wife team take first and second in the costume contest, the husband edging his wife, perhaps because he was willing to go topless as Silas Marsh. Good times, excited for next year.

Today I played Wealth of Nations.

Hands down, this is the game that best captures economic theory. It's the best, clearest representation of classical economics, from economies of scale to the bussiness cycle. However, it's slow as molasses and I would wager at least two hours too long.

This makes it a hard game for me to gauage. I do respect it and I like it. It's the only game I've ever played where I've felt my background in commerce gave me a sizable advantage. But spending ten minutes to negotiate a 3$ advantage in a trade is complete nonsense. When we tallied our scores I had put an insane amount of effort into what amounted to less than a 0,1% of my score. Was it worth it? Well, I needed those 3$ at the time but I can't see it being justificable in the realm of game design.

I kept thinking about how cool it would be to have a game with player-controlled inflation and loans and how practically no one would be able to understand it.

Had another distinctly light game night with my wife picking the game's.
Started with Divinity Derby which I won with a couple of good gambles on last place and Disqualified. Old school pictionary where you roll dice and go around the board. The answers sometimes crack me up because this version is so old. Like "Color Television" and "Tavern" and the mention of Carter as being president.
Then a round of the card game GOLF and finished up with Stoner Parking Lot which is always a Riot.

We played Exit: The House of Riddles, which is definitely the weakest in the series. We found it significantly easier than all of the other ones (even the other ones with the same difficulty rating). It is intended as something of an intro to the series, but it is still pretty simple. The design is linear, which already makes it less interesting to us, but the actual theme is that you are solving escape rooms and makes it so it has really no atmosphere (and Exit is generally limited here). Hopefully the other one from this wave, The Haunted Roller Coaster is better. I can still appreciate the easier games in Unlock! because they usually have some nifty gimmick, but Exit's focus on clever puzzles means a weak set of puzzles is an overall weak play.

mezike wrote: Oh, how I wish I could be playing Technobowl. It’s not even on the shelf any longer because I can’t find any willing opponents. Such a brilliant game.

There is a very nice implementation on Tabletop Simulator. I'm down for playing online.

the_jake_1973 wrote:

mezike wrote: Oh, how I wish I could be playing Technobowl. It’s not even on the shelf any longer because I can’t find any willing opponents. Such a brilliant game.

There is a very nice implementation on Tabletop Simulator. I'm down for playing online.

I have TT simulator so I am totally up for it. Based on my previous plays you will find me eminently beatable yet gracious in defeat. Timezone might be an issue though as I'm GMT so five hours ahead? Feel free to PM me and we'll see what works.

Played Mythic Battles and Beastgrave, the new Warhammer Underworlds set back to back last night. My love of Underworlds is not dying anytime soon, but man, Mythic Battles is exceptional. I'm still conflicted over which is my top skirmish game.

There's just not many games where you can have Persephone leading a band of infernal warriors, a hydra, and the dragon of Thebes into a swamp to recover crystallized essence of dead gods.

Opponent pulled some neat shenanigans using the sirens to pull my units away from Persephone so I couldn't guard her. He almost killed her too but I kept reinforcing and resummoning my troops. I also sacrificed Andromeda by throwing down a bunch of chains on one of the enemy units and then using her as a shield for Persephone. Ultimately I grabbed the fourth Oomphalos before he could kill my divinity.

But the question on all our minds is how many times did you or your opponent call the Oomphalos “oompaloompa”.

I really want to give that a go but it looks like it’s not very accessible for non-backers.

Oh yeah, definitely Oompa loompas.

Unfortunately it's Kickstarter only. I backed the 1.5 reprint thing due to a few people whose opinion I trust really raving about it (Scott here on TWBG has been talking it up for a long time).

Storing it is the biggest challenge. I have two Conan/Coffin Boxes, plus two big square boxes. Takes up a third of an entire shelving unit.

It's like the complete opposite of Wildlands though. It's still a French AT game with a Euro hand management thing, but every single unit has special abilities. That's really the shtick, it's about drafting a skirmish force that synergizes and then executing that plan. With hundreds of units you see different abilities each and every game.

This also ties into why I really don't like Wildlands at all, as I find the lack of special abilities/powers really bland. But I'm an Earth Reborn guy so I guess that's expected.

Played a 12 hour game of Mega Civilization on Sunday. 8 players, eastern map. I came in around the low middle of the pack, I think, That's a fun game but some newbs and some unfortunate chains of disasters made it run 2 hours longer than we'd like. Be nice to shave that down to 10 hours. One of the new players was terrified of getting disasters and thus was hesitant to trade, slowing things down.