Re: What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Spent the weekend at a resort up north with 40-odd adults and children and managed some gaming around copious lake time.

Mists Over Carcassonne was a hit. Taught it to a few groups of adults, but it was the biggest with the kids. They pulled it out before I woke up to play on their own even. Admitted they cheated a few times to finish mist banks, but they were having fun. Need to bring more cooperative games next time apparently.

Thought I was doing alright in Settlers of Catan. Had the sheep market absolutely cornered and was making trades every round. Lost with only four points because I thought the game would go longer and never got enough wood to build my early infrastructure.

Taught an adult Kabuto Sumo and finally played the advance rules. Not sure it’s necessarily an improvement on junior league since my abilities never triggered, but it’s just a fun game. Gorgeous production without being deluxe and unique gameplay.

Got in a few rounds of Just One, but I think they had more fun without me. While teaching Mists I heard no fewer then five times, “We couldn’t do that if DarthJoJo were here.” Apparently someone just gave up and wrote “girls’ best friend” for “diamond.”

Also got to teach and play Hansa Teutonica. Beat both other players’ scores combined because having any experience is a huge advantage. The one said she’d like to play again because she only started to understand halfway through just what all she could do. I said I’d love to bring it again next year. Then I realized they were resetting their player boards for another round while I was putting my pieces. Call it a loss because I couldn’t manage another game after 10:30, but a win for finding two more fans of an all timer.

Got MANDALORIAN ADVENTURES on the table with a friend. We got thru the first four scenarios in a little over 5 hours. The system  is fairly slick and not hard to grasp mechanically. Part of me wonders if it could have been ported into Imperial Assault . It doesn't have the same insane rush thru things as fast as possible issue as IA; while you can't dally, you have time to, you know, blast away at mooks. 
The scenarios are fairly faithful to the first season of the show; there are 8 different characters you can play; with characters "leveling up" and getting better cards as you progress. It's very thematic. 
Replayability ? You can switch out heroes from the ones that are suggested. I don't think it will have super long legs, but for the price I am not complaining. There is certainly expansion potential. 

I want to pick this one up so badly, but I'm afraid it's going to end up Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion-y.

Any opinions on that comparison?

Spent Labor Day Weekend at a housecon.

New to me:

That Escalated Quickly. Co-op party game about trying to arrange numbers in a row. There's a deck of cards numbered 1-10. Everyone gets one except the dealer. The dealer gets a clue that has a topic range on it, e.g. from "least delicious food" to "most delicious food." The dealer looks at their number and announces a description. E.g. maybe for a 5, they say "creamy peanut butter sandwich on white bread." Everyone else looks at their number and gives a description based on it. They turn in their cards face down, and the dealer tries to arrange them in ascending order. Fine, unoffensive. 4/10.

Rhino Hero: Super Battle. A good card-stacking game, for either sober kids or drunk adults. Make a cityscape, get your hero to the highest building possible before someone knocks it down. 6/10.

Blueprints of Mad King Ludwig. Draft cards with various building shapes, put tracing paper over them, try to assemble a castle design. As you complete various buildings you unlock little combos. Draw an extra card! Make a moat! Add an extra door! Very 2008 Euro feel. I haven't played any others in the series. 2/10.

Tumblin' Dice. Good simple dex game, fun for the whole family. 6/10.

Beast. Fury of Dracula style hidden movement, one-vs-many game. Nice dark fantasy art, of the understated and melancholy variety, rather than the over-the-top grimdark, buckles and straps and spikes everywhere. Like a lot of Eastern European games (seemingly), the English rulebook has issues. The game is good but the trail is barely there, so there's not a lot of hunting or deduction. Has some odd unthematic things -- e.g. all players draft the cards used for movement and actions. What does that even mean when you're passing cards to the Beast player? Pretty fun regardless. Has a wide variety of beasts and hunters to mix things up, which is nice. Might pick this one up. 6/10, maybe 8/10 with a better understanding of the rules.

Flick 'Em Up! What is it with the French and their fascination with the American Wild West? (See also Colt Express, Western Legends.) Another fun dex game, this one super overproduced. Apparently I am a stone cold killer, because I was gunning down fools from the other side of the table. Note that I don't have this skill in other dex games for some reason. Unfortunately my teammate was a very apologetic bad shot, so we lost. Still fun. 6/10.

Glory to Rome. Never played this classic before. Felt kind of like extra-spicy San Juan (which is good). Aborted due to someone showing up and wanting to include them in a game. Based on the partial play, 8/10.

We're Sinking! Overproduced semi-co-op. Played 2x. Really liked this on the first play, second play had a bit of bloom off the rose. The core idea is very good: you're fantasy pirates, and a horrific sea monster is attacking your ship. (There's a variety of pirate characters and monsters to choose from.) Work together to bail water, patch leaks, and fight the monster. Or ignore everyone and go for loot. If the ship survives, then the winner is the player with the most loot. If the ship sinks, then it's the player with the least loot (swims away from the wreckage the fastest). You choose your action on a little wheel, and place it face down on the part of the ship you want to work on. But, your action and the ship area don't have to match. You reveal, then (if they don't match) move your wheel to the actual part. The main issue is that there's virtually no way to go after other players. You can't punish them for lying (e.g. declaring that they'll patch leaks, but going for loot). You can't punish them for trying to sink the ship. There's a (very) few take-that cards to punish people, but for the most part there's no incentive to just do whatever, regardless of what the rest of the crew is trying to do. You can't throw people overboard, or attack them, or rob them, or vote to punish someone somehow. An odd miss but maybe an easy fix with an expansion? Cards could be added to do any or all of those things. It is pretty fun, and a treat on the table -- the ship has a bunch of little levels that you remove as it sinks. 5/10. With a hypothetical expansion like the one I describe, 8/10.

Two Rooms and a Boom. I need to not play social deduction games. I probably have mild Asperger's. I can never tell if people are lying, so playing with me is basically like playing with a random number generator. 2/10. It's not the game, it's me.

Not new to me: That's Not a Hat, Space Team, Wits & Wagers, That's Not Lemonade, Tiger & Dragon, Ghosts of Christmas, Blades in the Dark (first time as player rather than GM), QE, It's a Wonderful World, The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine, Joraku (2x), Hellapagos, Trio, Startups, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Slaughterhouse, Sub Terra.

There were more games played but I turn into a pumpkin at 10-11pm, especially if there's adult beverages around (and there were many).

Geeklist here:
boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/341861/achievercon-2024

Cappster_ wrote: I want to pick this one up so badly, but I'm afraid it's going to end up Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion-y.

Any opinions on that comparison?

Not sure what you are referring to other than it shares JotL in that the maps are in a booklet vs tiles you have to lay out.

Bullet: Pallette and Paw dropped, so we’re back on that. Four generations in and the game hasn’t lost a step. The living die’s boss side is Snakes and Ladders. Roll the die to advance along the board every time you break a shield.

The skateboarder/tagger is a standout. She’s just combos. She doesn’t remove bullets until the end of the round its dependent on how many patterns she cleared.

Her boss patterns are bonkers hard, but if you can survive the penalties for not completing them, she’ll burn herself out. The kicker? Breaking a shield reveals a letter, beginning with S and going through H, R, E, D. It means nothing but is such a great little touch.

I’ve never before seen a game so fully embody the ethos of “Build the game you want to play.” You get on board with its real-time, pattern recognition gameplay, a surprisingly involved backstory and very anime aesthetic or you don’t. But, if you, it’s an absolute treat.

Msample wrote:

Cappster_ wrote: I want to pick this one up so badly, but I'm afraid it's going to end up Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion-y.

Any opinions on that comparison?

Not sure what you are referring to other than it shares JotL in that the maps are in a booklet vs tiles you have to lay out.

I guess my question has to do with the action of the game - Gloomhaven ended up feeling more like an efficiency puzzle that could be "solved" round-to-round where each turn had an optimal solution. The narrative was paper-thin as a result, because it almost felt like you were programing a machine to get the most optimal outcome (I get where this technically is the aim for most games, but Gloomhaven did it in a very dry, almost pre-prescribed way).

The map booklet is the only part of Gloomhaven JotL that I enjoyed, I guess I'm hoping that Mandalorian Adventures feels like more of a game than the G.A.C.M.I.T.S.* exercise that Jaws of the Lion felt like.

* - stolen acronym from Sagrilarus - Generally Accepted Correct Move in this Situation

Sort of the distinction between PC xcom and something like Into the Breach (or the recent Tactical Breach Wizards). Both tactical, but different levels of pure solveable puzzle.

Pulled the zombie invasion , solo game Dawn of the Zeds down from the shelf last weekend and spent Saturday evening and a few hours on Sunday defending the small town of Farmingdale from zombie attack.

The relentless zombie hordes extracted a great cost of life, both civilian and hero, from the town and after many bloody battles on four different fronts they were dangerously close to overrunning the town. With an overflowing graveyard, and zombies closing in, it all came down to the final defense roll of a lone battered hero, making a last stand, not just for him but also for the entire town.

The game had run for hours across two days at this point so it was a very intense roll of the die. But the hero's courage saved the day, narrowly buying the time needed for the town to survive the attack. Had he faltered the zombies would have shuffled into the city center to win the game.

It had been a good 8-10 months since I'd last played the game but the itch had returned. I was a little concerned that negotiating its 5 rulebooks to relearn would be a major headache but it all came back pretty quickly. However, I did consult the main rules book nearly every turn to double-check or clarify something.

Even still, it was a total blast to play. It's hugely thematic, with strong emergent storytelling that lets your imagination go wild and really puts you inside a classic Romero-style zombie movie.

Edit: My elongated play time was mainly due to Sunday's session being spent in between family commitments, with me sneaking in a few turns here and there throughout the day; It's a long game but not 16hours long...

We had an extra player for game night this week, which was a cool opportunity to dust off some large player-count titles. We played Telestrations (Grandma hosts, and it's one of the very few games she'll participate in), the original Shadow Hunters, and Crash Octopus. I laughed until I cried.

Played a handful of okay games yesterday:

Skyrise. A remake of Metropolys, I guess, which I've never played. Has some interesting things -- Ra-like fixed value auctions, but with a map to add an additional wrinkle. You're bidding to put buildings in various neighborhoods. Get points for lots of things. I won on the tiebreak. Didn't hate it but wouldn't ask for it. It was very pretty though. 2/5.

Stomp the Plank. Kids' dex game with a push-your-luck element. Raid the captain's chest by turning over cards. You stop whenever you want, or when you get a pair, or when you get to five. The box has little magnets in it, and there's planks that attach to them and extend over the side of the box. If you stop before getting a pair, then everyone else puts a number of wooden discs (equal to the number of cards you flipped) on the far end of their plank. If you get a pair, then you move your little elephant pirate figure one step towards the end. Eventually the combination of (a) the weight of wooden discs on the end, plus (b) your elephant getting too close to counterbalance them, will be too much for your magnets to handle, and your plank will tumble, sending you into the drink. You lose, everyone else wins. Mechanically it's fine, but the production values take it over the top. The tolerances on the physical production -- getting the strength of each magnet just so, and the weight of the wooden discs and the elephant figures -- had to be nuts to set up. 3/5.

So Clover. New to me but I might have been the last person to hear of it. Co-op word guessing game? Randomly deal four square cards in a grid. Each card has a word on each side. On each side of your big square, write one word that connects the two words on that side. Then remove your cards, add another one, mix them up. The rest of the table has to recreate your original grid. Not as good as Just One, but not without its charms. 3/5.

Run. 2p hidden movement/deduction game. One person is a thief, one person is the cops. Each person has an identical map, hidden behind a screen. The thief has to get three items and then get to a safe house. The cop has to find the thief twice before this happens. It's not terrible, but it's all very artificial and gamey -- e.g. there's lots of times where the cop knows which direction the thief moves, but not where the thief moved to or from. I guess your enjoyment of it would be related to how much you can enjoy it as an abstract. Played 2x, both as cop, won one and lost the other. 2/5.

Cappster_ wrote:

Msample wrote:

Cappster_ wrote: I want to pick this one up so badly, but I'm afraid it's going to end up Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion-y.

Any opinions on that comparison?

Not sure what you are referring to other than it shares JotL in that the maps are in a booklet vs tiles you have to lay out.

I guess my question has to do with the action of the game - Gloomhaven ended up feeling more like an efficiency puzzle that could be "solved" round-to-round where each turn had an optimal solution. The narrative was paper-thin as a result, because it almost felt like you were programing a machine to get the most optimal outcome (I get where this technically is the aim for most games, but Gloomhaven did it in a very dry, almost pre-prescribed way).

The map booklet is the only part of Gloomhaven JotL that I enjoyed, I guess I'm hoping that Mandalorian Adventures feels like more of a game than the G.A.C.M.I.T.S.* exercise that Jaws of the Lion felt like.

* - stolen acronym from Sagrilarus - Generally Accepted Correct Move in this Situation

Gotcha. I guess it does function akin to GLOOMHAVEN in that its a tactical puzzle generator . The enemy markers have far less variety, but it def feels very thematic if you're a fan of the TV show.

Played my first game of Worms against my son. Two players is obviously not how it shines, but that's what we had.

My son got out to an early lead by killing one of my worms with a shotgun. Worms are either healthy or damaged; if a damaged worm takes more damage, they die. If you activate a damaged worm on your turn, it goes back to healthy.

The thing is, a shotgun gives you two attacks, just like in the video game, so he was able to take my worm from healthy to damaged to dead in one turn.

We went back and forth, back and forth, with the biggest weapon used being the mail bomb I dropped on 3 hexes, which did result in one death on his team, and also sent one hex of land into the water. At one point I attempted to dynamite one of his worms into the sun, but he had an ice block card that prevented the worm from being damaged. This is an instant you play when you are about to take damage. Of course my dynamite was gone then.

We ran out the "drop deck" which is the timer and also populates the landscape with supply crates, mines, etc. This specific sudden death card had all worms go to one health; if you were damaged, you immediately died. It was two worms vs. two worms....

I grabbed a supply crate and was fortunate enough to obtain a shotgun, which I used to kill each of his worms since they only had one health each.

My early impressions are that this game is pretty much exactly what you would want it to be, and with more players it will be an insanely fun time.

Saturday night I went over Malloc's house and Dr. Tom brought over Rock Hard: 1977. I've been very interested in playing this game ever since I heard about it post Gencon. For the last 5 or 6 weeks the secretary of Game Clubs of Maryland, J. Weber has been singing the praises of Rock Hard: 1977. J. Weber has played it 10+ times and both of us like games with unique themes.

The components of Rock Hard: 1977 are fantastic. Malloc joked that he'd buy the game just based on the money in the game. The only thing that could have been better about the money was if they had $20 bill with talcum powder on it. You can tell Rock Hard was a total labor of love by Jackie Fox, Bass player for the Runaways.

As for the game itself, it holds to theme really well despite being a Euro. Here is my best classification of the game. It's a 90ish min. light to medium weight Euro, worker placement, point salad victory point game with great component and a more unique theme.
All that's great but I'd only rate as 6.5 on BGG. I'd play it a couple time of year but I can't see playing more because I'm a hardcore board gamer. As a hardcore board gamer it was fun and it wasn't overly long but there was nothing that made wanting to play it again.

However, as a hardcore board gamer who has family and friends, some of them we're in bands in the past, that aren't hardcore board gamers and but enjoy coming over my house to play a lighter board game I would jump at the chance to buy Rock Hard if it was on sale for $30. Despite the great components, I'm kind of on the fence to buy it for over $50.

Yesterday the new ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK hit the table. Play time was about 2.5 hours; rules are pretty straightforward for the most part, but have some unusual mechanics - for instance, you can never move on top of an unrevealed street tile, which means you have to move next to it, then use an action to flip it. This makes it a little more likely you'll have something nasty pop up. Cleverly, there are no hit points for heroes - every hit you take, you randomly discard a card from your hand. When you run out of cards, you flip a timer card - if that deck hits the end, players lose. Actions cause variable amounts of noise - the more noise, the more enemy shit that rains down on you. 




The game was pretty thematic - there are 8 possible locations for the President, and of course he was in the very last location and the Duke was right on our tail. Snake had killed the big brawler with the spiked club and Maggie had blown away Romero.  We managed to escape with all four heroes, the president, and the tape . We'll reset next week on the higher difficulty and incorporate some of the stretch goal stuff . There is a co-op victory as well as lone victory option if you don't think the President can be saved.