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

I've always said I disliked COIN for the same reason (and I do!) but had difficulty reconciling that with the fact that the same complaint can be made about Pax games, which I do enjoy. Both series can reductively be described as jockeying for position until the card that lets you win comes out.

What makes Pax games more interesting to me is a) the magnitude of the swings and b) the fact that the player positions are not prescribed.

I like how the board state can often be undone and reset dramatically by big cards in Pax games, it makes every turn feel like it matters rather than "moving the ball forward" inch by inch. Sometimes the game stalls out while you search for a solution but that often reflects poor play as maybe it's time to pivot - which ties into my second point. Rather than being forced to play a given position you can frequently switch and pursue a different win condition when the timing is right. Your ability to win is not solely determined by the cards that come out but also how you use them to build out your tableau, I like having that agency (even though this would make little sense in the COIN model).

Yep. Totally fair point about the COIN system. I also like the Pax games more than I do COIN for probably the same reasons. One of the things I appreciate about COIN, though, is that you do have those defined roles and sometimes it's a matter of figuring out how to work with the other players in order to advance your own goals. Of course, you usually have to do the same thing in Pax, but it's a different kind of approach. I've found that the level of suspicion that arises when you attempt to make a deal in Pax is much less in COIN, since everyone can see what's happening (no hand of cards) and it's more about risking what's going to turn up next in the deck than wondering if someone is trying to screw you. It's just a different kind of gaming experience that I can appreciate with at least a couple titles (the only ones that are currently making the move with me are Gandhi and Cuba Libre, although I guess Twilight Struggle is kind of a COIN game.)

Inspired by Wade's review, I finally got Wroth on the table with the Tuesday night group. It was Paldeyn (me) vs Runen vs Ooglan vs Alden. So, paladins vs dwarves, orcs, and elves. I took the persistent Feat that allows me to deploy an Elite every time I would otherwise gain a Corra. Since you gain at least one Corra at the start of every round, I knew that I could exploit that to good effect and did, mostly because of one of my faction's Elites, the Ryders. When you move one of them, you can move again and deal a point of damage on the way out (I like to imagine it as my horse kicking someone on the way out the door.) But the real key to that was moving twice, which meant that I could get to region 5 and then move right on to region 7 which is one of the two regions on the board that you can't reach from the Shores (the deployment zone.) Region 7 was one point, plus the point gained for dominating (no opponents present), plus the point gained for controlling/dominating with a Ryder. That "free" 3 points/round went on for about 3 or 4 rounds, giving me a third of the margin I needed to win, which led to me having a significant lead and getting dog-piled by everyone else for most of the rest of the game. The Alden had fallen way behind the rest of us, but then came roaring back in the last couple rounds and ended up finishing 1 point behind me when I won, but both Runen and Ooglan were only a couple points behind, as well. In that last round, we were all in the high 20s (you need 30 to win), so it was pretty tense and a lot of interesting choices were being made. Compounding that, when I rolled the dice for the final round, 6 of the 9 came up as Mining (gain a Corra), which absolutely no one needed so we were all kind of depending on our All-Seeing dice to get us to where we wanted. It's pretty cool. Since it was a teaching game, it took over 2 hours, but I expect it will move faster next time.

The other two Elites for the Paldeyn are kinda average. The Ironwills are OK, since you can automatically deploy them to where you already are and they soak up hits (I did that to secure my Ryders' place in both region 7 and 8 at some point. But the Lyons are basically big nothings. They have 4 health and heal 1 at the beginning of each round, but that's all they do: sit there and no one bothers to hit them. Like the Ryders, they do score a point for being in a region you control and they'll always be around since no one bothers attacking them, but they need so much support to serve a purpose that they're kind of a waste of Corra. Perhaps because it was so easy for me to get Elites out, I did end up being the only faction with basic troops left on my mat.

My oldest son started the full game of Terrible Swift Sword last Saturday. He said it started to get fun around hour four. His brother left after three hours: "The fun per minute ratio is not good"

DHS is recruiting on campus today. Kids are protesting in the hallways.

I played a little Dead Reckoning with sornars for the second time. 2p is hardly the best way to show it off but it's a really nice multi-objective open space 4x style game. Fighting is very viable but the development also has equal attention. It manages to make every single action, in retrospect, be super important and it doesn't oustay its welcome. It's all pinned together by an extremely weird physical production that we played through on TTS and it was awkward but would work effortlessly in person.

Great pirate style entry. All things being equal with unlimited space I might own it but you know I need to be *really* excited about it to buy a giant kallax filling super box these days.

I got the base game of this, and have played it exactly once. It is very neat and I'd like to play it again.

It looks super over the top kickstarter in bad ways but it's shocking how efficient and tight it feels.

I've been playing a bunch of new stuff but most of my thoughts on them will go into reviews. But I did play Everdell over the weekend. It's almost fine. Okay, the biggest draw is also it's biggest flaw, the big honking tree. It's sole function is for wow factor on the table. It is awful as a way to display cards. And the cards, OMG, so so much miniscule text. And the "We'll hide the number of copies of this card in the deck in the image" is fucking silly. And the whole If you have this location you can play the linked character for free by putting a tiny butthole (acorn?) token on it just serves as a spotlight on one of it's main weaknesses.(Free stuff if you get lucky).
Like I said, overall it's almost fine. I have no idea other than the whole cute forest creatures theme, why this has become a franchise. Maybe it's the cardio of constantly standing up to read cards/goals/etc. ?

Attended a mini con in upstate NY last week with about twenty people. Games played in no particular order:

MOON COLONY BLOODBATH (x4) this ended up being a sort of default filler for those waiting for other games to end to free up players to rearrange players for the next longer game to play. I'm still kind of lukewarm on it, but its fast and doesn't require much thought.

SECRET HITLER (x3) First time playing it. Thematically it makes zero sense (everyone knew who he and the Nazis were) but it's a decent deduction game and it's better than fucking Werewolf (a low bar).

THE GANG (x3) Another first time for me and a pretty thorough.... meh. Maybe it's because I'm not a huge poker player, it didn't click for me.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – Trick-Taking Game - now THIS is a trick taking co-op game I can get behind. You can bang out a scenario in about 15 minutes; each scenario the various characters ( some are mandatory for a given scenario, others are not) has a specific goal - win only 1 trick, win a trick with 2 Ring cards, etc. Clever and pretty thematic for what it is. Only downside is that I think you probably need at least 3 people.

BARRACKS EMPERORS (x2) I recently introduced this to some friends over the holidays, and it went over well, same thing here. We only had 3 players, so it took a few rounds for people to remember that anyone could play into the non-player side. This is a classic example of a pretty good game getting drowned out amidst the deluge of all the new shit being released. This is going into the bring to every con rotation. It teaches fairly quick, the only hurdle being some players have difficulty grasping the fact that they don't "control" cards they play, just the 1 side facing each emperor.

WAR OF THE RING CARD GAME(x3) Got in three six player games, playing Hobbits, Mordor, Dunedain. This game continues to impress. They just announced a new expansion; this game is also in the regular con rotation. While its very good at 4 I think at 6 it really shines.

COMBAT COMMANDER EUROPE(x2) Played the same scenario twice; a 1940 French/German scenario. My opponent set up too far forward the first time and my Germans blasted him away fairly quickly. Reset and he set up a more layered defense that took a while to crack but once the French cracked, it was downhill from there.

COMBAT COMMANDER PACIFIC - a 1944 American force defending against my Japanese. I was able to set up a decent Fire group and slowly whittle away the Americans. After one of his groups broke, I was able to exit (points increased due to SSR) and that pretty much sealed it. Felt weird for a Japanese force to win mostly by firepower - not a single Melee.

HANNBAL ROME VS CARTHAGE - Jeff had a copy of the Phalanx version. WHAT....THE....FUCK. If I had any doubts about buying a Phalanx product, this sealed the deal. I hadn't played in a while, so I was a bit rusty. His set had the Hamilcar variant shit mixed in, and it's not easy to separate them. For instance, the leader cards (the original had nice leader holding boxes, this version inexplicably thought cards would be a better idea ) are not clearly marked. Some had elephant icons, but this didn't necessarily mean they were for one version. So on like the third turn when Jeff said one counsul was some dude I'd never heard of before, it took us a few minutes to sort out the leader card deck he had to prune out the Hamilcar leaders - one of which had the elephant icon along with the other HvC original game leaders. A further annoyance was that while the original had ALL the tables and holding boxes on the map, this did not. Furthermore, it comes with like 5 different dice - a regular D6, a Siege die, an Attrition die. Jeff started rolling these "specialized" dice but after a few occurrences I just grabbed them and threw them in the fucking box and told him we just need ONE fucking die - a D6 like any normal gamer should be able to use and consult a chart.

Another thing - the Tribe markers have two sides - one has a blue shade ( that is different than the blue than the Carthage blue ) that is still Carthage aligned. The Nuetral tribes are a yellowish color but with a red dot - WHY have ANY red that might lead a player to think they are Roman aligned??? The map has the set up dots for Rome - red dot in the middle of a different shade of red background.

Minis you have to match the portrait to the mini (at least his were painted so you could tell the difference) and were as annoying as I thought they'd be since the minis don't have the name on them of course. Standees are a clearly better UX option.

Oh yeah, the game - I was up 11 to 7 as Carthage - then Double Enveloped a 7CU army and after that he conceded. Fuck Phalanx Games and their stupid production decisions.

STAR TREK ASCENDANCY - played a 3-player game; I was Klingons vs Romulans and Feds. Game started off slow; I got a decent production engine going but had some HORRIBLE Phenomena encounters. I lost more ships due to these than combat. End game was pretty tight; Jeffs Feds won a tie breaker based on controlling more planets than myself or the Romulans. Decent game: one downside is that the footprint is MASSIVE - for a three-player game we took up an entire 6-person round table.

PACIFIC TYPOON a 6-player game with a pretty close score among the top 4, with the winning score being only 32, which is low for PT.

WEIMAR FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY - I drew the SPD and got a nice VP engine going, keeping the German streets relatively peaceful. However, all four of us started to run low on-board presence while at the same time the DNVP came one seat shy of a parliamentary majority. So we spent one turn knocking back DNVP. However, by this point in the game the SDP (Nazis ) started popping up and at the end of turn 5, they took over and the table lost; had it gone the distance I had a big enough VP lead to win even if the government had collapsed. Thematically this game is a home run; the end game table losing is starting to become a little too common ( even if historical ) though. We were discussing post game about pruning a few of the mandatory Nazi cards maybe next time.

Hubris: Twilight of the Hellenistic World 220-165 BCE This is a new 3 player game on the post Alexander period of Greece. Only 3, no more no less - nice niche. Visually when you first unpack the game and skim the rules and components, it's very intimidating. Very dense type/busy map etc. Once you start playing it though, it's pretty accessible for the most part. The only part I want to go back and re-read is the Roman ( non player power ) activation rules. The game is clearly a labor of love and packed with history and detail. At the same time, once you get the hang of it, its not going to be a short game and players have to be VERY focused on using the limited number of activations they'll have. We played the 3 turn game, which means you'll only have 12-15 activations total. I doubt it will see a lot of repeat play, but I think the three of us will give it a go at WBC .

Awe. Some.

Agree that 3 should be the baseline for Fellowship Trick-taker (and for Two Towers trick-taker.) Two is just too much of a patch on the original concept.

Am also a huge fan of The Barracks Emperors. (Why have I never written a review of that?) I think 3 with multiple access is OK, but I still think it works best at 4. And, yes, in our plays, the concept of control and being able to see the whole board apart from the small section that you're intending to affect is a challenge for some people. Yes, you'd only like to capture that card, but you placing a card there opens up two more for someone else...

Also, totally agree about the footprint of Star Trek: Ascendancy. I love the game but because of the nature of the board, it does tend to sprawl. We haven't gotten to the Nazi result often enough in our plays of Weimar. Need to set up one more game of that with the usual crew before I take off. The theme of Hubris sounds cool, but your description of the gameplay (very long-term thinking because every one of your very limited actions has huge import) makes me step back a little.

It was social game night at the Tuesday group. We played two games of 6-player Medici. It's been a long time since I've played this one and I've never played with max people. The deck runs out quickly and you have to be kinda willing to spend to get what you want because there's a lot of hands in the pot and you can get closed out pretty easily if you're hanging around waiting for the right pair (or trio) or cards to come your way. My wife won the first one with a good 15 point margin, but lost the second by 4 points when my friend, John, added in a big bonus on the last item we scored. It's a great game, but probably comes in third of Knizia's auction games, well behind Modern Art and Ra and maybe just ahead of High Society.

Then we had a little time left before the Alehouse closed, so we decided to play some Lovecraft Letter. Similarly, at six people the deck disappears quickly. I was 1 round from winning one hand with the Necronomicon in hand, but got it knocked out of my hand by Professor Armitage and lost. In the end, another John was 1 insane win away from taking the game and Nick was 1 sane win away and Nick snagged it when the deck ran out again and he had Cthulhu in hand. Still my favorite version of Love Letter.

We just (and by just I mean this year) completed a campaign game of DR with the Sea Dogs expansion.

I wouldn't do a campaign again, but I do like the base game a lot - seems fairly tight for a John D Clair design.

Hotseatgames, you ever find a group in your new location?

WadeMonnig wrote: Hotseatgames, you ever find a group in your new location?

Wheels are in motion, but nothing concrete yet. There was a local group that disbanded but might start up again, and hopefully it does and I can get on board. I have seen the game list and it has some good stuff in it.

Friday evening I went to a meetup game group at a board game bar. Half the group was at a corner table playing what looked like an insufferable worker placement game. I sat down with 5 other people who were playing some game (the name escapes me) in which you arrange plastic shapes to try to get people to guess words, charades-style. It was okay but we played way too many rounds of it.

Then we played a co-op game called Ravine which is basically friendly Hellapagos. It was pretty decent but... not Hellapagos. We played on easy and won, easily.

After that was SKULL, which I had seen around and always wanted to try. It's basically a bluffing game, and I managed to win. I found it pretty easy to let everyone else essentially defeat themselves while I quietly ran away with it. It's also likely that bluffing games are easier when the other players don't know you.

The crowd thinned a bit and we ended the night with a 4 player game of Ticket to Ride Europe. I had only ever played the OG Ticket to Ride one time, at Gen Con many years ago. It's not my kind of thing, but I suppose it's...fine.

I thought I was doing pretty well in the game, but ended up getting second place. The Europe variant, as far as I can tell, is just a different map and the addition of little stations you can place to use someone else's route.

The people were nice and fun, and I'll definitely go back. Probably won't be a regular though, as the drive ended up being 40 minutes each way. :/

hotseatgames wrote:

WadeMonnig wrote: Hotseatgames, you ever find a group in your new location?

The crowd thinned a bit and we ended the night with a 4 player game of Ticket to Ride Europe. I had only ever played the OG Ticket to Ride one time, at Gen Con many years ago. It's not my kind of thing, but I suppose it's...fine.

I thought I was doing pretty well in the game, but ended up getting second place. The Europe variant, as far as I can tell, is just a different map and the addition of little stations you can place to use someone else's route/

I hope it works out! That sounds like most of the groups I've been to. I hate to say it but I prefer it when people bring the latest thing they want to play. If I wanted to play TTR, I'd play it at home.
Speaking of TTR, that is 95% of the TTR releases.... we added one new rule and the map looks different. I think they went that route (pun intended) after they bombed Rails and Sails.