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

I have Maximum Apocalypse (no idea what edition, I thought there was just the one) and it's a great bit on fun. We usually play 2-player with two characters each with me always taking the 'Vet and his Dog' (my game my first choice), usually paired with the Gunslinger, and work through one of the sets - I have the core with the Kaiju Rising and Gothic Horror expansions so a good selection.
And for a simple game it does seem reasonably balanced, with the Difficulty rating of each apocalypse also reasonably accurate, and you can make some pretty horrible maps with the tiles if you really want a challenge - it's one of those games where I didn't know what I was getting and now it won't be traded away, it's just always fun when we play it.

Is it more managementish, or more pressyourluckish? I always get concerned when I see Hand Management listed as a feature, because they end up being games played by committee.

Sagrilarus wrote: Is it more managementish, or more pressyourluckish? I always get concerned when I see Hand Management listed as a feature, because they end up being games played by committee.

Well you have a 30 card deck that you must draw from each turn, and that you can also choose to draw from, and one of the ways (you also have HPs and a Hunger track) your character is defeated is from running out of cards.
But the deck has different types of cards including weapons so it really is a bit of both - hand management not using all your weapons (especially if some of them aren't drawn due to being in the bottom few cards of your deck), plus push your luck by using what you do have in your hand and hoping that when you draw cards following you have the right ones for the next few turns. We also play hard mode in that we lose as soon as the first character is defeated (rather than all).

I'll say again that it is a well designed game - the hidden map tiles have assists or dangers on them, the enemies come out randomly and range from easy-ish to nasty, the weapons/abilities/enemies have a simple but clever range mechanic that means you need to be close to each other (especially playing our Hard mode) to support anyone who gets into trouble.
And for those allergic to dice they are only used in this game for which tile to spawn monsters at and for your Hunger counter

15-20 years ago this game would have been rated on this site with Nexus Ops and similar as a well designed Ameritrash game.

Sagrilarus wrote: Is it more managementish, or more pressyourluckish? I always get concerned when I see Hand Management listed as a feature, because they end up being games played by committee.

It's a bit of both, but more attention needs to be paid to the character deck. There are no reshuffles for your character deck, although some cards allow you pull stuff out of your discard pile. This is important, because if your character deck is empty...you die. Since you are drawing a character card every time it's your turn, it makes you focus on objectives keenly. Besides that, you have to keep from starving and kiting beasties that follow you around until killed, and they damage you every turn.

Teamwork helps, and certain scenarios tell you DON'T SPLIT UP. Then, there's the kaiju expansion that basically says, "yeah, about sticking together.... RUN!"

So, it's not game played by committee, but it may appear as such.

Another Game Day concluded with my friends yesterday. Since it was Retro Game Day (we play games that we've played in the past), we pulled out one that had not seen the light of day in over a decade-Battlestar Galactica. We played the core game with the Cylon Fleet option only. My wife was Gaeta, I was Lee Adama, Kelly played Cally, and Nate played Roslin.

What can I say, that has not been said before about this game? It's brutal, it's tense, and nobody gets what they want...And it's beautiful. We started off strong, with me ending up being in a viper the entire game, acting as a glorified traffic cop; telling civvies to get off the board, only for them to come back on due to the Cylon pursuit track. Kelly fixed a few Mark VIIs, but not all of them. Nate upped morale...Once by using a Quorum card. Then, a particular crisis card came up with Politics being negative. When the check came to be resolved, a BIG OL politics came up. My eyes immediately shot to Nate, who did his song and dance. HEY it could be the DESTINY DECK!

Kelly, as it being her first time playing, wanted to ask what would happen if she used her Execution ability on Roslin. I explained it to her and she understood. Then promptly did nothing. All the while we were making running jokes about her ability, "Cally, keep your hand off the gun. Cally, why are you pointing a gun in my face?, etc." It came to a crescendo when Kelly went on a hilarious rant about having the ability, and really wanting to use it, BUT NO ONE WAS ON THE GALACTICA TO USE IT ON. My wife was laughing so hard, it made her face hurt. I couldn't be targeted, because Vipering, Jo's character was in the Brig due to a Crisis card (and stayed there for the majority of the game, with me becoming the Cagmiral), and Nate was in Colonial One most of the time.

Sleeper phase comes up and Jo gets the Sympathizer card. Since we were not in the red, she was a Not A Kool Kid Cylon, NO SUPA CRISIS FOR YOU! She mainly stayed at the Caprica location, trying to get the Fleet as many jump crises as possible. By this point, nearly all the raiders and basestars were on the board, and we were barely holding them back. Civilian ships started dropping like flies due to lack of Viper coverage. The dials started going into the red and we we running out of fuel, but at Distance 7. We could make it!

Then, Nate revealed he was a Cylon (Leoben version) and then made our lives a living Hell. Cally was trying her best, being the ONLY one on the Galactica, and I was trying to stem the Cylon tide outside. At the end game, I was in the Portside rear sector in a Mark VII, with a basestar, three civvies, and NINE raiders. I said, fuck it, no one's getting out alive... and fired a nuke into my sector. Yes, I was hoping for a complete wipe... But all I ended up doing was fucking up the basestar. Hey, at least the thing couldn't shoot nukes and was easier to hit.

Roslin's turn comes up, and while Passacaglia is playing, drops her Super Crisis Card... Fleet Mobilization. Neither Kelly or I had the cards to beat a 24. So, then the Activation carnage begins. the other basestar damages the hangar bay. 2 raiders double team an unmanned Mark II and kill the civvie, loss of Pop. Then, five raiders did the dance with me, eventually the fifth blew the viper out from under me. The remaining 4 ate the last three civilian vessels Reducing our pop to zero. Nate did a gregarious bow and my wife did the cabbage patch to Human genocide.

It was an amazing 6 hour ride.

Went to a game night at the local library tonight. The theme was card games. First I was in a 4 player game of Exploding Kittens. I don't enjoy this game and don't know why it's popular.

Next was 2 rounds of Taco Cat, at least I think that's what it's called. Not much going on with this one but it's better than Exploding Kittens.

Next was LOOT, which I had heard of but not played. You try to use your pirate ship cards to take over as many merchant vessel cards as you can. I thought I was doing horribly but came in 3rd out of 5. Not a bad game.

We ended with one I brought, The Gang. We failed as expected but on the last round we very nearly got a vault secured. It was well liked and I'm pretty sure I sold at least one copy of it tonight.

The people were fun and I'll go to the next one, with the theme of cooperative games. I thought about bringing STF but I think that might be a bit heavy for this crowd.