What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Played the Korean War, by Victory Games. This rocks, probably my favourite hex and counter to date. Quite a bit of over head and the rules whilst not OCS are not simple but it is a very good game. Both sides get to attack, there is a great wider narrative, counter density is low, and there is a lot of room for manoeuvre. We played the first 4 turns. I managed to hold onto Inchon and making early landings there preventing NATO from being driven into the sea.

Tash Kalar - i hated my first game of this. I played one card in a 30min team game and did sod all. It requires good pattern recognition skills, a fair amount of luck and forward planning. I did a little better in the second game and managed to get a few cards played, we actually won, which i was rather surprised by. The game snowballs quite a bit without the flare cards (read catchup cards) and also has quite slow scoring. IN the first game we had lost after the 3rd turn but didn't actually lose for another 20mins. THe second game was tighter but the slow scoring creates this. Imo for an abstract to succeed it generally needs to be a low chaos game with simple rules that lead to complicated solutions. I don't think Tash really delivers on this.

Played Railroad Tycoon with a group of friends. It kind of tanked. It's interesting the kind of issues that gamer types will overlook but just are a lead balloon for more casual gamers. I don't blame them but it was a bummer. Specifically, Railroad Tycoon has two big component/rules problems. They are real, but I get over it without much trouble. These people couldn't:

1) The rules for crossing a river (which is more expensive) are unintuitive and don't fit with reality that people have in their heads. I explained precisely what the rules are but people just couldn't get over it.
2) Much bigger issue, and I sympathize, is the horrible board. Specifically, blue, purple and black all look very similar in good light. ESPECIALLY purple and blue. Blue is a shade of dark purple. It bit a couple people in the ass early and it (rightfully so) irked the shit out of them.

I still love Railroad Tycoon. It has a wonderful game arc that is satisfying as hell, and ends at just the right time, right when you're near the end of your routes humming along, with cubes getting scarce. It's all about peaking at exactly the right time.

I really feel like they almost did it on purpose, Gary, to make the red cubes pop more so people would pay more attention to trying to get the meat distribution between chicago and the West more compelling. I always notice the red cubes right away and feel drawn to link up Chicago with the West. I wonder if it's on purpose.

I like the player cards too with the reveal of which rail baron you are to take advantage of your special powers.

I traded for Age of Steam but have never played it. My wife and i like Railroad Tycoon but the board is just way too big

Played a solo round of Gears of War - China Shop with Marcus.

Most of the mission went well, Marcus was able to shake off Locusts left and right, and managed to seal two emergence holes. Ammo wasn't an issue as several rooms were filled with ammo (most likely from the poor souls who suffered a horrible fate at the hands of the big bad berserker).

It wasn't until the last room that Marcus got into trouble. He was able to handle the two ambushing drones, but not without suffering two wounds. With the Berserker closely following, Marcus picked up the Hammer of Dawn and was able to injure the Berserker the following turn. He tried to run off to some kind of cover, but the Berserker wouldn't have it. In a last ditch effort, Marcus went into a defensive position in hopes of shaking off the attack, but the Berserker hit hard and left Marcus bleeding out.

I had a great time playing through as one COG, it forces you to make some agonizing decisions on whether to stay put or keep moving. The Berserker helped me a few times by killing her own, but damn she hits hard...

Gary Sax wrote:

2) Much bigger issue, and I sympathize, is the horrible board. Specifically, blue, purple and black all look very similar in good light. ESPECIALLY purple and blue. Blue is a shade of dark purple. It bit a couple people in the ass early and it (rightfully so) irked the shit out of them.

Off the top of my head, I think they fixed that on all the Railways of the World boards.

I've had to teach Railroad Tycoon a few times, and I try to point out that the colors are screwed up on the map. It doesn't help, though.

Black Barney wrote:

I traded for Age of Steam but have never played it. My wife and i like Railroad Tycoon but the board is just way too big

Age of Steam is good, but I'd try to trade it for a copy of Steam. Steam is a little better IMO.

RobertB wrote: Gary Sax wrote:

2) Much bigger issue, and I sympathize, is the horrible board. Specifically, blue, purple and black all look very similar in good light. ESPECIALLY purple and blue. Blue is a shade of dark purple. It bit a couple people in the ass early and it (rightfully so) irked the shit out of them.

Off the top of my head, I think they fixed that on all the Railways of the World boards.

I've had to teach Railroad Tycoon a few times, and I try to point out that the colors are screwed up on the map. It doesn't help, though.

After your post Gary I stayed up way too late last night looking through all the Railways of the World stuff. I owned Railroad Tycoon years back and liked it, but traded it. I missed a lot of releases for Railways of the World and thanks to your post just about that entire run has gone up on my Want in Trade list...Time to start game hunting!

That game I liked a lot and I actually don't have any train games.

Age of Steam-a bunch of boring shit=Railways of the World/Railroad Tycoon, therefore RotW>Age of Steam.

RotW is the best train game ever. I need to get more of those expansions myself.

Pug wrote: Played a solo round of Gears of War - China Shop with Marcus

Cool, we played this mission several times this week as well. I don't remember it being so hard but we keep getting our asses chewed in that last room with the Hammer. Being low/out of ammo doesn't help and while we killed wretches down to two they quickly spawned themselves up to six and overran my partner. No nades left, it was textbook clusterfuck.

I'm thinking a good strategy is to save two nades for the emergence holes in the last room. We had a good rhythm going up til there at least, heh. Not getting slammed by that bitch in the doorway might also help

They did fix the color problem in the Railways of the World version. But it is a travesty of a problem. I want to get the western US expansion badly.

And man does that big map look cool with 5 players with their rail networks.