What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Flip City - Ugh, file this under Machi Koro in the NOPE section.

In this world of uncertainty it is comforting to know that no matter what, Space Hulk with my son will always be amazing.

Imperial Assault Heroes of the Alliance (the computer assisted version) came out with the Return to Hoth campaign recently. So the family broke it out and started it with the RtH heroes (plus Shyla since RtH only has three). Two games in, gotta say I love the coop way to play.

We will finish this week with the whole country on lockdown for the Lunar new year. Not like there is much of a point going out.

Hot damn, Civilization: A New Dawn. What a great design. A shame that it’s one of those FFG titles that they don’t really seem to have much interest in.

I grabbed a $20 Amazon Warehouse Copy (“used- very good” but it was completely new just out of shrink) and tried it with a couple of buddies last night. I was really skeptical of it as it started, but the core action selection mechanic and how it interfaces with terrain and difficulty levels is quite brilliant. The concept is that you have five actions, you can select any of them and send it down to the 1 slot. Or, you can let them mature up to 5 and have a stronger or more flexible effect. The tech aspect is in upgrading the core five action cards.

It looks complicated, but once it’s going it is very smooth. I played as the Aztecs and tried to be as aggressive as possible, mainly in terms of stabbing Barbarians B and C repeatedly and taking over Geneva. My friend playing Egypt won, he horned in on how to leverage the caravans to get trade goods and flip them for Wonders and we had two Wonder victory conditions out.

Really impressed with it- I think it’s a cleaner design than Clash of Cultures. It’s not as detailed as that game, but hell, neither was Tresham’s Civilization. Bear in mind this is realy kind of a mid-weight Eurogame, not a baroque simulation.

I’m trying to get a game of it going tonight.

Went to a hipster pub/pizza place today. They had a boardgame shelf so we played two Knizias; Age of War and Lord of the Rings.

Age of War is ok, its a dice game that does what every Yahtzee game does. You roll dice to fill out symbols on fortress cards, whoever captures most wins. It was ok, I mostly picked it because i figured it would be simple.

I'd never played Lord of the Rings before, I was surprised how good it was. I do think it shows its age a bit as in the game is a little bitty with some locations having a board others just telling you to discard some cards etc. We lost in Mordor.

I'd never played boardgames with my friend before and it was a good time all round.

Beer was pretty good, I had a peach sour


Im sort of interested in New Dawn after some of the coverage it has had here. I await a review.

Had a game of War of the Ring.

Boromir split off early to Bree and mustered the North to war. Sauruman awoke early and mustered up an incredible force, but Legolas, and Gimli responded and gathered Rohan’s defenders with Eomir. Meanwhile, Gandalf the White held a meeting in Fangorn with the ents. Sauron wisely decided to avoid a major confrontation, and the fields of Eisen became a stalemate.

Things went poorly for Sauron as he tried to take over the Dwarves and Men in the North who put up a heroic defence. Boromir proved useful, capturing the Angmar region. The Free People were on the verge of a military victory.

Alas, a few well placed event cards saw the Fellowship come to an end; Frodo was stabbed by a Morgul Blade. Merry and Pippin fled in fear shortly after. Gollum proved to be a villain, and Shelob’s lair proved too difficult. Sauron May have fallen, but a new, shorter Dark Lord will bring ruin to Middle Earth.

ChristopherMD wrote:

Tron wrote:

charlest wrote: I've now played three games of Rising Sun. I'd be very surprised if anything else comes close to toppling it as my game of the year.
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Its good that you float that out there in February.

We like to have a new Game Of The Year every month around here.

Wait--did Rising Sun get game of the year then?

I got a 3 player game of TI4 in yesterday. I can’t really put my finger on why, but I’ve found the 3 player game to be my second favorite player count for 4th edition, behind 4 but ahead of 6. That wasn’t the case with TI3, and like I said, I can’t really pinpoint what change was made that makes the 3 player game work so well.

It was a neck and neck game the entire way through. Very intense right to the last minute. My friend Rob won, his first ever TI win. I’ll always be an advocate for why this game needs to be as long as it is, but this is another reason. Because it’s so hard to schedule, this is a game that you could spend literal years losing. That first win feels like an event.

Taught a friend of mine the basics of ASL. For the scenario, I chose The Guards Counterattack which is a scenario from basic Squad Leader updated for ASL.

Nothing fancy. Just infantry and some machine guns in a slug fest in the streets of Stalingrad.

He won on the last turn by breaking the last squad he needed to achieve a 3:1 ratio of good order squads on the board. Was a fun scenario and a good one to teach/learn with.

CranBerries wrote:

ChristopherMD wrote:

Tron wrote:

charlest wrote: I've now played three games of Rising Sun. I'd be very surprised if anything else comes close to toppling it as my game of the year.
.

Its good that you float that out there in February.

We like to have a new Game Of The Year every month around here.

Wait--did Rising Sun get game of the year then?

It ended up my game of the year, yes. Not everyone throws that language around like Michael willy nilly.


I don't think anyone is still playing this around here, but I played the first two scenarios of the new Mansions of Madness expansion this weekend (Horrific Journeys). The scenarios themselves are perhaps among the most interesting, both a little investigative heavy over combat. I think the designers have latched onto what makes this game sing at this point, although it's taken quite awhile due to a revolving door of designers handling each expansion.

I particularly enjoyed 3:10 to Arkham, a nifty scenario where you're working your way through a train investigating a murder, replete with excellent moments of disconnecting train cars to leave monstrous entities in the wind.

Nothing was sounding appealing last night, so I dug deep and pulled out King Of New York and Say anything. Neither were "hits" the last time we played them. The 3 player King Of New York ended after three games with everyone coming in with one win. Add "complexity" without adding any extra "enjoyment" to KOT. Still a fun game and a welcome shift of gears from KOT in tactics.Needs four or more players to kick it up a notch.
Say Anything not in my top party games but laughed our ass off last night. Lots of "Butt stuff" answers

Still doing the Imperial Assault Return to Hoth app. Finished four out of the five missions. They are clearly trying to do some innovative stuff so far in the app, some of it works, some of it doesn't. Lots of map switching in two of the missions.

Two examples. Exploring the ice caves to get to the base, you get a "different" map and effect depending on the path. One map was filled with random snow tokens that needed skill check successes to dig through (for me that didn't work, we randomly had all the reds 3 and yellows 2 in our path but could easily have been randomly blue 0 and green 1). The second one was infiltrating three bases, there was an overland map with roving imperial patrols. You move two then some of the patrols move one. If you are next to one go to a small skirmish map (one where I took an elite E-web to the face). The kids are getting better and better at making decisions on their own and not clamoring to get the first activation each turn.

Best of all, the campaign was free and came out during a school and local holiday.

mtagge wrote: Still doing the Imperial Assault Return to Hoth app. Finished four out of the five missions. They are clearly trying to do some innovative stuff so far in the app, some of it works, some of it doesn't. Lots of map switching in two of the missions.

Two examples. Exploring the ice caves to get to the base, you get a "different" map and effect depending on the path. One map was filled with random snow tokens that needed skill check successes to dig through (for me that didn't work, we randomly had all the reds 3 and yellows 2 in our path but could easily have been randomly blue 0 and green 1). The second one was infiltrating three bases, there was an overland map with roving imperial patrols. You move two then some of the patrols move one. If you are next to one go to a small skirmish map (one where I took an elite E-web to the face). The kids are getting better and better at making decisions on their own and not clamoring to get the first activation each turn.

Best of all, the campaign was free and came out during a school and local holiday.

Glad to know those minis are getting a workout!

El Grande.

Great game.