What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Oh, nope. I think you're talking about the City of Steel expansion. I didn't buy any expansions, just got the stretch goals. I'll be picking that up retail I think.

We played Time of Crisis last night because we were down a person in my RPG group. Everyone loved it. Once I got through the rules introduction it played fairly fast and felt pretty brisk. We played the shortened game as it was everyone's first time playing, but all players commented they would like to play a full game of it again very soon. I ended up taking second, choosing to try and build up support in the southeast corner of the map. The player who ended up winning stomped around Gallia (after I forced back his armies in Africa) harassing the player who started in Brittania. I think it will be a lot closer next time as everyone gets a feel for how it worked (the third and fourth place players both had a weak couple of initial turns that would definitely be remedied in a future play. I highly recommend it.

charlest wrote: Oh, nope. I think you're talking about the City of Steel expansion. I didn't buy any expansions, just got the stretch goals. I'll be picking that up retail I think.

Actually you have it (it's in the Warlords Box), it's on the Atlantis side-board when you're playing with 5 players. But you clearly weren't playing with 5 players...

Disappointed with your report on Poseidon, just means I need to try one of the other monuments first...Hades looks like fun.

Ah, didn't realize Atlantis had that. Too much stuff! Yes, we had four.

Ah.... I was under the impression that the fourth monument should only be in play when there are 5+ players. I do see that you can swap out certain base game monuments with the others if you want.

charlest wrote: Oh, nope. I think you're talking about the City of Steel expansion. I didn't buy any expansions, just got the stretch goals. I'll be picking that up retail I think.

But, speaking of that whole "picking that up retail" thing: Has there been any word on when any of the expansion stuff will be available in the States? Last time I checked, there seemed to be no progress on that front.

Meanwhile, I've been recruiting more victi- uh, players for Cthulhu Wars. Got a 4-player game in last night with two 1-time players and a rookie. I offered up all the factions except Tcho-Tcho and Ancients, since those two would be weird for people relatively new to the game, and everyone stuck with the base four and I stuck with Great Cthulhu because he's the original faction I've played least and I figured it would be appropriate.

Yellow Sign and Black Goat got stuck in right away in a land war in Asia, fighting constantly for Chaos' starting spot (and gate) until the Yellow King finally shifted attention into the Atlantic and beyond. Chaos had moved to the north pole to get away from those savage beasts and made inroads into North America. Unperturbed Cthulhu, meanwhile, got his automatic spellbook, the 3 gates in water spellbook, awaken Cthulhu spellbook, and the two combat spellbooks over the course of a couple turns. That led right to the basically automatic last spellbook and suddenly I was ritualing over two Doom phases to win the game. I even did a slow start with a High Priest and constant Deep Ones to protect my Acolytes. No one else had more than three books and the new guy, not quite realizing the win conditions despite my urging him on a few times, only had one. Usually people make the starting mistake of spreading out as far as possible to get Goat's first couple spellbooks and then not having enough power to catch up with everyone else. This guy was hellbent on fighting over that one gate in Asia and spent a lot of early power on Fungi to duel with the local Byakhee. I'm hoping that my two (now) 2-time players will stay interested enough to keep improving, but lately I've just been slaughtering everyone.

Then we played Dinosaur Island, where I was the first-timer. It seemed interesting. It feels like there are a few more wheels in it than are necessary, as if they wanted to provide multiple options to victory outside of building dinos and ended up kind of making more clutter than needed. But it was only my first time and we played the short game, since we were low on time before the FLGS closed up, so I doubtlessly missed a few things. I'd try again.

Traded Blue Moon Legends for the Super Meeple version of Mexica, which I tried out with my dad today. We only played the first half, because he kind of hated it. Having to cont up the spaces on the board really bothered him for some reason. Plus it definitely seems like a game where you want at least 3p. It seems neat though! Really nasty game of tactical maneuvering, with lots of space for creative plays since things are pretty wide open. Plus this version is so pretty. The resin temples! The board looks fantastic once it gets built up.

Side note, I really like BML, but the couple people I know that like that kind of thing either violently disliked it, or one guy owns it himself. So yknow. I did feel kinda bad letting it go, but it was literally never seeing the table again.

barrowdown wrote: We played Time of Crisis last night because we were down a person in my RPG group. Everyone loved it. Once I got through the rules introduction it played fairly fast and felt pretty brisk. We played the shortened game as it was everyone's first time playing, but all players commented they would like to play a full game of it again very soon. I ended up taking second, choosing to try and build up support in the southeast corner of the map. The player who ended up winning stomped around Gallia (after I forced back his armies in Africa) harassing the player who started in Brittania. I think it will be a lot closer next time as everyone gets a feel for how it worked (the third and fourth place players both had a weak couple of initial turns that would definitely be remedied in a future play. I highly recommend it.

Reminds me that I watched a playthrough of the expansion for this and it seemed pretty cool.

Suffered my most ignominious defeat yet in the Arkham Horror card game. My crew was taking on The Boundary Beyond for the first time this evening. It has the infamous reputation of being one of the most punishing scenarios in the most punishing campaign yet published, and we were coming in with trauma already.

I was actually feeling pretty good early on. We were near clearing the second of six locations when a Serpent of Tenochtitlán jumped my poor old Miskatonic professor. Still, I was able to pump my combat and evade for the turn to buy time while the private detective and dilettante pulled out their guns. By the time they ambled over, I'd whittled the serpent down to three health. My 'friends' promptly miss two of three shots, laying five damage on me and thusly knocking me out of the game before the fifth round.

Fortunately, or not, I didn't have to watch them stumble around too long without me. The detective went down the next round when the serpent jumped him, and the dilettante went down two turns later to an even bigger snake.

I got to take out my frustrations on them with a hiding in Keyforge.

Gary Sax wrote:

barrowdown wrote: We played Time of Crisis last night because we were down a person in my RPG group. Everyone loved it. Once I got through the rules introduction it played fairly fast and felt pretty brisk. We played the shortened game as it was everyone's first time playing, but all players commented they would like to play a full game of it again very soon. I ended up taking second, choosing to try and build up support in the southeast corner of the map. The player who ended up winning stomped around Gallia (after I forced back his armies in Africa) harassing the player who started in Brittania. I think it will be a lot closer next time as everyone gets a feel for how it worked (the third and fourth place players both had a weak couple of initial turns that would definitely be remedied in a future play. I highly recommend it.

Reminds me that I watched a playthrough of the expansion for this and it seemed pretty cool.

The expansion looks like a great addition as it looks like it only improves the game without drastically changing it. It only adds bot players, alternate influcence cards, and the two new emperor options. I'll be able to resist it for the moment as no where in town stocks stuff from wargame companies, but it looks like an easy pickup that would be thrown in all future games.

Exhausting a base game first is pretty much always the best idea, barrowdown.

Gary Sax wrote: Exhausting a base game first is pretty much always the best idea, barrowdown.

Yes, that's normally true. In this case, I think the addition of the bots for less than 4 players is probably a useful add, plus the Military and Populace emperor options are very minor changes that add a lot of flexibility of options. The additional influence cards would be a bit more of a change to the flow of the game.

Ah_Pook wrote: Traded Blue Moon Legends for the Super Meeple version of Mexica, which I tried out with my dad today. We only played the first half, because he kind of hated it. Having to cont up the spaces on the board really bothered him for some reason. Plus it definitely seems like a game where you want at least 3p. It seems neat though! Really nasty game of tactical maneuvering, with lots of space for creative plays since things are pretty wide open. Plus this version is so pretty. The resin temples! The board looks fantastic once it gets built up.

Side note, I really like BML, but the couple people I know that like that kind of thing either violently disliked it, or one guy owns it himself. So yknow. I did feel kinda bad letting it go, but it was literally never seeing the table again.

Really love this game. 2 player is kind of zero sum but the meanness... terrific stuff. Funny about your dad and the counting up.

Last night had one of those just awesome gaming experiences, with my kids, that just illustrate where the heart of gaming is.

I got this little simple game Montgolfiere for a few bucks. I think it's by the guy who did Condottiere, it's early 90s and it's a dead simple Rock Paper Scissors game. Everyone plays a card and you've got to try and make your balloon ascend to the moon. My son who is 6 really likes it, like I knew he would, and I've been playing it with him, and it's dead simple, and not much to it, but it's cute and has this nice artwork and sensibility you don't see anymore.

Anyway, there's this rule in there about how if you are on the same level as another balloon you can collude with them. Now, this game is so simple, and your options are kind of limited really, and the strategy is pretty basic if you know your opponent and he is 6, that I have to admit, I didn't see the possibilities here. But they came out in full force when we added my daughters to the mix.

Within 1 turn of playing they immediately started working together to defeat me and try and get to the top together. Little brother was on his own now, as they ascended together, so we teamed up, he came over and looked at my cards, we discuss, next minute he is on the same level as his sisters and the little snake tells them what I have! And it's a 1 vs many game, all out in the open, objective, squash Dad.

Well, the three of them are 1 step away from the moon and we've almost burned through all our cards. They're all whispering, but I know that the boy has only low powered cards to drop, if any, but that he has grappling hooks, and I figure their plan is going to be for all three of them to take the last step together to the moon. They'll grapple one with a high card, or maybe both of the girls have the same high card, so they can both go up. They are grinning like mad. They've worked together to defeat Dad AND managed to ALL win.

Except,.... I have a wind card. A single wind card played reverses the direction of travel. We put our cards out and flip them, and the moment of realisation dawning in their faces is priceless. They've all gone down a level, using up their last high cards. And I've still got 2 of those left.....

Boring, simplistic, dated, so good.