What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

hotseatgames wrote: Sea Evil... A giant whale smashed into the side of our boat, we patched a leak, tried to bail some water, and a siren made two crew jump ship...

I really need to get this game to the table...

I've had it since last November (or whenever it came out), cut out the ships, and then...haven't gotten to it. It looks very neat and could possibly be the best of their magazine games.

drmabuse has been playing a lot of it, I think, at least according to social media.

charlest wrote: I've had it since last November (or whenever it came out), cut out the ships, and then...haven't gotten to it. It looks very neat and could possibly be the best of their magazine games.

Not only do I have to get Sea Evil to the table, but also FREAKFACE!!! (Sea Evil just intrigues me a little more.)

Gary Sax wrote: drmabuse has been playing a lot of it, I think, at least according to social media.

Doc Mabs and I share the exact same gaming DNA. Further encouragement to get SE to the table ASAP.

Frohike wrote: I got just as much mileage out of playing a rather mean game of Carcassonne, which ended up spawning a game group. Gateway <> milquetoast.

Exactly... even a less competitive, more chill game like Roll for the Galaxy has moments of drama (e.g. guessing/gambling which roles the other players will choose).

Pedantry: Wingspan is not a Kickstarter game... You guys keep speaking of it as if it were, maybe because it's a Stonemaier title (who hasn't done a Kickstarter since Scythe).

Now, having said that, I've not played the game nor do I have any expectation that I would like it. A couple of months ago my wife had an opportunity to play it and turned it down, but we'll see if we get past BGG.Con without a play.

Regarding Sea Evil...I need to get Psycho Raiders played before I mess with that. Unfortunately we didn't get to it on my "Halloween week" game night...

We finished Adventure Games: Monochrome, Inc. We did not like it as much as The Dungeon. It was again a pretty good cohesive theme, but it added unnecessary mechanical complexity to movement for no actual gain. We followed the rules as far as the effect went, but skipped the whole card movement portion as it was annoying. The puzzles also had a lot more nonsensical solutions and "gotcha" moments that did not seem as plausible as the ones in The Dungeon. A few mechanics in this one would weight it to favoring more players, while The Dungeon was fairly player count agnostic. Overall, I would still recommend the series and even though this entry was not as strong it was still way better than the last wave of Exit.

I watched the SUSD video about Bourre the other day, and taught it to my brother and his family last night. It's a trick taking game. Everyone antes and gets dealt 5 cards. The dealers fifth card is dealt face up and determines the trump suit. Starting with the player to the dealers left everyone decides if they're playing or folding. If you play you can discard up to all five of your cards and get new ones. Once new cards are distributed then the player to the dealers left leads the first trick. You have to follow suit if you can, and your have to play a winning card if you can. If you can't follow suit you have to trump if you can, and again you have to play a winning trump if you can. At the end of the hand if someone has won more trucks than anyone else they get the pot. If players tie for most tricks then that's a split pot. The pot stays, and the players that split don't have to ante next hand. If you play and you don't win a trick that's called getting booed, and you have to match the current pot into the pot for the next hand.

Man that game is real fun/ridiculous. Based on how our game went for literally no stakes I can see how it could get real heated if you were playing for actual large amounts of money. The pot escalates like crazy, and the bigger it gets the more players want to press their luck and try to stay in hands they shouldn't to try to win it all. This of course leads to more people getting booed and the pot going more through the roof. This game ended NBA players careers after they brought guns to the locker room over a game of it. It's pretty good stuff.

I was in Thailand for three weeks for several work things, but I did bring along a few favorites to pass evenings with friends on the trip.

Bohnanza: Got in one game of this, and it was fun to introduce it to a few friends. I was the only one familiar with it, so I won pretty handily.

Incan Gold: One of the underrated aspects of this game is what a wide variety of people you can have at the table. We had a nine-year-old, a few teens, and a couple adults as well. It was a lot of fun, especially when something ridiculous happens and everyone groans simultaneously.

Saboteur: Without the expansion I think Saboteur is fun but kind of janky. But our one five-player game was quite a bit of fun. In the last round I was a Saboteur, and played fairly obviously while the other saboteur played totally normal until they were able to insert the knife masterfully. Lots of fun.

The Mind: We played a TON of this one. I still have not come close to winning, but it was always enjoyable, and always very tense.

Also, after returning to Manila we got together with friends and played Agricola. I still have my old Z-Man copy from 2008, and playing again transported me back to that particular place. It was a time before kids when I was board gaming several times a week. Pretty fun. It helped that I won too.

I finished a solo play of the Northern Scenario (C3i #32) for Holland '44: Operation Market-Garden. This game is great. I have not played any other ones from Simonitch's "place & year" series, but I am eager to try out some more. Very quick playing, with a natural ebb and flow of combat. The game rules really make the tight bridge constraints a key part of the conflict as the Allies struggle to bring their stronger forces into play against the defensive Germans. The Allies were able to take one hex of Arhmen (a three hex city) before being pushed out. They almost managed to regain a foothold and push some southern units across on the last turn, but a Determined Defense held them up. The 82nd locked down Nijmegan two days earlier than they did historically, but the 1st struggled all game as they slowly contracted down and barely avoided being eliminated. I did make a mistake with the Allies early on and forgot to garrison Grave (a special rule in this scenario) and gifted the Germans two free VP. In the end, it was Axis: 9.5 - Allies 5. However, if it wasn't for Grave and if the Allies had managed that last ditch push into Arnhem it would have been 8-7.5.

Overall, it was a very good game that demonstrated a strong adherence to its history.

Up next will likely be Blitz! A World in Conflict, which I have almost finished clipping. The shorter scenarios all have super short playtimes, so I might play through a few of those.

barrowdown wrote: We finished Adventure Games: Monochrome, Inc. We did not like it as much as The Dungeon. It was again a pretty good cohesive theme, but it added unnecessary mechanical complexity to movement for no actual gain. We followed the rules as far as the effect went, but skipped the whole card movement portion as it was annoying. The puzzles also had a lot more nonsensical solutions and "gotcha" moments that did not seem as plausible as the ones in The Dungeon. A few mechanics in this one would weight it to favoring more players, while The Dungeon was fairly player count agnostic. Overall, I would still recommend the series and even though this entry was not as strong it was still way better than the last wave of Exit.

So my wife and I played this over the weekend, deciding to pick this one over the dungeon as I *knew* the Dungeon was really good, and she decided we'd save it. Since I don't have the background on the Dungeon, I'm glad to hear the mechanical complexity rules are less (or non-existent). We followed the rules for the first half or so before we just abandoned it because it was annoying and *mostly* irrelevant. I mean, if you generally have unlimited amount of time to solve the problems, why do I care if it takes me 1 or 2 turns to do something. And yes, I hit the issue with a lower player count being a detriment in one very specific case (there was a second case we didn't hit in the play through, but found by reading through the book). But we had a good time, nonetheless, and looking forward to trying out the Dungeon now.

Got Hellapagos to the table last night. There were 9 of us.

At the start.

We were all trying to amass enough food and water and wood for everyone to get off the island but then... a couple of snake bites and some poor food draws and the guns were pulled out. After the gunsmoke cleared three "survivors" (including me) were off the field. And then it turned nasty.

By the time the storm hit, only two managed to escape to tell their side of the story.

I'd ordered it based on the commentary here- it doesn't seem available in Oz for some reason (ordered it through Amazon) but, gosh, it's a good session starter. We played it after Secret Hitler and I think a few people preferred it. It has just enough randomness and push your luck aspects to mitigate the nastiness of the voting mechanism. And it's hilarious. Thanks for putting me on to it.

Played A Most Dangerous Time.

This is a Japanese wargame about the Sengoku period. And I think it's biggest success is how it captures that period. It's a very romantic game, with large swings of luck that seem impossible to overcome and are then forgotten a turn later. It captures the way warfare worked in the era very well, with sieges taking the stage and many interlocking factions and pieces creating a rich environment. It's a really neat scenario and I always enjoy it.

I think people who like evolving narratives or unique challenges will like the game. Those that like the god-general overlooking the hex battlefield may not.

I always wish the manual were better. I shouldn't have problems playing the game or knowing the timing after playing it so many times. It's a very simple game at its heart.

Either way, I just wish more Japanese games got released. There are so many unique desgins we don't even know about.

More Reavers of Midgard last night.

As suspected, there is a quite a bit to dig into with this game, certainly much more than Champions (an unfair but unfortunately unavoidable comparison point due to them being in the same universe, if you want to call it that). Where some folks might be turned off is that that depth is somewhat behind a screen of simply not know what comes from where in the game. The two other players, both new, game away not quite knowing what to think of it, but intrigued to play more. Meanwhile I had a much better play than my first and was able to put together some excellent combos in my engine now that I knew what I wanted to go for.

It’s also now clear to me that Reavers is hardly a worker placement game. Yes, you are picking an action and doing so locks everyone else out from picking it again that round, but that hardly matters when everyone gets the chance to follow. This isn’t a complaint, merely something that folks should temper their expectations to going in. I think I drew a comparison to Roll for the Galaxy on my previous post and I stand by that, this is like a much bigger, more intricate expansion on concepts explored in that game.

The gameplay loop in Champions is undeniably more satisfying, and I’m sure there are people who will not play this because they prefer Champions, but in reality, this is an entirely different game. As much as it feels like a game about Vikings, I wish it didn’t have Champions looming over it, as I will quickly tire of telling people they’re being ridiculous for making the comparison. I will say that while Champions was a Euro game through the lens of a thematic one, this is a Euro and that’s that. A thematic one for sure, but it’s a VP salad for sure. That being said, it doesn’t irritate me like those games tend to. It feels like it’s about something, the engine building is smart and fun, and it has just about zero downtime.

The siege thing in early period wargames is like a measuring stick for me. If it's 1500-1800 and sieges aren't impossibly long and difficult, I ain't interested. Clash of Monarchs has by far my favorite "WHEN IS THIS THING FUCKING OVER" sieges.