What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

Had three excellent games today. The first two were the immortal game champion that is Wiz-War. It was me and three newbs which, on the face of it, seems like quite an advantage... No mediation required on that statement: It is quite the advantage. I urged all three of them to play viciously and they kinda did, but I still used Featherweight to sneak away for a two treasure victory. Strangely, I had seven attack cards filling my hand. Both the Minotaur and the Totem Spirit showed up, but didn't get a ton of action, since people were mostly using movement cards to keep running.

So, second game, which was much more combat-intensive (they usually are.) Grendel showed up under the control of the same player who had the Minotaur last game. Powerthrusts and Brain Burns echoed up and down the halls, along with the shrieks of the wounded. Everyone had one treasure sitting in their home base and no less than six walls were destroyed by Wallivoring or Grendel or other feats of sorcery. One wizard had been reduced to 4 even after eating a wall and I sprinted forward to toss my Boomstone at her, leaving her at one. The two other players moved as far as they could with second treasures; at one point competing over the same one while bashing each other. But then my original target stayed in her home sector with a totem she'd cast and I dropped a Primal Scream for 1 damage... I remain Dr. Orpheus, master of magic



Then we played Tiny Epic Mechs. They were all newbs to this, as well, but the game went really smoothly. We didn't get a lot of combat until round three, but then there was at least one fight per round, if not several, because movement was constrained by the insane amount of mines on high value sectors in the center. I'd been one-shotted by a mine when trying to start a fight and it happened to someone else, as well. We did get all but one of the advanced weapons purchased and one player stayed in the Mighty Mech for 5(!) rounds, avoiding fights as much as possible to keep racking up those points. In the end, he beat me by four points, the same four points one of the other players took off me as her last move by eliminating one of my turrets.

Perhaps the best thing was that two of the three of them were going on and on about "How cool!!" Wiz-War is. New converts...

It’s funny to see Mr. Hyde and Nemo touted as heroes in a post League world. These two were villains.

I've been sitting or all the expansion stuff in Space Empires 4X and man it's a lot. First blush I don't think I'll ever use the entire optional ground combat system they added, or the research/industrial centers that complicate the economy, or the player designed ships. They all seem to add a lot of overhead. I'm sure they'd be fun but realistically I doubt they'll hit the table. Everything else is go though.

I attached a pic of one faction's complete stuff, sorted out. One of 5, one of which is completely different than the other ones and was added in the second expansion.

I find the game without expansions intimidating, much less those modules... it'd still be nice to have them in case you did have an opponent or two who loved the game.

n815e wrote: It’s funny to see Mr. Hyde and Nemo touted as heroes in a post League world. These two were villains.

I haven't looked at all the villain cards, but it seems like some of the heroes can in fact also be the villain and/or a henchman. It is sort of strange, but on the other hand I can easily make up a story in my head which would make it make sense.

n815e wrote: I have been soloing Commands and Colors Tricorne and find it to be very fun. It’s the first game I’ve played in the series. It is essentially a miniatures wargame on a hex grid, which is great because I don’t have the time like I used to to commit to painting and terrain building.

Are you using the solo rules from Stuka Joe? I found that those provide a decent experience. I have all the Napoleonic C&C, so I wasn't in a rush to get Tricorne. If you want to get a game in on Vassal, drop me a line.

the_jake_1973 wrote:

n815e wrote: I have been soloing Commands and Colors Tricorne and find it to be very fun. It’s the first game I’ve played in the series. It is essentially a miniatures wargame on a hex grid, which is great because I don’t have the time like I used to to commit to painting and terrain building.

Are you using the solo rules from Stuka Joe? I found that those provide a decent experience. I have all the Napoleonic C&C, so I wasn't in a rush to get Tricorne. If you want to get a game in on Vassal, drop me a line.

Hey, thanks! I’ve never checked out vassal but this is a tempting offer.

I was playing two sided, no solo rules. It helps to learn the game system that way.
I think that it lends itself well to solo play since the cards control the options.

hotseatgames wrote: Based on advice from here, which I hopefully didn't misinterpret, I cherry picked some advanced rules. We didn't do double spice blow, and didn't make people pay spice for combat. I think everything else was in play.

Some would claim that this hurts Fremen in the latest edition, but I'm not sure I agree. IMO you did it right, that rules selection is a good start

I could see how this could hurt them since they benefit from both of those rules, do they not?

Tried out the new epic and huge ship rules for X-wing 2.0. We played a 300 point game where we each had a huge ship. I tried out a wing of interceptors using the new 'wing rules' where you fly groups of ships using one dial and it is awesome. it makes epic games move much faster.

Huge ships are also streamlined. Energy management has been altered (shield regen is automatic, energy is spent on bonus attacks and whatnot, but you no longer have to distribute it.) Huge ships work more like standard ships - movement is much better, ramming makes more sense, and huge ships now suffer stress and can take focus actions.

We made a few mistakes in regard to stress - huge ships can avoid stress by using energy. But overall it was a good time, with the auto shield regen (not an action) make them less fragile. Overall it was a good time, next we plan to do the full 500 point game.

How long did it take?

Played games with the monthly hipster group on Friday night. Host's wife was out of town, so none of her roller derby friends showed up. So we had just six players and stuck to lightweight games that some guy brought.

The party game guy was anxious to play his latest New Game, so we played Ramen Fury. Set collection game with a thin theming and low interaction. Ramen Fury only allows for five players, so our host graciously sat out the game. Unfortunately, the host instead engaged in lively conversation with players on his end of the table. So the game kept starting and stopping and bogging down to the point where sometimes we had no idea who was supposed to go. It turned a 15 minute filler game into an hour-long trudge.

Then we played a six-player game of Faux-Cabulary. It's a Cards Against Humanity type of game, where one player draws a card and reads it out loud, and everybody else tries to respond with something funny. The first player then decides on the best response and gives that player the card as a victory point. This particular game had over-sized six-sided dice and opaque plastic butter dishes. The dice faces all contain words or prefixes or suffixes. Players grab three random dice and then try to assemble a 3-word combo that addresses the current topic card in a funny way. The game owner and one other player both bragged that they would probably win, because one of them is a writer and the other is an editor. So they were both surprised when I won. I was less surprised, because I have spent too much time playing these CAH-style games in the last two years.

I brought Star Wars Epic Duel, but it looked too ameritrashy for half the table, so they left early and the host and I just talked for a while.

Shellhead wrote: The party game guy was anxious to play his latest New Game, so we played Ramen Fury. Set collection game with a thin theming and low interaction. Ramen Fury only allows for five players, so our host graciously sat out the game. Unfortunately, the host instead engaged in lively conversation with players on his end of the table. So the game kept starting and stopping and bogging down to the point where sometimes we had no idea who was supposed to go. It turned a 15 minute filler game into an hour-long trudge.

Having played ramen fury, playing an hour long game of ramen fury sounds like a nightmare. It was alright enough for a light take thatty card game, but yeesh.

hotseatgames wrote: I could see how this could hurt them since they benefit from both of those rules, do they not?

Fremen are much stronger without double spice blow. In fact, one of the issues with the advanced rules is that they harm Fremen a lot which is why they received buff after buff in an attempt to bring them back to normal.

After all, Fremen's biggest advantage is that they have no need for spice. Their troops are free to deploy, their revivals are also free andthey have great leaders. By making every richer, those advantages don't matter as much and their opponents get more troops and raise card bids higher. Fremen wants to play a spice-denial game and aggressively drain their opponents. With extra spice that's all more difficult.

If you play with the advanced rules, use both the "Fremen dial for free" power AND extended that power to allies as they do in the WBC.

charlest wrote: How long did it take?

We played a scenario where both sides were attempting to escort shuttle-tokens across the board (a 3 x 3, huge ships can no zero banks and stops which makes them much easier to keep on board)- once all shuttles were either destroyed or escaped the game ended. There was affair amount of rules reference, but still ended in under 2 hours, closer to 90 minutes.

I killed one X-wing- Wedge who was down to two hull and had an Ion token when I rammed him and one of my interceptors with the Raider. My opponent had killed my other two interceptors. Other than that a few hull off the large ships and a shield or two off the other rebel ships.

IT was kind of fun to play a set scenario and not to the last man kind of thing.